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Sunni Arab militant groups suspected of ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia have established training camps east of Baghdad that are turning out well-disciplined units willing to fight American forces in set-piece battles, American military commanders said Thursday. American soldiers fought such units in a pitched battle last week in the village of Turki, 25 miles south of this Iraqi Army base in volatile Diyala Province, near the Iranian border. At least 72 insurgents and two American officers were killed in more than 40 hours of fighting. American commanders said they called in 12 hours of airstrikes while soldiers shot...

A website designer was convicted yesterday of stirring up racial hatred during a protest by Muslims over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Mizanur Rahman, of Palmers Green, North London, carried placards that called for non-Muslims to be “annihilated” and “beheaded” as he addressed more than 300 protesters outside the Danish Embassy in London on February 3. Rahman, 23, who wore white robes and a cap throughout the five-day trial, claimed that he had got “carried away” in front of the crowd and said he was a “nobody” whose words no one would take seriously, the Old Bailey was told. The...

A British Muslim who called for the murder of coalition troops in Afghanistan during a demonstration against the Danish cartoons has been convicted of inciting racial hatred. Mizanur Rahman, a website designer, was among 300 people who protested in London against the decision of several European newspapers to publish offensive cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. An Old Bailey jury today found him guilty of stirring up race hate but was unable to reach a verdict on a second charge of incitement to murder. Rahman, 23, who denied both charges, was remanded in custody while the prosecution decide whether there will...

October 21, 2006 Lawyer Convicted in Terror Case Lied on the Stand, a Juror Says By JULIA PRESTON He was known as Juror 8, for the jury box chair where he listened silently for more than six months as the convoluted evidence unfolded in the trial of Lynne F. Stewart, the radical defense lawyer accused of aiding Islamic terrorism. The jurors argued behind closed doors in Federal District Court in Manhattan for another month before they finally agreed to convict Ms. Stewart on all five charges she faced for smuggling messages out of prison from her terrorist client, Sheik Omar...

Afghanistan: ultimatum of the kidnappers of the Italian photographer ROME - the kidnappers of the Italian photographer removed in Afghanistan required Tuesday the return to the country of an Afghan converted with Christianity and refugee into Italy, in exchange of "the life of Gabriele Torsello", in a call with ONG Italian Emergency, according to the Italian site PeaceReporter. The kidnappers gave four days so that their request is satisfied, in a telephone contact with a person in charge for the safety of the hospital of Lashkar Gah (southern of Afghanistan). It is this same person in charge that the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York attorney convicted of aiding terrorism by helping an imprisoned Egyptian client smuggle messages to militant followers was sentenced on Monday to 28 months in prison. Lynne Stewart, 67, was convicted in February 2005 of helping her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, to contact the Islamic Group, which the U.S. government lists as a terrorist organization. Prosecutors said messages Stewart passed on for Abdel-Rahman could have incited violence in Egypt. The sheikh was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to attack U.S. targets in a plot prosecutors said included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Stewart,...

Staten Island Democratic Association's meeting this week featured "guest of honor" criminal defense lawyer Lynne Stewart, a former Islander who is facing charges of terrorism. Ms. Stewart keynote address updated the group on the government's case against her. Ms. Stewart, a former Stapleton resident who graduated from Wagner College, was arrested in 2002 for allegedly providing material support for terrorism, among other charges. New charges have just been filed against Ms. Stewart charging her with conspiracy to commit terrorism by using convicted World Trade Center bomber Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman as "personnel" to carry out her acts. Additionally, she is...

NEW YORK -- Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart was sentenced to 28 months in prison in federal court in Manhattan Monday. She was convicted of providing support to terrorists by helping a jailed Egyptian sheik communicate with his followers on the outside. Before sentencing, her lawyer told the judge that any prison sentence for Stewart would be a death sentence because of her serious health problems. Stewart pleaded with the judge to allow her to live out the rest of her life "productively, lovingly, righteously.'' Assistant US Attorney Andrew Dember rejected defense suggestions that Stewart's conduct was judged differently after9-11. "This case...

The chief of Al-Qaïda in Iraq calls with the removal of Westerners - the chief of the Al-Qaïda branch in Iraq invited his partisans to remove Westerners in this country in order to exchange them against the release of an Egyptian monk held in the United States, in an audio recording put in line Thursday on Internet. "I invite each moujahidine in the country of the two rivers (Iraq) to better do of sound during this blessed month (of the Moslem fast of the Ramadan)", affirmed Abou Hamza Al-Mouhajer. "Can Allah enable us to capture some of the dogs...

The recent train bombings in India have intensified the scrutiny of the Pakistan-based, al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. In particular, one key question is being asked: What role does LET play in the war against Islamofascists and their allies? The al Qaeda-linked Wahhabi group, formed in 1989, has been blamed for a number of attacks on Indian officials and civilians. It was added to the U.S. terrorist list in December 2001. LET’s agenda, as announced in one of their pamphlets and detailed by MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, is to wage jihad with the goal of imposing their narrow version...

