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Talking Points Memo & Impact Segment America and the Arab world "Press reports say the guy who threw his shoes at President Bush is a big hero in the Arab world, which points out how difficult it is to deal with some Muslims. There's no question that the USA has sacrificed greatly to bring a measure of freedom to Iraq. If this guy had thrown his shoes at Saddam, he would have been executed. But now he has freedom of expression, thanks to us. The question is, why we are spending billions to free these people if many of them...

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, described by Major General Rashid Qureshi, the media spokesman of President General Pervez Musharraf, as "the kingpin of al-Qaeda", was arrested by Pakistani intelligence officials from the house of the son ( Abdul Qadoos) of a local women's leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), at Rawalpindi over the weekend, and handed over to officials of the US intelligence community based in Pakistan. The latter immediately airlifted him to the US naval base in Diego Garcia for interrogation. It is understood that an Arab and the Pakistani son of the JEI leader was also arrested by the Pakistani authorities...

US security services are investigating possible new links between Iraq and the September 11 attacks. They have identified a new candidate as being the possible mastermind of the atrocity. He was named as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti-born member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida organisation and a blood relative of Ramzi Yousef, the key figure behind the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993. The officials said they believed he was at large somewhere in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mohammed had previously been implicated in the thwarted attempt by Yousef and others to...

WASHINGTON A secretive U.S. spy agency monitored phone calls between the suspected organizer of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings and the chief hijacker, but did not share the information with other agencies, U.S. officials said yesterday. The officials said on condition of anonymity that the conversations between Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohamed Atta were intercepted by the National Security Agency, which monitors and decodes foreign communications. Mohammed is a known leader of Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and is on the FBI's Most Wanted List. He is thought to be hiding in Pakistan or Afghanistan. In addition to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigators believe they have identified a Kuwaiti lieutenant of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) as the likely mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Tuesday. Photos AP Photo Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, designated one of the FBI (news - web sites)'s most-wanted terrorists, is at large in Afghanistan (news - web sites) or nearby, the official told The Associated Press. U.S. investigators believe Mohammed planned many aspects of the Sept. 11 attacks, turning bin Laden's calls for dead Americans into reality. "There's lots of links that tie him to 9-11,"...

MANILA, Philippines- The man suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks lived lavishly in the Philippines with his nephew, the 1993 World Trade Center plotter, partying, scuba-diving and renting a helicopter as they planned attacks against Americans, according to a former police official who investigated al-Qaida. U.S. counterterrorism officials have said that since Sept. 11, evidence has mounted that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was chief among Osama bin Laden lieutenants organizing the plot that sent hijacked passenger jets crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing more than 3,000 people. Abu Zubaydah - a senior al-Qaida...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigators believe they have identified a Kuwaiti lieutenant of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) as the likely mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Tuesday.</p> <p>Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, designated one of the FBI (news - web sites)'s most-wanted terrorists, is at large in Afghanistan (news - web sites) or nearby, the official told The Associated Press.</p>

WASHINGTON -- The man suspected of masterminding the Sept. 11 terror attacks was well-traveled: Born in Kuwait, he went to college in North Carolina, fought Soviets in Afghanistan, plotted attacks against Americans from the Philippines. He also repeatedly visited the German city where chief hijacker Mohammed Atta lived, U.S. officials said Thursday. Officials suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a top lieutenant of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, met with Atta or members of his cell in Hamburg, Germany, but they have not received direct evidence of any contacts between them, one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Since...

Kuala Lumpur, June 8, IRNA -- The Kuwait Embassy here has asserted that Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, identified as the probable mastermind behind the Sept 11 attacks by US investigators, is not a Kuwaiti national. In a statement faxed to IRNA here, Kuwait Ambassador to Malaysia Fahad Al-Metairi said recent reports by world news agencies claiming that Khaled was a Kuwaiti national or that the Kuwaiti citizenship was withdrawn from Khaled's father were "totally baseless". "He is a Pakistani national and holds a Pakistani passport. He was born in Kuwait and lived in Kuwait for a while before leaving it as...