Growing Up Bin Laden, Osama’s Son Omar Speaks

Time magazine takes a look at the life of Omar Bin Laden, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden’s 20 known children

For Omar Bin Laden, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden’s 20 known children, the awful realization that his own father was a terrorist mastermind plotting a global conspiracy that would destroy the lives of thousands of innocent people and even his own family came gradually.

Of course, there were warning signs: Omar’s childhood was marked by regular beatings and survivalist training; there was the growing army of ruffians and retainers who called his father “Prince”; and then there was that Afghan mullah who had given his father an entire mountain in Tora Bora.

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al Qaeda Tells Obama Conditional Truce Still Stands

Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said a truce offered to the last U.S. administration was still on the table, but President Barack Obama must withdraw troops from Muslim lands and meet other demands.

“If Obama wants to (reach) an understanding then he should respond to Sheikh Osama (bin Laden’s) two offers,” Zawahri said in an interview with al Qaeda’s media arm As-sahab, posted on an Islamist website on Monday.

Zawahri warned that militants would continue to fight “until doomsday” unless their conditions were met. “The minimum the mujahideen would accept (includes) … the exit of infidel troops from all of the land of Islam and an end to stealing Muslims’ wealth under the threat of military power.”

Zawahri said the conditions also include that Western countries stop backing “corrupt and apostate regimes in the Muslim world” and the release of all detained Muslims.

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Al Qaeda Running Short On Cash Support

A recession-driven income slide? Or a brand in terminal decline? Whatever the origin of its money worries, al-Qaida’s latest appeal for funds reveals a group struggling with a fall in donations for its attacks on the West.

In an audio message posted in militant web forums on June 10, 2009, the group’s leader in Afghanistan Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said militants were short of food, weapons and other supplies needed to fight foreign forces there.

The complaint, the latest appeal by Qaeda leaders in the past 18 months, echoes a June 3 request from Osama bin Laden for supporters’ “charity and support” for the militant network’s operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So little is known about current al-Qaida operations that analysts can only speculate about the reasons for the troubles in its fund-raising, which provided an estimated annual budget of $30 million at the time of the 2001 attacks on U.S. targets.

But most agree it is a combination of tighter curbs on charities in the Arab world, a drop in lucrative al-Qaida kidnapping and extortion campaigns in Iraq and the wallet-thinning effect of recession on donors and sympathizers.

Some speculate it also shows a drop in ideological support.

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Taliban Kidnap Hundreds Of Cadets in Waziristan

The Taliban in North Waziristan carried out a brazen daylight operation that resulted in the kidnapping of hundreds of military cadets and their teachers as they traveled from a college in North Waziristan.

A large Taliban force armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, and assault rifles halted the convoy of 29 minibuses traveling from the Ramzak Cadet College to the settled district of Bannu. The cadets were traveling under the protection of Pakistani security forces, however there are no reports of fighting.

Between 300 to 400 cadets, teachers, and college staffers were kidnapped and taken to an undisclosed location. One bus driver and more than 40 students are reported to have escaped the Taliban hijacking.

“[A] Driver of one of the vehicles managed to escape and students reported to us that their colleagues have been kidnapped by Taliban,” a police official in Bakka Khel told Reuters. The convoy is said to have been ambushed near Bakka Khel.

The cadets and staff left the college after being threatened by the Taliban, according to reports.

via Taliban kidnap hundreds of cadets in Waziristan – The Long War Journal.

Taliban Target Britain On Orders From al-Qaeda

The terrorist informant has told prosecutors he was trained by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and was planning a series of suicide attacks with 11 other men.

The informant, known as “Ahmed”, told investigators the bombers were to work in pairs using a “device carried in a backpack with a third person to detonate a remote control” in order to ensure the bombers went through with their mission.

Details of the attempted attacks emerged in papers submitted to the Spanish authorities in a case against the alleged bombers, who were arrested in raids in the Raval district of Barcelona in January last year.

It is claimed the attacks were to begin on the Barcelona underground system and then spread to the other European countries with a presence in Afghanistan, thought to include Britain, according to new documents.

The information echoed claims made by British security services that a terrorist cell was sent to Manchester from the Taliban heartland in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.

British investigators believe that the cell, which was allegedly planning attacks on the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres over the Easter holidays, had connections with al-Qaeda, and Spanish prosecutors say their cell may also have had links with al-Qaeda.

The terrorist group is believed to have formed a “holy alliance” with the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks on foreign soil.

Instead of relying on British-born men travelling to Pakistan for training, al-Qaeda is now recruiting “ready made” terrorists from among the Taliban, investigators believe.

The 10 men arrested in the north west are fighting deportation on national security grounds after Government lawyers accused them of being members of a “UK-based network linked to al-Qaeda involved in attack planning”.

Spanish police found chemicals including nitrocellulose and potassium perchlorate along with batteries, timers and cables in the raids.

They also found “materials for indoctrination” relating to attacks against Nato forces in Afghanistan and books and DVDs.

