Al Qaeda

Anwar al-Awlaki: the next Bin Laden

by News Sources 07.13.2011

Patrick Symmes writes: It was the first drone attack in Yemen in a decade. On May 5, three days after Osama bin Laden was killed, a weaponized unmanned aircraft flew at 20,000 feet over the cracked and broken topography of Yemen. The target was a pickup truck carrying two men, one of them an American-born [...]

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The Kingdom and the Towers

by News Sources 07.13.2011

Anthony Summers and Robynn Swan write: For 10 years now, a major question about 9/11 has remained unresolved. It was, as 9/11-commission chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton recalled, “Had the hijackers received any support from foreign governments?” There was information that pointed to the answer, but the commissioners apparently deemed it too disquieting to [...]

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CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden’s family DNA

by News Sources 07.12.2011

The Guardian reports: The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader’s family, a Guardian investigation has found. As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents [...]

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Panetta says defeat of Al Qaeda is ‘within reach’

by News Sources 07.10.2011

The New York Times reports: Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who arrived in Kabul on Saturday, said the United States was “within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda” and that the American focus had narrowed to capturing or killing 10 to 20 crucial leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Mr. Panetta, [...]

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US officials say ISI murdered Pakistani journalist

by News Sources 07.04.2011

The New York Times reports: Obama administration officials believe that Pakistan’s powerful spy agency ordered the killing of a Pakistani journalist who had written scathing reports about the infiltration of militants in the country’s military, according to American officials. New classified intelligence obtained before the May 29 disappearance of the journalist, Saleem Shahzad, 40, from [...]

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Pakistan’s chief of army fights to keep his job

by News Sources 06.16.2011

The New York Times reports: Pakistan’s army chief, the most powerful man in the country, is fighting to save his position in the face of seething anger from top generals and junior officers since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to Pakistani officials and people who have met the chief in recent [...]

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Al Qaeda names Osama Bin Laden successor

by News Sources 06.16.2011

ABC News reports: Al Qaeda has named a former deputy to Osama bin Laden as its new terror leader following bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs in May, the organization announced on a jihadi website overnight. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born doctor who turns 60 on Sunday, was identified in the statement [...]

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Pakistan arrests CIA informants in Bin Laden raid

by News Sources 06.15.2011

The New York Times reports: Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials. Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani [...]

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U.S. is intensifying a secret campaign of Yemen airstrikes

by News Sources 06.09.2011

The New York Times reports: The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials. The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen [...]

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People & Power – Osama my neighbour

by News Sources 06.09.2011

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Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11

by News Sources 06.08.2011

Gareth Porter on the new book by recently murdered Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad. Share

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Who killed Syed Saleem Shahzad?

by News Sources 06.05.2011

Amir Mir writes: In the shadowy world of Pakistan, journalists can be reasonably sure of living until the next morning when their byline appears. From there on, you don’t know who might take affront to your report, abduct, torture or even kill you. This is the essence of the tragic story of Syed Saleem Shahzad, [...]

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Prominent journalist Saleem Shahzad murdered after exposing ties between Pakistan’s navy and al Qaeda

by Paul Woodward 06.01.2011

Declan Walsh reports: A prominent Pakistani journalist who investigated links between the military and al-Qaida has been found dead, triggering angry accusations against the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan correspondent for a news service based in Hong Kong, disappeared on his way to a television interview in Islamabad on Sunday evening. On [...]

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NATO concern over Pakistan nuclear arsenal

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Al Jazeera reports: The head of NATO has admitted that the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is a matter of concern, the day after the worst assault on a Pakistani military base in two years. Anders Fogh Rasmussen was speaking in Afghanistan on Tuesday, where he met Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to discuss the [...]

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Al Qaeda’s leadership

by News Sources 05.24.2011

At Jihadica, Vahid Brown writes: In light of the widely reported news that Sayf al-‘Adl (also spelled Saif al-Adel) has taken the reins of operational leadership within al-Qa’ida in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, I thought it would be useful to Jihadica’s readers to provide a bit of context about this [...]

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How Obama got bin Laden and lost Pakistan

by News Sources 05.20.2011

The New York Times reports: China has agreed to immediately provide 50 JF-17 fighter jets to Pakistan, a major outcome of a visit by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to Beijing this week, Pakistani officials said Thursday. China and Pakistan have jointly produced the JF-17 aircraft, but the new planes would be equipped with more [...]

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Court filings imply Israel had link to 9/11 attacks?

by Paul Woodward 05.20.2011

OK. That’s not exactly the wording of the New York Times‘ headline. It says “Court Filings Assert Iran Had Link to 9/11 Attacks,” so how did I come up with the alternative interpretation? In a criminal case, if one of the defendants or a key witness is murdered before the trial, it’s fair to assume [...]

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Assassination nation: Are there any limits on President Obama’s license to kill?

by Paul Woodward 05.19.2011

James Bovard writes: How much evidence should the US government be obliged to show before it kills an American citizen? None, according to the Obama administration. And how much evidence should the government be obliged to possess of an American’s wrongdoing before officially targeting them for killing? That’s a secret, according to the Obama team. [...]

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Why did US medical personnel remove high-value detainee Abu Zubaydah’s eye?

by News Sources 05.19.2011

Jason Leopold reports: Shortly after he was captured in March 2002 at a safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, following an early morning raid jointly conducted by the CIA, FBI, Pakistani police and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Abu Zubaydah woke up at a black site prison in Thailand and discovered that his left eye had been surgically [...]

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Anticipation builds (in Washington) for Obama’s big Mideast speech

by Paul Woodward 05.19.2011

Osama bin Laden might be dead, but al Qaeda still operates a nimble media outfit. Just as the US media drone anticipating President Obama’s speech later this morning started to grow tiresome, Obama’s words got preempted by Osama’s. I can’t help wondering what his assassination would have looked like if it had occurred immediately after [...]

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US officials briefed on bin Laden raid couldn’t be trusted to keep it secret

by Paul Woodward 05.17.2011

The latest account of the raid in which Osama bin Laden was assassinated on May 2, says: The decision to launch on that particular moonless night in May came largely because too many American officials had been briefed on the plan. U.S. officials feared if it leaked to the press, bin Laden would disappear for [...]

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The quaint and obsolete Nuremberg principles

by News Sources 05.14.2011

Glenn Greenwald writes: Benjamin Ferencz is a 92-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, American combat soldier during World War II, and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, where he prosecuted numerous Nazi war criminals, including some responsible for the deaths of upward of 100,000 innocent people.  He gave a fascinating (and shockingly articulate) 13-minute interview yesterday to the CBC in [...]

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News roundup — May 12

by News Sources 05.12.2011

Sunni monarchies close ranks Reports that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is considering some form of membership for two non-Gulf states – Jordan and Morocco – confirm that the conservative Sunni monarchies of the Middle East are closing ranks against Iran, Shiite-led Iraq and the democratic wave sweeping the region. GCC secretary general Abdullatif al-Zayani [...]

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Time for Pakistan to divorce the US

by News Sources 05.12.2011

Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier and former president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, explains how Pakistan ended up at war with itself dealing with a tribal rebellion. If we hark back in time, in 2001, the Pakistani Pashtun and all Afghans were celebrating US intervention in Afghanistan. It would liberate them from Taliban oppression. [...]

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