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Before leaving, they rolled down the windows of their pickup truck and called over the children to give them chocolate.

That was 18 months ago, and since then, the bearded men in tunics like those worn by Osama bin Laden have returned for water every week. Each time they go to lengths to exchange greetings, ask for permission and act neighborly, according to locals, in the first intimate look at how al-Qaida tries to win over a village.

Besides candy, the men hand out cash. If a child is born, they bring baby clothes. If someone is ill, they prescribe medicine. When a boy was hospitalized, they dropped off plates of food and picked up the tab.

With almost no resistance, al-Qaida has implanted itself in Africa’s soft tissue, choosing as its host one of the poorest nations on earth. The terrorist group has create a refuge in this remote land through a strategy of winning hearts and minds, described in rare detail by seven locals in regular contact with the cell. The villagers agreed to speak for the first time to an Associated Press team in the “red zone,” deemed by most embassies to be too dangerous for foreigners to visit.

While al-Qaida’s central command is in disarray and its leaders on the run following bin Laden’s death six months ago, security experts say, the group’s 5-year-old branch in Africa is flourishing. From bases like the one in the forest just north of here, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is infiltrating local communities, recruiting fighters, running training camps and planning suicide attacks, according to diplomats and government officials.

Even as the mother franchise struggles financially, its African offshoot has raised an estimated $130 million in under a decade by kidnapping at least 50 Westerners in neighboring countries and holding them in camps in Mali for ransom. It has tripled in size from 100 combatants in 2006 to at least 300 today, say security experts. And its growing footprint, once limited to Algeria, now stretches from one end of the Sahara desert to the other, from Mauritania in the west to Mali in the east.

The group’s stated aim is to become a player in global jihad, and suspected collaborators have been arrested throughout Europe, including in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, England and France. In September, the general responsible for U.S. military operations in Africa, Army Gen. Carter Ham, said AQIM now also poses a “significant threat” to the United States.

The answer to why the group has thrived can be found in this speck of a town, where homes are made of mud mixed with straw and families eke out a living either in the fields of rice to the south or in the immense forest of short, stout trees to its north.

It’s here, under a canopy stretching over an area three times larger than the city of New York, that Sokolo’s herders take their cattle. They avoid overgrazing by organizing themselves into eight units linked to each of the eight wells, labeled N1 through N8, along the 50-mile-long perimeter of the Wagadou forest. They pay $5 per year per head of cattle, and $3 per head of sheep, for the right to water their animals.

When the al-Qaida fighters showed up about 1 1/2 years ago with four to five jerrycans and asked for water, they signaled that they did not intend to plunder resources. They stood out in their tunics stopping a little below the knees, small turbans and beards, a foreign style of dress associated with the Gulf states and bin Laden.

“From the moment you lay eyes on them, you know that they’re not Malian,” said 45-year-old herder Amadou Maiga.

They started to come every four or five days in Land Cruisers, with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. At first they stayed for no more than 15 to 20 minutes, said the villagers, including herders, a hunter and employees of the Malian Ministry of Husbandry who travel to the area to vaccinate animals and repair broken pumps. If on Monday they took water from one well, on Wednesday they would go to another, always varying their path.

Fousseyni Diakite, 51, a pump technician who travels twice a month to the forest to check the generators used to run the wells, first ran into the cell in May 2010, when he saw four men in Arab dress inside a Toyota Hilux truck, all with AK-47s at their feet.

He said the men come with medical supplies and try to find out if anyone is sick.

“There is one who is tall with a big chest – he’s Arab, possibly Algerian. He’s known for having an ambulatory pharmacy. He goes from place to place giving treatment for free,” Diakite said.

They venture into the camps where the herders sleep at dusk and hand out cash to villagers who join them for prayers, he said – bills of 10,000 West African francs (about $20), equal to nearly half the average monthly salary in Mali.

Most of the herders sleep in lean-to’s in camps at the forest’s edge. Because these are temporary settlements, they do not have mosques, unlike most villages in this nation twice the size of France that is 90 percent Muslim.

In Boulker, a hamlet near the forest, the fighters left 100,000 francs (around $200), instructing locals to buy supplies and build an adobe mosque, Diakite said.

“They said that for every population center with at least 10 people, there should be a mosque,” he said.

Along with its poverty, Mali has an enormous geography and a weak central government – not unlike Afghanistan, where bin Laden first used the charm offensive to secure the loyalty of the local people, said Noman Benotman, a former jihadist with links to al-Qaida, now an analyst at the London-based Quilliam Foundation.

“We used to teach our people about this. It’s part of the military plan – how to treat locals. This is the environment that keeps them alive,” said Benotman, who first met bin Laden in Sudan and who spent years fighting alongside al-Qaida in Afghanistan. He said bin Laden gave his fighters specific instructions on how to conduct themselves: Don’t argue about the price, just make the locals happy. Become “like oxygen” to them.

AQIM is taking the lesson to heart. Soon after they began taking water, one of the bearded fighters approached a shepherd at the pump to buy a ram. The fighters were looking to slaughter it to feed themselves. The shepherd offered it to him for free – too afraid to ask for money, said Maiga, the man’s friend.

But the stranger refused to take the ram without payment, and immediately handed over a generous sum.

“They seem to know all the prices ahead of time. They point to a ram and say, ‘I’ll buy that one for 30,000 cfa ($60),’” said Maiga, quoting the highest sum a herder could expect to get for a ram in these parts. “They never bargain.”

AQIM grew out of the groups fighting the Algerian government in the 1990s, after the military canceled elections to stave off victory for an Islamist party. Over the next decade, they left a trail of destruction in Algeria. Around 2003, they sent an emissary to Iraq to meet an al-Qaida intermediary, according to Benotman. Three years later, the insurgents joined the terror family, in what second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri called “a blessed union.”

Since then, their attacks have taken on the hallmarks of al-Qaida. A pair of explosions this August killed 18 people as they tore through the mess hall of Algeria’s military academy, with the second bomb timed to hit emergency responders.

Al-Qaida in turn appears to be learning from its affiliates, which have used kidnappings for ransom in Algeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. After bin Laden’s death in May, investigators found files on his hard drive showing plans to turn to kidnapping to compensate for a decline in donations.

AQIM in particular has perfected what analysts call a “kidnap economy,” drawing on its refuge in Mali, according to diplomats, hostage negotiators and government officials. In 2003, the group kidnapped and transported 32 mostly German tourists from southern Algeria to Mali, where, according to a member of Mali’s parliament, they struck a deal with local authorities that is still in effect today.

“The agreement was, ‘You don’t hurt us, we won’t hurt you,’” said the parliament member, formerly involved in hostage negotiations, who asked not to be identified because of the danger involved.

The government of Mali denies these accusations, but officials cited in diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks make the same assertion. The president of neighboring Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, told his American counterparts in 2009 that Mali is “at peace with AQIM to avoid attacks on its territory.” Whereas the al-Qaida cell has captured more than 50 foreigners in Algeria, Niger and Mauritania, hardly any of the violence has touched Mali.

The cell has also managed to recruit local fighters, including 60 to 80 Tuaregs, the olive-skinned nomads who live in the Sahara desert, according to a security expert. And villagers say they have seen black-skinned sub-Saharan Africans in the pickups speaking the languages of Mali, Guinea and Nigeria.

“The situation in Mali is they have become locals – they are not foreigners,” said Benotman. “This is really, really very, very difficult to do, and it makes it very hard to get rid of them.”

One thing still stands in al-Qaida’s way: Its hardcore ideology does not gel with the moderate Islam practiced by Mali’s nomads. Most of them said they were afraid, caught between need for the money al-Qaida offers and wariness of its extremist beliefs.

When bin Laden died, the members of the local cell went from well to well to ask people to pray for his soul, according to Amaye ag Ali Cisse, an employee of the Ministry of Husbandry who travels twice a month to the wells to oversee the vaccination of animals.

“Everyone is uncomfortable,” he said. “This is a religion that doesn’t belong to us.”

The herders say the fighters have not tried to impose their ideology by force. Instead, they say that the AQIM members wait until they have seen a herder at least a few times before broaching the subject.

“It was the third time that I saw them that they started preaching to me,” said Maiga. “They said that everything they do is in order to seek out God.”

Herder Baba Ould Momo, 29, said he tries to come up with an excuse to leave when the pickup trucks arrive at the well, because he’s afraid the terror cell will pull him in. He said they backed off when they noticed he wasn’t interested.

“The first thing they try to do is invite people to join them in the forest. If they see that the person is wavering, it’s then that they start preaching – saying everything is transitory,” said Momo, who like most of the herders wears plastic flip-flops, with a robe of wrinkled cloth. “But if the person is categorical in saying ‘No,’ they leave them alone.”

In June, Mauritania and Mali led a rare joint attack on the al-Qaida cell in the Wagadou Forest. However, herders say that a week earlier, the al-Qaida fighters told them that an attack was imminent and that they had laid down land mines in the forest. Mauritania blames Malian officials for tipping off AQIM.

The herders said that for around two weeks, they didn’t see the bearded fighters. Then they returned with a new fleet of Hilux pickup trucks, and with more men. Since then, the fighters’ tracks have been all over the forest floor, in a map of constant movement, said 60-year-old hunter Cheickana Cisse. They no longer sleep in the same place.

Just as Cisse was taking a drink of water at the N7 pump on a recent evening, two pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft cannons and loaded with combatants drove up. The men had chains of ammunition strapped across their chests, and belts loaded with cartridges.

They laid their AK-47s in a circle on the ground to create a space to pray, like a symbolic mosque. One of them asked Cisse if he had heard of bin Laden.

“He said, ‘We’re like this with bin Laden,’” Cisse explained, intertwining his right and left index fingers like a link in a chain. “He said, ‘We’re al-Qaida.’”

The elderly hunter tried to slip away just as one of the fighters made the call to prayer.

“And they said, ‘You? Aren’t you going to pray?’ They told me to come into the circle. I could feel them watching me,” he said.

The men kneeled inside the circle of weapons. Four others guarded them, including one who climbed on the roof of the truck. Cisse tiptoed inside and began going through the prayer. “I kept stealing glances to see if they were doing the same moves as me,” he said. “I know the words, but I was scared.”

When the group had finished, the four who had kept vigil took their turn inside the circle. Cisse quietly walked away.

They didn’t try to stop him.

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At least six people died and 39 people were wounded, including 19 AU peacekeepers.

A medical official at Mogadishu airport said the AU peacekeepers were to be evacuated to Nairobi, the capital city of neighboring Kenya, to be treated of injuries they sustained in the fighting. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the press.

The al-Shabab militants already have killed men who tried to escape the famine with their families, saying it is better to starve than accept help from the West. The World Food Program says it cannot reach 2.2 million people in need of aid in the militant-controlled areas in southern Somalia because of insecurity.

Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda, a spokesman for the AU peacekeeping force in Somalia, said that AU forces had conducted a “short tactical offensive operation” Thursday in Mogadishu.

“This action will further increase security … and ensure that aid agencies can continue to operate to get vital supplies to internally displaced,” Ankunda said in a statement.

“We are concerned about the extremists’ reckless attacks given the humanitarian activities being carried out presently,” he said.

Ankunda said al-Shabab’s decision last week to rescind permission allowing aid groups to operate in the areas the militants control already has denied hundreds of thousands of Somalis access to food aid.

He said the African Union Mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, will keep humanitarian organizations informed of their future operations to limit the impact on the relief efforts.

“AMISOM fully understands the need to restrain military operations while the aid agencies mount their humanitarian campaign. However, we are here to maintain stability in Mogadishu, and if we perceive a threat from the extremist insurgents, then it is our duty to protect and defend the most vulnerable from this threat,” he said.

The devastating famine in the Horn of Africa threatens al-Shabab’s hold on areas under its control, with the militants fearing that the disaster will drive away the people they tax and conscript into military service.

In the past, the militants have blocked aid workers from helping those in need in Somalia, fearing that foreign assistance would undermine their control.

A World Food Program plane with 10 tons of peanut-butter paste landed Wednesday in Mogadishu, the first of several planned airlifts in coming weeks.

That will help, but Lt. Col. Kuamurari Katwekyeire, the civil-military coordination chief for AMISOM, said the U.N. and other aid groups need to do more.

In a statement Thursday, the WFP said that it has a funding shortfall of $252 million for the famine relief efforts in the Horn of Africa. The agency said it was encouraged by the response of some donor countries that have pledged $250 million to help.

The drought has created a triangle of hunger where the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet. The U.N. believes tens of thousands already have died in Somalia in areas held by al-Qaida-linked Islamist rebels.

WFP estimates more than 11.3 million people need aid across drought-hit regions in East Africa. The majority of those affected live in pastoral communities whose herds have been wiped out because of a lack of water.

But the famine has particularly ravaged Somalia because many aid groups were banned from militant-controlled areas in the south two years ago.

Somalia has been mired in conflict since 1991 when long time dictator Siad Barre was overthrown by warlords who then turned on each other. Islamist militants led by al-Shabab are attempting to overthrow the weak U.N.-backed government that is being propped up by about 9,000 AU peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi.

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Hackers recently carried out a similar counter-terrorism effort by replacing bomb making tutorials with cupcake recipes.

