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The caravan of migrants making its way through Mexico is “kind of a normal event” and the United States ought not to reinforce its border against them, a United Nations official said on Friday. […] Joel Millman, a spokesman for the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), told a U.N. briefing in Geneva there had been similar caravans for many years, and the group was still hundreds of miles away from the United States. “So (using) words like ‘invasion’ and things like that is assuming that this is a new phenomenon which is a drastic emergency, and I don’t think...

SNIPPET: "Two U.S. planes have flown radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other suspected terrorists to the United States, hours after Britain's High Court cleared the way for their extradition. The planes departed a Royal Air Force base immediately after the British High Court rejected last-minute appeals by Hamza and the others. The five had raised legal questions about human rights and prison conditions they expected to face in the United States. In rejecting the appeals, the British court cited an “overwhelming public interest” in seeing the extraditions carried out. Hamza is wanted on U.S. charges that include...

British citizen facing extradition to the United States on terrorism charges was found in possession of detailed military plans for a US Navy battle group in the Gulf, federal prosecutors said. AFP/File Photo An indictment unsealed in Connecticut also accused Babar Ahmad, 30, of operating two US-based web sites that solicited financial support for terrorist organizations, including the Taliban and Chechen rebels. "In order to dismantle terrorist organizations, we must attack them at their roots, so it is critical that we uncover and sever the financing stream and communication that supports the terrorists' violent intentions," said US Attorney Kevin O'Connor....

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 WAR ON TERRORAl-Qaida suspect tied to U.S.-UK jihad groupAlleged sleeper agent nabbed by FBI part of cell operating in Queens, N.Y. Posted: June 22, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com An American citizen living in Queens arrested by the FBI, and who has admitted to being a sleeper agent for al-Qaida, has ties to a British-based Islamic extremist organization with still more agents operating in the New York borough, WorldNetDaily has learned. Mohammed Junaid Babar, a naturalized citizen from Pakistan, was secretly taken into custody in April and is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional...

Can a conservative former congressman who helped impeach President Clinton, is a board member of the National Rifle Association and has done contract work with the ACLU dent Sen. John McCain's presidential bid? That's exactly what Mr. McCain would face if Bob Barr, the former Republican who joined the Libertarian Party two years ago, wins his adopted party's presidential nomination. "Barr obviously is dangerous. At least he negates any possible Nader benefit," said David Norcross, a New Jersey member of the Republican National Committee and its Rules Committee chairman, arguing Mr. Barr would hurt Republicans at least as much as...

Inquiry launched into 'bugging' of Muslim MP By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 04/02/2008 Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has launched a formal inquiry into claims a senior Labour Muslim MP had been bugged during private meetings with a constituent. David Davis' bugging warning letter in full Leader: Reasoning to listen with Sadiq Khan MP Scotland Yard is alleged to have eavesdropped on meetings between Sadiq Khan, a Government whip, and a terrorist suspect currently being held in prison. The police and security services have been barred from bugging MPs for more than 40 years. Watch:...

An American citizen who once lived and attended college in New York City was indicted today on charges of conspiring to send money and military gear to al Qaeda associates who lived in Pakistan, the United States attorney's office in Manhattan said. The defendant, Syed Hashmi, 26, was arrested in London's Heathrow Airport on Tuesday night, as he was trying to board a flight to Pakistan, prosecutors said. Law enforcement officials said the arrest of Mr. Hashmi reinforced their belief that New York was a nexus in a web of worldwide terrorist activity. Mr. Hashmi had an address in Flushing,...

Britain 'deserved its own 9/11 attack' By Duncan Gardham (Filed: 28/03/2006) Britain deserved its own September 11 according to one of the leaders of an al-Qa'eda cell planning a bomb attack, a court heard yesterday. Omar Khyam from Crawley, West Sussex, suggested hitting pubs, nightclubs and trains in revenge for Britain's involvement in the Middle East. Court artist's sketch of Omar Khyam Mohammed Babar, who has turned informant on his associates, said he was sitting on the couch in a flat in Lahore, Pakistan, when Khyam told him Britain "needed to be hit." Babar told the Old Bailey: "We were...

INVESTIGATORS have established a firm link between al-Qaeda and the London bombers after an Islamist terrorist in jail in America identified the British man who led the murderous attacks 10 days ago. Security officials in the United States have confirmed that self-confessed al-Qaeda member Mohammed Junaid Babar had admitted knowing Mohammed Sidique Khan, the oldest of the British bombers who killed at least 55 people. Babar, who was arrested after returning from an al-Qaeda "terror summit" in Pakistan early last year, identified Khan from photographs shown to him late last week. The revelation that an al-Qaeda member was associating with...

A British computer specialist was indicted Wednesday on charges he used U.S.-based Web sites to recruit al-Qaida, Taliban and Chechen fighters and outfit them with gas masks, night-vision goggles and camouflage gear. Babar Ahmad, 30, was arrested in London in August and has been held there for extradition to the United States. Wednesday's indictment accuses him of supporting terrorism, conspiring to kill Americans and laundering money. Ahmad allegedly ran several sites, including Azzam.com, which investigators say was used to promote holy war and funnel money to terrorists. The Web site allegedly encouraged people to train in street combat, land mine...

...The Iraqi interim government of Ayad Allawi, given sovereignty by the U.S. in June, has been establishing itself as a reliable U.S. ally. U.S. forces and Iraqi troops and police have finally cornered Muqtada al Sadr, the wild-eyed ayatollah who wants to turn Iraq into another Iran. [F]fighters appeared to be melting away ...in a sacred Shiite shrine in Najaf, although the battle continues.... ...a wave of arrests of terrorism suspects in the U.S., Britain and Pakistan.... Ashcroft announced the indictments of three men alleged to have been aiding Hamas.... [I]t is impossible to assess with any accuracy the extent...

June 17, 2004 -- A New York man has been jailed secretly since April on suspicions he joined a Pakistani terrorism cell in a plot against targets in London. Mohammed Junaid Babar was detained by the Joint Terrorism Task Force on April 10 as a material witness, two law-enforcement officials said yesterday. One of the officials said Babar aided a plot to "blow up pubs, restaurants and train stations" in London.

June 16, 2004 — A suspected terrorist in U.S. custody has been cooperating with authorities and has suggested al Qaeda was planning more attacks in the United States, ABC News has learned. The terror cell Babar is allegedly associated with in London was under British surveillance for months, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Members of the terror cell spoke openly of launching attacks and purchased nearly a ton of ammonium nitrate, one of the key ingredients used in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. The FBI is currently working...

PARIS - Cecile de Brunhoff, the inspiration for Babar, the enchanting little elephant whose adventures captivated generations of children, has died in Paris. She was 99. De Brunhoff suffered a stroke Saturday night and died Monday in a hospital in Paris, where she lived, said Mathieu de Brunhoff, one of her sons. She first invented the tale of a little elephant as a bedtime story for her boys in 1931. They in turn told their father, painter Jean de Brunhoff, who illustrated the story and filled in details, naming the elephant Babar and creating Celeste, Zephir and the "Old Lady,"...

<p>KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa -- Around dusk, the elephants start moving out from the Sabie River into the bush for the night.</p> <p>A big old wrinkly male with huge floppy ears leads a half dozen females, recalcitrant teens and calves across the paved road running beside the river. One of the females flaps her ears and makes a step toward a car that has gotten too close. The car speeds away.</p>