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WASHINGTON Captured Al Qaeda official Abu Zubaydah won't be tortured by the U.S. or allied interrogators, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. "We intend to get every single thing out of him to try to prevent terrorist acts in the future," Rumsfeld said, but the idea that the U.S. might use proxy torturers to keep its hands clean was "wrong and irresponsible.""Believe me, reports to that effect are wrong, inaccurate, not happening and will not happen," he said. "He will be properly interrogated by proper people, who know how to do those things."The interrogators probably will be from the...

The Taliban “grossly violated” its 2020 agreement with the United States by “hosting and sheltering” al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, after President Biden announced that the fugitive terrorist had been killed in a weekend drone strike in Kabul. Blinken said the Taliban had violated not just the Doha agreement but also its “repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries.” “They also betrayed the Afghan people and their own stated desire for recognition from and normalization with...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for the U.S. government in a case involving a Guantanamo Bay detainee seeking what the government said is secret information. Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002, was once thought to be a high-ranking member of the terrorist group al-Qaida. Zubaydah was seeking to get the testimony of two former CIA contractors as part of an Polish investigation into his treatment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in an opinion joined by six of his colleagues that the government had argued “Zubaydah’s discovery request could force former CIA contractors to confirm...

The CIA has tapes of 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh being interrogated in a secret overseas prison. Discovered under a desk, the recordings could provide an unparalleled look at how foreign governments aided the U.S. in holding and questioning suspected terrorists. The two videotapes and one audiotape are believed to be the only remaining recordings made within the clandestine prison system. The tapes depict Binalshibh’s interrogation sessions at a Moroccan-run facility the CIA used near Rabat in 2002, several current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings remain a closely...

FORT HUACHUCA — The Main Gate will be closed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday to all traffic including foot traffic, due to a planned demonstration. The event is part of the Southwest Weekend of Witness, which is sponsored by Southwest Witness, Tucson SOA Watch and Torture on Trial. The events will have a “No to Torture” rally at Veterans’ Memorial Park, followed by a procession and presence at the Main Gate. These events occur between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Bad morning for Pelosi @ 9:53 am by Eric Zimmermann Two new developments in the "what did Pelosi know about waterboarding" series spell trouble for the Speaker. First, CNN reports that an aide told Pelosi in February 2003 that waterboarding had been used on Abu Zubaydah. This contradicts Pelosi's assertion that she only knew about the legal rationale for waterboarding, not that it had been used. Sheehy attended a briefing in which waterboarding was discussed in February 2003, with Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, who took over Pelosi's spot as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. This source says...

A former CIA officer who was imprisoned for leaking classified information to journalists said he was initially was cleared of charges until Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan got involved. John Kiriakou said he had "no idea" he was under investigation in 2007 for sharing details of terrorists' interrogations to journalists. Kiriakou said his story should be relevant to President Donald Trump, who is dealing with the same officials in his Russia probe as Kiriakou did. "In 2007, the Bush administration investigated me and determined I hadn't committed a crime," he said. However, Kiriakou said that once President Obama took power...

“We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.”-John Kirakou I would take anything John Kirakou says with a grain from the salt pit.  I question his credibility. What does anyone really know about Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to be the next director of the CIA? Not a heck of a lot. So far what we have is media and ideology-driven hysteria:...

Zarqawi Associate Charged with Lying to FBI Friday, June 25, 2004 By Catherine Herridge and Anna Stolley A Lebanese national with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search), the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, was picked up in Minnesota and charged Friday in a New York court with lying to the FBI about his ties to terrorists, Fox News has learned. According to a federal complaint obtained by Fox, Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi (search), attended jihad training camps in Afghanistan in 1988 and ‘89, where he first met Zarqawi — who is believed to be directing the current attacks against U.S. and...

<p>The former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in a venomous tweet Saturday, accused President Trump of political corruption and warned, "America will triumph over you."</p> <p>John Brennan's biting two-sentence statement came in response to a Friday evening tweet in which the president celebrated the ouster of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. "When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history," he wrote. "You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but will not destroy America... America will triumph over you."</p>

A Senate Judiciary Subcmte. looks into the legal conduct of Justice Dept. lawyers who approved harsh interrogation techniques. One of the witnesses, fmr. FBI agent Ali Soufan, interrogated Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah.

The jailed architect of 9/11 revealed that al Qaeda's plan to kill the United States was not through military attacks but immigration and "outbreeding nonmuslims" who would use the legal system to install Sharia law, according to a blockbuster new book. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also predicted that intelligence officials using so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques such the waterboarding he experienced would eventually come under attack from weak-kneed U.S. politicians and media. In Enhanced Interrogation, CIA contractor James Mitchell tells for the first time about his role interrogating al Qaeda principles, many like KSM still jailed at Guantanamo Bay. He details accounts...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 — A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met with the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 attacks has told American interrogators the meeting never happened, according to United States officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the former intelligence officer, was taken into custody by the United States in July. Under questioning he has said that he did not meet with Mohamed Atta in Prague, according to the officials, who have reviewed classified debriefing reports based on the interrogations. American officials caution that Mr. Ani may...

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...

Well, it's official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking about. Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency's intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he told ABC's Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in a much ballyhooed, exclusive interview that senior al Qaeda commando Abu Zubaydah cracked after only one application of the face cloth and water.... Now comes John Kiriakou, again, with a wholly different story. On the next-to-last page...

A NEWSWEEK article by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball about the memo linking Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dismisses a recent WEEKLY STANDARD report as "hype" and concludes, the "tangled tale of the memo suggests that the case of whether there has been Iraqi-al Qaeda complicity is far from closed." While it's refreshing to see the establishment media pick up the story, the Newsweek article is less than authoritative. The authors write: "The Pentagon memo pointedly omits any reference to the interrogations of a host of other high-level al Qaeda and Iraqi detainees--including such notables as Khalid...

'Waterboarding broke al Qaeda captive in 35 seconds,' says former CIA agent defending tortureUse of the interrogation technique known as "waterboarding" was approved by the White House and gets results, a former CIA agent admitted yesterday. The technique - which simulates drowning - was used against Al Qaeda captives with success, John Kiriakou told a U.S. TV network. The one-time CIA interrogator is the first to speak out about the "torture" methods that have earned President George Bush's administration worldwide condemnation. The White House has denied torture is used on terror suspects, but Mr Kiriakou said waterboarding "broke" one stubbornly...

PREWAR INTELLIGENCE WASHINGTON, July 30 - A senior leader of Al Qaeda who was captured in Pakistan several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the main source for intelligence, since discredited, that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to members of the organization, according to American intelligence officials. Intelligence officials say the detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle, recanted the claims sometime last year, but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others...

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, whose real name was Ali Mohammed al-Fakheri, 46, took his own life in his prison cell, according to the Libyan newspaper Oea. Information gained from the interrogation of al-Libi was cited on several occasions by the Bush administration as justification for the war in Iraq. He told his CIA interrogators that al-Qaeda had sent two men to Iraq to seek training in chemical and biological weapons in December 2000. Classified documents added that the men did not return, so al-Libi did not know whether the training took place, and that, in any case, he was probably "intentionally...

For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned. One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah,...