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Pittsburgh was treated to an impressive show the week of the recent G20 conference. A nice assortment of military choppers of various types and missions, along with odder aircraft difficult both to identify and explain. Both police and the National Guard were out in force, with downtown nearly sealed off. None of this hardware was used against the "3,000 - 4,000" (more like a few hundred) anarchist demonstrators when they turned their righteous wrath on a dozen Starbucks and a Whole Foods store. No serious confrontation was expected and none occurred. Because all of it - the Guard troops, the...

Airplane shoe bomber Richard C. Reid no longer faces severe limits on his prison activities or communications after the Obama administration quietly ended years of hard-nosed curbs against the British-born al-Qaeda terrorist. This summer the Justice Department halted six years of measures that kept Reid from associating or praying with fellow jailed Muslim terrorists, and limited his access to the news media and pen pals.

Richard Reid, the man who tried to blow up American Airlines flight 93 is housed in the Supermax prison in Colorado. Until this month, he had been subject to security restrictions which prevented his communication with other Al Qaeda members, where ever they are. Not anymore. The Holder Justice Department has decided to relax these security measures against an unrepentant terrorist... (Read the rest at muffledoar.blogspot.com)

The Obama Justice Department has withdrawn the "special administrative measures" imposed at the federal prison in Colorado against "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid, the jihadist who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001. Special administrative measures (SAMs) are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when "there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications, correspondence or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury" to others." snip ... the list of Reid’s potential fellow congregants at ADX Florence [the supermax Colorado prison] reads like a Who’s Who of al-Qaida’s most dangerous members: Ramzi...

Better have something to bite on before you start reading the intrepid Debra Burlingame's Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning — your teeth are going to be gnashing big-time. Unbelievably, the Obama Justice Department has withdrawn the "special administrative measures" (SAMs) imposed at the federal supermax prison in Colorado against "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid (the jihadist who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with nearly 200 people on board). As Debra explains, the "SAMs are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when 'there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications, correspondence or contacts with persons...

Today, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled 'Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’: The terrorist sues to resume his jihad from prison. The Obama administration caves in,' Debra Burlingame writes: On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier [June 9, 2007 pdf file at link], the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner -- Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the “Shoe Bomber” --...

Last May at the National Archives, President Barack Obama warned that “more mistakes would occur” if Congress continued to politicize terrorist detention policy and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. “[I]f we refuse to deal with those issues today,” he predicted, “then I guarantee you, they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future.” On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal...

From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber Saajid Badat this week pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a plane. What drove this quiet football fan to thoughts of terror? Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd Saturday March 5, 2005 The Guardian He seemed the model British Muslim citizen - a poster boy for integration whose knowledge of the Qu'ran and achievement at grammar school made Gloucester's close-knit Islamic community proud. When in November 2003 anti-terrorist police turned up at the terraced house in the Barton and Tredworth district of the city that Saajid Badat shared with his...

 A British-born Muslim admitted yesterday conspiring to blow up a passenger aircraft at the same time as Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, tried to bring down an American Airlines flight.Saajid Badat, 25, who trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey after being linked to an al-Qa'eda plot.   Saajid Badat Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, said: "Three years of intensive and painstaking international investigation brought us to the point where Badat had no option but to plead guilty to this horrendous offence."His conviction demonstrates the reality of the threat...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After more than five years, the Pentagon revealed why it is holding a Saudi nicknamed "the Professor" at Guantanamo Bay, saying he once lived with a Sept. 11 conspirator and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden. Shaker Aamer's lawyer denies the allegations, made after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week requested the release of the Saudi, who has been an unofficial leader among the detainees, and four other former residents of Britain. The Bush administration, which has been urging other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners amid international pressure to close the military jail,...

The news last month that police had arrested Sajid Badat at his home in Gloucester, England, shook many Britons. The charges against him concerned his training with al-Qaida in Afghanistan and his possessing PETN explosives, the same substance would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid had tried to set off. Police believe Badat intended to carry off the very first suicide bombing in the United Kingdom. But not everyone was shaken by this news. Gloucester's Muslim community esteemed Badat too much to credit the charges. One admirer called him "a walking angel" and "the bright star of our mosque." Another described him...

