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"Transcript: Message from the "Emir" of the "German Taliban Mujahideen" Abu Ishaq al-Muhajir" By Evan Kohlmann SNIPPET: "The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new document from the designated terrorist organization known as the “Islamic Jihad Union” (IJU), offering a message from the “German Taliban Mujahideen.”" T

DUBAI (Reuters) - The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, has been arrested, the Arabic television station al-Arabiya reported on Friday, quoting the Iraqi Defense Ministry. Arabiya said Muhajir had been detained in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The U.S. military said it had no information on the reports at this stage.

DUBAI, March 9 (Reuters) - The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, has been arrested in Iraq, the Arabic television station al-Arabiya reported on Friday, quoting the Iraqi Defence Ministry. Arabiya said Muhajir, successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been detained in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in Mosul in northern Iraq.

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

CAIRO, Egypt — A man claiming to be the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq vowed in an audiotape released Saturday to launch a monthlong offensive against U.S. troops. There was no independent confirmation that the voice belonged to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, but it sounded exactly like the one heard on previous audiotapes. Al-Muhajir has been the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq since his predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad in 2006. "We call on our beloved ones ... that each unit should present the head...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — A man claiming to be the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq vowed in an audiotape released Saturday to launch a monthlong offensive against U.S. troops. There was no independent confirmation that the voice belonged to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, but it sounded exactly like the one heard on previous audiotapes. Al-Muhajir has been the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq since his predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad in 2006. "We call on our beloved ones ... that each unit should present the head of...

Baghdad : Iraqi troopers have killed a prominent militant believed to be a top aide of the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq, an army spokesman told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) Saturday.Mowafaq Yassin, identified as "the right-hand man of Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Hamza al-Muhajir," was shot after a firefight in the area of Badosh, 40 km west of Mosul, Friday, Brigadier Mutaa al-Khazraji told VOI."After clashes that continued for 30 minutes the soldiers killed him inside his home," said Khazraji. The senior officer said that Yassin specialised in preparing car bombs used in suicide...

He looks like the perfect husband and doting father - but Dr. Mohammed Asha was on a secret al Qaeda terror mission in Britain that was carefully plotted years ago in Iraq, intelligence sources claimed yesterday. New disclosures emerged about the alleged double life of the brilliant 26-year-old neurosurgeon who is a suspected ringleader of the London and Glasgow car-bomb sleeper cell. Asha, born into a Palestinian family originally from the city of Hebron in the West Bank, was destined for a great medical career, scoring the third-highest mark on the University of Jordan's medical-school entrance exam. In 2004, he...

MIAMI -- It's been nearly five years since then-Attorney General John Ashcroft declared the United States had thwarted an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major city and had arrested a "known terrorist," Jose Padilla. Ashcroft suggested the plot could have caused "mass death and injury" and said President Bush had designated Padilla, a U.S. citizen, as an enemy combatant who would be held in indefinite military custody rather than face civilian charges. "He was involved in planning future terrorist attacks on American civilians in the United States," Ashcroft said in June 2002, while the jittery...

MIAMI - A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a key terrorism charge, the only one carrying a potential life sentence, against alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with federal prosecutors in Miami that the charge that the U.S. citizen and his two co-defendants conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas did not duplicate other counts in the indictment. The Atlanta-based court reversed a decision last summer by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who said the three charges in the indictment contained nearly identical elements and could subject...

It may well be that the Republican Congress deserved to be turned out. It may well be that grievous mistakes have been made in Iraq. (Churchill once said that war is a series of blunders and catastrophes until one side is exhausted and the other side wins. Look up what happened at Dieppe or at Kasserine Pass.) The fact remains that the terrorists are still out there, Iraq is still critical and still needs our support, and if we abandon them, we’ll never again get anyone to throw in with us.

IRAQ: AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ'S NEW LEADER ISSUES MESSAGE Baghdad, 28 Sept. (AKI) - The proclaimed heir to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has urged his supporters to capture foreigners and use them as bargaining chips to free a Muslim cleric in the US. "I call on every holy fighter in Iraq to strive during this holy month (Ramadan)... to capture some dogs of the Christians so that we can liberate our imprisoned sheikh," said the speaker, identified as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, referring to sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, in jail in the US since 1995 for the attack two...

