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Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee announced it would call FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to appear at an oversight hearing Sept. 17, when he is likely to be asked about the strength of the government's case against Ivins. A spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R- Iowa, a vocal FBI critic, said he would demand more information about how authorities narrowed their search. The House Judiciary panel, meanwhile, is negotiating to host a separate oversight hearing in September with bureau officials, in a session that could mark the first public occasion where Mueller faces questions about the FBI's handling of...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

Dr Bruce Budowle has been in the FBI for over 20 years, heading one of its forensic laboratories. He looks back to the mysterious and still unsolved case of the anthrax envelopes which followed 9/11 and which moved bioterrorism combat to a new level. *** Robyn Williams: The shape of sleuthing to come, Angela van Daal at Bond University in Southern Queensland. She has been looking after Bruce Budowle, an FBI veteran of 20 years who's head of their lab in Virginia and is sometimes called the FBI's top scientist. He's not only involved in forensics but also in the...

"We have still failed to solve the anthrax attacks that killed Americans on our soil in 2001. We know that Al Qaida was attempting to develop biological weapons in Afghanistan. And we know that the successful deployment of a biological weapon -- whether it is sprayed into our cities or spread through our food supply -- could kill tens of thousands of Americans and deal a crushing blow to our economy. As President, I will launch an effort across our government to stay ahead of this threat. To prevent bioterrorism, we need to invest in our analysis, enhance our information-sharing,...

Excerpt from book: “The anthrax spores in the letter to Daschle were so professionally refined, the Central Intelligence Agency believed the powder must have been sent by an experienced terrorist organization, most probably Al Qaeda, as a sequel to the group’s September 11 attacks. During a [October 17] meeting of the White House’s National Security Council that day, Cheney, who was sitting in for the President because Bush was traveling abroad, urged everyone to keep this inflammatory speculation secret. ... They thought Cheney had already been lethally infected. ... *** Cheney in particular was so stricken by the potential for...

Steven Hatfill finally has his life back. Thanks to FBI incompetence, he also has $5.8 million. ... It's worse because it is a virtual confession that the anthrax case is cold. Throughout one of the largest investigations in law-enforcement history, agents were fixated on a "lone wolf" theory that Director Robert Mueller's FBI, for all intents and purposes, now admits was wrong. Helped along by a sympathetic press corps, the obsession with a domestic perpetrator has ended up in a dead end. *** So the FBI needed to cast a wider net all along – which still remains urgent. In...

Suspected Al Qaeda leader Abu Qatada is celebrating his release from prison with the release of a book in which he urges Muslims to commit terrorist attacks in the West. In the 71-page tract, published in English translation on the internet, he repeatedly claims that fighting jihad, holy war, is obligatory for all Muslims and urges them to 'terrorise' non-believers. Security sources say his clear incitement to violence makes a mockery of the decision to set him free. The preacher of hate, who has been described as Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, was released on bail from Long...

Charles Krauthammer at his best, brilliantly making the point that not only is Al Qaeda on the run in Iraq, they're being humiliated:

Egyptian al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef was an effective CEO. When he caught one of his men being wasteful and insubordinate, he fired off a memo that would make Jack Welch blush with envy. This excerpt is from that newly released memo, written sometime before 2001: "I was very upset by what you did. I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family’s trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. . ....

WITH Gen. David Petraeus returning to Capitol Hill tomorrow, I asked a senior Coalition officer in Baghdad late last week what key trends he sees in Iraq. I suspect my friend's views resemble those of the general, so I'll let him speak for himself: "Overall, civilian deaths remain substantially below those at the height of the sectarian violence. Security incidents were [down to] levels not seen since early 2005. Thanks to help from local civilians [in] former al-Qaeda-in-Iraq safe havens, we've found more arms caches so far this year than were found in all of 2006." My old comrade went...

