FBI Director – al-Qaida Still Seeks Weapons of Mass Destruction

FBI Director Robert Mueller warned Congress on Wednesday of ongoing al-Qaida efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack the United States.

“Al-Qaida remains committed to its goal of conducting attacks inside the United States,” Mueller told a House appropriations subcommittee. “Further, al-Qaida’s continued efforts to access chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material pose a serious threat to the United States.”

To accomplish its goals of new attacks on the American homeland, al-Qaida “seeks to infiltrate overseas operatives who have no known nexus to terrorism into the United States using both legal and illegal methods of entry,” Mueller said.

In February, Sheikh Abdullah al-Nasifi, a known al-Qaida recruiter in Kuwait, boasted on al Jazeera television that Mexico’s border with the United States was the ideal infiltration point for terrorists seeking to attack America.

“Four pounds of anthrax – in a suitcase this big – carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S., are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there,” al-Nasifi said.

via Newsmax – FBI Director Mueller: Al-Qaida Still Wants Nuclear Bomb.

U.S. Believes al Qaeda Still Deadly but On the Run

CNN reports an intercepted message indicates some members of al Qaeda are looking to the group’s founder for more visible leadership, a U.S. intelligence official told CNN Wednesday after CIA director Leon Panetta talked about the message in a newspaper interview.

Osama bin Laden is “rarely seen, rarely heard,” the official said, and that is “troubling” to those who see him as their leader.

“There are strong indications that some al Qaeda terrorists would like Bin Laden to take a higher profile,” the official said, adding that Panetta’s comments in the Washington Post were referring to the al Qaeda core that is operating along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.

Al Qaeda “is on the run, but still coming after us,” the official said.

CNN was unable to corroborate the existence of the intercepted message or its contents outside the U.S. intelligence community, and neither the official nor Panetta provided any further information about it or its contents.

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Yemen-American Imam Calls for US Muslim Revolt

A Yemeni-American Muslim preacher known for his ties to extremists operating in the U.S. called on American Muslims in a new audio message to turn against their government because of its actions against Muslims around the world.

Anwar al-Awlaki’s latest message, excerpts of which were aired on CNN Wednesday, described his own radicalization after U.S. operations against Muslims and called on those in the U.S. to follow his path, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist Web Sites.

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Pakistani Court Charges 5 Americans With Terrorism

Five Americans face life in a Pakistani jail after officials there charged them with plotting terror attacks.

A Pakistani court charged the five men from Virginia on Wednesday with attempting to join al Qaeda-linked groups to carry out attacks in Pakistan.

Officials said they believe the group was also planning to go to Afghanistan to fight against U.S. and NATO troops.

The men, all Muslims ranging from 18 to 25 years old, deny the charges, claiming they were planning to work with charity groups in Afghanistan.

“The charges were read out by the judge. The judge asked if they accept the charges. All the accused unanimously rejected them. They said 'We totally deny the charges,” said their lawyer, Hasan Dastagir.

He called the charges “lies” and said the men believe they are being framed by Pakistan and the United States.

via Pakistani court charges 5 Americans with terrorism.

Taliban Internet Recruiting Through The Eyes of a Detainee

The young Taliban detainee, shackled at the wrists, with his head covered with a black canvas bag, was chillingly clear about his life's mission: “The Taliban have only one objective: to continue killing the Americans.”

The tools this particular terrorist had adopted to accomplish that goal were not suicide bombs or sniper rifles, but laptop computers and other high-tech equipment. The purpose of his Taliban cell was to reach potential recruits online over the Internet.

In interviews spread over several hours, I was given a rare glimpse into the mind of this youthful insurgent.

As the sessions were occurring, back in the United States people were reading accounts of Jihad Jane and Jihad Jamie, American women who had allegedly been indoctrinated to attack their birth country through the Internet.

What I was hearing in the spare interview room would shed light on how the Taliban and al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan reached potential recruits around the world.

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Hakeemullah Mehsud is Alive, Says Former ISI Officer

A former officer in the Pakistani military intelligence service with close ties to terrorist groups has denied that Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, was killed in a US air strike according to a report at The Long War Journal.

Khalid Khawaja, a self-described humans rights activist with deep ties to the Taliban, al Qaeda, and a host of terrorist groups operating on Pakistani soil, claimed today that two of his associates met with Hakeemullah last week.

“Two of my acquaintances were with Hakeemullah Mehsud on March 9 while Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas had claimed he was dead early last month,” Khawaja told the Press Trust of India.

“I challenge the government to deny my claim and then I will disclose the names of those who were with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief on March 9,” Khawaja claimed.

via Read Full Article – The Long War Journal.

al-Qaida Seen Eyeing Less Complex Attacks On US

Ever since al-Qaida attacked the United States in 2001, U.S. authorities have worked to detect and prevent the next big terrorist strike.

But officials and counter-terrorism experts say the Christmas airline plot and last November's shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, may have shown al-Qaida that smaller-scale attacks also can prove unsettling, without the complexity and risk of bigger attempts.

The Christmas Day attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound flight — allegedly by a young Nigerian man with explosives in his underwear — was not successful. The attempt, however, shook the government, set agencies against each other and led to months of political second-guessing.

Short of mass casualties, the attack produced the kind of reaction that al-Qaida desires.

Now it appears that the group, which has prided itself on its ideological purism, seems to be eyeing a more pragmatic and perhaps more dangerous shift in tactics. The emerging message appears to be that big successes are great, but sometimes simply trying can be just as good.

It's not clear what Osama bin Laden and his senior leaders are thinking and plotting. But U.S.-born al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn made a public pitch for such smaller, single acts of jihad in a recent Internet video.

“Even apparently unsuccessful attacks on Western mass transportation systems can bring major cities to a halt, cost the enemy billions and send his corporations into bankruptcy,” Gadahn said in the video.

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FBI Probes N.J. Man Linked to al Qaeda, Worked At Nuclear Plant

Fox news reports a suspected Al Qaeda militant from Buena, N.J., is being investigated by the FBI after his arrest in the Middle East for allegedly trying to shoot his way out of a hospital in Yemen, WMGM-TV in Atlantic City reported.

Federal sources confirmed that 26-year-old Sharif Mobley is in custody after a shooting rampage in a Yemeni hospital that killed one guard and injured another.

FBI spokesman Rich Wolf in Baltimore said the agency is looking into the case. Mobley was reportedly being held prisoner in the hospital and was caught after a chase following the shooting.

Mobley’s mother told WMGM-TV the accusations are false but did say that when she last spoke to her son in late January he was in Yemen. She said the FBI had visited her for questioning but insisted her son has never been in trouble and is a good Muslim.

Mobley’s father, Charles, said the family was waiting for further information.

“We don’t know nothing, we’re trying to hear something,” Charles Mobley told WMGM-TV.

Mobley’s former classmates from New Jersey expressed shock at both his suspected Al Qaeda ties and his deadly escape attempt in Yemen.

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From CBS NEWS

An American man from New Jersey is reportedly among 11 members of an al Qaeda cell arrested in Yemen last week in a security raid.

Several Arab newspapers and a local NBC television affiliate in New Jersey have reported that 26-year-old Sharif Mobley, of Buena Borough, New Jersey, is in Yemeni custody after killing at least one security officer while trying to escape from a hospital in the Yemeni capital.

NBC40 reports that U.S. government sources have confirmed Mobley’s arrest in Yemen, and say “federal investigators have an interest in Mobley and are waiting for more information to come out of Yemen.”

The Yemen Post reports that the suspect in the hospital shooting was a German-Somali dual citizen, but Yemeni foreign ministry sources confirmed on March 8, that the suspect was a U.S. national, not German.

Yemen’s Interior Ministry said last week it had arrested 11 suspected al Qaeda militants during a raid on one of their homes.

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UPDATE: From AJC – Mobley moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam, a former neighbor said.

Before that, Mobley worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, PSEG Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said. Mobley carried supplies and did maintenance work at the plants on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek, and worked at other plants in the region as well.

He satisfied federal background checks as recently as 2008, Delmar said, adding that the plant is cooperating with authorities.

Mike Drewniak, a spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said that his office had been told that Mobley was always supervised, caused no problems and was not believed to have breached security at the plants.

