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By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

The British government sought on Tuesday to limit the information it would disclose at a planned inquest into the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former officer in the K.G.B. who succumbed to radiation poisoning in London more than six years ago. The coroner hearing the case said that it may now be postponed. “Due to the complexity of the investigation which necessarily precedes the hearings,” the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, said, “it may not be possible to adhere” to the planned May 1 start date for the hearings. The inquest would be the first — and probably the only...

An even more devastating terrorism charge could be laid on Iran's doorstep if intelligence reports linking Iran to al-Qaeda are confirmed. Insight has learned of new links between top Iranian intelligence officials and the al-Qaeda leadership that suggest direct Iranian government involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mainland. Documents and information provided to this magazine by a recent Iranian defector, if confirmed as authentic, could open a new front in the war on terror. The defector, Hamid Reza Zakeri, says he worked in the intelligence office of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini and personally handled security at two...

A tape apparently recorded by murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko a year before he was poisoned has revealed he was digging up links between Vladimir Putin and one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. A Telegraph investigation uncovered the audio recording, in which the dissident claims from beyond the grave that Russia’s president had a “good relationship” with Semion Mogilevich - a Ukrainian crime boss who was on the FBI's most wanted list and whom Mr Litvinenko believed was selling weapons to al-Qaeda. The apparent recording of Mr Litvinenko is published for the first time ahead of a public inquiry...

Israeli agents assassinated Al Qaeda's No. 2 official in a shooting in Tehran three months ago, eliminating a mastermind behind the deadly 1998 attacks on American embassies in Africa. Intelligence officials confirmed to The New York Times that two Israeli agents were acting at the behest of the U.S. when they shot Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah from a motorcycle on Aug. 7, the anniversary of the embassy bombings. His daughter Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden's son Hamza bin Laden, was also killed.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed at the home of an FBI-wanted Taliban lackey who was once given a platform by the New York Times. The jihadist, one of the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks, was taken out by a CIA drone strike Sunday morning at a Kabul home belonging to senior Taliban official Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to initial reporting by the Gray Lady herself. The publication infamously published an op-ed penned by Haqqani — the leader of the insurgent Haqqani Network in Afghanistan linked to brutal and deadly attacks — to ask for a peace agreement between...

London (PTI) -- Anjem Choudary, a radical Islamist preacher with dual British and Pakistani nationality, was on Tuesday jailed for life with a minimum term of 28 years behind bars by a UK court for directing a terrorist organisation.Choudary, 57, had been found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of directing Al-Muhajiroun (ALM) and encouraging support for the proscribed organisation through online meetings. Sentencing him at the same court to a prison term means he would be in his 80s by the time he can seek parole. Justice Mark Wall told Choudary his behaviour was of the “highest culpability”. “Organisations such...

Iran’s attempt to control al-Qaeda may be one of the biggest strategic benefits the rogue state has ever enjoyed. And it could cost the United States dearly if Joe Biden is not careful. The death of al-Qaeda’s longtime leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, proves how dangerous it is to lead the world’s most notorious Islamist terrorist organization. Given the group’s international reach and the fact that it has survived nearly 30 years of conflict with America’s war machine, many observers have been surprised by the fact that al-Qaeda did not have a succession plan in place. This is especially odd considering how...

Egyptian-born Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, is most likely hiding in Karachi under the protection of Pakistan's notorious spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence, a United States media report said. 'Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has been protecting al-Zawahiri, a trained surgeon, since US forces evicted Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan in late 2001,' Newsweek said in a major investigative story claiming that its information is based on several authoritative sources. 'His most likely location today, they say: Karachi, the teeming port city of 26 million people on the Arabian Sea,' the weekly said. This is for the first...

Combine Hustler’s Larry Flynt with Coppola’s Don Corleone and what do you get? Siraj Haqqani, the Taliban’s Godfather of Porn. Allow me to set the stage for one of jihad’s bravest, most pious Muslim warriors. Siraj Haqqani is the chief operating officer of the deadliest terror network in the Afhanistan/Pakistan (Af/Pak) theater, the Haqqani terror network. It was established by Siraj’s father, the senile Jed Clampett of jihad, Jalaluddin Haqqani. A heretofore remorseless criminal organization, the Haqqanis realized the real growth industry (i.e. money) for the group laid in embracing the jihad. In a stunning come to Jesus, (whoops) come...

