The terrorist threat is evolving rapidly and has not yet peaked. That was the message from the new director general of MI5 Jonathan Evans in his first speech.
The threat has evolved in a number of ways in the last year since Evans' predecessor Eliza Manningham-Buller gave a dramatic speech in London outlining the scale of the threat.
One manifestation of that change is the way in which al-Qaeda conspiracies in the UK are being driven from an increasing range of overseas countries.
The threat emanating from core al-Qaeda based in the tribal areas on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border remains the number one concern, senior British counter-terrorism officials say.
Terrorist 'franchises'
People continue to travel there for training - often going to great lengths to make the journey.
But there is now increasing evidence that other regions are also the source of training and of planning attacks against the UK.
Evans warns that al-Qaeda in Iraq is aspiring to promote terrorist attacks outside of the country.
Other al-Qaeda 'franchises' also pose a growing threat, including al-Qaeda in East Africa which has been using Somalia as a base for training and planning including against the UK.
Other senior counter-terrorism officials also talk of countries like Nigeria and Bangladesh being of increasing concern and say that the source of potential threat within the UK increasingly comes not just from ethnic communities with links back to Pakistan, but from groups with other backgrounds.
The emergence of an al-Qaeda franchise in North Africa, centred on Algeria, is of particular concern to some European countries like France although so far it has shown less sign of targeting the UK.
Across Europe, Evans noted, the last 12 months have seen an increase in attack planning although he says it is too early to assess with confidence what exactly this means.
The range of people becoming involved in the UK is also changing, with young people increasingly being targeted - some as young as 15 or 16.
The old idea that radicalisation was centred on mosques has now evolved to one in which the process is seen as often taking place within loose social networks of friends.
Young people themselves are often radicalising others, using youth clubs or the internet.
Identifying those within communities who are engaged in radicalising and recruitment is a priority but not always easy, according to officials.
Evans makes clear that MI5 is adapting to try and cope with these changes by growing in size, moving much more of its work into the regions as well as by co-operating with other partners both within the UK and internationally.
MI5 has grown rapidly in recent years with a target of 4,000 staff by 2011 but with at least 2,000 individuals believed to pose a threat to national security, basic maths says that the service has to prioritise among those targets because it is impossible to keep tabs on all of them all the time.
"Every decision by the security service to investigate someone entails a decision not to investigate someone else," he said.
MI5 was criticised for not investigating Mohammed Siddique Khan who went on to kill on 7 July 2005 after he emerged in another counter-terrorist investigation.
Evans was keen to emphasise that this is likely to happen again in future cases because of the sheer numbers and because of the way in which extremists know each other - they do not operate in the small, compartmentalised way that other terrorist groups have.
'Deeper problem'
This could lead to questions once again in the wake of an attack but does offer advantages in terms of tracing individuals and their connections faster.
Evans also brought up the issue of prioritisation and resources in a surprisingly direct criticism of Moscow, saying that Russian covert activity in the UK meant that resources which could be directed against terrorism were instead being used to keep tabs on Russian intelligence officers.
Evans also stressed that terrorist attacks are the visible manifestations of a deeper problem whose root is ideological and that combating the ideology requires a much broader strategic effort across government.
Whitehall officials concede that of the government's counter-terrorist strategy, the area which has been struggling most is that focused on preventing terrorism by dealing with radicalisations.
However successful MI5 and the police may be at pursuing existing terrorists, the real challenge is preventing more individuals joining their cause - and especially the young.
A new audio recording purportedly by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has urged insurgent groups in Iraq to unify their ranks.
"The interest of the Islamic nation surpasses that of a group - it is more important than that of a state," says the message broadcast on al-Jazeera TV.
The call comes amid moves by some Sunni groups in Iraq to side with the Iraqi government against al-Qaeda.
The identity of the voice on the tape could not be independently confirmed.
'Mistakes'
And it is not clear when or where the message was recorded.
In it, the speaker says the strength of faith is in bonds between Muslims, not in a tribe, nationalism or an organisation.
"Some of you have been lax in one duty, which is to unite your ranks... Beware of division... Muslims are waiting for you to gather under a single banner to champion righteousness," he says.
The voice on the tape also admits that "mistakes have been made during holy wars".
It adds: "Everybody can make a mistake, but the best of them are those who admit their mistakes."
Osama Bin Laden's last message was on 20 September when he called for a holy war against Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.
The al-Qaeda leader also released a message to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on the US.
A senior leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed in a US air strike near Baghdad on Tuesday, the US military reports.
Gen Joseph Anderson said the death of Abu Osama al-Tunisi, who had led a group of foreign militants in Iraq, was a major blow to the organisation.
The US general accused him of leading a cell responsible for kidnapping and killing three US soldiers in June 2006.
The group is linked to some of the bloodiest insurgent attacks in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.
It was led by the Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, until he was killed by a US air strike in June 2006.
'Key loss'
Speaking to US reporters via videolink from Iraq, Gen Anderson said US aircraft had attacked a target near the town of Musayyib, south of Baghdad, after learning Tunisi was meeting with other al-Qaeda members.
"His presence was confirmed by one of the two detainees from the operation, one who left the target area just prior to the air strike, who we eventually captured minutes later," the chief of staff of Multi-National Corps Iraq said.
US ground forces later recovered a handwritten note believed to have been written by Tunisi at the site, Gen Anderson added.
"The key points in this hand-written note include, he's surrounded, communications have been cut and he's desperate for help," he said.
"What I make of that is that we're having great success in isolating these pockets. They are very broken up, very unable to mass, and conducting very isolated operations."
The general said that Tunisi had been in line to succeed al-Qaeda in Iraq's current leader, believed to be Egyptian militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
Tunisi had also, he added, been in overall charge of a cell in the town of Yusufiya, an insurgent stronghold, and had been "responsible for kidnapping American soldiers in June 2006".
One US soldier was killed and two others abducted while guarding a bridge south of the capital on 16 June 2006.
The mutilated bodies of the kidnapped soldiers were found three days later.
The UN is ready to broaden its activity in support of Iraq, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said.
Mr Ban said at a key meeting in New York the time for determined action on Iraq had come, but that a greater UN presence would need better security.
The UN withdrew most of its staff in 2003 after a bomb killed its top envoy and 21 others but Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki says he can now guarantee UN security.
Iraq, its neighbours and major donor nations are attending the meeting.
Refugees
Mr Ban described the talks, which he co-chaired with Mr Maliki, as "positive and supportive".
Mr Ban said: "There was a clear agreement that the international community cannot turn away from, or ignore Iraq. Its stability is our common concern."
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says Mr Ban's tone was emphatic - the time for collective action had come.
The secretary general said there would be a new "regional support office" in Baghdad to foster dialogue between involved countries and an office in the southern city of Basra was also being considered.
But our correspondent says it is clear that security will be the principle factor governing the scale and pace of any expanded UN role.
The bombing of the UN's Baghdad headquarters in 2003, with the loss of envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others, has meant there is now only a small presence in the country.
After a meeting with Mr Ban, Mr Maliki said the security situation had "improved a lot in Baghdad".
"We are going to be able to provide security to the UN in a way that will allow it to perform its role in an effective manner," he said.
A greater UN role was called for in a Security Council resolution in August.
Mr Ban also said peace in Iraq could not be attained through military means alone and that regional cooperation was vital.
The talks have also been focusing on improving the economy, development and security of Iraq, and on stabilising the political situation and ending sectarian strife.
How to deal with the humanitarian crisis is another key issue.
There are more than two million Iraqi refugees who have fled the country, as well as two million who are displaced within Iraq.
Key economic powers like Germany and Japan; regional players like Saudi Arabia and Iran; and representatives from international economic organisations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have all been at the meeting at UN headquarters.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is also attending.
Our correspondent, Jonathan Marcus, says the August UN resolution underscored the shifting approach of the US administration to Iraq.
He says the US is desperate to reduce its military entanglement in Iraq, believing that regional countries have a role to play in reducing violence there.
(CBS/AP) On the sixth anniversary or the 9/11 attacks, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain vowed to capture Osama bin Laden if he became president.
"He is a symbol, a force, for evil. He recruits. He motivates. He must be brought to justice. I, as president of the United States, will get him," McCain said on CBS News' The Early Show on Tuesday.
When asked to explain how he would do that, the Arizona senator said, "There's lots of ways and I'm confident that I will."
"We cannot allow him to evade justice because of everything that he's done and everything he still effectively does," he added.
In the interview, the Arizona senator also responded to the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Congress on Monday.
Petraeus said last winter's buildup in U.S. troops had met its military objectives in large measure. Petraeus also told Congress he envisions the withdrawal of roughly 30,000 U.S. combat troops from Iraq by next summer.
"I think that General Petraeus would not be recommending these reductions, as modest as they may be, unless he thought we were succeeding," McCain told Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm.
While campaigning on Monday, McCain also said he supports Petraeus' recommendation.
"I don't think there is any doubt that it's good news that he feels we will be able to withdraw some troops," he told reporters in Norfolk as he prepared to fly to Washington, D.C., after campaigning in southeast Virginia.
"There's no doubt in my mind that the alternative to this strategy is catastrophe and genocide," McCain said on The Early Show.
Petraeus also said the Iraqi military slowly is gaining competence and taking on more responsibility for security. He cited Anbar province as an example of Iraqis turning against terrorists, adding that officials are seeing similar actions in other locations as well.
McCain said at a campaign stop over the weekend that failure in Iraq eventually would pull America into a wider and more difficult war in the volatile region.
"The consequences would threaten us for years," he told a Republican audience in California. McCain later told reporters, "If we set a date for withdrawal, that's a date for surrender."
Commenting earlier Monday on criticism of Petraeus, McCain said, "There's a lot of people who are armchair generals who reside here in the air-conditioned comfort of Capitol Hill."
While in Virginia, McCain attended a private fundraiser in Norfolk, then met with officers and enlisted men and women at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach. He said he has great affection for Oceana because his first squadron in the Navy after he finished pilot training was at the base.
McCain said he also briefly attended a high school football game; his grandson is a wide receiver at a private school in Norfolk. McCain had to leave shortly after the game started.
Excerpts from Bin Laden video
A video tape which US experts believe is from al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been released just days before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Below are excerpts from a transcript of the tape obtained by several news organisations.
Praise to Allah and from his law is retaliation in kind - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and the killer is killed...
I am talking to you about important matters that concern you [Americans], so give me your ears. I start these matters by talking about the war between us and you and some of its repercussions on us and on you.
As a prelude, I say that the USA has the biggest economic power and has the most powerful and most modern military arsenal and spends on this war and its army more than the world spends on its armies.
And it is the major country that influences the policies of the world as if the unjust veto right is exclusive to it.
In spite of all that, with the help of God, 19 young men managed to take its compass off-course. The talk about the mujahideen has even become an indivisible part of your leader's talk. The effects and implications of this are no secret...
You permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you - with your full knowledge and consent - to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan...
Bush is talking about his co-operation with [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki and his government to spread democracy, but he is, in fact, co-operating with the leaders of one sect against another, in the belief that he will settle the war in his favour quickly.
Thus what is called civil war has taken place and the situation has become worse because of him and slipped out of his control.
He has become like someone who is cultivating in the sea, reaping nothing but failure...
There are two solutions to stopping it. One is from our side, and it is to escalate the fighting and killing against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out.
The second solution is from your side. I invite you to embrace Islam.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden plans a new video addressing the American people regarding the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, terror monitoring groups said Thursday.
SITE Intelligence Group said an Internet announcement of the plan included a photo of the al-Qaeda leader from the upcoming video -- his beard, which in previous messages had been streaked with gray, was entirely dark.
The Intelcenter, which also monitors Islamic Web sites, said the video is expected within the next 72 hours, before the sixth anniversary of the World Trade Center attack.
The last bin Laden video was in October 2004, shortly before the U.S. presidential elections.
Taliban: Some Hostages To Be Freed
(CBS/AP) The Taliban will free three or four South Korean hostages Elikely women Eafter face-to-face negotiations Tuesday, a senior Taliban commander tells CBS News. The remaining hostages will likely be released in small groups in the coming weeks, according to the commander.
(CBS/AP) A Jeep Cherokee trailing a cascade of flames rammed into Glasgow airport on Saturday, shattering glass doors just yards from passengers lined up at the check-in counters.
Seven men have been jailed for up to 26 years over an al-Qaeda-linked plot to kill thousands in the UK and US.
Woolwich Crown Court heard they were in a "sleeper cell" led by Dhiren Barot, who is already serving a life sentence.
Barot planned attacks including blowing apart a London Underground tunnel and bombings using an explosives-packed limousine and a dirty radiation device.
Six of the men admitted conspiracy to cause explosions and a seventh was found guilty of conspiracy to murder.
Counter-surveillance
In the plot, countered by police in Operation Rhyme, the men played supporting roles to Barot whom prosecutors say had devised multiple bombing operations. These resembled professional business plans in their complexity and detail.
He also researched blowing apart a London Underground tunnel beneath the River Thames to drown hundreds of commuters.
Prosecutors said that Barot presented his meticulous plans to al-Qaeda figures hiding in Pakistan. He submitted detailed funding requirements and explained how the campaign would benefit their cause.
Back in the UK, the seven men were vital for Barot to push ahead with the plots in the summer of 2004, playing roles as couriers, drivers and taking counter-surveillance measures in an attempt to throw the security services off the scent.
Barot sub-contracted key parts of his plotting to other members of his team, utilising their skills in devising false identities, as minders and researchers, prosecutors said.
The men who pleaded guilty admitted roles mostly confined to plotting against UK targets.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said that although the seven did not instigate the planned attacks, Barot needed their help and expertise.
He added: "Dhiren Barot and his gang were determined terrorists who planned bombings on both sides of the Atlantic.
"The plans for a series of co-ordinated attacks in the United Kingdom included packing three limousines with gas cylinders and explosives before setting them off in underground car parks. This could have caused huge loss of life.
"The plans to set off a dirty bomb in this country would have caused fear, panic and widespread disruption."
Mr Clarke said the men were skilled in anti-surveillance techniques, with Feroze and Jalil having travelled hundreds of miles to use an internet cafe.
'Terrorist planning'
Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, 27, of Harrow in north London, was jailed for 20 years; Junade Feroze, 31, of Blackburn, received 22 years and Zia Ul Haq, 28, of Wembley in north London, got 18 years.
Abdul Aziz Jalil, 24, of Luton, was jailed for 26 years; Omar Abdur Rehman, 23 of Bushey in Hertfordshire, was jailed for 15 years and Nadeem Tarmohamed, 29 also of Wembley, received 20 years. Qaisar Shaffi, 28, of Willesden, north-west London, was sentenced to 15 years.
Sentencing the seven, Mr Justice Butterfield said anyone who participates in such a plan "will receive little sympathy from the courts"
He added: "Barot was the instigator of this terrorist planning, he was by some considerable distance the principal participant in the conspiracy.
"Each one of you was recruited by Barot and assisted him at his request."
The judge told the men the pain caused to their families as a result of their imprisonment "is but a tiny fraction of the suffering that would have been experienced had your plans been translated into reality".
Woolwich Crown Court was told that Bhatti used his first-class degree in engineering to research how the bombs could work. Feroze acted as a driver and led counter-surveillance checks - but also researched bomb parts in catalogues.
Ul Haq had a degree in architecture and acted as a "consultant" on the best way to bring down buildings. Jalil rented a safe-house for the men and researched radioactivity.
Rehman is said to have studied how to disable electronic security and fire control systems.
Shaffi was the only man to plead not guilty. He joined Barot on his US reconnaissance trip, although he was replaced by Tarmohamed in the States after falling ill.
Home Secretary John Reid said: "The outcome of this trial once again shows the extent of the very real and serious threat the UK faces from terrorism."
The CIA ran secret prisons in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005 to interrogate detainees in its war on terror, Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty said in a report released Friday.
The first criminal trial over the CIA's extraordinary rendition of terror suspects is due to open in Italy.
Twenty-six Americans and six Italians are accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terror suspect and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.
The Americans - most believed to be CIA agents - will be tried in absentia. Italy has not announced if it will seek their extradition to the Milan trial.
US President George W Bush will arrive in Italy hours after the trial opens.
Surprise witness
Italy's government has asked the country's highest court to set aside the trial, as prosecution documents will break state secrecy laws and damage relations with the CIA.
The Constitutional Court is due to rule on that appeal by September, and defence lawyers are expected to ask that the trial be adjourned until the high court makes its ruling.
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr - also known as Abu Omar - was allegedly abducted from a Milan street in February 2003.
Italian prosecutors say Nasr was taken to US bases in Italy and Germany before being taken to the Egyptian capital of Cairo. Nasr says he was tortured during his four-year imprisonment in Cairo.
At the time of his arrest he was suspected of recruiting fighters for Islamic groups but had not been charged.
A senior US official has said that the 26 Americans accused of Nasr's kidnapping would not be sent to Italy even if Rome made an extradition request. One of the surprise witnesses in the case will be Philip Morse - one of the minority owners of the US baseball team the Boston Red Sox, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome.
It is alleged that his Gulfstream jet was used by the CIA to fly Abu Omar out of Italy, says our correspondent.
Mr Bush will arrive on Friday for talks with Pope Benedict XVI and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.
Mr Prodi has already said that the extraordinary rendition case will not be on the agenda.
Al Qaeda-linked insurgents killed three American soldiers after capturing them last month in Iraq, according to a militant video released Monday that claimed to show footage of the ambush. The video offered no proof for its claims.
U.S. forces raided an al Qaeda hideout northeast of Baghdad on Sunday and freed 41 Iraqis imprisoned inside, including some who had been tortured and suffered broken bones, a senior U.S. military official said Sunday.
(AP) President Bush declassified intelligence Tuesday asserting that Osama bin Laden ordered a top lieutenant in early 2005 to form a terrorist cell that would conduct attacks outside Iraq Eand that the United States should be the top target.
Tony Blair and George W Bush have reaffirmed the decisions they took over war in Iraq and said their countries would stay united against terrorism.
The British prime minister is on a final trip to Washington before stepping down at the end of June.
The two men - close allies for six years - praised each other's record.
Mr Bush called the British PM "a clear, strategic thinker". Mr Blair said the US president had been "unyielding, unflinching and determined".
Mr Blair insisted he would take the same decision again to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with America in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks.
He predicted that after he steps down and is succeeded by Gordon Brown, Britain would "remain a staunch and steadfast ally in the fight against terrorism in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and elsewhere".
Mr Bush said that when he had met Mr Brown recently he thought he was "a good fellow".
Light-hearted
The president opened a good-humoured press conference with a joke at his own expense.
Mr Blair, he said, "is a good friend. He has led the British people for a long time, since 1797".
The deliberate slip echoed his mistake when introducing Britain's Queen Elizabeth II earlier this month, in which he said she had previously visited in 1776.
Mr Bush also offered to sing a Happy Birthday duet with Mr Blair to a reporter. She declined the offer.
The president said Mr Blair was "a good friend" and: "It has been a joy having you back here."
The president said the two men had held detailed talks on a number of issues, and held a video conference with commanders in Iraq.
He said both men were "frustrated at the inability of the international community to act with consequence in Darfur", and that they "spent a lot of time on climate change", which he described as "a serious issue".
The BBC's Matt Frei in Washington said the president ticked the boxes of topics that are important to Mr Blair, including Africa, climate change and Middle East peace.
However, there was no sign of him offering anything new in practical terms, our correspondent says.
Nevertheless, it was a heartfelt farewell by both men, he says.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar said the killing of the group's top field commander "won't create problems" for the hard-line militia, a spokesman said Monday.
U.S. and German agencies are investigating a potential terror plot against U.S. military bases, buildings and citizens in Germany, officials said Friday.
The pan-Arab Al-Jazeera Television on Tuesday aired a video it said was from al Qaeda's branch for North Africa, showing the preparation and an explosion purported to be Algeria's suicide bombings that killed 33 in April.
A new video of al Qaeda's No. 2 leader mocks President Bush and legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying the bill would rob the group's fighters of the chance to kill more Americans.
The raids on 19 addresses, which involved 500 officers, are believed to relate to activities in Iraq.
Police in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Cleveland, London and Merseyside began the raids at 0300 BST.
Three people were detained under anti-terrorism legislation and five under immigration laws.
Raids continuing
Two other people were arrested, but later released.
The Home Office confirmed five of the people held were foreign nationals detained under the home secretary's powers to "deport individuals whose presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good for reasons of national security".
BBC News understands that one of the men arrested in Manchester is Tahir Nasuf, a 44-year-old born in Libya.
He moved to Manchester in 1993 and is married with four children.
The offices of a charity he works for - the Sanabel Relief Agency - were also raided in Birmingham.
The operation is being led by Greater Manchester Police's (GMP) anti-terrorist unit, and the searches using warrants issued under the Terrorism Act 2000, are likely to continue for at least the rest of the day.
The BBC's Nick Ravenscroft said it was beginning to emerge that the raids probably centred on activities in Iraq.
GMP chief constable Michael Todd said there was no threat of an attack on the UK.
The operation was jointly organised with MI5 and followed an intelligence-gathering investigation that has been going on for "at least a year", said Mr Todd.
MI5 recently established a regional headquarters in the north-west of England.
'Extensive operation'
Police said 18 addresses had been raided - 12 in Greater Manchester, one in Liverpool, one in Middlesbrough, three in Birmingham and one in Eastham, London.
Police said they issued a search warrant for a further property in Farnworth, Bolton, on Wednesday afternoon.
A car parked outside one property raided in Moss Side, south of Manchester city centre, was towed away during the night.
Three people were held under the Terrorism Act and three under immigration legislation in Greater Manchester, one in Merseyside under immigration legislation and one in London under immigration legislation, police said.
Police would not disclose where the ninth arrest was made.
One house in Middlesbrough had been raided and is still being searched, but no arrests have been made, said Cleveland Police.
The Met's anti-terrorist squad confirmed it was involved in the West Midlands operation, in which a property was searched but no arrests made.
Raids in Greater Manchester included property searches in the Whalley Range and Fallowfield areas.
A spokeswoman for the Greater Manchester force confirmed an "extensive operation targeting individuals suspected of facilitating terrorism abroad" was under way.
She would not confirm the exact nature of the alleged offences.
CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden said Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in the U.S. for the Sept. 11 attacks, had nothing to do with the operation, according to an audiotape released on the Internet Tuesday. gHe had no connection at all with Sept. 11,h the voice on the tape said. gI am the one in charge of the 19 brothers, and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission,h the voice said, referring to the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. Bin Laden said Moussaoui's confession that he helped plan the attacks was gvoid,h calling it the result of gpressures exercised against him during four and a half yearsh in U.S. prison. Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman and admitted al-Qaida member, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after a jury ruled that he was responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. Two counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. intelligence is aware of the bin Laden message. One of the officials said there is no reason to doubt its authenticity. No threats made The audio message, which is less than five minutes long, was transmitted with a still photo of bin Laden. If authentic, it would be the third by bin Laden this year. In a tape aired on Arab television in March, he denounced the United States and Europe for cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, accusing them of leading a gZionisth war on Islam, and urged followers to fight any U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan. In January, bin Laden said in an audiotape that al-Qaida was preparing new attacks in the United States but offered a truce — though his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri later issued a video saying Washington had refused to take the offer. The January message was bin Ladenfs first in over a year, his longest period of silence since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. His deputy al-Zawahri releases messages more frequently, appearing in videotapes, while bin Laden has not appeared in a video since October 2004.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Iraq's insurgents are now fighting a "free and constitutional government," President Bush said Monday as he praised the swearing-in of the country's new Cabinet. "The world saw the beginning of something new: constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East," Bush said. "Its formation marks a victory for the cause of freedom in the Middle East." Speaking to the National Restaurant Association in Chicago on Monday, Bush said Iraq's new prime minister, president and parliament speaker are "strong leaders" representing the three major ethnic factions in the country. He said they would govern as Iraqis and the insurgents could not "divide Iraq along sectarian lines." But Bush, calling the government "a work in progress," also said patience would be needed as the country unites. "Iraqi leaders understand that as long as they remain united, there is no limit to the potential of their country," Bush said. During the "three difficult years in Iraq ... the progress we've made has been hard fought, and it's been incremental," the president said. "There have been setbacks and missteps, like Abu Ghraib. They were felt immediately and have been difficult to overcome. Yet, we have now reached a turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror. "The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom." "Something fundamental changed" when the government was formed, Bush said. "The terrorists are now fighting a free and constitutional government." (Watch why the historic day was not trouble-free -- 3:49) Later, Bush acknowledged "an unease" in the country as casualties mount in Iraq. "When people read or see that the enemy has run a suicide bomber into a village or a marketplace and innocent people died, it breaks our heart," Bush said. "I can understand why people are concerned about whether or not our strategy can succeed, because our progress is incremental. ... And the enemy's progress is almost instant on their TV screens," he said. But, Bush said, "freedom has the capacity to convert an enemy to a friend," citing how Japan has become of the United States' closest allies after being defeated in World War II. Meanwhile, the fighting continued across Iraq on Monday, leaving at least 16 Iraqis -- including seven policemen -- dead, authorities said. The bloodshed came as British Prime Minister Tony Blair flew in for talks. Blair was scheduled to meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and new Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki to discuss the newly formed government. U.S. and British officials said Blair wound travel to Washington for talks with Bush later this week, a senior Bush administration official said. Blair and Bush will hold a joint news conference during Blair's visit, according to The Associated Press. In Iraq on Monday, Blair said Iraqi security forces are ready to assume responsibility for some areas of the country, but he would not set a timetable for the withdrawal of about 8,000 British troops in the country, according to AP.
Taliban militants will resume face-to-face talks with South Korean officials on Tuesday on the fate of 19 Korean church volunteers they have held captive since July 19, a Taliban spokesman said Monday. Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the talks Ethe fourth time the two sides have met Ewould be held in the central town of Ghazni under the mediation of the International Red Cross, which oversaw the previous negotiations.
The senior Taliban commander tells CBS News that a South Korean delegation of Muslim clerics in Pakistan is welcome to join the talks as a goodwill gesture to Muslims in South Korea.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan accused Taliban militants on Monday of falsely reporting civilian casualties to discredit Afghan and international forces, as 10 insurgents and three NATO soldiers were killed in fresh fighting.
The coalition launched the accusation after Afghan elders alleged that international troops killed up to 18 civilians late Sunday in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.
Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a coalition spokeswoman, said credible intelligence suggested the claims were fabricated as part of a propaganda war.
"The insurgents continue to follow their pattern of falsely reporting civilian casualties," she said.
NATO-led forces, whose operations in Helmand are being supported by U.S.-led coalition troops and aircraft, insisted Sunday that no noncombatants were killed in the fighting. The claims could not be independently verified due to the remoteness of the area where the clash took place.
Reports of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign forces are highly sensitive in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly deplored such deaths, saying they undermine efforts to win the trust of the people.
Insurgent attacks on Afghan and Western troops in Afghanistan are running at their highest level since U.S. forces invaded the country in 2001 to oust the hard-line Islamic Taliban rulers, who harbored al Qaeda leaders blamed for planning the attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
On Monday, a NATO soldier was killed and another was wounded in an insurgent ambush in eastern Afghanistan, a statement from the alliance said.
The soldiers, whose nationality was not disclosed, were in a convoy when insurgents ambushed them using rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons, the statement said.
On Sunday, unidentified assailants shot and killed another NATO soldier during a foot patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, NATO said in a statement. It did not give the dead soldier's nationality.
Most of the NATO troops in the east are American.
In the Netherlands, defense chief Gen. Dick Berlijn said a Dutch soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. The sergeant, whose name was not immediately released, died late Sunday night when an improvised explosive device detonated near the southern town of Deh Rawod.
Afghan police, meanwhile, killed six suspected militants during a one-hour gun battle in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan, late on Sunday, said Ghamia Khan, a spokesman for the provincial governor. He gave no more details.
In the southern Zabul province, Afghan and coalition troops clashed with insurgents in Daychopan district Sunday, killing four suspected Taliban and wounding four others, said Fazel Bari, the Daychopan district chief.
Also Sunday, Afghan and coalition troops destroyed a heroin laboratory after battling Taliban fighters guarding the facility, a separate coalition statement said. The lab in Helmand contained large amounts of opium-processing chemicals as well as weapons, insurgent propaganda and explosive materials, it said.
Afghanistan accounts for 93 percent of the world's heroin supply, and a significant portion of the profits from the $3.1 billion trade are thought to flow to Taliban fighters, who tax and protect poppy farmers and drug runners.
In other developments:
Terror Attempt At Glasgow Airport
Police said they believed the attack was linked to two car bombs found in London the day before.
Britain raised its terror alert to "critical" Ethe highest possible level Eand the Bush administration announced plans to increase security at airports and on mass transit.
One of the men in the car was in critical condition at a hospital with severe burns, while the other was in police custody, said Scottish Police Chief Constable Willie Rae. He said a "suspect device" was found on the man at the hospital and it was taken to a safe location where it was being investigated.
Rae would not say whether the device was a suicide belt. British security officials said evidence pointed toward the Glasgow attack being a suicide mission.
"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," Rae said. "There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."
Police foiled the plot Friday after two cars were found in central London packed with explosives Eone outside a nightclub near Piccadilly Circus and another parked nearby.
A British government security official said the methods used in the airport attack and Friday's thwarted plots were similar, with all three vehicles carrying large quantities of flammable liquid.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Police and MI5 had no intelligence warning of a plan to attack Scotland, but have monitored a host of suspected terrorists and plots there, he said. It was not yet clear whether there was an international element to the planning or funding of the attacks, the official said.
The new terror threat presents Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a Scot who took office on Wednesday, with an enormous challenge and comes at a time of already heightened vigilance one week before the anniversary of the July 7 London transit attacks, which killed 52 people.
"I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong," Brown said Saturday in a televised statement.
The green Jeep barreled toward Glasgow's main airport terminal shortly after 3 p.m., hitting security barriers before crashing into the glass doors, witnesses said.
Police subdued the driver and a passenger, both described by witnesses as South Asian Ea term used to refer to people from Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries in the region Earresting them and taking one to the hospital. Witnesses said one of the men was engulfed in flames and spoke "gibberish" as an official used a fire extinguisher to douse the fire.
Rae said a bystander was taken to the hospital with a leg injury.
The previous round of terrorist activity in Britain, in July 2005, was largely carried out by local Muslims, raising ethnic tensions in Britain.
"The car came speeding past," said Scott Leeson, a witness. "Then the driver swerved the car around so he could ram straight in to the door. He must have been trying to smash straight through."
Passengers fled running and screaming from the busy terminal, Margaret Hughes told the British Broadcasting Corp. "There was black smoke gushing out where the car had obviously been driven into the airport," she said.
The airport was evacuated and all flights suspended. Flames and black smoke rose from the Jeep outside the main entrance. It did not appear there were any injuries aside from the suspect who had been set afire. Police said Liverpool Airport and roads around Edinburgh were also closed.
The apparent attack left passengers shaken and stranded on the first day of summer vacation for Glasgow schools. All flights from the airport were suspended. At the time of the crash, the airport was bustling with families heading out on vacation.
Lynsey McBean, who was at the terminal, said one of the men took out a plastic gasoline canister and poured a liquid under the car. "He then set light to it," said McBean, 26, from Erskine, Scotland. She said the Jeep struck the front door of the airport but got jammed.
"They were obviously trying to get it further inside the airport as the wheels were spinning and smoke was coming from them," she said.
AP photographs from the scene showed the car hit the building at an angle and was poking into the terminal. The Jeep struck the building directly in front of check-in counters, where dozens of passengers were lined up, police said.
Leeson said bollards Esecurity posts outside the entrance Estopped the driver from barreling into the bustling terminal at Glasgow's airport. "If he'd got through, he'd have killed hundreds, obviously," he said.
The incident carried reminders of a foiled plot in December 1999 to attack Los Angeles International Airport, when customs agents stopped an Algerian-born man in a car packed with 124 of explosives. He was jailed for 22 years and prosecutors said he was intent on bombing the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium.
UK al-Qaeda cell members jailed
Report: CIA Ran Secret Prisons In Europe
"While it is likely that very few people in the countries concerned, including in the governments themselves, knew of the existence of the centers, we have sufficient grounds to declare that the highest state authorities were aware of the CIA's illegal activities on their territories," Marty said.
He also accused two other countries of obstructing his probe into alleged secret detentions by the CIA.
"Some European governments have obstructed the search for the truth and are continuing to do so by invoking the concept of 'state secrets,'" Marty said. "This criticism applies to Germany and Italy, in particular."
Marty's report, citing unnamed CIA sources, said top terror suspects Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were secretly held and interrogated in Poland.
Sheikh Mohammed is the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and Abu Zubaydah is a suspected senior al Qaeda operative.
Meanwhile, the first trial involving the CIA's extraordinary rendition program opened in a Milan courtroom Friday morning, reports CBS News correspondent Sabina Castelfranco. All 26 American defendants were absent. They are accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terrorist suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from the streets of Milan in February 2003. Abu Omar was transferred to an Egyptian prison where he is believed to have been tortured. He has now been released.
Also indicted in the case are seven Italians including the former chief of Italy's military intelligence agency.
The trial may be postponed until the fall, however.
