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Do paired dates prove Iraq-al-Qaida connection? Posted: August 21, 20081:00 am Eastern © 2008  In late April 2003, after the fall of Baghdad, CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer replayed an earlier conversation he had had with the Iraqi foreign minister, the wily Tariq Aziz.One overlooked part of this conversation caught the very sharp eye of aspiring filmmaker Chris Kusnell.When Blitzer asked Aziz about the fate of missing U.S. Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher, Aziz answered that Speicher was killed in a crash on night one of the Gulf War. As proof, Aziz volunteered that Speicher was not among the POWs released...

BALAD, Iraq – The 9th Iraqi Army Division detained two suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists connected to the deaths of three U.S. Marines in an operation conducted west of Tarmiyah, approximately 32 kilometers north of Baghdad, July 18. The two suspects are allegedly linked to various AQI wings. The individuals are said to be responsible for numerous murders of Iraqi citizens and Coalition forces. Intelligence reports connect the suspects to a June suicide vest attack that resulted in the deaths of four U.S. Marines and several sheiks during a tribal engagement meeting. Reports also indicate that these two suspected terrorists...

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

The Kurdish daily Kurdistani Nwe has published a 2002 letter from the Iraqi presidency that it says proves that there was cooperation between the regime of Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. The letter, which appeared on the paper's front page, was published by the intelligence apparatus of the Iraqi presidency and discussed an intention to meet with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in order to examine a plan drawn up by the Iraqi presidency to carry out a "revenge operation" in Saudi Arabia.

As intelligence services try to prove who was behind the New York and Washington attacks, the evidence is mounting that a secret pact was forged between Osama bin Laden, Iraq and Sudan to wage a terrorist war against the US. The pact, forged in 1998, led to Iraqi experts helping to build a chemical weapons factory especially for bin Laden's terrorists in Sudan and bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's Iraq co-operating to build several others. In a paper for the US Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, its chairman Yossef Bodansky said the chemical weapons factory, in Soba, ...

March 24, 2008, 5:00 a.m. Chilling ConfirmationYes, Saddam Hussein was an Islamofascist threat. By Deroy Murdock As Operation Iraqi Freedom is now five years old, a new study confirms that ousting Saddam Hussein was justified and vital to U.S. national security. Though war critics hate to admit it, the Baathist dictator was up to his mustache in aid for Islamofascist terrorism. As a report from the Institute for Defense Analyses explains, “captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.� IDA’s review of some 600,000 documents discovered in Iraq since...

WASHINGTON - Intelligence experts scouring the latest video of Osama bin Laden for clues warned on Saturday that his message offers hints that Al-Qaeda is planning another attack on US interests. In his first video appearance in three years, the elusive Al-Qaeda chief mocks the United States as "weak" and vows to escalate fighting in Iraq, all the while using language similar to the kind used ahead of other past attacks. At times, bin Laden speaks directly to Americans, using plain language that "appears to be crafted in a way as to be understood by the average person on the...

Iraq's Al Qaida network mentored cells behind British strikes The Al Qaida network in Iraq has been linked to British strikes in Glasgow and London in July. MI5 and MI6 have been investigating the extent of the direction provided to the Muslim insurgency networks by Al Qaida in Iraq. The assessment was that the Al Qaida network in Iraq provided the indoctrination and training for British Muslims to assemble explosives for attacks throughout Britain. __ Full Text, Subscribers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Focus on Iran 50 German firms investigated for helping Iran nuke program __ Full Text, Subscribers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Northeast Asia Report China...

Baghdad tribes close to fighting al-Qaida By Zeke Minaya, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Monday, May 21, 2007 TAJI, Iraq — Mirroring a nationwide trend, tribes near Baghdad are on the verge of banding together against al-Qaida and have met with U.S. military officials seeking aid and guidance in fighting the terrorist network. Acceptance of — if not outright support for — al-Qaida among the tribes eroded after the strict Islamic law imposed by insurgents clashed with the authority of the sheikhs, according to U.S. military officials. On Saturday, a group of local chieftains met with military commanders and a...

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay. Abd al-Hadi was taken into CIA custody last year, it emerged from US intelligence sources yesterday, in a move which suggests that he was interrogated for months in a “ghost prison” before being transferred...

