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TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Georgian police working with the FBI discovered dangerous substances in the house of the suspect who admitted throwing a live grenade toward President Bush at a rally in Tbilisi in May, officials said Wednesday. Sergo Dzagnidze, chief of the criminal police department at the Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that 5 gallons of sulfuric acid, several boxes of mercury thermometers, a centrifuge, a microscope and other devices and dangerous chemicals were found in the cellar. The suspect, Vladimir Arutyunian, was detained last week after a police shootout. He was charged Tuesday with terrorism over the...

Feds: Al Qaeda Mata Hari Wanted To Poison Pres. Carter Federal Sources: Siddique Wanted to Use Biological Agents to Contaminate Pres. Carter's Water By RICHARD ESPOSITO and BRIAN ROSS August 13, 2008 Long before Aafia Siddique was arrested in Afghanistan last month, allegedly in possession of a list of New York targets and chem-bio weapons information, she had allegedly developed a plot, however improbable or amateurish, to kill Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush and to attack the White House. Siddique plotted to use weapons that included biological agents to contaminate former president Carter's water, according to multiple federal...

Man pleads guilty to Cheney death threat Friday, March 18, 2005 Special to the Gazette A Wayland man who planned to crash his van into a campaign rally site faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to threatening to kill Vice President Dick Cheney. Homer Shoup Jr., 51, who pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, also faces fines of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced June 16. Shoup loaded his Ford van with a full tank of propane gas, a full 5-gallon gas can and three empty metal trash cans before departing...

Sep. 25, 2004 17:49 | Updated Sep. 26, 2004 20:49 Mashaal: Hamas is in state of alert By ASSOCIATED PRESS CAIRO, Egypt Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas's political bureau, whose group sends suicide bombers into Israel, knows that Israel has him targeted again. And the leader of the Damascus-based political bureau of Hamas is taking no chances. "We are in a state of alert and vigilance," he told The Associated Press this week during a visit to Cairo from his home base in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Since the double Hamas suicide bombing on August 31 in the southern...

Aug. 4, 2004 21:16 | Updated Aug. 4, 2004 22:01 New Zealand passport scam takes Canadian twist By HERB KEINON The New Zealand passport flap is thickening, with Canada trying to determine whether one of the Israelis allegedly involved in the scam who managed to leave New Zealand is traveling on a stolen Canadian passport. Canadian Foreign Ministry spokesman Reynald Doiron confirmed to The Jerusalem Post that the Canadian police and other federal agencies are investigating whether Ze'ev Barkan, one of the men New Zealand suspects of involvement in the scandal but who has reportedly left the country, is traveling...

<p>The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has detained at an unknown location a former Sudanese Air Force pilot who may have been planning to hijack an airliner and fly it into a target in the United States, U.S. officials told CNN on Friday.</p>

More Dangerous Than Osama Militant Leader Claims He Is Fighting a 'Defensive' Jihad to Destroy the White House ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN: He is more dangerous to Pakistan than Osama bin Laden, analysts say. He may be the single most important person in Pakistan's fight for its future. And for the first time, he has described the goals and the details of the network of militants responsible for the most violent time in Pakistan in 60 years. During a 25-minute sit-down with al Jazeera, Baitullah Mehsud, the man Pakistan blames for killing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, claims he is fighting a...

A court convicted 15 Yemeni militants on terror charges including the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker and plotting to kill the US ambassador. One man was sentenced to death for killing a Yemeni police officer and seven received 10 year prison terms. Six of the defendants plus the one man tried in absentia, who received the longest prison terms, 10 years, were found guilty of participating in the October 2002 bombing of the Limburg oil tanker, which killed one Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden. The conviction of one of...

Brown's photo 'on al-Qaida disks' Seized computers included chancellor's image among information on potential US attacks David Teather in New York and Patrick Barkham Monday August 9, 2004 The Guardian Details emerged yesterday of potential terrorist targets found on captured al-Qaida computers, including a downloaded picture of Gordon Brown, and possible plans to use helicopters to attack New York. Information gleaned from the three laptops and 51 computer disks seized in Pakistan led to the specific warnings issued last week about possible attacks on five financial institutions in the US. US officials have hailed as a breakthrough the arrests and...