Marty's report said collaboration by U.S. allies was critical to the secret detention program, which took place in the framework of NATO's security policy.
"The secret detention facilities in Europe were run directly and exclusively by the CIA," said the report.
Poland and Romania hosted the prisons under a special post-Sept. 11 CIA program to "kill, capture and detain" so-called high value terrorist suspects, wrote Marty, a Swiss senator investigating the alleged role of Council of Europe states in the CIA program.
Evidence of secret flights Eat least 10 flights to Poland between 2002 and 2005 Eshow the pivotal role played by Poland and Romania as drop-off points, the report says.
"There is now enough evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania," the report said.
Marty did not name sources from his information, but said that the report was based on discussions with people "who had worked or still worked for the relevant authorities, in particular intelligence agencies."
"We have never based our conclusions on single statements and we have only used information that is confirmed by other, totally independent sources," the report said, adding that where possible information was "cross-checked" in the European countries in question, in the United States or through documents or data.
"Clearly, our individual sources were only willing to talk to us on the condition of absolute anonymity," the report said.
Last year, Marty accused 14 European nations Efrom Ireland and Germany to Romania Eof colluding with U.S. intelligence in a web of rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities.
Marty said evidence suggested that CIA-linked planes carrying terror suspects had landed at airports in Timisoara, Romania, and Szymany, Poland, and likely dropped off detainees there.
His second report confirms Szymany as a drop-off point in Poland, where at least 10 flights Esix coming from Kabul, Afghanistan Elanding there.
The report lists eight of the CIA flights, with one each originating in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates and Rabat, Morocco, and says it can be "demonstrated" that the majority of them were "deliberately disguised."
A BBC investigation last year revealed that a well-known CIA Gulfstream plane, the N379P, had made several landings at Szymany airport in northern Poland in 2003. The airport is not far from a Polish intelligence base.
Milan set for CIA rendition trial
Al Qaeda Group Says Missing GIs Are Dead
The clip, which was made available to The Associated Press by the Washington-based SITE Institute, showed confused and jerky night battle scenes, and later offered close-ups of two identification cards. It did not show the soldiers.
"The Americans sent 4,000 soldiers looking for them," said an unidentified voice on the video, which was made available to The Associated Press by the Washington-based SITE, which monitors terrorist groups. "They were alive and then dead."
The video offered no proof for its claims that the soldiers had been killed and buried. The voiceover blamed their deaths on "the American Army and their leaders, who do not care for the feelings of the soldiers' families."
The U.S. military said Monday that the search for two missing American soldiers will continue despite a militant's video and it held out hope they "will be found alive and in good health."
The body of one of the soldiers later was found in Iraq's Euphrates River, but the other two remain missing. Family friends of the missing men said the U.S. military briefed relatives about the video over the weekend.
At the end of the 10-minute 41-second video, the identification cards of the two missing soldiers were shown, with the headline: "Bush is the reason of the loss of your POWs" written on the screen above the cards. SITE did not say how it obtained the video, which featured the logo of the media production house of the Islamic State of Iraq.
Along with the identification cards, the footage also showed credit cards, American and Iraqi money and other personal items that the militants called "booty."
The video also showed footage, apparently taken before the ambush, of three masked men standing around a stand displaying a sketch of the area, mapping out the attack plan. One of the three men, who were all dressed in black, talked to the camera and pointed to the sketch. Another stood by him carrying a gun.
"I have urged you to bring me American prisoners," said the man, whose name was not given but was identified as one of the militant group's leaders.
"Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families of our missing," said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad. "We condemn the tactics used by these terrorists, and are using all means available to pursue those responsible."
"We are further analyzing the video, however it doesn't appear to contain any definitive evidence indicating the status of our missing soldiers," he added. "We continue to search and hope that our two missing soldiers will be found alive and in good health."
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he had not seen any video but heard there were "promises made that a video may be released."
The body of one of the soldiers was found on May 23 in the Euphrates River and later identified by the U.S. military as Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr., 20, of Torrance, Calif. The missing soldiers have been identified as Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass., and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford Township, Mich.
The army was able to warn the families this weekend that the tape could surface and would claim the soldiers are dead, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.
"From what I hear, it shows the soldier's uniforms and dog tags and warns the U.S. to back off on the search," said Cathy Conger, a family friend of Fouty.
"What it does not show one way or another is if they're alive or not," Conger said. "I just feel really bad about it. I hope that he's still alive. My prayers are with him."
Fouty's stepfather, Gordon Dibler of Oxford, Michigan, told a suburban Detroit radio station that the military told him Saturday that the video showed personal identification items from the soldiers.
"They prepared me in a very proper and considerate way," he told WWJ-AM radio.
In Massachusetts, the Jimenez family had not seen the video Monday, said family friend Wendy Luzon, who spoke with Jimenez's father, Ramon "Andy" Jimenez.
"He said it was a good sign for the family," Luzon said.
In other developments:
41 Al Qaeda Captives Freed In Iraq Raid
The raid was part of a 3-month-old security crackdown that included the deployment of 3,000 more U.S. troops to Diyala, a violence-wracked province north of the capital that has been the site of heavy fighting in recent weeks, said Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.
Caldwell said Iraqis told U.S. forces about the hide-out. "The people in Diyala are speaking up against al Qaeda," he said.
Caldwell refused to disclose the location of the hide-out, citing security concerns, but said the 41 freed Iraqis marked the largest number of captives ever found in a single al Qaeda prison.
Some of the freed Iraqis had been held for as long as four months and some had injuries from torture and were being taken to medical facilities for treatment, he said.
In Other Developments:
'05 Bin Laden Intel Declassified
Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said the intelligence bolsters the Bush administration's contention that al Qaeda wants to use Iraq as a staging area to launch terrorist attacks around the world, including the United States.
In January 2005, bin Laden tasked al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was in Iraq, to organize the cell, Townsend said. Al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al Qaeda's Iraq operations, was killed there in June 2006 by a U.S. air strike.
"We know from the intelligence community that al-Zarqawi welcomed the tasking and claimed he already had some good proposals," Townsend said.
She said that in the spring of 2005, bin Laden instructed Hamza Rabia, a senior operative, to brief al-Zarqawi on al Qaeda planning to attack sites outside Iraq, including the United States. She did not disclose where in the United States those attacks were being plotted.
Around the same time, Abu Fajah al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda manager, suggested that bin Laden send Rabia to Iraq to actually help al-Zarqawi plan the external operations, Townsend said. It is unclear whether Radbia went to Iraq, she said.
She said the information was declassified because the intelligence community has tracked all leads from the information.
Townsend disclosed the information to The Associated Press and other news agencies in advance of Mr. Bush's commencement speech Wednesday at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Mr. Bush is expected to emphasize the continuing threat of terrorism and recount steps taken by his administration to prevent attacks.
Bush and Blair defend war record
Taliban Shrugs Off Commander's Death
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told The Associated Press that Omar and other top Taliban leaders passed condolences to Mullah Dadullah's family over the killing by the U.S.-led coalition, the first Taliban confirmation of Dadullah's killing.
Ahmadi read a statement attributed to Omar insisting that Dadullah's death "won't create problems for the Taliban's jihad" and that militants will continue their attacks against "occupying countries."
A NATO statement confirmed Afghan reports on the death of the feared militant commander during a U.S.-led coalition operation supported by NATO troops.
Dadullah, a top lieutenant of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, was killed Saturday in the southern province of Helmand, said Said Ansari, the spokesman for Afghanistan's intelligence service. Afghan forces assisted in the operation.
"Mullah Dadullah Lang will most certainly be replaced in time, but the insurgency has received a serious blow," the NATO statement said.
A Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on the condition that he would not be named, told CBS News' Farhan Bokhari that Mullah Dadullah's death "would mark one of the most significant setbacks to the Taliban in a very long time."
The official said Mullah Dadullah had emerged not only as a key Taliban commander in the past two to three years but was probably "among a handful of people who knew more about the Taliban operational strategy than anyone else."
Dadullah is one of the highest-ranking Taliban leaders to be killed since the fall of the hardline regime following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and his death represents a major victory for the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO troops.
"Mullah Dadullah was the backbone of the Taliban," Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said. "He was a brutal and cruel commander who killed and beheaded Afghan civilians."
Khalid showed Dadullah's body to reporters at a news conference in the governor's compound. An Associated Press reporter said the body, which was lying on a bed and dressed in a traditional Afghan robe, had no left leg and three bullet wounds: one to the back of the head and two to the stomach.
The AP reporter said the body appeared to be Dadullah's based on his appearance in TV interviews and Taliban propaganda videos.
In December, a U.S. airstrike near the Pakistan border killed another top Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani. Dadullah, Osmani and policy-maker Mullah Obaidullah had been considered to be Omar's top three leaders.
Dadullah, who comes from the southern province of Uruzgan, lost a leg fighting against the Soviet army that occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s. He emerged as a Taliban commander during its fight against the Northern Alliance in northern Afghanistan during the 1990s, helping the hardline militia to capture the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Since the Taliban's ouster in late 2001, Dadullah became recognized as the militant group's most prominent and feared commander. He often featured in videos and media interviews, and earlier this year predicted a massive militant spring offensive that has failed to materialize.
Authorities Probe Terror Plot In Germany
But "there are no indications of an imminent threat," said a U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the subject's sensitivity.
The plot was first made public on April 20 when the U.S. embassy in Berlin issued a warning, telling U.S. diplomatic and consular facilities in Germany to increase security and asking Americans there to increase their vigilance. Security outside U.S. bases in Germany was also stepped up.
U.S. officials say they have nothing to suggest the threat information has advanced beyond where it was three weeks ago. At the same time, there's also no evidence that the possibility of a threat has been diminished. Extra precautions are still in place and there's still a high level of concern.
A U.S. counterterrorism official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the concern Ethen and now Eis that U.S. military bases, American tourists and other U.S. interests in Germany could be attacked. Among other possibilities, the official said information gathered on the threat suggested that the plot could involve bombs or small arms. The threat information was not specific about the potential attack's time or location, the official added.
The official said counterterrorism authorities believed Islamic extremists were behind the planning, but the official had no reason to suspect al Qaeda specifically.
Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council, said "the United States is working with German authorities, as we do with our allies around the world, to counter any potential terrorist activity."
The Homeland Security Department sought to make clear there was no known plot inside U.S. borders.
"There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland at this time," said spokesman Russ Knocke.
In Germany, Daniel Mattern, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, said there had been no changes since it issued its April 20 warning for U.S. diplomatic and consular facilities.
Al Qaeda Video Claims Algeria Bombing
The brief video showed equipment and wires being put together, followed by a large explosion. The equipment appeared to be land mines and explosives.
Al-Jazeera said it had obtained the footage exclusively and that a longer segment would be aired later. The network provided no details on how or when it had obtained the video, and its authenticity could not be independently confirmed.
At the end of the initially aired segment, a bearded man said to be Abu Musab Abdulwadood, the leader of Algeria's main Islamic insurgency movement, called on young Muslims to join his group and carry out suicide bombings.
Abdulwadood said the young should join the "long list of martyrs."
"We carry the good news to our nation and our young people and tell them that the list of martyrs is long and is getting longer day after day," Abdulwadood said. "Volunteers are competing to open this glorious combating door. Don't miss out on (joining the) entourage."
"This is a crusader war on Islam, this is a decisive battle between the infidels and the believers," he added. "Whoever misses this war will be missing a chance in a lifetime."
A group called Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for the April 11 attacks in Algiers which killed 33 people and wounded 57 in coordinated suicide bombings targeting the prime minister's office and a police station.
The attacks were the deadliest in the Algiers region since 2002. They came as the North African nation struggles to come to terms with an insurgency that has killed up to 200,000 people since 1992 but has largely died down in recent years. The insurgency erupted after the army canceled elections that a Muslim fundamentalist party was set to win.
Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa is the new name for the GSPC, a group built on the foundations of the insurgency movement.
According to media reports in Algiers, Algerian security services arrested an unspecified number of suspects accused of "logistical preparations" for the attacks, and some of them have already reportedly been brought before prosecutors. However, there have been no official statements on this.
The Algerian reports said the explosives were a mixture of fertilizers and other chemical supplies, with two detonators Eone controlled by the suicide bombers, the other by remote controls.
Al Qaeda Video Mocks Bush, Withdrawal Bill
Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri derided the new U.S.-backed Baghdad security plan, recounting an April 12 suicide bombing in Baghdad's heavily protected Green Zone when an attacker slipped through security and killed a Sunni legislator in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria. An al Qaeda-led amalgam of Sunni insurgents in Iraq claimed responsibility.
And lest Bush worry, I congratulate him on the success of his security plan, and I invite him on the occasion for a glass of juice, but in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament in the middle of the Green Zone,Eal-Zawahri said in the video released Saturday.
The video was obtained Saturday by U.S.-based monitoring groups who released a transcript to media.
Al-Zawahri, shown seated before a bookshelf in a white robe and turban, addresses legislation pushed by Democratic leaders, and vetoed by Bush, that would have required the first U.S. troops in Iraq to be withdrawn by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap,Eal-Zawahri said, according to a transcript released by the monitoring group SITE. The bill is evidence of American “failure and frustration,Ehe added.
We ask Allah that they (U.S. troops) only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson,Ehe said.
He made no mention of Bush vetoing the bill on Thursday Ean indication the video may have been made beforehand.
Al-Zawahri encouraged minorities around the world to join the holy war, or jihad.
Al Qaeda is not merely for the benefit of Muslims,Ehe said. That's why I want blacks in America, people of color, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world.
Al-Zawahri claimed al Qaeda fighters in Iraq were nearing closer to victory over their enemy, despite this sectarian fightingEthat has convulsed the country.
He discussed other topics as well in the 67-minute video, including fighting in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Algeria, and Somalia. He made references to Saudi Arabia, Egyptian constitutional changes meant to cement the government's hold on power, and the Pentagon's release of the confessions of al Qaeda No. 3, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Ethe alleged Sept. 11 mastermind who was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.
Saturday's video was the fifth message Eincluding posted video and audio tapes Eby al-Zawahri this year. Osama bin Laden has not surfaced in any communications since mid-2006.
Eight held in anti-terror raids
Eight people are being held following an anti-terrorist police operation across England targeting people suspected of plotting attacks abroad.
Bin Laden tape: Moussaoui had no link to 9/11
That official said the message is part of bin Ladenfs continuing effort to demonstrate he is a relevant extremist leader, who is knowledgeable of current events. The official said the message was made for propaganda purposes, and it does not contain any threats.
Bush: Insurgents now fighting democracy in Iraq
Other developments
"If we do close down Guantanamo, what becomes of the hundreds of dangerous people who were picked up on battlefields in Afghanistan, who were picked up because of their associations with al Qaeda?"
(CBS/AP) The United States would be delighted to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, but cannot until settling the fate of "hundreds of dangerous people" held there, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
"We cannot be in a situation in which we are just turning loose on helpless populations or unprotected populations people who have vowed to kill more Americans if they're released," Rice said.
About 460 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are incarcerated at the Cuban prison camp; most have been held for more than four years without charges. President Bush has said he is waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on whether inmates can face military tribunals before he considers whether to close the facility.
A U.N. panel said Friday the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo violates the world's ban on torture. In issuing its report, the Committee Against Torture said the United States should ensure that no prisoner is tortured.
"The issue of closing Guantanamo may be as complicated as its creation, because returning prisoners or detainees to a country where they might be tortured is contrary to international law, regardless of where they are being held," CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk said.
Rice, who said the report's authors had not visited the detention center, asked that people be "cognizant of the dilemma here."
"Obviously, we don't want to be the world's jailer. We will be delighted when we can close down Guantanamo," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday."
"But I would ask this: If we do close down Guantanamo, what becomes of the hundreds of dangerous people who were picked up on battlefields in Afghanistan, who were picked up because of their associations with al Qaeda?"
Rice said the United States works nearly ever day to try to return detainees to their native lands if their governments will take them and guarantee that they will not be mistreated but will be monitored for criminal behavior.
U.S. military officials at Guantanamo said prisoners with makeshift weapons attacked guards during a phony suicide attempt Friday. The incident that left six prisoners wounded. The commanding officer of the facility told reporters that the attack was evidence of the "dangerous nature" of the prisoners.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., agreed that the U.S. should ensure that no prisoner at Guantanamo is subjected to torture. But, he said, closing the prison is premature without a legal resolution to the prisoners' cases.
"I don't think they deserve a fair jury trial, but there should be some sort of adjudication" to decide whether detainees are held for life, executed or released rather than held indefinitely, McCain said.
"This administration has tried, and it's frustrating, to get some sort of process," McCain said. "I'm hoping we can come up with some methodology to resolve this".
Inmates at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have attacked guards after luring them with a staged suicide attempt, the US military said.
The detainees used weapons crafted from fans and light fixtures and the disturbance was quelled with minimum force, a US military spokesman said.
Six inmates were reportedly hurt in the clash. Earlier two inmates tried to kill themselves with prescribed drugs.
Thursday's incident coincides with a UN call on the US to close down the camp.
The UN Committee against Torture said the US should release detainees or give them access to a judicial process.
'Depressed detainees'
The US military has described Thursday's attack as the most violent and best organised in the history of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
The BBC's Adam Brookes in Washington says this is the first time that details have emerged of such an incident involving more than one inmate, although individuals regularly resist guards.
The US military said guards responded to an apparent attempt at suicide in Camp 4, a less restrictive part of the facility where detainees are allowed move more freely as a reward for good behaviour.
The facility's commanding officer, Rear Adm Harry Harris said the attempt was "a ruse to get the guards to enter the compound".
He said 10 detainees then attacked the guards as they entered the area, whose floor had been "slickened" with excrement, urine and soap.
Weapons such as broken light fittings and fan blades were used and at one point, another military spokesman said, the guards "were losing the fight".
The violence spread, as other inmates began destroying fittings in their parts of the prison.
The military said it took a team of 23 guards an hour to quell the unrest, using pepper spray and non-lethal shotgun rounds. A spokesman said six detainees were treated for minor injuries and no soldiers were hurt.
None of the detainees involved has been named. All those involved in the clash were removed to higher-security parts of the centre.
Earlier, two detainees are said to have attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on prescription drugs they had been hoarding. Both were reportedly unconscious but in a stable condition.
The military says there have been 39 suicide attempts in the camp since 2002, and hunger strikes have been common as detainees protest against their continued detention without trial.
'Immediate measures'
About 460 detainees are held at Guantanamo, which opened after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Most detainees are being held without charge or trial, and lawyers who have visited the facility say many of them suffer from depression.
The call by the UN torture committee to close Guantanamo was accompanied by recommendations that secret US detention facilities abroad should be closed.
It called for "immediate measures" to eradicate torture and ill-treatment of detainees by US military personnel "in any territory under its jurisdiction".
John Bellinger, a legal spokesman for the US state department, said the report contained "factual and legal inaccuracies".
Some "acts of abuse" had occurred in the past, he said, but the US was taking steps to prevent any repeat.
US President George W Bush has used his weekly radio address to launch a strong defence of his administration's domestic surveillance programme.
It follows claims the phone records of tens of millions of Americans are being collected by a US intelligence agency.
Mr Bush stressed that all intelligence activities he authorised were "lawful" and "strictly target" al-Qaeda.
"The privacy of all Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities," he insisted.
"The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. We are not trawling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."
Mr Bush has not confirmed or denied a report in the USA Today newspaper that the country's three biggest phone companies have been handing over call records to the National Security Agency (NSA) since 2001.
A former director of the agency - Gen Michael Hayden - is now Mr Bush's nominee to become the next head of the CIA.
In his radio address, the president also urged the Senate to approve the nomination quickly, saying Gen Hayden is "supremely qualified" for the job.
Congressmen are expected to use the confirmation hearings to probe the USA Today allegations further.
'Largest ever database'
The newspaper reported last Thursday that the NSA database had used phone records provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.
The report does not claim the government listened in on phone calls.
But it cites an unnamed source as saying the NSA has used data on telephone calls to build "the largest database ever assembled in the world".
Together the three phone firms serve more than 200 million customers. They told USA Today they had not broken any laws.
The New York Times reported in December that the NSA was eavesdropping on phone calls made between terror suspects inside the US and abroad.
The report caused controversy because many legal experts believe the government needs explicit permission from a special court to do so - which it did not obtain.
Only one juror prevented Zacarias Moussaoui from being sentenced to death for his role in the 9/11 attacks, the Washington Post has reported.
The paper says it was contacted by the jury forewoman from the trial, after which Moussaoui was given life in jail.
She said that in secret votes on three terrorism charges, the jury repeatedly voted 11-1, 10-2 and 10-2.
A unanimous vote on any of the charges would have condemned Moussaoui to a lethal injection.
The forewoman complained that the dissenter who kept holding out on the first charge never identified him or herself, and never put forward their arguments for discussion, the paper says.
'No scrutiny'
"I felt frustrated," the forewoman said, "because I felt that many of us had been cheated by the anonymity of the 'no' voter.
"We will never know their reason. We will never be able to hold their reason up to the light and the scrutiny of evidence, fact, and law," she told the Post.
She said the discussions among the jury appeared resolutely pro-death penalty, but every time they went to a vote, at least one person would veto the execution.
She described 26 April as "a very intense day".
"It was as if a heavy cloud of doom had fallen over the deliberation room, and many of us realised that all our beliefs and our conclusions were being vetoed by one person," she told the paper.
"We tried to discuss the pros and cons. But I would have to say that most of the arguments we heard around the deliberation table were [in favour of the death penalty]".
Second juror
The jury eventually ruled on 3 May that Moussaoui should be imprisoned for life with no chance of parole.
The newspaper said the forewoman got in contact, and was identified as one of the jury by a reporter who recognised her from the courtroom.
The judge has ordered the jurors' identities not to be revealed for their own safety.
The Washington Post has already run stories it says were based on interviews with another juror - who said he voted for life in prison because he believed Moussaoui's role in the attacks was marginal.
It did not say whether he had confirmed he was the single juror to hold out throughout.
A United States intelligence agency has been collecting data on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans, a report in USA Today has alleged.
The country's three biggest phone companies have been handing over call records to the National Security Agency (NSA) since 2001, the newspaper says.
President Bush refused to confirm or deny the existence of the programme.
He said he had authorised intelligence gathering in the wake of 9/11, adding that the activities were "lawful".
"Our intelligence activities strictly target al-Qaeda and their known affiliates," he said in a brief White House statement after the newspaper report appeared.
"The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected," he said, adding: "We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans."
The USA Today report does not claim the government listened in on phone calls.
But it cites an unnamed source as saying the NSA has used data on telephone calls to build "the largest database ever assembled in the world".
Senate response
US senators reacted quickly to the allegation, saying they would order the phone companies to testify about it.
Senator Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, reacted with anger to the report, brandishing the newspaper in committee meeting.
"We need to know what our government is doing to spy upon Americans," he said.
But Republican senators suggested Mr Leahy was over-reacting.
They pointed out that the story did not allege wiretapping, only the creation of a database in order to analyse calling patterns.
Experts disagree about whether the government has the authority to demand the data it is allegedly compiling.
"I'm quite confident that if it's true it's illegal," Prof Michael Greenberger of the University of Maryland school of law told the BBC.
The communications act of 1934 bars companies from releasing information about callers, he said.
But the three phone companies in question - AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth - all told USA Today they had not broken any laws.
Together the firms serve more than 200 million customers. A fourth company, Qwest, reportedly declined to participate in the programme.
A civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed suit against AT&T last month after a former AT&T employee indicated the company was engaging in the kind of data-mining the USA Today report described.
Sensitive time
The Bush administration has asserted that the president has the authority to monitor communications in order to disrupt terrorist activity.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has testified before the Senate in defence of a programme of wiretapping without warrant ordered by the president.
The USA Today report comes at a potentially sensitive moment for the administration.
Gen Michael Hayden, the man who headed the NSA when the data-mining operation was allegedly launched, was nominated this week to head the CIA.
He is due to face confirmation hearings from the Senate soon.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein warned the latest allegations would "present a growing impediment to the confirmation".
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the president was standing by his choice: "We're full steam ahead on the confirmation."
Pakistan says it has captured more than 750 al Qaeda suspects since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and has handed most of them to the United States.
A top al Qaeda leader whose links stretch from Afghan terror training camps to extremist networks operating throughout Europe has been detained in Pakistan and possibly handed over to American authorities, according to a U.S. law enforcement official.
Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a Syrian who also holds Spanish citizenship, was captured in a November 2005 sting operation in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta that left one person dead, said the American official, who declined to be identified further because the matter is sensitive.
The official, who spoke to The Associated Press late last week, said Nasar, a leading extremist ideologue also known as Abu Musab al-Suri, may now be in U.S. custody. He declined to comment further. Officials refuse to say where he is being held, CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips says.
U.S. military officials aware of the detention of terror suspects at American prison facilities in Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had no immediate information Tuesday on whether Nasar had been incarcerated at either jail.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official told The AP from the capital, Islamabad, that Nasar had been flown out of Pakistan to an undisclosed destination "some time ago."
"I only know that he is not here. But, I do know that Syrian authorities had also requested to get him back," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of sensitive nature of his work.
Pakistani and American officials have long been tightlipped on the status of Nasar, who has had a $5 million bounty on his head. He has been described by the U.S. Justice Department as a former trainer at Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan who helped teach extremists to use poisons and chemicals.
Another Pakistani official confirmed the Quetta arrest but had no information on Nasar's whereabouts.
"He had been interrogated by us. He had been interrogated by our American friends," said the official, who also declined to be identified because of the secretive nature of his activities. He added that both Syrian and U.S. authorities wanted to take Nasar into custody.
A picture and short biography of the red-haired Nasar was recently removed from the U.S. government's Rewards for Justice Web site. Justice and State Department officials declined to say why Nasar was no longer profiled.
Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna said Nasar's capture is a major blow to the al Qaeda movement as he was the "most prolific writer" of jihadi propaganda and held close links with extremists throughout Europe and South Asia.
"The ideologues are as equally important as the operational people and he was in close contact with very prominent figures with movements in different countries, particularly the North African region," said Gunaratna.
In 2004, Nasar released a 1,600-page book titled "The International Islamic Resistance Call," which lays out strategies for attacking Islam's enemies. He lists those as "Jews, Americans, British, Russian and any and all of the NATO countries, as well as any country that takes the position of oppressing Islam and Muslims," according to a translation from the Washington-based SITE Institute.
It would not be the first time Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, has detained al Qaeda terrorists and turned them over to the Americans.
Pakistan says it has captured more than 750 al Qaeda suspects since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and has handed most of them to the United States.
They include al Qaeda's former No. 3, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, who was arrested in March 2003 during a raid near Islamabad, and his purported replacement, Abu Farraj al-Libbi, who was detained in May 2005 in Pakistan's northwest.
Media reports have linked Nasar, who holds Spanish citizenship, to the 2004 commuter train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people, and to the July 7, 2005 attacks in London that left 56 dead, including the four bombers.
In September 2003, Nasar was among 35 people named in an indictment handed down by a Spanish magistrate for terrorist activities connected to al Qaeda. His exact role, if any, to either the Madrid or London bombings is unclear.
He is also wanted for a 1985 attack on a restaurant near a military base close to Madrid airport that left about 20 people dead, regarded as the first international Islamic terrorist attack to take place in Spain.
Spain's ambassador to Pakistan, Jose-Maria Robels, said that Spain had sought information from Pakistan about Nasar's reported arrest in November but had received no reply.
"Pakistan knows our interest but we have not had any official answer," he said in Islamabad on Tuesday.
Nasar, who lived in Spain and was married to a Spanish woman, also stayed in London during the mid-1990s before traveling to Afghanistan where he was believed to have been part of Bin Laden's network, a Western diplomat in Islamabad said.
His movements have been traced to Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and at least two European capitals.
(CNN) -- In a video that surfaced Friday on the Internet, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant praises insurgents in Iraq and urges Pakistanis to topple their president, whom he calls a "bribe-taking, treacherous criminal."
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, began the 15-minute speech, titled "A Message to the People of Pakistan," with a reference to last month's three-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
He says al Qaeda operatives in Iraq have perpetrated "800 martyrdom operations in three years, besides the sacrifices of the other mujahedeen, and this is what has broken the back of America in Iraq."
He adds, "We praise Allah that three years after the Crusader invasion of Iraq, America, Britain and their allies have achieved nothing but losses, disaster and misfortunes."
Al-Zawahiri appears to be encouraging the Pakistani people to follow the lead of the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, telling them to stand up against "the Zionist-Crusader assault" on Muslims and overthrow Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Al-Zawahiri calls Musharraf a "traitor" who placed the country's nuclear program under the supervision of the U.S. government.
"I call on them to strive in earnest to topple this bribe-taking, treacherous criminal, and to back their brothers in the mujahedeen in Afghanistan with everything they've got," al-Zawahiri said.
The video is the third taped message so far this year from the Egyptian-born doctor. He and bin Laden are believed to be hiding in the mountainous region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is not known if they are together.
In January, al-Zawahiri was targeted by a U.S. missile strike about a week after a videotape from him surfaced. The strike on Damadola, a remote Pakistani village, killed 18 people, but al-Zawahiri survived.
He issued another tape about two weeks after the attack in which he taunted President Bush for not being able to find him.
The CIA has run more than 1,000 flights within the European Union since 2001, often transporting terror suspects for questioning overseas, MEPs have said.
The MEPs began a probe after claims the US flew suspects to secret prisons in countries that regularly use torture.
The US admits some terror suspects were flown overseas for interrogation, but denies sending them for torture.
Report author Claudio Fava said many EU stateshad ignored the hundreds of CIA flights that had used their airports.
Mr Fava, an Italian socialist MEP, singled out Sweden, Italy and Bosnia, which is not an EU member, for particular criticism.
A string of former detainees have come forward with stories alleging kidnap and transport by the US for interrogation in third countries - a process known as "extraordinary rendition".
Some have provided detailed accounts of alleged torture carried out in secret prisons outside EU or US jurisdiction.
'Hearsay'
Earlier this year the European human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, made similar allegations, but these were dismissed by the US as hearsay.
Unveiling his report, Mr Fava said European governments and intelligence agencies should have verified the purpose of the CIA flights.
"We just have to think about the use of the airspace and airports by [the] CIA: more than 1,000 flights run by the US secret services, often used directly for extraordinary renditions," he said.
He suggested that flight plans and airport logs meant it was hard to believe that many of the stopovers were simple refuelling missions.
"The CIA has, on several occasions, clearly been responsible for kidnapping and illegally detaining alleged terrorists on the territory of [EU] member states, as well as for extraordinary renditions," said Mr Fava.
He made specific reference to several alleged abductions, including the snatch in Milan of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar in 2003.
Italian authorities were highly likely to have known the details of Abu Omar's case, Mr Fava said.
Investigators used data from Eurocontrol, the EU's air safety agency, to examine records of thousands of flights.
'Strange routes'
Mr Fava described many of the flights as "quite suspect".
Among those highlighted was the flight transferring Khalid al-Masri, a Kuwaiti-born German national, who was seized in Macedonia and transported to Afghanistan in 2004.
That plane flew from Algeria to Majorca, Spain, then to Skopje, Macedonia, and onto Kabul via Baghdad - all within 48 hours.
"They are rather strange routes for flights to take. It is hard to imagine... those stopovers were simply for providing fuel," said Mr Fava.
Mr Masri has previously given details of his transfer to the European Parliament. He alleges he was seized in Macedonia, interrogated in Kabul and released into Albania.
New investigations
Mr Fava's committee spent more than three months interviewing top EU officials, magistrates, human rights activists and people who said they were abducted by the CIA.
Despite knowing that allowing rendition and possibly torture would breach a raft of European human rights treaties, Mr Fava said EU diplomats did nothing.
He singled out Italy, Sweden and Bosnia as governments he expected knew more than they made public about the flights.
Mr Fava's committee did not report on secret prisons, but he said members planned to visit countries such as Romania and Poland for further investigations later this year.
The CIA declined to comment on Mr Fava's findings.
A website has posted a video message which shows unmasked a man who appears to be the Iraqi insurgency's most wanted leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In the tape, the man says holy warriors are fighting on despite a three-year "crusade". US experts told the BBC they believed the recording was genuine.
The Jordanian-born militant has until now only been linked to audiotapes, photos, and masked men in videotapes.
Zarqawi's insurgent group rebranded itself al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2004.
He has been accused of orchestrating attacks and suicide bombings against US-led forces and Shia Muslims in Iraq and has a $25m bounty on his head.
The fugitive militant is also suspected of personal involvement in the beheading of the American Nick Berg and the Briton Ken Bigley.
'Worse to come'
The video was posted on a website that Zarqawi's group often uses to issue messages.
One part of the recording shows a man - who bears a strong resemblance to previous pictures of Zarqawi - sitting on the floor and addressing a group of masked men with an automatic rifle at his side.
"Your mujahideen sons were able to confront the most ferocious of crusader campaigns on a Muslim state," the man says.
Addressing US President George W Bush, he says: "Why don't you tell people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and hallucination pills to help them sleep?"
"By God," he says, "your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse."
The speaker in the video also reproaches the US for its "arrogance and insolence" in rejecting a truce offered by "our prince and leader", Osama Bin Laden.
Speaking Arabic in a slow monotone, the man lambasts the newly-formed Iraqi government as a US creation, designed to ease its predicament in Iraq.
