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Another Obama success story… When George Bush left office the War in Iraq was won. Today the flag of Al-Qaeda flies over Fallujah. It only took five years for Obama to lose all US gains in Iraq.(video at link)The Washington Post reported: A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western...

Al-Qaeda-Linked Force Captures Fallujah Amid Rise In Violence In Iraq By Liz Sly, January 3 BEIRUT — A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago. The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly...

Just over two years since American troops entirely withdrew from Iraq, the black flag of Al Qaeda flies over the city of Fallujah’s government buildings in Iraq’s western Anbar Province. It was there that several American contractors were killed and strung up over a bridge in 2004 and American Marines fought the biggest battle of the Iraq War. “The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, the Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war,” reads...

With insurgents linked to Al Qaeda battling for control of two major Iraqi cities, long-standing suspicion between the Obama administration and the government in Baghdad is hindering joint efforts against a common foe. Sunni Muslim militants have gained control of territory in western Iraq's Anbar province in recent weeks, and intense fighting has broken out in two of Anbar's main cities, Fallouja and Ramadi, that were the sites of crucial battles during the Iraq war. On Friday, militants waving the Al Qaeda flag blew up key government buildings in Fallouja.

Iraq uncovers al-Qaeda 'chemical weapons plot' The authorities in Iraq say they have uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons, as well as to smuggle them to Europe and North America. Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said five men had been arrested after military intelligence monitored their activities for three months. Three workshops for manufacturing the chemical agents, including sarin and mustard gas, were uncovered, he added. Remote-controlled toy planes were also seized at the workshops. Mr Askari said they were to have been used to release the chemical agents over the target from a "safe" distance of 1.5km...

Image that accompanied Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's audiotape announcing the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The flag was originally al Qaeda in Iraq's banner, but has been adopted by other al Qaeda affiliated and associated groups. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. The emir of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (also known as Abu Dua), has announced a new brand for his organization's efforts: the "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant." The new name replaces all previous brands used by al Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq and Syria, including the...

In the hunt for Saddam Hussein's billions, investigators have identified five networks of more than 100 companies used to launder money skimmed from Iraqi oil sales. Saddam's gangster regime set up shell companies in Switzerland, Jordan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Panama, according to investigators. Those company networks and their banking affiliations were used to enrich the former Iraqi strongman, his sons Uday and Qusay, and other family members. "Ultimately, the money was stolen from the Iraqi people," said Taylor Griffin, spokesman for the Treasury Department, which is heading the government's laundering probe along with U.S. Customs, the Secret Service and various...

<p>WASHINGTON — U.S. forces in Iraq believe they may be facing an Al Qaeda cell in Fallujah after a man with suspected ties to the terror network was captured last week, sources told Fox News Friday.</p> <p>The man said to have been arrested was Husam al-Yemeni, said to be part of the leadership structure of Ansar al-Islam (search), the Al Qaeda-associated terrorist group based in Iraqi Kurdistan. Some U.S. officials described al-Yemeni as the first Al Qaeda operative captured in Iraq.</p>

The attempts to minimize the role played by al Qaeda in Iraq in the larger Sunni insurgency took a significant step over the past week. Clark Hoyt, the public editor of the New York Times, claimed that the media had become complicit in the government's attempts to paint the entire Sunni insurgency with an al Qaeda brush. Also this week, Malcolm Nance published an article at the Small Wars Journal claiming al Qaeda is being given too much credit for the violence in Iraq. In the article, titled "Al Qaeda in Iraq--Heroes, Boogeymen or Puppets?," Nance claims al Qaeda is...

f Iraqis were hoping that the withdrawal of U.S. forces last year would finally mean the end of war, al Qaeda and its Sunni militant allies are determined to prove otherwise. Daily bombings and shootings remain an endemic feature of life. In the past three months, al Qaeda-linked fighters have been blamed for attacks that have killed at least 250 people. In a particularly poignant reminder of militants' potency this week, gunmen in unauthorized uniforms of special commandos drove from checkpoint to checkpoint in the western town of Haditha before dawn, gunning down police. They killed 27 including two officers...

Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Osama bin Laden-inspired terrorist group that sank the country into sectarian violence five years ago, is trying to make a comeback in post-U.S.-occupied Iraq, analysts and intelligence officials say. Washington is closely watching whether AQI, as it is called, in the next year can reassemble networks smashed by the U.S. counterterrorism campaign. American commandos and intelligence officers killed AQI leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in 2006 and then scores of other chieftains until, by 2011, the group was decimated. But right after the last U.S. troops left Iraq in mid-December, the Sunni Muslim AQI claimed responsibility...

