Al Qaeda

As we mark the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death , President Obama deserves credit for making the right choice on taking out Public Enemy No. 1. But his administration never would have had the opportunity to do the right thing had it not been for some extraordinary work during the George W. Bush administration. Much of that work has been denigrated by Obama as unproductive and contrary to American principles. He is wrong on both counts. Shortly after bin Laden met his maker last spring, courtesy of...

For five days, reporters at the Associated Press had been sitting on a big scoop about a foiled al-Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials. Then, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, the journalists were asked by agency officials to hold off on publishing the story for just one more day. The CIA officials, who had initially cited national security concerns in an attempt to delay publication, no longer had those worries, according to individuals familiar with the exchange.

On September 11, 2001, 19 members of a terrorist group called al-Qaeda (al-KYE-da) hijacked four U.S. airplanes and used them to strike various targets on the East Coast. The carefully planned attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, making it the worst attack on the United States in history. Al-Qaeda is a small, very violent group of people who practice the Muslim religion and who want to create a Muslim state independent of other countries. Al-Qaeda considers the freedoms that U.S. citizens have to be evil and doesn't want the United States to spread those...

CAIRO — Egypt's interior minister said Saturday that security authorities have arrested three suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants who were planning to carry out suicide attacks on vital installations and an unspecified foreign embassy. Mohammed Ibrahim said at a news conference that the men had been in contact with Dawood al-Assady, a leader of al-Qaeda in Southeast Asian countries such as Pakistan, and that the group was planning to attack government buildings and a foreign embassy, but he did not disclose details.

An online posting attributed to al-Qaeda on Friday confirms the death of Osama bin Laden and warns of retaliation against the United States and other nations for the slaying of the terrorist leader. The statement, which was posted on jihadist Web forums, appears to mark the first acknowledgment by al-Qaeda that its founder and leader for more than two decades was killed in a U.S. commando raid in a garrison city in Pakistan. If confirmed, the message would also represent the network's first attempt to appeal...

BAMAKO, Mali — Khaira Arby, one of Africa's most celebrated musicians, has performed all over the world, but there is one place she cannot visit: her native city of Timbuktu, a place steeped in history and culture but now ruled by religious extremists. One day, they broke into Arby's house and destroyed her instruments. Her voice was a threat to Islam, they said, even though one of her most popular songs praised Allah. "They told my neighbors that if they ever caught me, they would cut my...

Al-Qaeda has used Yemen as a base to launch attacks against U.S. interests since the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Some major events: Oct. 12, 2000 USS Cole attack Al-Qaeda militants ram the USS Cole with an explosives-packed speedboat off the southern city of Aden, killing 17 U.S. sailors. Nov. 3, 2002 Al-Qaeda figure killed Abu Ali al-Harithi , reputed head of the group al-Qaeda in Yemen, is killed in eastern Yemen by a missile fired at his car by a Predator drone.

There's a consensus in post-Saddam Iraq that after five years of conflict, violence is tapering off. U.S. combat deaths are at their lowest levels in months (AFP) , and attacks on Iraqi civilians are on the wane. These " still fragile security gains ," as the top U.S. commander in Iraq calls them, are attributable to many factors, including political progress and extra U.S. troops. But among the most celebrated has been the taming of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq . The group is linked to the attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad five...

LEADERLESS JIHAD Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century By Marc Sageman Univ. of Pennsylvania. 200 pp. $24.95 THE CONFRONTATION Winning the War Against Future Jihad By Walid Phares Palgrave Macmillan. 296 pp. $24.95 Al-Qaeda is synonymous with Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The war in Iraq inflicted a strategic defeat on al-Qaeda, as President Bush stated on the fifth anniversary of the invasion. Bin Laden and Zawahiri are in command of a new generation of radicals born...

The Jan. 12 front-page article " Obama, Karzai hasten handoff " included this statement by President Obama: "We achieved our central goal, or have come very close to achieving our central goal, which is to de-capacitate al-Qaeda, to dismantle them, to make sure that they can't attack us again. " If Mr. Obama believes that we are close to eliminating al-Qaeda's capacities, he should tell the French soldiers who recently went into combat in Mali to prevent that country's takeover by al-Qaeda-allied guerrillas.