'Umbrella group'
A US counter-terrorism official has said the man in the video does appear to be Zarqawi and the message is intended for propaganda purposes, as an apparent show of unity among Iraq's insurgents.
This would be the first time the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq has shown his face in a video message.
Parts of the video show the bearded insurgent dressed in black with an assault rifle beside him - the same posture adopted by Osama Bin Laden in many of his videos.
According to the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad, the statement comes at a time when radical Islamists within the Iraqi insurgency are trying to unify their ranks.
The video bears the logo of the Mujahideen Shura, or consultative council, an umbrella group of insurgents formed to resist efforts by the US and Iraqi authorities to win over Sunni supporters of the insurgency.
CAIRO, Egypt Apr 23, 2006 (AP)— Osama bin Laden issued new threats in an audiotape broadcast on Arab television Sunday and accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
He also urged followers to go to Sudan, his former base, to fight a proposed U.N. peacekeeping force.
His words, the first new message by the al-Qaida leader in three months, seemed designed to justify potential attacks on civilians something al-Qaida has been criticized for even by its Arab supporters.
He also appeared to be trying to drum up support among Arabs by accusing the West of targeting Hamas, a militant group that fights against Israel and now heads the Palestinian government.
Citing the West's decision to cut off aid to the Hamas-led government because it refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel, bin Laden said Washington and Europe were waging war on Islam.
"The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist, crusaders' war on Islam," bin Laden said.
President Bush was told about the tape Sunday morning. The intelligence community has informed the White House that it believes the tape is authentic, said Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan.
"The al-Qaida leadership is on the run and under a lot of pressure," McClellan said at a Marine base in Twentynine Palms, Calif., where Bush was having lunch with military families.
"We are on the advance. They are on the run."
Al-Qaida is not believed to have direct links to Hamas, which is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri was quick to distance the group from bin Laden, declaring that "the ideology of Hamas is totally different from the ideology of Sheik bin Laden."
The groups do, however, share an anti-Israel ideology that calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. And recent reports in Middle East media have said al-Qaida is trying to build cells in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon and Sudan. Israel has indicted two West Bank militants for al-Qaida membership.
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Shoe bomber Richard Reid denies a central part of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui's testimony -- that the pair intended to hijack a passenger jet together and fly it into the White House during the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Jurors heard Reid's denial Thursday through a written statement substituted for his live testimony at Moussaoui's sentencing trial.
Reid said he was not aware of al Qaeda's 9/11 plan. He also said the terror group never asked him to work with Moussaoui.
"To date, there is no information available to indicate that Richard Reid had pre-knowledge of the September 11 attacks or was instructed by al Qaeda leadership to conduct an operation in coordination with Moussaoui," the statement said.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to the statement, known as a stipulation. Lawyers hammered out the wording in closed-door hearings after U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema withdrew a defense subpoena for Reid.
Reid was not in the United States in the spring and summer of 2001, the statement said.
At the time, Moussaoui urgently sought flight training, and 19 other al Qaeda operatives lived together in crews, making final preparations to hijack four planes and aim them at landmarks in New York and Washington.
Neither Moussaoui nor Reid was in contact with the 9/11 hijackers, according to the statement. Thus, the jury was told, it was "highly unlikely that Reid was part of their operation."
Moussaoui has called Reid "my buddy" in his testimony. During two stints in the witness stand, Moussaoui claimed he was training to pilot a Boeing 747 into the White House.
Reid, a friend from a London mosque and an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, would have been part of his hijacking crew, Moussaoui testified.
Defense attorneys say Moussaoui made up the story. They sought Reid's testimony to refute it.
In December 2001, Reid attempted to detonate explosives hidden in his sneakers on a flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida. Passengers thwarted his plan, and the plane landed safely in Boston, Massachusetts.
He pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in October 2002 and is serving a life sentence at the nation's super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.
The day before he went on his solo mission, Reid wrote a letter to his mother bequeathing his belongings to Moussaoui.
Moussaoui's defense rested shortly after the statement was read.
Prosecutors called psychiatrist Raymond Patterson, who has spent more time alone with Moussaoui than any other mental health professional.
He rebutted the testimony of defense experts who concluded Moussaoui was mentally ill.
"My opinion is that Mr. Moussaoui does not suffer from schizophrenia, and he has never suffered from schizophrenia," he told the jury.
Patterson also said that Moussaoui's dream that President Bush might release him is based on his Muslim faith, adding, "I don't believe as a psychiatrist I can declare his faith is delusional."
Earlier Thursday, seven more relatives of people killed in the attacks testified for Moussaoui's defense.
Like the half-dozen 9/11 family members who testified for the defense on Wednesday, they said they were not speaking out of anger or a need for vengeance.
Their testimony came in muted contrast to the heart-wrenching stories of the 9/11 families who testified for the government. They were not permitted not tell the jury whether they thought Moussaoui should be executed or not. None even mentioned his name in court.
Instead, they spoke of coping with loss and of honoring the memory of loved ones through scholarships and good deeds.
"I would like to be a voice for reconciliation in the world," said Alice Hoagland, mother of Mark Bingham, who was among the passengers who attempted to take back United Airlines Flight 93's cockpit from the hijackers. She said it took awhile for his death "to sink in."
"I tend to still speak of my son in the present tense. It's hard," she said. Since his death, the former flight attendant said she has become an advocate for improved airline security and has sought to understand radical Islam better.
Jennifer Glick's brother, Jeremy, a national collegiate judo champion, was also among the leaders of the Flight 93 passenger uprising. Glick said her family has started a not-for-profit foundation that helps children participate in sports and perform community service after school.
"Children are the easiest way to change our future," she said. "I would like us to remember the goodness he showed we all have inside us."
Andrea LeBlanc's husband, Robert, a geography professor, was aboard United Flight 175, the second plane to crash into the World Trade Center. She told the jury she thought her family was "really weird" compared with others who lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks.
"We don't dwell on 9/11," she said.
She described her husband's death as "the silent elephant" in the room when she and their five children get together. "There won't be tears, there won't be anger, there'll be lots of stories about Bob," she said.
Moussaoui is the only person tried in this country in connection with the September 11 attacks. The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy a year ago.
Jurors, who already have held Moussaoui responsible for at least some of the nearly 3,000 deaths on 9/11, must decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.
Some 9/11 families have said publicly that they don't want Moussaoui to receive the death penalty because it would make him a martyr.
Earlier, jurors heard from mental health experts who concluded that Moussaoui is a paranoid schizophrenic.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush sharply defended Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday, saying the embattled Pentagon chief is doing a "fine job" despite calls for his resignation from six retired military generals.
Bush already had interrupted his Easter vacation at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday to release a public statement of support for the defense secretary.
Despite a practice of not usually commenting on personnel moves, the president told reporters Tuesday that his vote of confidence for Rumsfeld was an effort to stamp out speculation about his status.
"You can understand why, because we've got people's reputations at stake," Bush said of his usual aversion to speculation about personnel matters.
"And on Friday I stood up and said, 'I don't appreciate the speculation about Don Rumsfeld; he's doing a fine job; I strongly support him.' "
Pressed to respond to critics who say he is ignoring the advice of respected former military commanders, Bush vigorously stood by Rumsfeld.
"I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision," he said. "And Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He's not only transforming the military, he's fighting a war on terror. He's helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld.
"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."
The president made the comments in the Rose Garden after introducing Rob Portman, the U.S. trade representative, as his pick to be the new White House budget director.
Bush also said he is nominating Portman's deputy, Susan Schwab, as the trade ambassador.
Later, in a briefing at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld fielded more questions about the calls for him to step down. He said that he's not considering doing so and suggested that his critics are uncomfortable with change in the military.
"The president knows that I serve at his pleasure and that's that," the defense secretary said.
Rumsfeld was asked why he had offered his resignation twice as details emerged about the abuse of prisoners by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and was not doing so now. He replied, "Oh, just call it idiosyncratic."
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Duncan Hunter, also issued a statement of "strong and continuing support" for Rumsfeld.
The California Republican said the secretary's decision on the size of the force needed to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "turned out to be sound."
"Clearly the lightning strike to Baghdad in 18 days validated Secretary Rumsfeld's invasion strategy," Hunter said. "With respect to the occupation, it is clear that asymmetric operations of the insurgents that focus mainly on roadside bombs and suicide bombers are not tactics which can be overwhelmed by simply increasing troop levels."
In the Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld presented a long list of developments of the past five years -- ranging from arms reduction agreements with Russia, to strengthening the role of special operations forces, to base closings -- and added, "Every one of those changes that I just described has met resistance."
Rumseld said he was proud of the changes he had made, and continued, "At the same time, we had a war in Afghanistan, we've got a war in Iraq, and we've got the global war on terror going on."
He said he understood that there would always be differences of opinion about his decisions regarding Iraq.
"That's a healthy thing in this country. We ought to respect it and get about our business.
"But if it paralyzes people because someone doesn't agree with them, my goodness gracious, we wouldn't be able to do anything," Rumsfeld said.
Recently, six retired generals -- including former commanders of two Army divisions that saw combat in Iraq -- have called for Rumsfeld to resign.
They accuse him of ignoring advice from senior officers about how to prosecute the war and sending too few troops into Iraq to manage the occupation after the March 2003 invasion.
Those calling for Rumsfeld's resignation are retired Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, who led the 82nd Airborne Division during its mission in Iraq; former U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Anthony Zinni; retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the 1st Infantry Division in northern Iraq in 2004-2005; retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton; retired Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs; and retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold.
Tuesday afternoon, Rumsfeld met with a group of about 15 retired generals and other military analysts who regularly appear on television and in newspapers. The meeting was apparently called in response to the recent uproar.
Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Donald Shepperd, a CNN military analyst who attended the session, said very little of the direct criticism of the secretary was discussed during the meeting, though it appeared that Rumsfeld was distracted by the retired generals' comments.
However, despite the criticism, Shepperd said, Rumsfeld and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to be upbeat.
"The secretary was really in a good mood, so was the chairman," Sheppard said. "These people are not troubled people. They are concerned people and they are concerned about what is going on."
According to Sheppard, Pace said he was surprised by the criticism of the policy in Iraq from the retired generals, because he said the commanders were invited to discuss the Iraq war plan while it was being formed.
When discussing the current status of the war, Rumsfeld and Pace pointed to the formation of an Iraqi government as the next key sign of progress in Iraq, Sheppard said. Negotiations on a unity government have been hampered by sectarian squabbles since the elections in December.
"They are happy with the progress of the Iraqi security forces," Sheppard said, but those forces "have to be loyal to an elected government that is competent."
"That's the most difficult challenge in Iraq," he said. "It's not the insurgency. It's the formation and election and performance of an Iraqi government that gains the confidence of the people, just like in this country."
The US has warned the Hamas-led Palestinian government against defending "terrorist acts" after a suicide bomber killed nine in Israel.
A spokesman called the bombing a "despicable act of terror" and said the Palestinian Authority was responsible for preventing such attacks.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the Palestinian Authority to take a firm stand against suicide bombings.
The blast at a Tel Aviv restaurant on Monday also left more than 50 injured.
Militant group Islamic Jihad said it was behind the bombing.
In the aftermath of the bombing, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a metal workshop in Gaza City. The Israeli army said the workshop was used by Palestinian militants to make rockets.
'Gravest effects'
The White House said it had noted reactions "by several Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas, that defend or even applaud the barbaric acts of terror committed in Tel Aviv".
"Defence or sponsorship of terrorist acts by officials of the Palestinian cabinet will have the gravest effects on relations between the Palestinian Authority and all states seeking peace in the Middle East," spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Earlier, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, but Hamas, which has been keeping a truce with Israel since taking power in the Palestinian Authority, described it as an act of self-defence.
Sami Abu Zuhri, the official spokesman for Hamas, said it was "a natural result of the continued Israeli crimes" against Palestinians.
"Our people are in a state of self-defence and they have every right to use all means to defend themselves," he added.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Gideon Meir, told the BBC he blamed Hamas.
"Now, maybe, the hands are not the hands of the Hamas, but the voice and the ideology is the ideology of the Hamas," he said.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US was now seeing "the true nature of this Hamas-led government".
He noted recent pledges from Qatar and Iran to give $50m (£28m) each in funds to the Palestinian Authority.
"We'd like to seek a little clarity from the government of Qatar as to exactly what their intentions are," he said.
'Dark cloud'
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he had urged Mr Abbas to take a firm stand on the issue of suicide bombing.
The US government has denied that it ignored expert advice in claiming that two Iraqi lorries were mobile biological warfare laboratories. The discovery of the vehicles prompted President George W Bush to state that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.
But the Washington Post says weapons experts had discounted this possibility two days earlier.
The White House said Mr Bush's comments were based on intelligence information.
The US and the UK cited WMD as the main justification for going to war in Iraq.
In October 2003, seven months after the invasion, the body set up by the US to search for WMD, the Iraq Survey Group, issued an interim report saying no such weapons had been found.
'Not ignored'
The two lorries were found by US and Kurdish forces in northern Iraq in April 2003.
On 29 May, Mr Bush said in an interview: "We found biological laboratories... They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.
"And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."
But according to the Washington Post, a secret fact-finding mission to Iraq had reported to the Pentagon two days earlier that the lorries had no link to biological warfare.
The newspaper says it talked to six of the nine US and UK officials and experts who took part of the mission. They reportedly said they did not want to be identified for fear putting their jobs at risk.
The intelligence report was classified and shelved in 2003, the paper says. It remains classified.
(CNN) -- A year after American businessman Jeffrey Ake was kidnapped in Iraq, his wife, Liliana, spoke publicly on Tuesday for the first time to plead for her husband's release.
"Please take the next step to release my husband and return his children's lives to normal," said Liliana Ake during an interview from her home in LaPorte, Indiana.
Jeffrey Ake, 48, was in Iraq helping to build a water bottling plant on April 11, 2005, when he was kidnapped from a work site near Baghdad.
"He was in Iraq making certain that the Iraqi people have fresh, good water to drink," she said.
Jeffrey Ake was last seen two days later when Arabic-language satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a video from insurgents that showed terrorists holding Ake at gunpoint.
There have been no public claims of responsibility for the kidnapping.
Over the last year, Liliana Ake, other family members, and business associates shunned attention from the news media out of fear for Ake's safety.
"Right now it's been the whole year and I think it's time," his wife said.
She said she was spurred to speak out by the powerful media campaign that may have helped free kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll.
Carroll -- who was held for nearly three months -- was freed unharmed in Baghdad on March 30. Three abducted humanitarian workers from Christian Peacemaker Teams were rescued unharmed in Iraq on March 23 after four months in captivity.
"I never actually doubted that Jeff is alive and I never doubted that Jill Carroll will be released and I am celebrating her release," Liliana Ake said. "I'm very happy for her."
Liliana Ake's statement for her husband's abductors said, "One year ago, Jeff Ake, my husband and father of four, was taken hostage, where he remains today. He was in Iraq making certain that the Iraqi people have fresh, good water to drink.
"To the individuals who are holding my husband, Jeff: You have had one year to know him. For that reason, Jeff's family and all our friends continue to believe Jeff is still alive. And you are responsible for his safety.
"When you kidnapped Jeff, you contacted me at my residence and we discussed matters of importance to us both. My telephone number remains the same and my willingness to continue this dialogue remains as strong as it was before.
"In order to resolve this matter and secure Jeff's release, you must call me again. Jeff should be able to give you the number. Please take the next step to release my husband and return his children's lives to normal."
During the interview she elaborated on the terrifying ordeal.
After Ake was whisked away, she said she heard from the kidnappers, who said "they were holding him and they would destroy him if I don't cooperate with them."
She said they called her at her home number, which came as quite a shock. She was able to verify that they had her husband because she asked the caller several questions and she received answers that only her husband would know.
She said the callers wanted money, but also made vague mention of political demands, including a reference to American troops.
However, she said she never heard from the callers again after May 1.
In the video that was aired on Al-Jazeera, Jeffrey Ake was seen being held by masked insurgents holding him at gunpoint.
"I ask my family and friends to demonstrate and speak directly to the American government to open discussions with the Iraqi national resistance," Jeffrey Ake said on the video.
Liliana Ake said, "When I looked at that picture, I was shocked and I prayed that Jeff would be safely released."
During the time since the abduction, she said, it has been "a very, very hard year."
"I haven't slept all year. I wake up in the middle of the night at 1 and I cannot sleep."
"The children are suffering" and are afraid, she said, noting that birthdays have come and gone and Christmas was "never the same."
Her decision to go public has been a tough one.
She didn't make any moves because she was "afraid for Jeff's life. I did not know whether my request or plea would help him or harm him."
Last year, a few days after he was kidnapped, a candlelight prayer vigil that had been scheduled in LaPorte was canceled amid concerns for Ake's safety.
The people in northwestern Indiana, horrified by the abduction, have expressed their solidarity in small but poignant ways.
They have said prayers for Ake before City Council meetings, put up red, white and blue ribbons or images of them with the phrase, "Jeff, Come Home Safe!" and erected signs on windows and letter boards urging people to remember and pray for him.
But after a year, Ake's profile has dimmed on the world stage, in comparison with Carroll, for example, whose family members, friends and colleagues swung into action with a massive, sustained campaign to prompt the release of the freelance journalist.
Liliana Ake said she agreed that the Carroll's public strategy worked and "that's why I decided to go public as well."
Before his kidnapping, Ake earned the admiration of his business peers and Indiana neighbors.
He has been devoted to helping the developing world with its water infrastructure, admired for building a productive company and involved in community work that helps the less fortunate.
According to Marquis Who's Who, Ake has been involved in such volunteer programs as the Big Brothers and Big Sisters, the Jaycees, and a program to help reform prison inmates.
He founded his company, Equipment Express, in 1995.
The company -- which says it has had "extraordinary growth" and has more than doubled "in size each year since its inception" -- has been honored for its growth and performance by the Indiana University Kelley School of Business's Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Ake imparted his business ideas in a book he wrote 10 years ago -- "Aggressive Exporting: How To Make Your Small Company into an International Tiger."
Liliana Ake said her husband has been all over the world in his work, traveling to more than 60 countries, including Egypt, Kuwait and Iraq. She said he was making his second visit to Iraq when he was kidnapped.
For Iraq, the company built a machine that fills containers of cooking oil and a system to provide water bottling services.
"He embraced every culture," Liliana Ake said.
Asked what she would want to say to her husband if he could hear her, she said "I would like to tell him I love him and I want him back."
She thanked everybody across the country who has prayed for her and sent encouraging letters.
"Please keep on praying for us."
Two German engineers abducted in Iraq have made a desperate appeal for help in the first video released by their captors since the end of January.
"We're at the end of our nerves, please help us, we can't take it any more," said Thomas Nitzschke, speaking directly into the camera.
He was shown beside Rene Braeunlich, both bearded and wearing T-shirts.
In an internet statement, their captors issued a threat to kill them if US forces did not release Iraqi prisoners.
Describing the men as "German agents", they said they would be killed if men and women were not freed from the "occupation prisons".
Germany, they added, should stop "all support rendered to the Americans and their supporters".
No deadline was given. The video released in January was accompanied by a similar ultimatum, setting a three-day deadline.
The new video, posted on the internet on Sunday, bears a time signature of 28 March.
Contact established
Mr Braeunlich's mother, Ingeborg, Braeunlich said from Leipzig she was relieved to find out that her son was still alive but upset to see "that they are afraid".
The two engineers were kidnapped near an oil refinery compound in northern Iraq on 24 January by a group calling itself Ansar al-Tawhid wa al-Sunnah.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the kidnapping.
"I can assure you that we will do everything possible within our power to save the life of the hostages and to get the hostages back and free to Germany," she told reporters on Sunday.
Germany made contact with the kidnappers after video released in January but did not give any details.
Dozens of foreign hostages are being held in Iraq, as well as hundreds of Iraqi citizens seized by insurgents and criminal gangs.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Horrific scenes from the Sept. 11 attacks gripped a federal courtroom here Thursday. Prosecutors pushing for the execution of al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui showed video of people leaping from the burning World Trade Center and offered dramatic accounts of loss and heartbreak.
In one of the day's most poignant moments, prosecutor Robert Spencer quoted a conversation between a fire dispatcher and victim Melissa Doi, 32, who worked on the 82nd floor of the Trade Center's south tower: "All I see is smoke," Doi told the dispatcher. "I'm going to die, aren't I? I'm going to die."
The emotional session ended with the halting testimony of Chanda Shekhar Kalahasti, who recited a suicide note left by his sister, Prasanna. She was so devastated by the death of her husband, Vamsi Pendyala, a passenger on the first hijacked jet to hit the Trade Center, that she hanged herself a month after the attacks.
"I am extremely sorry," Prasanna wrote on Oct. 17, 2001. "I want to be with my hubby. Please understand, I cannot live without him."
Kalahasti's voice broke as he read the note. When he was done, some jurors looked stricken, and several people in the courtroom's packed gallery wept.
Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty last year to terrorism conspiracy and is the only person to be tried in the USA in the 9/11 attacks, appeared unmoved. After U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema and the jury left the court, he called out: "No pain, no gain, America!"
Prosecutors, seeking to show the emotional and economic damage the attacks inflicted on the USA and families across the nation, earlier drew riveting testimony from former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who recalled the shock of seeing people jump to their deaths from the flaming Trade Center towers.
"My eyes caught a man on the 100th floor," he said. "I was watching the man leap out, fleeing the smoke. Then I saw seven more people jumping. Some appeared to be holding hands. That's the (memory) that comes back every day."
Giuliani testified after prosecutors and Moussaoui's lawyers revealed their strategies for the final phase of Moussaoui's sentencing trial. The trial will determine whether he is executed or gets life in prison for conspiring with al-Qaeda to kill nearly 3,000 people.
Prosecutors say Moussaoui, a French citizen who was jailed on immigration charges three weeks before the attacks, should be executed because he lied to investigators to allow the plot to go forward.
Spencer told jurors they would hear from victims' relatives, including those of Christine Hanson, a 2-year-old girl who was on a jet that hit the Trade Center: "You will hear many voices of pain, anguish and death that have haunted and will haunt us for years."
Moussaoui attorney Gerald Zerkin indicated the defense will try to save Moussaoui's life — and explain why the defendant testified that he was to have piloted a jet into the White House on Sept. 11 — by claiming Moussaoui was mentally ill and delusional.
"The loss and the pain that the victim witnesses will describe are unimaginable," Zerkin told jurors. He urged them to "maintain your equilibrium" and "open yourselves to a sentence other than death."
Prosecutors called a half-dozen witnesses who told of their pain and loss. New York police Officer James Smith broke down when describing his wife, Moira, an officer who died evacuating people from the Trade Center. "The loss to Pat, I can't begin to explain," Smith said, referring to his young daughter. "I will tell her that her mom is a hero and she died trying to save others."
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Rudy Giuliani, who led New York through its darkest days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, will be among the first witnesses when the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui resumes on Thursday, CNN has learned.
In addition, the lone cockpit voice recorder recovered from the four hijacked planes will be played publicly for the first time, the judge has ruled.
Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who some consider a possible presidential candidate in 2008, will testify about the impact of 9/11 as a witness for the government.
Besides the 2,749 lives lost as the twin towers of the World Trade Center burned and fell, prosecutors intend to show how the attacks disrupted New York's government and economy. The deaths of 343 firefighters also are part of that evidence.
Giuliani may offer compelling testimony about a fire rescue unit captain who died, Terry Hatton. Hatton's wife, Beth Petrone, was Giuliani's executive assistant for 17 years, and Giuliani officiated at the couple's marriage.
Moussaoui's attorneys and federal prosecutors met behind closed doors Wednesday with U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to finalize the emotional evidence that will be introduced in the coming weeks.
Brinkema ordered that jurors can hear the cockpit voice recorder from United Flight 93 -- the Newark to San Francisco flight that crashed in a reclaimed coal field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Relatives of the 40 passengers and crew who have heard the 31-minute tape say it confirms a heroic uprising in which passengers turned on the hijackers.
Prosecutors invited Flight 93 families to hear the tape at a special briefing in 2002, when the Moussaoui trial was originally scheduled to begin.
Jurors already have heard a partial transcript of American Airlines flight attendant Betty Ong telling the airline's customer service center about stabbings and the spraying of mace near the front of the plane as the first plane headed toward the Trade Center.
"We can't even get up to business class right now 'cause nobody can breathe," Ong said at the start of the four-and-half-minute call.
The jury found Moussaoui eligible for the death penalty on Monday, concluding that lies he told federal agents interrogating him a month before the attacks directly contributed to some of the nearly 3,000 deaths on September 11.
The panel of nine men and three women must now decide whether Moussaoui should die by injection, the only form of execution permitted in the federal system.
Moussaoui, 37, a French national of Moroccan descent, admitted last year that he conspired with al Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for September 11, to hijack and crash planes into prominent U.S. buildings.
Until he testified at his trial, Moussaoui insisted he had no role in the plot or advance knowledge of specific plot details.
But on the witness stand, Moussaoui said he knew in advance of the plan to crash planes into the World Trade Center and was to pilot a fifth plane into the White House on September 11.
Moussaoui's self-incriminating testimony severely damaged the defense case. His attorneys suggest that Moussaoui hopes to become an al Qaeda martyr.
The pain and suffering of the 9/11 families is one of 10 "aggravating factors" prosecutors will set out to prove to justify a death sentence. The physical and emotional harm to survivors is another. As many as 40 witnesses are prepared to testify about the attack's impact on them and their families.
The federal death penalty statute requires the government to prove that Moussaoui's lies to protect the terror conspiracy caused grave risk of death and were committed in a heinous, cruel, depraved manner with substantial planning and premeditation.
Additionally, prosecutors intend to prove Moussaoui shows no remorse and exploited educational opportunities in a free society for violent means when he trained at U.S. flight schools.
Besides the deaths, prosecutors intend to show that the attacks disrupted the functions of the Pentagon and of New York's government and economy.
Meanwhile, Moussaoui's mother is not expected to testify for the defense, CNN has learned. Aicha el-Wafi recently wrote the judge, but the letter's contents have not been disclosed.
El-Wafi, 59, a retired telecommunications worker who lives in southern France, attended three days of the trial's first phase. In an interview with CNN that week, she said she feared her son would be made "a scapegoat" for September 11.
"He's right to choose death instead of staying and dying like a rat in a hole," el-Wafi told French 2 television after the verdict, according to a translation.
Moussaoui's defense team is planning witnesses and evidence about their client's mental health. They may include a pair of Washington psychiatrists who were in court to observe Moussaoui's testimony.
One defense expert has concluded that Moussaoui suffers from a thought disorder, probably schizophrenia, according to court papers.
A social worker is expected to describe Moussaoui's troubled family history and their mistreatment as North African immigrants in France.
The jury in the US trial of confessed al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui has decided he is eligible to face the death penalty when he is sentenced.
A second phase of hearings will now take place, beginning on Thursday, to determine if he should be executed.
As the jury's verdict was announced in court, Moussaoui shouted: "You'll never get my blood, God curse you all."
Prosecutors argue he should be executed because he lied about the 9/11 plot. His defence say he knew very little.
Moussaoui has pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to attack the US.
In order to deem him eligible for the death penalty, the jurors had to agree that Moussaoui's actions led directly to at least one death on 11 September 2001.
He was detained three weeks before the attacks but is accused of concealing the plot from FBI agents.
'Mentally ill'
The sentencing trial now enters a second phase - expected to take several months - in which testimony will be heard from relatives of people who died in the terror attacks.
The jury must then retire for a second time to consider whether to impose the death penalty.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- After nearly three months in captivity in Iraq, journalist Jill Carroll returned Sunday to the United States and was reunited with her family.
"I finally feel like I am alive again. I feel so good," the 28-year-old reporter for the Christian Science Monitor said Sunday, according to an article published on the newspaper's Web site.
"To be able to step outside anytime, to feel the sun directly on your face -- to see the whole sky. These are luxuries that we just don't appreciate every day."
The article said she and her parents and twin sister, Katie, reunited at an undisclosed Boston location amid "long hugs and joyful tears."
Carroll arrived shortly after noon at Boston's Logan International Airport aboard a Lufthansa flight.
"We are very grateful to all those who made this happy event possible. When Jill is ready, the Monitor will begin to tell her story," a spokesman for the paper said.
"Hopefully, the Carroll family's privacy will be respected," he said.
Upon her arrival, Carroll was taken first to the newspaper's editorial complex in Boston and from there went to an apartment to meet with relatives and friends in private.
Carroll was abducted January 7 and freed by her captors Thursday in Baghdad.
The Monitor said she was debriefed Friday by members of the U.S. Hostage Working Group in Baghdad.
She departed Baghdad early Saturday accompanied by a Monitor correspondent, a State Department official and two U.S. military officials on a C-17 military flight to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
After her release, she was shown on video praising Iraq's insurgents, a tape she denounced Saturday before leaving Germany.
The video, made by Carroll's captors shortly before she was let go, appeared on an Islamist Web site. In it, Carroll said President Bush should stop the "illegal" war in Iraq and that the insurgents ultimately would prevail.
CNN cannot authenticate the source of the video. It is not clear when or where it was taped.
On Saturday, Carroll said in a statement released by the Monitor that she was forced to film the propaganda video as the price for her freedom.
In her statement, Carroll thanked everyone who worked for her release, but devoted a significant portion of the statement to defending herself against criticism regarding the video, in which she said the insurgents were "very smart" and had treated her well.
"During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video," she wrote. "They told me they would let me go if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. I agreed.
"Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not."
She even lambasted her captors, who allegedly killed her interpreter, Alan Enwiya, when they abducted her in western Baghdad in January.
"They robbed Alan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends -- and all those around the world, who have prayed so fervently for my release -- through a horrific experience," she wrote. "I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this."
Carroll also said that, in a television interview with the Iraqi Islamic Party shortly after her release Thursday, she was still afraid of retribution from her captors and did not speak freely.
"Out of fear, I said I wasn't threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times," she said.
Saying she wants to be regarded as a journalist, not a hostage, Carroll said she would not engage in polemics against her kidnappers, "but let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes."
Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years, had no criticism for the way Carroll handled the matter.
"This was a young woman who found herself in a terrible, terrible position, and we are glad she's home," the Arizona Republican said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"We understand, when you're held a captive in that kind of situation, that you do things under duress," McCain said.
"I would not take them seriously, I would not, any more than we took seriously other tapes and things that were done in other prison situations, including the Vietnam war."
Carroll was working as a freelancer when she was abducted. The Monitor's editor said he hired her as a staff reporter during the time she was being held so she would be eligible for full benefits.
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AP) — Gone was the Islamic headscarf she had worn as a hostage in Iraq. Also gone were the descriptions of a benign captivity — one that involved no threats and no weapons.
"I'm happy to be here," freed journalist Jill Carroll said after arriving on a regularly scheduled flight from Iraq to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
In Germany, far from the place where she had been held hostage for 82 days, Jill Carroll's statement was an angry disavowal of statements she had made during captivity and shortly after her release.
"During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me I would be released if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. So I agreed," she said in a statement read by her editor in Boston. "Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not."
In the video, posted by her captors on an Islamist website, Carroll spoke out against the U.S. military presence. But in her statement Saturday, she said the recording was made under threat. Her editor has said three men were pointing guns at her at the time.
Carroll arrived in Germany on Saturday on a U.S. military transport plane on her way back to the United States and was expected in Boston on Sunday. In place of the Islamic headscarf she had worn in the videos and the full-length robe, she wore jeans and a gray sweater.
The 28-year-old journalist — a freelancer for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor— was seized Jan. 7 in western Baghdad by gunmen who killed her Iraqi translator. She was dropped off Thursday at an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab organization, and later escorted by the U.S. military to the Green Zone, the fortified compound in Baghdad protecting the U.S. embassy and other facilities. In the statement, Carroll also disavowed an interview she gave to the party shortly after her release. She said the party had promised her the interview would not be aired "and broke their word."
"At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear, I said I wasn't threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times," she said. "Also, at least two false statements about me have been widely aired: One — that I refused to travel and cooperate with the U.S. military, and two — that I refused to discuss my captivity with U.S. officials. Again, neither statement is true." The remarks have drawn criticism from conservative bloggers and commentators, but the Monitor said "Carroll did what many hostage experts and past captives would have urged her to do: Give the men who held the power of life and death over her what they wanted."
Carroll has said her kidnappers confined her to a small, soundproof room with frosted, opaque windows. After a day in seclusion, she left Balad Air Base near Baghdad on Saturday on a plane also carrying several wounded soldiers. Carroll smiled and peered with bemusement through the cockpit window at the dozens of television cameras on the tarmac at Ramstein Air Force Base. "I'm happy to be here," she said to Col. Kurt Lohide, the U.S. officer who greeted her.
Carroll, who had studied Arabic, attracted a huge amount of sympathy during her ordeal, and a wide variety of groups in the Middle East, including the Islamic militant group Hamas, appealed for her release. Aside from the short interview aired on Iraqi television upon her release, Carroll had otherwise not shown herself in public prior to her brief appearance Saturday.
The kidnappers, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all female detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 or Carroll would be killed. U.S. officials did release some female detainees at the time, but said it had nothing to do with the demands.
