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Ahmad Chalabi is in possession of "miles" of documents with the potential to expose politicians, corporations and the United Nations as having connived in a system of kickbacks and false pricing worth billions of pounds. That may have been enough to provoke yesterday's American raid. So explosive are the contents of the files that their publication would cause serious problems for US allies and friendly states around the globe. Late last year and several months before Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority became involved, Mr Chalabi had amassed enough information concerning corruption in the oil-for-food scandal to realise that he was...

New York - TIME has obtained the first documented look inside the highly classified realm of military interrogations since the Gitmo Camp at Guantanamo Bay opened. The document is a secret 84-page interrogation log that details the interrogation of 'Detainee 063' at Guantanamo Bay. It is a remarkable look into the range of techniques and methods used for the interrogation of Mohammed al Qahtani, who is widely believed to be the so-called 20th hijacker, a compatriof Osama bin Laden and a man who had tried to enter the U.S. in August 2001 to take part in the Sept. 11 attacks....

<p>MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- A Filipino legislator was on his way to Florida, where he faces charges of making illegal campaign donations to former President Clinton and other Democratic politicians.</p> <p>Facing a U.S. extradition request, Mark B. Jimenez voluntarily left the Philippines on Thursday with two U.S. marshals to face an indictment in the case.</p>

A former Filipino lawmaker who was jailed in the US for illegally financing presidential campaign of former US president Bill Clinton flew back home on Sunday after spending two years in jail. Former Manila congressman Mark Jimenez, who was also a wealthy businessman, was released from prison by US authorities last week. He was extradited to the US on December 26, 2002, on charges of tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the US and commit election- financing offenses. He was found to have illegally contributed millions of dollars to the presidential campaign of Clinton. A US Federal Court sentenced...

<p>The former number two official in Saddam Hussein's Iraqi air force claims the former Iraqi dictator moved weapons of mass destruction from Iraq to Syria in the months preceding the current Iraq war.</p>

Al Qaeda "sleeper cells" in Canada and the United States have communicated with each other as recently as this month, probably to plan terrorist attacks in the United States, Canadian intelligence experts said yesterday. The disclosure came in the wake of the arrest last week of a pizza delivery man in Ottawa who is suspected of being associated with the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden. Canadian authorities decided to arrest Mohamed Harkat, 34, shortly after he made calls to suspected al Qaeda members in the United States, said Reid Morden, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, who...

Demetrius Perricos, who is leading one of the U.N. inspection teams in Iraq, said Wednesday his team of international arms experts secured about a dozen Iraqi artillery shells containing the mustard liquid agent.

<p>December 5, 2002 -- U.N. weapons inspectors found mustard gas yesterday inside Iraqi artillery shells at a military complex north of Baghdad.</p> <p>The inspectors had already known the gas and shells were stored at the Muthanna military site but hadn't yet been destroyed when the previous inspection team left Iraq in 1998.</p>

Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the 9-11 commission report, was the mastermind of the Oct. 12, 2000, attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Nashiri was also the target of an "unauthorized" CIA interrogation technique (that had not been legally vetted by the Justice Department) that is described in a May 7, 2004, CIA inspector general's report that was partially declassified by the Obama administration this week. CIA officers blew smoke in Nashiri's face, according to the report, and they used cigars. The IG's office described this smoke-blowing as one of several "unauthorized or undocumented techniques"...

Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who preached in Tahrir Square 10 days ago, loathes Israel, justifies suicide bombings against its civilians. 1. Sheikh Dr. Yusuf Abdallah al-Qaradawi is a central figure affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He was expelled from Egypt and found refuge in Qatar, operating from there throughout the Muslim world. 2. Many consider him the supreme religious and ideological authority for the Muslim Brotherhood, although he is not officially its leader. (In the past, he refused to accept the title of the Muslim Brotherhood’s General Guide). He is influential in Egypt and considered one of the most important Sunni...

U.S. QUESTIONS EGYPT ON WMD, MISSILES WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has again launched an examination of Egypt's missile and weapons of mass destruction programs. U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton held talks over the weekend in Cairo with Egyptian leaders on a range of what U.S. officials termed were sensitive subjects. They said the issues included Egypt's WMD and missile programs and Cairo's cooperation with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea. "All of the testimony and evidence found in Iraq have shown significant Egyptian involvement in Iraq's missile and WMD programs," a U.S. official said. "The issue has...

FBI Looking for Five Illegal Immigrants The Associated PressSunday, December 29, 2002; 4:23 PM WASHINGTON –– The FBI said Sunday it is looking for five men of Arab ancestry who may have entered the country illegally last week. The agency said the five men are believed to have arrived in the United States on or before Christmas Eve. The five men are: Abid Noraiz Ali, Iftikhar Khozmai Ali, Mustafa Khan Owasi, Adil Pervez and Akbar Jamal, all born between 1969 and 1983. The FBI warned that the names and birth dates may be false. The FBI said it had no...

A two-alarm fire has broken out at the Chicago Stock Exchange. The building has been evacuated but trading has not been halted. Developing....

Ship Carrying Dozen North Korean Missiles Intercepted in Arabian Sea W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 10 — A ship carrying a dozen Scud-type missiles from North Korea was intercepted in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, U.S. officials said. They said the missiles were believed to be headed for Yemen. The ship was stopped and boarded about 600 miles east of the Horn of Africa, the officials said. U.S. intelligence had been tracking the vessel closely, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The ship contained about a dozen short- to medium-range...

NASSAU, Bahamas -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday the Bush administration will not support the release of $200 million in international aid to Haiti until President Jean-Bertrand Aristide takes steps to end the country's political crisis and make its democracy work better. A long-running stalemate between Aristide and the Haitian opposition, fueled by episodes of corruption and political violence, makes it impossible for international donors to deliver contributions to Haiti with confidence, Powell said. He rejected a call from Caribbean governments to help free the $200 million, programmed by the Inter-American Development Bank but held up along with ...

Al-Qaida terror plot foiled, say French police Jon Henley in Paris Monday January 12, 2004 The Guardian (UK) The French police are convinced that their country has escaped a planned chemical or biological attack by an Islamist cell linked to al-Qaida. An interior ministry official said evidence from Islamist militants arrested in the Lyon area last week made it "very plain" that an attack with the deadly botulism or ricin toxins was being actively prepared. The eight suspects arrested on Tuesday were mainly relatives of Menad Benchellali, the son of a radical imam in the Lyon suburb of Venisseux, who...