“Al-Qaida’s online communications have been temporarily crippled, and it does not have a single trusted distribution channel available on the Internet,” said Evan Kohlmann, of Flashpoint Global Partners, which monitors the group’s communications

Read more at MSNBC.com

The man is believed to be a naturalized U.S citizen from Ethiopia.

Al Qaeda-related statements, a backpack containing ammonium nitrate, and spent 9mm shells were found in the car, authorities say.

FBI Special Agent Brenda Heck described the man as being “approximately in his twenties” and said he was “not forthcoming” when he was arrested.

Law enforcement work near the Pentagon after a suspicious vehicle forced multiple road closures Friday.

US Park Police then searched for the man’s vehicle. A short time later, the car — described by Heck as a red 2011 Nissan — was located near the Pentagon.

The car was searched by bomb experts, Heck said, who did not find “significant explosive related materials.”

Agents also found a backpack near the vehicle containing “suspicious items” that Heck said were a “non-explosive unknown material.”

Read more at NYPost.com

VIDEO:

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A top al-Qaida commander and possible replacement for Osama bin Laden was killed in an American drone-fired missile strike close to the Afghan border, a fax from the militant group he heads and a Pakistani intelligence official said Saturday.

Ilyas Kashmiri’s apparent death is another blow to al-Qaida just over a month after bin Laden was killed by American commandos in a northwest Pakistani army town. Described by U.S. officials as al-Qaida’s military operations chief in Pakistan, the 47-year-old Pakistani was one of five most-wanted militant leaders in the country, accused of a string of bloody attacks in South Asia, including the 2008 Mumbai massacre, as well as aiding plots in the West. Washington had offered a $5 million bounty for information leading to his location.

His death was not confirmed publicly by the United States or Pakistani officials. Verifying who has been killed in the drone strikes is difficult. Initial reports have turned out to be wrong in the past, including one in September 2009 that said Kashmiri had been killed. Sometimes they are never formally denied or confirmed by authorities here or in the United States.

But a fax from the militant group he was heading — Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami’s feared “313 Brigade” — confirmed Kashmiri was “martyred” in the strike at 11:15 p.m. Friday in South Waziristan tribal region. It was sent to journalists in Peshawar.

“God willing, America, which is the ‘pharaoh’ of this, will soon see a revenge attack, and our real target is America,” it said. The statement was handwritten written on a white page bearing name of the group, which has not previously communicated with the media.

The Pakistani official also said Kashmiri was among nine militants killed in the strike. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his agency’s policy. On Friday night, officials said several missiles hit a compound. The official Saturday said the men were meeting in an apple orchard near the house when the missiles hit.

Kashmiri’s name was on a list of militants that the United States and Pakistan recently agreed to jointly target, officials have said. The successful strike could help repair ties between the two countries that were badly damaged by the unilateral American raid, especially if Islamabad helped provide intelligence leading up to the attack.

Said to be blind in one eye and missing a finger, Kashmiri was one of the country’s most accomplished — and vicious — militants. He fought with jihadi fighters in Afghanistan and in Indian-held Kashmir in the 1990s and was so close to al-Qaida’s central command that he had been mentioned as a contender for replacing bin Laden, though many analysts thought the fact that he was not an Arab meant he was unlikely to get the post.

Indian officials have alleged he was involved in the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed more than 160 people. He has also been named a defendant in an American court over a planned attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

In an ongoing terror trial in Chicago, testimony from an American-Pakistani militant has alleged that Kashmiri helped plan the Mumbai siege and wanted to attack U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Kashmiri had been angry over U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan and wanted to target the company, David Coleman Headley testified.

Kashmiri has most recently been linked to last month’s 18-hour assault on a naval base in Karachi. He is also accused of masterminding several bloody raids on Pakistan police and intelligence buildings in 2009 and 2010, as well as a failed assassination attempt against then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

The U.S Department of State says he organized a 2006 suicide bombing against the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed four people, including an American diplomat.

American drones began firing missiles at al-Qaida and Taliban targets along the border in 2005, but the attacks picked up pace in 2008 and have risen in frequency ever since. Pakistani army officers and politicians publicly protest them, too weak to admit to working with the ever unpopular America in targeting fellow Pakistanis, but the country’s intelligence agencies have been known to occasionally provide targeting information.

Opposition to the strikes grew this year after a CIA contractor shot and killed two Pakistanis in the street, triggering ever more intense anti-American anger. After the bin Laden raid, which was seen by many here as an outrageous violation of the country’s sovereignty, the parliament issued a declaration calling for the attacks to end.

Pakistani leaders were not immediately available for comment on Friday’s attack. Kashmiri was accused of killing many Pakistanis, including police and army officers, so their public reaction may be muted.

The United States does not acknowledge the CIA-run program, though its officials have confirmed the death of high-value targets before, including the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, in 2009 — a strike welcomed by many Pakistan officials because he too was a sworn enemy of the country.

Washington says the strikes are accurately killing militants and are disrupting plots against the West as well as planned attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

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Khan pleaded guilty to charges of unlicensed money transmitting and immigration document fraud. U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper sentenced Khan to time served, 11 months, and three years of supervised release. Khan was then ordered to the custody of ICE ERO for deportation proceedings.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also expressed confidence in Pakistan’s military and Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which have been heavily criticized for failing to confront the U.S. Navy SEALs who conducted last week’s helicopter raid without notifying Pakistan first.

The operation took place May 2 in Abbottabad, an army town only two and a half hour’s drive outside the capital. The location of bin Laden’s hide-out has sparked suspicion that Pakistani officials knew where the al-Qaida leader was hiding and may have been helping him.

Gilani adamantly rejected those allegations, saying, “It is disingenuous for anyone to blame Pakistan or state institutions of Pakistan, including the ISI and the armed forces, for being in cahoots with al-Qaida.”

“Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd. Pakistan is not the birthplace of al-Qaida,” said Gilani in a speech to parliament. “We did not invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan or even to Afghanistan.”

Gilani agreed that the failure to find bin Laden, who was reportedly living in Abbottabad for up to six years, was a mistake. But he insisted it wasn’t Pakistan’s alone.

“Yes, there has been an intelligence failure,” said Gilani. “It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world.”

He said that the army will conduct an inquiry into the raid and military officials will brief parliament later in May.

The Pakistani military scrambled F-16 fighters and sent forces to bin Laden’s compound as soon as they were aware of the raid, said Gilani. Even though they were unable to interdict U.S. forces before they were on their way back to Afghanistan, he expressed confidence in their performance.

“Our response demonstrates that our armed forces reacted, as was expected of them,” said Gilani.

He warned the U.S. against launching future such attacks, saying “unilateralism runs the inherent risk of serious consequences.”

“Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force,” said Gilani. “No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland.”

But he insisted that relations with the U.S. remain strong and the two countries have worked well together during this period of crisis.

“Our communications at the official and diplomatic levels with the U.S., during this phase, have been good, productive and straight forward,” said Gilani.

He also praised the result of the raid.

“Osama bin Laden was the most wanted terrorist and enemy number one of the civilized world,” said Gilani. “Elimination of Osama bin Laden, who launched waves after waves of terrorists attacks against innocent Pakistanis, is indeed justice done.”

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According to information seized during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, Al-Qaeda considered attacking U.S. trains on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

NBC.com reports:

The information about a possible train plot is the first intelligence revealed from the trove of material found in the attack on bin Laden’s compound. Officials said they found what they call “aspirational” items — things al-Qaida operatives were interested in trying to make happen.

A government advisory obtained by NBC News and sent Tuesday to the rail industry said that as far back as February 2010, al-Qaida was contemplating “an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the 10th anniversary” of the 9/11 attacks.

U.S. officials report no recent intelligence indicating that such a plot is active.

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How The CIA Helped Create Osama bin Laden

These militants, known as the mujahideen would rebel the Russians out of Afghanistan and later become the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

One of the most prominent members of he mujahideen was a wealthy son of a Saudi Arabian businessman named Osama Bin Laden.

National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski visited Afganistan in 1979 and met with Bin Laden and even took a picture with him. Brzezinski would tell the mujahideen

We know of their deep belief in God, and we are confident their struggle will succeed. That land over there is yours, you’ll go back to it one day because your fight will prevail, and you’ll have your homes and your mosques back again. Because your cause is right and God is on your side.

The BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Russian journal Demokratizatsiya have all written that the CIA and U.S.A. funded and supported Bin Laden during the Afghan war.

Former British Foreign secretary, Robin Cook said:

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

Several other authors, journalists and statesmen have all made the claim that Bin Laden was funded, armed and trained by the CIA to fight off the Russians.

After Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981, U.S. funding of the mujahideen increased significantly and CIA Paramilitary Officers played a big role in training, arming and sometimes even leading mujahideen forces.

The CIA trained the mujahideen in many of the tactics Al Qaeda is known for today, such as car bombs, assassinations and other acts that would be considered terrorism today.

The U.S.A. would fund Gulbuddin Hekmatyar a mujahideen leader and alleged heroin dealer who worked closely with Bin Laden. Hekmaytyar and his political party/paramilitary group would receive more than $600 million from the USA. Author, Alfred McCoy, would claim that the CIA supported Hekmatyar in his illicit heroin trade to allow him to fund the mujahideen.Like Bin Laden, Hekmatyar has also become an enemy of the U.S., waging a war against coalition forces in Afghanistan after 2001.

America must learn from the foreign policy mistakes of our past. These mistakes have lead to the creation of our enemies, such as Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noreaga, and Osama Bin Laden. The enemy of our enemy is not always our friend, most often they become our enemies too. As America gives aid to rebels in Libya and other countries we must be cautious not to create another Bin Laden.

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Like the time he called Miami a “Third World country.” Or when he got thrown out of the White House for suggesting then-President George W. Bush was soft on illegal immigration. Or when he refused to take part in a presidential debate because it was on a Spanish-language network.

This week, he added more fuel to the fire when he said President Barack Obama is a bigger threat to the United States than al-Qaida or terrorism.

But despite all the baggage, the immigration hard-liner is running a solid campaign for governor as a third-party candidate and is within the margin of error in several recent polls.

Tancredo has successfully courted tea party groups, capitalized on anti-incumbent anger and parlayed his trademark blunt talk on the issues to become the de facto Republican candidate. Tancredo has also taken advantage of the collapse of GOP nominee Dan Maes, who is polling in single digits amid a series of character issues and campaign gaffes.

Tancredo is a former Republican lawmaker who left Congress in 2008 to mount a longshot White House bid that was largely based on an anti-immigration platform. He quit the GOP this year after saying that the Republicans in the governor’s race couldn’t win.

He got on the ballot as the American Constitution Party candidate – and has been surging in the polls ever since.

Democrat John Hickenlooper, the popular mayor of Denver, remains the favorite and a formidable candidate given his fundraising lead, but he has never made it above 50 percent in most polls.

The Canon City Daily Record reported that Tancredo told a coffee shop crowd Tuesday that Obama posed a threat to the Constitution, saying: “It’s not al-Qaida, it’s the guy sitting in the White House.”

Tancredo also said he believes Obama and Hickenlooper are “kindred spirits.”

Tancredo has said Hickenlooper, a former brewpub owner, raised taxes by $290 million in Denver. He also criticized the Denver mayor for opposing state laws on illegal immigration.

“I’m fed up with elitist politicians who trash our values and jeopardize our economic future,” Tancredo said.

Although he refuses to attack Tancredo personally, Hickenlooper has sought to portray Tancredo’s policies as radical, including proposals to cut government regulation on issues such as oil and gas drilling.

“We need predictability, not volatility,” Hickenlooper said.

Tancredo, who frequently rides around on a Harley-Davidson, recently suggested that drivers on the main east-west highway in Colorado pay tolls – an idea that flies in the face of his low-tax mantra.

Tancredo also drew gasps from a business crowd when he apologized during a speech if their lunch was cold. He joked that half the wait and kitchen staff usually leaves when he walks into a room because of his immigration stance.

Tancredo owes his rise to several bizarre developments involving the Republican candidates in the race.

Former Rep. Scott McInnis was favored to win the primary, but became engulfed in a plagiarism scandal and lost to Maes. Maes then became dogged by campaign finance violations and ridiculed for his views on U.N. global warming conspiracies involving bicycles in Denver, among other gaffes. He also made questionable claims about his shadowy record as a policeman in Kansas.

Tancredo swooped in and focused on his signature issue: immigration.

He repeatedly accuses Hickenlooper of running a “sanctuary city” in Denver. One unsavory Tancredo ad cites the case of an illegal immigrant who drove into a suburban Denver ice cream shop, killing a 3-year-old boy. The boy’s father asks Hickenlooper how he can sleep at night.

Tancredo promises to sign an Arizona-style law that requires police to check immigration status. Hickenlooper vows to veto it. Tancredo wants to require proof of citizenship to enroll in public schools. Hickenlooper opposes it. Tancredo wants limits on federal stimulus spending. Hickenlooper supports more federal spending and points to federal money providing broadband to rural areas.

Tancredo appeals to voters like Frank DeFilippo, a registered Republican. He said this year’s gubernatorial race has been “the craziest I’ve ever seen,” resulting in odd political alliances.

“I don’t feel I’m violating my Republican loyalties, I support other Republican candidates,” he said.