ALGIERS (Reuters) - The deputy chief of al Qaeda's North Africa wing, believed to be the group's operational leader, was killed along with two other rebels in a gun battle with Algerian troops, local newspapers said on Tuesday. Hareg Zoheir, also known as Sofiane Abu Fasila, was said to be the second-in-command of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and suspected of being behind planning most of the suicide bombings in Algeria in the recent months. He was shot dead on Sunday at a check point in the eastern region of Tzizi Ouzou, the country's leading dailies reported. "Sofiane is...

ASIO was powerless to stop a Melbourne man who allegedly trained with al-Qaida from boarding an international flight out of Australia. The 23-year-old terror suspect, known as Abu Jihad, is now in custody in Cairo. The Federal Government, through ASIO, was forced to issue an international alert to find Jihad after he disappeared from Australia last October. Jihad was named as an al-Qaida terrorist by captured American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh in December 2001. But ASIO was not able to verify Lindh's claims until after Jihad had boarded the aircraft in Melbourne almost 10 months later. Jihad, a house...

Top Al Qaeda operative taken into US custody 10 minutes ago The United States has taken into custody a top al-Qaeda operative who plotted to assassinate Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and other officials, a Pentagon spokesman said Friday. Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, who was taken to the US navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba about a week ago, was intercepted while trying to reach Iraq to take over Al-Qaeda operations and to plot attacks from there against western targets outside Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. He is "one of Al-Qaeda's highest ranking and senior operatives at the time of...

Jordan has charged three terrorists with plotting to carry out attacks, including an assassination of American President George W. Bush. Prosecutors said the terrorists also planned to strike American Danish embassies in Amman but apparently were not aware that Denmark has no offices in Jordan. The arrests were revealed Wednesday, three months after the terrorists were arrested the day before President Bush arrived in Amman for talks with King Abdullah.

Pakistani convicted for plot to bomb New York subway05-25-2006, 00h32 NEW YORK (AFP) In this courtroom illustration, James Elshafay (C) and Shahawar Matin Siraj (R) appear August 2004 in Federal District Court in New York, before Magistrate Kiyo Matsumoto (R rear) during an arraignment on charges related to an alleged plot to bomb a New York City subway station. Standing at left are Assistant US attorneys John Nathanson (L) and Kelly Currie (2nd L). (AFP/Getty Images/File) A Pakistani man was convicted of planning to blow up a New York subway station ahead of the Republican National Convention held before the...

BRAMPTON, Ont. (CP) - One of the suspects in a Toronto terror plot is accused of wanting to behead Canada's prime minister, his lawyer said Tuesday. Lawyer Gary Batasar says the allegations against his client are very serious and include his personal threat against the prime minister. Steven Chand is also accused of plotting to storm and bomb various buildings, he says. Chand is among 17 people accused of plotting to stage a massive terrorist attack in southern Ontario. Fifteen of the 17 people facing charges are in court today. Family members who arrived to support them were met by...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- A top U.S. Democratic congressman met a leader of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's most powerful rival, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. officials and the Islamist group said Saturday. Visiting House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer met with the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, twice on Thursday -- once at the parliament building and then at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said Brotherhood spokesman Hamdi Hassan. U.S. Embassy spokesman John Berry would confirm only that Hoyer, who represents Maryland, met with el-Katatni at U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone's home at a...

Jordan Hangs 2 for U.S. Diplomat's Murder Two militants were executed by hanging on Saturday for the killing in Amman of a U.S. diplomat. Laurence Foley, a 60-year-old administrator of U.S. aid programs in Jordan, was gunned down outside his Amman home on Oct. 28, 2002. Jordanian authorities have blamed al Qaida in Iraq's top operative, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for Foley's death. The two militants are Salem bin Suweid, a Libyan, and Yasser Freihat, a Jordanian. They were part of an 11-member cell headed by the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi. A Jordanian military court found 10 of the cell members, including al-Zarqawi,...

