Al Qaida

U.S. counterterrorism officials were looking at possible connections Saturday between al-Qaida-linked militants in Yemen and a 23-year-old Nigerian man charged with attempting to destroy a Northwest Airlines plane on its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport. According to a criminal complaint and FBI affidavit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab carried a destructive device aboard Flight 253 on Christmas Day in what authorities said was an attempted terrorist attack that could have killed all 290 people aboard.

After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's pathetic responses to the Senate and House ("Clinton grilled on Benghazi," Jan. 24), let's be honest that we don't have al-Qaida on the run (as President Barack Obama claimed during the recent campaign; although, of course, he misses many daily intelligence reports). Al-Qaida will be all over Afghanistan as soon as we leave, is strong in Iraq, and is running rampant in Yemen, Mali, Libya, Algeria, and I'm sure other nations (Sudan and Somalia, perhaps)

As the most highly visible and destructive terrorist organization of our time, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has done more to shape concerns and fears about terrorism than any other terrorist organization in at least the last 50 years. What impact will bin Laden's death have on terrorism in the future? Is his brand of indiscriminate and brutal violence at an end? Of course, al-Qaida was never the only terrorist threat out there. More than 600 other groups have been engaged in terrorism worldwide since al-Qaida claimed its first attack in 1998.

A recent intelligence leak confirms something that regular readers of this column already know: that the Obama administration has officially authorized covert support of local "rebel" groups, through government agencies like the CIA, with the goal of destabilizing and subverting the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. The interesting consequence is that al-Qaida is likely among the groups President Obama's directive now supports. Just think about this for a minute. The president of the United States, according to an intelligence leak initially reported by Reuters, has secretly authorized support of an undisclosed nature for armed fighters in a region, including members of the group now synonymous with terrorism against American and Western interests in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

CHICAGO - Federal prosecutors charged a Chicago cab driver on Friday with attempting to provide funds for explosives to al-Qaida and discussing a possible bomb attack on an unspecified stadium in the United States this summer. Raja Lahrasib Khan, 56, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. - Baltimore Sun News Services

Offering new details into the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner, President Barack Obama on Saturday said a Yemen-based branch of al-Qaida trained, armed and directed the Nigerian accused of trying to detonate an explosive onboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. The president vowed retaliation against the global terrorist group, and he gave a full-throated defense of his administration's anti-terrorism efforts in the face of...

A Pakistani national with homes in Laurel and Washington, D.C., was sentenced to nine years in prison yesterday in a Baltimore federal court for financing people he believed were terrorist al-Qaida operatives and laundering $2.2 million in what he was told were illegal funds through an ancient currency-transfer system that avoids financial institutions. Saifullah Anjum Ranjha, 45, was one of nearly four dozen people indicted last year after a four-year global sting - dubbed "Operation Cash-Out"- revealed multiple schemes that stretched from Maryland to Belgium, Spain and Canada.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- It bears all the hallmarks of al-Qaida: simultaneous suicide bombings against political or economic soft targets, designed to inflict heavy casualties and spread fear. An alleged plot to destroy several U.S.-bound airliners with liquid explosives - which led to a series of arrests yesterday in Britain - could be the largest attack planned by al-Qaida or its affiliates since Sept. 11, 2001. Although British authorities have not blamed al-Qaida directly, terrorism experts say the plan fits the group's pattern.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military has used broad secret authority since 2004 to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against al-Qaida and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior U.S. officials. These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in spring 2004 at the direction of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack al-Qaida anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Rallies around the country continued fitfully yesterday to protest the U.S. airstrikes on a Pakistani village that were intended to kill Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 leader of al-Qaida, but instead killed at least 18 civilians, even as American counterterrorism officials said they were not ready to rule out the prospect that al-Zawahri might have been killed in the Friday strike. Officials in Pakistan, who have examined bodies found at the scene, have said they were confident that al-Zawahri was not killed in the attack.