Spanish prosecutors submitted documents laying out their case earlier this month and Dolores Delgado Garcia, a prosecutor at Spain’s National Court, told the Daily Telegraph she believed the Barcelona cell was inspired by speeches by Osama bin Laden about the “loss of Andalucia” once part of the Muslim Ottoman empire.

“Al-Qaeda has been targeting Spain because of its historic associations with Andalucia,” she said. “But other cities in Europe where countries have troops in Afghanistan were also targets.”

Explaining her case at a top-level conference organised by New York University’s Centre for Law and Security, she said “Ahmed” had become a “protected witness” and had told them that “Baitullah Mehsud would make demands and when they were not complied with, they would launch their attacks”.

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5 Men Convicted In Plot To Blow Up Chicago’s Sears Tower

Five men were convicted Tuesday of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to destroy Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of igniting an anti-government insurrection.

The jury in Miami acquitted another member of the so-called “Liberty City Six” in the sixth day of deliberations. Two previous trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not agree on the men’s guilt or innocence.

They were arrested in June 2006 on charges of plotting terrorism with an undercover FBI informant they believed was from al-Qaida. Defense attorneys said terrorist talk recorded on dozens of FBI tapes was not serious and the men wanted only money.

Ringleader Narseal Batiste, 35, was the only one convicted of all four terrorism-related conspiracy counts, including plotting to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to wage war against the U.S. Batiste, who was on the vast majority of hundreds of FBI audio a

via 5 Men Convicted In Plot To Blow Up Chicago’s Sears Tower, FBI Buildings – cbs11tv.com.

Al Qaeda No. 2, al Zawahiri Hiding In Quetta

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, with a $25 million bounty on his head, is holed up near Quetta, Pakistan, according to a highly placed Pakistani intelligence source.

The Egyptian-born radical is a master of disguise, a meticulous planner and the deadliest of terrorists. Yet Pakistani intelligence sources say he roams openly and with impunity in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Predators continue to strike at a variety of key terror targets in that area, our source tells us that the CIA and other intelligence agencies cannot get al-Zawahiri, though they usually know for the most part where he is.

Al-Zawahiri’s recent movements can be tracked with some specificity. He was positively identified in the North Waziristan Agency of Pakistan in June 2008, and the locations pinpointed where he conducted high-level meetings.

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Al-Qaeda Used Hotmail and Simple Codes to Plan Terror Attacks

In the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, alleged al-Qaida operations mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed intended to use his free Hotmail account to direct a U.S.-based operative to carry out an attack, according to a guilty plea agreement filed by Al Saleh Kahlah al-Marri in federal court.

The document shows how al-Qaida, at least in 2001, embraced prosaic technologies like pre-paid calling cards, public phones, computer search engines and simplistic codes to communicate, plan and carry out its operations.

Al-Marri also surfed the Internet to research cyanide gas, using software to cover his tracks, according to the document filed Thursday in federal court in Peoria, Ill. He marked the locations of dams, waterways and tunnels in the United States in an almanac. The government claims this reflects intelligence that al-Qaida was planning to use cyanide gas to attack those sites.

As a result of his guilty plea, al-Marri could be sentenced up to a maximum 15-year term in federal prison.

In a stipulation of facts filed as part of the plea agreement, al-Marri admitted that he trained in al-Qaida camps and stayed in terrorist safe houses in Pakistan between 1998 and 2001. There, he learned how to handle weapons and how to communicate by phone and e-mail using a code.

After arriving in the U.S. on Sept. 10, 2001 — a day before al-Qaida’s long-plotted terror strikes in New York and Washington — Al-Marri stored phone numbers of al-Qaida associates in a personal electronic device.

He used a “10-code” to protect the numbers — subtracting the actual digits in the phone numbers from 10 to arrive at a coded number, according to a person close to the investigation.

In a 10-code, eight becomes a two, for example. Other al-Qaida members used the same code, according to the plea agreement.

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Terrorism: Islamists Threaten Terror Attacks In Germany

The Al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan on Wednesday released a video threatening the “criminal” German government and citizens of the Jewish faith, according to German media.

In the video, the third released this year, shows a man identified as “Commander Mohammad”, who criticises the presence of German troops in Afghanistan.

The man accuses “the sons of Germany of being in the service of the Jews” unlike “Granddad Hitler”.

Investigators believe the video’s release may be linked to a major Islamist terrorism trial which opened on Wednesday at a high-security court in the northwestern German city of Duesseldorf .

In the trial, three Germans and one Turkish national are accused of planning a series of simultaneous bomb attacks against discos and pubs and the United States airbase in Ramstein and against Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

Two of the German suspects are converts to Islam while the third is a German citizen of Turkish descent. They face charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, plotting murder, and conspiracy to conduct a bomb attack.

The trial is expected to last one to two years. If the defendants are found guilty, they could face prison terms of up to 15 years.

Prosecutors claimed the men were planning to use about 10 times as much explosives as were used in the deadly July 2005 attacks on London transport that killed 56 people and injured thousands.

