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Problematic, in a very big way even if the offer was made.Qatar’s ties to Al Qaeda and ISIS aren’t news. They’ve effectively served as intermediaries in everything from ransom exchanges for hostages to Taliban negotiations. But actually trying to secure terrorist swaps for prisoners on their own behalf would have been a new frontier. Before he was released from a U.S. maximum-security prison last week, a confessed al Qaeda sleeper agent was offered up in a potential prisoner swap that would have freed two Americans held abroad.According to two individuals with direct knowledge of the case, the proposition was...

WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors plan to move an alleged al-Qaida sleeper agent out of a Navy brig in South Carolina and send him to federal court in Illinois to face trial. Two people familiar with the case of Qatar native Ali al-Marri said Thursday the government plans to transfer him to the civilian court system. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because it's a pending criminal case. The transfer could avert a Supreme Court hearing in April and a subsequent ruling that would govern other cases against accused terrorists. To justify holding al-Marri, the Bush administration claimed the...

Poachers kill 300 Zimbabwe elephants with cyanide • Cyanide has been used to kill 300 elephants in Zimbabwe's biggest nature reserve - three times the original estimate - as new photos show the scale of the slaughter Poachers in Zimbabwe have killed more than 300 elephants and countless other safari animals by cyanide poisoning, The Telegraph has learned. The full extent of the devastation wreaked in Hwange, the country's largest national park, has been revealed by legitimate hunters who discovered what conservationists say is the worst single massacre in southern Africa for 25 years. Pictures taken by the hunters, which...

HOMELAND INSECURITY Feds probe poison-gas plot Suspects nabbed with stockpile of cyanide, weapons cache -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: December 2, 2003 5:16 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com The discovery of a sodium cyanide bomb, a stockpile of components needed to make other chemical weapons and a cache of illegal arms has led to the arrests of three suspected domestic terrorists and prompted a nationwide hunt for possible co-conspirators who could be plotting a mass-casualty attack somewhere in the United States. KTVT-TV, the CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, reports federal agents have served hundreds of subpoenas across the country in the counterterrorism...

TYLER - Three people face sentencing as early as next month for their involvement in the stockpiling of chemical weapons in East Texas, which some authorities believe may have been part of a domestic terrorism plot. William Krar, 62, of Noonday, pleaded guilty in November to one count of possessing a dangerous chemical weapon after investigators discovered the components needed to make lethal cyanide gas at a storage facility he rented with his common-law wife, Judith Bruey. Bruey, 54, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess illegal weapons. Edward Feltus, 56, of New Jersey, has pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting...

Last month, Senator Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of their final report investigating the CIA's controversial detention and interrogation program. As part of their study, the Democrats compiled twenty case studies, which were intended to address claims made by the CIA regarding the efficacy of its interrogations. One of those case studies focused on the identification and arrest of Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, who was freed from a US prison just days ago. Al Marri served as a "sleeper" operative for al Qaeda inside the US in 2001....

Peoria, Ill. - A federal judge sentenced an Al Qaeda "sleeper" agent to eight years in prison Thursday -- about half the time prosecutors had requested -- because the agent received what the judge called "unacceptable" treatment in a U.S. Navy brig. U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm could have sentenced Ali Marri to as much as 15 years. Prosecutors had endorsed that, presenting testimony that he remained a threat. But Mihm handed down the lighter sentence of eight years and four months in consideration of what he called "very severe" conditions under which Marri was kept during the almost six...

NEW YORK — U.S. officials received intelligence that Al Qaeda operatives had been 45 days away from releasing a deadly gas into the city's subways when the plan was called off by Usama bin Laden's deputy in 2003, according to a book excerpt released Sunday on Time magazine's Web site. According to the investigative report by Ron Suskind, an informant close to Al Qaeda leaders told U.S. officials that Ayman al-Zawahiri had canceled the plan in January 2003, despite the likelihood that the strike would have killed as many people as the Sept. 11 attacks. The informant said the operatives...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is warning police that terrorists could construct a simple but deadly chemical weapon out of materials readily available. "Little or no training is required to assemble and deploy such a device due to its simplicity," the FBI said Wednesday in its weekly intelligence bulletin to about 18,000 law enforcement agencies. The bulletin provides no details of a specific threat or possible location of an attack. It does say that terrorists could take advantage of building ventilation systems, air intakes or enclosed areas to disperse toxic chemical gas. Law enforcement officials previously have warned that al-Qaida...

On page 40 of document ISGQ-2003-00000847 there is an October 2002 document where there is a request submitted by Zoo Al Fikar Military factory to the “Iraqi Directorate of Planning and Follow up” for 500 Kilograms of SODIUM CYANIDE (NaCN), 15 tones of HYDROCHLORIC ACID ( HCL), and 30 tones of SULFURIC ACID (H2SO4). Sodium Cyanide is an important precursor to produce a Chemical Weapon called HYDROGEN CYANIDE (HCN) also known as ZYCLON B and the use of Sodium Cyanide with Hydrochloric acid or Sulfuric Acid will produce this Chemical Weapon. Although Sodium Cyanide can be used for other military...

Recent reports outlining what Time magazine has called the "untold story" of a cancelled al Qaeda plot against the New York subway system have excited considerable media hype and public consternation. The account is part of Ron Suskind's new book, The One Percent Doctrine, that was excerpted in the June 26 edition of Time. According to Suskind, al Qaeda developed a "revolutionary new WMD device" that would generate cyanide gas, and these weapons -- which he refers to as "mubtakkar" devices -- were to have been planted on subways by operatives who were in place and preparing to act in...

Exclusive Book Excerpt: How an Al-Qaeda Cell Planned a Poison-gas Attack on the N.Y. Subway The plot was called off by Bin Laden's No. 2 only 45 days from zero hour, according to a new book by Ron Suskind SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHORRelated Blogs: Click here for blog postings from around the web that are related to the topic of this article. Posted Saturday, Jun. 17, 2006 Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence...

It has the makings of international intrigue. Less than two weeks before the Democratic National Convention a man has been found dead in a Denver hotel room with a container of what authorities initially suspect to be the deadly poison cyanide. Adding to the intrigue is that the dead man, Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, appears to be from outside the U.S. No passport was found on Dirie, who is believed to have entered the country from Canada. A large container of a white powdery substance was found in the man's room on the fourth floor of the Burnsley Hotel at...

DENVER (CBS4) ― It has the makings of international intrigue. Less than two weeks before the Democratic National Convention a man has been found dead in a Denver hotel room with a container of what authorities initially suspect to be the deadly poison cyanide. Adding to the intrigue is that the dead man, Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, appears to be from outside the U.S. No passport was found on Dirie, who is believed to have entered the country from Canada. A large container of a white powdery substance was found in the man's room on the fourth floor of The...