SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
An Al Jazeera studio. The news outlet's Islamabad bureau chief was labeled a member of al Qaeda by the U.S. National Security Agency. (Photo: Osama Saeed/flickr/cc)
Revealed: NSA Labeled Al Jazeera Journalist a Member of Al Qaeda
Al Jazeera Islamabad bureau chief Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan put on watch list after years of reporting on terror groups
May 08, 2015
The U.S. government labeled Al Jazeera journalist Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan a member of al Qaeda and put him on a watch list of suspected terrorists, new reporting by the Intercept has revealed.
Zaidan, a Syrian national who serves as Al Jazeera's bureau chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, was put on a watch list by the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2012, according to agency documents leaked in 2013 by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Among those documents are a PowerPoint slide from an NSA presentation which shows Zaidan's face, name, terror watch list identification number, and a label that states he is a "member of Al-Qa'ida" and the Muslim Brotherhood. It also says he "works for Al Jazeera."
As a journalist, Zaidan spent years reporting on the Taliban and al Qaeda, conducting several interviews with senior leaders in those groups, including Osama bin Laden.
"To assert that myself, or any journalist, has any affiliation with any group on account of their contact book, phone call logs, or sources is an absurd distortion of the truth and a complete violation of the profession of journalism," Zaidan told the Intercept.
"For us to be able to inform the world, we have to be able to freely contact relevant figures in the public discourse, speak with people on the ground, and gather critical information. Any hint of government surveillance that hinders this process is a violation of press freedom and harms the public's right to know."
On January 20th, it begins...
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
The U.S. government labeled Al Jazeera journalist Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan a member of al Qaeda and put him on a watch list of suspected terrorists, new reporting by the Intercept has revealed.
Zaidan, a Syrian national who serves as Al Jazeera's bureau chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, was put on a watch list by the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2012, according to agency documents leaked in 2013 by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Among those documents are a PowerPoint slide from an NSA presentation which shows Zaidan's face, name, terror watch list identification number, and a label that states he is a "member of Al-Qa'ida" and the Muslim Brotherhood. It also says he "works for Al Jazeera."
As a journalist, Zaidan spent years reporting on the Taliban and al Qaeda, conducting several interviews with senior leaders in those groups, including Osama bin Laden.
"To assert that myself, or any journalist, has any affiliation with any group on account of their contact book, phone call logs, or sources is an absurd distortion of the truth and a complete violation of the profession of journalism," Zaidan told the Intercept.
"For us to be able to inform the world, we have to be able to freely contact relevant figures in the public discourse, speak with people on the ground, and gather critical information. Any hint of government surveillance that hinders this process is a violation of press freedom and harms the public's right to know."
The U.S. government labeled Al Jazeera journalist Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan a member of al Qaeda and put him on a watch list of suspected terrorists, new reporting by the Intercept has revealed.
Zaidan, a Syrian national who serves as Al Jazeera's bureau chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, was put on a watch list by the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2012, according to agency documents leaked in 2013 by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Among those documents are a PowerPoint slide from an NSA presentation which shows Zaidan's face, name, terror watch list identification number, and a label that states he is a "member of Al-Qa'ida" and the Muslim Brotherhood. It also says he "works for Al Jazeera."
As a journalist, Zaidan spent years reporting on the Taliban and al Qaeda, conducting several interviews with senior leaders in those groups, including Osama bin Laden.
"To assert that myself, or any journalist, has any affiliation with any group on account of their contact book, phone call logs, or sources is an absurd distortion of the truth and a complete violation of the profession of journalism," Zaidan told the Intercept.
"For us to be able to inform the world, we have to be able to freely contact relevant figures in the public discourse, speak with people on the ground, and gather critical information. Any hint of government surveillance that hinders this process is a violation of press freedom and harms the public's right to know."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.