On 30 September, reports emerged that a FlyDubai flight heading from Dubai to Tel Aviv was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after a co-pilot attacked the captain and allegedly sought to crash the plane in a mass murder-suicide attempt. The co-pilot, reportedly an Omani citizen with Syrian lineage, had supposedly been removed from flight training with Oman Air because of concerns about his views, which are alleged to have been supportive of al-Qaeda.
Some observers and commentators are skeptical about the narrative of the incident for various reasons. Some of this skepticism is based on silly misconceptions: for example, the reported name of the co-pilot- Hammam al-Hammami- does not mean ‘Bathroom al-Bathroom’ as George Galloway has claimed, as the name is spelt not حمام الحمامي in Arabic press reports but همام الهمامي, which also happens to be the name of a Saudi soccer player, for example. Others are skeptical simply because the narrative of a foiled mass casualty attack supposedly serves the interests of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though the fact that something might be politically useful for Netanyahu does not mean a false-flag attack, just as the attacks on Jewish targets in Europe claimed by the pro-Iran group ‘Ashab al-Yamin’ were not false-flags.
While more details still need to emerge and be confirmed, the notion of a mass casualty attack targeting Israelis/Jews would very much be in keeping with what al-Qaeda advocates, given that the group believes there is a wider religious war between Muslims and Jews.
‘Between 11 September and 30 September’- Pro-al-Qaeda Editorial on the FlyDubai Incident
Translation and Overview
