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Unbeknownst to most Americans, federal prosecutors opened their case recently in the terrorism trial of a young American who studied under two Taliban-tied imams in California and whose grandfather was Pakistan’s minister of religion in the 1980’s. The trial of Hamid Hayat, 23, is not taking place in the dark of night nor in a military tribunal from which the media is barred. It is in an open California courtroom, the very kind that has been overrun for trials of the likes of Scott Peterson and O.J. Simpson. Yet in the month of February, the New York Times had exactly...

American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh has asked President Bush again to reduce his 20-year prison sentence by an unspecified amount, Lindh's attorney said Tuesday. Lindh, now in his early 20s, wrote a first-person account to the Justice Department's pardon attorneys arguing why he believes Bush should reduce his sentence. Lindh's attorney said the document could not be publicly released under U.S. government restrictions intended to prevent Lindh from disclosing national secrets. Lindh, a native of Marin County, Calif., who is now imprisoned in southern California, was captured in Afghanistan weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He pleaded...

18 June 2005: Pakistan is pressuring the United States to accommodate forty-six Taliban or sympathetic elements in the Hamid Karzai government to influence the crucial September parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, but the American ambassador to the country, Zalmay Khalilzad, says no. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khursheed Mahmoud Kasuri, is adamant that he will petition US president George W.Bush and the state department to accommodate all forty-six persons without precondition, but Khalilzad says only two could be taken into government, Quadrattullah Jamal and Maulana Tariq Mohammed, but only if they publicly denounce jihad and surrender their weapons. Pakistan says it cannot guarantee...

By Ross Farrow News-Sentinel Staff Writer Last updated: Friday, Jun 17, 2005 - 06:57:34 am PDT A man the FBI arrested last week on a charge of lying about attending a terrorism camp in Pakistan ironically played a role in a service in Lodi preaching peace and understanding among the world's many cultures following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Hamid Hayat, 22, remains in custody at Sacramento County Jail because of his alleged link to terrorism, yet he recited a passage from the Quran during a special service on Sept. 18, 2001, that was attended by Christians and Muslims...

Iraqi Islamic Party Leader Arrested May 30, 2005 BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. troops detained the head of Iraq's (search) largest Sunni Muslim political party during a house raid early Monday in western Baghdad, a top party official and police said. Mohsen Abdul Hamid (search), head of the Iraqi Islamic Party (search), was detained by American soldiers along with his three sons and four guards, said party-secretary-general Ayad al-Samarei. U.S. military officials could not immediately confirm the detentions. Al-Samarei said American soldiers raided Hamid's home at around 6 a.m. and confiscated various items, including a computer. "This is a provocative and...

HER dusty file was one of hundreds of thousands of documents stacked in a house in a wealthy neighbourhood of Baghdad. Asma Rasheed married a pilot, lived comfortably in the presidential compound of Saddam Hussein and directed a microbiology programme that was not supposed to exist. Rasheed’s light blue folder has emerged from a huge archive seized by forces loyal to Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, which opposed Saddam. The archive — a dark who’s who of Iraq — reveals the tiniest details of blandishments and humiliations by a paranoid regime that shared the Nazis’ obsession...

First Democratically-Elected Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai sworn in Ron PeacockKABUL, Afghanistan (PN) On December 7th, Afghanistan took another giant step toward the future and becoming a member in the community of free nations. With his hand upon the Holy Koran, Hamid Karzai announced, "I swear to obey and safeguard the provisions of the sacred religion of Islam, to observe the constitution and other laws of Afghanistan and supervise their implementation, and with the assistance of God and the support of the nation, to make great and sincere efforts for the happiness and progress of the people of Afghanistan." during his...

Others may have sympathized on learning that Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Middle East studies at Columbia University, felt threatened by a graduate student at his own university, but not me. The incident began late on Sept. 27, 2004, when Victor Luria, a Ph.D. candidate in genetics and a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, wrote Dabashi an e-mail taking strong exception to what Dabashi had written about the IDF in an article, "For a Fistful of Dust: A Passage to Palestine," he published in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram. In response, Luria wrote to Dabashi: I have rarely seen...

Scenes in Fahrenheit 911 of U.S. soldiers taunting and sexually humiliating Iraqi civilians following the successful invasion were shot by Urban Hamid, an embedded Swedish-Iraqi journalist who is presently a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado, the university's student newspaper Camera disclosed today (Tuesday). Moore has declined to respond to questions from interviewers about whether he resorted to subterfuge in order to embed photographers among U.S. forces and has been criticized for not showing footage of the abuses to U.S. military authorities earlier. But Camera reported that the controversial footage by Hamid was actually shown at a theater in...

