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CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The son of Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric linked to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, has been captured by anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, a brother and U.S. officials said Thursday. Cairo lawyer Montasser el-Zayat, who defends Islamic militant suspects, said the captured son, Ahmed Abdel-Rahman was being held in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif and his interrogators included Americans. El-Zayat said forces in Afghanistan were looking for Ahmed's brother, Mohammed, who was also in the country. A U.S. official in Washington said the northern alliance had captured Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, but that there ...

At the northern edge of The Pit, Port Authority officers, city cops and firefighters were raking through the last of the debris, still finding fragments of bone. At the opposite corner, ironworkers were preparing to cut the last erect piece of steel, a 36-foot-tall girder that had stood at the core of the south tower."Column 1001 B," said Lt. John Ryan, commander of the PA police recovery task force.Ryan pointed out the evenly spaced rectangles where the exterior columns had been. The rectangles marked off an acre in ghostly gray dirt where the tower once stood.There's one," Ryan said.He pointed...

PATERSON, N.J. (AP) - Secret evidence presented in a closed court session alleged that a man who sold fake IDs to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers had closer ties to terrorism than previously revealed, according to transcripts released Tuesday. In the end, authorities found no evidence to bring terrorism charges against Mohamad El-Atriss, and U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said Tuesday that El-Atriss "is not considered a threat to national security by us." In a plea bargain, El-Atriss was sentenced in March to five years' probation and fined $15,000 for selling phony documents. El-Atriss and his lawyer on Tuesday...

<p>LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities have arrested a foreign al Qaeda suspect in a raid in an industrial city on Saturday, a Pakistani intelligence official said.</p> <p>The Arab-speaking national is believed to be an important member of al Qaeda with bounty on his head, the official told Reuters but gave no further details.</p>

In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") report concluded that the reason for Mohammed Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was planning an "unbelievable" biological attack, the plans for which had suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ("KSM") the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.    Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall...

On September 11th, 2002, suspected Sniper John Allen Muhammad walked into the Camden, New Jersey State Motor Vehicles office, to register the now-notorious "blue Caprice" he'd just purchased. Though the car had not yet converted been into a rolling sniper's nest, what happened in the next several minutes leaves little doubt that Muhammad had something sinister in mind. The registration transaction began at 8:52 am. At 8:58 am., while Muhammad was still standing at the counter, someone (now believed to be fellow suspect, Lee Malvo) phoned a bomb threat at the Motor Vehicles office on the 1st Anniversary of what...

A Junior al-Qaeda . . .: . . . right here at home There are a lot of Baptist churches along rural Virginia's Route 615, just south of Appomattox-"where America reunited," as the county welcome sign puts it-but there's only one Sheikh Gilani Lane. A gate and a guardhouse prevent the public from driving very far down it. What lies beyond, however, isn't a closed-off community of rich retirees. Instead, it's a trailer-park compound of black Muslims, or "The Muslims of America," according to a green billboard by the entrance, where an armed guard keeps a wary eye on the ...

 DefenseWatch  "The Voice of the Grunt"  Special Report: Protect Home Base First  ARTICLE 02 October 30, 2002Examine Gunman's Possible Ties to al FurqaBy Christian M. WeberIn the Middle East today, we see a young generation of Muslims being trained to hate Israel and the West while cherishing the thought of martyrdom. It is easy to see the brutal path that has been chosen for these children. However, for those not schooled in this path of destruction, the road to terrorism usually takes on one of two forms.The first form includes Islamic extremists, such as Osama Bin Laden, who rose...

Sniper suspect John Muhammad fits the profile of a disaffected outcast who becomes increasingly radicalized under the influence of Islamism, say terrorism analysts and investigators, who suspect he is connected with the radical Islamist group, al-Fuqra. According to Christian M. Weber, contributing editor for Soldiers for the Truth, an organization headed by Col. David Hackworth, Muhammad seems to follow the model of John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid and Jose Padilla, men exposed to Islamism who become disenchanted with the movement's pace and progress and who take the road to jihad. "As one traces John Muhammad's life from his conversion to...

Al-Fuqra tied to Colorado crimes Leader owned land in Buena Vista; followers convicted in bombing of Krishna temple By Charlie Brennan, News Staff Writer The radical Islamic leader linked to the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl has been tied to a wide range of illegal activity throughout Colorado. Through a broad-based investigation launched in 1989, Colorado authorities convicted four members of the al-Fuqra movement on a series of felonies including racketeering, forgery, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and the 1984 firebombing of a Hare Krishna temple in Denver. Those who helped lead those investigations said the Pakistani-based ...

