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A federal judge Friday refused a government request to close her courtroom for a hearing next week for a Bolingbrook teen charged with attempting to go abroad to join the extremist group Islamic State.. Prosecutors had asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Cox to restrict access of the public and the news media during the Monday detention hearing for Mohammed Hamzah Khan because of "privacy concerns" involving two minors connected to Khan's case but not charged with any wrongdoing. In her four-page ruling, Cox said prosecutors had not met their burden to show that closing the proceedings would outweigh the "value...

"Islamism" has been sending jitters through Western political corridors over recent years readily aided and abetted by Arab autocrats who have exaggerated and harnessed the "Islamist" threat to prolong their iron-fisted rule. In the case of Egypt, the biggest bogeyman in this long-running battle over political supremacy with the state is the Muslim Brotherhood (the Ikhwan al-Muslimun) whose influence extends across the Arab and Islamic world. With the Middle East and North Africa currently convulsed by popular uprisings against political repression, the Muslim Brotherhood has been thrust into the limelight, not only by those seeking a better insight into the...

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...

Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan let free as the government continues to press for peace in the Northwest Frontier Province Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan. As the Taliban fights the Pakistani military in an undeclared insurgency in the Northwest Frontier Province, the Pakistani government continues to sue for peace, and in the process, has released a senior al Qaeda operative. Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, an al Qaeda operative and computer expert who “acted as a link between top al-Qaeda leaders and operational cells,” was released from Pakistani custody. Khan was captured in July of 2004 in the city of Lahore. An email...

An investigation into an alleged al-Qaida terrorist cell in Lodi that has netted a father and son and two Muslim religious leaders widened Wednesday with a fifth arrest of a member of a local Pakistani community, according federal authorities. An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that the Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19, was detained Wednesday on immigration violations. He is the son of Muhammed Adil Khan, who was recently taken into custody for immigration violations. "He's being held on administrative immigration violations," Virginia Kice, an immigration spokeswoman, said of the son. She declined to discuss the details of...

A Pakistan-trained terrorist, described as global quartermaster for the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, has been sentenced to nine years in prison after he admitted to charges of conspiring to provide funds for terrorist activity. Mohammed Ajmal Khan, 31, who trained in Pakistan and travelled widely in furtherance of terrorist aims, had made available a significant source of funds from an "unidentified but undeniably terrorist-related source," Justice Fulford said in his judgement on Friday. The Coventry-based Khan allegedly used millions of pounds raised by supporters in the UK to purchase Kevlar body armour, firearms and hi-tech surveillance equipment which were funnelled to rebels...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A lead FBI agent on Tuesday linked two local Muslim clerics to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, contending the two were planning to set up a school near Lodi that would breed anti-American terrorism. The agent testified that Lodi clerics Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan were prepared to relay information on terrorist plots from sources close to bin Laden. The allegations were dismissed by Ahmed's lawyer, who said the FBI and federal prosecutors have "made the whole thing up." The striking allegations came during an immigration hearing for Ahmed at which Immigration Judge Anthony Murry...

INVESTIGATORS have established a firm link between al-Qaeda and the London bombers after an Islamist terrorist in jail in America identified the British man who led the murderous attacks 10 days ago. Security officials in the United States have confirmed that self-confessed al-Qaeda member Mohammed Junaid Babar had admitted knowing Mohammed Sidique Khan, the oldest of the British bombers who killed at least 55 people. Babar, who was arrested after returning from an al-Qaeda "terror summit" in Pakistan early last year, identified Khan from photographs shown to him late last week. The revelation that an al-Qaeda member was associating with...

One of the bombers in last week's attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York. Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.

July 15, 2005 — One of the bombers in last week's attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York. Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call.

One of the bombers in last week's attacks made a direct phone call to a suspected recruiter for an extremist group in New York. Authorities told ABC News that records show Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the bombers now believed to be the field commander of the attacks, had called a person who is associated with the Islamic Center, a mosque in Queens, N.Y. Yet, a member of that mosque claimed they had no knowledge of the phone call. Police stand outside a house in Colwyn Road, Beeston, near Leeds, July 12th, 2005, which is one of five residential...

