Al Qaida

CAIRO, Egypt - Two car bombs struck near a hotel and a military compound in Algeria yesterday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 31, the Algerian Interior Ministry said. The blasts followed Tuesday's deadly attack on prospective recruits at a police academy. The car bombs detonated about 15 minutes apart around 6 a.m. local time in the town of Bouira. The first injured four soldiers outside a regional military command center, according to the Algerian press agency. The second killed at least 11 people around the Sophie Hotel, which is reportedly used by employees of a Canadian construction company building a dam in eastern Algeria.

BAGHDAD - Predawn raids by elite Iraqi forces yesterday resulted in the fatal shooting of a government employee and the arrest of two prominent Sunni Arabs, according to witnesses and officials. The troops were from the central government's counter-terrorism units, said Gov. Raad Rashid al-Tamimi of Diyala province, where the raid took place. They had stormed the governorate building in the city of Baqouba and arrested Sunni provincial council member Hussein al-Zubaidi, who belongs to the Iraqi Islamic Party.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba - The U.S. government opened its first war crimes prosecution yesterday with a narrative of Osama bin Laden's driver overhearing his boss offer an eerie post-mortem in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: "If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane, it would've hit the dome," declared Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone. And so with his first words to a military jury, the Pentagon prosecutor conjured up a conversation from inside the world of al-Qaida, revealed by the accused, driver Salim Hamdan.

"I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude," President Bush said last year, a bit resentfully. "That's the problem here in America: They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq." Apparently not. It seems the rarest person in the world is a grateful Iraqi. Last week, the Baghdad government said it would reject any agreement on U.S. forces that "violates Iraq's sovereignty." That came days after tens of thousands of Shiites took to the streets to protest a proposed agreement that would keep U.S. forces there for years to come.

WASHINGTON - In a long-awaited report, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence rebuked President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday for making prewar claims - particularly that Iraq had close ties to al-Qaida - that were not backed by available intelligence. The report, which was supported by some Republicans but criticized by many others, accuses the president and other members of his administration of repeatedly exaggerating the evidence of an al-Qaida connection to take advantage of the charged climate after the Sept.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A car bombing that killed at least six people and wounded dozens near the Danish Embassy yesterday raised fears that al-Qaida-linked militants might be moving to fill a void left by other Islamist fighters seeking truces with Pakistan's new government. The powerful blast occurred in a leafy, upscale neighborhood of the capital, just outside the gates of the embassy, which has been the target of angry protests over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in Danish newspapers.

As the Bush administration sought last week to play down Hezbollah's success in boosting its power and legitimacy in Lebanon, the militant group's rising influence around the world has led some intelligence and counterterrorism officials to ask whether the Iranian-financed organization has grown more dangerous to the United States than al-Qaida. Though few believe Hezbollah would launch an attack in the West, continued hostility between the United States and Iran could significantly raise the threat level here, several former counterterrorism officials and analysts said - especially if the tensions evolve into full-blown conflict.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Aden Hashi Ayro, long identified as one of al-Qaida's top operatives in East Africa and the leader of the Islamist comeback in Somalia, was killed yesterday morning by an American airstrike, according to U.S. and Somali officials. Ayro was one of the most feared and notorious figures in Somalia, a short, wispy man believed to be in his 30s who had gone from lowly car washer to top terrorist suspect blamed for a string of atrocities, including ripping up an Italian graveyard, killing a BBC journalist and planning suicide attacks all across Somalia.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai on Sunday was the work of militants who had infiltrated Afghanistan's security forces and had ties to groups linked to al- Qaida in Pakistan's tribal areas, the Afghan intelligence chief said yesterday. The claims emerged after a day of heightened alarm in which Afghan security forces killed and captured a number of suspects involved in Sunday's assassination attempt, raiding three safe houses in Kabul. An eight-hour siege with one cell left seven people dead, including a child and three security officials.

BAGHDAD -- Hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened "open war" as Iraqi and U.S. forces battled his Mahdi Army militia in two key strongholds yesterday, raising the specter that a truce credited with reducing violence could end soon. The warning was the closest the cleric has come to canceling the truce he called in August, and it coincided with an Iranian denunciation of U.S. airstrikes in support of the Shiite-led government's military offensive. The United States accuses Iran of providing training, arms and other aid to Shiite extremists.