Proof of Tancredo’s resurgence came with the last financial reports, when he collected $220,000 – 10 times more than Maes – for a total $304,000. Tancredo said much of his support comes from opponents of illegal immigration across the nation.

Hickenlooper raised $387,000 from Sept. 30 to Oct. 13, bringing his total to $3.7 million.

Tancredo spokesman Cliff Dodge said anything can happen in a three-way race.

“Now we have Tom and Hickenlooper neck and neck and we’ve got a horse race,” Dodge said.

“So much for baggage.”

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CHICAGO — A 26-year-old Chicago man who told an FBI informant that he didn’t expect to reach the age of 30 was charged with plotting to go to Somalia to become a suicide bomber for al-Qaida and another linked terror group, federal prosecutors alleged in court documents unsealed Wednesday.

During a brief hearing, prosecutors told a judge that Shaker Masri was taken into custody and charged Tuesday evening with trying to aid al-Qaida and al-Shabaab, a violent extremist group in Somalia, and attempting to provide support through the use of a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States.

Masri, who faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for each charge, was ordered to remain in custody after prosecutors called him a flight risk and a danger to the community. He told the judge he was a U.S. citizen, and court documents said he was born in Alabama and spent years overseas before returning to the United States when he was 18.

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In a news release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said he was living in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood and was arrested without incident in the suburb of Countryside. The office had no further details about his background.

According to court documents, Masri started talking to a confidential FBI informant of his plans a little more than two weeks ago, asking that he help him find a job to earn money for the Middle East, as well as come up with money to buy guns.

In the court documents, prosecutors alleged that Masri told the informant that “he did not expect to reach the age of 30″ and that he “hoped to become a martyr by wearing a suicide vest.”

Masri’s attorney, Matthew McQuaid, said he was not prepared to comment because he had not yet seen any evidence or even had a chance to speak with Masri extensively about the charges.

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In court papers, Masri explained to the informant about the need to keep a low profile until leaving the United States because of a recent arrest in Virginia of a man who also wanted to travel to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab, which was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group in 2008. In the documents, prosecutors said Masri claimed to know the Virginia man but the papers do not include his name.

Prosecutors also said in the documents that at one time Masri was employed by a nonprofit group that provided free English language translations of the Quran in the United States. No other details were immediately available about Masri and the charges.

Click here to view photos:

From Voanews.com

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has confirmed that a French hostage was killed by al-Qaida’s branch in North Africa.

President Sarkozy said Monday during a television broadcast he condemned the “barbarous act” against Michel Germaneau, a French aid worker.

Text continues after gallery …

In an audio message broadcast Sunday on the Arabic network Al-Jazeera, a man identified as the leader of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb said Germaneau was killed in retaliation for the death of six al-Qaida members during a raid last week in Mali.

The al-Qaida leader said Mr. Sarkozy was unable to free Germaneau through a “failed” military operation.

Mr. Sarkozy also urged French citizens to avoid traveling to Africa’s Sahel region. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb has carried out numerous attacks and kidnappings across the Sahara and Sahel regions.

Read rest of story.

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KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — An al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group suspected in twin bombings in Uganda’s capital that killed 64 people watching the World Cup final endorsed the attacks on Monday but stopped short of claiming responsibility, as Uganda’s president vowed to hunt down those responsible.

The blasts came two days after a commander with the Somali group, al-Shabab, called for militants to attack sites in Uganda and Burundi, two nations that contribute troops to the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

The attacks also raise concerns about the capabilities of al-Shabab, which the U.S. State Department has declared a terrorist organization. If confirmed that the group carried out the attacks, it would be the first time al-Shabab has struck outside Somalia.

In Mogadishu, Somalia, Sheik Yusuf Sheik Issa, an al-Shabab commander, told The Associated Press early Monday that he was happy with the attacks in Uganda but refused to confirm or deny that al-Shabab was responsible.

“Uganda is one of our enemies. Whatever makes them cry, makes us happy. May Allah’s anger be upon those who are against us,” Sheik said.

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Kampala’s police chief, Kale Kaihura, said he believed al-Shabab could be responsible.

A California-based aid group, meanwhile, said one of its American workers was among the dead. Police said Ethiopian, Indian and Congolese nationals were also among those killed and wounded, police said.

Ugandan government spokesman Fred Opolot said Monday there were indications that two suicide bombers took part in the late Sunday attacks, which left nearly 60 others wounded.

Blood and pieces of flesh littered the floor among overturned chairs at the scenes of the blasts, which went off as people watched the game between Spain and the Netherlands. The attack on the rugby club, where crowds sat outside watching a large-screen TV, left 49 dead, police said. Fifteen others were killed in the restaurant explosion.

“We were enjoying ourselves when a very noisy blast took place,” said Andrew Oketa, one of the hospitalized survivors. “I fell down and became unconscious. When I regained, I realized that I was in a hospital bed with a deep wound on my head.”

Several Americans from a Pennsylvania church group were wounded in the restaurant attack including Kris Sledge, 18, of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. He said from a hospital bed afterward that he was “just glad to be alive.”

Florence Naiga, 32, a mother of three children, said her husband had gone to watch the World Cup final at the rugby club.

“He did not come back. I learnt about the bomb blasts in the morning. When I went to police they told me he was among the dead,” she said.

Invisible Children, a San Diego, California-based aid group that helps child soldiers, identified the dead American as one of its workers, Nate Henn, who was killed on the rugby field. Henn, 25, was a native of Wilmington, Delaware.

“From traveling the United States without pay advocating for the freedom of abducted child soldiers in Joseph Kony’s war, to raising thousands of dollars to put war-affected Ugandan students in school, Nate lived a life that demanded explanation. He sacrificed his comfort to live in the humble service of God and of a better world, and his is a life to be emulated,” the group said in a statement on its website.

Kony heads the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has waged one of Africa’s longest and most brutal rebellions, in northern Uganda.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni toured the blast sites Monday and said that the terrorists behind the bombings should fight soldiers, not “people who are just enjoying themselves.”

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“We shall go for them wherever they are coming from,” Museveni said. “We will look for them and get them as we always do.”

Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said it was too early to speculate about any military response to the attacks.

Somalia’s president condemned the blasts and described the attack as “barbaric.”

Al-Shabab, which wants to overthrow Somalia’s weak, U.N.-backed government, is known to have links with al-Qaida. Al-Shabab also counts militant veterans from the Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan conflicts among its ranks.

Al-Shabab’s fighters, including two recruited from the Somali communities in the United States, have carried out multiple suicide bombings in Somalia.

Uganda’s government spokesman said the first blast occurred at the Ethiopian Village restaurant at 10:55 p.m. Two more blasts happened at the rugby field 20 minutes later, he said.

Ethiopia, which fought two wars with Somalia, is a longtime enemy of al-Shabab and other Somali militants who accuse their neighbor of meddling in Somali affairs. Ethiopia had troops in Somalia between December 2006 to January 2009 to back Somalia’s fragile government against the Islamic insurgency. Ethiopia later withdrew its troops under an intricate peace deal mediated by the United Nations.

In addition to Uganda’s troops in Mogadishu, Uganda also hosts Somali soldiers trained in U.S. and European-backed programs.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the U.S. was prepared to provide any necessary assistance to the Ugandan government.

President Barack Obama was “deeply saddened by the loss of life resulting from these deplorable and cowardly attacks,” Vietor said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joined Obama in offering condolences and added, “The United States stands with Uganda. We have a long-standing, close friendship with the people and government of Uganda and will work with them to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice.”

Officials said the Sunday attacks will not affect the African Union summit being held in Uganda from July 19-27. Many African leaders are expected to attend.

“The summit will go on. The AU and African countries have the resolve to fight terrorism with the international community,” said Ramtane Lamamra, the AU’s peace and security commissioner.

RELATED: Bullet-Scarred Young Boy Becomes Lost Face Of Somalia’s War ]]> http://newsone.com/world/associated-press/somali-militants-praise-attacks-that-killed-64/feed/ 5 http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane-mccalla/opinion-the-al-qaeda-among-us/ http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane-mccalla/opinion-the-al-qaeda-among-us/#comments Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:26:57 +0000 Casey Gane-McCalla, Lead Blogger http://newsone.com/?p=476922 There is a good article in VetVoice written by Jim Staro, a Vietnam veteran who compares the modern militia movement and anti-government right wing forces with Al Qaeda. What's al Qaeda? It's a ghost enemy, and has only grown, that has been elevated to... Read more..]]>

There is a good article in VetVoice written by Jim Staro, a Vietnam veteran who compares the modern militia movement and anti-government right wing forces with Al Qaeda.

What’s al Qaeda? It’s a ghost enemy, and has only grown, that has been elevated to some sort of major world force over the past decade {bin Laden and friends are in constant smile in their caves and thanking those who elevated them, every day, giving him everything he wanted}. Anyone who espouses to criminal terrorism of others and wants the stature that name now brings to other like minded individuals or groups take the label readily. Those that commit violent criminal terrorist acts are readily labeled as members of or offshoot groups on the fringes

Those that commit violent criminal terrorist acts are readily labeled as members of or offshoot groups on the fringes of. Except of course here in the United States, do domestic criminal terror, or planning same, you’re not only Not Labeled As Such some actually Embrace What You’ve Done or are Planning and that you have every right to terrorize your communities or country!.

Recent acts have proven that out, i.e. Austin Texas, Killings in Churches, Militia Raids, and we can go back for only a few of the many, Oklahoma City Bombing, Eric Rudolf, Branch Dividians in Waco, many many examples, not only in recent history but our entire history as a Nation.

The author then goes into great detail using links to support his argument. I suggest that you read the whole article.

He concludes by discussing an upcoming gun rights rally in Virginia

In both of these reports as well as the organizing going on now, and has been, mention a gathering of gun owners, with their weapons, holding a rally as close as they can get to the Washington DC area as to the laws of carrying weapons, loaded weapons. Ask any, it’s all over online, about this taking place as to the anniversary of the Worse Domestic Terrorist Attack by Americans on their fellow Country-persons, Oklahoma City Bombing, and they’ll all denie that was even thought of. They’ll reach into the bag of history and pull out numerous events on or around that date that it is supposed to represent. But don’t be fooled, Timothy McVeigh is a Hero among many who will be attending this rally, like others before him and since they’ve embraced.

There will be some attending who are somewhat responsible gun owners, I say somewhat because there not only will be a large gathering of others with loaded guns around them but many children will also be brought along, they won’t care. There definitely will be extremist among the crowd, that’s a gimme, but more important there will be many who have only become gun owners in the recent past year or just a little over, these are still not only inexperienced gun owners, they haven’t a real clue as to what those weapons will and do do, especially to others, nor I’m sure are they safety minded, the gun just makes them feel more powerful!

Where was all this so called media pushing rage during the previous decade, why now, many already know and many others are starting to realize. It has nothing to do with any Government Policies, no matter what the talking heads and these oh so frightened civilian members of this society say!

If everyone gathering together stays silent about the extremism around them, in many forms, then everyone gets labeled with that extremism, Everyone, you can run and hide in trying to excuse or reach for reasons to justify, you are no different!

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BUENA, N.J. – Sharif Mobley had strong Muslim views as early as high school. But his old friend Roman Castro knew he had radicalized when he saw him about four years ago.

Castro, an Army veteran who did a tour in Iraq, said Mobley had only these words for him in a chance meeting: “Get the hell away from me, you Muslim killer!”

Now, Mobley is in custody in Yemen as a suspected member of the same branch of al-Qaida that’s linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a Detroit-bound jet, and stands accused of killing a guard in an attempt to break out of a hospital, officials said Thursday.

Mobley, a former laborer at several nuclear power plants in the U.S., appears to be the latest example of the phenomenon of Americans joining terror movements overseas, which U.S. intelligence officials have warned of.

His case surfaces days after charges of terrorist connections were brought against Colleen LaRose, an American-born woman known as “Jihad Jane” who lived for years in Pennsylvania.

Mobley, a 26-year-old natural-born U.S. citizen, was identified by Yemeni officials as a Somali-American. A former neighbor said he moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam.

He was among 11 al-Qaida suspects detained this month in a security sweep in Yemen’s capital of San’a this month. He was taken to the hospital over the weekend after he complained of feeling ill. He snatched a gun from a security guard and fatally shot one guard and wounded another before being captured, said Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington.

In Yemen, killing a guard during an escape attempt could result in execution by a firing squad.

U.S. officials fear that Yemen is becoming the next significant terrorist staging ground because of signs that lower-level al-Qaida operatives have been moving into the country, and the Pentagon has proposed spending $150 million to help Yemen battle insurgents.

The al-Qaida branch in Yemen was linked to the failed Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt. And Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last year, had exchanged e-mails with an extremist cleric in Yemen.

Americans are valuable to terrorist groups, in part because they can travel without arousing much suspicion.

“The U.S. passport is the gold standard,” said Fred Burton, a former U.S. counterintelligence agent who is now a vice president at STRATFOR, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.

Mobley graduated from high school in 2002 in the rural southern New Jersey town of Buena, and later lived in Philadelphia and Newark, Del. Castro said that in the past few years, Mobley organized religious pilgrimages to the Middle East for other Muslims.