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Deep in a violent and lawless slum just north of this coastal city, 12 men whose faces were shrouded by scarves drilled with Kalashnikovs. In unison, they lunged in one direction, turned and lunged in another. “Allah-u akbar,” the men shouted in praise to God as they fired their machine guns into a wall. The men belong to a new militant Islamic organization called Fatah al Islam, whose leader, a fugitive Palestinian named Shakir al-Abssi, has set up operations in a refugee camp here where he trains fighters and spreads the ideology of Al Qaeda. He has...

Paul Campos has beclowned himself. He did it in the usual way, by arguing loudly about things he does not understand. Campos chose to devote an entire column (“The right’s Ward Churchill,” Feb. 20) to a blog entry of mine from last week, in which I wondered why the Bush administration wasn’t acting covertly to kill radical mullahs and atomic scientists, rather than preparing a major attack on Iran. (Silly me, I thought this was advocating a less warlike approach). According to Campos, this suggestion was both morally wrong — suggesting that we kill people this way made me a...

France has deported a Tunisian man to his homeland despite protests that he could face torture there. Adel Tebourski, 42, was put on an Air France flight back to Tunisia on Monday, officials said. Tebourski had served a jail sentence in France after being convicted of helping the killers of Afghan resistance leader Ahmed Shah Masood in 2001. The French authorities described Tebourski as a serious threat to national security. French campaigners have said he could be tortured in Tunisia, and the UN torture committee last month called on Paris to suspend his deportation, the French news agency AFP reports....

PARIS, Nov 19, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Counter-terrorism agents this week arrested a man suspected of links to the assassins of anti-Taliban military commander Ahmed Shah Massood, France's interior minister said Wednesday. The suspect, not identified by name, was arrested Monday, Nicolas Sarkozy told lawmakers during a question and answer session. Sarkozy said the suspect "was in liaison with the assassins of Commander Massood," the western-backed head of the northern alliance opposed to the Taliban. Massood was slain on Sept. 9, 2001 in northern Afghanistan, two days before the terror attacks in the United States, by two men...

BRUSSELS -- A Belgian court extended Tuesday the detention of a 35-year-old Moroccan accused in connection with the killing last year of the Afghan anti-Taleban commander Ahmad Shah Masood, officials said. The suspect, whose identity has not been officially revealed, was arrested on October 8 in Antwerp and has been charged with complicity in the September 2001 killing of the Afghan opposition leader, a spokesman as said. The Brussels court extended his detention warrant by a month pending an investigation into an operation to provide false passports, AFP quoted prosecution spokesman Jos Colpin as saying. Belgian press reports have named...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A telephone operator arrested for being a leader of Greece's deadly November 17 terrorist group admitted taking part in the 1975 killing of a CIA official and said the triggerman already is in police custody, judicial sources said Friday. The surprise confession by alleged second-in-command Pavlos Serifis added important details about the ambush killing of CIA station chief Richard Welch outside a Christmas party — a killing that launched a 27-year string of assassinations, bombings and robberies by the once-untouchable group. Serifis also admitted participating in the 1980 slayings of two Greek policemen and said the...

How can anyone be a bystander while someone is stabbed? By Mark Steyn (Filed: 13/09/2003) On September 11, 2001, the first individual to be named among the dead was the wife of the US Solicitor-General, Barbara Olson, whom I'd sat next to at dinner a couple of months earlier. On September 11, 2003, I woke to the news of the death of the Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh, whom I also sat next to a couple of months ago, at a conference. I can't claim anything other than the most casual acquaintance with either lady, but even an accidental proximity...

Police arrested six suspected militants on Monday, including the Pakistani aide of a Libyan Al-Qaeda operative accused of masterminding two assassination attempts a year ago against President Pervez Musharraf, an official said. Malik Tehsin, 31, was nabbed in the eastern city of Lahore as he travelled in a car with three other Pakistanis, and information from Tehsin led to the arrests of two other Pakistani men at a house in the city later Monday. Shafqaat Ahmed, a senior police superintendent, told a news conference that Tehsin had arranged accommodation, transportation and other facilities for Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a Libyan terror...

