Free Republic

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

Kabul, 4 Feb. (AKI) - United States intelligence sources are reportedly claiming al-Qaeda nuclear weapons expert Abu Khabab al-Misri was the real target of last week's CIA airstrike in northern Pakistan which is said to have killed one of the terror network's key leaders, Abu Laith al-Libi. Al-Misri is reportedly able to make so-called 'dirty bombs' that contain radioactive waste mixed with explosives. US intelligence services reportedly believe that al-Qaeda has since 1997 been seeking to acquire 'dirty bombs' and other weapons of mass destruction.

Obscure al-Qaida Chemist Worries Experts By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent 7 minutes ago He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror. Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in Afghanistan. Van Duyn's FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough...

A former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, Numan Bin Uthman, has written a letter to al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri telling him that Jihadi groups in Arab countries have failed and that the strategy of using nonconventional WMD to deter an invasion of Afghanistan was a misguided and failed strategy. The letter needs to be understood in the context of the fact that the microbiologist that Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef used to infiltrate US biodefense, Ali Al-Timimi, had a stern warning not to invade Iraq hand-delivered to every member of Congress on October 6, 2002...

<p>WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies have launched a worldwide manhunt for al Qaeda's master bombmaker, who may be building a "dirty" bomb and other new devices for terror attacks inside the United States, sources said.</p> <p>U.S. counterterrorism officials told The Post it was new information about the activities of Egyptian-born bomb maker Midhat Mursi, in part, that led the Bush administration to secretly dispatch Department of Energy radiological detection teams to New York and four other cities over New Year's Eve.</p>

In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") report concluded that the reason for Mohammed Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was planning an "unbelievable" biological attack, the plans for which had suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ("KSM") the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.    Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall...