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SNIPPET: "Search at Grundy County plant called part of ongoing probe" SNIPPET: "But a source said the owner of the plant, which processes lamb and goat, was taken into custody at his home in Chicago. Documents and records were taken from the plant and from a Chicago travel agency on West Devon Avenue, also owned by the same person, the source said."

At 8 a.m. Sunday the population of Kinsman, Ill., stood at 109. An hour later it nearly doubled, as upwards of 100 federal agents and police swooped in on the tiny, rural community. And no one seems to know why. The law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, immigration officials and state police, surrounded an Islamic meat plant in Kinsman, cordoning off the area and briefly detaining the plant's handful of employees. The FBI isn't saying much, and the county sheriff is mum too, leaving Kinsman's residents mystified. The bust, in a town that has no local police force, involved dozens...

There has been suprisingly little reportage of the actual details of would-be shopping mall terrorist, Mr. Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef's mindset and intentions. So as a public service, here the FBI agent's affidavit (pdf file) in easy to read format. Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef STATE OF ILLINOIS)) COUNTY OF COOK)AFFIDAVIT1. I, Jared Ruddy, Federal Bureau of Investigation, being duly sworn, state as follows: I am a Special Agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) and have been so employed for more than two years. I am currently assigned to an FBI Counterterrorism squad as well as the...

March 7, 2007 — A former U.S. Navy sailor has been charged with allegedly passing military secrets about U.S. Navy movements through waters in the Middle East to al Qaeda-related Web sites during the spring of 2001, just months after the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen. Hassan Abujihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, allegedly passed information about U.S. Navy warship movements in the Straits of Hormuz in April 2001 while he was a member of the Navy. The information passed along contained details about vulnerabilites of U.S. vessels — including susceptibility to small boat attacks by terrorists. Abujihaad...

Investigators are trying to determine whether a San Diego sailor passed Navy secrets about security weaknesses and warship movements to a British man accused of having terrorist links, according to court documents unsealed yesterday. E-mail messages from the unnamed sailor, sent in late 2000 and 2001 before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were found in December in computer files belonging to Babar Ahmad, who was detained Wednesday in London, according to the 31-page arrest affidavit. The computer files contained details about security arrangements and movements of the San Diego-based Constellation carrier battle group, which included the destroyer Benfold, on which...

(Cromwell-AP, Aug. 11, 2004 1:25 PM) _ A Cromwell man says he's being targeted in a federal terrorism probe because he's a Muslim. Forty-one-year-old Syed Maswood is denying allegations he offered support to a militant Islamic Web site. Maswood confirms that he's he unnamed Connecticut resident mentioned last week in a federal affidavit charging a British national with supporting terrorism. Maswood says that on March 17th, federal agents raided his home, seizing computer equipment and financial records. According to the affidavit, investigators discovered Maswood's e-mail address among files used to maintain a Web site that funneled money and equipment to...

CROMWELL, Conn. -- A Connecticut nuclear engineer is under investigation in a federal terrorism probe, but denies allegations he offered support to a militant Islamic Web site and said he's being targeted because he is Muslim. Syed R. Maswood, 41, confirmed that he is the unnamed Connecticut resident mentioned last week in a federal affidavit charging a British national with supporting terrorism. Federal agents raided Maswood's home March 17, seizing computer equipment and financial records, he said. Investigators discovered his e-mail address among files used to maintain a Web site that funneled money and equipment to terrorists, according to the...

A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White's decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees. "Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct," White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla's lawsuit against Yoo. If Padilla, now serving...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order asking the Supreme Court to delay a review of the case of Qatari national Ali al-Marri, the only "enemy combatant" detained on US soil. "You have a legal resident (of the United States) who has been detained; he is clearly a dangerous individual," Obama told reporters as he signed an executive order pertaining directly to al-Marri's case. "His case is currently before the Supreme Court. We have asked for a delay in ... going before the Supreme Court in dealing with this case, so that we...

  Kent man connected to al-Qaida, agent says 10/23/03Karen R. Long Plain Dealer Reporter York, Pa.- Using freshly declassified evidence, an Akron FBI agent testified yesterday that the bureau believes a Kent man is an al-Qaida operative as potentially lethal as the terrorists who flew the hijacked planes Sept. 11, 2001. Ashraf Al-Jailani, a Yemen- born geochemist arrested a year ago in Akron, sat mute as FBI Special Agent Roger Charnesky described him as an al-Qaida "first-stringer, highly educated, highly trained and highly motivated." Charnesky, his forehead glistening with perspiration, asserted that if Al-Jailani "is who the evidence suggests...

The US authorities have arrested two alleged members of Palestinian militant group Hamas on racketeering and terrorism charges. Officials said Muhammed Hamid Khalil Salah and Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar were arrested on Thursday in Chicago and in northern Virginia. A warrant was also issued for an alleged senior Hamas leader in Syria. The US attorney general said the trio "allegedly ran a US-based terrorist and financing cell" associated with Hamas. They "were indicted for their roles in a 15-year racketing conspiracy in the US and abroad", said US Attorney General John Ashcroft, quoted by the Associated Press. "The cell allegedly...

On Wednesday, January 18, I received an e-mail from someone identifying himself as “Ahmed.” He wrote to me that he was a “Muslim activist” and that he wanted me to come on his radio show to discuss my work, or, in his words, “to give [my] side of the story.” In doing a simple web search on his e-mail address, it turned out that this individual was none other than the Director of Communications for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ahmed Rehab. While I didn’t know his motives in contacting me, I had recalled when...

Appraiser claiming fraud says prosecutor's office talked to him after Blago arrest Since arresting Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has renewed interest in convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko's part in the purchase of Barack Obama's Chicago mansion, according to a former real estate analyst who says he was interviewed by the federal prosecutor in the past 10 days. Kenneth J. Conner told WND he was interviewed by investigators from Fitzgerald's office regarding the purchase of the Obama mansion and the adjacent vacant lot that Rezko's wife, Rita, purchased simultaneously. As WND reported last week, Conner filed a civil...

An appellate court has upheld a $156 million judgment against two organizations found to have provided financial support to Hamas and sent the claim against a third back to district court for a new trial. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Wednesday that eliminated the distinction between supporting the violent and social wings of a terrorist group. "If you give money to an organization that you know to be engaged in terrorism, the fact that you earmark it for the organization's nonterrorist activities does not get you off the liability hook," Judge Richard Posner wrote for the...

Jurors have reached a verdict in the second trial of a Muslim charity accused of helping to finance terrorism in the nation's largest such case since the Sept. 11 attacks.The verdict was to be announced Monday afternoon, on the eighth day of deliberations in the retrial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. It was once the nation's largest Muslim charity.Holy Land is accused of giving more than $12 million to support the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization in 1995.Jurors were to read a long list of verdicts on more than...

The strange case of an Iraqi agent caught operating on American soil. His arrest may be the first of many. KHALED DUMEISI, a newspaper publisher in northern Illinois, was surprised when federal agents showed up at a modest condominium in suburban Chicago to arrest the man known to his colleagues in Iraqi intelligence as "Sirhan." He shouldn't have been shocked. First, the FBI, according to a complaint unsealed Wednesday in Illinois, had the goods on Sirhan. Among his offenses: supplying false press credentials for Iraqi intelligence agents; spying on Iraqi opposition leaders--at times, using a mini-camera implanted in the end...

In the speech at a celebration of Saddam Hussein's birthday in 2001, the Oak Lawn man praises the Iraqi ruler as a "great'' and "inspirational'' leader. A federal judge ruled Friday that prosecutors can show jurors a videotape of Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi's remarks at his trial on charges that he acted as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi government. The trial begins Monday in U.S. District Court. Prosecutors accuse Dumeisi of spying on Iraqi opposition members in the United States. Federal judge Suzanne Conlon agreed with prosecutors that the speech, made at the headquarters of the Iraqi Mission to the...

Alleged spy seen in video calling Saddam 'our inspired leader' ILLINOIS -- Prosecutors say he spied on dissidents, reported to U.N. mission honeycombed with secret agents. By MIKE ROBINSON Associated Press Writer CHICAGO (AP) -- Jurors watched a video Tuesday in which a man accused of spying on Iraqi dissidents for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service described the dictator as "our inspired leader" and spoke scornfully of "American colonial imperialism." "A light has illuminated our path and our procession toward the struggle and the liberation," Khaled Dumeisi said in describing Hussein at an April 2001 birthday party for the dictator at...

CHICAGO - A community newspaper publisher accused of spying on Iraqi dissidents in the United States was found guilty Monday of serving as an unregistered agent for Saddam Hussein. The jury took less than two hours to convict Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi after the weeklong trial. "This sends an important message that people can't come to our country and spy on their fellow residents," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said. Dumeisi, 61, was convicted of failing to obey a federal law that requires agents of foreign governments to register with the Justice Department. Prosecutors maintained that the Palestinian-born Dumeisi spied on...