(CBS/AP) Sources tell CBS News that British police have foiled a plot to blow up an airliner en route from London's Heathrow Airport to the U.S. Sajid Badat, a Pakistani Briton, was arrested in his hometown of Gloucester last week during a series of police raids across Britain. Badat, 24, was charged Wednesday with conspiring with Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber," and "others unknown" to cause an explosion "likely to endanger life" between September 1, 2001 and November 28, 2003. He is also charged with two lesser offenses of "possessing explosives." Shortly after the arrest, Home Secretary David Blunkett...

British Muslim Sajid Badat has been remanded in custody after appearing at Bow Street magistrates court in London charged with conspiring with shoe bomber Richard Reid to cause a life-threatening explosion. Badat, 24, of St James Street, Gloucester, was arrested by anti-terrorist police last week in the first of a series of raids nationwide. Badat has been charged with unlawfully and maliciously conspiring with Richard Reid and others to cause an explosion, and two further charges of possessing explosive materials, Scotland Yard said. Reid, 29, who tried to blow up a transatlantic jet with explosives hidden in his footwear, began...

our America before Obama - a true American judge...BEAUTIFUL! MUST READ and Pass it on, just to remind everybody what we are loosing because of IDIOTS!!! Remember the shoe bomber? When America was "a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere"? Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it? Did you know his trial is over? Did you know he was sentenced? Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio? Didn't think so.!!! Everyone should hear what the judge...

Convicted British ‘shoe-bomber’ terrorist Richard Reid, who was found guilty in 2003 of trying to blow up a transatlantic commercial flight, has been refusing food for several weeks and is being force fed by authorities in a US prison. Reid is currently serving a life sentence in the notorious Supermax prison in Denver, America’s highest-security federal lockup, after he was convicted of trying to ignite two bombs in his shoes while on board a Paris-to-Miami flight on American Airlines. He was subdued by passengers before he could detonate the explosives. Reid, 35, has refused 59 meals since March at the...

We have plenty of basis and evidence that [Binyam] Mohammed is dangerous. But Holder’s sense of “responsibility ... as attorney general ... for the safety of this nation” did not stop him from agreeing to Mohammed’s release and transfer to England — where he now plots freely while on the British dole. Naturally, having discerned that all the tough talk was just that, talk, British authorities are back on the administration’s doorstep, demanding the release of Shaker Aamer. He’s a bin Laden confidant who trained aspiring terrorists at al-Qaeda camps, met with shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and traveled widely in the...

LONDON, July 31 (UPI) -- Letters from convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid from a super-max prison in the United States include lectures to his father about Islam and dreams of freedom. The Mirror, a British newspaper, reported that it had an exclusive look at Reid's letters to his father, Robin Reid, a Jamaican-born recovering drug addict living in a London homeless shelter. Reid berates his father for a letter telling him that his aunt, Madeleine, who brought Reid up while Robin Reid was in prison, had died and was "in a better place." "What you wrote about Aunt Lynn being...

A U.S. defense analyst and author says Americans should be very concerned about some radical Muslim paramilitary compounds that have sprung up around the country and that are surrounded with "No Trespassing" signs. Hear This Report Greg Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association (ISSA), says the compounds are often populated with former U.S. convicts who were converted to Islam in prison. These convicts, he contends, are connected to a Pakistani organization. "Islamberg in New York, Ahmedabad in Virginia, and Holy Islamville in South Carolina, and so on are places which have been formed largely by Jamaat ul-Fuqra," Copley...

Excerpt - An FBI video has revealed in chilling detail how a British terrorist planned to blow a passenger jet out of the sky. The footage — obtained by the News of the World from security sources — show the shoe-bomb blast tearing a hole through the metal fuselage as if it were tin foil. It proves that if the attack by Brit Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami in 2001 had succeeded, all 197 on board would have died. ~ snip ~ Link to article and video...

A terror suspect arrested last week has been charged with plotting a bomb attack with al Qaeda "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. Sajid Badat, 24, of Gloucester, was also charged with possessing explosives with the intent to endanger life under the Terrorism Act 2000. Badat, who was arrested on Thursday by Gloucest More follows...

At six feet four inches tall, Richard Reid makes a forbidding figure, even from behind the iron grates, steel doors and automated locks that separate him from his prison guards in this place they call Terrorist Central. Richard Reed after his arrest (Richard Reid) Held in darkness and paranoiaHunched on a stool that is moulded to the floor of his broom-cupboard-sized cell, he turns the pages of the newspaper spread out on the concrete desk before him, soaking up stories and pictures from an outside world that he will never see again. "Do you need anything today?" a prison guard...