PESHAWAR, Aug 18: A son-in-law of Al Qaeda No 2 Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri is believed to be the mastermind of the plot to blow up transatlantic flights and he met one or some of the plotters at a place close to the Pakistan-Afghan border, credible sources told Dawn. “The mastermind in the planes bombing plot is Zawahiri’s son-in-law,” said the sources who did not want to be named. “He is the guy being looked for,” they added. Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant is known to have several sons-in-law. One of them was reported to have been killed in a...

MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES - There are so many links between the Abu Sayyaf Group of the Philippines, which beheaded an American hostage a few months ago, and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network, that on paper they look like the route map for a Peshawar-based airline. The links run from that high, bleak border city in Pakistan to terrorist dens in Afghanistan and Yemen; to murders and bombings in the Philippines; to the first attack on the World Trade Center; to a foiled attempt to assassinate the pope during a 1995 visit to Manila. A captured Abu Sayyaf guerrilla, ...

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq, Sept 5 (AFP) - An Iraqi nuclear scientist has been assassinated in the Sunni Muslim insurgent bastion of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, his brother told AFP Sunday. Mohammed Toki Hussein al-Talakani, who had practised nuclear physics since 1984, was shot dead on Saturday as he was driving in Mahmudiya, Alaa Toki Hussein said. The 40-year-old scientist lived in the small town of Al-Kifl, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the capital. Another man was killed in the town on Sunday during clashes between insurgents and Iraqi forces, while a woman was also wounded, the head of the...

To read entire article click text: In a court hearing in San Diego, Kenneth Breen, an assistant United States attorney, said the adviser, Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, tried to sell $300,000 in stock on the afternoon of Sept. 10 and told his broker that the stock market would soon plunge. "Perhaps Mr. Elgindy had preknowledge of Sept. 11, and rather than report it he attempted to profit from it," Mr. Breen said. So, what did Mr. Elgindy, who was trying to sell $300k in stock, tell the financial world the day after 9-11?  Read it for yourself! Immediate release InsideTruth.com...

July 14, 2005 JS-2632 Treasury Designates MIRA for Support to Al Qaida ******In 2003, MIRA and Faqih received approximately $1 million in funding through Abdulrahman Alamoudi. According to information available to the U.S. Government, the September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to al Qaida, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with al Qaida and had raised money for al Qaida in the United States. In a 2004 plea agreement, Alamoudi admitted to his role in an assassination plot targeting the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and is currently serving a 23 year sentence.******

Earlier this week, on Tuesday July 26, 2005, a Dutch court sentenced Mohammed Bouyeri, the killer of Dutch film producer Theo Van Gogh, to life in prison. Following Bouyeri's confession of his gruesome killing of van Gogh, shocking details about the lives of Bouyeri and his friends began to emerge. They afford a telling glimpse into the secret world of Dutch Islamists who used fundamentalism as a veil to mask their sexual perversions. Bouyeri’s parents were first-generation immigrants. He completed secondary school in Amsterdam, then attended college for five years, but quit before receiving a degree. Shortly after the death of his mother, he turned to Islamic...

An ultra-radical Islamic ideology mixing zealot-like devotion and holy war creed is drawing more scrutiny in anti-terrorist probes from the Middle East to Europe — with increasing indications that its base on the fringes of Islamic extremism could be widening. In existence since the 1960s, al-Takfir wa al-Hijra has offered intellectual inspiration to al-Qaida and other militant groups. But authorities now worry about followers becoming more aggressive with recruitment and retaliation against perceived foes of Islam, such as Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Officials in the Netherlands say the Dutch-Moroccan suspect — accused of killing Van Gogh on a busy...

