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Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, a citizen of Saudi Arabia and resident of Lubbock, Texas, was arrested late yesterday by FBI agents in Texas on a federal charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment necessary to make an improvised explosive device (IED) and his research of potential U.S. targets. The arrest and the criminal complaint, which was unsealed in the Northern District of Texas, were announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; James T. Jacks, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas; and Robert...

The politics of national security has become more volatile lately. Republicans are increasingly emphasizing national security in hopes of electoral gains in 2010. Their push has raised fears that existentially important security issues have become too political for the nation's good. Whether or not that's true, Democrats will have to push back, and liberals are worried that they are struggling. GOP Splitting Congressional Dems from Obama Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent writes, "Congressional Dems have no message or strategy on national security, and they’re getting badly outworked by the GOP on the issue." Republicans have a "very specific strategy" with...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

FALLUJAH — The 329th Chemical Platoon, Task Force Phantom, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, participated in a joint operation July 12-17 to recover a large quantity of nitric acid found in a cache in the city of Fallujah. The platoon, a reserve unit from Winter Park, Fla., helped remove of 40,000 gallons of the acid, said Army Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Hart, platoon leader, 329th Chem. Platoon, TF Phantom, MNC-I. Nitric acid is a toxic, acidic, colorless liquid used to make fertilizers, dyes, explosives and other chemicals. Twenty Soldiers from the platoon worked in conjunction with Marines from Multi-National Force-West and Soldiers from...

A truck laden with nitric acid and explosives overturned before the driver could attack a joint security station operated by U.S. and Iraqi troops north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Tuesday. The use of nitric acid in bomb attacks could mark another shift in tactics by insurgents, who in recent months have rigged nearly a dozen truck bombs with chlorine gas, mainly in western Anbar province. In a statement, the U.S. military said a security patrol went to assist the driver of the truck after it overturned and found it loaded with eight containers of nitric acid and...

U.S. Army troops operating at a former Iraqi air base recently made a startling discovery: Russian-made missiles marked with radioactive warning signs. Army bomb disposal troops confirmed using Geiger counters that the missiles are indeed radioactive. The discovery is not, however, considered the long-sought "smoking gun" of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The missiles appear to be part of a cache of weapons supplied to Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War. The Russian-made R-60, NATO code name AA-8 Aphid, air-to-air missiles are part of a huge stockpile of former Iraqi Air Force munitions uncovered in over a dozen concrete bunkers....

HOUSTON — One evening two winters ago, a man in Staten Island, N.Y., absent-mindedly flipped through his mail. Inside one envelope was a stack of fake documents, including United Nations (news - web sites) and Defense Department identification cards, and a note: "We would hate to have this fall into the wrong hands."