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A one-time associate of Osama Bin Laden died in New York on Friday while awaiting trial for allegedly plotting the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Abu Anas al-Libi, 50, was captured in Libya by U.S. commandos in Oct. 2013 and brought to New York where he was due to stand trial. He had been wanted for more than a decade and there was a $5 million reward for his arrest. Al-Libi had pleaded not guilty. The al Qaeda terror suspect has been in poor health and suffered liver disease as a result of hepatitis C, according...

And so the reckoning begins. Only hours after a special task force concluded on Wednesday that “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” may have contributed to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, the State Department’s security chief resigned and three other officials were relieved of their duties. What was lacking in the report, however, was any sense of who was responsible farther up the chain. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Accountability Review Board—chaired by retired Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering and vice chaired by another national-security heavyweight, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael...

THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation. Al-Libbi’s arrest in Pakistan, announced last Wednesday, was described in the United States as “a major breakthrough” in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Bush called him a “top general” and “a major facilitator and chief planner for...

Hi everyone – apologies for the hiatus. I’ve been underwater lately with work and hitting the media circuit so the blog drew the short end of the stick. I’m back in the saddle and have some exciting things in the pipeline that should break soon. While you wait, here’s a long-overdue round-up of my recent antics:

It is rare to get an insider's perspective on the emergence of al-Qaeda. It is also rare to get a glimpse of the world of spies and agents. To provide both is incredibly unusual. Omar Nasiri - not his real name but one chosen to protect his identity - says he spent seven years working as an agent for European intelligence services and as an al-Qaeda operative, part of the time in the UK. He provides a unique insight into how al-Qaeda was far more organised, coherent and determined in the 1990s than was appreciated at the time. Jihad militants...

A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night. The claim was made by Omar Nasiri, a pseudonym for a Moroccan who says he spent seven years working for European security and intelligence agencies, including MI5. He said Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran training camps in Afghanistan, told his US interrogators that al-Qaida had been training Iraqis. Libi was captured in November 2001 and taken to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured. Asked on BBC2's Newsnight whether Libi or...

PESHAWAR, Aug 18: A son-in-law of Al Qaeda No 2 Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri is believed to be the mastermind of the plot to blow up transatlantic flights and he met one or some of the plotters at a place close to the Pakistan-Afghan border, credible sources told Dawn. “The mastermind in the planes bombing plot is Zawahiri’s son-in-law,” said the sources who did not want to be named. “He is the guy being looked for,” they added. Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant is known to have several sons-in-law. One of them was reported to have been killed in a...

Pakistani security sources said yesterday that al-Qaida's "number three" was behind the alleged plot to blow up several transatlantic flights leaving the UK. They also suggested Britain wanted to allow the plotters to try a dry run, without explosives, so as to gather more evidence, but was persuaded to intervene earlier by US and Pakistani authorities. British detectives are in Islamabad working with the Pakistani security services with regard to Rashid Rauf, the Briton held in connection with the alleged plot. No decision has been made as to whether he will be extradited to Britain. Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who after...

PESHAWAR: Ayman Al-Zawahri met his deputy last year at a house hit in a recent US missile strike in Damadola village of Bajaur Agency, Pakistani intelligence officials said on Saturday. Zawahri, the apparent target of the January 13 attack, met his deputy, Abu Farraj al-Libbi, in Damadola early last year, a security official said on condition of anonymity, adding that Libbi told Pakistani interrogators of the meeting after his capture in May 2005. US and Pakistani intelligence began monitoring Bakhtpur Khan ’s home after the Libbi confession.

Every year, as we enter a New Year, my mind goes back to Daniel Pearl, the Mumbai-based American correspondent of Wall Street Journal, who met with a brutal end to his young life during a visit to Karachi in January 2002 to enquire, inter alia, into the suspected Pakistani links of international jihadi terrorists. In his keenness to find out the truth, Pearl fell into a treacherous trap laid by a mixed group of Pakistani terrorists belonging to different organisations and orchestrated by Omar Sheikh, a British resident of Pakistani origin, who had participated in the so-called jihad against the...

THE MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE Special Dispatch Series - No. 1054 December 22, 2005 No.1054 New Al-Qaeda Film With Sermon by Escaped Sheikh & Footage of Children's Weapons Training – Now on Islamist Websites In an Al-Qaeda sermon marking the recent 'Id Al-Fitr holiday, Sheikh Abu Yahya Al-Libbi, who escaped Bagram prison earlier this year [1], told his audience that "America's nose will be rubbed in the mud" and "Palestine is occupied by the offspring of apes and pigs." The film was posted on Islamist websites in December 2005. TO VIEW THIS CLIP, VISIT: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=970. The film also includes...