KABUL - The arrest of Al-Qaeda commander Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, who worked with Afghanistan's Taliban, is a major success and will be a blow to terror networks, the Afghan defence ministry said Friday. "Al-Iraqi was very important for the terrorists' networks. His arrest is a major success," ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP. "It will help to get to the high-ranking terrorist network figures and it will have deeply negative effect on the network," he said. A Pentagon spokesman said the militant, on a US "most wanted" list, had been taken into US custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...

The CIA's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found no evidence that former president Saddam Hussein tried to transfer chemical or biological technology or weapons to terrorists, according to a military and intelligence expert. Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, provided new details about the weapons search and Iraqi insurgency in a report released Friday. It was based on briefings over the past two weeks in Iraq from David Kay, the CIA representative who is directing the search for unconventional weapons in Iraq; L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator...

The revelation that Saddam Hussein's intelligence chiefs were seeking to establish links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network is the first concrete proof that the dictator was colluding with the world's most ruthless terrorist operation. The documents discovered yesterday by The Telegraph in the former headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, will also reopen the debate about whether Saddam was directly involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The issue of Saddam's involvement has been a long-standing source of contention between London and Washington. In the days immediately following the attacks, President George...

Charity charged with funneling funds to Iraq Columbia Islamic group, now defunct, is accused of sending $1.4 million during Hussein’s reign. By MARK MORRIS The Kansas City Star A defunct Columbia charity and five officers and associates have been charged with illegally sending more than $1.4 million to Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power. The 33-count federal indictment, unsealed Wednesday in Kansas City, is the latest assault on a charity that in 2004 was designated a supporter of global terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and Hamas. At its core, the indictment alleges the Islamic American Relief Agency-USA solicited...

DUESSELDORF, Germany - A German investigator testified Friday that authorities identified al-Qaida links to the leader of a German-based terrorist cell, but could not back U.S. claims that the man was also in contact with Saddam Hussein. Testifying at the trial of Shadi Abdellah, accused of plotting attacks in Germany for the radical Palestinian group Al Tawhid, federal agent Manfred Ehlenz said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the leader of the group and also believed to be the "leader of a wing within al-Qaida." In his February speech to the U.N. Security Council U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said al-Zarqawi...

ALBANY - A mosque leader charged with helping launder money in a missile plot thought all the weapon talk was a joke, his lawyer said yesterday - but prosecutors were not laughing. Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref was jailed without bail after prosecutors questioned why his name was found in a notebook in a terrorist camp listed as "Commander Yassin, United States." They also unveiled a photo of the imam's co-defendant watching as an informant shouldered a real surface-to-air missile in the back room of an Albany-area convenience store. That was among the evidence cited by prosecutors in Albany Federal Court...

It was supposed to be one of those international “ho-hum” conferences, dedicated to endangered species. But in a surprise move, the government of Saudi Arabia turned it into an international confrontation, using its veto power to prevent an American conservationist group from presenting what it called “actionable information” that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda. UN officials called the Saudi move to ban the U.S group, which had official United Nations observer status, “unprecedented.” The UN actually tried to facilitate the appearance of the U.S. group at last Friday’s meeting in Geneva of the 54th...

Paul Pillar Speaks, Again The latest CIA attack on the Bush administration is nothing new. by Stephen F. Hayes 02/10/2006 4:15:00 PM IN A BREATHLESS front-page, above-the-fold article in today's Washington Post, Walter Pincus reports that a former senior CIA official named Paul Pillar accuses the Bush administration of "misusing" intelligence to take the country to war in Iraq. According to the Post account, Pillar uses a forthcoming article in Foreign Affairs to claim that the Bush administration "politicized" the intelligence on Iraq. Bush administration policymakers did this subtly, Pillar says, by repeatedly asking the CIA questions about Iraq, its...

SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists. Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, the most notorious terrorists of their era, all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad. Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Three weeks after the bombing, on August 31, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq's vice president arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack. ABC News...

Picture Proof: The Saddam-Al Qaeda Connections The following information did not make it into the Senate Intelligence Committee's report released last Friday, that claimed Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates. What do you suppose the committee had to say about these documents? Captured Iraqi Document ISGC-2004-019920 Page 6From blogger The Dread Pundit Bluto: ISGZ-2004-0199202002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between IRS members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover,...

The Clinton administration talked about firm evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network years before President Bush made the same statements. In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of...