In the video posted Friday, her abductors said they freed Carroll because "the American government met some of our demands by releasing some of our women from prison." Also in the video, she called on President Bush to bring American troops home.
"Tens of thousands ... have lost their lives here because of the occupation," she said in the video. "I think Americans need to think about that and realize day-to-day how difficult life is here." She said the insurgents were "only trying to defend their country ... to stop an illegal and dangerous and deadly occupation."
In her statement Saturday, however, she condemned her captors, although she did not address the war in Iraq. "I will not engage in polemics. But let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes," she said.
The Monitor's editor, Richard Bergenheim, said Friday that Carroll's parents told him the video was "conducted under duress." "When you're making a video and having to recite certain things with three men with machine guns standing over you, you're probably going to say exactly what you're told to say," Bergenheim told ABC television.
Bergenheim said Saturday there were no negotiations that he knew of for Carroll's release and no ransom was paid. The paper hired her a week after she kidnapped. He said she was on her way home and "her family is just absolutely rejoicing."
It was unclear precisely when Carroll would arrive. According to Richard Walsh, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, Carroll was to land at Logan International Airport in Boston late Sunday morning. In her statement, Carroll thanked those who had helped secure her release and said she wanted time to recover. "I ask for the time to heal. This has been a taxing 12 weeks for me and for my family," she said. "Please allow us some quiet time alone, together."
NEW YORK (AP) -- Emergency operators listening to trapped callers' heartbreaking pleas from the burning World Trade Center repeatedly said help was on the way while they struggled with crashing computers, utter confusion and their own emotions, several hours of emergency calls released Friday show.
In releasing the 130 calls, city officials edited out the voices of those who sought help. But the police and fire dispatchers often repeated the callers' words, reflecting the fear and chaos of the morning of September 11, 2001.
The first call came seconds after terrorists flew a hijacked jetliner into the north tower of the trade center at 8:46 a.m. A second plane struck the south tower 17 minutes later, and by 10:28 both towers had collapsed, leaving 2,749 people dead.
Dispatchers assured the callers -- most of them on floors above the burning plane wreckage -- that help was coming, or already there. In many cases, they had little to offer but compassion.
"OK, ma'am. All right," a fire dispatcher told a caller at 9:05 a.m., two minutes after the second tower was hit. "Well, everybody is there now. We're trying to rescue everybody. OK?"
Twelve minutes later, another dispatcher told a frantic caller trapped on the 105th floor of the south tower to instruct people to put wet towels over their mouths, lie on the floor and not open the windows.
"We are trying to get up there, sir. Like you said, the stairs are collapsed, OK?" the dispatcher said. "I know it's hard to breathe. I know it is."
The transcripts and nearly nine hours of audio recordings were released after The New York Times and relatives of September 11 victims sued to get them. An appeals court ruled last year that the calls of victims in the burning twin towers were too intense and emotional to be released without their families' consent.
As a result, the transcripts held long blank spaces where the callers' words would have appeared.
Often, it was clear from conversations between police and fire department operators that they were not sure what had occurred. At one point a police operator told a fire dispatcher that a helicopter had hit one of the towers.
The operators managed generally to maintain their composure even as word spread that what initially appeared to be a tragic accident was actually a choreographed terrorist attack involving two planes and both towers.
Sirens screamed in the background as the callers pleaded for help. Although there were no voices, their desperation was evident in heavy, audible breathing on the other end of the operators' calls.
"If you feel like your life is in danger, do what you must do, OK?" one dispatcher told a caller at 9:02 a.m., just a minute before the second plane hit. "I can't give you any more advice than that."
The comment was typical of the frustration that came through amid the calm professionalism.
"All right, we have quite a few calls," said a fire operator.
"I know," said a police operator. "Jesus Christ."
Many dispatchers complained about computers failing in the chaos.
"Oh goodness. Hold on a second, because we are so backed up here," a fire dispatcher told one caller. "Because we have so much information on here, that our computers are down. OK?"
In the background of another call made from the 105th floor of the north tower at 9:17 a.m., a public address announcement could be heard in the background: "We aware of it down here. The condition seems to have subsided."
Sally Regenhard, one of the plaintiffs whose firefighter son was killed on September 11, said the tapes showed that the operators were untrained to tell people how to save their lives.
"I'm hoping that the public and the system will learn how unprepared the City of New York and the Port Authority were on that day," Regenhard said.
Many of the operators told frantic callers to stay put and wait for help, which fire dispatcher supervisor David Rosenzwieg said is standard procedure in high-rises when fires break out on lower floors.
"Telling people to stay -- for some reason people think that's the wrong thing to do," Rosenzwieg said Friday. "But the same instructions saves lives every day."
Rosenzwieg said some dispatchers were so traumatized by their encounters with the trade center victims they never came back to the job. Others retired early. "Unfortunately, they took it very much to heart," he said.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the police emergency operators "displayed professionalism and compassion under the most trying of circumstances, often staying on the line with anguished callers until the very end."
At 9:47 a.m., one police operator did exactly that, telling another unidentified caller, "Yes, I'm here, I'm not going to go nowhere. ... You know there are people there trying to get you all out right now, all right? You're not by yourself."
The dispatcher then took a telephone number of the caller's family and promised to reach them. Then the call went dead: "And who is this? Hello?"
The first transcripts released as part of the Times lawsuit came last August, when thousands of pages of oral histories of firefighters and emergency workers, as well as radio transmissions, were released. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the trade center and has its own police force, released all its emergency recordings in 2003.
The September 11 commission concluded in 2004 that the operators did not have enough information to allow more people to escape from the twin towers.
"Are they still standing?" one dispatcher asked at 10:15 a.m., 16 minutes after the south tower collapsed. "The World Trade Center is there, right?"
A US reporter held hostage in Iraq for more than two months has been freed.
Jill Carroll, who works for the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor, was abducted by unknown gunmen in west Baghdad on 7 January.
She told Iraqi television she had been treated well and was looking forward to being reunited with her family.
The US ambassador to Iraq said no ransom was paid by the US embassy. Ms Carroll's release came a week after three other Westerners were freed.
"I'm just happy to be free. I just want to be with my family," Ms Carroll said in a brief interview in English shown on Baghdad television.
"I don't know why I was kidnapped," said the 28-year-old journalist, who was wearing a headscarf.
Ms Carroll said she had been only allowed to move between her room and the bathroom.
'Safe place'
However, she stressed that her captors treated her "very well".
"They never hit me. I was kept in a safe place with nice furniture, plenty of food. I was allowed to take showers," she said.
Ms Carroll's family said in a statement that they were elated.
The editor of the Christian Science Monitor, Richard Bergenheim, said all the newspaper's staff were "thrilled" at the news.
US President George Bush responded to the news of Ms Carroll's release with the words: "Thank God."
He added: "I'm really grateful she was released and thank those who worked hard for her release."
Embassy informed
Recalling the circumstances of her release, Ms Carroll said her captors "just came to me and said: 'We're letting you go'".
Iraqi police said Ms Carroll had been dropped off at the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party in western Baghdad and was in good health.
US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters he was informed about the release at about 1300 local time and went to meet her.
"She is safe, she is free and she appears in good health and great spirits," Mr Khalilzad said after the meeting.
He added that none of the hostage takers had been captured and that no ransom was paid by the US embassy.
Mr Bergenheim said it appeared that US troops played no part in Ms Carroll's release.
An Iraqi government source quoted by Reuters news agency said that Ms Carroll was being cared for in Baghdad's heavily guarded government compound, the Green Zone.
Demands
Ms Carroll was kidnapped in Baghdad's western Adil district while going to interview the senior Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her interpreter was killed.
Her captors, who called themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq.
They had threatened to execute her if their demands were not met by a 26 February deadline.
At least 230 foreigners, and thousands of Iraqis, have been taken hostage in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.
About 50 of the foreigners have been killed by their captors and the whereabouts of another 90, including six Americans, remain unknown.
A US court has sentenced a US citizen convicted of plotting to kill President George W Bush and conspiring to support al-Qaeda to 30 years in jail.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 25, was found guilty on all nine counts in November, including conspiracy to hijack a plane.
The Arab-American student was held in Saudi Arabia in 2003 and reportedly confessed to membership of al-Qaeda.
His defence team said he was tortured and forced to confess, but the judge refused to disallow the confession.
"The court is sentencing you to 360 months, which is 30 years in prison," said US District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Virginia.
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, but Judge Lee said that Abu Ali's actions "did not result in one single actual victim" and no weapons were found in his possession.
"That fact must be taken into account," the judge said.
Torture claims
Abu Ali was detained in Saudi Arabia in June 2003 and held there until February 2005, when he was returned to the US and charged.
Prosecutors alleged that he aimed to establish an al-Qaeda cell similar to the one that carried out the 11 September 2001 attacks.
The charges said Abu Ali would shoot Mr Bush on the street or detonate a car bomb.
Prosecutors said that he made contact with al-Qaeda while studying at university in Medina, Saudi Arabia, in 2001.
In Saudi Arabia, he signed confessions and made statements admitting to the plot against Mr Bush and to having ties to an al-Qaeda cell.
But in court he pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying he made up the confessions after being tortured by Saudi authorities.
Prosecutors denied he was mistreated.
Abu Ali was born in Houston and raised in Falls Church, Virginia.
Freed hostage Norman Kember has thanked the soldiers who rescued him from kidnappers in Iraq after being reunited with his wife Pat at Heathrow airport.
But the peace campaigner - criticised earlier for apparently failing to thank the rescuers - restated his opposition to foreign troops in the country.
He also said he needed to reflect on whether he was "foolhardy or rational" to have gone to Iraq last year.
Mr Kember, 74, of Pinner, London, and two Canadians were held for 117 days.
Tribute paid
Reading from a hand-written statement, Mr Kember said he was not ready to speak about his experience "except to say that I am delighted to be free and reunited with my family".
"In reality it was my wife who was kidnapped last November," he added.
The FBI may have tracked 11 of the 9/11 hijackers if the only person to be charged for the attacks had co-operated when first arrested, a court has heard.
Ex-FBI agent and now prosecutor Aaron Zebley said a major probe would have been launched if Zacarias Moussaoui had provided information in August 2001.
Mr Zebley was testifying as the prosecution rested its case in its argument for the death penalty.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty last April to six charges of conspiracy.
As he left the court in Alexandria, Virginia, at the end of the prosecution's argument, Moussaoui, who has consistently refused to co-operate with his court-appointed defence lawyers, shouted at one of them: "I will testify... whether you want it or not."
'Right to silence'
Mr Zebley had testified that the FBI could have tracked down 11 of the hijackers via phone cards, wire transfers and by investigating flight schools if Moussaoui had said a plot was under way.
"You've got 11 different names. We could have set about finding them, of course, shared information with the intelligence community and... federal law enforcement," Mr Zebley said.
He said Moussaoui did later provide information on the 11 after pleading guilty.
Defence lawyer Edward MacMahon argued that no such investigation would have been launched, saying the FBI had failed to track down two hijackers it did have knowledge of.
The defence also argues that Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin, did not have to supply information as he had the right to remain silent.
Moussaoui admits conspiracy to hijack aircraft and commit other crimes but denies a direct role in the 11 September attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
The jury only has two choices - the death penalty or life imprisonment.
The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 accused headquarters of criminal negligence for its refusal to investigate Moussaoui aggressively after his arrest, according to court testimony Monday.
Agent Harry Samit testified under cross-examination at Moussaoui's trial that FBI headquarters' refusal to follow up "prevented a serious opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks" that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Moussaoui is the only person charged in this country in the attacks.
The FBI's actions between Moussaoui's arrest on immigration violations on Aug. 16, 2001, and Sept. 11, 2001, are crucial to his trial because prosecutors allege that Moussaoui's lies prevented the FBI from thwarting or at least minimizing the Sept. 11 attacks. Prosecutors must prove that Moussaoui's actions caused the death of at least one person on 9/11 to obtain a death penalty.
But CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart reports that analysts, as well as Samit's testimony, suggest the FBI had enough trouble connecting dots even if Moussaoui admitted being an al Qaeda terrorist.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Edward MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he warned higher-ups and others in the government at least 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist, CBS News correspondent Barry Bagnato reports.
He said he sought Justice Department permission to seek a search warrant Eand never got it.
"You needed people in Washington to help you out?" MacMahon asked.
"Yes," Samit said.
"They didn't do that, did they?"
Samit said no.
He confirmed under questioning that he had attributed FBI inaction to "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism" in an earlier report.
One FBI supervisor in Washington told Samit that he was getting unnecessarily "spun up" about his concerns over Moussaoui.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al Qaeda to hijack aircraft and commit other crimes. The sentencing trial will determine his punishment: death or life in prison.
Moussaoui denies he had anything to do with 9/11 and says he was training for a future attack.
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Recruits at Osama bin Ladenfs terrorist training camps in Afghanistan were clamoring for suicide missions against the United States more than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to al-Qaida documents declassified by the U.S. Defense Department.
One document published on the Pentagon Web site this week contained rare criticism of bin Laden from an al-Qaida operative, who accused the terrorist leader of monopolizing decision-making and ignoring advice. gWe must completely stop outside operations until we sit down and consider the disaster we have caused,h said the operative, who used the name Abdel Halim Adel.
Adel appealed to a friend in the al-Qaida leadership to steer the group away from the policies of bin Laden, whom he referred to as Abu Abdullah. gStop foreign operations, stop sending people to detention, and stop planning new operations, whether they are ordered by Abu Abdullah or not,h he wrote.
The documents provide a rare glimpse of the mentality and training of recruits at al-Qaidafs camps in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was based until late 2001. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, the United States threw its weight behind opponents of the Taliban regime that hosted bin Laden. While the camps in Afghanistan have been destroyed, many of those who trained there have returned to their home countries, taking al-Qaidafs ideology and tactics with them.
Documents seized during recent operations The U.S. military said the documents, published Wednesday, were gcaptured during recent operations.h Some were seized in the 2003 invasion of Iraq but many, according to U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, were found in Afghanistan. gWhy have the martyrdom operations against the Americans been delayed?h one recruit wrote on a calendar page dated July 8, 2000. Another recruit referred to the 1998 suicide attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 231 people, saying: gWe look forward to martyrdom operations like the ones in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. What are the characteristics of the man that is required to execute such operations?h
A third recruit asked the leadership why it disapproved of assassination: gWhy do you oppose and find it inappropriate, knowing that it cleansed many tyrants?h The recruits called bin Laden gsheik,h a clerical title. But it was not clear whether their questions were addressed to him or to one of his lieutenants. gOur sheik, you have previously given us lessons and asked the question: eHow do we drive the infidels out of the Arabian Peninsula?hf a recruit said in one document. He then asked: gIs striking at the origin (America) the priority or is it driving them out (of Saudi Arabia)?h
Safety concerns
The documents show al-Qaida members were concerned about their safety and the safety of their families, although they embraced suicide attacks. Adel, the operative who criticized bin Laden, protests the leadershipfs posting on the Internet of a letter in which he sent kisses to his children. gPlease quickly take it off because I think the whole world now knows how many kids I have and their names,h he wrote.
A recruit said a reconnaissance plane had been spotted over the camp and asked: gWhy arenft there enough personal weapons (Kalashnikov rifles) for the self-defense of all the holy warriors, particularly as an attack on the camp by the global infidels is possible anytime?h
Letter believed to be from bin Laden
Bin Laden is thought to have written one of the documents — a letter to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. It is not clear whether the letter was written before or after Omar was overthrown. Bin Laden told Omar that if they continued attacks in the gIslamic republicsh — apparently Muslim-dominated areas of the former Soviet Union — it will gkeep the enemies busy and divert them away from the Afghan issue and ease the pressure.h
gIt is a fact that the region of the Islamic republics is rich with significant scientific experience in conventional and non-conventional military industries, which will have a great role in future holy war against the enemies of Islam,h the letter said. It was not specific about the type of non-conventional armaments, but seemed to refer to biological and chemical warfare.
The letter also addressed the importance of communicating with the media, a matter on which Mullah Omar would have disagreed. The Taliban leader was known for refusing press interviews and avoiding cameras.
gIt is obvious that the media war in this century is one of the strongest methods (of struggle). In fact, its ratio may reach 90 percent of the total preparation for battles,h bin Laden wrote. The release of the documents, which is expected to continue for months, is designed to allow U.S. lawmakers and the public to investigate issues such as what Saddam Husseinfs Iraqi regime said about weapons of mass destruction.
The Pentagon cautioned it has made gno determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy.h
The US will not shy away from attacking regimes it considers hostile, or groups it believes have nuclear or chemical weapons, the White House has confirmed.
In the first restatement of national security strategy since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US singles out Iran as the greatest single current danger.
The new policy backs the policy of pre-emptive war first issued in 2002, and criticised since the Iraq war.
But it stresses that the US aims to spread democracy through diplomacy.
The new strategy also highlights a string of other global issues of concern to the US, such as the spread of Aids, the threat of pandemic flu and the prospect of natural and environmental disasters.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is due to make a speech launching the new strategy on Thursday.
Seven despots
The substance of the revised strategy focuses on the challenges facing the US in the wake of the Iraq war.
In a nod to previous high-level foreign policy statements, which singled out individual countries as potential enemies of the US, the new document highlights seven "despotic" states.
They are: North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Burma and Zimbabwe.
The policy of the US, according to the opening words of the 49-page document, is "to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world".
These motives underpin US policy towards the continuing stand-off over Iran's nuclear programme, the document says.
But it stresses that continuing diplomatic efforts must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided, vowing to take "all necessary measures" to protect US interests against Iran.
'Bush doctrine'
The new document, overseen and approved by Mr Bush, leaves the so-called "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war largely unchanged.
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) -- A federal aviation security official told a court Tuesday improper coaching by a U.S. government lawyer would not affect her testimony in the death penalty trial of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
"I know what I know," said Lynne Osmus, who was head of security for the Federal Aviation Administration on September 11, 2001.
Osmus was among seven federal aviation witnesses called to a hearing to determine whether the government can proceed with its death-penalty case against Moussaoui.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said she was trying to determine "the extent to which the aviation witnesses have been tainted" by the conduct of government attorney Carla J. Martin, who coached them on their coming trial testimony.
Martin also was summoned to the hearing, but had her questioning delayed when she told the judge she had not been able to arrange for her own lawyer.
Brinkema had warned her that "you violated a court order and could be held in civil or criminal contempt," and directed her to return with a lawyer by Wednesday morning.
At a hearing without the jury present, defense attorney Edward MacMahon asked Osmus if her testimony would be affected by receiving an e-mail last week in which Martin said the government's opening trial statement left gaps large enough to "to drive a truck through."
"No, because I know what I know," she replied.
Earlier she told prosecutor David Novak the e-mails received from Martin would have "absolutely no impact" on her coming testimony. The e-mail was sent in violation of Brinkema's rule that witnesses should not see trial transcripts or follow the case
Brinkema suspended Moussaoui's sentencing trial Monday, castigating the government for witness coaching.
Martin, from the Transportation Security Administration, was subsequently identified as the lawyer involved, and Brinkema said her conduct made it very difficult for the trial to go forward. Martin wrote to seven present or former federal aviation officials -- three prosecution and four defense witnesses
MacMahon has moved to bar the government from pursuing the death penalty. If Brinkema does that, the trial would end. Moussaoui, a French citizen, would automatically be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of release. And the government would probably appeal.
Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to conspiring with al Qaeda to fly airplanes into U.S. buildings; this trial is to determine whether he will be executed or spend life behind bars.
The only person charged in this country in al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks, Moussaoui has denied having any role in those attacks. He says he was training for a possible future attack.
The trial's second week began Monday with a bombshell: "In all the years I have been on the bench, I have never seen such an egregious violation of a court's rule on witnesses," Brinkema told the court before the jury was brought in.
Novak, who had disclosed Martin's actions over the weekend, agreed they were "horrendously wrong."
In moving to exclude the death penalty, MacMahon said, "This is not going to be a fair trial."
At the very least, he said, the government's witnesses from FAA should be excluded. But Novak protested they represented "half the government's case." He offered to reduce the number of government FAA witnesses and allow some defense FAA testimony without cross-examination.
Brinkema's options include accepting the defense's motion to dismiss the government's bid for the death penalty. Or, she could exclude some government witnesses from the FAA and let the trial continue.
Brinkema also could declare a mistrial on her own, or she could accept a proposal by the government that any taint to the seven witnesses in question could be cured by an aggressive cross-examination by the defense.
In a court filing, prosecutors said there is no need to exclude the FAA witnesses from testifying. They say the violation of the court's order, "while egregious," can be remedied when the witnesses are questioned in front of the jury.
The defense said in court papers, "There is no way to un-ring the bell. The FAA witnesses have been tainted."
Martin e-mailed the witnesses a transcript of the trial's first day and her analysis of the government's opening statement and of vulnerabilities exposed in the government's case by questioning of the first witness. Until recently, Martin had been the government lawyer representing the FAA witnesses.
Martin said the opening statement "has created a credibility gap that the defense can drive a truck through."
She expressed concern that FAA witnesses would be made to look foolish on cross-examination and tried to shape their future testimony to meet or deflect possible defense attacks. "This is what I would have said in the opening," she wrote in one e-mail.
Brinkema said she also would reconsider the defense's request of last week for a mistrial -- made after a question from Novak suggested to the jury that Moussaoui might have had an obligation to confess his terrorist connections to the FBI even after he had invoked his right to an attorney.
Ruling the question out of order, she warned the government it was treading on shaky legal ground because she knew of no case where a failure to act resulted in a death penalty as a matter of law.
"This is the second significant error by the government affecting the constitutional rights of this defendant and, more importantly, the integrity of the criminal justice system in this country," Brinkema said Monday.
A federal judge has interrupted the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man to be charged in the US in connection with the 9/11 attacks.
Judge Leonie Brinkema is considering whether to rule out the possibility of executing Moussaoui because of "egregious" government misconduct.
The government said one of its lawyers had coached four witnesses, breaking rules set by the judge.
Moussaoui has pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy.
The prosecution has called for the death penalty, but defence lawyers are seeking a term of life imprisonment.
'Unfair trial'
Judge Brinkema said she had been advised by the prosecution that a lawyer for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had breached her rule that no witness should hear trial testimony in advance.
The lawyer had read a transcript of the first day of the trial and discussed some of the testimony with four potential witnesses, Judge Brinkema said.
"In all the years I've been on the bench, I've never seen such an egregious violation of the court's rule on witnesses," she told the trial in Virginia, now into its second week.
Prosecutor David Novak said the FAA lawyer "should have known it was wrong".
The defence immediately filed a motion for the death penalty to be dismissed as a possible sentence. Defence lawyer Edward MacMahon said: "We are not going to get a fair trial".
'Second error'
The defence called for a mistrial last week after Judge Brinkema pulled up the prosecution over a line of questioning.
"This is the second significant error by the government affecting the constitutional rights of this defendant," Judge Brinkema said on Monday.
"More importantly, it affects the integrity of the criminal justice system of the United States."
The prosecution are seeking to prove that Moussaoui knew about the 9/11 plot and kept deliberately silent while he was being held in US detention.
The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin was arrested shortly before the attacks on New York and Washington after arousing suspicion at a flying school.
He initially told federal agents he was training as a pilot only for personal enjoyment.
A self-confessed member of al-Qaeda, Moussaoui has said he was not meant to be part of the 9/11 attacks, but was part of a broader conspiracy to use airplanes to strike the White House.
The sentencing trial is expected to last up to three months.
The tortured body of U.S. peace activist Tom Fox revealed the fate of one of many civilians missing in Iraq. NBC's Ned Colt reports.
WASHINGTON - An American aid worker taken hostage with three other peace activists was apparently tortured before he was shot in the head and chest and his body dumped near a railroad line in Baghdad, Iraqi police said Saturday.
Tom Fox, a 54-year-old member of Christian Peacemaker Teams from Clear Brook, Va., was the fifth American hostage killed in Iraq. There was no immediate word on his fellow captives, a Briton and two Canadians.
The U.S. command in Baghdad confirmed that Foxfs body was picked up by American forces on Thursday evening, although it provided no information on the condition.
Interior Ministry Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said Fox was found with his hands tied and gunshot wounds to his head and chest. There were cuts on his body and bruises on his head, indicating torture, he said. The corpse was dressed in Iraqi-made clothing.
Foxfs body was found near a railway line in Dawoudi, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area that has been largely shielded from violence. Shocked local residents on Saturday condemned Foxfs abduction and killing.
gThese acts are terrorist ones and will hinder the political process and distort the reputation of Iraq,h said Dhamir al-Samaraie, who had come to see where Fox was found.
The previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigades claimed responsibility for kidnapping the four Christian Peacemaker Teams members, who disappeared Nov. 26.
Three of them — Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32; and Briton Norman Kember, 74 — were seen in a video dated Feb. 28 that was broadcast Tuesday on Al-Jazeera television. Fox did not appear in the brief, silent videotape.
Grief in the West Bank
In the West Bank, many Palestinians expressed sorrow over the killing of Fox, who had traveled there to protest for their cause before he was taken hostage in Iraq.
gIfm calling for the kidnappers to release the other hostages,h said Hisham Sharabati, a human rights activist who met Fox. gThis killing harmed the Palestinian and Iraqi causes because the hostages were working for peace.h
ALLENBY BRIDGE, West Bank (Reuters) -- Palestinian security forces are trying to stop infiltration by al Qaeda into Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday.
In remarks to a newspaper, Abbas said there were signs of an al Qaeda presence in both areas. In later public comments, he said al Qaeda could be seeking a foothold in the West Bank and Gaza.
"We have unconfirmed reports that al Qaeda, since it sent its members to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, may also send its members to us for the purposes of sabotage," Abbas said at a news conference with Israeli Labor Party leader Amir Peretz.
"Our forces are trying with all available means to prevent them from arriving to carry out terrorist acts in this region."
Abbas, who made no further remarks on al Qaeda, met Peretz at the Allenby Bridge, a key crossing point into Jordan.
Speaking earlier to the London-based al-Hayat newspaper, Abbas: "We have indications about a presence of al Qaeda in Gaza and the (West) Bank. This is intelligence information. We have not yet reached the point of arrests. This is the first time that I've spoken about this subject. This is a very serious matter."
Israeli officials said they were worried that foreign militants and al Qaeda agents entered Gaza from Egypt during a brief period of chaos on the border following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last year.
The Palestinian Authority said that was not true.
Islamic militant group Hamas swept Palestinian elections in January and is in the middle of forming a government.
Though Hamas runs a successful network of social and charitable organizations for Palestinians, the group has refused to renounce violence or recognize Israel's right to exist. The United States, European Union and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden promised never to be captured alive and declared the United States had resorted to the same “barbaricEtactics used by Saddam Hussein, according to an audiotape purportedly by the al-Qaida leader that was posted Monday on a militant Web site.
The tape appeared to be a complete version of one that was first broadcast Jan. 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel, in which bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil.
“I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don’t want to die humiliated or deceived,Ebin Laden said, in the 11-minute, 26-second tape.
Bin Laden links U.S., Saddam
In drawing the comparison to American military behavior in Iraq to that of Saddam, the speaker said:
“The jihad is continuing with strength, for Allah be all the credit, despite all the barbarity, the repressive steps taken by the American Army and its agents, to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam.Elt;/p>
By using that language to describe Saddam, bin Laden appeared to be denying assertions by the Bush administration that the former Iraqi leader had ties to al-Qaida Eties that were given as one rationale for invading Iraq.
Bin Laden also challenged Bush administration assertions that it was better to fight terrorists in Iraq than on U.S. soil.
“The war against America and its allies has not remained confined to Iraq as he (Bush) claims, but rather Iraq has become a point of attraction and recruitment of qualified forces,Ethe speaker said.
“What’s more, the mujahideen, by the grace of Allah, have been able to penetrate time after time all the security procedures undertaken by the oppressive countries of the alliance as evidence by what you have seen, in terms of bombings in the capital of the most important European states.Elt;/p>
Renewed propaganda
The tape’s release in January came days after a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan that targeted bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and reportedly killed four leading al-Qaida figures, including possibly al-Zawahri’s son-in-law. There was no mention of the attack on the segments that were broadcast.
In the full tape posted Monday, bin Laden engaged in renewed propaganda, mocking Bush’s aircraft carrier declaration in April 2003 that major conflict in Iraq had ended.
“The Pentagon’s figures indicate an increase in the number of your killed and injured in addition to the massive material losses, not to mention the collapse of troop morale and the increase of the suicide rates among them,Ethe speaker said.
Speaking directly to the American people, he said:
“You can rescue whatever you can from this hell. The solution is in your hands, if their (U.S. troopsE situation matters to you at all.Elt;/p>
The initial excerpts had been the first tape from the al-Qaida leader in more than a year Ethe longest period without a message since the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide hijackings in the United States.
The CIA last month authenticated the voice on the initial recording as that of bin Laden, an agency official told The Associated Press at the time. The al-Qaida leader is believed to be hiding in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The attorney general has said that even people responsible for terrorist outrages are entitled to a fair trial under the law.
Lord Goldsmith said: "There should be in modern society no outlaws; no people to whom the law does not apply..and to whom therefore anything can be done."
His comments come days after Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the Guantanamo Bay camp should be closed.
Lord Goldsmith was speaking at the London School of Economics.
Threats
He also called for more to be done to target those who incite terrorism and he welcomed the recent conviction of Abu Hamza.
He said in his speech: "We need to ensure the tools of prosecution do not lag behind an ability to identify threats."
He welcomed moves by Home Secretary Charles Clarke to look seriously at whether intercept evidence in these cases could be used in court.
The attorney general also underlined his and the defence secretary's assurances that no British servicemen would be brought before the International Criminal Court in the Hague on criminal charges.
Cabinet minister Mr Hain made his comments about Guantanamo on BBC One's Question Time.
"I would prefer that it wasn't there and I would prefer it was closed," he said.
The prime minister has described the Guantanamo camp as an "anomaly" that should be resolved "sooner or later".
A UN report has said aspects of the regime at the camp amounted to torture.
Three British residents held at the detention camp won permission last week to seek a High Court order requiring the UK to petition for their release.
U.S. terms for approving an Arab company's takeover of operations at six major American ports are insufficient to guard against terrorist infiltration, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said yesterday.
"I'm aware of the conditions, and they relate entirely to how the company carries out its procedures, but it doesn't go to who they hire, or how they hire people," said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.).
"They're better than nothing, but to me they don't address the underlying conditions, which is how are they going to guard against things like infiltration by al Qaeda or someone else, how are they going to guard against corruption?" King said.
King spoke in response to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's comments yesterday about conditions of the sale. King said he learned about the government's terms for approving the sale from meetings with senior Bush administration officials.
Chertoff defended the security review of Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, the company given permission to take over the port operations. Chertoff said the government typically builds in "certain conditions or requirements that the company has to agree to to make sure we address the national security concerns." But Chertoff declined to discuss specifics, saying that information is classified.
"We make sure there are assurances in place, in general, sufficient to satisfy us that the deal is appropriate from a national security standpoint," Chertoff said on ABC's "This Week."
London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. was bought last week by DP World, a state-owned business. Peninsular and Oriental runs major commercial operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
A Miami company, Continental Stevedoring & Terminals Inc., has sued in Florida, challenging the deal. A subsidiary of Eller & Company Inc., Continental says it will become an "involuntary partner" with Dubai's government under the sale.
Lawmakers from both parties are questioning the sale as a possible risk to national security.
"It's unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), on CBS's "Face the Nation," said, "It is ridiculous to say you're taking secret steps to make sure that it's okay for a nation that had ties to 9/11, [to] take over part of our port operations in many of our largest ports. This has to stop."
At least one Senate oversight hearing is planned for later this month.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is working on legislation to prohibit companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from running port operations in the United States, said Chertoff's comments showed him that the administration "just does not get it."
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) joined some relatives of Sept. 11 victims at a news conference to urge President Bush to personally intervene. The president "should override the agreement and conduct a special investigation into the matter," Schumer said.
The White House has savaged a UN report demanding the immediate closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp calling it "a discredit to the UN".
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said investigators failed to examine the facts and that their time would be better spent studying other cases.
The report says the US should try all approximately 500 inmates, or free them "without further delay".
Aspects of the treatment at the camp amount to torture, the UN team alleges.
In response, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that "sooner or later" the camp will have to close, but added that he did not agree with all elements of the latest report.
Heowever, he said he hoped the US government would close the camp "as soon as possible".
Read the full UN report into Guantanamo Bay (337k)
One of the five investigators responsible for the report, UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak, said the detention of inmates for years without charge amounted to arbitrary detention.
"Those persons either have to be released immediately or they should be brought to a proper and competent court and tried for the offences they are charged with," he told the BBC.
'Health threat'
The US has dismissed most of the allegations as "largely without merit", saying the five investigators never actually visited Guantanamo Bay and that detainees are treated humanely.
"The United Nations should be making serious investigations across the world, and there are many instances in which they do when it comes to human rights. This was not one of them," Mr McClellan said.
"And I think it's a discredit to the UN when a team like this goes about rushing to report something when they haven't even looked into the facts, all they've done is look at the allegations."
Earlier Mr McClellan described the UN report as "a rehash" of past claims made by lawyers representing the prisoners saying: "We know that al-Qaeda terrorists are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations."
The report says the US treatment of detainees, some of whom have been held for more than four years, violates their rights to physical and mental health.