One of the familiar tropes of the anti-war caucus is that Iraq had no links to terrorism prior to the American invasion but now it has become a breeding ground of terrorists who will destabilize other countries. The first part of the argument—the claim that Saddam-era Iraq was not linked to terrorism—should have been demolished by the recent Iraq Perspectives Project report. (Unfortunately, its findings were generally misreported by the MSM.) The second part of the argument—the claim that Iraq is exporting terrorism—has now come under serious assault from, of all people, the French.

TRIPOLI (AFP) - Libya has freed 90 members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamist group that Al-Qaeda hailed as a new affiliate last November, the Kadhafi Foundation headed by the son of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said on Tuesday. "The dialogue opened with leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group .. has resulted in the release of 90 members, which represents one third of the membership of this group," said the foundation headed by Seif al-Islam Kadhafi. The prisoners were paraded for photographers as they were released amid tight security from the Abu Salim prison in the Libyan...

Newly declassified documents show a number of links between the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and violent terrorist or Islamist groups, many of them dating from the early 1990s. A Pentagon-funded study of the documents failed to find a direct link between Saddam and al Qaeda, the group that carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. But it did establish Iraqi support for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, whose leader Ayman al-Zawahri merged the group with al Qaeda years later. The papers also show that Saddam's Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained a working relationship with Palestinian terrorist groups, secretly...

Late Tuesday night in Damascus, Imad Mugniyah, senior terrorist of Hezbollah, was killed in a car bomb explosion. It was a fitting death for a founding father of Islamic terrorism, a man who himself had built many bombs. If you had not heard of Mugniyah before, there is a good reason. Terror chieftains like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri seek the limelight with their frequent and widely disseminated diatribes. Not Mugniyah. Until recently, only a handful of photos of him were publicly available, and he never gave interviews. Instead, he was something of a ghost, confined to the...

A fourth Democratic candidate — and a fifth candidate overall — announced a run for the 2nd Congressional District ... Larry Johnson, a substitute teacher for the Boulder Valley School District, said he wants to protect Social Security, redeploy U.S. armed forces to out of Iraq, declare war on al-Qaeda and ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has regrouped in Pakistan's remote Afghan border area and begun to focus attacks on the Pakistani government and military, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday. But the Pentagon chief said al Qaeda's activities in Pakistan have not yet affected Afghanistan, where U.S. and coalition forces have faced increased Taliban violence in the past two years. "There is no question that some of the areas in the frontier area have become areas where Al Qaeda has re-established itself," Gates said. "But so far, we haven't seen any significant consequence of that in Afghanistan itself....

A poll by satellite TV Al Jazeera on the attacks in Algiers on December 11 has aroused bitter controversy in the Algerian media. "Are you in favour of Al Qaedàs attacks in Algeria?". This is the "scandalous question", daily Liberte writes, proposed by Qatar's channel Al Jazeera, "which makes of the terrorist apology one of the main editorial lines". The daily adds that more serious are the results: a total 54% of the TV audience has answered to be in favour of the double suicide bomb attack in Algiers against the seat of the UN and the Constitutional Court, "...

Here is a movie issued today proposing a neo-Nazi/islamofascist/911 truther theory. Pictures and music are effective and fun-to-watch propaganda. Reminiscent of video earlier this year pitching an Iraq theory in style.

& Anthrax And Al Qaeda By Michael Barone Nov 13, 2007 (US News) On the conservative website The American Thinker, military operations research analyst Ray Robison had an article on the September 2001 anthrax attack. It's based on a recently revealed pre-September 11 letter from a London jihadi named Numan Bin Uthman to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Robison's conclusion: "Now let's put that big picture together." "Uthman says he tried to talk Mohammad Atef and Usama bin Laden out of using WMD in a terrorist attack to convince the U.S. not to retaliate in Afghanistan because it would ultimately...

The FBI is warning that al Qaeda may be preparing a series of holiday attacks on U.S. shopping malls in Los Angeles and Chicago, according to an intelligence bulletin distributed to law enforcement authorities across the country this morning.