AMSTERDAM — A court in Rotterdam imposed a three-year sentence on Tuesday on a Moroccan-Dutch man for trying to recruit fellow prisoners for a Muslim holy war. Bilal L., 21, was serving a 10-month jail sentence for threatening MP Geert Wilders when he asked fellow prisoners to supply weapons and explosives. The panel of three judges also accepted L. tried to recruit inmates to carry out attacks on the "enemies of Islam". L. is a friend of Mohammed Bouyeri who was jailed for life last year for killing film director Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004. Earlier this year...

Mystery man in terrorist investigation WTVG-- March 2, 2006 - The trainer's identity may have been found. Here's the latest on the man who helped investigators piece together a case against three suspected terrorists. The so-called "trainer" is now linked to the Toledo-based Kind Hearts Organization, a Muslim charity. Employees say the Trainer was a part-time Kind Hearts employee known as "Balil". The Toledo Blade and Cleveland Plain Dealer identify Balil as 39-year-old Darren Griffin. It's believed he is no longer in Toledo and is under the protection of the federal government. Meanwhile, Kind Hearts says the Trainer often tried...

Terror suspect linked to Afghan assassination October 28, 2003 - 9:11AM A Frenchman under investigation in Australia and France for possible terrorist activities was also suspected of links to the assassination of an Afghan leader, authorities said. Willie Virgile Brigitte, 35, is in custody in a Paris area jail where he is being held on suspicion of association with a terror group, French police and justice officials said. Investigations are under way in France and Australia into Brigitte's alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror network, French officials said today. A judicial official said that Brigitte was also suspected of running...

Terror Suspect: 'Everyone Makes Mistakes' Thursday November 3, 2005 12:01 AM By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - After confessing to FBI agents that he joined al-Qaida and discussed plans to assassinate President Bush, an American student wrote a letter to his parents saying that ``everyone makes mistakes.'' ``I know this will be difficult for you ... but I've been detained here in Saudi Arabia for some charges of terrorism,'' wrote Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, who is on trial in federal court for conspiracy to assassinate the president, providing support to al-Qaida and other charges. ``It...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A U.S. citizen accused of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President Bush said in a videotaped confession that he was motivated by hatred of American support for Israel. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali also said on the tape, played in court for the first time Tuesday, that a top al-Qaida operative in Saudi Arabia "made it clear I became one of them and that I could speak in the name of al-Qaida." The 13-minute confession was videotaped in 2003 by authorities in Saudi Arabia, where Abu Ali attended college. His attorneys want the confession thrown out....

McLEAN, Va. (AP) - A man accused of plotting to assassinate President Bush was indicted Thursday on additional charges that could bring life in prison, and prosecutors now say he also planned to establish an al-Qaida cell in the United States. Prosecutors say Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, of Falls Church joined al-Qaida in 2002 while studying in Saudi Arabia and that he discussed possible terrorist operations, including a plot to kill Bush either by shooting or by a suicide bombing.Prosecutors also allege Abu Ali discussed plans to assassinate members of Congress and to hijack aircraft and fly them into...

Al Qaeda High - Alleged Bush Assassin a Graduate of Local Saudi Madrassa Stella Jatras, who normally follows the Balkans for us, reports on efforts to establish yet another Saudi Madrassa outside Washington, D.C. Nestled snuggly in the Northern hills of Virginia, lies the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), better known as Al-Qaeda High. ISA's most notable graduate - so far - is Ahmed Omar Abu Ali. Ali was arrested recently for plotting to assassinate President Bush. Ali was born in Houston and later moved to Falls Church, Va., where he was valedictorian of his class at ISA. After graduation, a...

A Virginia man accused of joining al-Qaida and plotting to kill President Bush can have an independent medical exam to corroborate his claim that he was tortured, a judge ruled Wednesday. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, claims that the U.S. government's evidence against him was obtained through torture while he was jailed in Saudi Arabia. Federal prosecutors deny Abu Ali was mistreated and say no evidence of torture was found by government doctors who examined Abu Ali last month, when the Saudi government turned him over to face federal charges. Abu Ali is a former high school valedictorian in Virginia...