It's called the president's Daily Threat Report (PDTR), or, in bureaucratic shorthand, the Putter. The document is so secret that only about a half-dozen people in the U.S. government are allowed to see it. When the Putter contains especially sensitive information, a red stripe runs down the side. At 6:40 a.m. on Friday, July 30, Fran Townsend, the president's homeland-security adviser and counterterror chief for the national-security staff, opened up her red-striped Putter and received a jolt. (snip) The Friday-morning Putter revealed that an undercover operation on the far side of the world was starting to bear fruit. In mid-July,...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Pakistani whose arrest last month provided information about threats to U.S. financial institutions was in communication with al Qaeda operatives intent upon disrupting U.S. elections this fall, The New York Times reported Sunday, The July arrest of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan prompted an alert from the Department of Homeland Security last week on threats to buildings housing financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Citing a senior intelligence official in a Washington datelined story, the newspaper said Khan had revealed he was in communication with al Qaeda operatives who the Bush administration...

Terror mastermind lived in flat under Heathrow approach By Daniel Foggo and Massoud Ansari (Filed: 08/08/2004) An al-Qaeda "communications chief" who is believed to have been co-ordinating a plot to bomb Heathrow spent three weeks living near the airport late last year, the Telegraph can reveal. Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, 25, who is under arrest in Pakistan, lived in a ground floor flat in Reading, Berkshire. The address, on Wensley Road near the centre of town, lies below a western approach flight path to the airport. Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan: reconnaissance He lived there with his grandmother, Batool Begum, and...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani computer expert linked to U.S. security alerts and the arrest of 11 terrorism suspects in Britain was part of an undercover sting operation before Washington revealed his name, a Pakistani intelligence source and British media reports said yesterday. U.S. officials revealed the name of captured al Qaeda suspect Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan while he was still cooperating with Pakistani authorities in a sting operation, an intelligence source told Reuters news agency.

LONDON -- Police in Britain are holding a senior al-Qaeda operative who was allegedly planning an attack on London's main Heathrow Airport, major newspapers reported today. In a front-page article, The Times said the man was arrested after a tip-off from Pakistani intelligence, which claimed he was getting orders directly from Osama bin Laden "as head of al-Qaeda operations in Britain." It cited unidentified Pakistani officials as saying that details about Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport, were found in the computer of a suspected al-Qaeda member arrested last month in Pakistan, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan. According to The Times,...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani authorities gave British authorities images of London's Heathrow Airport and other sites that were found on computers belinging to two arrested al-Qaida fugitives, intelligence officials said Thursday. It was not clear if the information played a role in the Tuesday arrests of 13 people in Britain. One was released and the rest were being questioned. Maps, photographs and other details of possible targets in the United States and Britain were found in computers belonging to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani - a Tanzanian indicted for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa...

A terror suspect held in UK swoops was finalising plans to bomb Heathrow, it was believed last night. The plot’s details were on the computer of another al-Qaeda suspect seized in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda’s UK chief, codename Bilal, got his orders from Osama Bin Laden, via the Pakistani “postman”. Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan forwarded the command to the UK cell's chief. The Muslim, one of 12 terror suspects held after police swoops on Tuesday, was arrested after a tip-off that he was receiving direct orders from Bin Laden. The raids followed the arrest in Pakistan of computer expert Khan. He masterminded...

The U.S. and Pakistan may have found a way to read months, or years, worth of secret al Qaeda messages. No one is saying anything about that, but it works like this. The recent warnings that al Qaeda was planning attacks on specific targets in the United States was said to come from recent people, and information, captured in Pakistan. One of the two key al Qaeda people captured was Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, an English speaking Pakistani computer engineer. Khan was running an al Qaeda communications network, using email and encryption to distribute messages that could not be read...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A former Boston woman sought by the FBI for questioning about possible ties to the al-Qaida terror network is in custody in Pakistan, U.S. law enforcement officials said Tuesday. Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Aafia Siddiqui, 31, was detained by Pakistani authorities in the past few days and was being interrogated at an undisclosed location. She originally is from Pakistan. The FBI in March put out a global alert for Siddiqui, who has a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and wrote a doctoral thesis on neurological sciences at Brandeis University in...