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In a blow to President Barack Obama, the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday voted to prohibit his administration from transferring detainees from the Guantanamo Bay military prison to the United States. The measure, if it becomes law, would complicate the administration's plan to empty the controversial military prison, which has drawn international condemnation, by January 2010.

With a surge in the number of American residents joining Al Qaeda, its menace to Homeland Security is now more acute than at any time since September 11.

A "handful" of men in New York are possible associates of the chief suspect in a suspected plot to use homemade bombs to attack New York City commuter trains, and investigators have them under heavy surveillance, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Investigators are still hunting for additional players and expect to make more arrests than just the chief suspect, 24-year-old Denver airport shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi, according to an official who declined to discuss when that might happen or how many people are under scrutiny.

An Afghan-born man at the center of a U.S. anti-terrorism probe pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to plotting a bombing attack in the United States, and a federal judge ordered him held without bail. An attorney for Najibullah Zazi, indicted by a grand jury on a charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, cautioned against prejudging the case against the 24-year-old Colorado airport shuttle driver who is a legal U.S. resident.

Authorities know the identities of three people believed to be in on a terrorist scheme targeting New York City, a law enforcement official has confirmed, as an Afghan immigrant accused of plotting with them to try to turn common chemicals into explosives is due in federal court Tuesday morning. Najibullah Zazi is to be arraigned in a Brooklyn courtroom on charges he conspired to use weapons of mass destruction. The 24-year-old airport van driver and former coffee cart vendor has denied any wrongdoing.

A law enforcement official has confirmed that investigators have identified possible accomplices of an Afghan immigrant accused of plotting a terrorist attack on New York. Court papers allege that at least three people helped Najibullah Zazi (nah-jee-BOO'-lah ZAH'-zee) buy beauty products containing peroxide and acetone in suburban Denver. The chemicals can be used to make homemade bombs.

It was midsummer in suburban Denver when an unassuming, bearded man pushed a red shopping cart between shelves stacked with hair coloring and nail polish remover. By the time Najibullah Zazi checked into a nearby hotel suite with a kitchen in September, he had at least 18 bottles of peroxide-based hair lighteners and pages of notes for how to turn the beauty products into bombs, authorities say.

Counterterrorism officials have issued security bulletins to police around the nation about terrorists' desire to attack stadiums, entertainment complexes and hotels — the latest in a flurry of such internal warnings as investigators chase a possible bomb plot in Denver and New York.

A figure in what authorities describe as a widening inquiry into a possible plot to detonate homemade bombs in the United States appeared in a New York City courtroom on Monday on charges that he lied to federal investigators about the investigation.

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The man accused of fatally shooting a soldier outside a recruiting center begged for FBI agents to free him from a Yemeni jail where he was "radicalized" by Islamic terrorists, his lawyer told The Associated Press on Thursday. Lawyer Jim Hensley described Abdulhakim Muhammad as an impressionable youth driven to public service in an impoverished Middle Eastern country. But teachings by "hardened" terrorists in Yemen and experiences with Afghan child refugees who were missing limbs drove him to become someone his parents didn't recognize, Hensley said. "Here comes the FBI, who may be able...

Anyone (like Barack Obama) entertaining ideas of western democracies establishing friendly relations with the radicals of the Islamic world should watch this video.While watching the inflammatory rhetoric of the speaker, remember that this is not a Jihadists from Iran but a professor from Kuwait - a country with every reason to be grateful to the USA for liberating it from the tyranny of Saddam Husseins invasion.

Israel's air force obliterated symbols of Hamas power on the third day of its overwhelming assault on Gaza on Monday, striking a house next to the Hamas premier's home, devastating a security compound and flattening a five-story building at a university closely linked to the Islamic group. The three-day death toll rose to 315, including seven children under the age of 15 who were killed in two separate strikes late Sunday and Monday, medics said. Israel launched the deadliest attack against Palestinians in decades on Saturday in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns. Israeli defense...

In today's column, the New York Times' Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, examines the paper's use (or non-use) of the words "terrorist" and "terrorism." It's a revealing exercise: "WHEN 10 young men in an inflatable lifeboat came ashore in Mumbai last month and went on a rampage with machine guns and grenades, taking hostages, setting fires and murdering men, women and children, they were initially described in The Times by many labels." "They were "militants," "gunmen," "attackers" and "assailants." Their actions, which left bodies strewn in the city's largest train station, five-star hotels, a Jewish center, a cafe and a hospital...

Mumbai: At least 15 people have been injured in gunfights between two groups in at least three places in Mumbai on Thursday night. Details are sketchy but it is believed that two gangs fired at each other at outside CST Railway Terminus, Hotel Oberoi and the popular Café Leopold restaurant in Mumbai. The first shooting took place near the CST police station

The Government has drawn up a controversial phrasebook on the language of terrorism and is insisting civil servants no longer blame fanatical extremism on Islam, for fear of upsetting the Muslim community. The new counter-terrorism guidelines suggest that phrases such as "Islamic terrorist" and "jihadi fundamentalism" are too inflammatory and imply that all Muslims explicitly are responsible for extremism. Instead the leaked Home Office document advises Whitehall bosses that they refer to violent extremism and criminal murderers or thugs to avoid any link between Islam and terrorism. However, the war on terror handbook has provoked an unfavourable response from people...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday - the harshest since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 - charging anew that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, joined at a State Department news conference by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, said the steps the Bush administration is taking against the Revolutionary Guard Corps and a number of banks are designed, among other things, to punish Tehran for its support of terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle...

A former Houston man arrested in Kenya last month has been charged in Texas with teaming with al-Qaida to overthrow the Somali government and form an Islamic state there. Daniel Joseph Maldonado, 28, also known as Daniel Aljughaifi, was ordered held without bail Tuesday on federal charges of undergoing military training with a terrorist organization and conspiring to use a destructive device. Maldonado was returned to the United States on Monday night and appeared Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley, the U.S. attorney's office in Houston said. A detention hearing is set for next week. Maldonado's arrest marks the...

British Muslim leaders meeting with government representatives to discuss ways of combating extremism are calling for the establishment of Islamic law (shari'a) to govern Muslims' family life. "We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince [Muslim] young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens," said Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organizations of the U.K. and Ireland. Pasha was among some 30 Muslim leaders, described as moderates, who met with Ruth Kelly, the minister responsible for communities, amid raging debate in the...

Iraq angrily rejects US sectarian warning By Michael Georgy 1 hour, 33 minutes ago Iraq's Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari angrily dismissed on Tuesday U.S. warnings to shun sectarianism in the country's new government, saying Iraqis would not accept interference in their affairs. Speaking after talks with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who echoed the U.S. call for a government of national unity in Iraq, the normally calm and diplomatic Jaafari said Iraq knew its own best interests. "When someone asks us whether we want a sectarian government the answer is 'no we do not want a sectarian government' -- not...

President Jacques Chirac for the first time on Thursday raised the threat of a nuclear response to states that launch "terrorist" attacks against France. "Leaders of any state that uses terrorist means against us, as well as any that may be envisaging -- in one way or another -- using weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would be exposing themselves to a firm and appropriate response on our behalf," he said. "That response could be conventional, it could also be of another nature," Chirac said in a clear reference to nuclear weapons during a visit to a French...