Secretary of State John Kerry met with British Foreign Secretary William Hague and leaders of the Syrian opposition today in London. Kerry did not say exactly whether he is planning on providing the rebels with more assistance : Kerry had strongly hinted Tuesday that the Obama administration is edging toward a widening of support, saying that the stalemate in Syria leaves "no choice" but to increase pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad...

A U.S. Army veteran was charged with conspiracy Thursday for fighting alongside a Syrian rebel group linked to al-Qaeda. Eric Harroun, 30, known to Syrians as "the American," crossed into northern Syria in January and joined members of Jabhat al-Nusra to fight against the Syrian military, according to an FBI agent's affidavit in support of a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors in federal court in Alexandria. In news interviews and Internet postings, Harroun described...

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC President flees as rebels attack capital The president of Central African Republic, Francois Bozize, fled the capital early Sunday, after hundreds of armed rebels threatening to overthrow him ­invaded the city, an adviser said. The rebel alliance, known as Seleka, issued a statement referring to Bozize as the country's "former president. " "Central African Republic has just opened a new page in its history," said the statement signed by Justin Kombo...

turkey Leftists claim attacks before Kurdish truce A leftist group asserted responsibility Wednesday for bomb and missile strikes on Turkish government and ruling party offices overnight that Turkey's prime minister said were aimed at derailing a peace process with Kurdish rebels. The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front said its members attacked the Justice Ministry and offices of the ruling AK Party with hand grenades and a shoulder-fired missile in...

A battle-hardened al-Qaeda veteran who fought U.S. troops in Afghanistan and planned to bomb U.S. diplomatic facilities in Nigeria has been held in secret federal custody in New York since October, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday. Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, also known as "Spin Ghul," was extradited from Italy last year and indicted on six charges, including conspiracy to murder American military personnel, conspiracy to bomb diplomatic buildings and providing material support to...

Iran's expulsion of a senior al-Qaeda official appears to signal a crackdown on the terrorist group that has long been granted safe haven within its borders, U.S. officials say. Iran's ouster of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith , a former al-Qaeda spokesman and the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden , marked at least the third time in the past year that a prominent al-Qaeda figure has left the country after living for years in a limbo between houseguest and...

Almost 10 years ago, al-Qaeda committed one of the most chilling and brutal attacks in the memory of a generation. The radical politics of a small band of Muslim extremists became everyone's business and set into motion reactions and counter-reactions that launched two wars, guided U.S. foreign policy and defined domestic agendas. Yet on Sunday evening, Osama bin Laden — the embodiment of what "terrorist" has come to mean to Americans and other Westerners, the symbol of everything antithetical to Western values — was killed by U.S. forces.

In reading the Oct. 20 news article " U.S.: Evidence doesn't show planning in Libyan attack ," I was struck by the characterization of those who carried out the attack as having "ties" to al-Qaeda. Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, the media (print and electronic) and the government have institutionalized the use of terms like "affiliates" along with al-Qaeda "sympathizers," "supporters" and other similar ambiguous identifiers for various groups and individuals that have become the focus of the war-without-end policies around the...

When Gen. Keith Alexander , the head of the Pentagon's Cyber Command, comes to the Hill on Tuesday, he will probably be asked to describe his plans for building a military force to defend the nation against cyberattacks. But one question remains unclear: Under what circumstances will these cyberwarriors be used? President Obama last fall signed a classified directive that requires an "imminent" or ongoing threat of an attack that could result in death or damage to national security before a military...

THE OBAMA administration has killed hundreds of alleged al-Qaeda members with drone strikes, but in four years has captured only two abroad. On Friday the second of those, former al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith , appeared in a New York federal courtroom, charged with one count of conspiracy. His transport to a civilian criminal court in the United States predictably prompted howls of protest from Congressional Republicans; it also underlined the mess Congress and the White House have jointly made out of the...