Free Republic

For the last three months, the defendant who has drawn the most attention in a terror trial under way in Manhattan federal court is Lynne F. Stewart, who made a name as a defense lawyer for suspects accused of terrorism. But as the prosecutors' case has unfolded, most of the evidence about the international conspiracy they hope to prove has centered on a defendant who sits silently beside her, Ahmed Abdel Sattar. A Staten Island postal worker and a Muslim, Mr. Sattar served as a paralegal aide for Ms. Stewart in the 1995 trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the...

...Bangladesh has a reputation for moderate Islam, for democracy, and for promoting the rights of women. Indeed, women lead both major political parties, the governing Bangladesh National Party of prime minister Khaleda Zia and the opposition Awami League. Mainstream parties accept that they can only assume power through elections. Bangladesh is home to the Grameen Bank, cited as a model of development for the way that it empowers poor women through small scale loans, or "micro-credit." But the Islamist current, once marginal, appears to be growing. In 1998, when Osama bin Laden declared "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," few took...

NEW YORK -- Authorities believe a U.S. postal employee in custody here helped draft a letter of introduction that may have been used by two men who posed as journalists to assassinate a leading opposition figure in Afghanistan last fall, according to a U.S. official familiar with the case.Click here for full Washington Post article

Horrifying new details of how Daniel Pearl, the murdered Wall Street Journal reporter, met his death have emerged from the interrogation of new suspects by Pakistani police. Pearl, who was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002, knew for several hours that he was about to be killed, but resisted repeated attempts to sedate him, police now believe. He was fully aware of what was happening when the Arab extremists who took control during his final days cut his throat, according to information gleaned from Pakistani militants now in police custody. Shocking video film of Pearl's murder, seen around the world...

Cheerleaders for TerrorismBy Erick StakelbeckFrontPageMagazine.com | June 17, 2003 Two groups whom Islamic terrorists can count on for sympathy and support are radical lawyers and their counterparts in American law schools. Lynne Stewart is a hero of the National Lawyers Guild and a sought-after campus lecturer. While out on bail under indictment for colluding with a terrorist leader, she has been a sought-after speaker for law school audiences who relish her attacks on Attorney General John Ashcroft as a modern-day fascist and on her country for its imperialist and racist policies. Stewart made national headlines in April 2002 when she...

Military retaliation from Baghdad was the main administration concern following Saturday's strike on Iraq. Yet U.S. officials should start thinking seriously about the question of retaliation through terror. It is quite possible, for example, that there was a connection between Saddam and recent attempts to blow up Manhattan. It is quite possible that New York's terror is Saddam's revenge. Speculation about the responsibility for last week's bombing plot and the earlier World Trade Center bombing has focused on Iran, Sudan, and the fundamentalist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Much energy has been spent linking the terror to Islamic fundamentalism. Yet Saddam,...

<p>April 7 - Within weeks of the September 11 terror attacks, security officers at the Fleet National Bank in Boston had identified “suspicious” wire transfers from the Saudi Embassy in Washington that eventually led to the discovery of an active Al Qaeda “sleeper cell” that may have been planning follow-up attacks inside the United States, according to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.</p>

<p>Law-enforcement officials follow the money trail among suspected terrorists straight to the doors of the Saudi Embassy.</p> <p>April 7 - Within weeks of the September 11 terror attacks, security officers at the Fleet National Bank in Boston had identified “suspicious” wire transfers from the Saudi Embassy in Washington that eventually led to the discovery of an active Al Qaeda “sleeper cell” that may have been planning follow-up attacks inside the United States, according to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.</p>

Today: March 08, 2004 at 9:20:42 PST Man Held by Pakistan May Be Tied to AttackASSOCIATED PRESS QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - A suspected Islamic militant already in police custody may have had a hand in the massacre of 44 people at a religious procession last week, Pakistani authorities said Monday. Shafiq-ur Rahman was in jail on kidnapping charges last Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a Shiite Muslim procession, but Quetta police chief Shoaib Suddle said authorities believe he may have been behind the attacks. Suddle said that during interrogation Rahman had confessed to taking part in past attacks on...

Did Nichols and Yousef meet? Closer analysis of Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef timelines creates a compelling, if still circumstantial, case — and offers clues to where the smoking guns may be found By J.M. BERGER INTELWIRE.com In November 1994, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef both walked on the grounds of the same college campus in the Philippines. Whether their paths crossed is a question that still dogs researchers. But it's increasingly clear that what separates their respective itineraries is sometimes a matter of yards, feet or even inches, within a span of days, hours and sometimes mere minutes. They...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The son of Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric linked to the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, has been captured by anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, a brother and U.S. officials said Thursday. Cairo lawyer Montasser el-Zayat, who defends Islamic militant suspects, said the captured son, Ahmed Abdel-Rahman was being held in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif and his interrogators included Americans. El-Zayat said forces in Afghanistan were looking for Ahmed's brother, Mohammed, who was also in the country. A U.S. official in Washington said the northern alliance had captured Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, but that there ...

