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By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 13, 2005; 2:09 PM CHICAGO, July 13 -- Bomb investigators in Princeton, Ill., are searching a Ford van seized from an Iowa man who allegedly discussed explosives, the president and a possible trip to Washington, D.C., on his Citizens Band radio early today. No explosives had been found by this afternoon.

At least two people were killed in a car bomb blast which wounded Lebanon's pro-Syrian Defence Minister Elias Murr outside Beirut on Tuesday, state televsion said. Besides Murr, nine other people were wounded in the attack, according to initial figures from emergency services. Police said earlier that the blast had caused deaths but did not say how many had been killed or wounded. They said that the minister was lightly wounded while he was driving in his car in the Naccache region, close to Antelias in the Christian suburbs around 10 kilometres (miles) north of Beirut. Murr, the son-in-law of...

"In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars."  U.S. government "Summary of Evidence" for an Iraqi member of al Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay, CubaFOR MANY, the debate over the former Iraqi regime's ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ended a year ago with the release of the 9/11 Commission report. Media outlets seized on a carefully worded summary that the commission had found no evidence "indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or...

Two key witnesses in the terror attack probe were found with a computer file labeled "killpresidentbush.exe" and documents linked to a money launderer for Osama Bin Laden, sources told the Daily News. The witnesses were identified as Saudi nationals who tried to board a flight from Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles two days after the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack, a source familiar with the federal investigation confirmed. Their names remain secret. The two are among a group of 10 material witnesses now in custody in the FBI's probe of the attack on the World Trade Center and the ...

Israeli President Moshe Katsav has warned that right-wing nationalists could attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Mr Katsav warned that the vocal opposition of pro-settler rabbis to Israel's Gaza pullout plan could incite extremists to take "dramatic measures." Settler leaders have issued a code of conduct to deter their supporters from violent acts during the withdrawal. The code was launched after violence erupted at settler protests last week. Israeli police arrested a number of Jewish settlers during the clashes in the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. During the violence, militant Jews stoned a Palestinian youth in what an Israeli general...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish police shot dead a suspected suicide bomber near Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's office in Ankara on Friday. Turkish television showed live footage of police shooting at the man, said to be around 35 years old, in a street in the leafy central district of the capital. A Reuters correspondent saw the man lying dead in a pool of blood. Witnesses said the suspected bomber had been unable to detonate his explosives. The incident revived memories of four devastating suicide bomb attacks in Turkey's largest city Istanbul in November 2003. More than 60 people were killed in...

Amnesty International said U.S. authorities arrested a Saudi on charges of attempting to assassinate President George W. Bush. The Saudi daily al-Watan Monday quoted Sharon Craytobel, Amnesty International researcher in North America, as saying the human rights watchdog is concerned about the fate of the Saudi man, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen. "The U.S. government included the name of the Saudi on a list of wanted people after he made statements during a visit to Saudi Arabia which were considered as terrorist inspired," Craytobel said. She said the suspect, who was not identified, will be tried soon in the...

Italy probes possible CIA role in abduction By John Crewdson (Chicago) Tribune senior correspondent An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparent kidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in the streets of Milan served military authorities this week with a demand for records of flights into and out of a joint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy. Italian newspapers have reported that the prosecutor, Armando Spataro, is investigating the possible role of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the disappearance of Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan, better known as Abu Omar, a popular figure in Milan's Islamic community who vanished Feb. 17, 2003....

Georgian TV Says Russian Soldier Held Over Grenade Attack on Bush MosNews Georgian authorities may accuse a Russian military servicemen of throwing a hand grenade at U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit to Tbilisi on May 10, Georgian TV station Rustavi-2 reported. Georgian and U.S. investigators brought to a conclusion the criminal case launched in connection with the attack. Although they have not commented on the case, two theories have emerged. According to the first theory, the counter-intelligence service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has a photograph of the suspect. Law enforcers are searching for him and...

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan intelligence agents scuttled a plot to assassinate outspoken U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, swooping down on a station wagon carrying three Pakistanis armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, officials said Monday. The arrests came days after President Hamid Karzai and U.S. officials warned that foreign fighters were slipping into Afghanistan to cause mayhem ahead of parliamentary elections. The men, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, were arrested Sunday in the Qarghayi district of northeastern Laghman province, just 150 feet from where Khalilzad had planned to inaugurate a road with Afghanistan's interior minister, two senior Afghan officials...