People need to realize that these guys are out there, and nothing will make them happier as seen here than killing you and your family.

The growth in research meant to protect the U.S. from bioterrorism is overwhelming the oversight system, a House panel is told. WASHINGTON -- Rapid growth in the number of biodefense laboratories researching deadly pathogens has overwhelmed the government's ability to adequately monitor the program, federal investigators told Congress on Thursday. Officials said the expansion of the program over the last few years, coupled with a lack of training of lab workers and poor reporting of lab accidents, posed a potential threat to national security and public health. *** It was the first time Congress had held a hearing on the...

Widow wants answers By EMILY J. MINOR Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 06, 2007 W hen she looks back - and how can you not? - it all makes so much sense. The tubes and the masks and the FBI agents. Video: See an exclusive interview with Maureen Stevens. The worried doctors and the sneaky reporters and the room where they told her the ending. "I should have known," Maureen Stevens says now. But back then, things like masks and tubes and a box of tissues on a meeting room table just didn't click. Now, of course, it...

Our Own Worst Enemy: Asking the Right Questions About Security to Protect You, Your Family, and America Randall Larsen: ... The press actually missed the real story, as I saw it, with “the person of interest”, insofar as that “Dr. H” had spent two years working in a bio-safe level 4 facility– working with some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world– with a bogus resume! *** [re Atta's roommate had cutaneous anthrax] Five times a year, I brief top officers of the government and military, and only 1 or 2, if that, ever know! ... And had one...

Director of National Intelligence Says U.S. Didn't Connect Available Information

The head of an Al Qaeda-led group in Iraq has offered a $100,000 bounty for someone to kill a Swedish cartoonist for his drawing of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, and has threatened to attack major Swedish companies. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, also offered $50,000 to anyone who kills Ulf Johansson, the editor of the newspaper that published the drawing by Lars Vilks. Sweden's Nerikes Allehanda daily newspaper published the drawing, part of a series that art galleries in Sweden had declined to display, last month. The cartoon showed the Prophet Mohammed with a dog's...

DUBAI (Reuters) - The head of an al Qaeda-led group in Iraq has offered a $100,000 reward for the killing of a Swedish cartoonist for his drawing of Islam's Prophet Mohammad and threatened to attack major Swedish companies. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, also offered $50,000 in an audiotape posted on an Islamist Web site on Saturday to anyone who killed the editor of the newspaper that published the drawing by Lars Vilks. Sweden's daily Nerikes Allehanda published the drawing, part of a series which art galleries in Sweden had declined to display, last...

The Left thinks Iraq is a killing field for Americans. Actually, it is a killing field for our enemies, at a very great but vitally important sacrifice. That reflects a grand strategy, tailored to the peculiar nature of the global terror threat. You don't shoot poisonous fire-ants with a BB gun; you just set an ant trap. Ant colonies are highly "distributed" biological societies, much like the world-wide web. They can't be killed with a BB or a pressure hose; even pouring flaming gasoline on an ant hill won't work. Instead, you destroy ant colonies by attracting hungry ants to...

In a show of force, the NYPD mobilized hundreds of anti-terrorism cops last night after an Internet report of a "dirty bomb" threat targeting the city surfaced, authorities said. An Israeli-based Web site claimed al Qaeda communications accuse the United States of failing to take seriously the videotaped message last Sunday of an American member of the terror group, who vowed to attack the "spy dens" of U.S. and allied embassies throughout the Islamic world, police said. DEBKA file - which attempts to report on the actions and chatter among al Qaeda cells - posted the story yesterday on its...

HISTORY - Time line [some] Important dates in radical ISLAM VS WORLD 1263 - 1328 The 'Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism' Who is the True Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism? His name is Ibn Taymiyyah, or Taq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah, and he lived from 1263 to 1328. His name by birth was Ahmad ibn Abdul-Halim ibn Abdas-Salaam. This individual could be considered as the real godfather of fundamentalism. Maududi borrowed extensively from Taymiyyah's writings. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/index.php? id=1194248__________________1347 [The Bahmani sultans & genocide on Indians]The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death....