ASSOCIATED PRESS A former high school valedictorian accused of joining al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush pleaded not guilty yesterday in federal court to providing material support to terrorists and to other charges. An Aug. 22 trial date was scheduled for Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, of Falls Church. He was indicted last month and charged with six counts that would allow a maximum prison term of 80 years. Prosecutors say Mr. Abu Ali, a U.S. citizen who was valedictorian of his class at an Islamic private school in Northern Virginia, joined al Qaeda while studying overseas in...

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a U.S. man convicted of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush and conspiring with al Qaeda to 30 years in prison. In November, Abu Ali was found guilty of all charges in a nine-count indictment, including conspiracy to assassinate Bush, conspiring to support al Qaeda and conspiracy to hijack aircraft.

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...

TERROR plotter Zacarias Moussaoui told a Muslim militant he dreamed of crashing a plane into the White House, according to testimony at the al-Qaeda conspirator's death penalty trial today. Singapore-born Faiz Abu Bakar Bafana, a member of the radical Indonesia-based group Jemaah Islamiah, said in testimony recorded in 2002 that he hosted a man he knew only as "John" in Kuala Lumpur in mid-2000, who told him of the dream. Jurors later saw Bafana assert during cross-examination that "John" was Moussaoui. Moussaoui is the first person tried in the US in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed...

A federal grand jury has indicted three Ohio men on terrorism charges alleging they plotted to kill U.S. and coalition military personnel in Iraq and other countries. The three men were arrested over the weekend and were to be arraigned in federal courts in Cleveland and Toledo on Tuesday afternoon, said Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bauer. According to the indictment unsealed Monday, the three suspects recruited others to train for a violent holy war against the United States and its allies in Iraq. The indictment says they traveled together to a shooting range to practice shooting guns and studied how...

Every year, as we enter a New Year, my mind goes back to Daniel Pearl, the Mumbai-based American correspondent of Wall Street Journal, who met with a brutal end to his young life during a visit to Karachi in January 2002 to enquire, inter alia, into the suspected Pakistani links of international jihadi terrorists. In his keenness to find out the truth, Pearl fell into a treacherous trap laid by a mixed group of Pakistani terrorists belonging to different organisations and orchestrated by Omar Sheikh, a British resident of Pakistani origin, who had participated in the so-called jihad against the...

CUBA lay behind the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald and its agents provided the gunman with money and support, an award-winning German director says in a new documentary film. Wilfried Huismann spent three years researching Rendezvous with Death, based on interviews with former Cuban secret agents, US officials and a Russian intelligence source, and on research in Mexican security archives. The film, shown to journalists in Berlin, says Oswald travelled to Mexico City by bus in September 1963, seven weeks before the Kennedy shooting, and met agents at the Cuban embassy there who paid...

TWO men accused of being members of a terrorist organisation allegedly discussed whether Prime Minister John Howard and his family should be killed as payback for the deaths of innocent Muslims, a Melbourne court has been told. The allegation was made at the second day of a bail hearing for Abdulla Merhi, 20, of Fawkner, and Hany Taha, 31, of Hadfield, at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court. They are among 10 men charged with being members of a terrorist organisation last month. Eight of the men also have been charged with financing a terrorist organisation. The alleged leader of the group,...

A Falls Church man charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to kill President Bush told Saudi interrogators that he dreamed up the plot on his own but that it never got past the "idea stage," prosecutors say in court documents unsealed yesterday. Abu Ali, 24, also said during the same interrogation that he "wanted to be in al Qaeda so bad that I decided to go to Afghanistan for jihad." He said he was unable to get a visa to travel there but did join an al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia. Abu Ali is charged in U.S. District Court...

The Paris-based Intelligence Online has reported on its internet site that late Lebanon's premier Rafik Hariri managed to record the threats made by President Bashar Al Assad at their last face-to-face meeting in Damascus on a spy pen likely provided by the French secret service. Hariri had provided copies of the threat to U.S. President Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf shortly before he was assassinated in a huge blast on Feb. 14, said the newsletter that specializes in intelligence affairs. The Assad-Hariri meeting was held in the Syrian capital a week before the Lebanese parliament...