It expresses concern at the use of excessive force during transportation and force-feeding through nasal tubes during hunger strikes, which it says amounts to torture.
The US has said images broadcast on Australian TV showing the apparent abuse of Iraqi detainees by US soldiers should not have been released.
A US defence department official said the images could "further inflame and cause unnecessary violence".
The official said action had already been taken against US soldiers guilty of abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail.
Australian TV has now aired previously unseen images of the apparent abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib in 2003.
The images on SBS TV are thought to be from the same source as those that caused an outcry around the world and led to several US troops being jailed.
The new images show "homicide, torture and sexual humiliation", SBS said.
The SBS' Mike Carey told the BBC the images screened by his network on Wednesday mark a "leap in seriousness" from previously released images of abuse at Abu Ghraib.
"We thought we had a responsibility first and foremost once we had obtained these photographs to broadcast them," he said.
'Held accountable'
A US state department legal adviser said the government felt it was better for the photos not to be released.
John Bellinger said this was "not because there was anything to hide" - but rather "because we felt it was an invasion of the privacy of the people in the pictures".
He said the images, which show "conduct that is absolutely disgusting" were likely to "fan the flames around the world and cause more violence".
His view was echoed by Pentagon official Bryan Whitman, who added that several US soldiers had been prosecuted over past abuses.
"There have been more than 600 criminal investigations into allegations of detainee mistreatment, and there have been more than 200 people held accountable for misconduct," he said.
"In Abu Ghraib specifically, there have been more than 25 individuals - officer and enlisted - that have been held accountable for criminal acts and other failures."
Government appeal
A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has confirmed the images aired on Wednesday are authentic, the AFP news agency reports.
The US attorney general has told senators that spying on Americans' phone calls and emails abroad is a necessary part of the "war on terror".
Alberto Gonzales defended the policy in testimony to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But committee chairman Arlen Specter queried whether President George Bush had the authority to order the spying.
Critics say the electronic eavesdropping programme is illegal and infringes on civil liberties.
Mr Gonzales told the committee the US needed to find new ways to combat terrorism.
"In this new kind of war, it is both necessary and appropriate for us to take all possible steps to locate our enemy and know what they are plotting before they strike," he said.
He said that the eavesdropping programme was lawful and respected "the civil liberties we all cherish".
Legal review
Senator Specter, a Republican, said he was sceptical of the legality of the programme.
"The president of the United States has the fundamental responsibility to protect the country, but even... the president does not have a blank cheque," he said.
He suggested that the legality of the spying programme be reviewed by a federal court.
The panel's top Democrat, Senator Patrick Leahy, also voiced his concern over the legal justification for the spying.
"That authorisation said 'to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden' and to use the American military to do that," he said. "It did not authorise the domestic surveillance of American citizens."
The White House says that Mr Bush had power to order the surveillance under the constitution and under a resolution passed by Congress after the 11 September 2001 attacks.
But critics say the congressional resolution did not cover eavesdropping on Americans' telephone calls and emails abroad without special permission from the courts, and that Mr Bush has overstepped his authority.
The only person charged in the US in connection with the 11 September 2001 attacks has been removed from court at his trial in Virginia.
Zacarias Moussaoui, often a volatile figure in court, said: "I am al-Qaeda", and described the trial as "a circus".
The outburst came at the start of the selection process to find 12 jurors who will decide the defendant's sentence.
The 37-year-old Frenchman has pleaded guilty to six charges linking him to al-Qaeda's plans to attack the US.
With the first group of potential jurors in the courtroom, Moussaoui told the judge that he wanted to be heard.
When informed that this was not the time for that, he went on to say his American lawyers did not represent him.
Moussaoui has ignored lawyers' advice and will be representing himself.
Difficult task
The 12 jurors, being selected from a pool of 500 people from suburban northern Virginia, will have to decide if Moussaoui should face life in prison or the death penalty.
Each of the potential jurors are being questioned on their knowledge of al-Qaeda and their personal experiences of 11 September.
Four groups were called to the courtroom on Monday to fill in questionnaires made up of 89 questions from the prosecutors and 306 recommended by defence lawyers.
The BBC's Daniela Relph in Washington says finding a neutral jury will be difficult.
It is an area with a large population of military and government workers and it is just a few miles from the Pentagon, where 184 people were killed on 11 September 2001.
The selection process is expected to take one month. The trial is scheduled to start on 6 March.
Moussaoui was arrested at a flight school in Minnesota a month before the attacks. He has admitted that he was planning to fly a plane into the White House, but insists he knew nothing of the wider 11 September plot.
He has told the authorities that he was due to be part of a second wave of attacks.
SAN’A, Yemen - An al-Qaida operative sentenced to death for plotting the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 sailors in 2000 was among a group of convicts who escaped from a Yemen prison last week, Interpol said Sunday in issuing a global security alert.
Officials set up checkpoints around the capital of San’a, where the prison was located, to try to catch the escapees before they could flee to the protection of mountain tribes, according to a Yemeni security official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
Some mountainous tribal areas are essentially outside the control of Yemen’s central government, raising fears the fugitives could hide there before escaping the country.
Yemeni officials said Jamal al-Badawi Ea man convicted of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing Ewas among the fugitives, Interpol said. Al-Badawi was among those sentenced to death in September 2004 for plotting the attack, in which two suicide bombers blew up an explosives-laden boat next to the destroyer as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000.
A Yemeni security official announced the escape of convicted al-Qaida members Friday but did not provide any details or names. The official said only that the escapees had all had been sentenced last year on terrorism-related charges.
Many escapees were al-Qaida
Interpol said in a statement that at least 13 of the 23 escapees were convicted al-Qaida fighters.
The convicts escaped via a 140-yard-long tunnel “dug by the prisoners and coconspirators outside,EInterpol said. The Yemeni official said the prison was at the central headquarters of the country’s military intelligence services in a building in the center of the capital.
Another of the 23 escapees was identified as Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeiee, considered by Interpol to be one of those responsible for a 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg off Yemen’s coast. That attack killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.
Al-Rabeiee also was convicted for an attack on a helicopter carrying Hunt Oil Co. employees a month later and the detonation of explosions at a civil aviation authority building.
“We are closely monitoring the situation at this time and we will work with our domestic and international partners to actively pursue these dangerous terrorists,EFBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said in Washington.
Interpol’s urgent global security alert, known as an “orange notice,Ewas issued “because the escape and unknown whereabouts of al-Qaida terrorists constituted a clear and present danger to all countries,Ethe statement said.
Noble urged Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, to provide names, photographs, fingerprints and other information about the suspects.
He called on the agency’s 184 member states “to take all relevant precautionary measures both at and inside their bordersEand to help Yemen locate and capture the fugitives.
Dire warnings
Noble also said that unless the fugitives were tracked down, they possibly “will be able to travel internationally, to elude detection and to engage in future terrorist activity.E
The escape came a day before the expected start of a trial of 15 people charged with involvement in terrorism operations in Yemen, including Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, another suspected plotter of the Cole and Limburg bombings.
The trial was postponed indefinitely.
Yemen was long a haven for Islamic militants. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the government aligned itself with the U.S.-led war on terrorism. But many diplomats and outside experts have raised questions about Yemen’s cooperation and inability to control tribal areas.
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence officials told Congress on Thursday that disclosure of once-classified projects like President Bush’s no-warrant eavesdropping program have undermined their work.
“The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission,ECIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing disclosures about a variety of CIA programs that he suggested may have been compromised. Goss said a federal grand jury should be empaneled to determine “who is leaking this information.E
But Democratic members of the panel accused the Bush administration of wanting to have it both ways. “The president has not only confirmed the existence of the program, he has spoken at length about it repeatedly,Ewhile keeping Congress in the dark, said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the panel’s senior Democrat.
Rockefeller suggested that such “leaksEmost likely “came from the executive branchEof the government.
Pointed exchanges
That brought a terse response from FBI Director Robert Mueller, who said, “It’s not fair to point a finger as to the responsibility of the leak.E
The sometimes pointed exchanges came as leaders of the nation’s intelligence agencies appeared before the panel in a rare public session to give a rundown on threats facing the world.
Committee Democrats sought to change the focus to the president’s decision to authorize the National Security Agency to eavesdrop Ewithout first obtaining warrants Eon communications to and from those in the United States and terror suspects abroad. John Negroponte, who as director of national intelligence oversees all intelligence activities, strongly defended the program, calling it crucial for protecting the nation against its most menacing threat.
“This was not about domestic surveillance,Ehe said.
Negroponte: Terrorists ‘top concernElt;p> Negroponte called al-Qaida and associated terrorist groups the “top concernEof the U.S. intelligence community, followed closely by the nuclear activities of Iran and North Korea.
Goss complained that leaks to the news media about classified CIA programs Esuch as reported CIA secret prisons abroad Ehad damaged his own agency’s work. “I use the words ‘very severeEintentionally. And I think the evidence will show that,Ehe said.
Goss cited a “disruption to our plans, things that we have under way.ESome CIA sources and “assetsEhad been rendered “no longer viable or usable, or less effective by a large degree,Ehe said. The revelations have also made intelligence agencies in other countries mistrustful of their U.S. counterparts, Goss said.
‘Stunned to the quickElt;p> “I’m stunned to the quick when I get questions from my professional counterparts saying, ‘Mr. Goss, can’t you Americans keep a secret?E Goss, when pressed, said he was speaking of programs run by the CIA, and would let NSA officials speak for themselves.
Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence and a former NSA director, said it was hard to characterize any damage done to his agency in an open session. But, he said, “Some people claim that somehow or another our capabilities are immune to this kind of information going out into the public domain. And I can tell you, in a broad sense, that is certainly not true.E
After a public session lasting just under four hours, the committee and its witnesses went into a closed-door session.
Iran capability downplayed
In assessing risks to the United States, Negroponte testified that Iran probably does not yet have nuclear weapons, nor the fissile material needed for producing them. “Nevertheless, the danger that it will acquire a nuclear weapon and the ability to integrate it with the ballistic missiles Iran already possesses is a reason for immediate concern,Ehe said.
Iran already has “the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East,ENegroponte said. Meanwhile, he said that North Korea’s assertions that it has nuclear weapons are “probably true.E Negroponte told the panel that some 40 terrorist groups, insurgencies or cults have obtained or want chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Negroponte spoke as U.S. and European diplomats worked behind the scenes to build support for their decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns that it seeking nuclear weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board of governors began a two-day meeting on a European draft resolution calling for Tehran to be referred to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions.
First appearance
It was Negroponte’s first public appearance before a congressional committee since his confirmation hearings last April. His job was created by Congress to coordinate the work of the government’s 15 intelligence agencies Negroponte said great strides had been made in fighting global terrorism.
“We have eliminated much of the leadership that presided over al-Qaida in 2001,Ehe said, “and U.S. -led counterterrorism efforts in 2005 continued to disrupt its operations, take out its leaders and deplete its cadre.E But, Negroponte added, the terrorist organization’s core elements still plot and make preparations for terrorist strikes. He suggested that “high impact attacksEwould continue, and said al-Qaida continues to pursue chemical, biological and atomic weapons in hopes of attacking the United States.
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri said in a videotape aired Monday that President Bush was a “butcherEand a “failureEbecause of a deadly U.S. airstrike in Pakistan targeting the bin Laden deputy, and he threatened a new attack on the United States.
Al-Zawahri, shown in the video wearing white robes and a white turban, said a Jan. 13 airstrike in the eastern village of Damadola killed “innocents,Eand he said the United States had ignored an offer from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden for a truce.
“Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation, and you have brought and will bring them only catastrophes and tragedies,Ehe said, referring to Bush.
“Bush do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim people enjoying what God has given me from their support and their care and their generosity and their protection, and their participating in jihad until we defeat you, by Allah's grace and help.E
Civilian deaths angered Pakistanis
The airstrike hit a building in Damadola, where U.S. intelligence believed al-Zawahri had been attending an Islamic holiday dinner. The strike killed four al-Qaida leaders Eincluding a man believed to be al-Zawahri’s son-in-law Ebut intelligence officials said later they believe al-Zawahri sent his aides to the dinner in his place.
Thirteen villagers also were killed in the strike, angering many Pakistanis.
“The American planes raided in compliance with Musharraf the traitor and his security apparatus, the slave of the Crusaders and the Jews,Ehe said, referring to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
“In seeking to kill my humble self and four of my brothers, the whole world has discovered the extent of America’s lies and failures and the extent of its savagery in fighting Islam and Muslims.E
Video is new
The video was al-Zawahri’s first appearance since the airstrike and came 11 days after the latest audiotape by bin Laden. IntelCenter, a contractor working with U.S. intelligence agencies, said the video of al-Zawahri is new.
The last video from al-Zawahri came Jan. 6, when he called the U.S. decision to withdraw some troops from Iraq a victory for the Islamic world.
The Al-Jazeera newscaster said Monday the network was airing excerpts, and it showed two short segments. It was not immediately known how long the entire tape was.
In the video, al-Zawahri spoke before a black background. No automatic weapon was visible, unlike past videos by the al-Qaida deputy in which a gun often appeared leaning next to him. In the bottom left corner, the video had the logo in Arabic and English of Al-Sahab, an al-Qaida video production company that made some past videos by bin Laden and al-Zawahri.
“My second message is to the American people, who are drowning in illusions. I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and wasting your money in frustrated adventures,Ehe said, speaking in a forceful and angry voice.
US journalist Jill Carroll, held hostage in Iraq, has appealed for the release of women prisoners there, in a video screened by al-Jazeera TV.
The grainy tape, dated 28 January with the logo "Revenge Brigades", showed Carroll wearing a veil and weeping, but her voice was not heard.
Al-Jazeera said she called on Americans to ask the US authorities to free Iraqi women prisoners.
Carroll, of the Christian Science Monitor, was seized three weeks ago.
She was threatened with death unless all women prisoners in Iraq were freed.
Five Iraqi female detainees were released last week, but the US military denied this had anything to do with demands made by Carroll's captors.
Release hope
"The American journalist kidnapped in Iraq urged her family and Americans around the world to demand that U.S. military forces and the Iraqi interior (ministry) release all Iraqi women prisoners," said an al-Jazeera announcer as the video was played.
"She said that this would help in her release," al-Jazeera added.
The only words audible in Carroll's own voice were "hope for the families", according to the Associated Press news agency.
In an earlier video showing Carroll screened by al-Jazeera on 17 January, a deadline of 20 January was set, by which all women prisoners should be released or Carroll would be killed.
If the date on the latest video is correct, it is the first indication that the threat was not carried out.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush suggested Thursday he might offer resistance if Congress moves to change the law relating to his controversial program of warrantless surveillance for terrorist threats and said: "There's no doubt in my mind it is legal."
Asked if he would support efforts in Congress to give him express authority to continue the program, Bush cited what he said was the extreme delicacy of the operation.
"But it's important for people to understand that this program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we run it or how we operate it, it'll help the enemy," he said. "Why tell the enemy what we're doing?"
"We'll listen to ideas. But I want to make sure that people understand that if the attempt to write law makes this program -- is likely to expose the nature of the program, I'll resist it," he said.
Bush told a White House news conference that the domestic spying program "is designed to protect civil liberties" and declared that "it's necessary."
Democrats have accused the president of breaking the law in allowing eavesdropping on overseas communications to and from U.S. residents, and some members of his own party have questioned the practice.
It was the president's first full-scale news conference of the new year, and the 10th since he was re-elected in 2004. He previewed his upcoming State of the Union address and fielded questions on former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the stunning victory of the radical group Hamas in Palestinian elections and the administration's cooperation with Congress on its investigation of Hurricane Katrina.
On the Middle East, Bush expressed concern that Palestinian elections had given a majority to the radical party Hamas, which has called for the elimination of Israel, although he noted that democratic elections sometimes produce unwelcome results.
He made it clear that any organization that has an armed wing and which advocates violence against Israel "is a party with which we will not deal."
Bush called the election results a "wake-up call" to the old guard Palestinian leadership, many of whom are holdovers from the days of the late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.
Questioned about a controversy swirling about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Bush said he would cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating Abramoff and his alleged influence peddling activities, if necessary. Otherwise, the president said he saw no reason to release pictures that he acknowledged were taken of him and Abramoff.
"There is a serious investigation going on by federal prosecutors -- that's their job," the president said. "If they believe something was done inappropriately in the White House, they'll come and look and they're welcome to do so."
Otherwise, Bush said, "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people. Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean I'm a friend with them or know them very well."
"I've had my picture taken with you," Bush said to the reporter who asked the question.
Bush also said that his nominee for Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, deserves to be confirmed in the Senate, where he clearly has the votes but where minority-party Democrats were speaking out against him at length.
"The Senate needs to give him an up or down vote as soon as possible," Bush said in opening remarks that also previewed the themes of his State of the Union address next Tuesday.
Bush shrugged off a recent Pentagon-contracted report which concluded the Army was overextended and the United States cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency there.
The president predicted victory in Iraq and said, "Our commanders will have the troops necessary to do that."
He said the military was focused on transforming itself to ensure the armed forces could meet its goals in the 21st century.
"After five years of war, there is a need to make sure troops are balanced properly, threats are met with capabilities. That's why we're transforming the military," Bush said.
Two civil liberties groups in the US have taken legal action to block President George W Bush's domestic spying programme.
The groups want an immediate halt to the "illegal and unconstitutional" eavesdropping on US citizens.
The federal lawsuits were filed in New York and Detroit by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The president has defended the policy as critical to the war against terror.
Mr Bush signed a secret presidential order following the 11 September 2001 attacks, allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to track the international telephone calls and e-mails of hundreds of people without referral to the courts.
Previously, surveillance on US soil was generally limited to foreign embassies.
Spying row
The ACLU and CCR are seeking an injunction preventing the government carrying out electronic surveillance in the US without warrants.
Mr Bush and the head of the NSA, Keith Alexander, are named in the legal actions.
The head of ACLU, Anthony Romero, described the current monitoring of US citizens as "a chilling assertion of presidential power".
CCR legal director Bill Goodman said: "This illegal activity is cloaked in the guise of national security.
"In reality, it reflects an attempt by the Bush administration to exercise unchecked power without the inconvenient interference of the other co-equal branches of the government."
Other plaintiffs include Greenpeace, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and UK journalist Christopher Hitchens.
The New York Times, which leaked information about the spying policy last month, reported on Tuesday that much of the domestic spying was unproductive and led federal agents to dead ends or innocent US citizens.
In a speech Monday at Kansas State University, President Bush rejected critics' assertions that he broke the law by authorizing domestic eavesdropping without a warrant, saying he was doing what Congress authorized him to do to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.
The defense was part of an administration blitz that will take Mr. Bush to the headquarters of the National Security Agency on Wednesday.
As part of that campaign, he attempted to give the spying a new label - the "Terrorist Surveillance Program."
Mr. Bush noted that hearings will open in Congress soon, and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who accompanied the president here, was among the lawmakers on Capitol Hill who were given regular updates about the surveillance by the White House.
"It's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he's just breaking the law,'" the president said, with Roberts sitting behind him on stage at Kansas State. "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?"
Mr. Bush said the spying program was targeted at communications between people in the United States and al Qaeda associates overseas. He said he made sure he was acting within the law before authorizing the program after his aides suggested it.
"I'm mindful of your civil liberties and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process," Mr. Bush told 9,000 students, soldiers and dignitaries in the audience.
Critics have said the president broke the law by authorizing the eavesdropping without a judge's approval and by failing to fully consult with Congress. The White House told congressional leadership about the program, but not all members of the intelligence committees.
Mr. Bush said a congressional resolution passed after Sept. 11, 2001, that authorized him to use force in the fight against terrorism allowed him to order the top-secret program, disclosed last month by The New York Times.
"Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics," Mr. Bush said, adding that the government needs to know why people linked to al Qaeda are calling into the U.S. "One of the ways to protect the American people is to understand the intentions of the enemy."
A majority of Americans E56 percent Esaid the Bush administration should be required to get a warrant before monitoring electronic communications between American citizens and suspected terrorists, according to an AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month.
When people have been asked in other polls to balance their worries about terrorist threats against their worries about intrusions on privacy, fighting terror is the higher priority.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Sunday ridiculed as "bizarre" a U.S. report that senior al Qaeda leaders were killed in a CIA attack on a home along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
"There is no evidence, as of half an hour ago, that there were any other people there," Aziz said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."
"The area does see movement of people from across the border. But we have not found one body or one shred of evidence that these people were there."
U.S. counterterrorism officials have said they believe the January 13 attack killed four to eight al Qaeda-affiliated "foreigners" attending a dinner meeting. Knowledgeable sources have said that their bodies were removed from the scene by comrades and buried elsewhere.
Tens of thousands of Pakistanis have taken to the streets in cities nationwide to express outrage about the attack, which killed more than a dozen civilians, including women and children.
U.S. officials have said the attack was intended to kill Osama bin Laden's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
A counterterrorism official said Abu Khabab -- an al Qaeda operative who was named Midhat Mursi and also known as "the bombmaker" -- "was thought to have been in the vicinity" when the missiles struck the home in Damadola, Pakistan.
The U.S. network ABC News reported on its Web site that the attack killed Khabab, quoting "Pakistani authorities." However a number of Pakistani officials have told CNN they cannot confirm the ABC report.
Aziz said Sunday, "If you just reflect on what happened, first -- we heard that there was a dinner meeting with all the seniors -- I think that's a bizarre thought, because these people don't get together for dinner in a terrain or environment like that."
"Second, we heard that al-Zawahiri was there," Aziz said. "Now we are hearing about this person who's a chemicals weapons expert. We don't know who was there. We don't know when they came, if at all. But, if they were there, we will find out because our people are investigating, they are going through all the evidence available, and once we find out we'll share it with the world."
Since the attack, U.S. intelligence analysts have been waiting for information about al-Zawahiri, and officials have said they expect to learn he was not killed in the attack.
Aziz said the United States launched the airstrike on Pakistani soil without having first consulted with the Pakistani government.
"We had no idea that this would take place," he said.
Aziz said the attack violated a U.S.-Pakistani agreement that calls for the countries to collaborate with each other before any such attack.
Last Sunday, U.S. politicians expressed regret over the killings, but said the airstrike was justified by the erroneous belief that a top al Qaeda leader was among the group.
U.S. authorities believe al-Zawahiri, 54, a doctor from a prominent Egyptian family, helped mastermind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. He has been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The U.S. government has put up a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Aziz also disputed a report in Sunday editions of The New York Times that said al Qaeda supporters, foreign fighters and Taliban remnants control the remote region.
About 80,000 Pakistani troops in the area have captured around 600 al Qaeda members there, including senior leaders, Aziz said. "The reason we've done that is because this is a porous border. It's a very tough terrain. And we want to restrict movement of people who are undesirable to our security."
Aziz said none of the forces searching for bin Laden knows where he might be. "We and the rest of the world has no clue where he or his associates are," Aziz said. "He could be anywhere."
About the bin Laden audiotape released last week, Aziz said he has "no idea" when or where it was recorded.
"All we can gather from the tape is that he's trying to tell the world that he's around and get his movement energized or motivated."
Arabic TV station al-Jazeera has aired an audio tape, which CIA analysts say is by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
In it, the speaker says new attacks on the US are being planned, but offers a "long-term truce" to the Americans, an offer quickly rejected by the US.
It is the first time Bin Laden has been heard of from since December 2004.
Analysts believe the tape dates from at least 22 November as the speaker refers to reports that President Bush planned to bomb al-Jazeera's headquarters.
Bush al-Jazeera attack
"Documents have recently showed that the butcher of freedom in the world [US President George Bush] had planned to bomb the head office of al-Jazeera Space Channel in the state of Qatar," the man, purported to be Bin Laden said.
The speaker on the tape said the reason there had not been an attack in the US since 11 September 2001 was not because of superior US security, but because the group had been engaged in activities in Iraq - and because operations in the US "need preparations".
"The operations are happening in Baghdad and you will see them here at home the minute they are through (with preparations), with God's permission," he said.
US officials have said they believe Bin Laden is hiding in a mountainous area on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
There is no clear indication of when the tape was recorded.
Last month, al-Jazeera aired a videotape it said dated back to September, showing al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In it, Zawahiri declared that, despite a prolonged absence and rumours about ill-health or possible injury, Bin Laden was alive.
Truce offer
Despite the warning of renewed attacks, the speaker also offered the US the chance of a long-term truce in light of the fact that US public opinion polls showed growing opposition to the war in Iraq.
"We have no objection to responding to this with a long-term truce based on fair conditions," the speaker said.
"We do not mind offering you a truce that is fair and long-term... so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan... there is no shame in this solution because it prevents wasting of billions of dollars.
"Your president is misinterpreting public opinion polls which show that the vast majority of you support the withdrawal of your forces from Iraq."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan quickly dismissed the truce offer saying: "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business".
'Ploy'
US Vice President Dick Cheney said the offer appeared to be a ploy, but that it was too early to draw conclusions.
"I don't think anybody would believe him... It sounds to me like it's some kind of a ploy, but again not having seen the entire text or validated the tape and the timing of it, I'm reluctant to draw any conclusions," Mr Cheney said in an interview with Fox news.
Bin Laden made Europe a similar pact offer following the Madrid train bombings of March 2004.
Correspondents say it is an attempt to frighten the public and drive a wedge between them and their governments, which say it is necessary to stay to distance in Iraq, not pull out troops.
The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that in the US the immediate political effect of the tape will probably be to boost support for President George W Bush.
French President Jacques Chirac has said France would be ready to use nuclear weapons against any state which launched a terrorist attack against it.
Speaking at a nuclear submarine base in north-western France, Mr Chirac said a French response "could be conventional. It could also be of another nature."
He said France's nuclear forces had been configured for such an event.
France has had an independent nuclear deterrent since 1960, after an arms programme ordered by Charles de Gaulle.
'Odious attacks'
The BBC's Alistair Sandford in Paris says this is the first time that Mr Chirac has so clearly linked the threat of a nuclear response to a terrorist attack.
On a visit to L'Ile-Longue base in Brittany, Mr Chirac said leaders of states who would "use terrorist means against us, just like anyone who would envisage using, in one way or another, arms of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and adapted response from us".
The president spoke of new threats in a post-Cold War world, without mentioning any specific threat against France.
"In numerous countries, radical ideas are spreading, advocating a confrontation of civilisations," he said, adding that "odious attacks" could escalate to "other yet more serious forms involving states".
Following the end of the Cold War, France scaled down its nuclear deterrent, scrapping a number of missile systems.
It is believed to have a current arsenal of around 350 nuclear weapons.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Citing Pakistani intelligence, U.S. officials said a leading al-Qaida figure was killed in an airstrike near the Afghan border Friday, NBC News and Reuters reported Wednesday.
The purported U.S. missile attack targeted but is thought to have missed Osama bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, Pakistani intelligence officials have said. But it may have killed al-Qaida weapons manufacturing expert Mirhat Mursi, Robert Windrem of NBC News reported Wednesday, quoting U.S. sources who were relaying information received from Pakistan. Reuters matched that report later in the day. Al-Zawahri’s son-in-law, Abdul Rehman Al-Misri al Maghribi, was also said to be killed in the attacks, Reuters reported later Wednesday, citing Pakistani intelligence.
Mursi, also called Abu Khabbab al Masri, is an Egyptian who ran the largest al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Windrem reported. NBC News analyst Roger Cressey, who was deputy director of counter-terrorism at the National Security Council, said Wednesday if Mursi was killed, it is a “significant achievement.E
“Abu Khabbab was part of Bin Laden’s inner circle who ran an important facility,ECressey said. “He was investigating not just chemical weapons and poisons, but experimenting on how al-Qaida could use common chemicals as poisons.E Cressey also said that prior to Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. tracked activity at his camp, Darunta, on a daily basis.
Mursi has a $5 million reward for his capture, according to NBC News. “This is not a small fish. This is a big fish,ECressey said. Friday’s airstrike claimed civilian lives, embarrassing Pakistan’s government and straining ties with Washington.
Bodies moved
Also Wednesday, Pakistani intelligence agents hunted for the graves of four al-Qaida militants believed killed in the incident Ebodies that reportedly were whisked away by surviving comrades. The U.S. government refuses to discuss Friday’s airstrike, which has been condemned by Pakistan and was expected to be discussed during an official visit to Washington this week by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Much about the attack and its aftermath remains clouded in confusion, including how many people died, where they were buried and by whom. Provincial authorities say the attack killed 18 residents of the Pashtun village, and they also say they believe sympathizers took the bodies of four or five foreign militants to bury them in the mountains, thereby preventing their identification. “Efforts are under way to investigate further,Esaid Shah Zaman Khan, director-general of media relations for Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
He said authorities were also looking for two prominent pro-Taliban clerics accused of harboring militants, Maulana Faqir Mohammed and Liaqat Ali, who were allegedly in Damadola and survived the assault.
Intelligence officials say the dead foreigners could be aides of al-Zawahri, who is thought to have sent them in his place to an Islamic holiday dinner to which he’d been invited in Damadola on the night of the attack. Hours after the attack, an Associated Press reporter visited the village, which consists of a half-dozen widely scattered houses on a hillside about four miles from the Afghan border. Residents said then that all the dead were local people and no one had taken any bodies away. However, it appeared feasible bodies or wounded could have been spirited away in the darkness after the attack, which took place about 3 a.m.
Islamic custom dictates that bodies be buried as soon as possible, and the reporter saw 13 freshly filled graves with simple headstones and five empty graves alongside them Eapparently prepared for more dead. When the reporter returned the next day, the five empty graves were filled in, apparently because no more bodies had been found in the rubble.
Unconfirmed reports of who died The only tidbits of official information that had surfaced since then had come from provincial authorities, and they have yet to give a list of the dead. But Pakistani intelligence officials have said they believe some of those killed were Pakistani militants and that their bodies were also removed from the scene. NBC News said Wednesday that Pakistani intelligence identified Khalid Habib, head of al-Qaida operations in southeastern Afghanistan, and Abu Ubeida al Masri, an al-Qaida provincial commander in Afghanistan, among those killed in the attack.
Reuters did not mention Habib as one of the dead but cited Pakistani officials as echoing NBC’s report on al Masri. While the U.S. government could not confirm that Pakistani report, a senior counter-terrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told NBC the people mentioned by Pakistani intelligence were believed to have been in the location of the attack at the time of the strike.
A Pakistani army official has told the AP that some bodies were taken away for DNA tests Einformation at odds with reports from provincial authorities. The federal government has not confirmed the report about DNA tests.
No warning before attack
Pakistan maintains it was not given advance word of the airstrike, which was reportedly carried out by unmanned Predator drones flying from Afghanistan. Thousands have taken to the streets in protest over the attack, denouncing the United States and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who ended Pakistan’s support of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in late 2001 and has himself been targeted by al-Qaida attacks.
Nevertheless, allegations persist that Pakistan harbors dangerous Islamic militants. On Wednesday, more than 5,000 people marched through the Afghan border town of Spinboldak, chanting “Death to PakistanEand “Death to al-QaidaEto protest a suicide attack at a fair this week that killed 21 people. Afghan officials claim the bomber Ethe latest in about 25 suicide attackers to strike in Afghanistan in the past four months Etrained in Pakistan. Islamabad denies giving sanctuary to terrorists.
OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- Michael Fortier, the prosecution's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing trials, will be freed this week after serving less than 11 years behind bars, a move that drew mixed reaction from victims.
Victims' family members and bombing survivors received a one-page form letter from the Bureau of Prisons this week indicating Fortier's release date of Friday.
"He's the luckiest man in the world," said Paul Heath, who was on the fifth floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building during the 1995 blast that killed 168 people. "Fortier, by being willing to do a plea bargain, won the Powerball lottery of the justice system."
Messages left with the bureau after hours Tuesday were not immediately returned.
As part of his deal with prosecutors, Fortier testified against bombing conspirators Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols at their federal trials and later at Nichols' state murder trial. He was sentenced to 12 years and ordered to pay $200,000 in fines.
Fortier's sentence likely was shortened because of good behavior credits and for time served before his formal sentence in 1998, said Irven Box, an attorney who covered the trial as a legal analyst for KWTV in Oklahoma City.
McVeigh was executed June 11, 2001. Nichols was convicted on both federal and state charges and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Family members of some bombing victims say Fortier's role in the April 19, 1995, plot was peripheral and they believe justice was served.
"I think he's served enough time," said Bud Welch, whose daughter Julie was killed while she worked at the Social Security office in the building. "I hope he's in line to be a good citizen now."
Jim Denny, whose two children were seriously injured in the bombing, said he also believes Fortier should be released.
"McVeigh already got his punishment, and Nichols will be in prison for the rest of his life," Denny said. "Let this guy get out and get on with his life."
Fortier, 37, and his wife, Lori, both testified against McVeigh and Nichols and acknowledged assisting the two in their plan to blow up the building, said McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones.
"It's intellectually indefensible to say that they weren't conspirators, because they were. Their own testimony indicates that," Jones said. "They knew the date, time and place of the bombing and both of them assisted materially."
Jones said Lori Fortier testified that she helped make a false identification card that McVeigh used to rent the truck used in the bombing. Lori Fortier was granted complete immunity for her testimony and never served any prison time.