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed at the home of an FBI-wanted Taliban lackey who was once given a platform by the New York Times. The jihadist, one of the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks, was taken out by a CIA drone strike Sunday morning at a Kabul home belonging to senior Taliban official Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to initial reporting by the Gray Lady herself. The publication infamously published an op-ed penned by Haqqani — the leader of the insurgent Haqqani Network in Afghanistan linked to brutal and deadly attacks — to ask for a peace agreement between...

Bad morning for Pelosi @ 9:53 am by Eric Zimmermann Two new developments in the "what did Pelosi know about waterboarding" series spell trouble for the Speaker. First, CNN reports that an aide told Pelosi in February 2003 that waterboarding had been used on Abu Zubaydah. This contradicts Pelosi's assertion that she only knew about the legal rationale for waterboarding, not that it had been used. Sheehy attended a briefing in which waterboarding was discussed in February 2003, with Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who took over Pelosi's spot as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. This source says...

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists. The two videotapes and one audiotape are believed to be the only remaining recordings made within the clandestine prison system. The tapes depict Binalshibh’s interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002, several current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings remain a closely...

Here’s some news I missed.Edward Jay Epstein reported on December 21 that the FBI’s anthrax case has fallen apart. In 2008 the FBI declared that Dr. Bruce Ivins, who died an apparent suicide in July 2008, was the perpetrator who sent anthrax-laced letters to members of Congress and others just days after the September 11 attacks. The FBI’s investigation, apparently the most lengthy it had ever conducted, was directed primarily at scientists who had access to anthrax materials. But, Epstein reports, it turns out that Dr. Ivins did not have access to the sophisticated form of anthrax used in September...

The Taliban “grossly violated” its 2020 agreement with the United States by “hosting and sheltering” al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, after President Biden announced that the fugitive terrorist had been killed in a weekend drone strike in Kabul. Blinken said the Taliban had violated not just the Doha agreement but also its “repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries.” “They also betrayed the Afghan people and their own stated desire for recognition from and normalization with...

What do we know about the new head of al-Qa’eda, Ayman al-Zawahiri? Not very much. We know he’s a former ‘emir’ of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad who spent three years in an Egyptian prison after his group assassinated the pro-western President Anwar Sadat. But there is one curious fact about him that it would be foolish for the West to ignore: his links with the KGB, and its successor, Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. It was Alexander Litvinenko, the rebel FSB officer assassinated with radioactive material in London in 2006, who named al-Zawahiri as ‘Moscow’s man in al-Qa’eda’. In...

The head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed Saturday in Kabul, Afghanistan following U.S. drone strikes.Joe Biden said the following yesterday:On Saturday, at my direction, the United States successfully concluded an air strike in Kabul, Afghanistan and killed al Qaeda Amir Ayman al-Zawahiri.He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats, and American interests. Zawahri was Bin Laden's leader, his number two man, and his deputy during the time of terrorist attacks on 9/11. He was deeply involved in the planning of 9/11.YouTube screen grab.His Twitter account also tweeted this:The United States continues...

On July 14, 2022, Al-Qaeda's official media outlet Al-Sahab released a video featuring an audio address by the organization's leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. The video is the sixth part in a series titled "Deal of the Century or Crusades Spanning Centuries," whose first part was released on September 11, 2020. The fifth part was released on June 14...

The United States killed al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike Saturday, following a more than 20-year effort to assassinate the terrorist. Labeled by US officials as Osama bin Laden’s number-two, al-Zawahiri, 71, was a key plotter of the September 11 terrorist attacks and took over as the leader of the notorious terror group following bin Laden’s death in 2011. The strike was carried out early Sunday at an Afghanistan safe house the elderly terrorist had be holed up in, at 6:18 am local time and 9:48 pm Saturday in the US. The early morning attack saw al-Zawahiri...

Details surrounding the United State's killing of of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri raises new questions, Rep. Mike Waltz, a former Special Forces officer who served in Afghanistan, told Fox News. "Number one, what was the leader of al-Qaeda doing in Kabul?" Waltz asked. "And from what I'm hearing from a number of folks, both in Afghanistan and in the intelligence community, he's been there for some time. So, what did the Taliban promise him?" "Why did he feel so comfortable to really be out in the open?" the Florida Republican continued, noting that al-Zawahiri had been in hiding for...