Free Republic

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 ...

A congressional committee has included a local Islamic charity in a new round of inquiries into suspected ties between not-for-profit groups and terrorists. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee has requested the financial records of 25 Islamic charities, including the Columbia-based Islamic American Relief Agency, or IARA. In particular, the request included donor lists that are reported to the IRS but protected under a privacy statute. The request comes two years after FBI, Department of the Treasury and other federal agency investigations into charities suspected of having ties to international terrorists. Since 2001, the United States has frozen more than $136...