Security Forces Attack Southern Egyptian Town; Some Hostages Feared Dead Feb 28, 2004 The Associated Press ASSIUT, Egypt (AP) - Egyptian security forces on Saturday attacked gunmen who had taken an estimated 80 people hostage in a southern Egyptian town. Some of the captives were feared dead. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the gunmen set fire to 13 houses before many escaped into other areas of Nakhilah, a town in southern Egypt on the Nile River. A Ministry of Interior statement said police arrested 15 people and seized some weapons and large quantities of drugs in the...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The current president of Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim Governing Council said that Baghdad could consider territorial claims over neighbouring Jordan and Kuwait in the future. "We need our Arab brothers around us. Now, we cannot discuss this matter with them at all, but in the future, we'll see," said Mohsen Abdel Hamid, in response to a question from a Baghdad consultative council member. Shaza Hadi al-Obeidi had asked Abdel Hamid about the status of territory, once linked to Iraq, such as Jordan and Kuwait, at an extraordinary meeting of the 37-member consultative council. A Jordanian...

IRAQ SHOCK FOR KUWAIT BAGHDAD: Iraq could consider territorial claims over Jordan and Kuwait in the future, the current president of the interim Governing Council said yesterday. "We need our Arab brothers around us. Now, we cannot discuss this matter with them at all, but in the future, we'll see," said Mohsen Abdel Hamid. Consultative council member Shaza Hadi Al Obeidi had asked him about the status of territories, once linked to Iraq, such as Jordan and Kuwait, at an extraordinary meeting of the 37-member council. Jordan government spokeswoman Asma Kohdr said Amman would demand an explanation of Abdel Hamid's...

Top Iraqi Official Wants Islam-Based Law Tuesday February 10, 2004 3:01 PM By JIM KRANE Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's current top official has demanded that Islam be the principal basis for Iraq's laws, a move that breaches a previous agreement among the framers of the interim constitution and creates the possibility that Islamic law could rule the land. If approved, the proposal could have broad effects on secular Iraq, taking away rights of women in divorce and inheritance cases, shuttering liquor stores and banning gambling, legal advisers here say. Elements also run counter to President Bush's...

BAGHDAD, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The head of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council said on Saturday that a U.N. ruling on the feasibility of elections demanded by a top cleric would not be binding, and that Iraqis must settle the question themselves. U.S. plans for a political exit from the country it invaded and occupied have been shaken by calls from the top religious authority among majority Shi'ite Muslims for direct elections, not the caucuses Washington wanted, before a June 30 power handover. The U.S.-led occupation authority says Iraq lacks the voter rolls and laws for a proper election by the...

U.S. detains, kicks out two Canadian Muslims By COLIN FREEZE From Saturday's Globe and Mail UPDATED AT 2:39 AM EDT Saturday, Sep. 13, 2003 Two moderate Islamic scholars were kicked out of the United States and sent back to Canada last night, after U.S. authorities detained them as suspected terrorists when they landed in Florida on the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Ahmad Kutty, 59, and Abdool Hamid, 37, are Canadian citizens affiliated with the Islamic Centre of Canada in Mississauga, Ont. They were flying to Orlando to lead an Islamic prayer service, but were intercepted by immigration agents...

Troops handed 'Saddam letter' By Shafik Meghji and James Langton, Evening Standard 23 June 2003 American soldiers have allegedly been handed a letter from Saddam Hussein offering his terms of surrender. The development comes amid further claims that he is still alive and active in Iraq. Saddam passed the handwritten document to Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti shortly before the former aide was captured by US forces last week, it has been claimed. In the letter Saddam called for "fair treatment" by the allied forces for himself and that his family be allowed safe passage from Iraq to another Arab country....

<p>IN CUSTODY: Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, left, seen with Saddam Hussein on his 65th birthday, was harbored by an Iraqi family that, according to Arab custom, refused to betray a house guest and turn him over to U.S. forces.</p> <p>TIKRIT, IRAQ – Saddam Hussein's top aide managed to evade U.S. forces for a time by sleeping on a mat in the home of an Iraqi family who refused to turn him in because of the tradition in Arab and Muslim countries of protecting guests.</p>

<p>Two U.S. intelligence agencies have made an assessment that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is alive and inside Iraq, intelligence officials told CNN.</p> <p>The assessment -- which officials stress is not proven fact -- was based on recent intercepted communications among Saddam loyalists, as well as interviews with individuals in custody, Iraqis on the street and plausible accounts of Saddam sightings, the officials said.</p>

Saddam Hussein's top aide managed to evade U.S. forces for a time by sleeping on a mat in the home of an Iraqi family who refused to turn him in because of the tradition in Arab and Muslim countries of protecting guests. But Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti surrendered quietly Tuesday morning after informants' tips led U.S. forces to the home of Kafi Awad and her husband. Al-Tikriti was Saddam's personal secretary and No. 4 on America's list of 55 most-wanted former regime figures. "We couldn't tell him to leave our house," said Awad, whose husband, two sons and two brothers...

<p>In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, Sami Omar al-Hussayen led fellow Muslims as they joined an emotion-charged candlelight march remembering the dead. The Saudi graduate student in computer science at the University of Idaho helped organize a blood drive for victims. He issued a press release on behalf of the Muslim Students Association, stating that the small town of Moscow's Muslims "condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious acts of terrorism against innocent citizens."</p>