Al-Jazeera has broadcast a video of the kidnapped US journalist Jill Carroll - the first sighting of her since she was abducted 10 in Baghdad days ago.
The video contained a claim that her unknown abductors would kill her unless all female prisoners in Iraq were released within 72 hours.
Ms Carroll, 28, has been a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, among others.
More than 40 Westerners and hundreds of Iraqis are being held in the country.
Four Christian peace activists, including a Briton, an American and two Canadians, were seized on 26 November.
They, too, have been seen in a video released by their captors, but there has been no word of their fate.
Plea for mercy
Ms Carroll's family issued a statement pleading for her release after the video became available.
"Jill is a kind person whose love for Iraq and the Iraqi people are evident in her articles. She has been welcomed into the homes of many Iraqis and shown every courtesy.
"From that experience, she understands the hardships and suffering that the Iraqi people face every day," the Carroll family said.
"We respectfully ask that you please show her mercy and allow her to return home to her mother, sister and family," the statement issued by Jim, Mary Beth, and Katie Carroll said.
The video of Ms Carroll shows her apparently speaking to the camera, but does not include her voice.
Al-Jazeera did not say where it got the tape. The station itself has called for the release of Ms Carroll.
Dangerous
Ms Carroll was going to meet Adnan Dulaimi, the head of a prominent Sunni coalition, in Baghdad's western Adel district when she was seized and her translator fatally hurt on 7 January.
She is the 31st foreign journalist kidnapped in Iraq since the invasion almost three years ago, according to Reporters Sans Frontieres.
The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Baghdad says the Adel district is one of the city's most dangerous, where three Iraqi television journalists were killed shortly before Ms Carroll was seized.
Ms Carroll had been reporting from the Middle East for Jordanian, Italian and other media organisations for the past three years, the Christian Science Monitor said in a statement.
The newspaper said it had "tapped into her professionalism, energy and fair reporting on the Iraqi scene" in recent months and praised her determination in seeking accurate views from Iraqi political leaders.
The Monitor describes itself as a non-religious newspaper.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. intelligence officials said Monday they were trying to determine whether Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant was at a dinner in a remote Pakistani village and whether he was one of the people killed by a CIA airstrike.
The U.S. officials said they had solid intelligence that a number of senior al Qaeda personnel were killed in Friday's attack, which targeted houses in Damadola, Pakistan.
The officials said Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 man, was invited to the Damadola dinner celebrating the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid.
But only some of al-Zawahiri's aides were there, Pakistani intelligence officials said Sunday, according to The Associated Press.
A U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN, "I cannot confirm at this point whether he [al-Zawahiri] showed up or not."
The remains of about 12 bodies, including as many as eight foreigners, were quickly retrieved by a group of men after the airstrike and buried elsewhere, sources said.
U.S. officials declined to comment on that report.
Pakistani officials said Sunday that 18 civilians died in the attack, including five children, five women and eight men.
One Pakistani intelligence official said al-Zawahiri was not among the dead and it was not known whether he had been in the area.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri said that "as far as the reports that we've got so far, he wasn't there."
In an interview with CNN, Kasuri expressed outrage Monday that Pakistani forces had not been included.
"This is terrible -- 18 people have died -- innocent people, women and children apart from some men," he said.
Though U.S. and Pakistani forces have long shared intelligence, "any operations, if and when requested, will be conducted by the Pakistani army, to prevent just the sort of occurrence that happened," he said.
Kasuri declined to say whether Pakistani authorities had been informed of the strike beforehand.
"The important thing is not whether we knew or not," he said. "The important thing is a question of our sovereignty, a violation of our sovereignty."
The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan has been "called in," he said, adding that he is prepared to take his complaint higher. "If required, I'll talk to Dr. Rice," he said, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"Actions of this nature strengthen the hands of those who oppose this kind of cooperation."
CNN analyst John McLaughlin, a former CIA deputy director, said that if al-Zawahiri is alive "there is a reasonable chance we will know sometime within the week" -- either because al Qaeda will put out a new tape to capitalize on the U.S. failure to get him or from "other intelligence sources or possibly forensics."
If al-Zawahiri is dead, it could take longer to verify, McLaughlin said.
U.S. officials confirmed that the FBI has a DNA sample from al-Zawahiri's brother that could be used for forensic identification purposes, but they declined to say whether forensic work was under way to identify those killed.
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said while the bureau often does DNA work for the Defense Department and other agencies, "no request has been received for assistance at this time; however, we remain available if asked."
U.S. authorities believe al-Zawahiri, 54, a doctor from a prominent Egyptian family, helped mastermind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He also has been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The U.S. government has offered a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
The killings sparked demonstrations across the country Sunday, with tens of thousands of people marching against Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the United States. Demonstrations took place in Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi.
In Bajour agency, the district including Damadola, tribal leaders vowed to continue their protest for three days, and shops in the district will be closed.
On Sunday, U.S. politicians expressed regret over the deaths caused by the attack but said the airstrike was justified.
"It's terrible when innocent people are killed; we regret that," Sen. John McCain told CBS' "Face the Nation."
"But we have to do what we think is necessary to take out al Qaeda, particularly the top operatives. This guy has been more visible than Osama bin Laden lately," the Arizona Republican said.
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, told CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer" that the Pakistani government is unable to control that part of the country, where sympathetic residents were believed to be harboring al Qaeda leaders.
"Now, it's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" Bayh asked rhetorically. "It's like the Wild, Wild West out there. The Pakistani border [with Afghanistan is] a real problem."
 Pakistanis Protest U.S. Missile Attack Failed Attack on Al Qaeda Deputy Killed More Than Dozen CiviliansKARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 15 -- Thousands of Pakistanis in cities across the country on Sunday took to the streets in protest against a U.S. missile attack that killed more than a dozen people in an apparently failed attempt to strike al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman Zawahiri. "There has been a protest in every big city, and the government understands why so many people are angry," said Sheik Rashid Ahmad, Pakistan's information minister. "When it comes to image-building in Muslim countries, particularly Pakistan, the U.S. is moving one foot forward and two backwards." Friday's rocket attack in the village of Damadola, which is just over the border from Afghanistan, was executed by the CIA, with an unmanned Predator drone firing missiles at houses where Zawahiri was thought to have been located, according to U.S. military and intelligence sources. Pakistani officials had initially said 17 people were killed in the strike, but on Sunday a senior intelligence official in Islamabad said there was evidence of 13 deaths, including three children and five women. Local officials said all of those killed were local residents, and that none were militants. A second Pakistani intelligence official discounted reports that the FBI may test the DNA of the victims to determine whether any were known terrorists. "What do you think, that the families of the victims would let us or the Americans dig the graves of their loved ones for FBI tests?" the official asked. "An absolutely crazy idea." U.S. officials said the Pakistani intelligence service had taken an active role in helping to coordinate Friday's strike. But on Saturday, Pakistan lodged a formal protest over the incident. The foreign secretary summoned the U.S. ambassador to deliver the latest protest personally, though it was unclear Sunday whether the two had talked. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad had no comment. The protest was the second of its kind in just the past week. The Pakistanis had earlier protested an attack in the Waziristan region that killed eight, and was blamed on the United States. In December, a CIA-led attack in the tribal areas of Pakistan succeeded in killing a top al Qaeda operative. There are 19,000 U.S. soldiers operating just over the border in Afghanistan, but the Pakistani government has not given them permission to cross into Pakistani territory in pursuit of terrorists -- many of whom are believed to be hiding out in the rugged and largely lawless tribal errors on the Pakistani side of the frontier. Zawahiri and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden are thought to be among them, and each has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head. Despite several cases over the past four years when U.S. or Pakistani officials said they were closing in on the men, both have remained at large since al Qaeda's attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. In that time, the Pakistani government has been under intense pressure from opposite sides: Washington has pushed it to cooperate more with efforts to hunt terrorists, while local Islamist groups have demanded that it not cave to U.S. interests. U.S. senators on television talk shows Sunday defended the strike, even if Zawahiri was not hit. "We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," McCain added that, "We have to do what we think is necessary to take out al-Qaeda, particularly the top operatives. This guy has been more visible than Osama bin Laden lately." Democratic senator Evan Bayh (Ind.) also defended the choice. "It's a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?" Bayh told CNN's "Late Edition." "It's like the wild, wild west out there. The Pakistani border is a real problem." Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), said Friday's strike was "clearly justified by the intelligence." Friday's attack seemed to provide fresh ammunition to the Islamist groups as they push their anti-American message. An alliance of religious parties known as Muttahida Majlise Amal called Sunday's protests, but all opposition political parties, as well as a key coalition partner of the government, participated in the rallies. Sunday's protests remained relatively peaceful, a day after a rally near the scene of the attacks turned violent when the offices of a U.S.-backed aid organization were ransacked and set ablaze. On Sunday, strict security measures were enforced, and all roads leading to U.S. diplomatic missions in Pakistan were blocked by paramilitary forces. The largest anti-U.S. rally was held here in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, outside the main Banori mosque. About 8,000 people listened to fiery speeches condemning the United States and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
The protests came at a time when thousands of U.S. troops are involved in major relief and rehabilitation work in areas of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir that were devastated by last fall's earthquake. Former U.S. president George H. W. Bush, the current president's father, is due in Pakistan on Monday to survey the work. But speakers said that after Friday's attack, he will not be welcome.
"Senior Bush must not be allowed to come to Pakistan unless Junior Bush seeks pardon from the people of Pakistan for killing our innocent children and women," said Ghafoor Ahmad, leader of the radical party Jamat-i-Islami.
Iran official: U.S. behind kidnappings(CNN) -- Iran's interior minister accused the United States on Saturday of orchestrating the kidnapping of nine Iranian border guards with the help of Sunni militant groups linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda, according to a report. "The United States, which cannot directly encounter Iran, uses such groups to carry out such acts against the country," Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi told reporters, according to state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). "Iran has launched a serious investigation into the kidnapping. The kidnappers are quite known. They have asked for ransom and release of jailed members of their group in exchange for the release of the border guards," the interior minister said. "We hope our sons can soon return to the country with the least harm." On Wednesday the Arabic-language network Al Arabiya aired video of what it said were soldiers who were kidnapped near Iran's border with Pakistan. The network read a statement reportedly made by a Sunni militant group, the Organization of God's Soldiers for Sunni Mujahedeen, threatening to kill the soldiers unless 16 imprisoned fellow militants are released. The authenticity of the video and the statement cannot be independently verified by CNN. Iran's government confirmed the soldiers were kidnapped and taken across the border into Pakistan. Bush and Former Cabinet Members Discuss Topic No. 1: IraqColin Powell said nothing - a silence that spoke volumes to many in the White House today. His predecessor, Madeleine Albright, was a bit riled after hearing an exceedingly upbeat 40-minute briefing to 13 living former secretaries of state and defense about how well things are going in Iraq. Saying the war in Iraq was "taking up all the energy" of President Bush's foreign policy team, she asked Mr. t Bush whether he had let nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea spin out of control, and Latin America and China policy suffer by benign neglect. "I can't let this comment stand," Mr. Bush shot back, telling Ms. Albright and the rare assembly of her colleagues, who reached back to the Kennedy White House, that his administration "can do more than one thing at a time." The Bush administration, the president insisted, had "the best relations of any country with Japan, China and Korea," and active programs to win alliances around the world. That was, according to some of the participants, one of the few moments of heat during an unusual White House effort to bring some of its critics into the fold and give a patina of bipartisan common ground to the strategy that Mr. Bush has laid out in recent weeks for Iraq. But if it was a bipartisan consultation, as advertised by the White House, it was a brief one. Mr. Bush allowed 5 to 10 minutes this morning for interchange with the group - which included three veterans of another difficult war, the one in Vietnam: Robert S. McNamara, Melvin R. Laird and James R. Schlesinger. Then the entire group was herded the Oval Office for what he called a "family picture." Those who wanted to impart more wisdom to the current occupants of the White House were sent back across the hall to meet again with Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. But, as several of the participants noted, by that time Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had gone on to other meetings. When cameras were in the room, though, Mr. Bush was appreciative. "I'm most grateful for the suggestions that have been given," he said. "We take to heard the advice, we appreciate your experience and we appreciate you taking the time out of your day." After the meeting, Mr. Laird, a defense secretary under President Richard M. Nixon, told reporters that Mr. Bush "heard some things he did not like, he heard some things he did like." "That's the kind of meeting you want," he said, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Laird, 83, said he agreed with Mr. Bush's decision to speak out more about Iraq. "If you level with the American people, you'll get their support," he said. Lawrence Eagleburger, a secretary of state under the first President Bush, told reporters that Mr. Bush had come in for some criticism but that it had been mild. "When you are in the presence of the president of the United States, I don't care if you've been a devout Democrat for the last hundred years, you're likely to pull your punches to some degree," Mr. Eagleburger said. Among the members of Republican administrations who attended the meeting were former secretaries of state James A. Baker III, Alexander M. Haig and George P. Shultz. Mr. Haig, 81, and Mr. Shultz, 85, headed the State Department in the Reagan years. Those who served in Democratic administrations included William Perry, who was defense secretary under President Bill Clinton and who was an adviser to Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Bush's Democratic opponent in 2004. Two high-profile former secretaries were conspicuous by their absence: Henry A. Kissinger and Caspar W. Weinberger. Mr. Kissinger, 82, served as secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations, while Mr. Weinberger, 88, served as defense secretary in the Reagan administration. Warren M. Christopher, 80, who was secretary of state in the Clinton administration before Ms. Albright, also did not attend. Gaza Britons kidnap suspect held
A man suspected of taking part in the kidnapping of a British human rights worker and her parents in Gaza has been arrested, Palestinian officials say. The arrested man led a faction of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the militant arm of the Fatah movement, police said. Kate Burton was freed with her parents last week, two days after being abducted in the southern town of Rafah. Abductions and clashes between armed groups have spiralled in Gaza since an Israeli withdrawal last year. But arrests remain rare because of the lack of law and order, reports BBC Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston. A Palestinian security official told the AFP news agency al-Aqsa faction leader Alaa al-Hams had been arrested on suspicion of being "behind the kidnapping of the British aid worker and her parents". Friends and relatives of Mr Hams fired weapons into the air to protest at the arrest in Rafah. They later stormed the local office of the Palestinian interior ministry. 'Nervous and angry' Ms Burton, 24, her father Hugh, 73, and mother Helen, 55 - known as Win - of Newbury, Berkshire, were abducted when their car was intercepted by masked gunmen. The human rights worker - who has vowed to continue her work in the Middle East - has denied claims she did not help the investigation into the identity of the gunmen. And in a BBC interview she said she felt guilty about putting her parents at risk but did not regret taking them to see the "positive side of the Palestinians". She said of their time in captivity that she had initially remained calm but became "nervous and angry" as promises to release them were not acted upon. Shortly before their release a previously unknown group, the Mujahideen Brigades, released a video showing Ms Burton with a masked gunman who said the three hostages were being freed in a gesture of good faith. However, the gunman urged the UK to exert more pressure on Israel or risk further kidnappings - particularly of international observers due to oversee elections in Gaza later this month.
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CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaidafs No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in a videotape aired Friday that the United Statesf recent decision to withdraw some troops from Iraq represented gthe victory of Islam.h
Al-Zawahri apparently was referring to comments last month by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said President Bush had authorized new troop cuts below the 138,000 level that prevailed for most of last year.
gRegarding your withdrawal timetable ... you have to admit, Bush, that you have been defeated in Iraq and are being defeated in Afghanistan and will be defeated in Palestine,h he said, speaking calmly but forcefully.
Rumsfeld has not revealed the exact size of the cut, but the Pentagon said the reductions would be about 7,000 troops, about the size of two combat brigades. The Pentagon has not announced a timetable for troop reductions, but indications are that the force could be cut significantly by the end of this year.
gYou remember I told you more than a year ago that the American withdrawal from Iraq is only a matter of time, and here they are now ... negotiating with the mujahedeen,h al-Zawahri said.
Bush egiving excusesf for troop withdrawal
gBush was forced at the end of last year to announce that he will pull out his forces from Iraq, but he was giving excuses for his withdrawal that the Iraqi forces have reached a good level.h
Bush has not offered concrete details about bringing troops home but said Wednesday that gpossible adjustmentsh would be discussed with Iraqi leaders if progress continued on security and political efforts.
Al-Zawahri said the American forces gwith their planes, missiles, tanks and fleets are mourning and bleeding, seeking for a getaway from Iraq.h
Al-Jazeera said the videotape was dated in December but it gave no more specifics. Network spokesman Ayman Gaballah said the videotape, about 20 minutes long, was acquired through ga special source.h He would not elaborate.
More excerpts were expected to be aired later Friday.
The most recent videotape from al-Zawahri, aired by Al-Jazeera in October, called on Muslims to aid victims of a massive earthquake in Pakistan.
gIf I was comforting the Islam nation for its crisis of Pakistanfs earthquake, I today congratulate it and bless the Islamic victory in Iraq,h al-Zawahri said in Fridayfs tape.
In a statement attached to Mr Bush's signing of a defence spending bill last week, the White House said it would construe the bill's ban on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president and his powers as commander-in-chief.
A senior administration official told the Boston Globe this week that while the administration intended to abide by the law, there might be extreme circumstances under which the president would have to waive the law to protect national security.
The language attached to the bill marks the latest attempt by the White House to assert that under the US constitution, Congress has no authority to tie the president's hands in the war on terror. The administration is defending on the same grounds Mr Bush's secret decision to authorise the National Security Agency to monitor communications inside the US, ignoring the legal requirements set by Congress nearly 30 years ago.
The signing statement of December 30 is an even bolder claim, however, because it appears to contradict directly the agreement between the White House and Senator John McCain, Republican sponsor of the anti-torture legislation. In an Oval Office meeting with Mr McCain last month, the president stated that the agreement had achieved common objective, and that is to make it clear to the world that this government does not torture.
Mr McCain and Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, are challenging the White House interpretation of the law, which has reintroduced the ambiguity that the legislation sought to end.
We believe the president understands Congress' intent in passing by very large majorities legislation governing the treatment of detainees, they said. The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation.
The legal force of such presidential signing statements is unclear. When Congress passes a law, it routinely attaches a statement explaining its interpretation of the law, which is later considered by the courts in determining how to enforce the law. Presidents since Jimmy Carter have taken to issuing on occasion similar statements intended to spell out the executive branch's interpretation.
Tom Malinowski, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, said the White House statement as an effort to signal to the Central Intelligence Agency that it should still consider itself authorised to engage in cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment in extreme circumstances. He said that given Congress' clear intent to abolish such abuse under all circumstances, CIA officers would be taking an enormous legal risk in relying the president's assertion of inherent constitutional authority.
A Yemeni man accused of being Osama bin Laden's bodyguard has appeared before a military tribunal at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Ali Hamza al Bahlul, who has said he is a member of al-Qaeda, went before the tribunal four years to the day since the camp was set up.
Mr Bahlul refused a lawyer, saying: "There's going to be a tribunal of God on the day of judgment."
Rights group Amnesty International repeated calls for the camp to be shut.
'Boycott'
Mr Bahlul is charged with conspiring to commit war crimes by being a bodyguard of Bin Laden and making training videos for militants.
He spoke out in front of the military tribunal, saying in Arabic that he did not recognise its authority.
"Do what you have to do and rule however you have to rule... God will rule based on justice," he said.
He ended his outburst with one word in English - "boycott".
The pre-trial hearing against another man, Canadian Omar Khadr, 19, was also scheduled to convene on Wednesday.
Mr Khadr has been charged with murdering a US medic with a grenade in Afghanistan when he was only 15.
Torture claims
If convicted, Mr Bahlul and Mr Khadr could face life in prison.
Their cases have gone ahead even though the trials of other Guantanamo detainees have been halted while the US Supreme Court decides if US President George W Bush has the authority to establish such tribunals.
The Bush administration argues that it needs flexibility in dealing with the war on terror and terrorists cannot be treated as if they are just another criminal defendant.
The military tribunals have been criticised for failing to give suspects a fair trial.
Amnesty said 500 detainees continued to be held without charge or trial at Guantanamo Bay and repeated its call for the facility to be shut.
Amnesty said there were mounting allegations of appalling conditions, torture and ill-treatment of detainees at the camp.
The group highlighted the case of Jumah al-Dossari, a 32-year-old Bahraini who was taken to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002.
His lawyer said Mr Dossari had been urinated on, threatened with rape and had his head repeatedly smashed against the floor. The claims have been denied by the US government.
He had reportedly attempted to commit suicide 10 times, the rights group said.
Another detainee, Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese cameraman for Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera, had been subjected to severe physical, sexual and religious abuse over the last four years, his British lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith said.
Amnesty's UK Campaigns Director, Stephen Bowen, called the situation at Guantanamo Bay "shocking".
"There's no middle ground regarding Guantanamo. It must be closed and there must be an investigation into the dozens of torture reports that have emerged since 2002," he said.
AT least 28 policemen were killed and 25 injured overnight when twin suicide bombers attacked Iraq's interior ministry where ministers and the US ambassador were attending a parade to mark Police Day. The Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet message. Both bombers wore police uniforms. Guards at the ministry gate in Baghdad opened fire on one of them, but the bullets detonated the explosives strapped to his body, a security official said.
As police crowded around his remains, a second suicide bomber approached and blew himself up, wreaking carnage. The dead included a major who was responsible for ministry security.
A mortar shell was also fired but fell next door in the police academy, causing no damage. The group headed by Iraq's most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the attack was to avenge the "torture" of Sunni Muslims at the interior ministry.
"The lions of unification led a new raid against the ministry of interior... to avenge the Sunnis who were subjected to all sorts of torture at the prisons of this ministry," it said in a statement, which could not be independently authenticated.
Abuse scandals came to the fore in November and December when US and Iraqi forces discovered two overcrowded interior ministry detention centres. Some inmates had reportedly been tortured. Sunni leaders have repeatedly alleged abuses at the hands of Shiite-dominated interior ministry forces.
The Organisation of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia said "the lions chose the day when the apostates were gathered to celebrate (Iraqi Police Day)". "Two brothers ... managed to cross nine checkpoints and blew up their explosive belts," it said.
Top officials, including Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solah, Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, were watching the annual police celebration when the attack occurred just metres away. The latest bloodshed came as the electoral commission announced a delay in releasing its findings into fraud allegations in last month's Iraqi elections.
"There are still four to five small outstanding items," Abdul Hussein al-Hindawi, a member of the Iraqi electoral commission board, told AFP. The commission said the findings would be announced next weekend, after the three-day Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. "The commission will also announce preliminary results in the days after Eid," the commission said, referring to the landmark vote.
The delay will also give extra time to a group of foreign monitors to wind up a separate probe into the December 15 poll Ethe first to elect a permanent parliament in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
The developments came as a senior Shiite leader accused US officials of trying to hobble Iraqi security forces in their fight against insurgents who frequently target the country's majority Shiite community. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the leading Supreme Council of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), warned in an interview on CNN television that Shiites were losing patience and might take the law into their own hands.
The US ambassador, for his part, renewed earlier warnings that security institutions should be reformed and militias disbanded. "They are a threat to Iraqi security and could produce future civil conflict and warlordism," he said in a column published in the Wall Street Journal.
Mr Khalilzad also urged Iraqis to form as broad-based a government as possible to undermine the insurgents. Top Sunni leader Saleh Mutlaq has also called for an end to violence, but cautioned that "terrorism will only stop when we form a balanced, united Iraqi government in which everybody takes part".
Mindful of such efforts to get Sunnis into the government, Zarqawi hit out in an earlier Internet statement at the Iraqi Islamic Party, another Sunni-based faction, warning it not to get involved in the political process. But Iyad Samerai, a senior member of the party, pledged to stay the political course.
Meanwhile, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, who last month said he was resigning his job as oil minister, had returned to his post, the government said.
The Foreign Office also updated its advice for Britons visiting the Middle Eastern country to say that "terrorists may be in the final stages of planning attacks against Westerners and places frequented by Westerners." Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Judeh would not comment on the reasons for the embassy closure but told The Associated Press that Jordan's security authorities had "studied information on the threat and did not believe that it warranted closing down the British Embassy."
"The Jordanian security apparatus provides the required protection to foreign embassies without any threat and in the event of a threat, steps up protection," Judeh said. "Britain took this decision. Jordan believes that the threat does not warrant closure of the British Embassy." Britain's Foreign Office did not warn against traveling to Jordan, but noted in its updated advice that "there have been a number of successful and attempted terrorist attacks in Jordan since 2001."
It specifically mentioned hotel bombings that killed 60 people in Amman in November, and said Jordanian security forces remained on alert. "If you are planning to travel to Jordan, you should take sensible precautions for your personal security arrangements throughout your visit," the advice warned. "Developments in the region could affect the security situation.
A Foreign Office spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy, said he did not know when the embassy would reopen.
A US terror suspect who was held as an enemy combatant for more than three years before being moved to civilian custody has had his case delayed.Jose Padilla had been expected to enter a plea on Friday on charges of plotting to "murder, kidnap and maim" abroad, but now must wait until 12 January.
He appeared in court in Miami after being transferred to civilian custody.
His case has hugelegal and political significance, as it focuses on presidential power at a time of war.
Mr Padilla's detention, heavily criticised by civil rights groups, is seen as a test of the limits of the US government's anti-terrorism powers.
Test of authority
He appeared in court in Miami on Thursday wearing an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg shackles.
The charges against Mr Padilla do not include allegations made against him when he was arrested in 2002, of plotting to set off a radioactive device or "dirty bomb" in a US city.
Mr Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, was finally charged in November 2005 with the conspiracy offences.
His legal team is expected to ask for him to be released before his trial, a move which prosecutors will oppose.
A series of challenges to Mr Padilla's detention in military custody could eventually have ended in a Supreme Court battle over the president's powers to hold US citizens as "enemy combatants", the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says.
But the White House decided not to take the risk of testing the president's authority, so they handed Mr Padilla to the civilian courts, he says.
An investigation by the BBC World Service into the cost of the London bombings last July has revealed that they cost no more than several hundred pounds to carry out.
As soon as Scotland Yard established the identities of the four men responsible for the London bombings on 7 July, they began investigating the financing of the attacks.
Officers now believe that Mohammad Sidique Khan, who worked as a teaching assistant, was the principal backer of the attacks and that he gave money to the other men to buy some of the materials.
The attacks by four suicide bombers on three Tube trains and a bus killed 52 people and injured hundreds.
Detectives also discovered that the men had prepared for their own deaths - they paid off some of their debts and at least one bomber is understood to have written a will.
Further investigations allowed police to put a price on the cost of executing the attacks - no more than several hundred pounds.
Loretta Napoleoni, an economist and expert on terrorist financing, told Dirty Money on the BBC World Service that the figure was part of a pattern.
"If you look at 9/11, which cost only $500,000 to execute, and then you look at all the subsequent attacks that have taken place - going from Bali to Istanbul to Madrid to London - we actually see that the cost of the attacks is decreasing exponentially."
Still, the figure now revealed for the cost of the London bombings is very low.
The Madrid bombings - another attack on the transport infrastructure of a major European city - are estimated to have cost $10,000, approximately 10 times the cost of the London bombings.
Within days of the attacks, Chancellor Gordon Brown went to Brussels for a meeting of EU finance ministers to urge them to cooperate more closely to stop the financing of terrorism.
But the fact that London was bombed for such a cheap figure - and that the money was raised legitimately - highlights the problems that the authorities have in tackling terrorist financing.
Douglas Greenburg, who studied the financing of attacks on New York and Washington as part of the 9/11 commission, told Dirty Money: "If you have someone who is working and depositing their pay cheques into the bank, and periodically withdrawing money and at night buying components for a bomb, constructing a bomb in their basement, what's the bank going to do about that?"
An alleged al-Qaida operative accused of serving as a key link between the group's leaders and suicide bombers hid his tracks so well that even fellow militants thought he was dead. Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, wanted by Turkey for 2003 bombings in Istanbul that killed 58 people, is said to have eluded intelligence services by using an array of fake IDs, employing aliases even with his al-Qaida contacts and finally faking his death in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004.
The Syrian radical didn't surface until last August, when an accidental explosion forced him to flee his safehouse in the Turkish resort of Antalya, police say. Officers reported finding bomb-making materials meant for an attack on an Israeli cruise ship as well as fake IDs and passports from several countries. Police eventually cornered al-Saqa in southeastern Turkey and he is awaiting trial on terrorism charges. His story is an example of how al-Qaida militants operate in the shadows, changing identities, moving from country to country and covering their tracks to help the loosely organized terror network carry out attacks.
Until recent years, al-Saqa was not well-known to international intelligence agencies despite his conviction in absentia in 2002 — along with al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — for a failed plot to attack Americans and Israelis in Jordan with poison gas during millennium celebrations. He and al-Zarqawi were each sentenced to 15 years in prison. Al-Saqa later emerged as a key al-Qaida operative in the Middle East. Two Turkish terror suspects interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said al-Saqa served as a connection between the 2003 Istanbul bombers and al-Qaida, according to testimony obtained by The Associated Press.
"He is a very important person for that region because obviously he knows more people than the locals themselves," said Michael Radu, a terrorism analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. "He probably meets people from different cells, different subgroups who do not know each other, but he knows them so he can have a much better picture."
Al-Saqa, 32, juggled identities, and rumors, to elude intelligence agencies. Turkish al-Qaida suspect Burhan Kus said at Abu Ghraib that he had heard al-Saqa and Habib Akdas, the accused ringleader of the Istanbul bombers, were killed in a U.S. bombardment of the Iraqi town of Fallujah in November 2004.
"Al-Saqa apparently faked his own death, borrowing a disinformation tactic used by Chechen militants," said Ercan Citlioglu, a terrorism expert at the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara, the Turkish capital. Several accused Turkish al-Qaida suspects recognized al-Saqa's photos but identified him with different names, most calling him "Syrian Alaaddin."
"The al-Saqa case clearly shows how al-Qaida is taking advantage of fake IDs and porous borders to spread its terror, forcing countries to take more sophisticated measures, like taking fingerprints in the United States, to increase border security," Citlioglu said. Analysts said his capture was a blow to al-Qaida since he would be one of only a few people who understood the infrastructure of an organization that lacks permanent, hierarchical links.
"That is a serious blow because it is very hard to replace these kind of people," said Radu. But Turkish security officials warn that others still operate in the region. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described al-Saqa as one of fewer than a dozen al-Qaida "middle managers" who serve as contacts between local cells and the al-Qaida leadership.
Al-Saqa's success in eluding capture for so long underlines the challenges that authorities face in trying to crack down on al-Qaida and the insurgency in Iraq. He apparently left Iraq after spreading the rumor about his death in Fallujah. Nine months later, police responding to the Antalya explosion discovered more than 1,320 pounds of bomb-making materials, falsified Syrian and Turkish IDs and two Tunisian passports. All bore al-Saqa's picture. He eventually was captured at Diyarbakir airport in southeastern Turkey with yet another fake Turkish ID. Only then did Turkish police realize they had captured and deported al-Saqa — without knowing his real identity — in March 2003 for carrying a fake Syrian passport.
Identifying himself as a "mujahed" — guerrilla fighter — al-Saqa admitted to failed plans to make a bomb and to stage an attack on Israeli tourist ships, similar to the attack on the destroyer USS Cole off Yemen in October 2000 that killed 17 sailors, said Emin Demirel, a terrorism expert and author of several books on al-Qaida's structure in Turkey.
According to testimony obtained by AP, al-Saqa told Turkish prosecutors: "I was going to blow up the Israeli ship in international waters." Prosecutors charged al-Saqa with being a senior al-Qaida member, making bombs and smuggling explosives into Turkey. He is being held at the high-security Kandira prison near Istanbul. No trial date has been set. Al-Saqa could also be extradited to Jordan, where a military court convicted him, al-Zarqawi and Jordanian-American Raed Hijazi in connection with the failed millennium terror attack. Jordanian prosecutors suggested in their indictment that al-Saqa was an agent coordinating between militants traveling through Turkey to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In Istanbul, Al-Saqa played host to Hijazi and two other militants, including a cousin of al-Zarqawi, helping to arrange their travel to Pakistan for training in neighboring Afghanistan, court documents said. Kus, the terror suspect held at Abu Ghraib, said al-Saqa was known to have provided passports to insurgents in Istanbul. He said al-Saqa brought $50,000 to Istanbul for the 2003 bombings at the British consulate, the local headquarters of the London-based bank HSBC and two synagogues. A total of 58 people were killed and hundreds suffered wounds.
Kus said al-Saqa and fellow ringleader Akdas cheered and shouted "Allahu Akbar" — Arabic for "God is great" — as they watched TV news in Syria about the bombings. Seventy-two suspects were eventually charged in the attacks. The next hearing in that case is scheduled for Jan. 24. Kus, charged with helping to build the Istanbul truck bombs, said he later traveled from Syria with Akdas to Iraq, where al-Saqa was a commander in Fallujah, then an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad
(CNN) -- Italians rejoiced Sunday with the news that four of their countrymen had been released by separate groups of kidnappers in Yemen and Gaza.
One man, identified by The Associated Press as Alessandro Bernardini, was released in Gaza hours after he had been abducted, Palestinian security sources said.
The AP also reported that Palestinian security forces stormed a building where Bernardini was being held and rescued him after a shootout with the kidnappers, who escaped. (Full story)
Meanwhile, three Italian women were freed by their abductors in northern Yemen, the Yemeni state-run news agency Saba reported.
