A current Associated Press article from reporter Mohammad Daraghmeh covers yesterday’s surrender of a would-be Palestinian suicide bomber who had second thoughts on his path to ‘martyrdom’. Daraghmeh ends with this outright error:
In recent months, militant groups have been using younger Palestinians as bombers, hoping to avoid Israeli detection. In one recent case, a teen bomber decided not to blow himself up and was photographed at an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank as a robot removed his bomb belt.
Daraghmeh refers of course to Husam Abdu, the Palestinian teenager who was caught at the checkpoint on March 24. As the New York Times reported that day, Abdu did not ‘decide not to blow himself up’ – he was busted:
When the Palestinian teenager in a red sweater and blue jeans reached the front of the long line and began approaching the Israeli soldiers at this West Bank checkpoint on Wednesday, he immediately aroused suspicion.
The soldiers were on high alert. Just last week, troops at this same checkpoint, on a main road leading south from the chaotic city of Nablus, captured an 11-year-old boy with a bomb hidden in his bag.
On Wednesday, the soldiers suspected that the youth had something under his sweater and responded immediately, pointing their automatic rifles at Hussam Abdo, who later gave his age as 14, while his family said he was 16.
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This was one of the biggest media events of the past year in this conflict. Did the AP reporter forget what happened with Abdu? Or (worse, really), was he referring to Abdu’s ‘decision’ not to blow himself up after he was caught?!