Mobley’s mother, Cynthia Mobley, told WMGM-TV in Atlantic City, N.J., that her son is “an excellent person who’s never been in trouble” and “a good Muslim.”

As his father, Charles Mobley, pulled out of the family’s driveway on the way to see a lawyer Thursday, he said, “I can tell you this: He’s no terrorist.”

Mobley worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, PSE&G Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said. Mobley carried supplies and did maintenance work at the plants on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek, and worked at other plants in the region as well.

He satisfied federal background checks as recently as 2008, Delmar said, adding that PSE&G is cooperating with authorities.

Mike Drewniak, a spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said that his office had been told that Mobley was always supervised, caused no problems and was not believed to have breached security at the plants.

And Albasha said there was no immediate connection between Mobley’s activities in Yemen and his work at the plants.

Joe Szafran, a spokesman for Exelon Corp., which owns nuclear plants at three facilities in Eastern Pennsylvania, referred all questions about whether Mobley worked there to the FBI.

An FBI spokesman did not immediately return a call, but a law enforcement official told The Associated Press that authorities don’t believe Mobley’s job at the nuclear plant was related to his activities in Yemen. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Abdel-Hadi Shehata, imam of the Islamic Society of Delaware, said Mobley lived in his apartment building and had a wife and a young daughter before moving to Yemen about two years ago.

Umar Hassan-El, assistant imam at the Islamic Society of Delaware’s mosque in Wilmington, Del., said he roomed with Mobley during a 2004 pilgrimage to Mecca.

The worst Mobley did, Hassan-El said, was forget to pick up his clothes or interrupt discussions among older Muslims.

“He gave no indication that he would join a group that he’s alleged to be a part of right now,” said hassan-El. “I never heard that boy ever talk about shooting anybody, killing anybody.”

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WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida’s terror network in North Africa is growing more active and attracting new recruits, threatening to further destabilize the continent’s already vulnerable Sahara region, according to U.S. defense and counterterrorism officials.

The North African faction, which calls itself Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is still small and largely isolated, numbering a couple hundred militants based mostly in the vast desert of northern Mali. But signs of stepped-up activity and the group’s advancing potential for growth worry analysts familiar with the region.

The rapid recent rise of the al-Qaida group in Yemen — which spawned the Christmas airliner attack — is seen by U.S. officials and counterterrorism analysts as evidence that the North African militants could just as quickly take on a broader jihadi mission and become a serious threat to the U.S. and European allies.

The Mali-based militants have yet to show a capability to launch such foreign attacks, but are widening their involvement in kidnapping and the narcotics trade, reaping profits that could be used to expand terror operations, officials and analysts said.

Several senior U.S. defense and counterterrorism officials spoke about AQIM on condition of anonymity to discuss internal analysis.

Those advances have set off alarms within the counterterrorism community, which watched as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula quickly transformed over the past year from militants preoccupied with internal Yemeni strife to a potent group recruiting and training insurgents for terror missions inside the U.S.

That threat was underscored by the failed Christmas airliner attack, which officials say was planned and directed by Yemeni insurgent leaders.

A key fear is that as AQIM expands, its criminal and insurgent operations will continue to destabilize the fragile governments of heavily Islamic North Africa, much as it has in Mali. The Maghreb includes the North African nations of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.

As a result, the U.S. has been working to boost poverty-stricken Mali’s defenses. Last year, the U.S. gave $5 million in new trucks and other equipment to its security forces, and Pentagon funds also have been approved to provide training.

Several senior U.S. defense and counterterrorism officials spoke about AQIM on condition of anonymity to discuss internal analysis.

Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Saban Center and a former CIA officer, said that the North African terror group has a larger area to operate in and a wider Islamic population pool to draw from, but has not launched the kind of large-scale attacks initially feared when it became an al-Qaida affiliate three years ago.

“Now, if it is beginning to reorganize, recruit and develop, because of this international potential, it could become a much more dangerous threat,” Riedel said. “And if there is a role model in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, that is very disturbing.”

Born as an Algerian insurgency in the early 1990s, the group was largely defeated and driven into a swath of ungoverned desert land — about the size of France — in northern Mali. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the group reached out to al-Qaida in an effort to survive. AQIM was officially recognized as an al-Qaida affiliate by Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Both the U.S. and the European Union have designated AQIM a terrorist organization.

The group has since absorbed some of al-Qaida’s techniques for roadside bombs and suicide attacks. Occasionally it has issued videos and statements on jihadi Internet forums.

In December 2007, for example, the group attacked the U.N.’s Algerian headquarters, killing 37 people, including 17 U.N. staff members.

At the same time, AQIM has increased its recruiting efforts, drawing insurgents from Mauritania, Nigeria and Chad, officials said. The recruits are trained in small arms and roadside bomb construction, officials said, then return to their home countries to plan and execute attacks.

The spike in recruiting and training, along with the increase in kidnappings and other crimes, has made the region more insecure and unstable in just a year, several officials said.

The militants often partner with local criminals, who kidnap tourists then sell them to AQIM, which then demands ransoms, officials said. Those alliances cement contacts between the criminal groups and AQIM, broadening its reach and membership.

The kidnappings have had mixed results. Last week, the group released French hostage Pierre Camatte after holding him for three months. The move was spurred by a Mali court decision that released four jailed AQIM members.

Some hostages have been killed — including Edwin Dyer, a British tourist who was captured with three others including two U.N. envoys. Britain had refused to pay ransom to the group.

So far, the group has not moved beyond kidnappings to push al-Qaida’s global jihad aims, creating tensions between the offshoot organization and core al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan, said Haim Malka, deputy director for the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Middle East program.

“They have not yet become more globally focused, they’ve stayed in the Sahara region and they’ve failed to make inroads in other parts of North Africa,” he said. Malka cautioned that the group’s broadening efforts to work with local criminal networks on kidnappings may give the appearance that it is expanding more than it actually is.

Despite the group’s limited reach, British and American authorities have issued strong warnings against travel to northern Mali, saying there is a “high threat from terrorism” and from criminal acts and kidnappings.

The concern, according to officials, is that the insurgents will gain strength, expand their scope across the region and destabilize other areas, much as they have done already in northern Mali.

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From WLBZ2

HOUSTON, Tex. (NBC) — A British intelligence service says it’s discovered that gel and saline implants may be used by al-Qaeda to terrorize innocent people.

British spy satellites have reportedly intercepted terrorist communications from Pakistan and Yemen, talking about women suicide bombers getting explosives put inside breast implants.

Former Houston FBI Director Don Clark said he believes U.S. Homeland Security is taking this threat very seriously.

Click Here For More

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HONOLULU – President Barack Obama laid blame Saturday on an al-Qaida affiliate for a Christmas Day terrorist plot that has led to a review of how intelligence agencies failed to prevent the botched bombing aboard a Detroit-bound airliner.

In his most direct public language to date, the president described the path through Yemen of 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to destroy Northwest Flight 253. The president also emphasized that the United States would continue its partnerships with friendly countries — citing Yemen, in particular — to fight terrorists and extremist groups around the globe.

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Obama’s homeland security team has been piecing together just how Abdulmutallab was able to board the plane. Officials have described flaws in the system and by those executing the strategy and have delivered a preliminary assessment.

A senior administration official had said the United States was increasingly confident there was a link between Abdulmutallab and an al-Qaida affiliate, but Obama’s statement is the strongest connection between the two.

“We’re learning more about the suspect,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that the White House released on Saturday as the president vacationed in Hawaii.

“We know that he traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaida, and that this group — al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula — trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America,” the president said.

Officials have said Abdulmutallab’s father warned the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria that his son had drifted into extremism in the al-Qaida hotbed of Yemen. Abdulmutallab’s threat was only partially digested by the U.S. security apparatus and not linked with a visa history showing the young man could fly to the United States.

Obama has ordered a thorough look at the shortcomings that permitted the plot, which failed not because of U.S. actions but because the would-be attacker was unable to ignite an explosive device.

Intelligence officials prepared for what was shaping up to be uncomfortable hearings before Congress about miscommunication among anti-terror agencies and sweeping changes expected under Obama’s watch. The president has been vocal in his criticism of the agencies and against extremists who would harm the United States.

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“This is not the first time this group has targeted us,” Obama said. “In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels, restaurants and embassies, including our embassy in 2008, killing one American.”

“So, as president, I’ve made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government — training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaida terrorists,” he said.

The United States provided Yemen $67 million in training and support under the Pentagon’s counterterrorism program last year. Only Pakistan got more, with some $112 million.

Obama said the money had been well spent: “Training camps have been struck, leaders eliminated, plots disrupted. And all those involved in the attempted act of terrorism on Christmas must know — you too will be held to account.”

At the same time, administration officials warned this week that Obama also would hold accountable his own government. To that end, Obama has summoned homeland security officials from across the government to meet with him in the White House Situation Room on Tuesday.

Obama was expected to run the meeting and press his team on how they missed what appears to be clear connections.

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watch list with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

The Obama administration has ordered investigations into the two areas of aviation security — how travelers are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened — as critics questioned how the 23-year-old Nigerian man charged in the airliner attack was allowed to board the Dec. 25 flight.

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A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context.

“Our system did not work in this instance,” she said on NBC television’s “TODAY” show. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”

The White House press office, traveling with President Barack Obama in Hawaii, said early Monday that the president would make a statement from the Kaneoho Marine Base about midday. White House spokesman Bill Burton did not elaborate.

Billions of dollars have been spent on aviation security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when commercial airliners were hijacked and used as weapons. Much of that money has gone toward training and equipment that some security experts say could have detected the explosive device that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of hiding on his body on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Abdulmutallab has been charged in federal court with trying to detonate the device as the plane approached Detroit. The device burst into flames instead, according to authorities, and he was subdued by passengers. The plane landed safely.

A federal judge in Detroit postponed until Jan. 8 a hearing on a request by the government to obtain a DNA sample from Abdulmutallab. No reason was given.

Harold Demuren, the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, said Abdulmutallab paid cash on Dec. 16 for the $2,831 round-trip ticket from Lagos, Nigeria, to Detroit via Amsterdam. He said Abdulmutallab’s ticket came from a KLM office in Accra, Ghana.

Demuren said Abdulmutallab checked into his flight with only a small carry-on bag.

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On Sunday, Napolitano said, “One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked.” On Monday, she said she was referring to the system of notifying other flights as well as law enforcement on the ground about the incident soon after it happened.

The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee took issue with Napolitano’s initial assessment.

Airport security “failed in every respect,” Rep. Peter King said Sunday on CBS television’s “Face the Nation.” “It’s not reassuring when the secretary of homeland security says the system worked.”

A congressional hearing is planned in January to examine security and screening measures.

Investigators are piecing together Abdulmutallab’s brazen attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Dec. 25. Law enforcement officials say he tucked below his waist a small bag holding his potentially deadly concoction of liquid and powder explosive material.

Abdulmutallab had been placed in a U.S. database of people suspected of terrorist ties in November, but there was not enough information about his activity that would place him on a watch list that could have kept him from flying.

British officials placed Abdulmutallab’s name on a U.K. watch list after he was refused a student visa in May. However, adding him to the list was a matter of routine, not because he was thought to pose a threat, according to a Home Office official. She spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said police and security services are looking at whether Abdulmutallab was radicalized in Britain.

Abdulmutallab received a degree in engineering and business finance from University College London last year and later applied to re-enter Britain to study at another institution. Johnson said Monday he was refused entry because officials suspected the school was not genuine and they then put his name on the list.

Johnson says that people on the list can transit the U.K. but cannot enter the country.

Officials said he came to the attention of U.S. intelligence last month when his father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, a prominent Nigerian banker, reported to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria about his son’s increasingly extremist religious views.

In a statement released Monday, Abdulmutallab’s family in Nigeria said that after his “disappearance and stoppage of communications while schooling abroad,” his father reached out to Nigerian security agencies two months ago. The statement says the father then approached foreign security agencies for “their assistance to find and return him home.”

The family says: “It was while we were waiting for the outcome of their investigation that we arose to the shocking news of that day.”

The statement did not offer any specifics on where Abdulmutallab had been.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the government will investigate its systems for placing suspicious travelers on watch lists and for detecting explosives before passengers board flights.

Both lines of defense were breached in the improbable series of events Christmas Day that spanned three continents and culminated in a struggle and fire aboard a Northwest jet shortly before its safe landing in Detroit.

WASHINGTON – The alleged Christmas Day terrorist had been in one of the U.S. government’s many terror databases since November, which is when his father brought him to the attention of embassy officials in Nigeria.

However, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came to the attention of intelligence officials months before that, according to a U.S. government official involved in the investigation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because it is ongoing.

Still, none of the information the government had on Abdulmutallab rose to the level of putting him on the official terror watch list or no-fly list. On Christmas Eve, the 23-year-old Nigerian — who later claimed to law enforcement that he was operating on orders from al-Qaida — was able to carry a concealed explosive device onto a U.S.-bound airplane.

RELATED: Passengers Help Foil Attack On Detroit-Bound Plane

Officials warn it is still early in the investigation. But lawmakers are already calling for hearings, and the government may order a review. As President Barack Obama received regular updates on the investigation from his staff, his national security and policy aides have been asking whether the policies the U.S. has in place are working. These internal discussions marked the informal start to what will likely become a formal executive branch inquiry into an attack that failed because the bomb did not go off as planned and not because the intelligence community stopped it.

