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Al-Qaida had extensive contacts with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as with an elite military unit which helped the terrorists train and plot attacks against Americans, according to a former intelligence officer who recently fled Iran. Hamid Reza Zakeri, a former inspector and director of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence, or MOIS, member said models of the World Trade Center, the White House, Pentagon and other United States government buildings "were in our headquarters." In an explosive interview with a London-based Arabic newspaper last week, Zakeri stated that al-Qaida leader and Egyptian terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri,...

<p>BIYARA, Iraq - A terrorist group with ties to al-Qaida that escaped a U.S.-led attack last March has reconstituted itself and is involved in the recent wave of car bombings and other suicide attacks that have killed and wounded hundreds in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.</p>

Norway probes four refugees suspected of al-Qaeda links Monday, 26-Aug-2002 4:40AM      Story from AFP Copyright 2002 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet) </CLARI-ITEM HEADER>OSLO, Aug 26 (AFP) - Norway's intelligence agency PST has launched a probe into four refugees suspected of having links to the al-Qaeda network, Norwegian daily Verdens Gang reported Monday.One of the four being investigated at the request of British and US intelligence agencies is Mullah Krekar, a Kurd presumed to be the leader of the suspected bio-warfare group Ansar al-Islam, which is linked to al-Qaeda.The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration confirmed last week that Krekar has had...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Iraqi Shi'ite Islamist opposition group Sunday accused members of an Iraqi militia of conducting joint training with al Qaeda loyalists aimed at carrying out operations against U.S. interests. The Tehran-based Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said elements of "Saddam's Fedayeen," a militia force led by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's son Uday, were training with a group linked to al Qaeda in northern Iraq. "Sixty elements of Saddam's fedayeen militias joined the Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), which is a follower of the al Qaeda organization in Iraqi Kurdistan," SCIRI said in a statement...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iraqi Kurdish imam and a Bangladeshi-American pizzeria owner on Wednesday lost an appeal of their convictions for plotting to kill a Pakistani diplomat in what turned out to be an FBI sting operation. The U.S Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of Yassin Aref, 37, and Mohammed Hossain, 53, who were sentenced last year to 15 years each in prison for their roles in a fake plot to attack the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations in New York with a missile. Both appealed their convictions of money-laundering and conspiring to provide material...

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - A Jordanian man on trial in Germany on charges of belonging to a terror group said on Thursday he got an order to attack German Jewish targets just after the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States. Shadi Mohammed Mustafa Abdalla told a German court he received a coded message -- "You are going to get married" -- to launch an attack on September 12, 2001. Abdalla, who said he served as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden before rejecting violence, has already told the court he had selected a Jewish community center in Berlin...

Al-Zarqawi's Group in Iraq Changes Name Associated Press CAIRO, Egypt - Tawhid and Jihad, the Iraqi militant group of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, apparently has changed its name two days after announcing its merger with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization. An Internet statement released Tuesday under the purported new name, al-Qaida of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers, claimed responsibility for an attack on a U.S. military convoy west of the Iraqi city of Fallujah the same day. The two rivers in the new name refers to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Iraq.

ALBANY - The prosecutor who sent two local Muslim men ensnared in an FBI terror sting to prison is on the short list for a federal judgeship. Many in the Capital District's growing Muslim community are outraged. Members of Albany's Muslim Solidarity Committee say they will do everything in their power to ensure Glenn Suddaby doesn't receive the nomination. The activists formed their group after the arrest and conviction of Mohammad Hossain, an Albany pizza shop owner, and Yassin Aref, an Albany imam. Despite grass roots opposition, Suddaby has at least one pretty big name supporter - U.S. Sen. Charles...

N.Y. imam sentenced in terror sting Staff and agencies 08 March, 2007 http://www.localnewsleader.com/elytimes/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=72974 By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago ALBANY, N.Y. - The former imam of an Albany mosque was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for his role in a money laundering scheme involving a fictional terror plot set up as an FBI sting. "I never had any intention to harm anyone in this country," the 36-year-old Kurdish refugee said. "And I don‘t know why I‘m guilty." The informant asked Hossain to launder money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile that would be used...

Two New York mosque leaders charged with conspiring to support terrorists. Amazing how they could have risen to the leadership of a Muslim religious center while so thoroughly misunderstanding Islam. Funny thing: the same thing happened in Lodi, California. And all over the world, as we document here every day, we see Islamic clerics -- people who have dedicated their lives to studying and living out the religion -- at the forefront of terrorist movements. And yet so many people refuse to see what is right in front of their faces: maybe they aren't misunderstanding Islam at all. Aref and...

