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Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year. The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Al-Qaeda last week called for attacks on "any crusaders whenever you find one of them, like at the airports of the crusader Western countries that participate in the wars against Islam, or their living compounds, trains etc." Calling for freelance jihad. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. "Counterterrorism: Shifting from 'Who' to 'How,'" by Scott Stewart and Fred Burton for Stratfor, November 4 (thanks to all who sent this in): In the 11th edition of the online magazine Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Battle), which was released to jihadist Web sites last week, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 6, 2009 – Iraqi security forces arrested five suspected terrorists today in two security operations. In northeastern Baghdad, the Iraqi soldiers, with U.S. advisors, searched two buildings looking for a Promise Day Brigade terrorist group leader who allegedly coordinates attacks against security forces in Iraq. The Iraqi soldiers questioned and then arrested three people suspected of being Promise Day Brigade associates without incident. Near Sharqat, about 50 miles northwest of Kirkuk, Iraqi police and U.S. advisors searched two buildings for a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq member who has ties to senior leaders of the terrorist group. Based on...

Note: Video included. Peaceful preaching inside, violent message outside a New York mosque New York (CNN) -- SNIPPET: "Protected by the Constitution of the country they detest, radical Muslim converts like Yousef al-Khattab and Younes Abdullah Mohammed preach that the killing of U.S. troops overseas is justified. In their thinking, so were the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States -- and so are attacks on almost any American. "Americans will always be a target -- and a legitimate target -- until America changes its nature in the international arena," Mohammed said in an interview to air on tonight's...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 5, 2009 – Iraqi security forces arrested six suspects during two security operations today targeting members of al-Qaida in Iraq-sponsored bombing networks. In Bayji, Iraqi police and U.S. advisors with court-issued warrants searched several buildings in pursuit of vehicle-bomb network members operating across Iraq’s Salahuddin province. Based on information gathered at the scene, police arrested three people for allegedly aiding and abetting criminal activity. The suspect wanted on the warrant was not apprehended. In Tall Zalat, southwest of Mosul, Iraqi forces acting on a warrant searched several buildings for an alleged roadside-bomb suspect. Based on incriminating evidence found...

We strongly object to the President creating a two-tier system of justice for terrorists in which those responsible for the death of thousands on 9/11 will be treated as common criminals and afforded the kind of platinum due process accorded American citizens, yet members of Al Qaeda who aspire to kill Americans but who do not yet have blood on their hands, will be treated as war criminals. The President offers no explanation or justification for this contradiction, even as he readily acknowledges that the 9/11 conspirators, now designated "unprivileged enemy belligerents," are appropriately accused of war crimes. We believe...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

BAGHDAD, Nov. 4, 2009 – Iraqi security forces arrested 21 suspects today during operations targeting vehicle-borne bomb network members in Baghdad and Bayji, Iraq, military officials reported. Iraqi security forces in western Baghdad arrested 17 suspects while serving a warrant for a man charged with being involved in vehicle-borne bomb attacks. The security team searched several buildings and sequestered several people for questioning. Based on information gathered, 17 were determined to be suspected associates of the warranted man, who was not apprehended in the operation. In Bayji, southwest of Kirkuk, Iraqi police and U.S. advisors searched with a warrant for...

Here is an interesting tidbit of information from the charge sheet against David Coleman Headley, the US jihadi indicted for plotting attacks in Denmark. Headley traveled to North Waziristan and afterward offered his view on the number of al Qaeda and other foreign jihadis in the tribal agencies' largest towns (in response to a think tank survey that said a significant number of people in the northwest approved of the Predator attacks against al Qaeda):

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- The Oct. 9 Congressional Research Office report "Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security and U.S. Policy" says that from 2003-08 the United States spent nearly $10 billion training and equipping the current Afghan National Army force of roughly 90,000 soldiers. That is approximately $110,000 per soldier. In his Aug. 30 report U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal states that the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police are not sufficiently effective to take ownership of Afghanistan's security. One of his four main pillars to accomplish the mission and defeat the insurgency is to increase the size of the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 2009 – Iraqi security forces arrested 13 people today during three operations in connection with car-bomb networks between Baghdad and Kirkuk, military officials reported. Working with U.S. advisors, an Iraqi unit arrested a suspected member of a vehicle-bomb network in southern Kirkuk. A warrant accuses the suspect of being linked to network members associated with June 20 bombings in Taza that killed more than 90 people. During the operation, the Iraqi unit arrested a second man based on information found at the scene. In a separate operation about 55 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi police arrested two...