The recent train bombings in India have intensified the scrutiny of the Pakistan-based, al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. In particular, one key question is being asked: What role does LET play in the war against Islamofascists and their allies? The al Qaeda-linked Wahhabi group, formed in 1989, has been blamed for a number of attacks on Indian officials and civilians. It was added to the U.S. terrorist list in December 2001. LET’s agenda, as announced in one of their pamphlets and detailed by MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, is to wage jihad with the goal of imposing their narrow version...

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Operations by Iraqi security forces and Coalition troops this week resulted in the capture of multiple suspected terrorists and terrorist associates. Baghdad Iraqi army forces conducted precision raids on three separate objectives Aug. 18 capturing three death squad leaders, all of whom participated in a massacre of Iraqi families in al Jihad on July 9th. As Coalition advisers provided support, Iraqi forces captured all three of these individuals in the Al Rasheed district without incident. The three captured terrorists are senior-level insurgent-cell leaders believed to be responsible for the July 9 ambush of Iraqi families at a...

Iraq's National Security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie has announced the arrest of 20 suspected al-Qaida members across the country in the past few days. Speaking to reporters and police commanders in Baghdad, al-Rubaie first announced that 17 leaders of al-Qaida had been arrested, while one was killed during the round up. It is believed the news of the three last arrests came after he made the statement. Al-Rubaie said the detainees included five top al-Qaida militants arrested in Baghdad. He announced their names and showed photographs identifying the five. He also detailed a new Baghdad security plan that is backed by...

An insurgent coalition led by Al-Qaeda said Sunday it had killed four Russian diplomats held hostage in Iraq and released a gruesome Internet video purportedly showing two of the men being executed. "We present the implementation of Allah's rule against the Russian diplomats to comfort the believers," said the statement posted by the Mujahedeen Shura (consultative) Council in Iraq. "It is also in revenge for our brothers and sisters and what they suffer of torture, killing and displacement by the infidel Russian government," it added. The videotape linked to the statement showed the four hostages speaking in separate messages dated...

Updated: 13:36, Monday June 19, 2006 A terrorist group linked to al Qaeda says it has kidnapped two US soldiers in Iraq.In a statement posted on the internet, it said the pair were snatched near Yusufiya.  American and Iraqi forces have been searching for two soldiers who went missing after an attack on a checkpoint near Yusufiya on Friday.One solider was killed in the attack.More follows ...

Thanks to documents recovered in Abu Musab 'al-Zarqawi's bombed out Headquarters, 104 terrorists have been killed and hundreds more taken prisoner. Dozens of weapons caches have been captured. But of almost equal importance is the insight we gained into 'al-Qaeda's state in Iraq. The 21st century's Ho Chi Minh despaired of the state of his terror organization. He was writing that America was winning the war and he wasn't replacing his combat losses. Do you remember how Liberal "Geniuses" went on and on about how we were "creating more terrorists"? Yeah right. Zarqawi complained about how he wasn't getting any...

What was the relationship between Saddam Hussein's inner circle and Islamic terrorists? A newly released document captured in Iraq, but never before seen by the public, offers glimmers of new insight at the Pentagon's Foreign Military Studies Office Web site. The FMSO is a research and analysis center under the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command. This particular document mentions two men with similar names, each with ties to Pakistani religious schools known as madrassas, Jihad training camps, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This original translation by my translator-colleague, who goes by the nom de guerre of "Sammi," comes from...

BAGHDAD, June 4 (UPI) -- On orders of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, men in black have begun terrorizing women who do not conform to their rules, it was reported. Following a sermon by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Iraqi al-Qaida, new rules were announced regarding women's behavior, The Sunday Times of London reported. "Women cannot drive; women cannot go out after midday; women and men are not allowed to go out and walk together, they must walk separately," a local official announced. Violations will be punished sternly by men in black, all Sunni Muslims -- with punishments...

The Sunday Times June 04, 2006 British brigade of Islamists join Al-Qaeda foreign legion in Iraq David Leppard UP TO 150 Islamic radicals have travelled from Britain to Iraq to join up with a “British brigade” that has been established by Al-Qaeda leaders to fight coalition forces. Senior security sources say leaders of the Iraqi insurgency have set up a “foreign legion” composed entirely of westerners to fight alongside the insurgents in the war against British and American forces. Some are preparing to carry out suicide attacks while others have received basic combat training for attacks on western troops The...

A prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader who provided fighters to help battle al-Qaida in western Iraq was assassinated Sunday in Baghdad, police said. Sheik Osama al-Jadaan died in a hail of bullets as he was driving in the city's Mansour district, police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said. Al-Jadaan's driver and a bodyguard also were killed. Al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe, announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help track down al-Qaida members and foreign fighters along the border with Syria. U.S. troops used al-Jadaan's followers to track down insurgents living under the protection of a rival...

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support--temporarily, it seems--after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group. The...

Baghdad, 23 May (AKI) - The number two of the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited Iraq under a false name in September 1999 to take part in the ninth Popular Islamic Congress, former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi has revealed to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. In an interview, Allawi made public information discovered by the Iraqi secret service in the archives of the Saddam Hussein regime, which sheds light on the relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Islamic terrorist network. He also said that both al-Zawahiri and Jordanian militant al-Zarqawi probably entered Iraq in the same period. "Al-Zawahiri was summoned by Izza...

Leaders of al-Qaida lost some control of the terror network last year due to the arrests and deaths of top operational planners, but the group remains the most prominent terror threat facing the United States and its allies, the State Department said Friday.

Despite the many brickbats of the media, al Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq, and is now retreating to lick its wounds where it can. If it can. Just over four and a half years, al Qaeda has gone from being the dominant terrorist group in the world to a defeated shell of its former self. In trying to defeat the United States, al Qaeda made three big mistakes: They fought the last information war, they underestimated the American leadership, and they also managed to anger the Iraqi people. From the moment the United States and al Qaeda began fighting...

The al-Qaeda terrorist group has attempted to bribe Fijian guards at Saddam Hussein's trial into identifying witnesses so they could be killed, a Fiji newspaper has reported. A Fijian guard attached to the US Marshalls told the Fiji Times he and four others had been offered $F3.48 million ($A2.65 million) for information which led to the death of the witnesses. Josevata Tuisavalu said al-Qaeda operatives contacted the Fijian guards to make the bribe attempt, which was rejected. "Our work here involves security for the witnesses against Saddam and also defence lawyers, judge and translators," the paper reports Tuisavalu as saying....

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2006 – Coalition forces killed the top al Qaeda terrorist in Samarra today after tracking him to a house north of the city. Hamadi 'Abd al-Tahki al-Nissani was known as the al Qaeda "emir" of Samarra, meaning he was in a position of high leadership. Based on intelligence reports, troops tracked the wanted terrorist and two others to a location about 15 kilometers north of Samarra. As they assaulted the house where the three men were known to be hiding, Nissani, who was armed, attempted to flee and was killed, U.S. officials said. The ground troops also...

Al-Qaida’s No. 2 says in Net video that America’s back has been broken Al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Iraqi insurgents have broken America's back in three years of war in Iraq, according to a video posted on the Internet early Saturday. "Al-Qaida in Iraq alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations in three years, besides the victories of the other mujahideen. And this is what has broken the back of America in Iraq," Zawahri said in the video posted on an Islamist Web site. “America, Britain and their allies have achieved nothing but losses, disasters and misfortunes,” the Egyptian...

A major Al-Qaeda figure in Iraq was killed near the restive city of Baquba, the US military announced. Rafid Ibrahim Fattah, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Umar al-Kurdi, was an important-Al Qaeda figure in Iraq with ties to militant groups like Ansar al-Sunna, Jaish al-Islami, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, said US military spokesman Major General Rick Lynch. "Abu Umar was given the title of Al-Qaeda ambassador and served as a liaison between terrorist networks," he said, adding that he coordinated the actions of various military groups.

The latest in a stream of eye-opening Iraqi documents shows Saddam Hussein's regime was planning suicide attacks on U.S. interests six months before 9-11. Why won't Washington get the word out?Last month the Pentagon began releasing records captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Among the documents is a letter dated March 11, 2001, written by Abdel Magid Hammod Ali, one of Saddam's air force generals.According to an unofficial translation, Page 6 of the letter asks for "the names of those who desire to volunteer for suicide mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American interests." Assuming the document's accuracy, this shows...

BAGHDAD, April 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Thursday that Iraqi forces had captured a former senior intelligence official under Saddam Hussein who now has close ties to the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. A military statement said Muhammad al-Ubaydi, who now heads the Secret Islamic Army in northern Babel province, was captured by Iraqi forces in southern Baghdad on March 7.