CANBERRA, Australia - The Australian government on Wednesday re-listed Ansar al-Islam, Lashkar-e Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad, from Pakistan, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as terrorist organisations, Efe news agency reported. These organisations, which have been listed since 2003, would continue to be listed for another three years, according to a statement from the Australian Attorney-General's Department. Under this measure, it remains a criminal offence to direct the activities of, be a member of, recruit for, train for or receive training from these groups. It would also be a criminal offence to get funds to, from, or for, provide support to,...

World 15 Islamist Kurds suspected of planning attacks arrested across Europe 12/11/2015 BARCELONA, Spain - Radical Kurdish cleric "Mullah Krekar" and 14 other Iraqi Kurds were arrested across Europe on Thursday in a coordinated police swoop on Islamist militants planning attacks, Italian media reported. The Corriere della Sera newspaper said the suspects were arrested in countries across Europe in collaboration with police from Italy, the UK, Norway, Finland, Germany and Switzerland. A non-Kurd, a man from Kosovo, was also arrested. Among the suspects picked up for links to the Islamic State group (ISIS), seven were arrested in Italy, four...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Only the Islamic State (ISIS) can “fulfill our ambitions and dreams,” said firebrand Kurdish cleric Mulla Krekar, who was recently freed from a Norwegian jail. “The Islamic State is not something strange; it is the only element that can fulfill our ambitions and dreams,” he said in an Al Jazeera interview. The 58-year-old preacher added that all Muslims calling for resistance to the extremist Sunni ISIS “Caliphate” are “cowards,” and accused them of following orders from the United States and Shiite Iran. He called upon ISIS to appoint someone “with the courage to fight the infidels...

SNIPPET: "Mullah Krekar, the Norway-based Islamic extremist, is under investigation by German police for seeking to establish a Europe-wide terror network, Sweden's Expo magazine has reported.   The Germans have asked Sweden to interrogate a 28-year-old man from Västerås, who was in contact with Krekar in 2010.    "The German police have requested that we interrogate him, and they want it done in a court of law," Prosecutor Ronnie Jakobsson told the magazine.    Although the man is not suspected of any crime, German police believe that he has information about an Islamist terror network they suspect Krekar and another...

New light is being shed on the 2001 anthrax attacks in a fascinating open letter to Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda, written by a jihadi living in London. Numan Bin Uthman, a former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, provides yet more evidence that the global Islamic jihad movement is losing its resolve.  But the letter contains a startling admission. Uthman tells us of a conversation he had with al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks in which he urged them not to use WMD. From AKI News: Uthman also said that he had taken part in...

SNIPPET: "New York City is the center of a public uproar as Internet blogger Pamela Gellar rises with an “anti-jihad” ad campaign." SNIPPET: "Gellar and her group are protesting the Jihad, which in definition is the religious duty of Muslims. According to the Dictionary of Islam, jihad is defined as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad . . . enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.” The literal meaning of jihad, according to the British Broadcasting Network, “is struggle or effort, and it means much more than...

SNIPPET: "Two brothers of Kurdish origin are being prosecuted by the Swiss authorities on charges of being involved via the internet with an Islamic terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda. The asylum seekers are accused of setting up internet platforms that were designed to attract new members to the recently formed terrorist organisation, issue propaganda, pass on messages to the al-Qaeda network and disseminate details of terror attacks.
 
In addition, the brothers are alleged to have downloaded videos of executions and stored them on their computers.
 
According to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office, the unnamed terrorist organisation was headed by Kurdish extremist cleric Mullah Krekar,...

SNIPPET: "The 55-year-old mullah, whose real name is Najmeddine Faraj Ahmad and who has lived in Norway since 1991, founded the Ansar al-Islam group. He was found guilty of threatening the life of Erna Solberg, an ex-minister who signed his expulsion order in 2003 because he was considered a threat to national security. "Norway will pay a heavy price for my death," he said during a meeting with international media in June 2010. "If for example Erna Solberg deports me and I die as a result, she will suffer the same fate," he said in Arabic. "I don't know who...

SNIPPET: "OSLO, Norway, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- A Muslim extremist leader facing terrorism charges from his Norwegian hosts said this week he's planning on leaving for his native Kurdistan. Najmaddin Faraj, who goes by the name Mullah Krekar, in the 1990s was one of the co-founders of the Kurdish extremist group Ansar al-Islam, which Western officials say has links to al-Qaida." SNIPPET: "Krekar is due in Oslo District Court next month to face terrorism charges, the news agency said. Should he instead return to Kurdistan, he won't be facing any charges from the PUK, a party lawyer told Rudaw."

Norway’s Progress Party has called for the immediate arrest of Mullah Krekar after the firebrand jihadist spoke of the need for renewed terrorist attacks on the United States. The Norway-based extremist made the comments in an interview with Finland’s MTV3. He also claimed that Islam “will control the entire world” within the next 20 years. More than a decade on from the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States that left almost 3,000 people dead, Krekar said: “They have learned nothing from the 9/11 attacks. That’s why they need two more attacks. It’s the only way the Americans will understand...