Hillary Clinton faced anger during her visit to Pakistan after she attacked the failure of the government to tackle al-Qaeda. The US Secretary of State also faced angry questions about America's use of drone attacks inside Pakistan as she ended her three-day visit on Friday. Mrs Clinton was earlier forced to soften her criticism of Islamabad for its failure to capture of kill al-Qaeda's leaders.

Amidst much furor, French anti-terrorism judge Christophe Tessier announced that year-old Algerian-French scientist Dr. Adlene Hicheur had been brought up on charges of “association with terrorists” on October 12. Allegedly in contact with al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Dr. Hicheur was arrested with his 25-year old brother (later released) in Vienne, France on October 8 after an 18-month investigation headed by France’s internal security service, the Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur (Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence - DCRI) (Le Monde, October 14). Large Hadron Collider, CERN A scientist involved in the Large Hadron Collider project...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has questioned Pakistan's commitment to hunt top al-Qaeda leadership hiding inside the country and accused it of failing to track them down. "Al-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002... I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," Clinton told a group of senior Pakistani journalists in Lahore on Thursday. "Maybe that's the case, maybe they're not gettable. I don't know... As far as we know, they are in Pakistan," she said in unusually blunt remarks during...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been meeting tribal leaders in north-west Pakistan on the last day of a testing visit to the country. During her three-day trip Mrs Clinton hoped to strengthen ties between the US and Pakistan and tried to address a rising tide of anti-American feeling. In an interview with the BBC she urged Pakistanis to "realise the connection" between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But her arrival was overshadowed by a deadly bombing in the city of Peshawar. More than 100 people died when a car bomb exploded in a busy market on Wednesday. The BBC's...

Note: The following text is a quote: Forces Arrest Terrorism Suspects in Iraq American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2009 – Iraqi forces, aided by U.S. forces advisors, detained several terrorism suspects in Iraq in recent days, including one believed responsible for the Oct. 11 bombing in Ramadi, military officials reported. Special weapons and tactics personnel and U.S. forces advisors, under the direction of the Iraqi military and the Anbar Operations Center, detained a suspect Oct. 25 in Hit, northwest of Ramadi. The man is suspected in the planning and coordination of the Oct. 11 attacks on the Ramadi...

Peoria, Ill. - A federal judge sentenced an Al Qaeda "sleeper" agent to eight years in prison Thursday -- about half the time prosecutors had requested -- because the agent received what the judge called "unacceptable" treatment in a U.S. Navy brig. U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm could have sentenced Ali Marri to as much as 15 years. Prosecutors had endorsed that, presenting testimony that he remained a threat. But Mihm handed down the lighter sentence of eight years and four months in consideration of what he called "very severe" conditions under which Marri was kept during the almost six...

The bombs that ripped through Baghdad on Sunday immediately brought more bloodshed -- and bode only of the promise of more to come. The attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq -- a group affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq -- and there's nothing to suggest the attacks will come to an end. It's part of a long-running campaign to destabilize the U.S. mission, the Iraqi government and to reignite sectarian civil war. The slaughter is not new but the extent of the killings in these bombings -- 160 dead and more than 500 injured -- do...

It's been another dreadful week in the war of civilizations. On Sunday, 153 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in back-to-back car bombings in Baghdad. On Tuesday in Kabul, five UN staffers and three Afghans were killed in an attack on a UN guesthouse. And on Wednesday in Pakistan, 100 people - mostly women and children - were killed and 160 wounded in a shopping district bombing in Peshawar. The week also saw 24 American service personnel killed in Afghanistan, making 58 fatalities for the month - the deadliest since 9/11. This is a war of civilizations in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Matthew P. Hoh is a former U.S. Marine Corps captain and, until recently, the U.S. Department of State senior civilian representative in Zabul province, Afghanistan. His recent resignation was based not on "how we are pursuing this war" but "why and to what end." As resignation letters go, Hoh's was a masterpiece. In my opinion, many of his observations ring true, but one could offer alternative interpretations. Terrorism directed against the United States and Western countries originates primarily from sanctuaries in failed, unstable or rogue states. That is, nations that either cannot constrain them or...

