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In her August 23, 2016 column in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram, Noha Al-Sharnoubi implied that the September 11, 2001 attacks and the terror attacks that have recently rocked Western capitals were all planned and carried out by Western intelligence agencies, in order to justify the occupation and devastation of the Middle East by the West and the persecution of Muslims in Europe. She suggested that the alleged perpetrators of the Europe attacks were scapegoats who were murdered and then accused of the crime. She claimed further that it was no coincidence that the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks had trained at an American flight school and that most ISIS operatives were Western nationals. It should be noted that her article is couched as a series of questions, leaving the drawing of conclusions up to the reader.
The following are excerpts from her column:[1]
Noha Al-Sharnoubi (Image: Assawsana.com)
"Officials at a New York school [recently] forced a 12-year-old pupil to sign a false confession that he was a terrorist. The family filed a lawsuit against the school demanding 50 million dollars in compensation. The lawsuit claimed that the pupil, Nashwan Uppal, a seventh grader at a middle school in East Islip, New York, was harassed by fellow students who called him a terrorist and demanded to know what he planned to blow up next. He replied, as a joke, that he planned to blow up the school fence. According to the lawsuit, when school officials heard about this childish exchange they yelled at Nashwan and instructed him to admit he was a member of Islamic State before forcing him to sign a false confession and searching his belongings. Things did not end there, and policemen were called to search Uppal's home.[2]
"This story reminds me of another incident that happened last year, which you [too] may recall, namely the incident of the Muslim schoolboy in Dallas who was arrested for bringing to school a clock he had made.
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"I don't know who [the Americans] are fooling, us or themselves. What terror are they talking about and associating with Islam or even with extremist Muslims or people claiming to be Muslims? How do they respond to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which stated that the Kremlin's airstrikes [in Syria] have killed at least 2,704 civilians since Russia entered the [Syria] war last September, while ISIS has caused the death of only 2,686 civilians [in Syria]. Moreover, is the killing of civilians, women and children by American planes in Afghanistan and Iraq considered terrorism or not?
"Can we believe the U.S. administration's official version of the events of September 11, 2001? Is it a coincidence that the commanders of the September 11 attack trained at American flight schools? According to the official version of the American administration, the first attack, on the north tower, was at approximately 8:46 a.m., New York time, and the south tower was hit by another plane 15 minutes later, around 9:03... Over half an hour later, a third plane hit the Pentagon building, whereas the fourth plane missed its target and crashed. Is it conceivable that four hijacked planes flew around so freely, penetrated U.S. airspace and hit the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon one by one, with an interval of 15 minutes and 30 minutes between the attacks, and all this took place without the Americans targeting the planes and downing them, despite all their intelligence, satellites and radars? Or was the whole thing planned [in advance] in order to justify the war on terror, the [first] episode of which[later] began in Iraq?
"Does it make sense that most ISIS members are foreigners [i.e., Western nationals], unless ISIS is another story that was prepared in advance [by the West] to justify the devastation, partitioning and occupation [of countries] that is taking place and will continue to take place in the Middle East?
"Do you remember, as I do, the size and the appearance of the alleged ISIS members in that video that showed them butchering an alleged group of Egyptian Christians in Libya?[3] Is it not strange that all the ISIS [fighters] were equally tall, had the same white [skin], and wore identical expensive foreign[-made] watches?
"Those who are murdered and [then] accused of perpetrating terror attacks in the West - are they the real culprits? [Perhaps Western] intelligence elements are behind the attacks and the bombings, and later Muslim citizens are arrested and killed and simply accused of perpetrating [the attacks] in order to justify what is happening in the Arab countries in the name of the war on terror, and in order to justify the plan to persecute the Muslims in the U.S. and Europe and expel them? Have we really been deceived, and continue to be deceived, to such an extent?!..."
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