Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #theotherlatif
Most recents (7)
Proud to say that starting today and for the next six weeks our @Radiolab miniseries #TheOtherLatif will be broadcast in full on approx 500 public radio stations. wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio…
It’s the perfect timing as the Biden admin is now deciding what to do with Guantánamo and the 40 men still held there. nytimes.com/2021/02/12/us/…
Also the broadcast version has a bunch of bonus footage and interviews and one big special extra at the end of episode 3.
Hey folks. Last ep of #TheOtherLatif due out early next week. (@Radiolab team is working remotely bc of Covid19, so needed extra time.) It's a solid ep, tho. Worth the wait. (Here's a snapshot to look forward to.) And meantime, to keep you sated in quarantine, some Gitmo recs: 
Have to start with @carolrosenberg, “the dean of Gitmo reporters.” She hasn’t written a book about Guantanamo (yet!) but check out the last big story she did here: nytimes.com/2020/02/26/us/…
Read Ben Taub’s @NewYorker profile of Mohamedou Salahi. Despite having interviewed Salahi myself before reading, and knowing most of the details, I wept so hard. For some reason the detail that hit me hardest was about the baby crib. newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…
New ep of #TheOtherLatif is now up! This time, we go to Gitmo. In lieu of a proper thread, I’m just gonna post a bunch of pics of stuff from the Gitmo gift shop, because why not.
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio…
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio…
New ep! A ton packed in this one about #TheOtherLatif’s time in Afghanistan, including intvws with a former detainee who gave intel on Abdul Latif, & a CIA officer who hunted bin Laden post 9/11. But the juiciest interview of all I didn’t even do.
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio…
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio…
The journalist @jonleeanderson was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan during the battle of Tora Bora, where Abdul Latif allegedly fought. Shortly after, around Christmas 2001, he got a chance no other journalist had: to interview two Al Qaeda guys in an Afghan prison.
@jonleeanderson A few days before, other Al Qaeda prisoners nearby had seized guns from their guards, killed them, tried to drive away with a transport bus, but lost control and overturned it. As Anderson says, “the atmosphere was murderous.”
Just released ep3 about my gitmo namesake, #TheOtherLatif! It covers the first time he allegedly met Osama Bin Laden. (Acc to a US govt informant, he later became a top OBL advisor.) Instead of spoiling the ep, I'm just gonna tweet random facts about OBL: wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio…
OBL was obsessed with sunflowers. He experimented to try to grow the biggest and best 🌻 in the world. And he thought the ones he did grow deserved to be in the Guinness Book of World Records. (source: @lawrence_wright and @cathyscottclark)
@lawrence_wright @cathyscottclark As a teenager, OBL was in an a cappella group. (source: @lawrence_wright)
Three yrs ago, I heard about a guy with my name locked up at Gitmo. Now I’m making a podcast series about him. Ep 2 of #TheOtherLatif drops tonight, and it includes one of the most jarring moments of my life. A thread.
When I started reporting on this guy, there was virtually nothing about him online. I needed to know more. But how do you get to know a guy you can’t talk to, esp one locked in arguably the most secure prison on earth?
I figured the best place to start was where he started. With his family in his hometown of Casablanca, Morocco. So I got his lawyer to arrange a meeting, and my producer @radiosuzie and I booked a flight.
Ooof. I’ve been waiting to acknowledge something out loud for 3+ years. And today’s the day I finally can. It’s a story I’ve been working on called #TheOtherLatif. The story starts with a tweet and ends with a tweet. A thread.
3 years ago, I was here on Twitter procrastinating and saw a tweet about me from a non-profit law firm that I didn’t even remember following. Turns out, it wasn’t about me. It was about another guy who has my name. A guy who happens to be … Detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay! (gulp)
I found some leaked govt docs about him via @nytimes, which paint a pretty nefarious picture of him as Al Qaeda’s “top explosives expert” & one of bin Laden’s “most impt military advisors,” pre and post 9/11. It also calls him a “HIGH risk” to the US and its allies. (double gulp)
