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Last October, the Yemeni government came to the CIA with a request: Could the agency collect intelligence that might help target the network of a U.S.-born al-Qaida recruiter named Anwar al-Awlaki? What happened next is haunting, in light of subsequent events. The CIA concluded that it could not assist the Yemenis in locating al-Awlaki for a possible capture operation. The primary reason was that the agency lacked specific evidence that he threatened the lives of Americans — which is the threshold for any capture-or-kill operation against a U.S. citizen. The Yemenis also wanted U.S. Special Forces' help in pursuing al-Awlaki;...

According to the Wall Street Journal, a district judge has ordered Mohamedou Slahi – a known al Qaeda recruiter who worked for Osama bin Laden – freed from Guantanamo. The Journal’s account does not explain the judge’s reasoning and the decision was not immediately available online. But the decision is inexplicable in light of Slahi’s notorious track record. There is no doubt that Mohamedou Slahi is one of the worst terrorists held at Gitmo. (See here for a previous summary of Slahi’s dossier.) Recruiter for the September 11 attacks Among Slahi's most notorious recruits were four of the September 11...

The secret war On the North-West Frontier, soldiers are trying to tighten the noose around bin Laden's forces. But in Europe and America, there is no clear enemy to fight - yet every expert knows that a terrorist atrocity is coming Mark Townsend in Tangier, John Hooper in Madrid, Greg Bearup in Peshawar, Paul Harris in Washington, Peter Beaumont in Baghdad, Antony Barnett, Martin Bright, Jason Burke and Nick Pelham in London Sunday March 21, 2004 The Observer There were shadows in the rocks. As the 12 US Special Forces soldiers arrived at a remote mountain region in eastern Afghanistan...

HAMBURG, Germany - A Moroccan convicted as an accessory to murder in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was sentenced Monday to the maximum 15 years in prison, minutes after telling the son of a woman killed that day "my future is ruined." A federal appeals court convicted Mounir el Motassadeq, a friend of three of the suicide pilots, in November of knowingly helping the hijackers and sent the case to a state court in Hamburg for sentencing. Just before Monday's verdict, the 32-year-old defendant spoke with an American whose mother died on board one of the planes that crashed into...

A GERMAN court has sentenced a friend of the September 11, 2001, hijackers to 15 years' jail for being an accessory in the murders of 246 people aboard the aircraft used in the terrorist attacks. The sentencing on Monday of Mounir el Motassadeq is a potentially decisive milestone in a complex and politically sensitive case that has taken five years to go through the German courts. In 2005, the court in Hamburg found the 32-year-old Moroccan guilty of belonging to a terrorist organisation - a lesser crime - and sentenced him to seven years in jail. But last November, an...

KARLSRUHE, Germany - A Moroccan man was convicted Thursday of acting as an accessory to murder in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks by a federal appeals court that ruled that he played a direct role in the plot. Mounir El Motassadeq was a close friend of hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah when they lived and studied in the northern port city of Hamburg. The Federal Court of Justice found that a Hamburg court decided wrongly last year to acquit el Motassadeq of direct involvement in the attacks, even as it convicted him of membership in a...

KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's highest court of appeals on Thursday ordered that a Moroccan friend of the September 11 hijackers must face a third trial on charges of aiding the deadly 2001 attacks on the United States. Judge Klaus Tolksdorf, who has said that Mounir El Motassadeq clearly knew his acquaintances from Hamburg were planning plane attacks, ordered the retrial. Motassadeq was convicted last year of belonging to a terrorist organisation and sentenced to 7 years in prison, but cleared of the more serious charge of abetting mass murder. He was unexpectedly freed from a Hamburg prison in February...

Ressam at times defiant in 2 days of questioning By Mike Carter Seattle Times staff reporter After more than a year of cooperating with federal prosecutors, Ahmed Ressam has become a sometimes difficult and defiant government witness. Ressam was at times surly and evasive during two days of closed-door questioning this week in Seattle by German lawyers who need his help prosecuting Mounir el-Motassadeq, a Moroccan accused of helping the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. Ressam, convicted of conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism, might be endangering his deal with federal prosecutors to serve as few as 27 years...

According to The New York Times (8 July 2003): "the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said today that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony." Several alternative media have joined the bandwagon. George W. Bush is accused of obstructing the investigation...Former Jersey governor Thomas Kean, the commission's chairman is presented as an honest and uncompromising individual, who is courageously confronting the US government: "Without greater cooperation, Kean said, ''we cannot do the job we are supposed...

don't have time to elaborate - see for yourself. This guy was the one Able Danger team briefed who decided it was not worthy of inclusion into the 9/11 report or even to the ears of comittee members since it did not fit their conclusions about Atta. THIS NEEDS TO P*O*P!

