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Howls of rage went up after the Joint Terrorism Task Force, guns drawn, arrested Maher Hawash in the parking lot of an Intel Corporation facility in March, 2003, and placed him in solitary confinement. The protests intensified as prosecutors detained him without charges for more than a month in an Oregon jail while they pored over the evidence. Given Maher Mofeid "Mike" Hawash's biography, this all came as a particular shock, for he personified the American success story. A Palestinian born in Nablus in 1964 and reared in Kuwait, he arrived in the United States in 1984, earning degrees in...

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

Treasury Department officials have yet to say whether they will appeal on Ohio judge's ruling that their 2006 asset freeze against an Islamic charity violated the group's due process rights. Treasury officials accuse KindHearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development of taking over fundraising for Hamas in the United States after the government forced the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) to shut down in 2001. That action was upheld by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. HLF and five officials subsequently were indicted and convicted of illegally funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. The freeze of KindHearts bore...

12, 2008 EXCLUSIVE: Who is Mohammed Al-Churbaji?:; Islamic Terrorist "Mr. Mom" Mohammed Al-Churbaji, Dad of Obama Fundraiser Worked for Azzam, Bin Laden * How hard it is to get rid of known terrorists in our midst and how easy it is for a deported Al-Qaeda terrorist to return to America; * How corrupt U.S. embassy officials get away with re-admitting terrorists into the U.S.; * How easily terrorists and their families gain acceptance by our society, including the Barack Obama Presidential campaign; * How America's universities are not tools of moderation for Muslim foreigners, but breeding grounds for terrorist fraternization...

BULLETIN -- NEW YORK POLICE AND FBI RAID HOMES IN QUEENS IN TERRORISM INVESTIGATION.6 minutes ago from BNO Headquarters

SNIPPET: "U.S. counterterrorism officials have linked one of the nation's most wanted terrorists to last year's thwarted plot to bomb the New York City subway system, authorities said Wednesday. Current and former counterterrorism officials said top al-Qaida operative Adnan Shukrijumah met with one of the would-be suicide bombers in a plot that Attorney General Eric Holder called one of the most dangerous since the 9/11 terror attacks."

New York Times turns to Supreme Court 2 hours, 47 minutes ago The New York Times asked the Supreme Court on Friday to block the government from reviewing the phone records of two reporters in a leak investigation about a terrorism-funding probe. The case involved stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon that revealed the government's plans to freeze the assets of two Islamic charities, the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation. In a 2-1 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said federal prosecutors can see the phone records of Shenon...

Spokesman for 6 Muslim clerics barred from US Airways flight One of six Muslim imams pulled from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis last night by federal authorities is affiliated with a Hamas-linked organization and acknowledged a connection to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. Omar Shahin, who served as a spokesman for the clerics, is a representative of the Kind Hearts Organization, which had its assets frozen by the U.S. Treasury pending an investigation, notes Islam scholar Robert Spencer on his weblog JihadWatch Treasury spokesman Stuart Levey in February said KindHearts "is the progeny of Holy Land Foundation and...

Revelations in the Peoria Journal Star earlier this week that the Peoria/Champaign area is one of seven in the United States on a terrorist “circuit” were frightening. “Terrorists enter the United States in San Francisco and Los Angeles, then move to Phoenix, then Denver," reported Phil Luciano of the PJS. "From there some head to Peoria and Champaign. Some terrorists remain in those communities, while others head on to New York City" (emphasis added). Luciano was provided this information by Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy, who received it at a recent FBI conference held in Springfield. Names of larger cities...

The U.S. Department of Justice raided and the Treasury Department froze the assets Sunday of an Ohio-based Muslim charity whose founder was once an official with a defunct Muslim charity in Bridgeview, the department said. No charges were filed Sunday against Khaled Smaili, the founder of KindHearts of Toledo, but the charity's assets were frozen pending further investigation into claims that the group gave money to Hamas, an Islamic organization that the U.S. considers a terrorist group, the department said. In January, Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. "KindHearts is the progeny of Holy Land...

