Blitzer: Do Terrorists Read Tom Clancy’s Fiction?

By Wolf Blitzer

Sometimes nonfiction seems to follow fiction, especially, it seems, in the case of Tom Clancy and his spy novels.

In 1994, he wrote a thriller called “Debt of Honor.” Long before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Clancy had a character fly a Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol.

Clancy’s “The Teeth of the Tiger,” published in 2003, features a man named Mohammed who has a network of Colombian drug cartel thugs who plot evil deeds against the U.S.

His newest book is entitled “Against All Enemies.” A major plot line has Taliban terrorists joining hands with Mexican drug cartel killers to launch attacks in the United States.

A friend who’s read all the Clancy books alerted me to this when he heard of the Obama administration’s accusations that Iran plotted to have members of a Mexican drug cartel kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir.

“Seems like terrorists are big Clancy fans,” my friend suggested – probably just joking.

But there’s more.

Shortly after the SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, Nick Summers wrote a fascinating piece on “The Daily Beast” with this headline: “Did Tom Clancy Predict Raid?”

Referring to Clancy’s 2010 novel “Dead or Alive,” Summers writes, “In it, Clancy’s version of bin Laden is finally caught – and when he is, he turned out not to be hiding in the lawless mountain regions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, as most of the fictional intelligence community believes. Instead, he’s been biding his time in an upscale house (‘must have set him back a million’) that is a shortish drive from a major city, and just a few miles from a major military institution. He works only with couriers and bodyguards. A super-elite Navy SEAL is on the team that takes him down. Oh, and one of the book’s rejected titles? ‘In Plain Sight.’ ”

Next time I read a Clancy thriller, I will take notes.

{The Situation Room/Matzav.com Newscenter}