Free Republic

US intelligence officials feared that al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen were plotting to attack the United States and actually intercepted what they now believe were "dry run" shipments to Chicago in mid-September, according to several people briefed on the plot and a senior US official. ... The White House said it only learned of the actual air cargo plot late Thursday night when Saudi intelligence provided "a tip" about the bombs being shipped.

SNIPPET: "WASHINGTON — A US man has been charged after he compiled a hit list of 15 people he believed had harmed Muslim civilians and deserved to die, court documents showed Wednesday. Paul Rockwood and his wife Nadia were charged with lying to federal investigators about the compilation and content of the list, which Nadia Rockwood delivered to an unnamed individual in April at her husband's request." SNIPPET: "According to plea agreement documents obtained by AFP Wednesday, Paul Rockwood converted to Islam around late 2001 and soon "became a strict adherent to the violent jihad-promoting ideology of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki."...

SNIPPET: "Aly Akbar Khan, 52, is due at Caernarfon Magistrates' Court in Gwynedd, charged with possessing class A drugs with intent to supply. Mr Khan, of Caernarfon, and a 21-year-old man, were arrested on Friday after the parcels were found. The second man has been released on bail pending further inquiries." SNIPPET: "The men were arrested under Section 4 of the Explosives Act after a suspicious package was found at the MI6 building in Vauxhall on Wednesday, and a second was found at a sorting office in south London on Thursday."

Bomb disguised as gift exploded inside Greece's law enforcement ministry on Thursday night, killing a senior ministerial aide in the country's highest profile attack in years. Michalis Chryssohoidis, the cabinet minister in charge of the police force, escaped unhurt. He said the package had been intended for him. "It was a wrapped package that exploded in the aide's hands after he apparently picked it up and tried to open it," said Thanassis Kokkalakis, a police spokesman. "We heard a big bang, there was a lot of smoke and damage". There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which...