SHAWANGAI, Pakistan -- An alleged member of the Hamburg, Germany, terror cell linked to the Sept. 11 attacks is believed to be among al Qaeda leaders helping the Taliban fight Pakistani forces in South Waziristan, Pakistani authorities said Thursday. A German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, a close associate of Sept. 11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in the 2001 attacks, was among documents recovered this week by Pakistani troops from an abandoned militant compound in Shawangai. The mountain village in South Waziristan was used as an al Qaeda and Taliban command base until as recently as this week, a military...

WASHINGTON: It was supposed to be a charm offensive, but as the day wore on she put away her charm and went on the offensive. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s public dressing down of Pakistan during a three-day visit there, including virtually accusing the country of complicity with al-Qaida, has shaken Washington as much as it stunned her hosts. "Her inner voice became her outer voice," Martha Raddatz, a veteran NBC correspondent said on the network, explaining that while many in the administration believed what she said to be true (that Pakistan is coddling terrorists), it was rare for America's...

Quote: October 27, 2009 MAYBE MULLAH OMAR IS SIMPLY AFRAID OF THE CHINESE Vahid Brown has the lowdown on the dustup between al-Qaida Core and the Afghan Taliban Posted on 27 October 2009 @ 13:11 GMT

SNIPPET - quote: Doing a Google search today for "al Qaeda", I accidentally hit "map" instead of "news". And you know what? Al Qaeda is on the map.

A U.S. Air Force psychologist described an al-Qaida sleeper agent as a sometimes kind, respectful man who nonetheless would attack the United States if given a chance. The psychologist testified during the first day of a sentencing hearing for 44-year-old former Bradley University graduate student Ali al-Marri, who has admitted training in al-Qaida camps and having contact with those involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The second and what is scheduled to be the final day of al-Marri's sentencing is Thursday in U.S. District Court in Peoria. The Qatar native faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading...

Men stand in front of a building after a bomb explosion in Peshawar. ISLAMABAD—A powerful car bomb ripped through a market Wednesday in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 90 people hours after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan to smooth relations strained by terms of an American aid package for the key South Asian ally. Mrs. Clinton was meeting with officials in Islamabad, a three-hour drive from Peshawar, when the explosion went off. The bombing was the second attack to hit one of Peshawar's crowded markets this month; it sparked a fire in the...

SNIPPET: "Search at Grundy County plant called part of ongoing probe" SNIPPET: "But a source said the owner of the plant, which processes lamb and goat, was taken into custody at his home in Chicago. Documents and records were taken from the plant and from a Chicago travel agency on West Devon Avenue, also owned by the same person, the source said."

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Deliberations regarding a future strategy for Afghanistan need to include a consideration that the predominantly Afghan, Pashtun-based Taliban may have the capability of infecting other ethnic groups and becoming a greater transnational fundamentalist threat. It is well-known that the Taliban was spawned and gained support among the Pashtuns in the Kandahar area of southern Afghanistan. At that time, the population had grown weary of continuous fighting among mujahedin warlords and the general lawlessness following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Many of the Taliban recruits were young male graduates of the Islamic religious schools,...

Smoke rises near the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, shortly after a blast, in Baghdad October 25, 2009. Twin car bombs targeting two government buildings killed at least 75 people and wounded 460 in central Baghdad on Sunday, police and health officials said, in the bloodiest attack in the capital for two months. REUTERS/Stringer While Sunday's 2 bus bombs in Baghdad that left over a hundred dead and 500 wounded was a horrific reminder that "evil-doers" and "deadenders" still seek to derail the road to freedom and democracy for Iraq, ordinary Iraqis, who have endured so much, seem undaunted and...