The local San Diego FOX-6 Channel has just broken the story tonight that the San Diego Chapter of "Kind Hearts" Charity has also had it's finances frozen for having links to terrorist organizations. Two of the 9/11 hijackers were living and taking flying lessons here in San Diego.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was back in court seeking information about the New York Times' anonymous sources on Monday, this time appealing his setback in a lower court. Fitzgerald is best known for being the special prosecutor whose investigation led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Former Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail in that case last year for resisting Fitzgerald's request to reveal her sources, and the two have been pitted against each other once again in a free-speech battle over journalists' rights to keep their sources secret from...

NEW YORK (AP) - A bookstore owner and a jazz musician agreed soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to try to help terrorists in Afghanistan buy weapons and communications equipment to fight American soldiers, the government charged Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Victor Hou said Abdulrahman Farhane, 51, and the musician, Tarik Shah, 42, spoke with an FBI informant about the plot in Farhane's bookstore in December 2001 "while the ruins of 9/11 were still smoldering." The prosecutor asked that Farhane be held without bail on charges of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and trying to cover up his...

(CNSNews.com) - Fourteen miles from the U.S. Capitol, a basement-run organization with alleged ties to Hamas and al Qaeda is a crucial link in the planning of any future terrorist attacks against the United States, according to several terrorism experts who analyzed documents and other information obtained in a CNSNews.com investigation. The United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), based in Springfield, Va., is publicly identified as a Muslim think tank but has multiple ties to the terrorism underworld, according to the CNSNews.com sources, who are both inside and outside government. "UASR is a front organization for a terrorist group,"...

NEW YORK - Time Inc. said Thursday it would comply with a court order to deliver the notes of a reporter threatened with jail in the investigation of the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name. U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is threatening to jail Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of The New York Times for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources. The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the reporters' appeal and the grand jury investigating the leak expires in October. The reporters, if in jail, would be freed at that time. In a statement,...

Two reporters facing up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify about their sources gained some unlikely allies yesterday. The attorneys general of 34 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief in the United States Supreme Court supporting the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. The brief urged the court to hear the reporters' case and argued that the absence of federal protection for journalists and their sources undermined the laws of the 49 states that do offer protection.

Virginia man charged in alleged plot to assassinate Bush By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A former high school valedictorian in Virginia was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and conspiracy to support the al-Qaida terrorist network. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, made an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court. He claimed that he was tortured while detained in Saudi Arabia since June of 2003 and offered through his lawyer to show the judge his scars. The indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified coconspirator...

NEW YORK (AP) A federal judge ruled Thursday that The New York Times has a First Amendment privilege to protect the confidentiality of its sources by denying the government phone records in certain instances. Noting that secrecy in government appears to be on the increase, Judge Robert W. Sweet refused in a 120-page ruling to toss out a lawsuit the newspaper filed last year to stop the Department of Justice from getting records of phone calls between two veteran journalists and sources. The judge noted that the government can obtain telephone records during a grand jury investigation when the information...

CHICAGO (AP) An appeals court Wednesday upheld the dismissal of an Islamic charity's civil suit accusing six news organizations and eight journalists of defaming the charity by reporting that it was under investigation for possible terrorist ties. The 33-page opinion by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals brushed aside claims by Global Relief Foundation based in suburban Bridgeview that there were serious doubts about whether the government could prove that it had ever supported terrorism. The news organizations, including The Associated Press, never wrote that the group had ties to terrorism but only that it was under investigation for...

September 29, 2004 -- The Justice Department has charged that a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity that the FBI was about to raid its office — potentially endangering the lives of federal agents. The stunning accusation was disclosed yesterday in legal papers related to a lawsuit the Times filed in Manhattan federal court. The suit seeks to block subpoenas from the Justice Department for phone records of two of its Middle Eastern reporters — Philip Shenon and Judith Miller — as part of a probe to track down the leak. The Times last...