Free Republic

Tehran -- A court in Iran on Thursday ordered the United States government to pay over $4 billion to the families of Iranian nuclear scientists who have been killed in targeted attacks in recent years, state-run media reported. The largely symbolic ruling underscores the escalating tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear programme, with negotiations to restore the tattered atomic accord at a standstill. Although Tehran has blamed Israel in the past for slayings targeting Iranian nuclear scientists since a decade ago, Iran did not directly accuse its arch-foe Israel in its announcement. Iran has not...

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

BERLIN- A Syrian-born businessman who knew Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and has been accused of operating an al-Qaida front lashed out at President Bush on Thursday and denied any connection to terrorism. Mamoun Darkazanli, described by the FBI as a well-connected agent of Osama bin Laden, was questioned by German police shortly after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But he was freed for lack of evidence and continues to live in Hamburg, Germany, where Atta and two other hijackers had lived. Speaking to The Associated Press in a telephone interview, Darkazanli bristled when...

Note: The following text is a quote: IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 060-010 January 22, 2010 Military Commission Charges Withdrawn In Sept. 11 Case The Defense Department announced today that the convening authority for Military Commissions withdrew and dismissed the charges, without prejudice, against the five detainees charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This action comes in light of the announcement by the attorney general of the United States that the Department of Justice intends to pursue a prosecution of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, in...

SHAWANGAI, Pakistan -- An alleged member of the Hamburg, Germany, terror cell linked to the Sept. 11 attacks is believed to be among al Qaeda leaders helping the Taliban fight Pakistani forces in South Waziristan, Pakistani authorities said Thursday. A German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, a close associate of Sept. 11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta in the 2001 attacks, was among documents recovered this week by Pakistani troops from an abandoned militant compound in Shawangai. The mountain village in South Waziristan was used as an al Qaeda and Taliban command base until as recently as this week, a military...

Alleged 9/11 Plotters Offer to Confess at Guantánamo New York Times, United States ...have asked a military judge to accept their confessions in full. The request appeared to be intended to cut short any effort to try them...

Arab satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera denounced the sentencing of its correspondent in Spain on Monday to seven years in jail on terrorism charges. Tayseer Alouni, 50, was found guilty by Spain's High Court of collaborating with a terrorist group but acquitted of being a member of al Qaeda. He was among 18 people sentenced at the trial, the biggest of suspected Islamist militants in Europe. "This is a black day for the Spanish judiciary which has deviated from all the norms of international justice," Al Jazeera news editor Ahmed al-Sheikh told the station. "It is a verdict that is based...

Suspected terrorist Willie Brigitte was reportedly sent to Australia to help a local terror group prepare a terrorist act "of great size". Brigitte, 35, who was deported last October and is in French custody, was a link figure in the world terrorist network who had connections with the organisers of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the March 11 Madrid train blasts, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported. It said his potential targets included the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and the Australian army's administrative compound at Victoria Barracks, both in Sydney, and the Perth headquarters of Australia's SAS regiment. French authorities...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Five years before the worst terror attack in American history, a U.S.-educated Kuwaiti pitched an outlandish idea to Osama bin Laden. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, now a U.S. captive, concedes his apocalyptic vision of 10 planes steered into nuclear power plants, skyscrapers and other American targets received only a lukewarm response from the al-Qaida kingpin. The meeting in Afghanistan in mid-1996, however, apparently was the genesis of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. Three reports issued this week by the Sept. 11 commission provide the fullest picture yet of how Mohammed's idea evolved...

(CNSNews.com) - "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda, President George W. Bush said on Thursday. "We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," Bush said at an informal news briefing with White House reporters. President Bush offered the example of Iraqi intelligence officers meeting with Osama bin Laden in Sudan. "There's numerous contacts between the two," he said. President Bush spoke on a day when newspaper headlines blared the 9/11 commission's finding, announced Wednesday, that there was no "credible evidence" that Saddam and al Qaeda had...

A disturbing report released last week by the special commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is must reading for anyone who still questions the urgency of renewing the Patriot Act and aggressively enforcing--and tightening--our immigration laws. Entitled "Outline of the 9/11 Plot," the report reveals that two uneducated al Qaeda operatives, Nawaf al Hazmi and Kahlid al Mihdhar, had the run of America for almost two years prior to the attacks. (For full text of the report, click here.) Unversed in English, they moved freely around our country as they planned and trained for an act of mass...

US Heard 'Tomorrow Is Zero Hour' on Eve of Attacks June 19— By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence intercepted two messages the day before the Sept. 11 attacks that indicated an event was planned the following day, but the communications were not translated until Sept. 12, government sources said on Wednesday.The National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on communications worldwide, intercepted messages that said "tomorrow is zero hour" and "the match begins tomorrow," sources said on condition of anonymity.The agency did not translate the messages, which were in Arabic, until Sept. 12 -- the day after hijacked airliners...