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LONDON (from compiled intelligence briefs) - Al-Qaida had extensive contacts with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as with an elite military unit which helped the terrorists train and plot attacks against Americans, according to a former intelligence officer who recently fled Iran. Hamid Reza Zakeri, a former inspector and director of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence, or MOIS, member said models of the World Trade Center, the White House, Pentagon and other United States government buildings "were in our headquarters." In an explosive interview with a London-based Arabic newspaper last week, Zakeri stated that...

Today: May 13, 2006 at 11:45:55 PDT Rep. Cunningham's Plea Was Only the Start By SETH HETTENA ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN DIEGO (AP) - The political scandal that brought down former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham didn't end when the Vietnam War hero began serving an eight-year sentence in federal prison for taking millions of dollars in bribes. Since Cunningham, R-San Diego, was sentenced in March, the case has turned into a sprawling federal investigation with all the soap opera elements - money, power and sex. One of Washington, D.C.'s most notorious landmarks - the Watergate Hotel - even has a...

Former University of South Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian was on the inside of an elaborate international network designed to conceal funding for terrorist organizations, a federal investigator claims in a newly released court document. The network used ``a convoluted web of multiple transactions'' by a network of companies, trusts and charities - mostly run by the same few people - to hide money going to two militant Palestinian groups, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the investigator says. The suspect organizations were part of ``a complex coalition of overlapping companies in northern Virginia controlled by individuals who have shown support...

<p>The American Muslim leader charged with smuggling $340,000 out of Libya was suspected of funneling cash from Osama bin Laden to blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman in the failed 1993 attempt to blow up New York City landmarks, The Post has learned.</p>

ASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Federal law enforcement authorities said in court documents unsealed on Friday that they suspected a group of Islamic charities in Northern Virginia of laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars or more from Saudi Arabia to help finance terrorist attacks by Hamas and other militant groups.The authorities said in documents that they suspected that the network of charitable and educational institutions known as the Saar group in Herndon, Va., used an elaborate system of domestic and overseas financial transactions to "blur the trail" of its revenues and disguise the fact that it was sending money to aid...