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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaeda to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, Southeast Asian officials said Friday. President Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it. The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11,...

Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, an admitted former al Qaeda operative, has been released from a American jail and permitted to return home to Qatar. No formal statement has been released yet by either government, but it is being reported that al Marri's release was the result of a bilateral agreement between the Qatari and American governments. According to the US Bureau of Prisons, a prisoner with the same name and estimated age (ID number 12194-026) was freed on Friday. Additionally, a source from al Marri's family told the Qatari press he was recently released and arrived in Doha Saturday....

SEATTLE - NBC News is reporting that the Space Needle in Seattle - a high-profile landmark in America's Pacific Northwest - was apparently a target for al-Qaida terrorists. U.S. officials tell NBC News evidence found in Afghanistan uncovered plans to attack the high-profile Space Needle along with other monuments in Washington State, including massive hydroelectric dams, like the Grand Coulee. According to the NBC News report, plans were also found that targeted the Los Angeles International Airport for a second time. An earlier plot to bomb the airport was foiled two years ago when convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam was arrested ...

WASHINGTON - California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a top member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she has no information to support White House claims that its secret wiretapping helped thwart a 2002 Los Angeles terrorist attack. President George W. Bush implied in a speech Thursday that information gleaned from the wiretaps helped foil an al-Qaida plot to crash a commercial jetliner into the US Bank Tower. But after a closed-door briefing, Feinstein said she'd heard nothing to indicate a wiretap played any part in foiling the plot. "I have no way of knowing whether it did or not," Feinstein said....

A Malaysian pilot recruited by al-Qaeda to fly a hijacked airliner into the tallest building on the US West Coast pulled out of the plot when he realised it was a suicide mission, security officials in South-East Asia said today. Further details emerged of the plan to target the iconic 73-storey US Bank Building in Los Angeles, revealed by President Bush yesterday in an address to rally support for the War on Terror. Terrorism experts in Malaysia said that Zaini Zakaria, an engineer, was among three men being trained to launch the planned second-wave of Osama bin Laden's assault on...

How US stopped Hambali Natalie O'Brien and Patrick Walters February 11, 2006 IT should have been no surprise that the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah and its operations chief Hambali were named by US President George W. Bush as the figures behind a 2002 plot to fly a plane into California's tallest building. JI and Hambali, mastermind of the Bali bombing, were not only intimately connected with al-Qa'ida's chief strategist Khalid Sheik Mohammed in the plan to destroy the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, they had been in cahoots for years, planning to blow up US airliners and...

Note: The following text is a quote: Ali Al-Marri Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Al-Qaeda Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 43, a dual national of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda. Al-Marri entered his guilty plea at a hearing this afternoon before Judge Michael M. Mihm in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. In so doing, al-Marri admitted that he agreed with others to provide material support or resources to al-Qaeda in the form of personnel, including himself, to work under al-Qaeda’s...

FBI agents interrogating captured al-Qaeda operatives now suspect there was a plan to hijack a fifth jet on 11 September to attack the White House. Debriefings with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the terror plot, and its suspected chief financier, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, have led to the new theory. "Many, many people are saying many interesting things," a senior FBI official was reported as saying. The interviews are being conducted as part of the probe into alleged 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui. Court papers from defence lawyers and a United States district judge show that prosecutors in the case are...

A suspected terrorist, arrested in Minneapolis and held in prison for nearly 3 and a half years without a trial, is asking to be released. Mohammed Warsame is charged with federal crimes of violence and supplying support to Al Qaida. Supporters in the Muslim community packed the federal courthouse in Minneapolis Tuesday to express their concern for Mohammed Warsame. "The length of this detention, without his day in court, is causing a serious problem," said Somali Justice Center Director Omar Jamal. Warsame's attorney said it's the longest time in U.S. history someone has been incarcerated pretrial. "He's been incredibly resilient,"...

Three years after Mohammed Warsame was arrested in Minneapolis and jailed for alleged ties to Al-Qaida and lying to FBI agents, a defense attorney is calling the case a "travesty" and has filed a brief in U.S. District Court demanding charges be dismissed because of delays in the case. "The wheels of justice have not ground slowly in this case," wrote Chicago lawyer David C. Thomas in the brief filed Wednesday. "Instead they have ground to a halt." Warsame, 33, a Canadian of Somali descent, remains among a handful of people arrested in Minnesota since 2001 in connection with terrorism...

HOMELAND INSECURITY'20th hijacker' in custody?Al-Qaida member arrested, said to know about Moussaoui activities Posted: December 10, 200312:27 p.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Authorities in Minneapolis have arrested a suspected al-Qaida operative under a shroud of secrecy. A law-enforcement official told the Minneapolis Star Tribune the unnamed man is said to have knowledge of some of the activities of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was indicted Dec. 11, 2001, on six conspiracy counts for allegedly joining in a plot to hijack and crash U.S. jetliners. According to the official, the detainee has confirmed some of investigators' suspicions about Moussaoui, who was arrested while learning to...

Al-qaida military chief killed, taliban confirms The military chief of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network was killed along with seven colleagues in a US bombing raid three days ago, a Taliban official has confirmed. Mullah Najibullah, a Taliban official in the south-east Afghan border town of Spinboldak, confirmed Atef's death but would not identify the location of the airstrike or the other al-Qaida members who died with him. It was the first time a senior Taliban official has confirmed Friday's claim by US officials that Atef was killed in an airstrike outside Kabul. Atef's death is seen as a ...