Terrorist, War On Terror | featured news

President Obama credited American intelligence operations and cooperation with the Yemeni government for the death of key Al Qaeda figure Anwar Awlaki on Friday, calling it a "major blow" to the terrorism network's most active operational affiliate and a sign of things to come.

Military officials in Pakistan announced the arrest of three men on Monday they said were senior Al Qaeda operatives who had been planning attacks on Western targets.

The CIA worked closely with Moammar Gadhafi’s intelligence services in the rendition of terror suspects to Libya for interrogation, according to documents seen Saturday by the AP, cooperation that could spark tensions between Washington and Libya’s new rulers. The CIA was among a number of foreign intelligence services that worked with Libya’s agencies, according to documents found at a Libyan security agency building in Tripoli.

Direct U.S. talks with the Taliban had evolved to a substantive negotiation before Afghan officials, nervous that the secret and independent talks would undercut President Hamid Karzai, scuttled them, Afghan and U.S. officials told The Associated Press....

The number two leader of al Qaeda, Atiyah abd al-Rahman, was killed on August 22 in Pakistan, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday.

The Maryland boy is accused of helping Colleen LaRose plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist. When he allegedly exchanged emails with Colleen LaRose, the woman known as Jihad Jane, the young man was 15 and a good student who spent a lot of time at his computer in a quaint bedroom community outside Baltimore.

A U.S. military task force has discovered that part of a $2.16 billion transportation contract was diverted through a murky network of subcontractors and into the hands of a group of Afghan power-brokers, criminals and Taliban insurgents, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Two Taliban spokesmen said their mobile phones, emails and a website had been hacked and messages issued on Wednesday falsely reporting the death of the movement's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who arrived in Kabul on Saturday, also said the American focus had narrowed to capturing or killing key leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

By an 8-0 vote, the Supreme Court says former Attorney General John Ashcroft did not clearly violate the 4th Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. The case stemmed from the arrest of Abdullah al Kidd, who was held for two weeks, ostensibly so he could serve as a witness in a terrorism trial in Idaho.