INTERVIEW WITH AN AL QAEDA MEMBER On December 10, 2001, the Christian Science Monitor published an interview by Scott Baldauf with a member of the Al Qaeda network. A conversation with an Al Qaeda true believer By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor QUETTA, PAKISTAN The interview, like the US war here, did not start well. "I will say just one word to you: Get out of my face, now!" says Abdul Rehman, an Arab Taliban fighter, from his hospital bed here. Injured last week during the air attacks on Kandahar, Afghanistan, his tone is matter-of-fact,...

What was the relationship between Saddam Hussein's inner circle and Islamic terrorists? A newly released document captured in Iraq, but never before seen by the public, offers glimmers of new insight at the Pentagon's Foreign Military Studies Office Web site. The FMSO is a research and analysis center under the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command. This particular document mentions two men with similar names, each with ties to Pakistani religious schools known as madrassas, Jihad training camps, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This original translation by my translator-colleague, who goes by the nom de guerre of "Sammi," comes from...

BAGHDAD, June 12, 2006 – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died of blast injuries sustained by the coalition bombing of his safe house June 7, coalition officials said today. The officials also said that DNA testing proves that the body is that of the terrorist leader. "We have clear evidence he died of blast injuries," said Army Dr. (Col.) Steve Jones, the command surgeon in Iraq. "There is no evidence to suggest that he was beaten and I have no reason to suspect that happened." Jones and coalition military spokesman Army Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell briefed reporters on the results of the...

Image of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in death released by U.S. military WASHINGTON – When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, was killed today by 500-pound bombs dropped by two F-16 fighter jets on a house north of Baghdad, it was the result of intelligence information gathered, in part, by an elite task force of international special operations forces formed just a month ago with the express purpose of taking him out. The "A-Team" created for the mission drew on the skills and expertise of U.S. Army Green Berets, "Tier 1" of Britain's Special Air Service and the...

Abdul RahmanÂ’s sin of apostasy, which nearly earned him the death penalty, was resolved diplomatically with his expatriation to Italy. But the episode of RahmanÂ’s conversion to Christianity drew many reactions in the Muslim world. I had the opportunity to read hundreds of them in Arab-language forums, with comments coming from all over the world. Life and Death in Words To put it more precisely, I read nearly 400 comments posted on the al-Arabiya website, based in Dubai, and the Arab site of the BBC, where hundreds of [responses] were posted. Glancing through the comments, one can see that...

HAMBURG - Abdul Rahman, the Afghan whose prosecution for converting to Christianity led to worldwide controversy, was judged to be mentally unstable by German officials who interviewed him six years ago, a German news magazine reported Saturday. Defying Afghan Islamist politicians, Kabul officials released Abdul Rahman this week and he was whisked out of the country to asylum in Italy. The account in Der Spiegel backs up the Kabul officials' view that he was not mentally competent to be tried. Der Spiegel said there were accounts going back years of Abdul Rahman being violent and disturbed. In February 2000 he...

The case of Afghan Christian convert Abdul Rahman has attracted worldwide attention. Responding to international pressure, the government in Kabul has promised Rahman's release. But the case demonstrates that human rights continue to be in short supply in the Hindukush region, despite the fall of Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban regime five years ago. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, an elegant Pashtun and a member of the aristocratic Popalzai clan, isn't likely to forget the events of last week anytime soon. Ever since he took office just under four years ago, Karzai has been seen as an unmistakable darling of the West --...

An Afghan court has dismissed case against a man who converted from Islam to Christianity for lack of evidence, an official said Sunday. The court, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, had been under intense international pressure to drop the case against Abdul Rahman, who faced a possible death sentence for his public conversion. Some Islamic clerics had called for his execution, saying Rahman would face danger from his countrymen if he were released. On Sunday, he was moved to a notorious maximum-security prison outside Kabul that is also home to hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida militants. The move to Policharki...

Breaking news from the Free Associative Press: KABUL March 25, 2006 (FAP) — In a turn of events that some observers are describing as “unexpected,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai today claimed resolution of what had seemed a dangerous and developing crisis concerning the fate of Abdul Rahman, a former Muslim who had been set to stand trial on the potentially capital charge of converting to Christianity. “Today,” announced Karzai, “I have declared that Afghanistan is now officially a Christian country. Therefore, it can be clear that there is no more problem for Mr. Rahman. ” Specifically, Karzai is declaring the...

A judge in Afghanistan said today that Abdul Rahman, the man charged with converting to Christianity, would face the death penalty, or worse, if convicted of the crime. “We could behead him and then throw the book at him,” said the judge presiding over the case, raising the specter that the punishment could include intentional abuse and damage to Mr. Rahman’s copy of the Bible. The threat to the Bible comes as retribution for reported incidents of Koran desecration last year by Americans at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility. Those allegations sparked deadly Muslim riots worldwide. Meanwhile, state governors...