March 12, 2010 11:18 am
Fox News, “Al Qaeda Suspect Worked at U.S. Nuclear Plants”
An American charged in Yemen with being a member of Al Qaeda had worked at nuclear power plants in the U.S., a spokesman for a group of plants in New Jersey said Thursday. But a state official said the man did not breach security there.
Sharif Mobley, a 26-year-old natural-born U.S. citizen, was arrested in Yemen earlier this month and is accused of killing a guard in an attempt to break out of a hospital.
The FBI, the State Department and other authorities said they were trying to gather information about Mobley. But the allegations appeared to illustrate a phenomenon U.S. intelligence officials have warned about: American Muslims becoming radicalized and joining terrorist movements overseas.
Fox News article continues here.
March 3, 2010 3:47 pm
Times Online, “Pakistan’s Army takes control of al-Qaeda cave network on Afghan border”
by Zahid Hussain
Pakistani forces have taken control of a warren of caves that served until recently as the nerve centre of the Taleban and al-Qaeda and sheltered Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command to Osama bin Laden.
“It was the main hub of militancy where al-Qaeda operatives had moved freely,” Major-General Tariq Khan, the Pakistan regional commander, said as he gave journalists a tour of Damadola yesterday.
The village, nestling among snow-capped peaks in the Bajaur region along the Afghan border, has been fought over for 16 months. It is the first time that the Pakistani Army has set foot in the village, which had long been dominated by the insurgents operating on the both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Times Online article continues here.
February 9, 2010 9:25 pm
ABC News, “WH: Some Critics ‘Serving the Goals of al Qaeda’”
by Jake Tapper
In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan — Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism — responds to critics of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies by saying “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”
Brennan writes that, “Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill.”
In the oped, titled “‘We need no lectures’: Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad,” Brennan writes that politics “should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.”
The administration op-ed is in response to a USA Today editorial entitled “National security team fails to inspire confidence; Officials’ handling of Christmas Day attack looks like amateur hour.”
Brennan provides a detailed defense of the administration’s handling of failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab whom, he says, was “thoroughly interrogated and provided important information.”
He suggests that many critics are hypocritical and clueless.
ABC News article continues here.
January 25, 2010 10:09 pm
Mirror.co.uk, “Terror alert: Two men on ‘no-fly’ list stopped at Heathrow”
by Vincent Moss
Two men were stopped boarding US-bound planes at Heathrow days before Britain’s terror threat was raised to “severe”.
News of the incidents came hours after Home Secretary Alan Johnson lifted the threat level amid fears that al-Qaeda is planning an attack.
The new level, which means an attack is reckoned “highly likely”, is second only to “critical”.
Security sources say an Egyptian was stopped last Saturday as he tried to board an American Airlines flight to Miami. A man from Saudi Arabia was banned from boarding a United Airlines flight to Chicago the next day and sent back to Saudi.
The incidents and the raised threat level follow the failed Christmas Day bombing on a plane over Detroit.
Anti-terror officials said the past week had seen an “unusually high” number of people on their no-fly list trying to board US-bound planes.
Mirror.co.uk article continues here.
January 12, 2010 11:30 pm
January 11, 2010 8:53 pm
Telegraph, “Al-Qaeda veterans ‘are flooding into Yemen’”
by Richard Spencer
In the gloomiest internal assessment of Yemen’s security yet, he said jihadis from across the Arab world are hiding in the lawless hills of Shabwa province where the so-called Christmas Day “underwear bomber” is thought to have been trained, its governor, Ali Hasan al-Ahmadi, said.
“There are dozens of Saudi and Egyptian al-Qaeda militants who came to the province,” said Shabwa’s governor, Ali Hasan al-Ahmadi.
He told the al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper the militants had joined homegrown Yemeni radicals both from Shabwa and other regions of the country.
The province, in the south-east of the country, was one of the targets of a series of air raids against al-Qaeda targets conducted by the Yemeni authorities with American military support shortly before Christmas.
Telegraph article continues here.
January 10, 2010 3:14 am
Yahoo! News (AP), “Christmas terror suspect pleads not guilty”
by Ed White and David Runk
DETROIT – A Nigerian man accused of trying to ignite an explosive on a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas appeared before a judge for the first time Friday, against a backdrop of protesters who stood outside the courthouse waving American flags and denouncing acts of terror.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s arraignment was brief — less than five minutes — and a not guilty plea was entered on his behalf. He said little, telling the judge simply that he understood the charges against him.
At least one passenger from Northwest Airlines flight 253 watched the hearing from the court benches. Hebba Aref, a Detroit area native who sat six rows in front of Abdulmutallab on the plane, said she came because the attack “changed my life.”
Aref, who drew international attention in 2008 after being refused a seat directly behind then-presidential candidate Barack Obama at a Detroit rally because she was wearing a headscarf, said she just wanted to see Abdulmutallab again.
Yahoo! News (AP) article continues here.