<p>THERE are a lot of Baptist churches along rural Virginia's Route 615, just south of Appomattox - "where America reunited," as the county welcome signs put it - but there's only one Sheikh Gilani Lane. A gate and a guardhouse prevent the public from driving down it. What lies beyond is a trailer-park compound of black Muslims.</p>

Federal authorities are investigating whether accused snipers John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo had ties to a growing sect of militant American Muslims committed to waging holy war against the United States. Law-enforcement authorities yesterday said investigators want to know whether the suspects — now awaiting separate murder trials in Virginia — were involved with Jamaat al-Fuqra, a militant Muslim group with documented ties to international terrorism that has been linked to 13 slayings and 17 firebombings in the United States and Canada. The al-Fuqra network, through an offshoot group known as the Muslims of America, has established a...

Al-Fuqra Holy Warriors of Terrorism Introduction For over ten years, a secretive Black Muslim sect in the United States and Canada has sought to carry out a self-declared policy of "jihad," or holy war, by taking violent action against its perceived enemies, generally other minorities or other Muslims with whom they disagree. The sect, known as Al-Fuqra, has been linked by law enforcement officials to terrorist violence in Colorado, Arizona, Pennsylvania, the Pacific-northwest and Canada. Most recently, attention has been focused on the group in connection with a plot to bomb public sites in New York, including the United Nations,...

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Muslim chaplain who counsels inmates in the city's Rikers Island jail has been reassigned because of his ties to a mosque authorities say is linked to al-Qaida fund raising. Amin Awad, who was named president of the board of trustees at Al-Farooq mosque earlier this month, cannot have contact with inmates and has been reassigned to administrative duties, Tom Antenen, a spokesman for the city Department of Correction, said Friday. Awad, who has counseled Rikers inmates since 1998, is one of seven Islamic chaplains in the city's correctional system, Antenen said. The department has 23...

<p>September 16, 2003 -- A federal judge yesterday blocked an attempt by lawyer Lynne Stewart to suppress tapes of her prison visits to the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Stewart, who faces trial next year on charges of fraud, conspiracy and making false statements, claimed the videotapes, as well as audiotapes of telephone calls, were made in violation of her constitutional right to communicate privately with Abdel-Rahman, whom she was representing.</p>

NEW YORK, Oct 04, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- A Manhattan attorney accused of helping a jailed Egyptian cleric direct terrorism will not go on trial until late next year, a judge ruled. U.S. District Judge John Koeltl on Thursday set a trial date of Oct. 7, 2003, for Lynne Stewart and co-defendants Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, a U.S. postal worker. The judge considered setting a Sept. 16, 2003, trial date until Stewart's lawyer objected, arguing it fell too near the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "The risk to a fair trial...

Muslim was rising fast in agency until ex-wife's fraud allegations Gamal Abdel-Hafiz wanted more from life than managing 7-Eleven stores in dangerous neighborhoods around Fort Worth. He yearned for a career in the law, something impressive. His dream was to be an FBI agent. It seemed impossible, but it wasn't. The FBI desperately needed Arabic speakers to work in counterterrorism. A naturalized American from Egypt with a college degree and military experience fit the profile of an almost ideal job candidate. In 1996, Mr. Abdel-Hafiz became perhaps the first immigrant Muslim to earn the badge of a special agent. He...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's parliament rejected a pro-Taliban candidate and chose Zafarullah Khan Jamali, a moderate who has the support of the powerful army, to be the country's prime minister on Thursday as the country lurches toward a return to civilian rule. Jamali's election paved the way for the formation of a coalition government that will bring together the pro-army faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, dissident members of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's party and independent members of parliament. The pro-Taliban candidate, Fazlur Rahman, was a distant second in the race to become prime minister. MORE

Fifteen thousand feet high in Kashmir and armed with a Kalashnikov–that was not how friends thought Jibreel al-Amreekee would end up. All of 19, the restless kid from Atlanta had grown up in a wealthy family attending Ebenezer Baptist Church, the home pulpit of Martin Luther King Jr. A soft-spoken youth with long dreadlocks, al-Amreekee had a passion for sky diving and reading books on the world's religions. One religion that drew his interest was Islam, and while he was at North Carolina Central University, that interest grew into a calling. By 1997, he had converted and was spending his...

A Staten Island mailman who was a follower of the blind terror sheik tracked down confidential addresses of FBI agents and prosecutors pursuing Al Qaeda, according to court records and federal sources. Ahmed Sattar, described by federal prosecutors as a point man for a major terror group in America, was spotted by one federal agent near his home. The agent moved his family from the area.Sattar also was put on the federal payroll, receiving thousands of dollars to be a paralegal for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman during his 1995 terror trial, government officials said.Even though federal investigators became suspicious of...