Passenger accounts and law enforcement officials describe the events around the Christmas Day attack this way:

On December 24, Abdulmutallab traveled from Nigeria to Amsterdamand then on to Detroit with an explosive device attached to his body.

Part of the device contained PETN, or pentaerythritol, and was hidden in a condom or condom-like bag just below Abdulmutallab’s torso. PETN is the same material convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes. Abdulmutallab also had a syringe filled with liquid.

As the plane approached Detroit, Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for 20 minutes. When he returned to his seat, he complained of an upset stomach and covered himself with a blanket.

Passengers heard a popping noise, similar to a firecracker. They smelled an odor, and some passengers saw Abdulmutallab’s pant leg and the wall of the airplane on fire. Passengers and the flight crew used blankets and fire extinguishers to quell the flames. They restrained Abdulmutallab, who later told a flight attendant he had an “explosive device” in his pocket. He was seen holding a partially melted syringe.

The airplane landed in Detroit shortly after the incident.

RELATED: Passengers Help Foil Attack On Detroit-Bound Plane

On Saturday, federal officials charged the young man with trying to destroy the airplane. A conviction on the charge could bring Abdulmutallab up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

U.S. District Judge Paul Borman read Abdulmutallab the charges in a conference room at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the former London university student is undergoing burn treatment. Abdulmutallab smiled as he was wheeled into the room, his left thumb and right wrist bandaged and part of the skin on the thumb was burned off.

Abdulmutallab claimed to have received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, law enforcement officials said. He is also believed to have had Internet contact with militant Islamic radicals.

While intelligence officials said Saturday that they are taking seriously Abdulmutallab’s claims that the plot originated with al-Qaida’s network inside Yemen, several added that they had to yet to see independent confirmation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is incomplete.

Four weeks ago, Abdulmutallab’s father told the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, that he was concerned about his son’s religious beliefs. This information was passed on to U.S. intelligence officials.

Abdulmutallab received a valid U.S. visa in June 2008 that is good through 2010.

His is one of about 550,000 names in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, known as TIDE, which is maintained by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center and was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Intelligence officials said they lacked enough information to place him in the 400,000-person terror watch list or on the no-fly list of fewer than 4,000 people who should be blocked from air travel.

DETROIT – The U.S. government tightened airline security as it searches for answers to how a 23-year-old Nigerian man eluded extensive systems intended to prevent attacks like his botched Christmas Day effort to blow up a Northwest flight from overseas.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who claimed ties to al-Qaida, was charged Saturday with trying to destroy a Detroit-bound airliner, just a month after his father warned U.S. officials of concerns about his son’s religious beliefs.

Airports worldwide tightened security a day after the passenger tried to detonate a device that contained a high explosive on a flight intoDetroit. After that attack, passengers have had to contend with extra pat-downs before boarding, staying in their seats without blankets or pillows for the last hour of the flight and more bomb-sniffing dogs.

Aides to President Barack Obama are pondering how terror watch-lists are used after the botched attack, according to officials who described the discussions Saturday on the condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt possible official announcements.

These adjustments came after the Justice Department charged that Abdulmutallab willfully attempted to destroy or wreck an aircraft; and that he placed a destructive device in the plane.

An affidavit said he had a device containing a high explosive attached to his body. The affidavit said that as Northwest Flight 253 descended toward Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Abdulmutallab set off the device — sparking a fire instead of an explosion.

According to the affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, a preliminary analysis of the device showed it contained PETN, a high explosive also known as pentaerythritol. This was the same material convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes.

The investigation stretched to London, where a government official said border agents blocked an attempt by Abdulmutallab to return to Britain earlier this year. The suspected bomber was refused a student visa in May because authorities suspected that the school he said he was studying with wasn’t genuine, the official said. He spoke anonymously because he wasn’t authorized to release the information on an official basis.

The use of bogus schools to secure student visas has been identified as a weakness in Britain’s immigration system. In April, one of several suspected terrorists arrested in raids in northern England was found to have a visa issued with the help of a fake college, prompting opposition lawmakers to call for a crackdown. Some 2,000 such schools have been closed.

A white stone apartment block in an exclusive area of central London identified as Abdulmutallab’s family home remained cordoned off Sunday. A police spokeswoman said the force was carrying out searches in connection with the incident in Detroit.

University College London said Abdulmutallab was enrolled at the school from September 2005 to June 2008. In Nigeria, the father of Abdulmutallab said his son had been a student in London, but had left the city to travel.

U.S. authorities told The Associated Press that in November, his father, a prominent banking official in Nigeria, went to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss his concerns about his son’s religious beliefs.

One U.S. government official said the father did not have any specific information that would put his son on the “no-fly list” or on the list for additional security checks at the airport.

A Nigerian newspaper, ThisDay, said Abdulmutallab began to show his increasingly radical views on Islam during his high school days at the British International School in Lome, Togo. His attendance at the elite college preparatory school, attended by children of diplomats and wealthy Africans, could not be confirmed by school officials on Sunday.

But Efemena Mokedi, remembered Abdulmutallab from their days on the basketball team at the exclusive school as “a smart kid” and “a friendly person.”

“He was a very religious person, a very honest person. He was friends with all the teachers,” said Mokedi, who now lives in the United States, in an interview broadcast on the BBC. “Yes, I’m very surprised. … This is really out of how he is as a person. This is unexpected … He’s a very good guy, a very good chap.”

ThisDay, the newspaper, said Abdulmutallab left London at some point to move to Egypt, then Dubai. The government in Dubai could not immediately confirm he visited that country. A security official in Egypt said there were no records to indicate Abdulmutallab entered Egypt or had any connection to Egypt.

The security official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.

The Nigerian newspaper says that is was during his time in Dubai that Abdulmutallab began to distance himself from his family, telling them he did not want anything to do with them. The newspaper said Abdulmutallab’s father lost contact with him last November, when he may have left London, according to the newspaper.

The newspaper also reported that Abdulmutallab’s father is married to a woman of Yemeni descent. Yemeni officials could not immediately verify this.

Abdulmutallab appeared on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database maintained by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said a U.S. official who received a briefing and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Containing some 550,000 names, the database includes people with known or suspected ties to a terrorist organization. However, it is not a list that would prohibit a person from boarding a U.S.-bound airplane.

The effects of the botched attack could be felt by passengers on many international flights departing from airports around the world.

Passengers getting off flights from overseas reported being told that they couldn’t get out of their seat for the last hour of their flight. Air Canada also said that during the last hour passengers won’t be allowed access to carryon baggage or to have any items on their laps.

The extra vigilance compounded delays in a busy holiday travel period marked by snowstorms in the Midwestand heavy rain in the East.

The TSA security directive applied to U.S.-bound flights from overseas, according to a transportation security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly.

The official said passengers traveling internationally could see increased screening at gates and when they check bags, as well as other measures on flights such as stowing carryons and personal items before the plane lands.

While air travelers contended with the new rules, investigators tried to determine facts about the suspect’s background.

He claimed to have received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, a law enforcement official said on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., chairman of a House Homeland Security subcommittee, said there were “strong suggestions of a Yemen-al Qaida connection and an intent to blow up the plane over U.S. airspace.” Several officials said they have yet to see independent confirmation.

A Virginia-based group that monitors militant messages called attention Saturday to a Dec. 21 video recording from an al-Qaida operative in Yemen who warned of a looming bombing in the U.S.

IntelCenter said the al-Qaida member levied that threat last week during a funeral for militants killed during an airstrike in Yemen two days earlier.

[Updated 12.16.09, 8:35 a.m.]

Passengers Helped Foil Attack On Detroit-Bound Plane

ROMULUS, Mich. – An attempted terrorist attack on a Christmas Day flight began with a pop and a puff of smoke — sending passengers scrambling to subdue a Nigerian man who claimed to be acting on orders from al-Qaida to blow up the airliner, officials and travelers said.

The commotion began as Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew members from Amsterdam, prepared to land in Detroit just before noon Friday. Travelers said they smelled smoke, saw a glow, and heard what sounded like firecrackers. At least one person climbed over others and jumped on the man, who officials say was trying to ignite an explosive device.

RELATED: Condi Rice Says Leaving Afghanistan Will Lead To More Terrorism

“It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase,” said Peter Smith, a passenger from the Netherlands. “First there was a pop, and then (there) was smoke.”

Smith said one passenger, sitting opposite the man, climbed over passengers, went across the aisle and tried to restrain the man. The heroic passenger appeared to have been burned.

Afterward, the suspect was taken to a front-row seat with his pants cut off and his legs burned. Multiple law enforcement officials also said the man appeared badly burned on his legs, indicating the explosive was strapped there. The components were apparently mixed in-flight and included a powdery substance, multiple law enforcement and counterterrorism officials said.

The White House said it believed it was an attempted act of terrorism and stricter security measures were quickly imposed on airline travel. Dutch anti-terrorism authorities said the U.S. has asked all airlines to take extra precautions on flights worldwide that are bound for the United States.

The incident was reminiscent of Richard Reid, who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes, but was subdued by other passengers.

Multiple law enforcement officials identified the suspect in Friday’s attempted attack as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. He was described as Nigerian.

One law enforcement official said the man claimed to have been instructed by al-Qaida to detonate the plane over U.S. soil, but other law enforcement officials cautioned that such claims could not be verified immediately, and said the man may have been acting independently — inspired but not specifically trained or ordered by terror groups.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

Intelligence and anti-terrorism officials in Yemen said they were investigating claims by the suspect that he picked up the explosive device and instructions on how to use it in that country. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

The man was being questioned Friday evening. An intelligence official said he was being held and treated in an Ann Arbor, Mich., hospital. The hospital said one passenger from the flight was taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, but referred all inquiries to the FBI.

Melinda Dennis, who was seated in the front row of the plane, said the man involved was brought to the front row and seated near her. She said his legs appeared to be badly burned and his pants were cut off. She said he was taken off the plane handcuffed to a stretcher.

RELATED: 5 Black Men Convicted For Terrorism in Miami

One law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mutallab’s name had surfaced earlier on at least one U.S. intelligence database, but he was not on a watch list or a no-fly list.

The suspect boarded in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam en route to Detroit, Rep. Peter King, the ranking GOP member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN. A spokeswoman for police at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam declined comment about the case or about security procedures at the airport for Flight 253.

Dutch airline KLM says the connection in Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria, to Detroit involves a change in carrier and a change in aircraft.

Schiphol airport, one of Europe‘s busiest with a heavy load of transit passengers from Africa and Asia to North America, strictly enforces European security regulations including only allowing small amounts of liquid in hand luggage that must be placed inside clear plastic bags. rjam Snoerwang.

A spokesman for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Akin Olukunle, said all passengers and their luggage are screened before boarding international flights. He also said the airport in Lagos cleared a U.S. Transportation Security Administration audit in November.

“We had a pass mark,” Olukunle said. “We actually are up to standards in all senses.”

Nigeria’s information minister, Dora Akunyili, condemned the attempted bombing. She said the government has opened its own investigation into the suspect and will work with U.S. authorities.

“We state very clearly that as a nation we abhor all forms of violence,” Akunyili said in a statement issued Saturday.

RELATED: 5 Black Men Convicted For Terrorism in Miami

London’s Metropolitan Police also was working with U.S. officials, a spokeswoman said, and searches were being conducted in that city. The spokeswoman would not provide additional details, including what connection the suspect had to London or what was being searched. She spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Delta Air Lines Inc., which acquired Northwest last year, said a passenger caused a disturbance, was subdued, and the crew requested that law enforcement officials meet the flight.

Passenger Syed Jafri, a U.S. citizen who had flown from the United Arab Emirates, said the incident occurred during the plane’s descent. Jafri said he was seated three rows behind the passenger and said he saw a glow, and noticed a smoke smell. Then, he said, “a young man behind me jumped on him.”

RELATED: Condi Rice Says Leaving Afghanistan Will Lead To More Terrorism

“Next thing you know, there was a lot of panic,” he said.

Federal officials said there would be heightened security for both domestic and international flights at airports across the country, but the intensified levels would likely be “layered,” differing from location to location depending on alerts, security concerns and other factors.

Passengers can expect to see heightened screening, more bomb-sniffing dog and officer units and behavioral-detection specialists at some airports, but there will also be unspecified less visible precautions as well, officials said.

The FBI and the Homeland Security Department issued an intelligence note on Nov. 20 about the threat picture for the holiday season, which was obtained by The Associated Press. At the time, officials said they had no specific information about attack plans by al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

President Barack Obama was notified of the incident and discussed it with security officials, the White Housesaid. Officials said he is monitoring the situation and receiving regular updates from his vacation spot inHawaii.

[Updated 12.25.09, 7:45 p.m.]

Nigerian Passenger Tries To Blow Up U.S. Plane “On Al Qaeda’s Orders”

WASHINGTON — A Northwest Airlines passenger from Nigeria, who said he was acting on al-Qaida’s instructions, tried to blow up the plane Friday as it was landing in Detroit, law enforcement and national security officials said.