At the northern edge of The Pit, Port Authority officers, city cops and firefighters were raking through the last of the debris, still finding fragments of bone. At the opposite corner, ironworkers were preparing to cut the last erect piece of steel, a 36-foot-tall girder that had stood at the core of the south tower."Column 1001 B," said Lt. John Ryan, commander of the PA police recovery task force.Ryan pointed out the evenly spaced rectangles where the exterior columns had been. The rectangles marked off an acre in ghostly gray dirt where the tower once stood.There's one," Ryan said.He pointed...

PATERSON, N.J. (AP) - Secret evidence presented in a closed court session alleged that a man who sold fake IDs to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers had closer ties to terrorism than previously revealed, according to transcripts released Tuesday. In the end, authorities found no evidence to bring terrorism charges against Mohamad El-Atriss, and U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said Tuesday that El-Atriss "is not considered a threat to national security by us." In a plea bargain, El-Atriss was sentenced in March to five years' probation and fined $15,000 for selling phony documents. El-Atriss and his lawyer on Tuesday...

<p>LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities have arrested a foreign al Qaeda suspect in a raid in an industrial city on Saturday, a Pakistani intelligence official said.</p> <p>The Arab-speaking national is believed to be an important member of al Qaeda with bounty on his head, the official told Reuters but gave no further details.</p>

In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") report concluded that the reason for Mohammed Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was planning an "unbelievable" biological attack, the plans for which had suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ("KSM") the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.    Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall...

On September 11th, 2002, suspected Sniper John Allen Muhammad walked into the Camden, New Jersey State Motor Vehicles office, to register the now-notorious "blue Caprice" he'd just purchased. Though the car had not yet converted been into a rolling sniper's nest, what happened in the next several minutes leaves little doubt that Muhammad had something sinister in mind. The registration transaction began at 8:52 am. At 8:58 am., while Muhammad was still standing at the counter, someone (now believed to be fellow suspect, Lee Malvo) phoned a bomb threat at the Motor Vehicles office on the 1st Anniversary of what...

A Junior al-Qaeda . . .: . . . right here at home There are a lot of Baptist churches along rural Virginia's Route 615, just south of Appomattox-"where America reunited," as the county welcome sign puts it-but there's only one Sheikh Gilani Lane. A gate and a guardhouse prevent the public from driving very far down it. What lies beyond, however, isn't a closed-off community of rich retirees. Instead, it's a trailer-park compound of black Muslims, or "The Muslims of America," according to a green billboard by the entrance, where an armed guard keeps a wary eye on the ...

 DefenseWatch  "The Voice of the Grunt"  Special Report: Protect Home Base First  ARTICLE 02 October 30, 2002Examine Gunman's Possible Ties to al FurqaBy Christian M. WeberIn the Middle East today, we see a young generation of Muslims being trained to hate Israel and the West while cherishing the thought of martyrdom. It is easy to see the brutal path that has been chosen for these children. However, for those not schooled in this path of destruction, the road to terrorism usually takes on one of two forms.The first form includes Islamic extremists, such as Osama Bin Laden, who rose...

Sniper suspect John Muhammad fits the profile of a disaffected outcast who becomes increasingly radicalized under the influence of Islamism, say terrorism analysts and investigators, who suspect he is connected with the radical Islamist group, al-Fuqra. According to Christian M. Weber, contributing editor for Soldiers for the Truth, an organization headed by Col. David Hackworth, Muhammad seems to follow the model of John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid and Jose Padilla, men exposed to Islamism who become disenchanted with the movement's pace and progress and who take the road to jihad. "As one traces John Muhammad's life from his conversion to...

Al-Fuqra tied to Colorado crimes Leader owned land in Buena Vista; followers convicted in bombing of Krishna temple By Charlie Brennan, News Staff Writer The radical Islamic leader linked to the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl has been tied to a wide range of illegal activity throughout Colorado. Through a broad-based investigation launched in 1989, Colorado authorities convicted four members of the al-Fuqra movement on a series of felonies including racketeering, forgery, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and the 1984 firebombing of a Hare Krishna temple in Denver. Those who helped lead those investigations said the Pakistani-based ...