Terrorist involved in Madrid and 9/11 bombings released by German court July 18, 2005 German-Syrian Mamoun Darkazanli Germany says terror arrest illegalMIM: If the Germans don't want to hand over one of their citizens, why don't they start proceedings to strip him of his citizenship instead of releasing him to continue his terrorist activity with the use of a German passport?http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/18/germany.extradite/BERLIN, Germany -- Germany's high court has ordered the release of a Syrian-born German man whom Spain wanted extradited in connection with the 2003 Madrid bombings.The Federal Constitutional Court ruled Monday it would be illegal to extradite Mamoun Darkazanli, a...

HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 10 — A German court today began a retrial of Mounir el-Motassadeq, the only person convicted of involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, with the disclosure that the United States will for the first time share evidence about the plot. Mr. Motassadeq's conviction was thrown out in March by an appeals court, which said that critical evidence had been withheld by American authorities. After having been sentenced to 15 years in prison, Mr. Motassadeq was freed in April. The decision by the United States to offer limited cooperation to the Germans introduces a combustible element to...

Militant Imams Under Scrutiny Across Europe By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and LOWELL BERGMAN ONDON, Jan. 24 - In nightly sermons broadcast on the Internet, Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, a 46-year-old Syrian-born cleric, has urged young Muslim men all over the world to support the Iraq insurgency on the front line of "the global jihad," investigators say. He struck a similarly defiant tone this month at a rally attended by 500 people at a central London meeting hall, where a giant screen behind him showed images of the World Trade Center falling. "Allah akbar!" - "God is great" - some...

ARIS, May 29 — Italian and German investigators have disclosed fresh information suggesting that hints of an attack involving aircraft and the United States were more widespread among European law enforcement agencies before Sept. 11 than previously suspected.The disclosures come after weeks in which the Bush administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which announced a shake-up today, have come under sharp criticism that they did not pay sufficient heed to signs of Al Qaeda plots in the United States that may have alerted them to the Sept. 11 attacks.A Central Intelligence Agency spokesman said today that before Sept....

PARIS Officials of the French antiterrorist police have identified a young Frenchman killed fighting the United States in Iraq, the first confirmed case of what is believed to be a growing stream of Muslims heading from Europe to fight what they regard as a new holy war. Redouane el-Hakim, 19, the son of Tunisian immigrants, died during an American bombardment of insurgents in Falluja on July 17, according to an intelligence official close to the case. Intelligence officials fear that, for a new generation of disaffected European Muslims, Iraq could become what Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya were for European Islamic...

BERLIN - German authorities said Friday they have arrested an al-Qaida suspect wanted by Spain on charges that he helped finance the terror network for years. Mamoun Darkazanli, 46, a Syrian-German dual national, was taken into custody in Hamburg on Friday on a Spanish warrant and is being held for possible extradition, city judicial spokeswoman Sabine Westphalen told The Associated Press.

On Thursday at 9pm, Britain’s Channel 4 will air a docu-drama retelling the story of 9/11 through the view of one of the hijackers. In the previews for this movie, a hijacker is shown to be torn between his love and his love for jihad. I think this is a horrible idea as it will end up portraying the hijacker in a sympathetic light. At some point, the viewer will show some compassion towards the hijacker who helped murder 3000 innocent people. Would anyone recommend a docu-drama to show the relationship with Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun during the final...

Focus: the road to 9/11Inside the mind of a terrorist On the eve of the third anniversary of 9/11, a compelling new film goes inside al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell, the group of Islamic radicals who changed the world with their ruthless suicide attacks. Ronan Bennett, who wrote the film, explains what drove them to martyrdom Ronan Bennett Sunday August 22, 2004 The Observer On the morning of 11 September 2001, a young man travelling from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco called his girlfriend in Germany. She was in hospital, recuperating from a minor operation. He had, however, phoned her almost...

TERRORISM Global Network of Islamic Fundamentalist’s – Part II -Modus operandi- Model Bosnia

Police in Italy and Germany have arrested three North Africans suspected of recruiting suicide bombers for attacks linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq. "We have managed to break up a mujahideen recruiting centre," Italy's interior minister announced. The ring's suspected leader, an Algerian known as "the Sheikh", was picked up in Hamburg early on Friday. A Moroccan and a Tunisian were detained in Milan late on Thursday but two other suspects managed to elude capture. The Italian authorities say the police sweep was jeopardised when news of the operation leaked to the media. An Iraqi male suspect and a Tunisian female...