RELATED: 5 Black Men Convicted For Terrorism in Miami

Passengers subdued the man and may have prevented him from detonating the explosives, the officials said.

“We believe this was an attempted act of terrorism,” a White House official said.

Federal officials imposed stricter screening measures after the incident.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., ranking GOP member of the House Homeland Security Committee, identified the suspect as Abdul Mudallad, a Nigerian. King said the flight began in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam en route to Detroit. There were 278 passengers aboard the Airbus 330.

There was nothing out of the ordinary until the flight was on final approach to Detroit, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory. That is when the pilot declared an emergency and landed without incident shortly thereafter, Cory said in an e-mail message. The plane landed at 11:51 a.m. EST.

One of the U.S. intelligence officials said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it.

The passenger was being questioned Friday evening. An intelligence source said the Nigerian passenger was being held and treated in an Ann Arbor, Mich., hospital.

All the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

RELATED: Condi Rice Says Leaving Afghanistan Will Lead To More Terrorism

One law enforcement source said the man claimed to have been instructed by al-Qaida to detonate the plane over U.S. soil.

The official said an official determination of a terrorist act would have to come from the attorney general.

The official added that additional security measures are being taken without raising the airline threat level.

The official declined to describe what additional measures law enforcement was taking.

The White House was coordinating briefings for the president through the Homeland Security Department, the Transportation Security Administration and the FBI.

A law enforcement source said the explosives may have been strapped to the man’s body but investigators weren’t immediately certain, partly because of the struggle with other passengers.

One passenger from the flight was taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, hospital spokeswoman Tracy Justice said. She didn’t know the person’s condition, or whether the person was a man or woman. She referred all inquiries to the FBI.

Passenger Syed Jafri, a U.S. citizen who had flown from the United Arab Emirates, said the incident occurred during the plane’s descent. Jafri said he was seated three rows behind the passenger and said he saw a glow, and noticed a smoke smell. Then, he said, “a young man behind me jumped on him.”

“Next thing you know, there was a lot of panic,” he said.

Rich Griffith, a passenger from Pontiac, said he was seated too far in the back to see what had happened. But he said he didn’t mind being detained on the plane for several hours. “It’s frustrating if you don’t want to keep your country safe,” he said. “We can’t have what’s going on everywhere else happening here.”

President Barack Obama was notified of the incident and discussed it with security officials, the White House said. It said he is monitoring the situation and receiving regular updates from his vacation spot in Hawaii.

J.P. Karas, 55, of Wyandotte, Mich., said he was driving down a road near the airport and saw a Delta jet at the end of the runway, surrounded by police cars, an ambulance, a bus and some TV trucks.

“I don’t ever recall seeing a plane on that runway ever before and I pass by there frequently,” he said.

Karas said it was difficult to tell what was going on, but it looked like the front wheel was off the runway.

“We encourage those with future travel plans to stay in touch with their airline and to visit www.tsa.gov for updates,” Homeland Security Department said in a statement.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been briefed on the incident and is closely monitoring the situation.

The department encouraged travelers to be observant and aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious behavior to law enforcement officials.

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WASHINGTON— Three accused al-Qaida associates taken to New York on Friday are charged with plotting to ferry drugs through the Sahara desert to raise money for terror attacks — evidence of what prosecutors say is a dangerous, growing alliance between terror chiefs and drug lords.

The arrests mark the first time U.S. authorities have captured and charged al-Qaida suspects in a drug trafficking plot in Africa.

The three suspects — believed to be in their 30s and originally from Mali — were arrested by local authorities in Ghana earlier this week and turned over to U.S. agents.

They arrived in the United States early Friday morning, officials said, and were ordered held without bail after a brief court appearance later in the day in which they did not enter pleas to charges of narcoterrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.

Michele Leonhart, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the case shows a “direct link” between al-Qaida and drug traffickers.

The U.S. has long been concerned about close ties between militants and the heroin trade in Afghanistan. But the African case appears to show an expansion of both al-Qaida’s illegal activities around the globe and American efforts to curtail black market deals that funnel cash to spur terror operations.

The four-month investigation was also the third time in recent years that the U.S. has targeted transnational suspects in an elaborate sting using informants posing as South American narcoterrorism operatives.

U.S. attorney Preet Bharara said the charges show “the emergence of a worrisome alliance between al-Qaida and transnational narcotics traffickers. As terrorists diversify into drugs, however, they provide us with more opportunities to incapacitate them and cut off the funding for future acts of terror.”

Authorities say the men are associates of al-Qaida’s North African branch, and told DEA informants that al-Qaida could protect major shipments of cocaine in the region, driving the drugs by truck through the Sahara desert before eventually bringing them to Spain.

A criminal complaint unsealed Friday charges that Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure, and Idriss Abelrahman worked with al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb.

Court papers say Toure and Abelrahman at one point claimed the profits from the drug business “will go to their people to support the fight for ‘the cause’.”

Court papers say the DEA infiltrated the group by using informants posing as supporters of Colombia’s rebel army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

The DEA used the FARC ruse twice before, leading to the 2007 arrest of Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar in Spain, and then again, in 2008, for a sting that netted Viktor Bout, a Russian businessman suspected in arms deals that aided the Taliban and African warlords.

The sting has had mixed success: Al-Kassar was convicted in 2008 of selling weapons to terrorists. But Bout remains in limbo in a Bangkok jail, his extradition to the U.S. blocked by a Thai judge.

In the latest case, the DEA used a French-speaking informant posing as “a Lebanese radical committed to opposing the interests of the United States, Israel, and, more broadly, the West and its ideals,” according to court papers.

The informant claimed in secretly taped conversations to represent FARC, and said the group was looking for a secure means of smuggling drugs through western and northern Africa on the way to Europe.

During the negotiations, the al-Qaida suspects offered to move cocaine from west Africa to north Africa for about 3,000 euros — roughly $4,200 — per kilogram.

The criminal complaint claims that when the informant asked how their drug shipments could be protected, “Issa confirmed that the protection would come from al-Qaidacharges. All three men needed French interpreters.

“I think he understands the basics,” she said. “He seems like a simple man.”

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb is an Algeria-based group that joined Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network in 2006 and conducts dozens of bombings or ambushes each month.

The group’s origins trace back to militants that fought the Algerian government. In its new form, the group has spread beyond that country’s porous borders, sowing violence in the rest of northwestern Africa through kidnappings, human trafficking, and other crimes.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb has for several years stepped up efforts to control the drug trade through North Africa, Western and local intelligence officials say.

The importance of this trade has steeply risen in recent years as illegal goods have shifted from fake cigarettes or hashish to cocaine, after South American cartels started flying their drugs directly to weak nations in the Gulf of Guinea.

The al-Qaida North African offshoot, known by its acronym AQIM, also controls illegal cross-border networks used for human trafficking, with migrants often paying their passage to Europe as “mules” by carrying cocaine.

Adam Raisman, a senior analyst at the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terror networks, said al-Qaida is increasingly seeking financial support. “The group is trying every means at its disposal to fill its coffers,” he said.

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U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.

Click here to read more.

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It seems President Obama’s ears must be ringing..

Following on the heels of Osama bin Laden’s latest diatribe, counterterrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann flags a new message from another al-Qaeda figure — this one apparently an American — that’s just straight racist:

Now, the GIMF has released a new document written by Ben Williams, titled, “Obama, What’s Up?” During his essay, Ben Williams referred to Obama as “Kunta Kinte” and accused him of “forgetting about the black man… Do you remember who Kunta Kinte is now, Mr. Hussein Obama? …This is you, Mr. Obama, who has failed to understand the true mentality of racism.” Ben Williams also suggested that the recent peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland was tainted by racism as well: “We have not forgotten that Annapolis is the same town where Kunta Kinte was sold! It is a symbol of slavery and evil.”

So Obama’s disparaged for being black even as Williams calls Obama the real racist. Who knew al-Qaeda watched so much Glenn Beck?

Source: Washington Independent

CAIRO – Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden described President Barack Obama as “powerless” to stop the war in Afghanistan and threatened to step up guerrilla warfare there in a new audiotape released to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

In the 11-minute tape, addressed to the American people, bin Laden said Obama is only following the warlike policies of his predecessor George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and he urged Americans to “liberate” themselves from the influence of “neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby.”

The tape was posted on Islamic militant Web sites two days after the eighth anniversary of the 2001 suicide plane hijackings. The terror leader usually addresses Americans in a message timed around the date of the attacks, which sparked the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan the same year, and then in Iraq two years later.

Bin Laden said Americans had failed to understand that al-Qaida carried out the attacks in retaliation for U.S. support for Israel. If America reconsiders its alliance with the Jewish state, al-Qaida will respond on “sound and just bases.”

The Saudi construction magnate’s son-turned “holy warrior” and his deputies have frequently sought to wrap al-Qaida in the Palestinian cause, seeking to draw support in the Arab world, where the issue is one of the public’s top concerns.

Al-Qaida has also sought to depict Obama as no different from Bush, who was widely despised in the Arab world for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and his close support of Israel. Obama has won greater popularity in the region, giving a landmark speech in Cairo in June, moving to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and taking a somewhat harder stance on Israel in the peace process.

“If you end the war (in Afghanistan), so let it be,” bin Laden said. “But if it is otherwise, all we will do is continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes.”

“You are waging a hopeless and losing war for the benefit of others, a war the end of which is not visible on the horizon,” he said, according to a translation of the tape Monday by SITE Intelligence Group, a terrorist-monitoring firm, and by The Associated Press.

Bin Laden, who is believed to be in hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, said the current White House is merely following the Bush-Cheney strategy to “promote the previous policies of fear to market the interest of big companies.”

When Obama retained the Bush administration’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “reasonable people knew that Obama is a powerless man who will not be able to end the war as he promised,” bin Laden said.

Bin Laden devoted much of his address to discussing U.S. connections with Israel and castigated Americans for failing to understand that the issue was behind al-Qaida’s animosity. As he often does in his addresses, he cited books by American scholars and others that he said support his claim. Such citations also serve to show he keeps close watch on current events and media despite being a fugitive in a war zone.

“The delay in your knowing those causes has cost you a lot without any result whatsoever,” he said. “This position of yours, combined with some other injustices, pushed us to undertake the events of (Sept. 11).”

“Ask yourselves to determine your position: Is your security, your blood, your children, your money, your jobs, your homes, your economy, and your reputation dearer to you than the security of the Israelis, their children and their economy?” he said.

If Americans realized the extent of the suffering “suffering from the injustice of the Jews … you will realize that both our nations are victims of the policies of the White House,” which he described as “a hostage” to interest groups and companies.

The message was issued late Sunday by al-Qaida’s media wing, Al-Sahab, in a video in which the audiotape plays over a still picture of bin Laden. IntelCenter, another company that monitors terrorist propaganda, said the message is the 49th release by Al-Sahab in 2009. Al-Sahab is averaging one release every five days so far in 2009, IntelCenter said.

Watch The Video

Al-Qaida’s deputy leader on Tuesday criticized President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, saying it will not change the “bloody messages” the U.S. military is sending Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Al-Qaida has repeatedly lashed out at Obama since he was elected, a move some analysts believe indicates the terrorist organization is worried he will be effective in improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world.

Obama has pitched his speech at Cairo University on Thursday as a key part of that process.

“His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words,” said Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida’s No. 2, in a new audio message posted on militant Web sites.

Al-Zawahri said the Egyptian officials who will welcome Obama are U.S. “slaves” and have turned the country into an “international station of torture in America’s war on Islam.” He was likely referring to suspected Islamic militants who have been captured by the U.S. and sent to Egypt for interrogation, a process known as rendition.

Al-Zawahri urged Egyptians to reject Obama when he makes his speech, calling him “that criminal who came seeking, with deception, to obtain what he failed to achieve in the field after the mujahideen ruined the project of the crusader America in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.”

He said Obama’s decision to come to Cairo showed the U.S. had not given up its alliances with dictatorial and corrupt Mideast governments.

“It is a clear message that America does not stand with reform and change and other lying American propaganda, but it stands with the continuation of the existing tyrannical, rotten regimes,” said al-Zawahri.

The authenticity of the almost 12-minute audio message titled “The Torturers of Egypt and the Agents of America Welcome Obama” could not be confirmed. But it was posted on militant Web sites that have been used by al-Qaida in the past and carried the logo of As-Sahab, the terrorist organization’s media wing.

Al-Zawahri criticized Obama’s trip to Israel before he was elected president and his visit to the Western Wall — Judaism’s holiest site, also known as the Wailing Wall — where he wore a yarmulke.

“The White House said that Obama will send a message from Egypt to the Islamic world, but they forgot that his messages have already been received by the Islamic world when he visited the Wailing Wall, put on his head the Jew’s cap and prayed their prayers, though he claims to be Christian,” said al-Zawahri.

The audio message was accompanied by a picture of al-Zawahri wearing a white robe and white turban. It also included videos of Obama visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem and speaking at AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United States.

Shortly after Obama was elected last November, al-Zawahri issued a Web message in which he slurred Obama with a demeaning racial term for a black American who does the bidding of whites, calling him and former secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice “house Negroes.”

From Time Magazine

The most successful interrogation of an Al-Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or “walling” and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies.