Two other hostages -- both men -- were still being held, a Yemeni official said.
Sheikh Dirham al Tham'a, secretary general of the council of Ma'rib province, in which the five were kidnapped, said "after three hours of negotiation, we managed to free three women, and we are trying to free the two men."
The kidnappers are tribesmen trying to pressure the Yemeni government to free relatives who are imprisoned, Tham'a said.
In a news release after kidnappings were reported, the Italian government said it was looking into the reported abductions and was in contact with the embassy at San'a, the Yemeni capital.
The reports come one day after five German citizens taken hostage in Yemen were freed. Juergen Chrobog, his wife, Magda, and their three adult sons were taken hostage in Shabwa province while on a guided tour, officials said. (Full story)
Bernardini, the Italian man freed in Gaza, told the media he was treated well by his captors, the AP reported.
"I'm not going to change my ideas about the Palestinians," he said.
A security official told the AP the kidnapping was the work of a small group of radicals affiliated with the Fatah party.
There were no reports of injuries in the shootout, said the AP, which quoted a Palestinian security official who said his forces "stormed the place after we surrounded it."
The incident came two days after a British national who works for a Palestinian aid agency and her parents were freed by kidnappers after they were held hostage for 48 hours. (Full story)
THE many friends waiting for word of Kate Burton described her last night as a woman who refuses to be intimidated.
Over the Christmas holidays they had sent worried e-mails to the 24-year-old aid worker as newspaper headlines reported escalating violence in Gaza.
With her usual good humour Ms Burton replied that she was not important enough to be a target for the gunmen, adding that she was too busy showing her mother and father the sights in the Holy Land to get into any mischief.
Her father, Hugh, gave up his own high-powered job in Brussels to follow his daughter into voluntary work, recruiting Western businessmen to help to set up companies in the developing world.
Most of Ms Burton’s messages to old university friends in Britain spoke enthusiastically about her work in Gaza helping Palestinian families, and her plans there for next year.
One girlfriend said last night: “She was someone who truly loved what she was doing. It was more than a job for Kate.Ever since I’ve known her, she wanted to help people. That might make her sound like some sort of goody-goody, but Kate was anything but. She was quickwitted, adored people who made her laugh and was fabulous company.”
Having lived in Gaza for the past three years and being an Arabic speaker, she would have been acutely aware of the heightened tensions and the Foreign Office warning that Britons should leave. But she told friends that she often felt that Western organisations were too eager to evacuate to a more comfortable billet, leaving behind those they were supposed to be helping.
“She was that rare breed who cared for others more than herself,” the friend added.
Whenever she picked somewhere to visit, she mastered the langauge before she arrived. She is also expert in sign language; her brother is deaf.
Her skills in Spanish complemented her aptitude in French and Flemish which she learnt during her school years in Brussels where her father was a leading figure in the European Union. From 1987 to 1999 she attended the prestigious European School (Woluwe) in Brussels.
In 1999 she visited Chile on a gap year, teaching in schools. One fellow Briton remembers “the children really responded to Kate. She was a true communicator, and a hell of a good girl. If any of us found ourselves in this terrible situation then Kate would cope the best. She is level-headed, patient and nothing throws her.”
She then went to the London School of Economics to study maths and economics, but is best remembered as a social activist. Mike Burn, a fellow student then, said: “She was always pretty politically active, going to stuff, helping people.”
Ms Burton used to encourage friends to join her in London marches on the environment, human rights and her passionate concern for the plight of the Palestinians. In her shared London flat she would spend hours arguing and cajoling companions about what needed to be done in the Middle East.
But friends knew Ms Burton would never be content to talk about righting the world’s wrongs when she could do something to effect change.
In Gaza she first worked for the Institute for Development Studies, a non-profit academic institution which supports educational development for Palestinians. The institute counts the UN and Strathclyde University among its partners. Ms Burton left that job when the UN pulled out non-essential staff because of the threat of kidnap. She was determined to stay so she offered her services to the al-Mezan human rights group, where she was a fundraiser.
Her parents enthusiastically supported her work and, when he retired from his career in the EU, Hugh Burton joined the British Executive Service Overseas, becoming one of 3,500 volunteers to help Third-World companies on assignments lasting from one week to four months. He is general secretary of the Confederation of European Senior Expert Services, a not-for-profit organisation which calls on the skills of 25,000 volunteers helping small businesses in the developing world.
During a distinguished career in Brussels he held positions at various EEC and Commission directorates, including energy and nuclear, external relations and trade and development.
Spain's high court has sentenced an Eta member to 100 years and three months in prison for the murder of a socialist leader almost six years ago.
Fernando Buesa and bodyguard Jorge Diez died in a car bomb attack in the Basque capital, Vitoria, in February 2000.
The court said the case against Eta's Diego Ugarte Lopez de Arkaute had been proven beyond doubt, Efe reports.
Eta, which wants an independent Basque nation, has been blamed for more than 800 killings in the past four decades.
It has not carried out any fatal attacks for two years but has claimed responsibility for a series of small bombs set off in recent weeks.
Street protest
On top of the 100-year jail term, the court imposed an order banning Diego Ugarte from living near his victims' families or communicating with them in any way for five years after his release.
It is the first time such a penalty has been applied to an Eta member by the court, according to Spanish media reports.
Mr Buesa, a 53-year-old married father of three, was murdered three weeks before Spanish general elections were held.
He was head of the provincial chapter of the Basque Socialist Party, which had voiced its opposition to Basque separatism.
Three days before his death, Mr Buesa was among 10,000 people to participate in an anti-Eta demonstration in the nearby city of San Sebastian.
Mr Diez, a 26-year-old policeman acting as his bodyguard, was also killed when the 20kg bomb exploded as they crossed Vitoria's university campus.
Thousands of people took to the streets of Vitoria the night of the attack to protest against the killings.
The current Spanish Socialist government has offered to hold talks with Eta if it renounces violence.
The militants' planned Basque homeland encompasses areas of northern Spain and south-western France.
In what may be a sign that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror group is expanding its operations, Al Qaeda in Iraq has posted a statement claiming responsibility for firing missiles from Lebanon into northern Israel earlier this week.
The statement, posted Thursday on Web sites used previously by al Qaeda in Iraq, cannot be independently verified by CNN.
The three rockets were fired late Tuesday from Lebanon into the Israeli town of Kiryat Shimona. The attack resulted in minor damage and no casualties.
However, the Al Qaeda in Iraq statement called the attack a success.
"After days of monitoring and surveillance, ... a lion launched 10 Grad (Russian) missiles ... from the Muslims' lands in Lebanon on selected targets in the northern part of the Jewish state," the statement said. "The brothers had accomplished the attack successfully, exactly as they designed it."
It is not clear why Al Qaeda in Iraq -- a Sunni Arab terror group that has launched attacks against Shiite targets inside Iraq -- would be operating in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah frequently fires rockets across the border into Israel. Hezbollah has strong ties with Iran, a Shiite country.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office had no comment on the statement, which was posted on several Web sites used previously for similar claims of responsibility by al Qaeda in Iraq.
The Israeli military said it held Lebanon's government responsible for not dismantling terror groups operating within its borders. Hours after Tuesday's strike, Israeli warplanes dropped missiles on a terrorist training camp near Beirut, run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for two other attacks outside of Iraq: last month's deadly hotel attacks in Amman, Jordan, and a rocket attack in August that targeted but missed two U.S. warships in the Jordanian port of Aqaba
Jordanian officials have said the group also carried out an attack on Jordan's intelligence agency.
Al-Qaeda's deputy leader has claimed the Taleban still control large parts of Afghanistan, according to a tape broadcast on a Arabic TV channel.
The speaker, said to be Ayman al-Zawahri, said the Taleban was "waging a sustained guerrilla campaign against the crusaders and apostates".
Al-Arabiya satellite television said it had only just obtained the tape and could not tell when it was recorded.
More than 1,400 people have died in unrest in Afghanistan this year.
It is the worst toll since US-led forces ousted the Taleban in late 2001.
The Islamic administration is, thanks be to God, still present - it controls large parts of the east and south of Afghanistan and is waging a sustained guerrilla campaign against the crusaders and apostates
Previous recordings from Zawahri have been broadcast periodically.
"The Islamic administration is, thanks be to God, still present," the speaker on the new tape states.
"It controls large parts of the east and south of Afghanistan and is waging a sustained guerrilla campaign against the crusaders and apostates."
Zawahri and Bin Laden are believed to be at large in mountainous areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
A videotape of Zawahri, recently broadcast on al-Jazeera television, was later said to have been three months old.
In that tape, Zawahri said Bin Laden was still alive.
The latest tape followed fresh violence in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, two militants and one policeman were killed in eastern Afghanistan after militants clashed with Afghan and US forces, officials said.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ruled out any rapid pullout of US forces from Afghanistan.
He said while the US was planning to reduce its troops in Afghanistan, withdrawing forces rapidly would impede operations against al-Qaeda fighters and their allies.
WASHINGTON - Four years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters are showing renewed strength, using suicide bombs and rocket-propelled grenades. They are even training the next generation. Since June 2005, 54 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, by far the most lethal period since the U.S. invaded.
Behind some of the most deadly attacks is one man, a 35-year-old Afghan who calls himself gCommander Ismail.h In his first interviews with Western media, Ismail brags about killing three Navy Seals this summer, then downing a Chinook helicopter that came to rescue them, killing another 16 Americans. Commander Ismail says ousted Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive and well and that the Mujahaddin are fighting under his command and control.
NBC News interviewed Ismail in August and again this month. Both times, the Taliban made sure we could not provide their location to the U.S. military. An NBC producer was taken on a confusing seven hour odyssey to an unknown location, where Ismail then appeared. Ismail boasts that in June, he deliberately laid a trap for American forces.
Ismail: We certainly know that when the American army comes under pressure and they get hit, they will try to help their friends. It is the law of the battlefield. A tape obtained by NBC News showed what appears to be some of the battle, and the terroristsf unsuccessful attempt to coax a Navy Seal to surrender. When the U.S. military sent in a rescue team, Ismailfs men were waiting with a rocket-propelled grenade, downing the helicopter, and then spreading out recovered weapons and hi-tech equipment. Later, they displayed captured communications equipment and weapons.
Ismail also predicts more bloodshed to come.
NBC News provided details of the interview to U.S. intelligence. Senior officials say his claims are consistent with what they know about the battle, and they have no reason to believe that the man is not Commander Ismail. Rick Francona, a former Air Force intelligence officer and now an NBC News analyst, calls the interview revealing. gItfs important that all Americans see who wefre dealing with here— the face of the enemy,h says Francona.
gTheyfre smart, they adapt to changing tactics, and they are utterly ruthless in their execution,h he adds. The Pentagon declined to comment on Ismailfs claims. But U.S. officials confirm the enemy in Afghanistan has grown more bold and more vicious.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - A gas attack in a home-supply store on one of the busiest shopping days of the year sickened scores of people in an incident that police called likely motivated by a commercial dispute or blackmail attempt. Boxes containing timers wired to glass vials were discovered at the scene of the attack and three other stores in the same chain in Russiafs second-largest city.
Seventy-eight people sought medical care: 66 were briefly hospitalized and sent home without any lasting ill effects, officials said. Police said that the store where the people were sickened had not yet opened for the day and all those affected were store employees or police, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. A police spokesman told The Associated Press that some customers had been sickened. Officials with the Maksidom home-supply chain, which sells furnishings, home-repair material and other domestic articles, said they had received recent threats that sales would be disrupted around New Yearfs, when Russians traditionally give holiday gifts.
Doing business with violence
Most efforts to undermine competitorsf sales in Russiafs sharp-elbowed free market take the form of negative advertising or damaging rumors. Business-related violence nonetheless remains a feature of the cutthroat capitalism that enveloped Russia following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. gThe first reaction is that it is one of the competitors of this store chain,h St. Petersburg Gov. Valentina Matviyenko said in televised comments. St. Petersburg police spokesman Vyacheslav Stepchenko said the gas appeared to be methyl mercaptan, a gas that smells like rotten cabbage and is both naturally occurring and manufactured for use in plastics and pesticides. Chemist Lev Fyodorov, head of an environmental group called For Chemical Safety, said in an NTV television report that the gas rarely has long-lasting effects.
The smell of garlic
Employees at the branch where people were sickened told officials they heard a sharp noise, like a clap or pop, before people inside smelled a garlicky odor and began to feel ill. Police and security officers called to the scene found a mechanism with a timer attached to shattered ampules, Stepchenko said. Patients complained of nausea and vomiting — along with chest pain and high blood pressure that probably resulted from nervousness, nurse Alexei Afanasyev said on NTV. Stepchenko said that a custodian at another branch discovered a suspicious box before opening time and found ampules attached to wires and a timer inside. The woman inadvertently broke one of the ampules and noticed a repulsive smell but was not sickened, he said. Boxes with glass containers attached to timers were found in two other stores by employees who carried them outside and covered them with buckets; police explosives experts defused them, Stepchenko said
US authorities have been secretly monitoring radiation levels at Muslim sites amid fears that terrorists might obtain nuclear weapons, it has emerged.
Scores of mosques and private addresses have been checked for radiation, the US News and World Report says.
A Justice Department spokesman said the programme was necessary in the fight against al-Qaeda.
Last week, President George W Bush admitted allowing the wiretapping of Americans with suspected terror links.
Mr Bush has defended the covert programme and vowed to continue the practice, saying it was vital to protect the country.
No warrants
According to US News and World Report, the nuclear surveillance programme was set up after the attacks of 11 September 2001.
It began in early 2002 and has been run by the FBI and the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team.
The Associated Press news agency said federal law enforcement officials have confirmed the programme's existence.
The targets were almost all US citizens
The air monitoring targeted private US property in the Washington DC area, including Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, New York and Seattle, the magazine said.
At its peak, three vehicles in Washington monitored 120 sites a day.
Nearly all of the targets were key Muslim sites.
"In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the programme," the publication said.
"The targets were almost all US citizens," an unnamed source involved in the programme told the magazine.
"A lot of us thought it was questionable, but people who complained nearly lost their jobs," the source said.
Muslim anger
Federal officials cited by US News and World Report said that monitoring on public property, such as driveways and parking lots, was legal and that warrants were not needed for the kind of radiation sampling it conducted.
They also rejected the claim that the programme specifically targeted Muslims.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the programme was necessary as al-Qaeda remained committed to obtaining nuclear weapons.
An FBI spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the news "comes as a complete shock to us and everyone in the Muslim community".
He added: "This creates the appearance that Muslims are targeted simply for being Muslims. I don't think this is the message the government wants to send at this time."
"Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him," Wafah Dufour, the daughter of bin Laden's half brother, Yeslam Binladin, says in the January edition of the magazine, referring to the al-Qaeda leader.
"I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody's judging me and rejecting me," said the California-born Dufour, a law graduate who lives in New York. "Come on, where's the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours. And I'm here. I'm not hiding."
Dufour, who adopted her mother's maiden name after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that have been blamed on bin Laden, appears in several provocative photos in the magazine.
The pictures are likely to be considered obscene by conservative Muslims in and outside of Saudi Arabia where women are required to be veiled.
Asked if she would like to perform her music in the Middle East, Dufour says her mother, Carmen Dufour, would be too afraid that "someone would want to kill me."
"Listen, I would love to raise consciousness. Maybe women could hear the songs and realize that I'm doing my dream and hopefully they can, too," she said.
Yeslam and Osama are among 54 children of the late Saudi construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden and his 22 wives. The extended family includes several hundred people.
Binladin, who received Swiss citizenship in 2001, has condemned his half brother "for his acts and his convictions." He intentionally spells his name differently from his half brother.
In the interview, Dufour says she would not date a fundamentalist Muslim and that she cried hysterically when she witnessed the attacks on New York while staying with her mother in Geneva.
President Bush asserted this week that the news media published a U.S. government leak in 1998 about Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, alerting the al Qaeda leader to government monitoring and prompting him to abandon the device. The story of the vicious leak that destroyed a valuable intelligence operation was first reported by a best-selling book, validated by the Sept. 11 commission and then repeated by the president. But it appears to be an urban myth. The al Qaeda leader's communication to aides via satellite phone had already been reported in 1996 — and the source of the information was another government, the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan at the time. The second time a news organization reported on the satellite phone, the source was bin Laden himself. Causal effects are hard to prove, but other factors could have persuaded bin Laden to turn off his satellite phone in August 1998. A day earlier, the United States had fired dozens of cruise missiles at his training camps, missing him by hours. Bush made his assertion at a news conference Monday, in which he defended his authorization of warrantless monitoring of communications between some U.S. citizens and suspected terrorists overseas. He fumed that "the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak." He berated the media for "revealing sources, methods and what we use the information for" and thus helping "the enemy" change its operations. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday that the president was referring to an article that appeared in the Washington Times on Aug. 21, 1998, the day after the cruise missile attack, which was launched in retaliation for the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa two weeks earlier. The Sept. 11 commission also cited the article as "a leak" that prompted bin Laden to stop using his satellite phone, though it noted that he had added more bodyguards and began moving his sleeping place "frequently and unpredictably" after the missile attack.
Two former Clinton administration officials first fingered the Times article in a 2002 book, "The Age of Sacred Terror." Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote that after the "unabashed right-wing newspaper" published the story, bin Laden "stopped using the satellite phone instantly" and "the United States lost its best chance to find him."
The article, a profile of bin Laden, buried the information about his satellite phone in the 21st paragraph. It never said that the United States was listening in on bin Laden, as the president alleged. The writer, Martin Sieff, said yesterday that the information about the phone was "already in the public domain" when he wrote the story. A search of media databases shows that Time magazine had first reported on Dec. 16, 1996, that bin Laden "uses satellite phones to contact fellow Islamic militants in Europe, the Middle East and Africa." Taliban officials provided the information, with one official — security chief Mulla Abdul Mannan Niazi — telling Time, "He's in high spirits." The day before the Washington Times article was published — and the day of the attacks — CNN producer Peter Bergen appeared on the network to talk about an interview he had with bin Laden in 1997. "He communicates by satellite phone, even though Afghanistan in some levels is back in the Middle Ages and a country that barely functions," Bergen said. Bergen noted that as early as 1997, bin Laden's men were very concerned about electronic surveillance. "They scanned us electronically," he said, because they were worried that anyone meeting with bin Laden "might have some tracking device from some intelligence agency." In 1996, the Chechen insurgent leader Dzhokhar Dudayev was killed by a Russian missile that locked in to his satellite phone signal. That same day, CBS reported that bin Laden used a satellite phone to give a television interview. USA Today ran a profile of bin Laden on the same day as the Washington Times's article, quoting a former U.S. official about his "fondness for his cell phone." It was not until Sept. 7, 1998 — after bin Laden apparently stopped using his phone — that a newspaper reported that the United States had intercepted his phone calls and obtained his voiceprint. U.S. authorities "used their communications intercept capacity to pick up calls placed by bin Laden on his Inmarsat satellite phone, despite his apparent use of electronic 'scramblers,' " the Los Angeles Times reported. Officials could not explain yesterday why they focused on the Washington Times story when other news organizations at the same time reported on the satellite phone — and that the information was not particularly newsworthy.
"You got me," said Benjamin, who was director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff at the time. "That was the understanding in the White House and the intelligence community. The story ran and the lights went out." Lee H. Hamilton, vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, gave a speech in October in which he said the leak "was terribly damaging." Yesterday, he said the commission relied on the testimony of three "very responsible, very senior intelligence officers," who he said "linked the Times story to the cessation of the use of the phone." He said they described it as a very serious leak.
But Hamilton said he did not recall any discussion about other news outlets' reports. "I cannot conceive we would have singled out the Washington Times if we knew about all of the reporting," he said. A White House official said last night the administration was confident that press reports changed bin Laden's behavior. CIA spokesman Tom Crispell declined to comment, saying the question involves intelligence sources and methods.
Three Afghans found guilty of the high-profile kidnapping of an Italian aid worker, Clementina Cantoni, have been given 20 year prison sentences.
Two of them have also been sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing an Afghan businessman, Hafizullah Zadran.
The verdicts were handed down after a one-day trial in the capital, Kabul. The three have the right to appeal.
Ms Cantoni was released in June after being held for more than three weeks after armed men dragged her from a car.
Photographs
Ms Cantoni's abduction in Kabul led to street protests by Afghan widows that she worked with.
The court said the three-man gang was led by Temur Shah.
Italian newspapers have reported that Ms Cantoni identified Temur Shah from photographs shown to her by investigators.
The Afghan government had denied at the time that any concessions were made in order to secure Ms Cantoni's release.
But Italian newspapers had said that hundreds of thousands of dollars had been paid to the kidnappers
Ms Cantoni had been in Afghanistan since September 2003, in charge of a programme supporting more than 10,000 widows and their children.
SHANNON, Ireland (CNN) -- Capturing Osama bin Laden was still a priority of the U.S. government, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday. Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters aboard his flight to Pakistan via Shannon, Ireland, would not speculate on whether the al Qaeda leader was still alive.
"I think it is interesting that we haven't heard from him in a year, close to a year," he said. "I don't know what it means. I suspect that in any event if he's alive and functioning that he's probably spending a major fraction of his time trying to avoid being caught. "I have trouble believing that he's able to operate sufficiently to be in a position of major command over a worldwide al Qaeda operation, but I could be wrong. We just don't know." Earlier, Rumsfeld said he had authorized a reduction of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding, from 19,000 to 16,000, largely because of an increase in NATO troops there. The secretary did not appear concerned about an increase in activity by Taliban fighters along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. "The levels of violence and incidents fluctuate over the past several years," he said. "They tend to go up over key political periods. They tend to go up prior to the beginning of winter. And they tend to go up after the winter period ends. They also tend to go up as a result coalition activity against them."
The decision questioned why the administration used one set of facts before the court for 3 1/2 years to justify holding Padilla without charges but used another set to convince a grand jury in Florida to indict him last month.
In a sharp rebuke, a federal appeals court denied Wednesday a Bush administration request to transfer terrorism suspect Jose Padilla from military to civilian law enforcement custody.
The three-judge panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused the administration's request to vacate a September ruling that gave President Bush wide authority to detain "enemy combatants" indefinitely without charges on U.S. soil.
The decision, written by Judge Michael Luttig, questioned why the administration used one set of facts before the court for 3 1/2 years to justify holding Padilla without charges but used another set to convince a grand jury in Florida to indict him last month.
Luttig said the administration has risked its "credibility before the courts" by appearing to use the indictment of Padilla to thwart an appeal of the appeals court's decision that gave the president wide berth in holding enemy combatants.
Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare Airport as he returned to the United States from Afghanistan. Justice and Defense Department officials alleged Padilla had come home to carry out an al Qaeda backed plot to blow up apartment buildings in New York, Washington or Florida.
Donna Newman, a lawyer for Padilla, said the decision provided vindication because the defense has always said the government was playing games, reports CBS News producer Beverley Lumpkin.
"We just hope this is an incentive for the Supreme court to agree to hear our case," Newman said.
Meanwhile, a German woman released Sunday after being held hostage for three weeks is expected to leave Iraq soon, but she likely will not return to her homeland for some time, the German government said Monday.
The video purportedly posted by the Islamic Army of Iraq did not show the face of the victim, and it was impossible to identify him conclusively. The victim was blindfolded and kneeling with his back to the camera and his hands tied behind his back when he purportedly was shot.
In a separate video, shown on a split screen as the alleged killing was aired, the extremist group showed a picture of Schulz, a former U.S. Marine, alive. The group aired the same footage of Schulz when he was first taken hostage earlier this month.
In an Internet posting last week, the group claimed it killed Schulz, 40, and then said later it would show the killing. The group said it had killed Schulz after the United States failed to respond to its demand for the release of Iraqi prisoners.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said he had no information about the video or the fate of Schulz.
On Tuesday, President Bush said the United States would work for the return of captive Americans in Iraq but would not submit to terrorist tactics.
"We, of course, don't pay ransom for any hostages," Bush said.
Schulz, a civilian contractor from Eagle River, Alaska, has been identified by the extremist group as a security consultant for the Iraqi Housing Ministry, although neighbors and family say he is an industrial electrician who has worked on contracts around the world.
Schulz, a native of North Dakota, served in the Marine Corps from 1984 to 1991. He moved to Alaska six years ago, and friends and family say he is divorced.
The videotape showed a man purportedly being shot as he kneeled in an open, empty area of dirt. The video also showed Schulz's identity card.
Schulz's sister, Julie, in Jamestown, N.D., said Monday she had no confirmation of her brother's death from U.S. officials.
"We're still waiting for confirmation," she told The Associated Press
The group, one of the most active terrorist groups in Iraq, is believed to include former Baathists and loyalists to Saddam Hussein — including former Palestinian militants who lived in Iraq under Saddam.
According to the group's literature, it aims to drive all U.S. and coalition forces from Iraq, and it has targeted foreigners in Iraq.
The group has been implicated in the killings of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who volunteered for the Red Cross in Iraq; Pakistani contractors; and Macedonians working for a U.S. company. It also was involved in abducting French journalists.
The Islamic Army of Iraq also has collaborated with Ansar al-Sunnah and al-Qaeda in Iraq. It claimed responsibility for a September 2004 assassination attempt against Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi that killed two of his bodyguards.
The claim and video showing the alleged killing were posted on several websites known for carrying Islamic extremist claims, including "almeer.net" and "muslm.net."
The video briefly appeared on the sites and then disappeared — something that frequently happens with such videos and postings as the militants apparently effort to ensure they cannot be traced. Later, it popped up again on at least one of the sites.
In Berlin, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger refused to comment on the circumstances of Susanne Osthoff's release or who, other than German authorities, may have been involved.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also said he would not comment "in the interest of all those who helped to solve the problem." But Jaeger said Osthoff "is doing well considering the circumstances" and is in good physical condition.
Osthoff, a 43-year-old aid worker and archaeologist, was the first German taken in Iraq.
Osthoff disappeared along with her Iraqi driver, whom German media have identified as Khalid al-Shimani, on Nov. 25. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Sunday the kidnappers promised to free the driver, too.
Germany's ZDF television, citing security officials it did not identify, reported Monday that the driver was now believed to have been freed. However, Jaeger did not confirm that, saying the man has not checked in with the German embassy.
MADRID, Spain - Spanish police arrested 15 people on Monday who are suspected of recruiting al-Qaida fighters to send to Iraq, the government said. The 15, of several nationalities, were detained in southern and northeast Spain and on the island of Mallorca, Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said.
They are believed to be members of a network that sent volunteers gto wage jihad (holy war) as members of the al-Qaida network,h Alonso told a news conference. He said the group had two fighters ready to send to Iraq at the time of the arrests.
Alonso did not make clear if the volunteers the group sent to Iraq carried out suicide attacks there, but said the Spanish cell ghad contacts with people linked to terrorist groups operating in Iraq against the soldiers that are based there.h Alonso said the arrested were eight Moroccans, as well as people from Spain, Iraq, Egypt, France, Denmark, Saudi Arabia and Belarus.
The involvement of outsiders in attacks in Iraq was highlighted last month when a 38-year-old Belgian woman blew herself up on the outskirts of Baghdad in what was believed to be the first suicide attack in Iraq by a European woman.
Chemicals seized
Mondayfs operation was the latest in a series of operations against suspected Islamists in Spain since the al-Qaida-linked Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people on March 11, 2004. Nineteen people have been arrested in Spain in the last month in operations against alleged supporters of Algeriafs largest outlawed militant movement, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.
About 100 police officers were involved in Mondayfs operation, according to news reports.
Alonso said police had seized various chemicals, including acetone and citric acid that could be used to make bombs. But he said other components that would be needed to make bombs were missing and said there was no evidence that the group was preparing explosives or planned any attack in Spain.
He said police arrested three suspects in Nerja on the south coast, six in nearby Malaga, two in Sevilla, three in the northeastern town of Lerida and one in Palma de Mallorca.
- Urgently trying to improve relations with the United States, the Saudi Arabian government is promoting a scholarship program that has already more than doubled the number of new Saudi enrollments at American colleges and universities since last year.
The program, aimed in part at reducing widespread hostility in the Saudi public toward the United States, has reversed a steady plunge in Saudi students here that started immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The Saudi government offered 5,000 students full four-year scholarships, complete with living allowances. About two-thirds of the 5,000 students enrolled in American schools this fall, the State Department said, and the number would have been higher had the United States been able to process all the visa requests.
The academic relationship between the countries has been an area of concern for senior officials. James Oberwetter, the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said in an interview that the drop "in exposure the population has had to the United States" was not helpful for the Saudis "at a time when they need to be looking outward instead of inward."
The United States had long been the nation of choice for wealthy Saudis to educate their children. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Washington and a graduate of Georgetown University, noted that two-thirds of his nation's cabinet ministers had been educated in the United States. "We have a kind of umbilical relationship" with American universities, he said in an interview.
Still, after the Sept. 11 attacks and the revelation that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, stories of mistreatment and hostility toward Saudis in the United States began flowering in the Saudi press and in public discussions. They continue today. An article last week in the Arab News, an English-language Saudi newspaper, said that in Riyadh, an American Embassy employee had called Saudis waiting in line for visas "animals." And most Saudis who have traveled here in recent years tell stories about long delays and hard-edged questioning upon arrival.
The number of Saudi students arriving to study here dropped from more than 4,000 in 2001 to a low of just 1,008 last year, according to a State Department count of new education visas. In a broader reflection of the tensions between the nations, the total number of visiting Saudis fell from 46,636 in 2001 to about 12,000 last year. "The relationship was nearly destroyed," Mr. Oberwetter said.
In April, however, Abdullah, then the crown prince, visited President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., and among the issues they mentioned in a joint statement was a desire to "increase the number of young Saudi students to travel and study in the United States." This summer, the Saudi Education Ministry announced the scholarship program and for the first two weeks, specified in newspaper advertisements that they were for study in the United States. Later, the ministry authorized scholarships to other nations' schools as well.
But the visa problem has been significant. The visa offices at the American Embassy in Riyadh Saudi Arabia were overwhelmed by applications from scholarship students, in part because staff had been reduced for security reasons.
Last December, attackers stormed the heavily guarded United States Consulate in Jidda, killing five local employees before four of the five gunman were shot dead. Because of continuing security concerns, the consulate stopped offering visa services last month, reducing the number of visa stations open for business.
Mr. Oberwetter is in Washington this week, and one of his missions, he said, is to get approval to install more visa officers. The State Department does not want to put more personnel into Saudi Arabia at a time when foreigners there are targets of attack.
As it is, Mr. Oberwetter announced in Riyadh last week that students would have to wait eight weeks to get an appointment for a visa interview, and he urged them to "plan well ahead."
The Saudi Embassy's cultural and educational mission in Washington manages the scholarship program, and on Thursday, Mazyed I. Almazyed, the cultural attachE waved toward some 15 staff members charged with processing applications and scholarships, saying: "We are at a standstill. Because of the visa problem, everything is stopped."
Maura Harty, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, noted that visa approval times, once the application has been taken, had been reduced from several months to no more two weeks. As for the eight-week appointment delay, she said the closure at Jidda and the sudden crush of applications had combined to overwhelm the embassy.
On Thursday and Friday, 45 Saudi students arrived in Washington. Prince Turki visited with them at the embassy on Friday morning. They sat quietly in their new winter coats and stocking caps as he told them they were ambassadors with "the message that Saudi Arabia is hoping for a better future where the Saudi people will enjoy the benefits of your education here." He urged the students, most of them recent high school graduates, not to socialize only among themselves but to get to know Americans. "Learn the ways of American life," he told them. "The American people are friendly and hospitable."
Mr. Almazyed said many Saudi students arrived with preconceptions that were less generous. He lectures them to "forget all that." Usually he visits students a few weeks after they have enrolled; he recalled one typical encounter this fall.
" 'This is not what I expected,' " he said the student had told him.
"In what way is it different?" Mr. Almazyed asked him.
"'Oh, well, you know,'" was all the student would say. But he was smiling.
Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches. "This is really a sea change," said a former senior official who specializes in national security law. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the N.S.A. only does foreign searches."
Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight. According to those officials and others, reservations about aspects of the program have also been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters. Some of the questions about the agency's new powers led the administration to temporarily suspend the operation last year and impose more restrictions, the officials said.
The Bush administration views the operation as necessary so that the agency can move quickly to monitor communications that may disclose threats to the United States, the officials said. Defenders of the program say it has been a critical tool in helping disrupt terrorist plots and prevent attacks inside the United States.
Administration officials are confident that existing safeguards are sufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, the officials say. In some cases, they said, the Justice Department eventually seeks warrants if it wants to expand the eavesdropping to include communications confined within the United States. The officials said the administration had briefed Congressional leaders about the program and notified the judge in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret Washington court that deals with national security issues.
The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
Dealing With a New Threat
While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials.
Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said. But they said most people targeted for N.S.A. monitoring have never been charged with a crime, including an Iranian-American doctor in the South who came under suspicion because of what one official described as dubious ties to Osama bin Laden.
The eavesdropping program grew out of concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks that the nation's intelligence agencies were not poised to deal effectively with the new threat of Al Qaeda and that they were handcuffed by legal and bureaucratic restrictions better suited to peacetime than war, according to officials. In response, President Bush significantly eased limits on American intelligence and law enforcement agencies and the military.