Authorities Conclude Switzerland Likely Used as Base for Financing, Logistical Support for 9/11 Attacks by Al-Qaida By Daniela Sigrist Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 24, 2004 BERN, Switzerland (AP) - Investigators have concluded that Switzerland was likely used as a base for financing and logistical support for the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida, the country's attorney general said Thursday. Federal Prosecutor Valentin Roschacher said authorities plan to begin court proceedings in the coming weeks in three terror cases, capping investigations started four days after the 2001 suicide hijackings in New York and Washington. A special task force initially was charged...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition forces in Baghdad have killed the man believed to be the mastermind of recent bombings in the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said. Mahir Ahmad Mahmud Judu al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Rami and Abu Assad, was believed to be the leader of one of al Qaeda in Iraq's Baghdad networks, the military said in a statement issued Friday. The military said intelligence reports led coalition forces to a building in Baghdad's Adhamiya neighborhood Friday. They surrounded the building and called on the occupants to surrender but were engaged by small arms fire, the military...

Former British PM Tony Blair testified in front of another Iraq inquiry today and for the second time this year he testified about the very real danger of Iran and al-Qaeda working together. Of course the storyline by the British papers, the biased MSM, and the lefty blogosphere, is regarding the regret offered by Blair over the loss of life: At the end of his evidence this afternoon he said it had never been his meaning. "Of course I regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life," I'm sure everyone else would cheer the loss of life huh? I...

NEW YORK — An FBI official says a notorious terrorist suspected of aiding the insurgency in Iraq will be added to the agency's list of its most wanted terrorists. The official said Monday that an FBI committee recommended this month that 73-year-old Palestinian Abu Ibrahim be placed on the list. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision wasn't official. An investigation by The Associated Press had revealed the terrorist was still alive and had fled to Syria. Ibrahim has been indicted in the 1982 bombing of Pam Am Flight 830. The explosion killed a 16-year-old boy and...

Lt. General Michael DeLong discusses intelligence behind U.S. concern over Ansar al-Islam terror/poison camp in Northern IraqA recent conversation Lt. General Michael DeLong revealed new information on prewar intelligence on Iraq that has received little, if any, public attention thus far. General DeLong was the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and was directly involved with the pre-invasion preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom. He offered the observation that Bush administration officials appear to have been reluctant thus far in explaining the prewar intelligence and evidence tying members of Saddam Hussein’s regime to the...

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2010 – The suspected Baghdad “sharia emir” for al-Qaida in Iraq was killed today during a combined security operation in the northern part of the Iraqi capital, military officials reported. A sharia emir is responsible for enforcing radical religious rules imposed by groups such as al-Qaida and the Taliban. Acting on a warrant issued by an Iraqi judge, Iraqi forces and U.S. advisors searched for Sinan, also known as Mohannad Rahman Salim Muhaymid al-Ani, who is believed to be one of the primary approval authorities for al-Qaida in Iraq attacks and assassinations in the Baghdad region. Before...

...possible successors to the [Zarqawi]. One of them, Iraq-based Egyptian terrorist Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was also named by Major-General William Caldwell... The other two are an Iraqi named Abu Aseel and a Syrian named Abu al-Ghadia. Masri (reportedly... born in 1966) is believed to have entered Iraq to join Zarqawi in 2002 and founded a cell for al-Qaeda in Baghdad. ...Masri received his training at military camps in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule and met bin Laden at the Farouk Camp, where Masri was working as an instructor... is also reportedly close to Egyptian Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri... Abu Aseel and...

al-Qaeda bombings kill almost 100 as multiple targets hit in Baghdad Almost 100 people have been killed in co-ordinated al-Qaeda bomb and mortar blasts across Baghdad, the deadliest attack since the US army pulled out of Iraq's major cities. Richard Spencer 19 Aug 2009 Iraqi officials said that 95 people had been killed and more than 500 were wounded. The attacks, blamed on al-Qaeda, hit government and media buildings in the heart of the city, away from the softer targets of recent explosions, such as Shia mosques. Baghdad bomb attacks kill 75 people in Iraqi capital Witnesses described seeing bodies...

George Bush told Tony Blair shortly before the invasion of Iraq that he intended to target other countries, including Saudi Arabia, which, he implied, planned to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Mr Bush said he "wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD proliferation, mentioning in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan," according to a note of a telephone conversation between the two men on January 30 2003. The note is quoted in the US edition, published next week, of Lawless World, America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules, by the British international lawyer Philippe...