Guilty verdict in spying case Tue Jan 13,11:14 AM ET - Chicago Tribune By Matt O'Connor, Tribune staff reporter A federal jury deliberated less than three hours Monday before convicting a suburban Arabic-language newspaper publisher on charges he acted as a secret agent of Iraq before Saddam Hussein fall. The government alleged that since 1999, Palestinian-born Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi provided information to Mukhabbarat, the Iraqi intelligence agency, about Hussein opponents living in the U.S. Prosecutors said Dumeisi betrayed the U.S. out of admiration for Hussein's support for the Palestinian cause and to get money for his cash-strapped publication, though he...

CHICAGO - A suburban Chicago newspaper publisher convicted of spying on Iraqi dissidents for Saddam Hussein was sentenced Wednesday to three years and 10 months in federal prison. Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi, 61, is expected to be deported after he finishes his prison term. U.S. District Judge Suzanne B. Conlon also said he may not re-enter the United States without permission from the attorney general. "He helped to sustain a hostile foreign government," federal prosecutor Daniel Gillogly said in urging a tough sentence. Defense attorney William H. Theis argued that his client was not very important in the world of Iraqi...

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Greenfield man has been indicted on accusations he tried to sell the names of U.S. intelligence agents to Iraq before the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Authorities: Man Was In Iraq In '02 Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, a 52-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was arrested Thursday after an investigation of more than a year by the FBI and other agencies, U.S. Attorney Susan W. Brooks said. Shaaban, also known as Shaaban Shaaban Hafed and Joe H. Brown, is suspected of going to Iraq in 2002 and making a deal to sell the names. He isn't accused...

“I first began to fathom the extent of Nadhmi Auchi's reach and corrupting influence when I was given responsibility for monitoring illegal transfers of technology and munitions to Iraq as well as overseeing all coalition transportation and communications reconstruction in Iraq." ### Barack Obama has been appropriately strident in his condemnation of the mortgage-based financial corruption which nearly led to the collapse of the investment banking system in the United States. But there are some strong smelling financial skeletons in his own closet. Obama has his own personal housing crisis that is tied not into Fanny Mae, but into a...

PALOS HILLS, Ill. (AP) A local bank has closed a mosque's account after it donated money to an Islamic charity under federal investigation for allegedly helping terrorists. Family Bank and Trust Co. closed the account of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview after the mosque wrote two checks to the Islamic American Relief Agency, according to the mosque's imam, Sheikh Jamal Said. Mosque Foundation president Oussama Jamal said the mosque made its donations in August and September, before the federal government froze the charity's assets and raided its Missouri offices in October. The Treasury Department alleged Islamic American Relief was part...

<p>ALEXANDRIA, Va. — An FBI counterterrorism team has found documents in Dublin, Ireland, linking Zacarias Moussaoui to an Al Qaeda cell there and one of Usama bin Laden's money men, Fox News has learned.</p> <p>U.S. investigators say there is mounting evidence of an Al Qaeda presence in Ireland that has to this point gone largely unmentioned.</p>

Al-qaida military chief killed, taliban confirms The military chief of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network was killed along with seven colleagues in a US bombing raid three days ago, a Taliban official has confirmed. Mullah Najibullah, a Taliban official in the south-east Afghan border town of Spinboldak, confirmed Atef's death but would not identify the location of the airstrike or the other al-Qaida members who died with him. It was the first time a senior Taliban official has confirmed Friday's claim by US officials that Atef was killed in an airstrike outside Kabul. Atef's death is seen as a ...

Excerpt: Use of poisons U.S. intelligence officials believe that Marri trained for two years in Afghanistan, among other things receiving instruction in the use of poisons and toxins at the Derunta camp near Jalalabad, sources said. He is believed to have trained under Abu Khabab al-Masri, an Egyptian specialist in chemical and biological weapons who was killed ... *** U.S. authorities allege that Marri had gone to the United Arab Emirates in August 2001 to get more than $13,000 in cash from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the alleged paymaster for the Sept. 11 plotters. *** The Islamic Assembly of North America,...