KIRKUK — Iraqi Police here on Tuesday detained nine suspected al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) members in possession of bomb making materials. One of the nine is believed to be Abdallah Abd Qadir, who is known to have purchased thousands of pounds of ammonium nitrate in 2006. Qadir has ties to known AQI members associated with insurgent activity in Baghdad. Iraqi Police in the Domies neighborhood of Kirkuk city stopped two suspicious vehicles at a routine traffic check point Monday, which led to the discovery of more than 300 pounds of ammonium nitrate and a can of gasoline in the...

A rising number of Western recruits, including Americans, are travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train at paramilitary camps...

If one were to believe what many on the Left in America say, the inmates at the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are nothing but innocent pilgrims and goat herders who all ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The latest is a distinguished gentleman named Yousef Mohammed al Shihri. This innocent shepherd (we’ll call him “Yo Mo” for short) was no doubt improperly incarcerated by the evil American empire after being snatched from his benevolent wanderings in beautiful, picturesque Afghanistan several years ago.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2009 – Iraqi police and soldiers, working with U.S. advisors, arrested seven terrorism suspects in Iraq over the last two days, military officials reported. Iraqi police captured a suspected Islamic State of Iraq terrorist group leader and three accomplices today in Bayji. Intelligence reports indicate he’s also involved with insurgent groups in Hawijah, officials said. In eastern Mosul yesterday, Iraqi soldiers arrested three suspects while searching for Islamic State of Iraq extortion-network leaders. The soldiers were continuing a series of searches focused on extortion-network leaders in Mosul who are believed to have close ties with al-Qaida in...

A suicide bomber attacked a suspected nuclear-weapons site Friday in Pakistan, raising fears about the security of the nuclear arsenal, while two other terrorist blasts made it another bloody day in the country’s struggle against extremism. Increasingly daring and sophisticated attacks by terrorists allied with al Qaida on some of Pakistan’s most sensitive and best-protected installations have led to warnings that extremists could damage a nuclear facility or seize nuclear material. Pakistan's nuclear sites are mostly in the northwest of the country, close to the capital, Islamabad, to keep them

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A mine killed 16 wedding guests in Pakistan's tribal belt on Friday while a suicide bomber targeted an air force base, inflicting another reverse on the military in its war on the Taliban. A car bomb exploded outside a restaurant in the northwestern city of Peshawar, wounding 15 and underlining the threat to civilians in a nation where more than 190 people have died during Taliban-linked attacks in 19 days. The explosion ripped through the wedding party minibus in the Sorandara area of Mohmand, where security forces have been pressing an offensive against Islamist rebels for...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- On May 21, 2002, U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command, said to reporters, "I am pleased that our forces have begun training the Afghan National Army." Franks also stated that training the Afghan army will "certainly be one of our more important projects in the days, weeks (and) months ahead, because the national army of Afghanistan is going to be an essential element of their long-term security." On Sept. 21, 2006, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, now President Barack Obama's national security adviser, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "By...

BOSTON - A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday. But their plans — in which the men used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the...

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PESHAWAR: In the first drone strikes since the Pakistan military began its operation in South Waziristan a top al-Qaeda operative Abu Al-Masri is reported to have been killed in a strike from a US unmanned aircraft. However, conflicting reports earlier suggested that Al-Masri may have been killed preparing suicide jackets in the village of Spalga. Known as Mustafa Al-Yazid, he was urported to have links with Afghan immigrant Najibullah Zazi, whom US authorities arrested in an alleged plot to use homemade backpack bombs, he served three years in an Egyptian prison, in the 1980s, for supposed links to the group...

Well, this afternoon I read the criminal search warrant and affidavit and the criminal complaint filed on Tarek Mehanna today (So you wouldn't have to, my possums.) I kept Mr. Mehanna's attorney's admonishment to remember that his client was innocent until proven guilty. I also know that the government is required to prove its allegations in open court. Several things popped out at me.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2009 – Iraqi forces, aided by U.S. forces advisors, arrested two terrorism suspects and a murder suspect in Iraq in recent days, military officials reported. Iraqi security forces, with U.S. forces advisors, arrested two suspected terrorists -- a father and son -- in Salahuddin province Oct. 16. The forces arrested Diyah Adib Hassan Albu Nassir in his home in Bayji with a warrant issued by the Federal Appellate Court of Salahuddin. They arrested Nassir’s son, Farhan Diyah Adib Hassan Albu Nassir, after they determined there also was a warrant for his arrest. The elder man is suspected...