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Adam Gadahn Video Indicates al-Qaeda Reeling

While many are disappointed American turncoat Adam Gadahn was not the al-Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan, as erroneously reported on Monday, there is still good cause to celebrate: Al Qaeda is on the run.

And it is a fitting irony that Gadahn’s latest propaganda video, released last Sunday, serves as an indicator al-Qaeda’s time in Pakistan may be running out. In it, al-Qaeda’s English-language spokesman unsurprisingly praises Fort Hood murderer, Nidal Hasan, and callously calls on al-Qaeda sympathizers in the West to launch similar homicidal attacks.

“You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage,” said the first American charged with treason since World War II.

But it was Gadahn’s telling potential al-Qaeda terrorists they need not travel abroad (meaning Pakistan) for training that constituted the video’s most unusual moment as well as the least commented on.

This statement, as one analyst noted, raises the question as to whether al-Qaeda is any longer in the position to train recruits. Gadahn’s call for individual operators to instead use “a little imagination and planning and a limited budget”, like in 9/11, to stage independent attacks rather than travel to al-Qaeda’s notorious training camps on the Afghan-Pakistan border indicates it isn’t.

via Read Full Article.

Ex-Terrorist Takes CBN News Inside Al Qaeda

Western leaders are often at odds over how to take on the threat of Islamic terrorism. Al Qaeda, on the other hand, appears totally focused on its mission.

The terrorist group is obsessed with destroying the United States. And according to one former colleague of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, they don&’t care how many innocent civilians are killed in the process.

Face-to-Face with Bin Laden

CBN News recently spoke with former terrorist Noman Benotman in an extensive interview about the inner workings of Al-Qaeda's leadership.

These days, Benotman lives a quiet life in London with his wife and children. But it wasn't long ago that Benotman stood face-to-face with Osama bin Laden.

“He insists on inflicting pain to his enemies,” Benotman said of bin Laden. “Beyond your imagination. You can't miss it when you talk with him.”

via Ex-Terrorist Takes CBN News Inside Al Qaeda – World – CBN News – Christian News 24-7 – CBN.com.

Report – al Qaeda Urges Followers To Track Royal Navy Ships

According to a report in the UK’s Daily Express, nuclear weapons carried aboard Royal Navy warships are high on Al Qaeda’s hit list.

The report states, followers of Osama Bin Laden are being urged to track the Ark Royal, Illustrious and Invincible in what is being called the “battle of the masts”.

A message from the Al Qaeda leadership says: “How many nuclear weapons might be on board and what would be the extent of the damage that could be caused if it was exposed to an attack?”

The last time Al Qaeda launched a large-scale seaborne attack was in October 2000 when suicide bombers in a small vessel used a 1,000lb bomb to punch a hole in the American destroyer USS Cole while it was refueling in the Yemeni port of Aden. It killed 17 American sailors and wounded 39 more.

In a sinister development, Al Qaeda is urging its followers to monitor websites linked to ships to see if messages to wives and children reveal the vessels’ whereabouts.

via Read Full Article.

Adam Gadahn, American al Qaeda Captured? Not…

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Pakistani intelligence agents say they have captured an American al-Qaida operative, but they have reversed their initial assertion that he is Adam Gadahn, who is wanted in the United States on a treason charge.

Pakistani officials said Monday the man they arrested recently in the southern port city of Karachi appears to be another American with the alias Abu Yahya Majadin al-Adam.

They said the similarity of the name with those sometimes used by Adam Gadahn initially caused some confusion.

Source

Additional stories

From the Wall Street Journal

Pakistan said it has arrested a Taliban leader, but there were conflicting reports about his identity and the role he played in the al Qaeda network.

Senior Pakistani official identified the detainee as Abu Yahya or Abu Yahaya.

Earlier, media reports quoted officials in Pakistan as saying the man was an American-born spokesman for al Qaeda, Adam Gadahn. But the senior Pakistani official said he didn’t believe Mr. Gadahn had been arrested.

A second senior Pakistani official also denied that any American national has been seized. “Adam Gadahn has not been captured,” he said.

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From ABC News

Adam Gadahn

A Taliban leader who goes by the name Abu Yahya, just like American-turned-al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn, was picked up in Karachi in recent days, but that person is not Gadahn, a senior Pakistani government official told ABC News.But there are conflicting reports about whether it is notorious Adam Gadahn.

Reports of the capture of an American-born al-Qaeda member by Pakistani authorities gave rise to speculation over whether it was Gadahn, the 31-year-old California-born Muslim convert who has been wanted since 2004.

The official told ABC News the leader who was arrested was possibly Abu Yahya Mujahdeen al-Adam, said to be another American member of al Qaeda, but the Pakistanis have yet to make that identification positive, the official said. Read Full Article

From DAWN News in India

An American Al Qaeda leader, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, was arrested in Karachi on Sunday, US and Pakistani diplomatic sources told journalists here.

Gadahn was likely detained in Sohrab Goth, a major Pashtun area in northern Karachi, which also has a large population of tribesmen from North and South Waziristan.

Also known as ‘Azzam the American’, Gadahn has long been on the US ‘Most Wanted List’. Officials in Washington described his capture as ‘a major victory’ in the war against Al Qaeda.

All major US media outlets, while reporting the arrest of Osama bin Laden’s spokesman, also credited DawnNews with breaking the news.

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From CBS News

Two Pakistani officers and a government official said Sunday that an American charged with treason for working with al Qaeda had been captured, a development that could deliver another significant blow in the U.S.-led battle against the terror network.

U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement officials could not immediately verify the reported detention of Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old spokesman for al Qaeda who has appeared on videos threatening the West, including one that emerged earlier Sunday.

The reported arrest of Gadahn follows the recent detention of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the group’s No. 2. Those detentions have been seen as a sign that Pakistan, which has been criticized as an untrustworthy ally, was cooperating more fully with Washington.

Some observers were cautious about giving credence to the claim that Gadahn was in custody as reports emerged that the man arrested might instead be a Taliban militant leader. There was no way of independently verifying the arrest or identity, and detentions of terror suspects in Pakistan are often surrounded by conflicting reports.

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From Indian Express News

Pakistani security agents have arrested an American al Qaeda spokesman wanted in the United States for treason for threatening violence unless al Qaeda demands are met, Pakistani officials said on Sunday.

News of the arrest of Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam, came the day a video was released in which he called for Muslims in the United States to launch attacks to undermine the economy, according to a website monitoring al Qaeda announcements.

The capture of Gadahn, believed to be in his early 30s, is the latest in a series of militant arrests in US ally Pakistan that has raised hopes for more concerted action against the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda as U.S. forces battle militants over the border in Afghanistan.

“He was arrested in Karachi recently,” said a Pakistani security agent who declined to be identified.

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U.S. Sees a Terror Threat – Pakistanis See a Heroine

Relations between the United States and Pakistan often have a through-the-looking-glass quality, where almost nothing appears quite the same from the other side. The latest example is the case of Aafia Siddiqui.

In the United States, authorities say Ms. Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who once studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is suspected of having links to Al Qaeda. She was convicted by a New York court in February of trying to kill American military officers while in custody in 2008 in Afghanistan. She faces life in prison when she is sentenced in May.

In Pakistan, she has become a national symbol of honor and victimization so potent that politicians of all stripes, Islamists, the news media and an increasingly anti-American public have all lined up to champion her claim of innocence.

In a rare display of unity, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who has described Ms. Siddiqui as a “daughter of the nation,” and the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, have promised to push for her release. Last week, senators passed a resolution to demand her return to Pakistan.

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U.S. Hunts for Citizens Training With Terror Groups

The top U.S. diplomat in Pakistan said Friday that the Obama administration does not know how many Americans might have disappeared overseas to train with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, but the number is not thought to be large.

Speaking to the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson outlined a “nightmare scenario” in which people holding U.S. passports receive terrorist training then return legally to the U.S. to commit violent acts.

“They can easily infiltrate back into the United States and, frankly, we don’t know what to do about them,” Patterson said. “We think there are more out there than we know about.”

“We just have to keep working at it,” she said.

Patterson said the U.S. is gathering information with Pakistan and other governments to identify and locate such people.

“It’s not very many. But it’s hard to get a precise number,” Patterson said.

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