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The Smallville actress Allison Mack is understood to be the next person in line to be arrested as part of the alleged Nxivm sex cult sting. A woman understood to be the Hollywood actress, according to Art Voice, was seen chasing a police car carrying accused cult leader Keith Raniere after he was arrested, officers said. Officials believe both the woman thought to be Mack and fellow actress Nicki Clyne were brainwashed by the head of the secret society called DOS or The Vow. But it is now thought Mack herself could be the next person detained in the probe...

World 15 Islamist Kurds suspected of planning attacks arrested across Europe 12/11/2015 BARCELONA, Spain - Radical Kurdish cleric "Mullah Krekar" and 14 other Iraqi Kurds were arrested across Europe on Thursday in a coordinated police swoop on Islamist militants planning attacks, Italian media reported. The Corriere della Sera newspaper said the suspects were arrested in countries across Europe in collaboration with police from Italy, the UK, Norway, Finland, Germany and Switzerland. A non-Kurd, a man from Kosovo, was also arrested. Among the suspects picked up for links to the Islamic State group (ISIS), seven were arrested in Italy, four...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three undercover CIA officers arrived in Norway in the spring of 2003 as part of a possible secret operation targeting for rendition an Islamic militant living in Oslo known as Mullah Krekar, The Washington Post reported. Citing lawyers and unnamed European investigators, the newspaper said shortly after the agents arrived, Krekar received a warning from an anonymous Norwegian official that Krekar, then head of a Kurdish insurgent group, was a CIA target and should watch his back. The spies left Norway by the end of the summer, the report said. If the CIA was planning to abduct...

ALBANY - The prosecutor who sent two local Muslim men ensnared in an FBI terror sting to prison is on the short list for a federal judgeship. Many in the Capital District's growing Muslim community are outraged. Members of Albany's Muslim Solidarity Committee say they will do everything in their power to ensure Glenn Suddaby doesn't receive the nomination. The activists formed their group after the arrest and conviction of Mohammad Hossain, an Albany pizza shop owner, and Yassin Aref, an Albany imam. Despite grass roots opposition, Suddaby has at least one pretty big name supporter - U.S. Sen. Charles...

Munir Akram was the target of the fictional plot The former imam of a mosque in the US state of New York has been jailed for 15 years after being caught in a sting operation involving a fake plot.Yassin Aref was convicted in October along with Mohammed Hossain, who is still awaiting sentence. The two men had agreed to take part in the plot, which appeared to target Pakistan's ambassador to the UN. They were convicted among other things of supporting terrorism, lying to FBI agents and money laundering. In a speech before the sentencing, Aref claimed he was...

Pakistan has protested to the United States over what it says was an FBI sting operation involving a fake plot to kill Pakistan's UN envoy. Islamabad called the operation bizarre and mind-boggling. A spokesman said it had endangered the life of Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent envoy to the United Nations. Two men are being held in the US for allegedly laundering money for an agent posing as a militant who wanted to use a missile to kill Mr Akram. Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan asked why the US authorities had not picked an American "target" instead. "It is...

N.Y. imam sentenced in terror sting Staff and agencies 08 March, 2007 http://www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=72974 By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago ALBANY, N.Y. - The former imam of an Albany mosque was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for his role in a money laundering scheme involving a fictional terror plot set up as an FBI sting. "I never had any intention to harm anyone in this country," the 36-year-old Kurdish refugee said. "And I don‘t know why I‘m guilty." The informant asked Hossain to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that would be used...

ALBANY - A mosque leader charged with helping launder money in a missile plot thought all the weapon talk was a joke, his lawyer said yesterday - but prosecutors were not laughing. Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref was jailed without bail after prosecutors questioned why his name was found in a notebook in a terrorist camp listed as "Commander Yassin, United States." They also unveiled a photo of the imam's co-defendant watching as an informant shouldered a real surface-to-air missile in the back room of an Albany-area convenience store. That was among the evidence cited by prosecutors in Albany Federal Court...

Scouted L.I. for camp - feds The son of a former Malcolm X aide was nabbed yesterday, along with a Florida doctor, in a plot to start an Al Qaeda training camp in the U.S. - even scouting out a Long Island warehouse for a terror school, officials said last night. Tarik Shah, 38, a self-proclaimed martial arts expert from the Bronx, and Dr. Rafiq Sabir, 50, presented themselves as a "package deal" to help Muslim "brothers" wage jihad here and in the Middle East, said Manhattan U.S. Attorney David Kelley. Kelley said Shah - son of Lieutenant X, one...

ALBANY -- Jurors heard three opening statements this morning in the federal trial of two Albany men facing terrorism-related charges. Yassin M. Aref, 36, the jailed spiritual leader of a Central Avenue mosque, and Mohammed M. Hossain, 51, a city pizza shop owner, are accused of taking part in a plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists during an FBI sting that began in July 2003. The men face up to 400 years in prison if convicted. Assistant U.S. Attorney William Pericak for the government; Kent Sprotbery for Aref; and Kevin Luibrand for Hossain made brief opening statements in U.S....

WASHINGTON - Documents found by American troops at a terrorist camp in Iraq last year contained the name of a New York mosque imam now facing federal charges of plotting to obtain a shoulder-fired grenade launcher, law enforcement officials said Friday. An entry in an address book found by the soldiers at an Ansar al-Islam camp last summer in northern Iraq referred to Yassin Aref as "the commander" and included his address and telephone number in Albany, N.Y., the officials said. Although Aref had come to the FBI's attention before the address book's discovery, two law enforcement officials speaking on...

ALBANY -- The spiritual leader of an Albany mosque repeatedly called a phone number in Syria that an FBI report indicates had been used to gather terrorist intelligence for Osama bin Laden, according to classified documents unsealed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The FBI report, which was based on information from a confidential informant, was among several once-secret documents that federal authorities say raise questions about Yassin Aref's connections to terrorist organizations across the Middle East. Aref, 35, a Kurdish refugee who moved to Albany with his family in 1999, is in jail without bond while awaiting trial on...