::Salon is not a source without its POV biases, and it certainly had a number of ideological axes to grind (including, most pertinently, a willingness to tar and feather any and all Arab and Islamic peoples as barbarians, and a totally uncritical way of looking at the Israel-Palestine conflict). 

Accepting their claims as the total truth is certainly problematic; it is made even more so when there isn't a way to actually check the veracity of the claim. Not being able to read the article, because of their damned clickthrough ads, I would personally appreciate if someone could post the section of the article in question. For the time being, "Salon claims. . ." is certainly the NPOV way to go.