Free Republic

A Saudi family who “fled” their Sarasota area home weeks before 9/11 had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001,” according to newly released FBI records. One partially declassified document, marked “secret,” lists three of those individuals and ties them to the Venice, Fla., flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. Accomplice Ziad Jarrah took flying lessons at another school a block away. Atta and al-Shehhi were at the controls of the jetliners that slammed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. Jarrah was the...

The accused Al Qaeda mastermind of a foiled plot to use suicide bombers to blow up Hudson River tunnels has been freed in Lebanon on a mere $667 bail. Assem Hammoud's release from a Beirut jail occurred months ago, but was kept quiet until he appeared in a TV interview Tuesday claiming his innocence.

DAMASCUS BLAST ON TUESDAY KILLED SENIOR HEZBOLLAH MILITARY COMMANDER - LEBANESE POLITICAL SOURCE

TERRORISM suspects hoarded computer how-to guides on making explosives and articles about al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden and jihad, a court heard yesterday. Aimen Joud, 21, also had graphic video footage of the execution and decapitation of a man said to have come from Chechnya in 1998, Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told. Federal police found the manuals on terrorism and militant Islam when searching the homes of Mr Joud and Shane Kent, 29, in September 2004. Sen-Constable Paul Madden told the court one handbook, known as the Vortex Cookbook, was later shown to the group's alleged spiritual leader, Abdul Nacer Benbrika....

Assem Hammoud, 31, the architect of a plan to bomb New York tunnels, was trained and directed by Al Qaida to strike by the end of this year, U.S. and Lebanese officials said. "Security forces were able to track e-mails and conversations on an extremist Islamic website used to recruit terrorists," the Lebanese Internal Security Forces said in a statement. Hammoud, nicknamed the "Andalusian prince" in an apparent reference to Islamic emirs who once ruled Spain, was trained in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein Hilwe near Sidon, the ISF statement said. Ein Hilwe has long been a hotbed of...

Plans found on NYC plot suspect's computer By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 32 minutes ago Lebanese authorities found maps and bombing plans on the personal computer of an al-Qaida suspect accused of plotting to attack New York train tunnels, a senior Lebanese official said. Acting Interior Minister Ahmed Fatfat described the information found on Assem Hammoud's computer as "very important." "It contained maps and bombing plans that were being prepared," Fatfat said in a local television interview. Lebanese security officials told The Associated Press that they obtained "important information" from Hammoud's computer and CDs seized from his office...

Federal law enforcement officials tell ABC News a plot designed to use 15 to 20 suicide bombers on one commuter train as close to Sept. 11 as possible was well underway. The specific target was the PATH commuter trains that run in a tunnel under the Hudson River into New York City. "This is a plot that would have involved martyrdom, explosives and certain of the tubes that connect New Jersey with lower Manhattan," said Mark Mershon, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI New York Field Office. "We're not discussing the modality behind, beyond that." But law enforcement officials say the...

HE was told not to grow a beard, wear Islamic clothing or show any sign of religious devotion. During his recruitment as a soldier in the global jihad, Assem Hammoud was told to act like a typical young, secular Lebanese man and warned not to attract attention, a senior Lebanese security official said. Hammoud was an ideal recruit because he did not have any apparent ties to militants. "He had no criminal history, and no history of involvement with militant groups," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "He was living a normal life, far from any...

Early on the morning of March 16th, 1984, William Buckley left for work at the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Officially, Mr. Buckley, a decorated veteran of the Special Forces, served as the political officer at the embassy. In reality, however, Mr. Buckley was the embassy’s CIA station chief. On his way to the compound, Buckley’s car was stopped by a group of masked men, who forced him from his car at gunpoint. His assailants would later be identified as terrorists from the group Islamic Jihad, which served as an alias for the real perpetrators, Hezbollah. The circumstances surrounding the...

<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. - On the very day last month that Mohamad Hammoud became the first person convicted under a 1996 law that bans aid to terrorist groups, a federal judge in California declared the statute unconstitutional.</p> <p>Though federal prosecutors expect Hammoud's conviction to stand, questions surround the future of the law as the government plans to use it against two major defendants: the alleged ''20th hijacker,'' Zacarias Moussaoui, and John Walker Lindh, the American accused of taking up arms for the Taliban.</p>

<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Jurors in the trial of two brothers accused being part of a Hezbollah cell sent questions to the judge Friday indicating they are deadlocked on at least one charge.</p> <p>When they ended deliberations Thursday, jurors had said they thought they might have a verdict by lunchtime Friday.</p>