Five weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden publicly commanded his foot-soldiers to ramp up the violence against American civilians. But five weeks before his death, he privately instructed his lieutenants to refrain from killing any civilians. Did the world's most notorious terrorist have a moral awakening and grow soft? Hardly. His unheralded tactical shift was purely strategic. This month, the Combating Terrorism Center at the West Point Military Academy released 17 declassified documents that were seized from bin Laden's Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound in the targeted killing last year.

Those sultans of style at al-Qaidahave released their line of lingerie for spring, and it's a blast. Tucked away in their secret atelier in Yemen, the fanatics of fashion have come up with an updated version of the exploding underwear that caused such a stir on Christmas Day 2009 when a hapless African lad tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit and only managed to severely singe his private parts. Al-Qaidabomb maker Ibrahim Hassan Asiri is reputed to be the designer of the new nasty knickers.

Back from a visit to Kabul, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger expressed confidence in relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan. It's Pakistan that concerns him. "A lot of terrorists are being trained and harbored in Pakistan," said Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. "That's a serious problem. " As if to underscore his concerns, a Rockville man who was kidnapped by al-Qaida in Pakistan last year said in a newly released video that his captors will kill him if the U.S. doesn't meet their demands.

One year after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs at his safe house in Pakistan, a substantially weakened al-Qaida and its affiliates continue to pose a threat to the West. The Pakistan-based group's leadership has been decimated by drone strikes and is no longer believed capable of directing spectacular operations on the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. But that doesn't mean America and its allies can afford to let their guard down.

Does the U.S. (and the West) possess the internal fortitude to pay the required price to defeat contemporary enemies such asal-Qaidaand its progeny? This question crosses my mind whenever I'm exposed to the "peace groups" that occasionally pop up on television news or appear at a local Fourth of July parade. Their signs and banners reflect emotional demands for peace on behalf of a war-weary country fighting a loose confederation of radical extremists spread around the world. My immediate thought: How do these well-meaning folks process reports such as al-Qaida's recent poster campaign promise to make a return (mass casualty)

A Laurel man was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on a charge of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Craig Benedict Baxam, 24, is accused of trying to travel to Somalia last year to join al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida linked group that U.S. officials say is responsible for assassinations, suicide bombings and other attacks on the central government, civil society leaders, aid workers, peace activists and journalists. Baxam, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, was detained by police in Kenya in December and interviewed there by FBI agents.

Miami -- A government witness testified yesterday that terrorism conspirator suspect Jose Padilla attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in 2001 to learn how to fulfill his religious duty to defend fellow Muslims in foreign conflicts, not to engage in terrorism. The testimony of Yahya Goba, 30, came in the trial of Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, and two other defendants. Goba, a U.S. citizen of Yemeni descent, is serving a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to aid a foreign terrorist group.

MADRID, Spain - A Moroccan arrested in last week's train bombings here surfaced nearly three years ago in an investigation that indicated he had wide-ranging contacts with Islamic extremists, including a group later accused of being accomplices in the Sept. 11 attacks, according to court documents and interviews conducted yesterday. Spanish police searched the Madrid apartment of Jamal Zougam in August 2001, according to investigators. The search revealed that Zougam, 30, had associated with key figures in a Madrid al-Qaida cell, according to Spanish court documents.

A studious young man with an aptitude for computers, Majid Shoukat Khan was working as a database administrator in a high-rise office building in Tysons Corner, Va., on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. After American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the western face of the Pentagon, the recent Owings Mill High School graduate watched from his office window as the smoke rose over the capital. Osama bin Laden would claim credit for the attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad would boast of planning them.

In reference to The Sun's editorial regarding the removal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq ("Home for Christmas," Dec. 25) and speaking as a veteran of five years in WWII and later recalled for three more in Korea, I am in complete disagreement with President Barack Obama's political greedy, unwise and short-sighted decision in withdrawing our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 regardless of how they got there. Instead, I strongly believe that the U.S. should have maintained a strong standing military force in Iraq just as we did and still do in Japan, Germany and South Korea to assure that democracy remains in operation for the whole world to behold.