Osama Bin Typhus, French Intelligence, and the Tooth Fairy walk into a bar...

From James S. Robbins at NRO:

Question: Who does not belong on this list and why?

A. Pericles
B. William the Conqueror
C. Abigail Adams
D. Osama bin Laden

If you chose D., Osama bin Laden, you are correct. As to why — come to think of it there are a lot of reasons he should not be listed with these great historical figures, but the reason I was thinking of is that these are people who died of typhoid fever. There is a rumor afoot that Osama should be added to this list — the French daily L'Est Republicain leaked a report from French intelligence that a low-level Saudi diplomat had mentioned at a mixer in Islamabad that bin Laden had succumbed to typhoid last August somewhere in Afghanistan.

The theory is attractive. Typhoid is not a common affliction these days, but has found safe haven in some locales. The disease is spread from person to person through infected feces, so it thrives in conditions of poor sanitation like, for example, caves and safe house basements. A 1997 study in Karachi Pakistan, where the disease is endemic, showed that there was a high risk of infection from eating tainted ice cream. Can you imagine? All that effort to conceal himself from his enemies and he is done in by dessert. “Mahmoud, bring me back an ice cream. Strawberry. I’ve been dying for some.”

But Osama would really have to try to die from typhoid fever. It is a highly treatable malady. Antibiotics take care of it most of the time, and even if untreated it is only fatal in 10-30 percent of cases. Anyway what happened to the kidney dialysis story? Osama has long been said to be under treatment for some kind of kidney ailment. We even knew the place in Pennsylvania where he got the filters, so it is said. The story surfaced again this summer. A report last July in the Asia Times had important information about Osama’s health from “Abdullah,” pseudonym of the son of “Sheikh Ibrahim,” nom de jihad of the number-two man in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. In short, an impeccable source. Bin Laden “asked all of us to pray for his health,” Abdullah said. “For the past many months he has been on dialysis and just cannot move. My father never told me where he was when he met Osama ... but he was worried about his fast-waning health.” The timeline tracks with the reputed August expiration date, even if the cause does not.

But there has been no mention of anything of the sort in the jihadist chat rooms, and there surely would be some indication if bin Laden died. It would send a shock through that community, there would be no way to contain it. They might not know how, when or where he died, but the fact of it would be out there quickly. At the very least his putative successor(s) would be making their leadership bids. So any report that states that bin Laden died weeks or months ago is readily dismissible. Too bad.