Abu Jandal had been in a Yemeni prison for nearly a year when Ali Soufan of the FBI and Robert McFadden of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service arrived to interrogate him in the week after 9/11. Although there was already evidence that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks, American authorities needed conclusive proof, not least to satisfy skeptics like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whose support was essential for any action against the terrorist organization. U.S. intelligence agencies also needed a better understanding of al-Qaeda’s structure and leadership. Abu Jandal was the perfect source: the Yemeni who grew up in Saudi Arabia had been bin Laden’s chief bodyguard, trusted not only to protect him but also to put a bullet in his head rather than let him be captured.

Read the Whole Story

Many people may see Malcolm X and Barack Obama as opposites of each other in the sphere of black political figures. While Malcolm pushed for black nationalism, didn’t renounce violence, came across as very militant and scared white people, Obama has pushed for an inclusive nation that includes people of all backgrounds, pushed a message of hope and change, and came across as very amiable and acceptable to white people.

However the comparison cannot be as cut and dry as that. Are we comparing the militant Nation of Islam disciple Malcolm X who railed against blue eyed devils or the Malcolm X who split with the Nation of Islam and renounced racism and met with Martin Luther King?

Even if we were to compare the nation of Islam’s Malcolm X to Barack Obama it is hard to cast them as opposites. Obviously one of the main differences between the two is the places and eras they grew up in. Malcolm X grew up in a time of segregation, police brutality, lynchings, and Jim Crow laws. These circumstances did a lot to shape his world view.

As someone whose father was killed by the KKK and whose world views were shaped by the NOI, Malcolm had a lot of hostility towards white people and America in general. Barack Obama grew up in the multiracial society of Hawaii and later in equally diverse, Indonesia, where he was minority in more ways than one, being both American and of African blood.

It wasn’t until Malcolm X went on a pilgrimage to Mecca that he abandoned the principles of racism upon meeting people of all colors who prayed to the same God as him and saw that they were good and decent people. Barack Obama grew up within that same diversity, with two white grandparents and a white mother who helped raise him, as well as with people from all sorts of backgrounds so he probably came to the realization of the futility of racism earlier in life.

Malcolm X Grandson Breaks Silence!

However even the militant Nation of Islam has endorsed Obama. Farrakhan has spoken very kindly of Obama, even referring to him as the Messiah and the hope of the entire world. With the leading figure for black nationalism in America praising the man who is now the President of the country he once demonized, the black nationalism of Malcolm X may have been replaced by inclusion in the greater United States of America. This is not to say that the struggle is over, but that it has taken a different form and philosophy.

Obviously Obama’s message of hope, unity and diversity counters against Malcolm X’s ‘blue eyed devil rhetoric.’ However the views that Malcolm X had after leaving the Nation of Islam are more in line with Obama’s. Here are some quotes from Malcolm after his epiphany of race in Mecca.

I realized racism isn’t just a black and white problem. It’s brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another.

In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I’m sorry for now. I was a zombie then — like all [Black] Muslims — I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march.

I am not a racist…. In the past I permitted myself to be used…to make sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites who perhaps did not deserve to be hurt. Because of the spiritual enlightenment which I was blessed to receive as a result of my recent pilgrimage to the Holy city of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of any one race. I am now striving to live the life of a true…Muslim. I must repeat that I am not a racist nor do I subscribe to the tenants of racism. I can state in all sincerity that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.

VIDEO: Behind The Scenes Malcolm Shabazz

The last lines that Malcolm X said sound like something out of the declaration of independence or a Barack Obama speech. Here Malcolm, like Obama and MLK is tracing his struggle to himself and black people in general to n American struggle, a struggle based on the same principles that America was founded on.

Many people have compared Obama to Martin Luther King. People have compared King to Obama on their similarities but most often compare King and X on their differences. Despite the fact that they employed different tactics and rhetoric, in many ways King and X had the same goals. Here are some things that X had to say regarding King

I’ll say nothing against him. At one time the whites in the United States called him a racialist, and extremist, and a Communist. Then the Black Muslims came along and the whites thanked the Lord for Martin Luther King.

Dr. King wants the same thing I want — freedom!

After leaving the nation of Islam, X decided that he would work with leaders in the civil rights movement but wanted it to become a global human rights issue, rather than a domestic issue. In many ways Obama’s struggle for global human rights can be traced to Malcolm’s.

Malcolm also was one of the first black leaders to talk about the importance of the black vote, claiming that it was it would take the ballot or the bullet to bring about true change. Malcolm also realized and preached about the importance of the black vote, one of the major factors that got Obama elected.

Malcolm’s own family has come out publicly for Obama. Malcolm’s daughter Malaak said

Actually, him and Michelle remind me of my parents, and what they have to face with children, and with the climate that we’re dealing with politically. She’s brilliant. My mother’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. My father was brilliant. And they’re still sticking to the community. So, no, they are not Betty and Malcolm. But they are the present day Betty and Malcolm.

Obama himself has said that he admired Malcolm and even used some of his rhetoric. Obama used the ‘hoodwinked and bamboozled phrase’ made popular in Spike Lee’s epic Malcolm X bio-pic. Spike Lee, one on the biggest proponent’s of Malcolm’s legacy, has been very enthusiastic of his support for Barack Obama.

Obama would talk about the impact of Malcolm X’s Autobiography on his life and identity in his own Autobiography, Dreams From My Father.

Only Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will. All the other stuff, the talk of blue-eyed devils and apocalypse, was incidental to that program, I decided, religious baggage that Malcolm himself seemed to have safely abandoned toward the end of his life. And yet, even as I imagined myself following Malcolm’s call, one line in the book stayed me. He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that tan through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.

Reverend Wright, an important figure in his life can be seen as Malcolm to Obama’s Martin. While the media may have put a wedge between the two, it is clear that Obama understands the anger that both Malcolm and Reverend Wright have displayed against America.

Reverend Wright obviously drew a lot of inspiration from Malcolm X. His whole infamous God Damn America speech drew from Malcolm’s famous ‘chickens coming home to roost’ statement after Kennedy’s assassination. Reverend Wright is not the opposite of Obama and definitely helped shape Obama’s worldview as did Malcolm. After the controversy of Reverend Wright’s statements, Obama spoke on the anger that both Reverend Wright and Malcolm X in his More Perfect Union Speech.

The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

Maybe because Obama grew up vastly different than Revend Wright or Malcolm X he is less cynical about racism and believes that progress can be achieved.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

So in no way is Barack Obama the ‘direct opposite’ of Malcolm X. Rather the two are complimentary figures. Malcom’s anger and militancy allowed white America to be more accepting of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. Malcolm came around before his death to incorporate his idea of Black Nationalism into the Civil Rights movement that set the groundwork for Obama’s presidency. Malcolm’s struggle developed into a struggle not only for black people but for oppressed people, a struggle that Obama has continued. Remember, like Obama, Malcolm X had his roots as a community organizer.

Here’s some final quotes to show the connection between Malcolm X and Obama

Malcolm X Was a Patriot and Died For This Country:

It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country.

Malcolm X Realized The Factors For Change Before Obama:

Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

OPINION: Malcolm X To Barack Obama, 44 Years Of Change

Five men were convicted Tuesday of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to destroy Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of igniting an anti-government insurrection.

The jury in Miami acquitted another member of the so-called “Liberty City Six” in the sixth day of deliberations. Two previous trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not agree on the men’s guilt or innocence.

They were arrested in June 2006 on charges of plotting terrorism with an undercover FBI informant they believed was from al-Qaida. Defense attorneys said terrorist talk recorded on dozens of FBI audio and video tapes was not serious and the men wanted only money.

Ringleader Narseal Batiste, 35, was the only one convicted of all four terrorism-related conspiracy counts, including plotting to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to wage war against the U.S. Batiste, who was on the vast majority of FBI recordings, faces up to 70 years in prison.

Batiste’s right-hand man, 29-year-old Patrick Abraham, was convicted on three counts and faces 50 years behind bars. Convicted on two counts and facing 30 years are 24-year-old Burson Augustin, 25-year-old Rotschild Augustine and 33-year-old Stanley Grant Phanor. Naudimar Herrera, 25, was cleared of all four charges.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard set sentencing for July 27 for the five convicted men, most of whom are Haitian or have Haitian ancestry. They lived in Miami’s downtrodden inner-city neighborhood known as Liberty City.

Herrera criticized the prosecution as “bogus” and insisted the men banded together not for terrorism but to explore ways to lift up the impoverished, drug-infested area.

“It’s not right,” Herrera said outside the courthouse. “We were really all about helping the community.”

The jury endured a two-month trial, then had to restart deliberations last week after one juror was excused for illness and a second was booted off the panel for being uncooperative. After the verdicts were read, court security officials escorted the jury — whose names were kept secret — out of the building before they could be interviewed.

The arrests were initially hailed as a major success by President George W. Bush’s administration, an example of disrupting potential attacks at the earliest possible stages. But two previous juries struggled with the lack of solid evidence indicating the men took any steps to pull off such major mass assaults, such as possessing bomb-making manuals or building blueprints.

“This was a difficult trial, and we thank all the prosecutors and agents involved, whose efforts resulted in todays successful conclusion,” said Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta, a holdever Bush appointee.

Prosecutors Richard Gregorie and Jacqueline Arango focused on the group’s intent as captured on dozens of FBI audio and video recordings. Batiste is repeatedly heard espousing violence against the U.S. government and saying the men should start a “full ground war” that would “kill all the devils.”

“I want to fight some jihad,” Batiste says on one tape.

A key piece of evidence is an FBI video of the entire group pledging an oath of allegiance, or “bayat,” to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden in a March 16, 2006, ceremony led by an FBI informant posing as “Brother Mohammed” from al-Qaida. Testimony also showed the men took photographs and video of possible targets in Miami, including the FBI building, a courthouse complex and a synagogue.

But Batiste, who testified in all three trials, insisted he was only going along with Mohammed so he could obtain $50,000 or more for his struggling construction business and a nascent community outreach program. Batiste was leader of a Miami chapter of a sect known as the Moorish Science Temple, which combines elements of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and does not recognize the U.S. government’s full authority.

Defense lawyers also claimed the case was an FBI setup driven by informants who manipulated the group.

“This is a manufactured crime,” Batiste attorney Ana M. Jhones said earlier in the trial.

A seventh man who was acquitted after the first 2007 trial, 34-year-old Lyglenson Lemorin, is being deported to his native Haiti anyway. Less stringent immigration laws make it easier for U.S. officials to use the terrorism allegations against Lemorin.

From CNN.com:

The latest video from Somalia’s al Qaeda-backed Al-Shabaab wing is as slickly produced as a reality TV show but with a startling message — complete with a hip-hop jihad vibe.

“Mortar by mortar, shell by shell, only going to stop when I send them to hell,” the unidentified voice raps on the video, which runs at least 18 minutes.

The video also shows a man reported to be Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, dubbed “The American” by al Qaeda. He apparently is now in Somalia training and counseling Somalis from North America and Europe. He speaks in American English.

“Away from your family, away from our friends, away from ice, candy bars, all those things is because we’re waiting to meet the enemy,” says the man believed to be al-Amriki.

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There is growing evidence that battle-hardened extremists are filtering out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terrorist tactics that include suicide attacks.

The alarming shift, according to U.S. military and counterterrorism officials, fuels concern that Somalia is increasingly on a path to become the next Afghanistan — a sanctuary where al-Qaida-linked groups could train and plan their threatened attacks against the western world.

So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who have moved from southwest Asia and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region to the Horn of Africa is small, perhaps two to three dozen.

But a similarly small cell of militant plotters was responsible for the devastating 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And the cluster of militants now believed to be operating inside East Africa could pass on sophisticated training and attack techniques gleaned from seven years at war against the U.S. and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

“There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing,” Gen. William “Kip” Ward, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press. “When you have these vast spaces that are just not governed it provides a haven for support activities, for training to occur.”

Ward added that American officials already are seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.

Several military and counterterrorism officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters cautioned that the movements of the al-Qaida militants do not suggest an abandonment of the ungoverned Pakistan border region as a safe haven.

Instead, the shift is viewed by the officials more as an expansion of al-Qaida’s influence, and a campaign to gather and train more recruits in a region already rife with militants.

Last month, Osama bin Laden made it clear in a newly released audiotape that al-Qaida has set its sights on Somalia, an impoverished and largely lawless country in the Horn of Africa. In the 11-minute tape released to Internet sites, bin Laden is heard urging Somalis to overthrow their new moderate Islamist president and to support their jihadist “brothers” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Iraq.

Officials said that in recent years they have seen occasional signs that sophisticated al-Qaida terror techniques are gaining ground in East Africa. Those harbingers include a coordinated series of suicide bombings in Somalia in October.

In the past, officials said, suicide attacks tended to be frowned on by African Muslims, creating something of an impediment to al-Qaida’s efforts to sell that aspect of its terrorism tactics.

But on Oct. 29, 2008, suicide bombers killed more than 20 people in five attacks targeting a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian consulate, the presidential palace in Somaliland’s capital and two intelligence facilities in Puntland.

The coordinated assaults, officials said, amounted to a watershed moment, suggesting a new level of sophistication and training. The incident also marked the first time that a U.S. citizen — a young Somali man from Minneapolis — carried out a suicide bombing.

