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WASHINGTON Captured Al Qaeda official Abu Zubaydah won't be tortured by the U.S. or allied interrogators, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. "We intend to get every single thing out of him to try to prevent terrorist acts in the future," Rumsfeld said, but the idea that the U.S. might use proxy torturers to keep its hands clean was "wrong and irresponsible.""Believe me, reports to that effect are wrong, inaccurate, not happening and will not happen," he said. "He will be properly interrogated by proper people, who know how to do those things."The interrogators probably will be from the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Lebanese man who says he attended an al-Qaida training camp was charged Friday with lying to federal authorities about shipments of communications equipment seized by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, 41, was charged in a U.S. District Court in Minnesota, one of several places he's lived in the United States. A federal judge in New York, where Elzahabi has been held since his arrest in May, held a hearing for Elzahabi and ordered him transferred to Minneapolis to face two counts of making false statements to federal investigators. A criminal complaint by FBI...

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...

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...

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...

A former CIA officer who was imprisoned for leaking classified information to journalists said he was initially was cleared of charges until Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan got involved. John Kiriakou said he had "no idea" he was under investigation in 2007 for sharing details of terrorists' interrogations to journalists. Kiriakou said his story should be relevant to President Donald Trump, who is dealing with the same officials in his Russia probe as Kiriakou did. "In 2007, the Bush administration investigated me and determined I hadn't committed a crime," he said. However, Kiriakou said that once President Obama took power...

“We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.”-John Kirakou I would take anything John Kirakou says with a grain from the salt pit.  I question his credibility. What does anyone really know about Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to be the next director of the CIA? Not a heck of a lot. So far what we have is media and ideology-driven hysteria:...

Zarqawi Associate Charged with Lying to FBI Friday, June 25, 2004 By Catherine Herridge and Anna Stolley A Lebanese national with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search), the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, was picked up in Minnesota and charged Friday in a New York court with lying to the FBI about his ties to terrorists, Fox News has learned. According to a federal complaint obtained by Fox, Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi (search), attended jihad training camps in Afghanistan in 1988 and ‘89, where he first met Zarqawi — who is believed to be directing the current attacks against U.S. and...

A former CIA officer who was imprisoned for leaking classified information to journalists said he was initially was cleared of charges until Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan got involved. John Kiriakou said he had "no idea" he was under investigation in 2007 for sharing details of terrorists' interrogations to journalists. Kiriakou said his story should be relevant to President Donald Trump, who is dealing with the same officials in his Russia probe as Kiriakou did. "In 2007, the Bush administration investigated me and determined I hadn't committed a crime," he said. However, Kiriakou said that once President Obama took power...

The jailed architect of 9/11 revealed that al Qaeda's plan to kill the United States was not through military attacks but immigration and "outbreeding nonmuslims" who would use the legal system to install Sharia law, according to a blockbuster new book. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also predicted that intelligence officials using so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques such the waterboarding he experienced would eventually come under attack from weak-kneed U.S. politicians and media. In Enhanced Interrogation, CIA contractor James Mitchell tells for the first time about his role interrogating al Qaeda principles, many like KSM still jailed at Guantanamo Bay. He details accounts...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met with the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 attacks has told American interrogators the meeting never happened, according to United States officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the former intelligence officer, was taken into custody by the United States in July. Under questioning he has said that he did not meet with Mohamed Atta in Prague, according to the officials, who have reviewed classified debriefing reports based on the interrogations. American officials caution that Mr. Ani may...

Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration's argument for torture. That's why Sunday's front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists. Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms." Zubaida was the first detainee to be tortured at the direct instruction of the White House....

Saudi princes 'linked' to bin Laden By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 01/09/2003) Strained Saudi-US relations were dealt another blow yesterday with the publication of allegations directly linking Osama bin Laden to leading Saudi princes. Time magazine will today carry details from a new book alleging that Abu Zubaidah, the leading al-Qa'eda terrorist captured in Pakistan last year, was duped into revealing details of support from members of the Saudi royal family. Why America Slept, by Gerald Posner, claims that Zubaidah resisted CIA interrogation, despite the use of "quick-on, quick-off" painkillers and truth drugs. Posner describes how, in an attempt...

The arrest and detention of top al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will result in a wealth of new information that will help shut down the organization, according to intelligence experts. And they credit information gleaned from the earlier capture and interrogation of top al Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaidah and Ramzi Binalshibh for leads that resulted in finding Mohammed. This fits nicely with lengthy ELSs we discovered soon after their captures: Carry the Mountain. Zubaidah will Tell Something of Value as a Gift as the Monument of the Sect is Finished You Were Harnessed. Contemplate My Might. Let Zubaidah be...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- South Asia Analysis Group -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper no. 439 08. 04. 2002 AL QAEDA'S SHADOWS ON INDIA & S.E. ASIA by B.Raman There are indications that to avoid detection of their presence in Pakistani territory by the US intelligence agencies and possible cross border (Pakistan-Afghan border) punitive strikes by the US forces operating in Afghanistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan has started shifting important elements of the Al Qaeda, including surviving leaders of its brains trust, to Pakistani Punjab and the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), including the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan). Since December, 2001, sections of the Pakistani media...