Regarding "The Big Hoax: We Fell For It"

November 15, 2002

Dear Asia Times:

Regarding "The Big Hoax: We Fell For It":

THE BIG HOAX: WE FELL FOR IT
Asia Times Online uploaded an article in this space entitled Apocalypse Now, or Alottanukes soon. The article has been withdrawn as it was based on the transcript of an interview that now appears to have been a hoax. We sincerely apologize to readers who were alarmed by the contents of the article. We thank those readers who pointed us to this page in <http://antivirus.about.com/library/hoaxes/bljazeera.htm>antivirus.about.com, which, we would add, does not appear in a Google search for the name "Usuquf" or "Asuquf". We'd also like to point out that we added a caveat at the top of the article that "the identity of the man [al-Usuquf] has not been confirmed, nor has his membership within al-Qaeda".

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Are you sure it was a hoax? I ask because I've done some searching on some of the biggest hoax websites and can find nothing about that document being a hoax.

It would be interesting to know when about.com identified that document as a hoax and who they relied on for that information.

Sincerely,
Emory