Excerpt: Use of poisons U.S. intelligence officials believe that Marri trained for two years in Afghanistan, among other things receiving instruction in the use of poisons and toxins at the Derunta camp near Jalalabad, sources said. He is believed to have trained under Abu Khabab al-Masri, an Egyptian specialist in chemical and biological weapons who was killed ... *** U.S. authorities allege that Marri had gone to the United Arab Emirates in August 2001 to get more than $13,000 in cash from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the alleged paymaster for the Sept. 11 plotters. *** The Islamic Assembly of North America,...

Asked whether the anthrax attacks, which began with a letter reportedly postmarked September 18, 2001, counted as a terrorist attack [Bush's top counter-terrorism aide] Townsend tersely replied: "It does in my mind."

BAGHDAD, June 27 (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed two senior Turkish al Qaeda operatives in northern Iraq, including one who helped bring foreign fighters into the war-torn country, the U.S. military said on Wednesday. The military said in a statement that Mehmet Yilmaz and Mehmet Resit Isik were killed on June 23 in a firefight with U.S. forces near Hawija, south of the city of Kirkuk. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said the men were Turks. Military officials say foreign militants, mainly from Arab countries, are the brains behind al Qaeda in Iraq. Tens of thousands of U.S. and...

Mr. Murdoch hosted the 9th annual presentation of the Eric Breindel awards for opinion writing alongside Fox News boss Roger Ailes and Newsweek senior editor Lally Weymouth. Mr. Ailes ...“We’ve become increasingly successful, and yet we’ve been increasingly criticized," he said to the crowd about his company. "Sometimes for being too pro-American. Sometimes we’re too pro-Israel. Sometimes too pro-democracy. "I’ve been quoted as saying, ‘This is a great country.’ A lot of people are trying to get in, nobody’s trying to get out. The press is an essential pillar of that democracy. The press didn’t invent democracy. Democracy invented freedom...

Now statements from al Qaeda and the Islamic Army posted on a Web site used by insurgent groups openly attack each other. Al Qaeda followers also post abusive messages aimed at leaders of the Islamic Army. One called them "dogs", a grave insult in the Arab world. The Islamic Army, a large group of mainly former supporters of Saddam Hussein and ex-army officers, denied al Qaeda allegations they started the fighting in Amiriya by blowing up a man who tried to erase anti-al Qaeda graffiti. In an audio statement posted on the Web site, Islamic Army spokesman Ali al-Nuaimi blamed...

An American student extradited from London to face charges that he provided Al Qaeda fighters with equipment to attack American soldiers is an activist, not a terrorist, his lawyer said Tuesday after the man pleaded not guilty in court. "These charges are unfounded," the lawyer, Sean Maher, told reporters. Syed Hashmi, a 27-year-old former Queens resident, was the first terrorism suspect extradited to America by British authorities...

If you are feeling tired about supporting the war, if you are tired of standing for freedom, watch the video. Let Anger be our weapon.

This morning, my question to him was simple: Based on what we've seen thus far, the 15,000-man Lebanese Army appears to be performing pretty well. Don't you think? His response: 'Yes, it is a brave little force.'

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter050707_qaeda.rm Woodrow Wilson Center Speech on "Understanding Al Qaeda" Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow and former NSC Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs, gives a speech on "Understanding Al Qaeda" at the Woodrow Wilson Center. 5/7/2007: WASHINGTON, DC:

A couple of bombings–no big deal. But now there have been more chlorine attacks than you can count on one hand–and most of the victims have been Muslims. Most recently, a government facility in Fallujah has been struck by chlorine suicide attack. Try to make sense of this. Imagine you’re AQ. Your desperate suicide attacks just aren’t doing the trick for you, so you enhance your attacks with chemicals and thus irretrievably link yourselves with the same fears that gave the Americans a pretext for being there in the first place. Sounds like a winning strategy!