Asharq al Awsat, London- One of four prisoners who escaped from Bagram airbase, north of the Afghan capital Kabul, in July, warned that militants would “sully the United State’s pride in the sand”, in a statement posted on the internet. Yahya al Libbi, whose real name is Mohammad Hassan Qayid, indicated in a 20 minute videotape message entitled “The sermon of Eid al Fitr”, marking the end of Ramadan, which fell on 4 November this year, “We will humiliate the United States. Either we live proudly or our fate will be to enter paradise”. “Signs of victory can be seen...

ABC News is reporting that Current and former CIA officers speaking to ABC News on the condition of confidentiality say the United States scrambled to get all the suspects off European soil before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there today. The officers say 11 top al Qaeda suspects have now been moved to a new CIA facility in the North African desert. The disgrunted intelligence officers even disclosed an actual list of 12 high-value targets allegedly held by the CIA, and ABC is reporting it : Abu Zubaydah: Held first in Thailand then Poland Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi: Held in...

Pakistan says there will not be an early handover to the United States of the recently captured Libyan al-Qaeda suspect, Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said that Libbi would remain in Pakistani custody until "all issues are cleared". Mr Kasuri said that Pakistan had a "very strong vested interest" in any handover because he is suspected of attempts on President Musharraf's life. Libbi was arrested earlier this month in north-western Pakistan. Pakistan and the US have described Libbi as the number three in al-Qaeda. Security analysts say his status is hard to confirm. On the move "Pakistan has...

Law enforcement has a term for the period after a crisis when things revert to norm -- condition white. Well, the American people are just about there, three-and-a-half years after the 9/11 attacks. But as the media obsess over Michael Jackson's favorite lubricants and Paula Abdul's dalliances with idol wannabes, al-Qaida is "very active" recruiting and planning to attack the United States again. "As months and years pass," Vice President Dick Cheney warns, "they are hoping that our country will grow complacent" and forget the horror of 9/11. And they're getting their wish, judging from the picayune issues that are...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Key US ally Pakistan has handed over alleged top Al-Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi to Washington after he gave information on terror cells in other countries, officials and security sources said. Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani confirmed a reported statement by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf in a United Arab Emirates newspaper on Monday that the terror network's alleged number three had been deported. Al-Qaeda terrorist network's alleged top operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Key US ally Pakistan has handed over al-Libbi to Washington(AFP/INTERIOR MINISTRY/HO/File) "The president made a statement to this effect. The president's statement was self-explanatory,"...

In another show of support in the war on terror, Pakistan will send top al Qaeda terrorist suspect Abu Farraj al-Libbi to the United States, according to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Al-Libbi's extradition to the United States will send a clear message that the war on terror is not a unilateral war, but one in which several nations are working together to eradicate this evil. U.S. counterterrorism officials rank Abu Farraj al-Libbi as Osama bin Laden's No. 3 man. The Libyan born terrorist, who was captured by Pakistan on May 2, has been a suspect in two attempts on the...

A senior al-Qaeda suspect captured in Pakistan is to be deported to the US after he revealed little useful information about Osama bin Laden. Abu Faraj al-Libbi, thought to have had direct contact with Bin Laden, may already have left Pakistan for the US, President Pervez Musharraf revealed. Libbi, a Libyan also suspected of twice trying to kill Mr Musharraf, will now face fresh interrogation in the US. Libbi was arrested following a gunfight in Karachi on 2 May. Speaking to a conference organised by CNN, Mr Musharraf indicated that he was unsure whether Libbi remained in Pakistani custody. He...

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's president said Tuesday he will hand over senior al-Qaida terrorist suspect Abu Farraj al-Libbi to the United States for prosecution, even though the man is believed behind two assassination attempts against him and could have received the death penalty here. ADVERTISEMENT President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said al-Libbi was cooperating but had not provided any useful information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, and that Pakistan has no interest in keeping him. "We deport al-Qaida suspects to the United States," Musharraf told a CNN conference in Atlanta,...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Senior al-Qaida militant Abu Faraj al-Libbi will be handed over to the United States for prosecution, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday, ending speculation the military ruler would seek to try the Libyan-born terror suspect here for two assassination attempts. "We are obviously going to deport him," Musharraf said during an interview on CNN, referring to al-Libbi. "We don't want him in Pakistan." He said al-Libbi, believed to be a close confidant of Osama bin Laden and described by U.S. officials as the terror network's No. 3 operative, did not provide any leads on bin Laden's whereabouts...