US soldiers' bodies found in Iraq Kristian Menchaca and flags raised at Thomas Tucker's Oregon home Two US soldiers missing in Iraq since Friday have been found dead south of Baghdad, the US military has said.The bodies were found in the Yusifiya area on Monday. An Iraqi defence ministry spokesman said the bodies had shown signs of torture. An insurgent group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which claimed it abducted the men, has now said that it killed them. The missing men have been named as Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, both from the 101st Airborne Division. Another US...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military said Thursday the man claiming to be the new al-Qaida in Iraq leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said al-Masri apparently is the same person that al-Qaida in Iraq identified in a Web posting last week as its new leader — Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, a nom de guerre. Al-Muhajer claimed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7 U.S. airstrike, and vowed to avenge him in threatening Web statements...

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Al Qaeda in Iraq’s new leader is more violent than his predecessor, warned an Egyptian Islamist on Monday. Following the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and five others after two 500-pound bombs were dropped in a US air raid on a safe house near the restive northern Iraqi city of Baquba on Wednesday, al Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers appointed Abu Hamza al Muhajir (the immigrant) as its new leader. An Islamist leader told Asharq al Awsat on Monday, on condition of anonymity, that Abu Hamza is renowned for his knowledge of Shariaa and...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday sided with the Bush administration and reversed a judge’s order that the government charge or free “dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has the authority to detain a U.S. citizen closely associated with al Qaeda. U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., ruled in March that the government cannot hold Padilla indefinitely as an “enemy combatant,” a designation President Bush gave him in 2002. The government views Padilla as a militant who planned attacks on...

SPARTANBURG -- A federal judge in Spartanburg has ordered that an American citizen held as an enemy combatant in a Navy brig in Charleston should be charged with a crime or released. U.S. District Judge Henry F. Floyd ruled Monday that the president of the United States does not have the authority to order Jose Padilla to be held indefinitely without being charged. "If the law in its current state is found by the president to be insufficient to protect this country from terrorist plots, such as the one alleged here, then the president should prevail upon Congress to remedy...

<p>The New York Times' Sunday profile of accused dirty-bomb terrorist Jose Padilla reports, at age 14, he was involved in a fateful armed robbery. Padilla's accomplice fatally stabbed a Mexican immigrant, and Padilla kicked victim Elio Evangelista in the head "because he felt like it," records say.</p>

<p>The American held as an enemy combatant in a suspected scheme to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States has given federal authorities valuable intelligence information and will not be given access to a lawyer until his interrogation ends, senior Justice Department officials said yesterday.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen being held as an enemy combatant in the war on terror, continues to provide valuable intelligence to the government and will not be allowed access to a lawyer until those collection efforts cease, officials said Tuesday.</p>

<p>A Qatar native held on charges of lying to the FBI in an investigation into the September 11 attacks was designated yesterday as an "enemy combatant" and could be tried before a military tribunal for helping al Qaeda operatives relocate in the United States. Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, 37, in Justice Department custody since late 2001, was given the new designation by President Bush and handed over to the Defense Department.</p>

<p>ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Since 1995, at least 27 Americans have attended four Pakistani religious schools, called madrassas, that preach a radical form of Islam calling for the destruction of the United States, say U.S. and Pakistani officials and clerics at the schools. Most of those students are Arab-Americans or African-Americans who joined and, in some cases, fought for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, the Taliban militia or Islamic guerrillas in Kashmir. At least three of the Americans are believed to have been killed in battle. The whereabouts of the others are unknown.</p>

Civil libertarians are up in arms about the detention of Jose Padilla, a.k.a., Abdullah al Muhajir, a U.S. citizen who allegedly met with a top al Qaeda leader in Pakistan to plot a "dirty bomb" attack on America. The administration, meanwhile, insists its actions are entirely legal, not to mention essential for national security. Who's right? Both--and neither. Below is a quick rundown of the relevant legal questions the Padilla case raises, and some speculative answers. I say "speculative" because lawyering often begins with merely identifying the important legal issues, analogies, and distinctions worthy of further research and analysis. In...