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan security forces have arrested three Pakistanis for allegedly planning to assassinate the U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington's future envoy to Iraq, an Afghan government official said on Monday. The Pakistanis, who were suspected of being linked to a Pakistani Islamic militant group, were arrested in the eastern province of Laghman on Saturday, the day before Khalilzad made a visit there, said the official, who declined to be identified. "They admitted they were there to try to get Khalilzad," he said. Afghanistan's presidential palace provided Reuters with a videotape showing three young men who identified themselves as...

DATE=06/20/2005 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=AFGHANISTAN/ASSASSINATION PLOT (L-O) NUMBER=2-325392 BYLINE=BENJAMIN SAND DATELINE=ISLAMABAD CONTENT= HEADLINE: Afghanistan Arrests Pakistanis in Alleged Plot to Kill US Ambassador INTRO: Afghan officials have arrested three Pakistani men they say were plotting to assassinate the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. The arrests come just hours after the U.S. military announced that increasing numbers of foreign militants have entered Afghanistan, apparently to help Taleban insurgents fight the central government. VOA's Benjamin Sand reports from Islamabad. TEXT: Afghan authorities said the three men were captured in eastern Laghman province on Sunday, one day before U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was due to...

WASHINGTON, June 9 - The United States has received "credible information" that Syrian operatives in Lebanon plan to try to assassinate senior Lebanese political leaders and that Syrian military intelligence forces are returning to Lebanon to create "an environment of intimidation," a senior administration official said Thursday. The official said that the information had come from "a variety of Lebanese sources" and that "we assess it as credible." The information, he said, was gathered after the recent assassinations of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February, and of Samir Kassir, a well-known journalist, a week ago. Both were outspoken critics...

Tin SoldierAn American Vigilante In Afghanistan, Using the Press for Profit and Glory By Mariah Blake In April 2004, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema started shopping a sizzling story to the media. He claimed terrorists in Afghanistan planned to use bomb-laden taxicabs to kill key U.S. and Afghan officials, and that he himself intended to thwart the attack. Shortly thereafter, he headed to Afghanistan, where he spent the next two months conducting a series of raids with his team, which he called Task Force Saber 7. By late June, he claimed to have captured the...

<p>In the year since Saddam Hussein was deposed, insurgents have killed nine former Iraqi weapons officials. All had been questioned by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG); at least two had been cooperating with it. Last October, ISG head David Kay said that one scientist was killed because "he was engaged in discussions with us." The most recent victim was Majid Hussein Ali, a well-known nuclear scientist. He took two bullets to the back in February.</p>

TBILISI, Georgia -- A grenade hurled into a crowd during last week's speech by U.S. President George W. Bush in the Georgian capital was live and considered a threat, though it failed to explode because of a malfunction, the FBI said yesterday. Georgian officials initially said the Soviet-era grenade was inactive. But FBI agent Bryan Paarmann said that the grenade, wrapped in a dark handkerchief, fell about 30 metres from the podium where Bush was speaking.

WASHINGTON -- A hand grenade that landed within 100 feet of President Bush during his visit last week to a former Soviet republic was a threat to his life and the safety of the tens of thousands in the crowd, the FBI said Wednesday. The grenade was live but did not explode. The White House, which initially said Bush never was in danger, said the incident May 10 in the Georgia capital has led to a review of security at presidential events. FBI agents are still investigating in Tbilisi, where tens of thousands of people heard Bush speak in strong...

TBILISI (Reuters) - A grenade thrown toward President Bush during a visit to Georgia last week was a threat to the American leader and only failed to explode because of a malfunction, the FBI said on Wednesday. In a statement, a Federal Bureau of Investigation official at the U.S. embassy said the grenade, thrown while Bush made a keynote speech in Tbilisi's Freedom Square on May 10, had been live and landed within 100 feet (30 meters ) of the president. "While the president ... was making his remarks on Freedom Square, a hand grenade was tossed in the general...

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- The FBI said Wednesday that a grenade thrown in the crowd during last week's speech by President Bush in the Georgian capital was capable of exploding and was considered a threat against the president. The statement by agent Bryan Paarmann contradicted initial reports by Georgian officials that the grenade was not capable of exploding and had been found on the ground. The grenade, wrapped in a dark handkerchief, fell about 100 feet from the podium where Bush was speaking May 10 and "simply failed to function," he said. "We consider this act to be a threat...

TBILISI, Georgia, May 11 -- A grenade found near the platform where President Bush addressed a large crowd here Tuesday was incapable of exploding and had not been thrown, as earlier reported, Georgia's security chief said Wednesday. Gela Bezhuashvili, secretary of the National Security Council, said the Soviet-era grenade was found in "inactive mode" about 100 feet from the platform. Bush was not aware of the grenade report until Secret Service agents told him about it aboard his jet as it was returning to Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, press secretary Scott McClellan said, adding that the White...