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BOSTON - A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday. But their plans — in which the men used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the...

MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES - There are so many links between the Abu Sayyaf Group of the Philippines, which beheaded an American hostage a few months ago, and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network, that on paper they look like the route map for a Peshawar-based airline. The links run from that high, bleak border city in Pakistan to terrorist dens in Afghanistan and Yemen; to murders and bombings in the Philippines; to the first attack on the World Trade Center; to a foiled attempt to assassinate the pope during a 1995 visit to Manila. A captured Abu Sayyaf guerrilla, ...

Abu Sabaya still alive, says priest ABU SABAYA is alive. He was sighted a day after Malacañang trumpeted his demise in June throwing a party in Tuburan municipality in Basilan province. He had good reason to celebrate: He is "alive and the group is intact." Fr. Cirilo Nacorda made this disclosure Thursday to the INQUIRER before he spoke before the Rotary Club of Manila at the Manila Hotel. During the open forum following his speech, Nacorda, who’s the parish priest of St. Peter Parish in Lamitan, Basilan, repeated that Sabaya was alive. Nacorda said that Sabaya’s group was "possibly"...

Rumors persist that Abu Sayyaf leader, believed killed in clash at sea, still alive MANILA, Philippines, Aug 01, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- A top Philippine general says he'll bet a month's salary that a notorious Muslim guerrilla leader died in a bloody sea skirmish six weeks ago. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo says she's convinced, too. Even so, rumors persist that Sabaya - blamed for leading a yearlong kidnapping spree that left two Americans and 18 Filipinos dead - survived. Some say he is still with the Abu Sayyaf, a criminal Islamic gang linked to the al-Qaida terror...

President Bush hugs Oreta Burnham, mother of slain missionary Martin Burnham, during a meeting with Gracia Burnham, second right, and her family in the Oval Office of the White House Wednesday, July 24, 2002. Missionaries from Kansas, Gracia Burnham and her husband, Martin, were held captive by Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the Philippines for more than a year before Mr. Burnham was killed during their rescue in June. Accompanying Gracia Burnham were her parents and children, Melinda Joy, 12, far left, Jeffrey Paul, 15, far right. (AP Photo/Paul Morse, White House) Abu Sayyaf must pay for my husband's death...

WASHINGTON – The United States Tuesday charged leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Filipino guerrilla group Abu Sayyaf in the kidnappings of three US nationals that led to the deaths of two of them. The federal charges against five suspected guerrilla leaders were announced by Larry Thompson, the deputy US attorney general, and built on an indictment filed by a federal grand jury in February. "The indictment charges the five named defendants with conspiracy resulting in death, hostage-taking and three counts of hostage-taking resulting in death," Thompson said. Martin and Gracia Burnham, missionaries from Kansas who had lived in the Philippines...

Macapagal calls off search for Sabaya body PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Wednesday ordered troops to 'call-off' the search for Abu Sabaya's body, saying they should concentrate on the manhunt for Abu Sayyaf leaders who are still alive. "The 50 thousand-peso reward is there for the fishermen to look for him and if the Navy seals of the US will be made available, then let's have a smaller unit of ours so it's not all being done by the Americans alone," Ms Macapagal said in a speech aired over the state-owned Radyo ng Bayan. "But I think the bulk of...

'Dead' Abu Sayyaf leader seen on Basilan Mounting doubts over Friday's reported killing of Abu Sabaya by Philippines special forces as body is still not found MANILA - Scepticism deepened yesterday over reports that Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Sabaya was killed in a clash with troops, as a military search for his body entered the third day. Mounting doubts were aired in the local media and coincided with a reported sighting in the southern town of Maluso on Basilan island, a known stronghold of the Al-Qaeda-linked group. A military source claimed the bandit - who has a US$5-million (S$8.9...

ZAMBOANGA CITY -- Abu Sabaya ordered his men to shoot dead American hostage Martin Burnham if soldiers got too close, a captured Abu Sayyaf bandit was quoted on Sunday as saying. Toto Aluk, also known as "Ayub," was shown on videotape taken by the military saying that Sabaya, the Abu Sayyaf spokesperson who was believed killed in a gun battle on Friday, issued the order to kill Martin Burnham. The US missionary, who was seized at Palawan’s Dos Palmas Resort and held hostage for about a year, was killed in a military rescue operation in Sirawai, Zamboanga del Norte,...

ZAMBOANGA CITY - A three-engine speedboat that Abu Sayyaf spokesperson Abu Sabaya had used to seize American hostages in Palawan was the same boat that government forces used Friday to pursue and "kill" him off the coast of Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte. The Philippine Navy recovered the speedboat last year in Cagayan de Tawi-Tawi, a transit point for the bandits who proceeded to Basilan from Puerto Princesa, Palawan, after seizing 20 hostages, including American couple Gracia and Martin Burnham. Maj. Gen. Ernesto Carolina, chief of the military's Southern Command, said he was sure that Sabaya was dead. "I don't...

AND NOW there are only nine. The number of Abu Sayyaf bandits, who guarded Martin and Gracia Burnham and Ediborah Yap in Sirawai, Zamboanga del Norte, has dropped to less than 10 following the capture of an alleged bodyguard of Abu Sabaya, Abu Sayyaf’s spokesperson. Basir Ordoñez was captured in Barangay Culasian, a half kilometer from the site of Friday’s encounter that resulted in the deaths of hostages Martin Burnham and Ediborah Yap, police announced Tuesday. Senior Supt. Leonardo Espina, national police spokesperson, said elements of the 6th Scout Rangers Company arrested Ordoñez Tuesday morning. No firearm was recovered...

ZAMBOANGA – A wounded Filipino soldier recalled Saturday a heartrending sight of two US missionary hostages he found moments after a battle with Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines. Gracia Burnham, wearing a black sweatshirt and gray trainer pants, sat slumped on the forest floor beside a hammock amid heavy rain, crying silently beside her dead husband Martin Burnham. "Martin lay prone beside her," Army Scout Ranger Rodelio Tuazon told AFP beside his hospital bed here, recalling Friday's bloody military operation near the town of Sirawai. "She knew he was dead." He recalled the woman asking "if we got...