9/11-101 Sarah Carlsruh, October 20, 2009 September 11th, 2001 is now a part of U.S. history, and so the issue of how to teach about it in high school history classes is necessary, albeit controversial. The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and the American Institute for History Education (AIHE) hosted a Summer Institute for Teachers in Philadelphia this June. Mary Habeck, associate professor of strategic studies at John Hopkins University and author of Knowing Your Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror, spoke on the topic, “Teaching the Long War and Jihadism.” In an essay based on her presentation,...

The Taliban in Afghanistan is more important than Al Qaeda. Without defeating them we will never destroy the remnants of Al Qaeda. President Obama will not acknowledge that it is the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan, not Al Qaeda. Read more...http://newsflavor.com/opinions/mr-obama-its-taliban-not-al-qaeda/

October 20, 2009, 0:00 p.m. What Is Victory?If defeating the Taliban is not our goal, what is? By Andrew C. McCarthy Rarely has there been such a dramatic disconnect between rhetoric and reality. On Afghanistan, the national-security Right talks about “victory,� concerned Democrats talk about “success,� and Obama allies such as Sen. John Kerry talk about the “fulfillment of our mission.� They aren’t talking about the same thing. The somnolent press is content to court, rather than clarify, this confusion, but that’s no reason for the rest of us to go along for the ride.   What is “victory�...

On July 25, Najibullah Zazi, a lanky man in his mid-twenties, walked into the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The visit was captured on a store video camera. Wearing a baseball cap and pushing a shopping cart, Zazi appeared to be just another suburban guy.Of course, not many suburban guys buy six bottles of Clairoxide hair bleach, as Zazi did on this shopping trip--or return a month later to buy a dozen bottles of "Ms. K Liquid," a peroxide-based product. Aware that these were hardly the typical purchases of a heavily bearded, dark-haired young...

BAGHDAD, Oct. 20, 2009 – Iraqi police, aided by U.S. advisors, arrested seven suspected terrorists today in northern Iraq, military officials reported. Iraqi police, with U.S. advisors, arrested two suspects near Wajihijah, northeast of Baghdad, during an operation targeting a suspect believed to be associated with key members of al-Qaida in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq terrorist group. The security team arrested the suspects based on evidence found at the scene. In a separate operation near Bayji, southwest of Kirkuk, Iraqi police and U.S. advisors searched a building for a member of a vehicle-bomb network suspected of operating...

New York Times reporter David Rohde writes about his kidnapping by the Haqqani Network and seven-month captivity. Rohde tells us three things that longtime readers of The Long War Journal and more recently Threat Matrix already know: 1) The Haqqani Network is intricately linked with al Qaeda. 2) The Haqqanis and the wider Taliban movement seek to impose a global Caliphate. 3) The Haqqani Network and other Taliban groups are in full control of North and South Waziristan. Rohde observes: Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2009 – Iraqi forces, with U.S. advisors, arrested suspected terrorist cell leaders, detained other suspected terrorists and seized weapons in Iraq in recent days, military officials reported. In Salahuddin province, Iraqi emergency response battalion constables, with U.S. advisors, arrested the director of a terrorist media cell Oct. 16. Nusayr Khudr Sulaymen is suspected of being the director of the Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq Naqshabandi terrorist media cell. The media cell is responsible for spreading terrorist propaganda throughout northern Iraq and has been linked to providing doctrine involving terrorist methods to the media. Sulaymen and five media cell members...

Friday evening, Mark Levin spoke with Michael Ledeen about Iran and his new book 'Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West.' Ledeen says of the situation in Iran, "The Supreme Leader is in a coma ... When an evil man dies, it is never bad." (Audio interview plus links and evidence of Iran's involvement in 9/11 after the jump.)