But some of the administration's antiterrorism initiatives have provoked an outcry from members of Congress, watchdog groups, immigrants and others who argue that the measures erode protections for civil liberties and intrude on Americans' privacy.
Opponents have challenged provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the focus of contentious debate on Capitol Hill this week, that expand domestic surveillance by giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation more power to collect information like library lending lists or Internet use. Military and F.B.I. officials have drawn criticism for monitoring what were largely peaceful antiwar protests. The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security were forced to retreat on plans to use public and private databases to hunt for possible terrorists. And last year, the Supreme Court rejected the administration's claim that those labeled "enemy combatants" were not entitled to judicial review of their open-ended detention.
Mr. Bush's executive order allowing some warrantless eavesdropping on those inside the United States - including American citizens, permanent legal residents, tourists and other foreigners - is based on classified legal opinions that assert that the president has broad powers to order such searches, derived in part from the September 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing him to wage war on Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to the officials familiar with the N.S.A. operation.
The National Security Agency, which is based at Fort Meade, Md., is the nation's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, so intent on remaining out of public view that it has long been nicknamed "No Such Agency." It breaks codes and maintains listening posts around the world to eavesdrop on foreign governments, diplomats and trade negotiators as well as drug lords and terrorists. But the agency ordinarily operates under tight restrictions on any spying on Americans, even if they are overseas, or disseminating information about them.
What the agency calls a "special collection program" began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, as it looked for new tools to attack terrorism. The program accelerated in early 2002 after the Central Intelligence Agency started capturing top Qaeda operatives overseas, including Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in Pakistan in March 2002. The C.I.A. seized the terrorists' computers, cellphones and personal phone directories, said the officials familiar with the program. The N.S.A. surveillance was intended to exploit those numbers and addresses as quickly as possible, they said.
In addition to eavesdropping on those numbers and reading e-mail messages to and from the Qaeda figures, the N.S.A. began monitoring others linked to them, creating an expanding chain. While most of the numbers and addresses were overseas, hundreds were in the United States, the officials said.
Under the agency's longstanding rules, the N.S.A. can target for interception phone calls or e-mail messages on foreign soil, even if the recipients of those communications are in the United States. Usually, though, the government can only target phones and e-mail messages in the United States by first obtaining a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which holds its closed sessions at the Justice Department.
Traditionally, the F.B.I., not the N.S.A., seeks such warrants and conducts most domestic eavesdropping. Until the new program began, the N.S.A. typically limited its domestic surveillance to foreign embassies and missions in Washington, New York and other cities, and obtained court orders to do so.
Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers and e-mail addresses, according to several officials who know of the operation. Under the special program, the agency monitors their international communications, the officials said. The agency, for example, can target phone calls from someone in New York to someone in Afghanistan.
Warrants are still required for eavesdropping on entirely domestic-to-domestic communications, those officials say, meaning that calls from that New Yorker to someone in California could not be monitored without first going to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court.
A White House Briefing
After the special program started, Congressional leaders from both political parties were brought to Vice President Dick Cheney's office in the White House. The leaders, who included the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House intelligence committees, learned of the N.S.A. operation from Mr. Cheney, Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden of the Air Force, who was then the agency's director and is now a full general and the principal deputy director of national intelligence, and George J. Tenet, then the director of the C.I.A., officials said. It is not clear how much the members of Congress were told about the presidential order and the eavesdropping program. Some of them declined to comment about the matter, while others did not return phone calls.
Later briefings were held for members of Congress as they assumed leadership roles on the intelligence committees, officials familiar with the program said. After a 2003 briefing, Senator Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who became vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee that year, wrote a letter to Mr. Cheney expressing concerns about the program, officials knowledgeable about the letter said. It could not be determined if he received a reply. Mr. Rockefeller declined to comment. Aside from the Congressional leaders, only a small group of people, including several cabinet members and officials at the N.S.A., the C.I.A. and the Justice Department, know of the program.
Some officials familiar with it say they consider warrantless eavesdropping inside the United States to be unlawful and possibly unconstitutional, amounting to an improper search. One government official involved in the operation said he privately complained to a Congressional official about his doubts about the program's legality. But nothing came of his inquiry. "People just looked the other way because they didn't want to know what was going on," he said.
A senior government official recalled that he was taken aback when he first learned of the operation. "My first reaction was, 'We're doing what?' " he said. While he said he eventually felt that adequate safeguards were put in place, he added that questions about the program's legitimacy were understandable. Some of those who object to the operation argue that is unnecessary. By getting warrants through the foreign intelligence court, the N.S.A. and F.B.I. could eavesdrop on people inside the United States who might be tied to terrorist groups without skirting longstanding rules, they say.
The standard of proof required to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is generally considered lower than that required for a criminal warrant - intelligence officials only have to show probable cause that someone may be "an agent of a foreign power," which includes international terrorist groups - and the secret court has turned down only a small number of requests over the years. In 2004, according to the Justice Department, 1,754 warrants were approved. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can grant emergency approval for wiretaps within hours, officials say.
Administration officials counter that they sometimes need to move more urgently, the officials said. Those involved in the program also said that the N.S.A.'s eavesdroppers might need to start monitoring large batches of numbers all at once, and that it would be impractical to seek permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court first, according to the officials.
The N.S.A. domestic spying operation has stirred such controversy among some national security officials in part because of the agency's cautious culture and longstanding rules.
Widespread abuses - including eavesdropping on Vietnam War protesters and civil rights activists - by American intelligence agencies became public in the 1970's and led to passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which imposed strict limits on intelligence gathering on American soil. Among other things, the law required search warrants, approved by the secret F.I.S.A. court, for wiretaps in national security cases. The agency, deeply scarred by the scandals, adopted additional rules that all but ended domestic spying on its part.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, though, the United States intelligence community was criticized for being too risk-averse. The National Security Agency was even cited by the independent 9/11 Commission for adhering to self-imposed rules that were stricter than those set by federal law.
Concerns and Revisions
Several senior government officials say that when the special operation began, there were few controls on it and little formal oversight outside the N.S.A. The agency can choose its eavesdropping targets and does not have to seek approval from Justice Department or other Bush administration officials. Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation, a former senior Bush administration official said. Before the 2004 election, the official said, some N.S.A. personnel worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected president. In mid-2004, concerns about the program expressed by national security officials, government lawyers and a judge prompted the Bush administration to suspend elements of the program and revamp it.
For the first time, the Justice Department audited the N.S.A. program, several officials said. And to provide more guidance, the Justice Department and the agency expanded and refined a checklist to follow in deciding whether probable cause existed to start monitoring someone's communications, several officials said.
A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials. While not knowing all the details of the exchange, several government lawyers said there appeared to be concerns that the Justice Department, by trying to shield the existence of the N.S.A. program, was in danger of misleading the court about the origins of the information cited to justify the warrants. One official familiar with the episode said the judge insisted to Justice Department lawyers at one point that any material gathered under the special N.S.A. program not be used in seeking wiretap warrants from her court. Judge Kollar-Kotelly did not return calls for comment.
A related issue arose in a case in which the F.B.I. was monitoring the communications of a terrorist suspect under a F.I.S.A.-approved warrant, even though the National Security Agency was already conducting warrantless eavesdropping.
According to officials, F.B.I. surveillance of Mr. Faris, the Brooklyn Bridge plotter, was dropped for a short time because of technical problems. At the time, senior Justice Department officials worried what would happen if the N.S.A. picked up information that needed to be presented in court. The government would then either have to disclose the N.S.A. program or mislead a criminal court about how it had gotten the information. Several national security officials say the powers granted the N.S.A. by President Bush go far beyond the expanded counterterrorism powers granted by Congress under the USA Patriot Act, which is up for renewal. The House on Wednesday approved a plan to reauthorize crucial parts of the law. But final passage has been delayed under the threat of a Senate filibuster because of concerns from both parties over possible intrusions on Americans' civil liberties and privacy.
Under the act, law enforcement and intelligence officials are still required to seek a F.I.S.A. warrant every time they want to eavesdrop within the United States. A recent agreement reached by Republican leaders and the Bush administration would modify the standard for F.B.I. wiretap warrants, requiring, for instance, a description of a specific target. Critics say the bar would remain too low to prevent abuses.
Bush administration officials argue that the civil liberties concerns are unfounded, and they say pointedly that the Patriot Act has not freed the N.S.A. to target Americans. "Nothing could be further from the truth," wrote John Yoo, a former official in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and his co-author in a Wall Street Journal opinion article in December 2003. Mr. Yoo worked on a classified legal opinion on the N.S.A.'s domestic eavesdropping program.
At an April hearing on the Patriot Act renewal, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, asked Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., "Can the National Security Agency, the great electronic snooper, spy on the American people?" "Generally," Mr. Mueller said, "I would say generally, they are not allowed to spy or to gather information on American citizens."
President Bush did not ask Congress to include provisions for the N.S.A. domestic surveillance program as part of the Patriot Act and has not sought any other laws to authorize the operation. Bush administration lawyers argued that such new laws were unnecessary, because they believed that the Congressional resolution on the campaign against terrorism provided ample authorization, officials said.
The Legal Line Shifts
Seeking Congressional approval was also viewed as politically risky because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition on civil liberties grounds. The administration also feared that by publicly disclosing the existence of the operation, its usefulness in tracking terrorists would end, officials said. The legal opinions that support the N.S.A. operation remain classified, but they appear to have followed private discussions among senior administration lawyers and other officials about the need to pursue aggressive strategies that once may have been seen as crossing a legal line, according to senior officials who participated in the discussions.
For example, just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Mr. Yoo, the Justice Department lawyer, wrote an internal memorandum that argued that the government might use "electronic surveillance techniques and equipment that are more powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement agencies in order to intercept telephonic communications and observe the movement of persons but without obtaining warrants for such uses."
Mr. Yoo noted that while such actions could raise constitutional issues, in the face of devastating terrorist attacks "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties."
The next year, Justice Department lawyers disclosed their thinking on the issue of warrantless wiretaps in national security cases in a little-noticed brief in an unrelated court case. In that 2002 brief, the government said that "the Constitution vests in the President inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority."
Administration officials were also encouraged by a November 2002 appeals court decision in an unrelated matter. The decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which sided with the administration in dismantling a bureaucratic "wall" limiting cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, cited "the president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance."
But the same court suggested that national security interests should not be grounds "to jettison the Fourth Amendment requirements" protecting the rights of Americans against undue searches. The dividing line, the court acknowledged, "is a very difficult one to administer."
Barclay Walsh contributed research for this article.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate on Friday rejected attempts to reauthorize several provisions of the nation's top anti-terror law as infringing too much on AmericansEprivacy, dealing a major defeat to President Bush and Republican leaders. In a crucial vote early Friday, the bill's Senate supporters were not able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened filibuster by Sens. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and their allies. The final vote was 52-47.
Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and GOP congressional leaders had lobbied fiercely to make most of the 16 expiring Patriot Act provisions permanent, and add new safeguards and expiration dates to the two most controversial parts: roving wiretaps and secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries. Feingold, Craig and other critics said that wasn't enough, and have called for the law to be extended in its present form so they can continue to try and add more civil liberties safeguards. But Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have said they won't accept a short-term extension of the law.
If a compromise is not reached, the 16 Patriot Act provisions expire on Dec. 31. Investigators will still be able to use those powers to complete any investigation that began before the expiration date, according to a provision in the original law. Our nation cannot afford to let these important counterterrorism tools lapse,EGonzales said on Friday.
Frist changed his vote at the last moment after seeing the critics would win. He decided to vote with the prevailing side so he could call for a new vote at any time. He immediately objected to an offer of a short term extension from Democrats, saying the House won't approve it and the president won't sign it. We have more to fear from terrorism than we do from this Patriot Act,EFrist warned.
Vital tools in the war on terror
If the Patriot Act provisions expire, Republicans say they will place the blame on Democrats in next year's midterm elections. On the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without these vital tools for a single moment,EWhite House press secretary Scott McClellan said. The time for Democrats to stop standing in the way has come.E
But the Patriot Act's critics got a boost Friday from a New York Times report saying Bush authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and international e-mails of hundreds perhaps thousands of people inside the United States. Previously, the NSA typically limited its domestic surveillance to foreign embassies and missions and obtained court orders for such investigations.
We don't want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care,Esaid Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001. It is time to have some checks and balances in this country,Eshouted Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. We are more American for doing that.E
Most of the Patriot Act Ewhich expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers Ewas made permanent when Congress overwhelmingly passed it after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. Making the rest of it permanent was a priority for both the Bush administration and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill before Congress adjourns for the year.
Compromise reached earlier
The House on Wednesday passed a House-Senate compromise bill to renew the Act that supporters say added significant safeguards to the law. These supporters predict doom and gloom if the Patriot Act's critics win and the provisions expire.
This is a defining moment. There are no more compromises to be made, no more extensions of time. The bill is what it is,Esaid Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
Those that would give up essential liberties in pursuit (of) ... a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security,Esaid Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. They suggested a short extension so negotiations could continue, but the Senate scrapped a Democratic-led effort to renew the USA Patriot Act for just three months before the vote began.
Today, fair-minded senators stood firm in their commitment to the Constitution and rejected the White House's call to pass a faulty law,Esaid Caroline Fredrickson, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office. This was a victory for the privacy and liberty of all Americans.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi security forces caught the most wanted man in the country last year, but released him because they didn't know who he was, the Iraqi deputy minister of interior said Thursday.
Hussain Kamal confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- the al Qaeda in Iraq leader who has a $25 million bounty on his head -- was in custody at some point last year, but he wouldn't provide further details.
A U.S. official couldn't confirm the report, but said he wouldn't dismiss it.
"It is plausible," he said.
Thursday's news tops a list of reports of missed opportunities to capture the 39-year-old terrorist mastermind. An official said the military receives frequent reports of al-Zarqawi sightings, all of which are investigated.
In April, U.S. troops stormed a hospital in Ramadi based on credible intelligence that terrorists were hiding there, but no suspects were found, military officials said in early May.
A high-ranking Iraqi Army officer said there were rumors that al-Zarqawi was at the Ramadi medical center, and several groups affiliated with the al Qaeda operative issued statements saying the same.
Iraqi Lt. Gen. Nasser Abadi said Thursday that al-Zarqawi was taken to the hospital. He added that he didn't believe Kamal's report was correct.
"When we got the news, we rushed there, but he was out of there," the general said.
The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was almost captured in February, too, after troops received a tip that he was heading to a meeting in Ramadi, said Pentagon officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
With his vehicle under surveillance by an unmanned Predator spy plane, troops set up checkpoints along his route. As al-Zarqawi's truck approached one of the checkpoints, the vehicle abruptly turned around, the officials said.
He was chased for several miles, but when troops finally ran his vehicle down, the terrorist had escaped. His driver and security guard were arrested, and troops found a computer with a "treasure trove of information" that offered a clear indication that al-Zarqawi corresponded regularly with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the officials said.
Colin Powell first linked al-Zarqawi with al Qaeda in a February 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council, in which he said, "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants."
Before taking the moniker al Qaeda in Iraq, his organization was known as Unification and Jihad, which the U.S. State Department labeled a "foreign terrorist organization" in October 2004.
His group has taken responsibility for or been accused by the U.S. of perpetrating or aiding in numerous suicide bombings, car bombings, beheadings and other acts of violence.
Included are a February 2005 suicide bombing in Hilla that left 127 Iraqis dead, an October 2004 execution-like massacre of 44 Iraqi soldiers east of Baghdad and an August 2003 car bombing in Najaf that killed more than 85 people. Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was killed in the Najaf bombing.
Al-Zarqawi also is suspected to be the masked man who beheaded Nick Berg, an American civilian in Iraq, on May 11, 2004.
In April, two Web sites posted an audio message, purportedly from al-Zarqawi, in which he urges his followers to continue their attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and warns President Bush he will never relent.
WASHINGTON - President Bush reversed course on Thursday and accepted Sen. John McCain’s call for a law banning cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror.
Bush said the agreement will “make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad.E “It’s a done deal,Esaid McCain, talking to reporters outside the White House.
Under the deal, CIA interrogators would be given the same legal rights as currently guaranteed members of the military who are accused of breaking interrogation guidelines. Those rules say the accused can defend themselves by arguing it was reasonable for them to believe they were obeying a legal order.
“We’ve sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists,EMcCain said earlier as he sat next to Bush in the Oval Office.
An appeal from Cheney
The White House at one point threatened a veto if the ban was included in legislation sent to the president’s desk, and Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to all Republican senators to give an exemption to the CIA. But congressional sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of the ban, and McCain, a former Navy pilot who was held and tortured for five and a half years in Vietnam, adopted the issue.
However, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told NBC NewsEMike Viqueira on Thursday that he plans to oppose McCain’s bill. He said he would try preventing the measure from reaching a House vote unless he got White House assurances that the new rules would still allow “the same high level of effective intelligence gatheringEas under current procedures.
But Sen. John Warner, R-Va., Hunter’s counterpart in the Senate, was on board and appeared with Bush and McCain in the Oval Office. “We’re going to get there,EWarner said afterward.
The Republican maverick and the administration have been negotiating for weeks in search of a compromise, but it became increasingly clear that he, not the administration, had the votes in Congress. Bush called McCain “a good man who’s honored the values of America.E
“We have worked very closely with the senator and others to achieve that objective as well as to provide protections for those who are the front line of fighting the terrorists,EBush said.
As passed by the Senate and endorsed by the House, McCain’s amendment would prohibit “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishmentEof anyone in U.S. government custody, regardless of where they are held. It also would require that service members follow procedures in the Army Field Manual during interrogations of prisoners in Defense Department facilities.
In discussions with the White House, that language was altered to bring it into conformity with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That says that anyone accused of violating interrogation rules can defend themselves if a “reasonableEperson could have concluded they were following a lawful order.
No immunity
Officials say the language also now includes a specific statement that those who violate the standards will not be afforded immunity from civil or criminal lawsuits. In recent weeks, the administration had sought to add language that would offer protection from prosecution for interrogators accused of violating the provision. But McCain rejected that, arguing it would undermine the ban by not giving interrogators reason to follow the law.
Earlier this year, the Senate included McCain’s original provisions in two defense bills, including a must-pass $453 billion spending bill that provides $50 billion for the Iraq war. But the House omitted them from their versions, and the bills have been stalled. Negotiations intensified this week, with Congress under pressure to approve at least the spending bill before adjourning for the year.
Supporters of the provisions say they are needed to clarify current anti-torture laws in light of abuses at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and allegations of misconduct by U.S. troops at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. They also say that passing such legislation will help the United States repair an image they say has been tarnished by the prisoner abuse scandal.
“The fog of law is finally lifting. America’s moral black eye is finally healing,ERep. Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. The White House long has contended that the United States does not engage in torture
An Australian held as a terror suspect at Guantanamo Bay has won a legal battle in the UK High Court to be registered as a British citizen.
David Hicks, often referred to as the "Australian Taleban", can now call on UK officials to lobby for his release.
Mr Hicks, 30, whose mother was born in Britain, was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 allegedly fighting US-led forces.
The Muslim convert from Adelaide, South Australia, faces charges of conspiracy to commit war crimes.
US authorities have also charged him with attempted murder and aiding the enemy.
Citizenship oath
A judge in London ruled that Home Secretary Charles Clarke has "no power in law" to deprive Mr Hicks of his citizenship "and so he must be registered".
Mr Hicks' lawyers will now press ministers to make arrangements for him to take the required citizenship oath and pledge.
They will then urge the Home Office to seek his release from the detention camp in Cuba in the same way it has won freedom for all nine other British citizens held there.
Father's hope
After the ruling, Mr Hicks' father Terry said the Australian government had not "lifted a finger" to help him.
He said: "Hopefully the British government may look at it as David's another British citizen held at Guantanamo Bay.
"They do have a ruling with the Americans that none of their citizens will face military commissions, so they may ask for David to be released into their custody."
Mr Justice Collins gave the home secretary permission to appeal against his judgment, but refused to suspend his decision pending appeal.
Mr Hicks' war crimes trial was due to start in November, but a federal judge in the US suspended it while the US Supreme Court looked into the legality of military tribunals created to try war crimes suspects.
The former abattoir worker has been held at Guantanamo base for more than three years.
An internationally prominent Saudi businessman said today that he is donating $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities to expand the study of Islam and the Muslim world as part of his philanthropic efforts aimed at promoting interreligious understanding. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a member of the Saudi royal family, said in a telephone interview from the Saudi capital of Riyadh that he also has established the first two centers for American studies in the Middle East, to be located at universities in Beirut and Cairo.
"As you know, since the 9/11 events, the image of Islam has been tarnished in the West," said Alwaleed, who is chairman of the Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Company and has extensive business holdings in Europe and the United States. "We have worked very diligently to bridge the gap between the communities in the United States and Saudi Arabia," Alwaleed added, explaining that the American studies programs in the Middle East will "teach the Arab world about the American situation" and that his gifts to the two American universities will be used "to teach about the Islamic world to the United States."
Alwaleed, one of the world's richest persons, offered a gift of $10 million to the Twin Towers Fund shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. But then-New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani rejected the donation because a press release about the gift quoted the prince as saying that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance towards the Palestinian cause."
The $20 million gift to Georgetown is the second largest single gift ever received by the Jesuit-run university in Washington, officials said. It will be used to expand the activities of its 12-year-old Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
"We are deeply honored by Prince Alwaleed's generosity," said university president John J. DeGioia, who met Alwaleed Nov. 7 in a Paris hotel to sign the documents formalizing the donation. "This gift will deepen Georgetown's ability to advance education in the fields of Islamic civilization and Muslim-Christian understanding and strengthen its presence as a world leader in facilitating cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue," DeGioia's statement added.
The center will be renamed the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, but there are no restrictions on how the $20 million is to be spent, according to center director John L. Esposito. "A significant part of the money will be used to beef up the think tank part of what the Center does," Esposito said in an interview.
Up to now, he added, the center has not had enough resources "to respond to the tremendous demand that is out there, from the government, church and religious groups, the media and corporations to address and answer issues like, 'What is the actual relationship between the West and the Muslim world? Is Islam compatible with modernization?' Now we can run workshops and conferences [on these subjects] both here and overseas."
"I am pleased to support the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. It is vital for the monotheistic religions to reach a common ground of understanding and to gain knowledge about what unites our civilizations," Alwaleed said in a statement released today. "We are determined to build a bridge between Islam and Christianity for tolerance that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries." His statement added that the $20 million "will endow three faculty chairs, expand programmatic and academic outreach activities, provide new scholarship support for students, broaden opportunities for research and policy discussions and expand library facilities."
Esposito said that for the past year Alwaleed had examined several U.S. universities as possibilities for his donation. He chose Georgetown, Esposito added, "because he knew our track record." Alwaleed said in the telephone conversation that his $20 million donation to Harvard will fund its Islamic studies program which crosses many disciplines.
Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers expressed gratitude to Alwaleed in a statement today, saying that his gift "will enable us to recruit additional faculty of the highest caliber, adding to our strong team of professors . . . [in] this important area of scholarship."
Alwaleed also donated $5 million to establish the Center for American Studies and Research (CASAR) at the American University in Beirut (AUB) and $10 million to finance construction of the Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS) building in the new campus of the American University in Cairo (AUC), according to his press release.
Friday arrested a high-ranking member of al-Qaida in Iraq in the town of Ramadi, the U.S. Marines said.
Amir Khalaf Fanus, also known in the Ramadi area as “the Butcher,Ewas wanted for criminal activities including murder and kidnapping, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool said in a statement from the town, located 70 miles west of Baghdad. Fanus was No. 3 on a most-wanted list for Ramadi drawn up by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division.
Officials said Iraqis turned Fanus into authorities. “He is the highest ranking al-Qaida in Iraq member to be turned into Iraqi and U.S. officials by local citizens,EPool said. “His capture is another indication that the local citizens tire of the insurgentsEpresence within their community.E Lt. Gen. James Conway, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he believes Fanus was “instrumental in a number of killings, both American and Iraqi.E
Conway confirmed Iraqi citizens turned Fanus in and called the incident a “very good symbolEand “indicative of what we are seeing.E According to Pool, Iraqi and U.S. forces “have witnessed increasing signs of citizens fighting the terrorists within Ramadi as the Dec. 15 national elections draw nearer.E
He said that another 1,200 Iraqi Security Force soldiers were recently stationed in Ramadi, while 1,100 Iraqi special police commandos and a mechanized Iraqi army company had moved into the city.
Iraqi Security Forces in Ramadi will be assuming more security responsibilities from the U.S. forces, a new release issued on Tuesday said. Like other locations throughout Iraq, as security improves, Iraqi police will also be gradually introduced in the city, it said.
The U.S. government warned Saudi Arabia more than three years before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden might use civilian airplanes in terror attacks, according to a memo released Friday by the National Security Archive, NBC News reported. The June 1998 note says bin Laden “might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian [aircraft] target.E
The warning came from a U.S. regional security officer, diplomatic officials and a civil aviation official in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It was based on a public threat from bin Laden against “military passenger aircraft.EThe memo, however, said that bin Laden did “not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians,ENBC NewsERobert Windrem reported. The Sept. 11 Commission, a panel appointed by Congress in 2002 to investigate U.S. security, made no mention of the memo in any of its reports, Windrem said. It is unknown why the report did not address the warning.
The document was first disclosed by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, in his behind-the-scenes book, “Bush at War,Ewritten in 2004. It was made public on Friday by the National Security Archive, a private group that uses Freedom of Information requests to obtain classified data.
On Friday, the National Security Archive also released a letter from former CIA Director George Tenet written five days after Sept. 11. Titled “We’re at War,Ethe letter to top deputies urges an “unrelenting focusEon using all of America’s capabilities, “not only to protect the U.S. both here and abroad from additional terrorist attacks — but also, and more importantly, to neutralize and destroy al-Qaida and its partners.E The Sept. 16 letter was written in the wake of criticism directed at Tenet and the CIA for the agency’s shortcomings in preventing an assault on U.S. soil.
There have been a slew of reports over the past decade of plots to use planes to strike American targets. In 1995, U.S. and Filipino authorities uncovered a plot by Ramsey Yusef, nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind Sept. 11. Yusef threatened to hide bombs on planes and blow them up over the Pacific. The most notable security warning, Windrem said, was a presidential briefing on an Aug. 6, 2000, that mentioned the possibility of passenger airliners being used in terrorist attacks.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition. The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.
The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced. A government official said that some intelligence provided by Mr. Libi about Al Qaeda had been accurate, and that Mr. Libi's claims that he had been treated harshly in Egyptian custody had not been corroborated.
A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors. At the time of his capture in Pakistan in late 2001, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. A Nov. 6 report in The New York Times, citing the Defense Intelligence Agency document, said he had made the assertions about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons while in American custody.
Mr. Libi was indeed initially held by the United States military in Afghanistan, and was debriefed there by C.I.A. officers, according to the new account provided by the current and former government officials. But despite his high rank, he was transferred to Egypt for further interrogation in January 2002 because the White House had not yet provided detailed authorization for the C.I.A. to hold him. While he made some statements about Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons. Beginning in March 2002, with the capture of a Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, the C.I.A. adopted a practice of maintaining custody itself of the highest-ranking captives, a practice that became the main focus of recent controversy related to detention of suspected terrorists.
The agency currently holds between two and three dozen high-ranking terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world. Reports that the prisons have included locations in Eastern Europe have stirred intense discomfort on the continent and have dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit there this week. Mr. Libi was returned to American custody in February 2003, when he was transferred to the American detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to the current and former government officials. He withdrew his claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in January 2004, and his current location is not known. A C.I.A. spokesman refused Thursday to comment on Mr. Libi's case. The current and former government officials who agreed to discuss the case were granted anonymity because most details surrounding Mr. Libi's case remain classified.
During his time in Egyptian custody, Mr. Libi was among a group of what American officials have described as about 150 prisoners sent by the United States from one foreign country to another since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks for the purposes of interrogation. American officials including Ms. Rice have defended the practice, saying it draws on language and cultural expertise of American allies, particularly in the Middle East, and provides an important tool for interrogation. They have said that the United States carries out the renditions only after obtaining explicit assurances from the receiving countries that the prisoners will not be tortured. Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had no specific knowledge of Mr. Libi's case. Mr. Fahmy acknowledged that some prisoners had been sent to Egypt by mutual agreement between the United States and Egypt. "We do interrogations based on our understanding of the culture," Mr. Fahmy said. "We're not in the business of torturing anyone."
In statements before the war, and without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and other officials repeatedly cited the information provided by Mr. Libi as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases." The question of why the administration relied so heavily on the statements by Mr. Libi has long been a subject of contention. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, made public last month unclassified passages from the February 2002 document, which said it was probable that Mr. Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers."
The document showed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had identified Mr. Libi as a probable fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons. Mr. Levin has since asked the agency to declassify four other intelligence reports, three of them from February 2002, to see if they also expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. Levin said he could not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Libi's detention because the matter was classified.
The man, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, was gunned down on a jetway just before the American Airlines plane was about to leave for Orlando.
It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said.
According to a witness, the man frantically ran down the aisle of the Boeing 757, flailing his arms, while his wife tried to explain that he was mentally ill and had not taken his medication.
The passenger indicated there was a bomb in his bag and was confronted by air marshals but ran off the aircraft, Doyle said. The marshals went after him and ordered him to get down on the ground, but he did not comply and was shot when he apparently reached into the bag, Doyle said.
No bomb was found, said James Bauer, agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshals field office in Miami. He said there was no reason to believe there was connection to terrorists.
The plane, Flight 924, had arrived in Miami from Medellin, Colombia, just after noon, and the shooting occurred shortly after 2 p.m., as the plane was about to take off for Orlando with the man and 119 other passengers and crew, American spokesman Tim Wagner said.
After the shooting, investigators spread passengers' bags on the tarmac and let dogs sniff them for explosives, and bomb squad members blew up at least two bags.
Al-Jazeera television has broadcast a video said to be from Iraqi insurgents purporting to show a kidnapped United States security consultant.
The footage showed a blond man with his hands behind his back. It also showed a US passport and bank account card with the name Ronald Schulz.
Al-Jazeera said it could not verify the authenticity of the tape, which bore the logo of the Islamic Army in Iraq.
There have been no reports of a US security consultant being seized.
More than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been abducted since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
If the video is authentic, the man would be the second American abducted in the last two weeks.
Al-Jazeera said the hostage-takers demanded freedom for all prisoners in Iraq and compensation for Anbar province, where US troops have launched major offences since last year, or they would kill the hostage.
Tom Fox is being held hostage along with fellow peace activists Norman Kember, from Britain, and Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden.
A previously unknown militant group, the Swords of Truth Brigade, have claimed the captives were undercover spies.
The video is not the first aired by the Islamic Army in Iraq.
The insurgent group emerged in mid-2004 and has abducted and murdered many hostages.
It beheaded the Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni in August 2004 and captured French journalists Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot the same month, although they were later released.
A Palestinian suicide bomber has killed five people and injured dozens in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya.
The bomber attacked the Sharon shopping centre, the scene of previous bombings, at about 1130 (0930 GMT), injuring some 40 people, several of them seriously.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack and released a video of the bomber.
Israeli security officials are due to meet later in the day to discuss possible responses to the attack.
Reports quoting military officials say they will recommend air strikes targeting militant leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has also asked the legal authorities for permission to renewal the controversial policy of demolishing suicide bombers' homes.
Before Monday's bombing, Mr Mofaz had already ordered a resumption of so-called "targeted killings" of wanted Palestinian militants.
Heightened tensions in recent days have been marked by Israeli air strikes and Palestinian militant rocket attacks.
Security checks
Reports from Netanya suggest the bomber was prevented from entering the shopping centre by police and security guards. He then detonated several kilograms of explosives outside the gate.
"Just as police were going to check him, he put his hand in a bag and blew himself up," deputy police chief Avi Sasson said on Israel Radio.
"There was a boom and there was a flash," witness Yisrael Klein told Israeli TV.
"Seconds later, people were lying on the ground, some wounded and some dead."
Israeli TV showed panels across the front of the shopping mall shattered by the force of the blast.
The Islamic Jihad group named the bomber as Lutfi Amin Abu Salem, from a village between the West Bank towns of Jenin and Tulkarm.
A video released by the group showed the purported bomber posing with a grenade launcher and an assault rifle.
The attack was the first suicide bomb in Israel since a blast in the town of Hadera on 26 October.
Accusations
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Netanya bombing as an act of "terrorism" and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Senior negotiator Saeb Erekat said the attack "harms Palestinian interests" and called on both sides to maintain the ceasefire declared in February.
But a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the Palestinian Authority had failed to act against militants.
"They refuse to dismantle the terror organisations and put them out of business once and for all. And we've seen these results today in Netanya," said spokesman David Baker.
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking for the European Union, condemned the bombing as "cowardly" and urged the Palestinian Authority to do more to prevent such attacks in future.
Netanya has been a frequent target for suicide attacks.
In 2002 an attack at a Passover meal killed 29 people and sparked a huge Israeli military operation in the West Bank.
The last attack was in July, when another Islamic Jihad bomber attacked the Sharon shopping centre, killing two people.