Brian Ross and Hoda Osman Report: Al Qaeda has sent a message to leaders of the Democratic party that credit for the defeat of congressional Republicans belongs to the terrorists. In a portion of the tape from al Qaeda No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri, made available only today, Zawahri says he has two messages for American Democrats. "The first is that you aren't the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen -- the Muslim Ummah's vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq -- are the ones who won, and the American...

British Muslims volunteering to fight against coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are being sent back to Britain to become al-Qaeda "sleeper" agents, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. MI5 agents believe that young Asian men, who have been trained to take part in the so-called "global jihad" in al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are now regarded as too valuable an asset to be used fighting British and American troops. MI5 and MI6 are working on the assumption that they are being ordered to return to their communities in Britain with instructions to establish secret, autonomous cells and to conduct...

The Navy lawyer who led a successful Supreme Court challenge of the Bush administration's military tribunals for detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been passed over for promotion and will have to leave the military, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military's "up or out" promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified he would not be promoted to commander. He said the notification came about two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with him and against the White House in the case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a...

The African continent - vast, remote, and perhaps strategically unimportant in the minds of many unknowing Americans – is one of the most critical fronts in the global war on terror. And it is for a variety of reasons beyond humanitarian concerns. ... Consequently, to ignore and ultimately lose Africa in the global war on terror would be nothing less than catastrophic...

Coalition forces in Iraq have suddenly received the manpower equivalent of three light infantry divisions. They did not suffer any repercussions in domestic politics as a result, and now have a huge edge over al-Qaeda in al-Anbar province. How did this happen? Tribal leaders in the largely Sunni province on the Syrian border got together and signed an agreement to raise a tribal force of 30,000 fighters to take on foreign fighters and terrorists. These leaders have thrown in with the central government in Baghdad. This is a decisive blow to al Qaeda, which has been desperately trying to fight...

Just a day after the Senate Armed Services committee rebuffed the Bush administration’s efforts to allow aggressive interrogation techniques on captured terror suspects, a spokesman for al Qaeda praised the committee’s 15-9 vote and said it would, in turn, make its prisoner treatment protocols more humane. “We were inspired by the humanitarianinfidels in the Senate to update our own procedures,” said the unnamed al Qaeda spokesman in an audiotape released through Al Jazeera’s CNN news division. “We have approved a three-step plan aimed at improving our humanitarian image around the world.” According to the source, al Qaeda has already issued...

Al-Zawahri: Gulf, Israel next targets (AP) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060911/ap_on_re_mi_ea/sept11_videoCAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden, Israel would be al-Qaida's next targets, according to a new videotape aired by Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Monday, the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

It turns out that Osama bin Laden valued the western media so much that one of his media advisers had the pseudonym "Abu Reuters." Al Qaeda videos are specifically designed for play in the Western media, with its own production company providing English subtitles. Said one CNN producer, "The media meant and still means a lot to them.”

Freepers, I am looking to create a group blog consisting of posters to FR. The focus of the blog will be counterterrorism, intelligence, defense, foreign policy and, of course, politics. A sense of humour is welcome although not required. I have been blogging at alphabetcity.blogspot.com for the better part of three years and would like to start this venture there. Here is an idea of what I hope to create: A blog with the PR savvy of Allah (Hot Air), the erudition of Ed Morrissey (Captains Quarters), the in-your-faceness of Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs) and the research slash investigative...

The arrest of twenty-one people by British police in connection with a terrorist plot to blow up a number of aircraft in mid-air, aircraft flown by US based airlines, including Continental American and United, and with the targeted flights flying to major US destinations like New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, shows that the United States remains the main target for Islamicist terrorists. Read comments below from: * Ian M. Cuthbertson * W. Thomas Smith Jr. * Colonel Jeff Bearor (USMC, ret.)