Sheik Jamal Said stood before the packed mosque and worked the crowd like an auctioneer. Speaking Arabic, the prayer leader asked for a donation of $10,000. No one responded. He asked for $5,000, and three men raised their hands. < SNIP> The recipient of the worshipers' generosity was Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist accused by the U.S. government of aiding terrorists. And the prayer leader's passionate appeal is a reflection of the ascendancy of Muslim hard-liners at the mosque, one of the most outspoken and embattled in the U.S. The mosque did not become this way without a struggle. Relying...

Abdelhaleem Ashqar is facing trial in Chicago, accused of funding terrorists, and is under house arrest in Virginia. But he said Thursday that won't keep him from seeking to replace Yasser Arafat as the next Palestinian leader. Proclaiming that he detests bloodshed, Ashqar said he will run in the Jan. 9 Palestinian election as an independent and was able to collect 7,000 to 8,000 election petition signatures in less than 36 hours from his district of Putulkarm, in the northern part of the West Bank. Under house arrest at his home in Alexandria, Va., the former Howard University professor said...

Defense attorneys plan to argue Palestinian activist suffers from mental disease or defect BY MELANIE COFFEE Associated Press Writer CHICAGO (AP) -- Attorneys for a Palestinian activist jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the militant group Hamas said Wednesday they intend to argue the man suffers from a mental disease or defect. Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar of Alexandria, Va., was indicted on charges of criminal contempt after he refused to testify before a grand jury investigating fund-raising activities on behalf of Hamas. Prosecutors have said that among other things they want to talk to Ashqar about...

City Colleges fire lecturer with terror ties June 6, 2003 BY ANA MENDIETA, Staff Reporter A Bridgeview man who served five years in an Israeli prison for allegedly channeling funds to Islamic terrorists has been fired from his job at City Colleges for failing to disclose his conviction, officials said Thursday. Mohammed Salah was terminated Wednesday from his job as a part-time lecturer at Olive-Harvey College because he failed to list his conviction on his employment application in February 2002, said Paula Bridges, City Colleges' director of marketing and public relations. Salah, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Jerusalem in...

In fundraising probe, Palestinian activist may face more charges: Federal prosecutors indicated Monday new charges might soon be filed related to a long-running Chicago grand jury probe of fundraising for the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The disclosure came during a court hearing for Abdelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, a Palestinian activist from Virginia facing federal charges for refusing to testify before the grand jury despite a grant of immunity. The grand jury wanted to question Ashqar about his relationship with Hamas and its members. Ashqar was initially indicted last year on one count of criminal contempt, and a new indictment handed...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two suspected members of Hamas have been arrested in the United States and charged with supporting a foreign terrorist organization, money laundering and racketeering, US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced. The authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a third suspect facing the same charges, identified as the deputy chief of the political bureau of Hamas, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, who currently resides in Syria. Ashcroft said the trio allegedly ran a US-based terrorist recruiting and financing cell linked with Hamas, a Palestinian militant group which has publicly admitted to many killings, primarily of Israelis but also...

FBI Agents Say Phone Records Link Illinois Student to Sept. 11 TerroristsBy Mike Robinson Associated Press WriterPublished: Mar 20, 2002 CHICAGO (AP) - FBI agents searching telephone records have linked a 36-year-old Illinois student to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to newly unsealed court papers. Ali Salem Kahlah Al-Marri has not been charged with any role in the Sept. 11 attacks and his lawyer, Richard Jasper Jr., questioned the link. Al-Marri was arrested Jan. 28 and is being held in New York on a federal charge of unlawful possession of more than 15 credit...

(CNSNews.com) - Fourteen miles from the U.S. Capitol, a basement-run organization with alleged ties to Hamas and al Qaeda is a crucial link in the planning of any future terrorist attacks against the United States, according to several terrorism experts who analyzed documents and other information obtained in a CNSNews.com investigation. The United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), based in Springfield, Va., is publicly identified as a Muslim think tank but has multiple ties to the terrorism underworld, according to the CNSNews.com sources, who are both inside and outside government. "UASR is a front organization for a terrorist group,"...

"I couldn't believe it but its true - that's him I saw on TV," says Narcisse Batiste. Family members woke him up Thursday night when they saw his son - Narseal - was one of 7 suspects arrested for plotting Al-Queda like attacks. Narseal Batiste and his five brothers and sisters grew up in both Marksville and Chicago. His father is a baptist preacher at a church in Bunkie. "They were brought up under strict supervision - church - school - they were taught to love everybody," says Narcisse Batiste. "I don't believe it - I don't believe my son's...