More than 70 Muslim workers at France's main airport have been stripped of the security clearance for allegedly posing a risk to passengers, officials say.The staff at Charles de Gaulle airport, including baggage handlers, are said to have visited terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. One man is thought to have been a friend of Richard Reid, the so-called British shoe bomber. Richard Reid tried to blow up a flight from Paris to the US in 2001. Discrimination lawsuitsEarlier this year officials at Charles de Gaulle airport, north of Paris, conducted a security review of staff and questioned dozens...

BRITISH police investigating a terror plot by Islamic saboteurs have found chemical warfare protection suits in a north London mosque. The discovery has shocked detectives, who believe the find confirms supporters of Osama bin Laden were planning a poison attack on civilian targets in Britain. Scotland Yard and MI5 detectives had kept the discovery of the nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) suits secret. They feared disclosing it would spark panic. Government ministers have warned any suggestion that the Finsbury Park mosque had been involved would have worrying racist overtones. Police initially revealed they had seized a cache of weapons, including...

Get out your box of aloe vera-enriched, three-ply Kleenex tissues. The bleeding-heart defense team for convicted al-Qaida terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui wants to tell you a sob story. Like so many apologists for jihad, Moussaoui's lawyers are playing the victim card on behalf of a murder-minded thug who just can't wait to die for Allah. Last April, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy, conspiracy to destroy aircraft, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to murder government employees and conspiracy to destroy property. Throughout the sentencing phase of...

Defense lawyers for confessed Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui have asked a judge to subpoena testimony from shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Moussaoui’s court-appointed lawyers, trying to spare him from a death sentence, are seeking to show that Moussaoui was lying when he testified he was training to pilot a fifth plane as part of the Sept. 11 operation. They asked U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to issue the subpoena late Monday. Moussaoui told the jury at his death-penalty trial that Reid, who later was convicted of trying to ignite a shoe bomb aboard a trans-Atlantic flight, was to be part of his...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House. Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom as he disclosed details he had never revealed before. It was in stark contrast to Moussaoui's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions. Moussaoui testified Monday he lied to investigators when arrested...

'Jihad Johnny' Linked to Flt. 63 Shoe Bomber America's Tailban traitor "Jihad Johnny" Walker and Flight 63 shoe bomber Richard Reid were recruited to do Osama bin Laden's dirty work by the same extremist Muslim group currently operating all over the globe to build an anti-Western army to fight jihad, one Mideast expert contended Friday. "The French newspaper La Provence reported Tuesday that Reid had been an acolyte of Tabligh-i-Jamaat," reports Islamic scholar Steven Schwartz in the New York Post. "U.S. media disclosed last week that Walker had been recruited by a San Francisco cell of the same group." Schwartz ...

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or if you think you are a soldier. You are not----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to...

Unrepentant, and convinced that Muslims across the world are the victims of American oppression, the mind of Richard Reid, the attempted shoe bomber from South London, was shown today in a letter published in a Scottish legal magazine. The letter, written by Reid from his prison cell in America on October 24, 2002, and published by The Firm magazine today, was sent to the magazine's US correspondent instead of an interview. In the letter, Reid, now 31, gave a rambling but cogent reply to a note sent to him by Noel Young, The Firm's journalist, who offered Reid the chance...

The following is a partial transcript of the court hearing in which Richard Reid was sentenced to life in prison for his confessed plan to try and blow up a jetliner with explosives he had hidden in his shoes. The exchange is between Reid and Judge William Young. RICHARD REID: I start by praising Allah because life today is no good. REID: I further admit my allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah. So, for this reason, I think I ought not apologize for my actions. I am at war with your country. JUDGE...

Paris court convicts three aides to shoebomber ReidA top French court jailed three men for terrorist conspiracy on Thursday after finding them guilty of helping "shoebomber" Richard Reid, who narrowly failed to destroy a U.S. airliner over the Atlantic. (snip) Jacqueline Rebeyrotte, presiding judge at the main Paris criminal court, sentenced Ghulam Rama to five years in prison and expulsion from France once his sentence was served. (snip) His co-accused, Frenchmen Hakim Mokhfi and Hassan El Cheguer, both aged 31, were each jailed for four years, one year suspended. The court ordered them released as they have been in preventive...

