Free Republic

The US warned Britain that it was prepared to seize the key suspect in the UK's biggest ever anti-terrorism operation and fly him to a secret detention centre for interrogation by American agents, even if this meant riding roughshod over its closest ally, The Observer can reveal. American intelligence agents told their British counterparts they were ready to 'render' Rashid Rauf, a British citizen allegedly linked to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and who was under surveillance in Pakistan, unless he was picked up immediately. Rauf is the key suspect in the alleged plot to detonate explosives on up to 10 transatlantic...

LONDON, Aug 24: British police investigating a suspected plot to blow up transatlantic airliners freed two suspects on Wednesday and obtained permission to continue questioning nine others. Police had charged 11 people on Tuesday in the suspected plot and had been holding 11 others pending a decision on whether to charge them. They did not name the men they freed on Wednesday, but Sky News reported that one was Tayib Rauf of Birmingham, Britain’s second city. His brother Rashid Rauf has been arrested in Pakistan. Police later said they had obtained a judge’s permission to continue questioning eight of the...

"The converts are seen as the most extreme, and they're seen as the most extreme even by other Muslims who may not come from the U.K. Which is really worrying," said Anthony Glees, director of the Brunel University Center for Intelligence and Security Studies in West London. The growing number of homegrown converts in the ranks of militant Islam in Britain is raising troubling new questions not only about what it means to be British, but whether new Muslims must choose between family and faith across what many see as a yawning divide between civilizations. Britain now has perhaps 50,000...

London, Aug 20: Rashid Rauf, regarded as one of the prime suspects in the terror plot to blow up the US-bound planes from Britain, may be the pivotal figure linking senior al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan to the alleged plotters. Rauf, arrested in Pakistan, was the Pakistani equivalent to the Avon Lady. A successful cosmetics salesman who traveled frequently on business, Rauf was above suspicion in his middle-class neighbourhood, 'The Sunday Times' said in a report today. According to the report, the man now considered one of the prime suspects in the plot, moved into a smart area of Bahawalpur in...

by Mark Finkelstein August 18, 2006 - 07:42 If not quite from the grave, the decision by one of Jimmy Carter's judicial appointees, striking down the NSA terrorist surveillance program, was an unwelcome blast from past. Call it Carter's Revenge. Malaise Redux. The spirit of Desert One lives. That this was a political decision more than a legal one is evidenced by the intemperate language of the decision itself: "“There are no hereditary kings in America," harumphed Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit, in a case filed by the ACLU. Naturally, the NY Times...

ONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States. A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case. In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack...

PRAGUE, August 10, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The British authorities are in no doubt -- after an operation lasting several months, the security services have foiled an imminent terrorist attack. British Home Secretary John Reid said the security services had raised the threat level from "severe" to "critical," the highest possible level, which, according to the website of MI5, the British Security Service, means an attack is expected soon. "The police, with the full knowledge of ministers, have carried out a major counterterrorism operation to disrupt what we believe to be a major threat to the United Kingdom and international partners,"...