US catches top Zarqawi aide in Iraq     US military catches top Zarqawi aide in Iraq   by J BAGHDAD: The US military announced on Thursday it had captured a top Al-Qaeda linked operative who was the key suspect in the kidnapping of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena last year.    Separately, the Iraqi authorities also announced arrests of three other "terrorists", two of whom were caught disguised as women.    The US military said a massive manhunt by Iraqi and US forces led to the arrest last month of Mohammed Hilal Hammad Ubaydi, also known as Abu Ayman, a former aide to...

Leader of Al-Qa’ida in Iraq, Abu Mu’s’ab A-Zarqawi, has been stripped of his political power and will be confined to a military role, a senior Al-Qa’ida operative said on Sunday. According to AFP, Hudhayfa ‘Azzam, whose late father ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam was the mentor of Osama Bin Laden, said A-Zarqawi has made “several mistakes.”Dr. ‘Abdallah ‘Azzam, a Palestinian from Silat al-Harithiya (in the Jenin district), was a charismatic figure, Al-Qaeda’s ideologue and until his death, Osama bin Laden’s spiritual mentor. His doctrine focused on global jihad and the personal responsibility of every Muslim to liberate the lands of Islam from “infidel...

BAGHDAD [MENL] -- Iraq has determined that the Al Qaida presence has decreased. Officials said Iraqi intelligence has assessed that the number of Al Qaida operatives in the country decreased significantly over the last year. They said many of the operatives were either killed, captured or returned to their native countries. "We have information that many members of Al Qaida have returned to their countries," Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said. Officials said no more than several hundred Al Qaida operatives were believed to be in Iraq. They said more than 2,000 Al Qaida fighters had been operating in the...

In the Pentagon/FMSO document ISGZ-2004-009247 there is a clear report about the relation between Iraq and Bin Laden that dated back to 1995. This document contains a 9 page report from the Iraqi Intelligence Apparatus and it is titled “The Saudi Opposition and Achieving the Relation and Contact With Them”. In the report they talk about there meeting with Osama Bin Laden and that Bin Laden in 1995 and how to establish relations wiht him. In the meeting Bin Laden asked the Iraqis for joint operations with them against the Foreign forces (US military) in the land of Hijaz (Saudia...

In the fall of 2002 Iraq crossed an unacceptable threshold, supplying operational weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to bin Laden's terrorists. These developments were confirmed to the Western intelligence services after several terrorists -- graduates of WMD training programs -- were captured in Israel, Chechnya, Turkey, and France, along with documents related to their activities. On the basis of pure threat analysis, the United States should have gone to war against Iraq, as well as its partners Syria and Iran, in fall 2002. By then there was already unambiguous evidence indicating the urgency of defusing the imminent danger posed by...

The documents of pre-war Iraq were published this morning on the Pentagon website, I did a quick search and I found a very interesting document written in Arabic and not yet translated to English. I did the translation and I found the following: This document is a letter written by a member of Saddam Intelligence apparatus (Al Mukabarat) on 9/15/2001 (shortly after 9/11/2001) where he addressed it to someone higher up and he wrote about a conversation between an Iraqi intelligence source and a Taliban Afghani Consul. In the conversation the Afghani Consul spoke of a relationship between Iraq and...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi interior minister said Tuesday that authorities had foiled an al-Qaida plot that would have put hundreds of its men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government. A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr,...

An armed group that says it was created with government backing to drive al-Qaida fighters out of a restive Iraqi province claimed Monday that it had killed five top members of the terrorist group. The claim came in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site and attributed to the Anbar Revenge Brigade, recently formed by tribal leaders of the western Anbar province. "Your brothers, heroes of the Revenge Brigade, carried out the killing of five important elements of al-Qaida group, avenging the death of the sons of our Ramadi city," the statement said. It listed the names of four...

U.S. officials tell CBS News that intelligence has picked up reports that al Qaeda in Iraq is planning what one source calls the "Big Bang," a spectacular terrorist attack in Iraq against either a single high-profile target or multiple targets simultaneously. Last week's mosque bombing in city of Samarra that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war was the work of terrorists, some U.S. officials have theorized. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi seems to be betting that another big bang would push the country over the brink, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin. The bomb in one of the holiest sites...