LONDON (AP) - A British judge Friday imposed a 13-year prison sentence on a man who admitted conspiring with shoe-bomber Richard Reid to blow up a U.S.-bound trans-Atlantic jet in 2001. Prosecutors said they believe British-born Saajid Badat, 25, may have backed out of an alleged plot with Reid, who was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001. ``Turning away from crime in circumstances such as these constitutes a powerful mitigating factor,'' Judge Adrian Fulford said. ``It can take considerable courage to plead guilty...

A KEY al-Qaeda operative responsible for recruiting the shoe bomber Richard Reid and one of the September 11 hijackers helped to kidnap five British children from their Norwich home and take them to Libya, a court was told yesterday. Djamel Beghal, 39, is serving ten years in a French prison for plotting a suicide attack on the US Embassy in Paris and was described as so dangerous that even other al-Qaeda members thought him beyond the pale. While he was living in Leicester in the late 1990s Beghal, an Algerian, met Azzedin Journazi, from Libya, at a city mosque and...

LONDON (Reuters) - "Shoe bomber" Richard Reid had planned with an accomplice to bring down more than one aircraft at around the same time, a London court heard Monday. Reid failed in his bid to blow up an American Airlines plane from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22, 2001 after passengers and crew overpowered him as he tried to ignite explosives in his shoe. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a U.S. court in January 2003. At the Old Bailey Monday, his accomplice Saajid Badat, 25, pleaded guilty to conspiring to use an explosive device identical to that of...

LONDON (AFP) - A British Muslim pleaded guilty to conspiring with jailed "shoe bomber" Richard Reid to try and blow up airliners, an admission police hailed as a major breakthrough in anti-terrorism efforts. Intelligence services believe Saajid Badat, 25, who was arrested in Britain in late 2003, had volunteered to mimic Reid's failed suicide bomb attack by igniting a shoe packed with explosives during a commercial flight. Fellow Briton Reid, a self-professed follower of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), was jailed for life by a US court in early 2003 for trying to blow up a...

A British-born suicide bomber plotted to bring down a packed passenger aircraft over the Atlanttic at the same time that the shoe bomber Richard Reid targeted an American Airlines flight, the Old Bailey heard today. But Saajid Badat changed his mind and dismantled his own shoe bomb, which was designed to evade airport security. Badat, 25, from Gloucester, admitted conspiring to blow up an aircraft between January 1 1999 and November 28, 2003 in a surprise change of plea today. He had been due to stand trial for the offence. Intelligence services believe Badat had been conspiring with Reid, a...

Algerian radical spills beans on bin Laden "terror network" An Algerian Islamic radical arrested in France has proved a goldmine for investigators probing Osama bin Laden's militant network in Europe in the wake of the September 11 attacks, magistrates told AFP. French investigators now believe that after key testimonies from a handful of well placed members of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network the exiled Saudi extremist's secret organisation in Europe is unravelling fast. Since his arrest in Paris last Monday 27-year-old Yacine Aknouche has revealed his links with several al-Qaeda suspects including "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th...

French anti-terror magistrates wrapped up an investigation into four Islamists who may have helped British shoe bomber Richard Reid in France. Le Parisien reports the suspects include the head of a Paris mosque, the leader of a Pakistani community and two other men. Reid spent several days in Paris before boarding a Miami-bound plane in December 2001 with explosives stuffed in his sneakers. Last year, Reid was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. court for trying to blow up the flight. One of the French suspects, Imam Kamel Lakhram, reportedly acknowledged to French authorities Reid had slept at...

WASHINGTON — U.S. authorities brought charges Monday against a British man they claim conspired with admitted Al Qaeda (search) member Richard Reid (search) to use shoe bombs to blow up planes in midair. A federal grand jury indictment unsealed in Boston charges Saajid Badat, 25, with attempted murder, trying to destroy an aircraft and other counts related to the alleged conspiracy with Reid, who also is a British citizen and Muslim convert. Reid's attempt to blow up a Paris-to-Miami flight on Dec. 22, 2001, was thwarted by attendants and passengers after he tried to light a fuse leading to the...

British shoe bomber Richard Reid is suing US prison authorities over his harsh prison conditions. The Londoner is being helid in a maximum security jail in Colorado for attempting to blow up an American Airlines flight in December 2001. But he has appealed to a judge to be allowed the "same rights and privileges as other inmates" at the prison. Reid is trying to end his isolation and lack of access to Arabic-language religious books. In May, prison authorities told the inmate he had been placed on special administrative measures. These restricted his access to letters, the media, telephone...

