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Thousands of pages of previously secret military documents about detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison now put a name, a history and a face on hundreds of men in captivity there. The documents include details on 158 men on whom no information has ever been released. The hundreds of classified documents - marked "secret" and "noforn" meaning the information is not to be shared with representatives of other countries - are assessments, interviews and internal memos from the Pentagon's Joint Task Force at Guantanamo. The task force was supposed to determine who the detainees were, how they might be connected...

Pakistani news outlets reported Tuesday that al Qaeda had selected Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian former special forces commander, to be the interim head of the Islamist terrorist group. According to the News International, an English-language newspaper, “the issue of the succession of Osama bin Laden was resolved in a meeting of al-Qaeda held at an undisclosed location.” The reports in the Pakistani press said al-Adel will be the interim leader of al Qaeda while Muhammad Mustafa Yamni, a Yemeni living somewhere in Africa, is being groomed for the top post. U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday could not confirm the reports....

Iran to Put Dozen Al Qaeda Captives on Trial Fri January 23, 2004 11:45 AM ET DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Iran plans to put about a dozen jailed al Qaeda suspects on trial, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Friday. "They are currently in prison. Their relations are cut off from outside and they are going to be tried," Kharrazi told Reuters at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The most important al Qaeda figure that Western intelligence agencies say may be in Iran is an Egyptian -- Saif al-Adel, the network's security chief. Kharrazi declined to comment on whether Iran...

The Algerian Connection Why did Saddam financially support an al Qaeda affiliate in Algeria? by Thomas Joscelyn 08/03/2005 12:00:00 AM LATE LAST MONTH an Algerian-born terrorist named Ahmed Ressam received a commuted sentence of 22 years (prosecutors had recommended 35 years) in prison for his role in planning to blow up the Los Angeles airport. His sentence infuriated many since his involvement in the plot against LAX was immediately transparent. After all, he was captured in December 1999 after driving off a ferry from British Columbia in a vehicle laden with bomb-making explosives. Ressam received a commuted sentence after providing...

...A survey of Muslim views over the past weeks shows overwhelming, though not unanimous, condemnation of the Beslan massacre. But in all cases the reasons given for the condemnation are political rather than religious. Muslim commentators assert that Russia, having supported "the Palestinian cause," did not deserve such treatment.... Implicit in all this is that killing innocent people in the lands of the "infidel" is justified for as long as the victims are not citizens of states sympathetic to "the Arab cause," whatever it happens to be at any given time. That position was highlighted in the Arab reaction to...

New evidence about a meeting in Prague between September 11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani has been uncovered, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service. Investigative journalist Edward J. Epstein has uncovered Czech government visa records indicating al-Ani was posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague between March 1999 and April 21, 2001, and was involved in handling Iraqi agents. A search of the Iraq Embassy in Prague after the fall of Baghdad to coalition forces revealed al-Ani had scheduled a meeting for April 8, 2001, with a Hamburg student, according to...

Question:     Three years have passed since the putative meeting in Prague between hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraq Consul al-Ani. What has the CIA, FBI, Czech intelligence (BIS) and other intelligence services established about the activities of the alleged participants at this meeting? Answer: 1)   Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani served as consul at Iraq's embassy in Prague between March 1999 and April 21, 2001 and he was activity involved in agent-handling during this period. 2)  Mohammed Atta applied for a visa to visit the Czech Republic on May 26, 2000 in Bonn, Germany According to Czech visa records,...

MADRID, Spain - Spanish police have arrested two Algerian men with alleged ties to the al-Qaida terror network, police said Monday. The men were identified as Khaleb Madani and Moussa Laouar. They were arrested in the southeastern cities of Torrevieja and Murcia on warrants issued by National Court Judge Guillermo Ruiz Polanco, a police spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. Both are said to have worked for al-Qaida and are accused of falsifying documents, including passports, the spokesman said. The Web site of Madrid daily El Mundo said the two men have links to Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni who...

<p>MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Spanish police have arrested two Algerian men with alleged ties to the al-Qaida terror network, police said Monday.</p> <p>The men were identified as Khaleb Madani and Moussa Laouar. They were arrested in the southeastern cities of Torrevieja and Murcia on warrants issued by National Court Judge Guillermo Ruiz Polanco, a police spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity.</p>

Algeria bars foreign press The Algerian authorities have asked all foreign correspondents to leave the country. Even journalists who went to the country purely to cover the release on Wednesday of the founders of the Islamic Salvation Front - FIS - have been asked to leave. The order was given on Thursday morning by an official of the Algerian ministry of communication and culture. Some of the journalists have left the country already, but others are preparing to leave by Thursday's afternoon. In the meantime, they have been restricted to their hotels and banned from covering events linked to...