The plot was at an advanced stage and the attacks could have killed over 50 people, according to police.

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Police Search For 2nd Terror Cell In UK

A second al-Qaeda terror cell is believed to be planning carnage in the UK.

Senior security sources last night revealed they are hunting extremists aiming to bomb a location such as a nightclub or shopping centre.

They believe the cell will target London rather than the North- West, where 11 men were arrested on Wednesday, as the capital holds more “international significance”.

Evidence gleaned from the arrests was revealed to Cobra, Whitehall’s emergency committee of intelligence chiefs and ministers.

One source said: “We are investigating whether the men were being used to set up attacks while the second group would carry them out. We expect more arrests.”

Despite security services’ claims about imminent attacks no weapons, explosives or bomb factory have been uncovered.

An 18-year-old was freed into the custody of Border authorities for deportation. Those still in custody refuse to talk. “They are more or less mute,” said the source.

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12 Arrested In Very Serious Terror Plot In UK

British police Wednesday arrested 12 people in a counterterrorism operation, and locations were being searched, authorities said.
A Scotland Yard official’s papers show details of the raid, which have been obscured in this photo.

Arrests were carried out in a series of raids in northwest England, police said. Participating agencies included Merseyside Police, Greater Manchester Police and the Lancashire Constabulary, according to a statement from Greater Manchester Police.

The men arrested were involved in a “very serious” plot closely associated with al Qaeda and escaped al Qaeda operative Rashid Rauf, whom British intelligence have linked to the 2006 plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners, according to a security source with knowledge of the investigation.

The new plot was not believed to be targeting national infrastructure, such as rail lines, airports or utilities, nor was it clear if the plot was to involved bombs or an assault involving gunmen, the source said.

Details, the source said, were speculative at this point in the investigation.

The source also said authorities don’t believe the targets would have been in the north of England, where the arrests took place, and that at least some of those arrested were Pakistanis in the United Kingdom on student visas.

Several hundred officers were involved in the raids, according to a later Greater Manchester Police statement. The men arrested range in age from a youth in his mid- to late teens to a 41-year-old, the statement said. No further information was available, police said.

“Today’s action is part of an ongoing investigation and we have acted on intelligence received,” said Steve Ashley, chief superintendent of Merseyside police.

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Al-Qaeda Terrorist Prisoners Plotted To Escape In Hijacked Helicopter – UK

Al-Qaeda terrorists in a British jail were caught planning to escape in a hijacked helicopter.

Accomplices on the outside were to hire the helicopter for “business” then force the pilot to land in prison at gunpoint.

Nine Muslim inmates plotted to kidnap the jail imam during prayers with weapons hidden in the prison mosque.

According to the plan they would then move to a sports field using the imam as a shield and be picked up by the helicopter.

Wardens at Full Sutton prison in Yorkshire, acting on a tip-off, went to the plotters’ cells hours before the escape attempt was due to start.

The nine, including convicted terrorists, will now be transferred to other jails.

A source told the Sun: “This would have been one of the most damaging escapes ever. The intelligence was very strong and from a good source. It had to be acted on immediately.

“It involved some of the most dangerous al-Qaeda terrorists in jail, all of whom are a massive threat. It had been planned for months and the use of a helicopter shows it was sophisticated.”

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Afghan National Indicted for Alleged Ties To Terrorists – Los Angeles

Federal officials said this morning they have indicted an Afghan national for lying about his alleged ties to terrorists in a bid to fraudulently obtain a U.S. passport.

Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, 34, who was arrested without incident this morning at his Tustin residence by members of the joint terrorism task force, was named in a five-count indictment returned Feb. 11 by a federal grand jury.

The indictment, unsealed this morning, alleges Niazi hid associations with “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” groups including Al Qaeda, Hizb-i-Islami and the Taliban, when he completed nationalization papers five years ago. During one visit, the government alleges Niazi visited Dr. Amin al-Haq, the security coordinator for Osama bin Laden.

Charges against Niazi include perjury, naturalization fraud, misuse of a passport obtained by fraud and making a false statement to a federal agency. He is scheduled to make a court appearance this afternoon at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.

The indictment alleges that Niazi lied on his naturalization application when he failed to disclose a 2004 trip to Pakistan and made false statements by denying he had any association with a terrorist organization, the indictment states. If indicted on all counts, Niazi faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in federal prison and a $1.25-million fine.

Niazi then used the fraudulently obtained passport to travel to Pakistan in 2005, according to the unsealed indictment. When he returned to Los Angeles Airport, the government alleges, Niazi lied to customs officials, telling them he had been visiting family in Qatar when he had instead traveled to Pakistan.

UPDATED at 1 p.m. The suspect and his wife have lived for at [...]

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Al-Qaeda Message Condemns Obama – al Zawahiri

The second-in-command of Islamic militant network al-Qaeda has hit out at US President-elect Barack Obama.

In a message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda deputy called Mr Obama a “house negro” – a demeaning term implying he served white people. Read more

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