Well, This Is What I Think

It is alleged that British Lord Nazir Ahmed put a £10 million (US$16 million) bounty on both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush Friday, according to The Express Tribune, an English language Pakistani newspaper.

Nazir, who is of Pakistani heritage and a controversial Labour Party member of the British House of Lords, (he is supposed to have been suspended from the Labour Party following these reports), supposedly made the comments while at a reception in Haripur, a Pakistani city 40 miles north of Islamabad. Nazir told the audience that he was putting the bounty out for the capture of the American leaders in response to the bounty placed on Hafiz Muhammad Saeed by the United States.

“If the U.S. can announce a reward of $10 million for the captor of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of 10 million pounds on President Obama and his predecessor George Bush,”  Nazir reportedly said.

Saeed is widely believed to be the head of the Pakistani based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India that killed more than 160 innocents including numerous overseas visitors to India. After the 2008 attacks, Saeed denied being connected to the terrorist group. Nevertheless, in April, the U.S. government announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture in connection to the attacks.

According to The Express Tribune, Nazir said the bounty on Saeed was a grave insult to all Muslims and that he would sell his house if necessary to obtain the funds necessary to pay the bounty he placed on Obama and Bush.

The Pakistani report was brought to the attention of blog The Daily Caller by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

If this report is accurate, this man is at best an out and out idiot. Someone should also consider whether or not his comments amount to something amounting to treason or lending support to terrorism.