Free Republic

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A Moroccan accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers received training in encryption techniques at an al Qaeda camp in Iran in 1997, an Iranian defector said on Friday. But his testimony to a German court was promptly undercut by comments from Germany's intelligence services, who questioned his credibility and said his evidence was worth very little. Hamid Reza Zakeri, the cover name of a man who says he worked in Iranian intelligence and defected in 2001, was testifying toward the end of Germany's second major trial of suspected members of al Qaeda's Hamburg cell....

Two chilling videos kept out of sight for decades could be the key to persuading a court next month that Saudi Arabia was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and that victims’ families have amassed enough evidence to continue their years-long legal battle, according to family members of victims. Federal Appeals Court judges in lower Manhattan will hear oral arguments for the first time Oct. 7 that connect the men in those videos to the Saudi government and its intelligence services, as well as the horrific attacks of that day. Both videos involve the same enigmatic figure, Omar al-Bayoumi,...

Iran initiated 9/11 attacks’ 22 January 2004 HAMBURG – The Iranian intelligence service was the initiator of the 11 September 2001 suicide-jet attacks on New York and Washington, according to a defector quoted Thursday by German police at the Hamburg terrorist trial.One Federal Crime Office interrogator said he had taken down a statement in Berlin on Monday from a former Iranian agent who insisted that Iran had employed Saudi radical Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network to carry out the attacks. The defector could not appear himself in court because he had been promised anonymity, two police officers told the trial...

Mzoudi was a liaison to al Qaeda, witness said. A man claiming to be a former Iranian spy testified Friday that Abdelghani Mzoudi, the second man to be tried for an alleged role in the Sept. 11 attacks, was involved in the preparations to hit the World Trade Center. The witness, who goes by the alias Hamid Reza Zakeri, took the stand at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg and claimed that Mzoudi, was "responsible for part of the organization" of the suicide attacks that destroyed the twin towers in New York and damaged the Pentagon. Zakeri testified Mzoudi...

Drudge is giving this banner treatment but I’m not sure why. Of course Al Qaeda is on the brink of a dirty bomb. Their comrades-in-arms in the Taliban are the jihadist proxy of one of the world’s biggest nuclear proliferators, aren’t they? If the filthbags in Pakistani intelligence want Al Qaeda to have nuclear material, they’ll find a way to smuggle some out of the state supply, I’m sure. In fact, according to a new piece in the NYT, Pakistan’s practically swimming in fissile material these days. Never mind the dirty bombs; how long before AQ or Lashkar e-Taiba or...

The 120-nation Nonaligned Movement headed by Iran accused the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday of violating international law by ruling that nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets can be paid to victims of attacks linked to the country. A communiqué issued by the NAM’s Coordinating Bureau follows an Iranian appeal to the United Nations last week to intervene with the U.S. government to prevent the loss of their funds. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the ruling an “outrageous robbery, disguised under a court order.” The NAM, comprising mainly developing countries, called the U.S. waiver of “the sovereign...

NEW YORK — In an historic hearing in the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels said he planned to issue a ruling in the coming days declaring that Iran shares in the responsibility for the 9/11 terror attacks. “The extensive record submitted to this court, including fact witnesses and expert testimony, is satisfactory to this court,” Judge Daniels said. The court “accepts as true” the various allegations of the plaintiffs and their experts, he declared, and “will issue an order” in the coming days that Iran bears legal responsibility for providing “material support” to...

NEW YORK — In an historic hearing in the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels said he planned to issue a ruling in the coming days declaring that Iran shares in the responsibility for the 9/11 terror attacks. “The extensive record submitted to this court, including fact witnesses and expert testimony, is satisfactory to this court,” Judge Daniels said. The court “accepts as true” the various allegations of the plaintiffs and their experts, he declared, and “will issue an order” in the coming days that Iran bears legal responsibility for providing “material support” to...