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SAN'A, Yemen - A Yemeni judge sentenced two men to death and four others to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years Wednesday for orchestrating the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole (news - web sites), an attack blamed on Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terror network. Saudi-born Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, and Jamal al-Badawi, a 35-year-old Yemeni, were both sentenced to death for plotting, preparing and involvement in the bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sailors as their destroyer refueled in the southern Yemeni port of Aden. Al-Nashiri,...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia has extended for two more years the imprisonment of a terror suspect linked to al-Qaeda's attempts to produce chemical and biological weapons, saying he has more information about terrorist operations. Yazid Sufaat, a U.S.-trained biochemist and former Malaysian army captain, was arrested in late 2001 as he returned home from Afghanistan, where officials say he was working on a biological and chemical weapons program for al-Qaeda that was ended by the U.S.-led war. Since then, he has been held without trial under Malaysia's Internal Security Act on accusations of being a member of Jemaah...

U.S. Frustrated By Elusive Justice Served to USS Cole Plotters May 04, 2008 It's been called "the forgotten attack" but it's one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. Eight years after the USS Cole was attacked by a motorboat packed with explosives, all of the six men convicted of the strike have escaped from prison, or been freed by Yemeni officials. Seventeen sailors were killed and 40 more wounded in the strike, blamed on Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the Cole plot, has reportedly escaped from Yemeni prisons twice. He is supposedly...

At least two of the 9-11 hijackers probably had a U.S.-based support network, according to a former FBI agent. Danny Gonzalez worked on “Operation Encore,” the still-secret investigation into the two Saudi hijackers who were based in San Diego. Gonzalez told CBS News he’s confident the records of that operation will show the hijackers had help. “19 hijackers cannot commit 3,000 mass murders by themselves,” Gonzalez told the network.

The attacks on US targets culminating in the September 11 suicide hijackings were only a fraction of the onslaught planned by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, it emerged yesterday. Over the past three years, US intelligence detected plots against US embassies in 14 countries, mostly in Asia and Africa, and there were over 600 more "credible threats" of attacks. Some were thwarted by arrests or stepped up security. Others appear to have been suspended or may still be pending. The global extent of al-Qaida's terrorist ambitions is revealed in a new book by Peter Bergen, CNN's terrorism analyst, who interviewed ...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Guantanamo war crimes prosecutions of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked planes attacks will be delayed by two months because of lost files caused by Pentagon computer problems, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday. A weeklong pretrial hearing had been set to begin on Monday in the death penalty case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and four alleged co-conspirators. The judge overseeing the case postponed the hearing until June 17 at the request of defense lawyers who said three to four weeks' worth of their confidential work files had...

The U.S. citizen killed by a missile launched from a pilotless drone aircraft over Yemen was the ringleader of an alleged terrorist sleeper cell in Lackawanna, N.Y., administration officials said yesterday. Kamal Derwish, one of two unindicted co-conspirators in the Lackawanna case, died along with the intended target of the attack, senior al Qaeda leader Abu Ali al-Harithi, who is accused of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in which 17 sailors died. These two men and four others were traveling in a car outside the Yemeni capital of Sanaa when they were hit by a Hellfire...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - An American wanted for allegedly training with the "Lackawanna Six" at an al-Qaida camp was among the 23 men who tunneled out of a Yemeni prison last week, the FBI confirmed Friday. Authorities earlier said they believed Jaber Elbaneh, 39, was probably among the escapees, but were not certain because of conflicting information, including a posting by the international police organization Interpol that pictured Elbaneh but described someone else. Elbaneh is charged in Buffalo with providing material support to al-Qaida by attending the al-Farooq training camp run by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan months before the Sept....

A Saudi man held in US custody for five years has told a military hearing he was tortured into confessing a role in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 41, said he had faced years of torture after his arrest in 2002, a Pentagon transcript from the closed-door hearing said.

Last week, John Walker Lindh  petitioned the president to commute his 20-year sentence for fighting with the Taliban, imposed in 2002.  It’s a shame that this pampered child of Marin County is sitting in a cell for something as trivial as treason. Under a plea bargain, Walker Lindh (AKA: Abdul Hamid, AKA: Sulayman Al-Lindh) pleaded guilty to supplying services to the Taliban regime and carrying explosives for  Afghanistan’s former rulers.Which is like to saying that Benedict Arnold supplied services to George III. Johnny Jihad trained in an al-Qaeda camp – where he learned to fire an AK-47 and rubbed elbows...