Shoe Bomber Sues Over Harsh U.S. Prison ConditionsThu Aug 19, 2004 08:39 PM ET DENVER (Reuters) - "Shoe bomber" Richard Reid has sued U.S. prison authorities for imposing harsh conditions including isolation and a lack of access to Arabic language religious books. Reid is serving a life sentence for attempting to use explosives in his shoes to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Reid, a British citizen, wants a judge to order prison authorities to give him "the same rights and privileges as other inmates held in this prison."...

DENVER — Al Qaeda member and Florence prison inmate Richard Reid has moved his court challenge of federal prison rules to Denver. Reid is serving a life sentence for trying to blow up an airplane with explosives hidden in his shoes in 2001. The Justice Department has imposed restrictions on Reid and other terrorism-related prisoners they consider a threat to national security. In a handwritten lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver last week, Reid wrote he has been kept in isolation in a cell with a window that does not let him see outside, and that his mail...

Everyone should hear what the judge had to say. Ruling by Judge William Young US District Court. Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant If he had anything to say. His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah," defiantly stated "I think I ought not apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country." Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below, a stinging condemnation of Reid in particular and terrorists in...

I recieved this as an email and thought it was something everyone should read. Hope you enjoy. \Just passing this on. Don't know if you've seen this .......good reading. Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it? Did you know his trial is over? Did you know he was sentenced? Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV/Radio? Didn't think so. Everyone should hear what the judge had to say. Ruling by Judge William Young U.S. District Court. Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 12 — Several men believed to be American citizens have been taken into custody here during the past few weeks on suspicion of being linked to Al Qaeda, senior Pakistani officials said today. The Pakistani officials said most of the men had been picked up along with other suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban members in joint American-Pakistani raids in the country's remote tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan. They said they believe that the men form a disjointed network of disaffected Westerners who converted to Islam and have been drawn to militant causes, fighting alongside Al...

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit --------------------------------------------------------- No. 03-1159 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. RICHARD C. REID, Defendant, Appellant. --------------------------------------------------------- APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. William G. Young, Chief U.S. District Judge] --------------------------------------------------------- Before Boudin, Chief Judge, Lynch and Howard, Circuit Judges. ------------------------------------------------------ Owen S. Walker, with whom Elizabeth L. Prevett and the Federal Defender Office were on brief, for appellant. Gary S. Katzmann, Assistant U.S. Attorney, with whom Michael J. Sullivan, U.S. Attorney, Gerard T. Leone, Jr., First Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Timothy Q. Feeley and Colin...

ICC Note: While this is not explicitly about persecution, it does play into the issue and highlights one main point. Mr. Reid said at his sentencing, "(my) allegiance (is) to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah, I think I ought not apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country." This highlights what we at ICC deal with on a daily basis. That is, that there is an undeclared war between radical Islam and the West, and Christians are often at the front lines of that war. President Bush...

LONDON (Reuters) - Security services have "undoubtedly" foiled planned terror attacks by al Qaeda followers in Britain and also probably across Europe, according to the head of the country's anti-terrorist force. Peter Clarke warned, however, there was no room for complacency in the race to stop extremists using skills and links forged in war zones such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Georgia from carrying out attacks around the world. "We are absolutely confident we have stopped a lot of terrorist activity. There would have been attacks," Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch, told Reuters in an interview. But "there...

LONDON (AFP) - Four men arrested in a vast anti-terrorist sweep by British police were charged with seeking to fund terrorist activities and make bombs and firearms, police said. The four, aged between 23 and 26, were to appear in court on Tuesday to be formally charged, a police spokesman said. "The charges against them relate to allegedly obtaining and possessing money to fund terrorism or possessing articles or material which provide instruction or training to make firearms or explosives," the spokesman said. "The offences are alleged to have taken place on or before December 2." He said two of...

<p>LONDON — British police arrested two terror suspects, including one with suspected links to Al Qaeda, Britain's home secretary said Thursday.</p> <p>Television reports said those links involved convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.</p> <p>The 24-year-old man was arrested in Gloucester, western England, after police evacuated 119 nearby homes and cordoned off three roads out of fear he may have had explosives, authorities said. London's Metropolitan Police, which assisted in the investigation, said officers recovered a "relatively small amount" of what was described as "explosive material." Police gave no further details.</p>