Free Republic

A British citizen has been arrested on suspicion of being involved in a plot to smuggle surface-to-air missiles into the United States, ABCNEWS has learned. The man was arrested in Newark, N.J., this morning as part of an international sting pulled off by the FBI, British and Russian authorities. Other arrests are under way. The person arrested allegedly sought to smuggle a Russian-made surface-to-air missile into the country and believed he was selling missiles to would-be terrorists, sources said. The name of the person has not been disclosed

London, September 11: British police thwarted an al-Qaeda plot to assassinate Prime Minister Tony Blair during celebrations to mark Queen Elizabeth's 50 years on the throne, according to the former London police chief. Ex-Metropolitan Police commissioner John Stevens, who was Britain's most senior officer, said officers had learned that al-Qaeda snipers intended to kill Blair and his wife Cherie in front of a major parade through the capital in June 2002. In extracts of his new autobiography serialised in Sunday's News of the World newspaper, Stevens, who retired in January, said the plot was foiled after a huge covert operation...

McLEAN, Va. (AP) - A man accused of plotting to assassinate President Bush was indicted Thursday on additional charges that could bring life in prison, and prosecutors now say he also planned to establish an al-Qaida cell in the United States. Prosecutors say Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, of Falls Church joined al-Qaida in 2002 while studying in Saudi Arabia and that he discussed possible terrorist operations, including a plot to kill Bush either by shooting or by a suicide bombing.Prosecutors also allege Abu Ali discussed plans to assassinate members of Congress and to hijack aircraft and fly them into...

Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson prompted a firestorm of media outrage on Tuesday after he suggested that the Bush administration should assassinate a foreign leader who posed a threat to the U.S. - in this case, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But when senior Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the same kind of assassination policy in 1997, the press voiced no objection at all. Fresh from his influential White House post, Stephanopoulos devoted an entire column in Newsweek to the topic of whether the U.S. should take out Saddam Hussein. His headlined? "Why We Should Kill Saddam." "Assassination may...

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Georgian police working with the FBI discovered dangerous substances in the house of the suspect who admitted throwing a live grenade toward President Bush at a rally in Tbilisi in May, officials said Wednesday. Sergo Dzagnidze, chief of the criminal police department at the Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that 5 gallons of sulfuric acid, several boxes of mercury thermometers, a centrifuge, a microscope and other devices and dangerous chemicals were found in the cellar. The suspect, Vladimir Arutyunian, was detained last week after a police shootout. He was charged Tuesday with terrorism over the...

Former Ghanaian President Denies Murder Allegations Carrie Giardino Abidjan 12 Feb 2004, 21:36 UTC AP Former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings has denied allegations he was involved in the abduction and murders of three high court judges and a retired army officer while he was in office. This is the first time Mr. Rawlings has appeared before Ghana's reconciliation commission to testify about the murder of three judges and an army officer back in 1982. He was specifically called before the commission to testify about the existence of taped confessions made by the convicted murderers. Of the five men who were...

TBILISI, Georgia — A man who confessed to throwing a live grenade toward President Bush during a rally in Georgia intended its shrapnel to hit the area where the president and others were standing, the suspect said video footage broadcast Saturday. "I threw the grenade, not directly at where there was bulletproof glass, but toward the heads ... so that the shrapnel would fly behind the bulletproof glass, you understand?" Vladimir Arutyunian said. Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili (search) were on a podium protected with bulletproof glass at a massive rally in Tbilisi in May when the grenade was...

Dow Jones Report

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi said he had escaped an attempt on his life during a recent visit to Lebanon. Members of the Lebanese Shiite movement Amal helped foil the attack, Allawi said at a joint press conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, although he did not say how or when it occurred. "I must thank my brothers from the Amal movement, especially the intelligence services that thwarted the attack. I owe them a lot," said Allawi, who frequently travels to Lebanon.

An Iowa man with white supremacist leanings was arrested after he told truck drivers over "citizens' band" radio that he was planning to set off a bomb in Washington, police said. Terry Daniels, 44, was found at a roadside gas station about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Chicago at 3:45 a.m. after truck drivers called police with his license plate number and a description of which direction his blue Ford van was heading. "We didn't find any explosives," Princeton, Illinois police chief Tom Root said. "We found a lot of documents like anti-government stuff and white supremacist stuff. There...

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...