The foreign fighters moving into East Africa complicate an already-rising crescendo of terror threats in the region. Those threats have come from the Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist Islamic faction and from al-Qaida in East Africa, a small, hard-core group also known by the acronym EEAQ.

While not yet considered an official al-Qaida franchise, EEAQ has connections to the top terror leaders and was implicated in the August 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 225 people. The bombings were al-Qaida’s precursors to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a plot spawned by a small cell of operatives as far back as 1992. Four men accused as al-Qaida plotters were later convicted in federal court in New York for those bombings.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and several other EEAQ members remain under indictment in the United States for their alleged participation in those bombings. Mohammed is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list with a reward of up to $5 million on his head.

Al-Qaida has the skills while al-Shabab has the manpower, said one senior military official familiar with the region. The official said EEAQ appears to be a small cell of a few dozen operatives who rarely sleep in the same place twice and are adept at setting up temporary training camps that vanish days later.

What worries U.S. military leaders, the official said, is the that EEAQ and al-Shabab may merge in training and operations, potentially spreading al-Qaida’s more extremist jihadist beliefs to thousands of clan-based Somali militants, who so far have been engaged in internal squabbling.

The scenario could become even more worrisome, the officials said, if the foreign fighters transplant their skills at bomb-making and insurgency tactics to the training camps in East Africa.

Africa experts, however, said it won’t be easy for Islamic extremists to win many converts in East Africa.

Francois Grignon, Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization, said in an interview that many clan members generally practice a more moderate Islam, and militants are not inclined to join a fight they do not see as their own.

The U.S., he said, needs to encourage the new government in Somalia to deal with the growing terror threats there and to marginalize the jihadists so they are not able to sustain their activities in Somalia.

Ward said U.S. Africa Command is working with a number of nations to build their ability to maintain security. But he said commanders are less able to do much in Somalia, where the new government is still fragile.

Meanwhile, he said, officials continue to watch as the ties between the terror groups grow.

“I think they’re all a threat,” said Ward. “Right now it’s clearly a threat that the Africans have, but in today’s global society that threat can be exported anywhere with relative ease.”

Six South Florida men being tried a third time on terrorism charges pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and wanted to wage war against the United States, including blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower, a prosecutor said during closing arguments Thursday.

The so-called “Liberty City Six” were again facing four terrorism-related charges each after two previous trials ended in hung juries. Closing arguments will continue Friday, with the jury beginning to deliberate on Monday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Arango spent two hours describing the actions of the six defendants as “wanting to kill all the devils we can.” Arango said they spoke of following the destruction of the Sears Tower with “shooting all the survivors they saw.”

She urged the jury to convict the men on all four counts against them that could put them in prison for the rest of their lives.

The defense said the men were manipulated victims of the FBI and two government informants paid tax free to induce the defendants to pledge allegiance to al-Qaida and plan terrorist acts to kill millions. Ana Jhones, the lawyer for the alleged ringleader, Narseal Baptiste, characterized one informant as the “thug” and the other the “master manipulator.”

She spoke for more than four hours and described the FBI in the case as the “federal bureau of manipulation.”

“This isn’t a terrorism case,” Jhones said. “It’s a manufactured, orchestrated crime by the FBI and its informants.”

Baptiste, 34, and his co-defendants, all “dirt poor,” were pulling a scam trying to extort $50,000 from two people whom they thought were foreign agents, Jhones said.

“They had no more intent to bring down the Sears Tower than the man in the moon,” she said. “The only thing brought down was their dreams, hopes and aspirations.”

Prosecutors said the men took photographs and video of possible targets in Miami, including the FBI building, a courthouse complex and a synagogue.

Other defense attorneys have pointed to the lack of evidence in the case: no blueprints or maps of buildings, no bomb instruction manuals, no stashes of cash.

The men each face 70 years in prison if convicted of all four counts, including conspiracy to support al-Qaida and conspiracy to levy war against the U.S.

The group became known by the name of their neighborhood of Liberty City, an impoverished area of Miami.

Five other defense lawyers will give their closing arguments for about an hour each Friday with a prosecution rebuttal.

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Such information would’ve provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush’s main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and Saddam’s regime.

The use of abusive interrogation — widely considered torture — as part of Bush’s quest for a rationale to invade Iraq came to light as the Senate issued a major report tracing the origin of the abuses and President Barack Obama opened the door to prosecuting former U.S. officials for approving them.

Read the Whole McClatchy Report

President Barack Obama on Friday ordered 4,000 more military troops into Afghanistan, vowing to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” the terrorist al-Qaida network in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

In a war that still has no end in sight, Obama said the fresh infusion of U.S. forces is designed to bolster the Afghan army and turn up the heat on terrorists that he said are plotting new attacks against Americans. The plan takes aim at terrorist havens in Pakistan and challenges the government there and in Afghanistan to show more results.

Obama called the situation in the region “increasingly perilous” more than seven years after the Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan.

“If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged,” Obama said, “that country will again be a base for terrorists.”

He announced the troop deployment, as well as plans to send hundreds of additional civilians to Afghanistan, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and top intelligence and national security figures at his side. The announcement followed a policy review Obama launched not long after taking the oath of office.

The 4,000 troops come not long after the new administration approved the dispatch of an additional 17,000 forces to the war-weary nation.

There are clear risks and costs to Obama’s strategy.

Violence is rising. The war in Afghanistan saw American military deaths rise by 35 percent in 2008 as Islamic extremists shifted their focus to a new front with the West. Obama’s plan will also cost many more billions of dollars.
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And the president’s plan includes no timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Yet Obama bluntly warned that the al-Qaida terrorists who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were actively planning further attacks on the United States from safe havens in Pakistan. And he said the Afghanistan government is in peril of falling to the Islamic militants of the Taliban once again.

“So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future,” the president said.

“That is the goal that must be achieved,” Obama added. “That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you.”

Obama’s plan will put more U.S. troops and money on the line. He said Pakistan and Afghanistan will be held to account, using benchmarks for progress.

The president spoke just hours after a suicide bomber in Pakistan demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers near the Afghan border, killing at least 48 people and injuring scores more, in the bloodiest attack in Pakistan this year. Rising violence in Pakistan is fueling doubts about the pro-Western government’s ability to counter Taliban and al-Qaida militants also blamed for attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.

Obama called the mountainous border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan “the most dangerous place in the world.”

“This is not simply an American problem _ far from it,” Obama said. “It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaida and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaida’s leadership in Pakistan.”

The president added: “The safety of people around the world is at stake.”

The strategy fits with Obama’s operating premise _ that the U.S. failed mightily in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks by focusing on Iraq instead of Afghanistan. He send he is sending in the 4,000 military trainers after military commanders watched their demand for such help go unmet for years.

His moves comes ahead of a U.N. conference on Afghanistan next Tuesday in The Hague, where Clinton will join representatives from more than 80 countries. And Obama himself is attending a NATO meeting next week in France and Germany.

At that meeting, the U.S. expects some NATO coalition members to commit more forces to the flagging war in Afghanistan, Obama officials said Thursday. They did not get specific.

Roughly 65,000 international forces are in Afghanistan, more than half from the U.S.

One part of Obama’s plan is to expose fractures in the Taliban in hopes of weakening it.

Administration officials say the most difficult part of their approach will be in dealing with Pakistan, an often chaotic place with an erratic relationship with the United States. The administration will seek to bolster the democratic government of Pakistan, and try to get the people of that country to see the U.S.-led effort as one that is in their interests.

Obama also will call for increasing aid to Pakistan as long as its leaders confront militants in the border region. The president will work with Congress on language to attach conditions to military aid, sources said.

The U.S. will launch an intensive and expanded diplomatic effort to gain international cooperation, including reaching out to Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and even Iran.

The 4,000 military trainers that Obama is sending to Afghanistan will come from 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. All of the troops he is dispatching to Afghanistan, including the combat troops, will be there by fall.

Obama’s plan does not send in more combat troops, for now. Military commanders say they think more such forces will be needed.

Osama bin Laden urged Somalis on Thursday to overthrow their new president, issuing a statement that clearly outlines al-Qaida’s ambitions in a nation long feared to be a haven for the terrorist network.

Bin Laden’s 11 1/2-minute audiotape was entirely focused on Somalia, an impoverished country in the Horn of Africa that has been in chaos for nearly two decades, torn apart by warlords and Islamic militant groups. In January, parliament elected President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, in hopes that he would unify the country’s factions.

Bin Laden Urges Jihad on Israel

“I think people who were skeptical that al-Qaida has ambition in Somalia will now have to think twice,” Rashid Abdi, an analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank in Nairobi told The Associated Press.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have warned of al-Qaida’s growing ties with the powerful al-Shabab group, which frequently battles government troops and militia allies and attacks African Union peacekeepers in the country. Last year, the U.S. State Department added al-Shabab, which means “the Youth,” to its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

“These are people who believe in the idea of permanent jihad and permanent war with the West,” Abdi said of al-Shabab. “Any engagement with the West is tantamount to renunciation of the faith.”

Ahmed’s election as president has been welcomed by the United Nations and Washington. His predecessor, Abdullahi Yusuf, resigned in December over his failure to stop the Islamic insurgency, and he went into exile.

In the audiotape, bin Laden told Somalia’s militants that “you are the first line of defense for the Islamic world in its southwestern part; and your patience and resolve supports your brothers in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Islamic Maghreb, Pakistan and the rest of the fields of Jihad.”

Somali President Quits Due to International Pressure

For years, Islamic militant groups have battled Somalia’s feeble U.N.-backed central government, which controls only a small part of the seaside capital, Mogadishu. All public institutions have crumbled and the once-beautiful city is now a gun-blasted shantytown. The lawlessness gripping the nation of 9.5 million people also has allowed piracy to flourish offshore in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Ahmed is a moderate from the Islamic opposition and has succeeded in drawing several other groups out of the insurgency. The aim is to isolate hard-line militants, particularly al-Shabab, which controls much of the country and has been blamed for imposing a harsh brand of Islam on the regions it controls. Rights groups say a 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death last year after Islamic militants accused her of adultery.

In the audiotape, bin Laden lashed out at Ahmed as a turncoat and tool of the United States, saying his election was “induced by the American envoy in Kenya,” a reference to the U.S. ambassador in Nairobi.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Ambassador Michael Ranneberger had no immediate comment on the audiotape, which was the third from bin Laden this year. The last one was released on March 14.

Ahmed “turned … to partner up with the infidel” in a national unity government, bin Laden said. He accused Ahmed of abandoning his religion by entering the government.

Ahmed “must be dethroned and fought,” bin Laden said, adding that militants are obliged to “continue fighting the apostate government.”

Spokesmen for Ahmed and other Somali government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The recording, titled “Fight on, Champions of Somalia,” was posted on an Islamic militant Web forum where al-Qaida often releases messages from bin Laden and other top leaders.

Ahmed emerges from a coalition of Islamic militants known as the Council of Islamic Courts, which brought a semblance of peace to Somalia for six months in 2006. But two years ago, troops from U.S. ally Ethiopia invaded Somalia and removed the union because of feared links to al-Qaida. Militants launched a bloody insurgency against the Ethiopians and their ally, the weak U.N.-backed central government.

Ethiopian troops withdrew in January as part of an elaborate U.N.-brokered deal to bring onboard Islamic moderates and dissident lawmakers.

Somalia is nearly 100 percent Muslim, but most of its people are moderates and chafe against rules prohibiting music, sports and even chewing qat, a narcotic leaf popular in the country.

Mogadishu resident Abdulqafar Ismail Ali said bin Laden should withdraw his call for more fighting.

“Osama should not lecture us on Islam. We are Muslims,” said Ali, 28. “We are tired of wars and hostility in Somalia. It is not the time to topple the government.”

Al-Qaida’s No. 2 criticized President Barack Obama for not mentioning Gaza in his inauguration speech, and urged Muslims around the world to target U.S. interests to avenge American backing of Israel’s offensive against Hamas.

In a new audio recording posted Tuesday on the Internet, Ayman al-Zawahri also called on Muslims to continue fighting in the Gaza Strip, where a two-week truce remains fragile.

While Obama later voiced concerns about the killings of civilians, “in his inauguration speech, he gave no mention to what happened in Gaza,” al-Zawahri said.

“As for Obama, he has expressed his worries over the killing of civilians in Gaza. Worried? We really appreciate your worries Mr. Obama,” he said. “We have learned about your worries, as well as about thousands of the missiles and white phosphorus,” al-Zawahri added in a reference to charges that Israeli forces used phosphorous shells in a way that burned civilians in Gaza.

The recording was the second al-Zawahri has posted this year about the three-week offensive that began on Dec. 27. The terror network’s chief Osama bin Laden also issued an audio message on Gaza in January, urging Muslims to launch a jihad against Israel.

“The path to fighting the occupation is open to all Muslims,” al-Zawahri said in the recording accompanied by video and still images from the Gaza offensive. “Bring weapons into Gaza. … Punish everyone who stands against Gaza and the rest of the Muslim world.”

Al-Qaida holds little influence among Palestinians but the network’s Gaza-related postings are likely aimed at harnessing Muslim anger about the offensive and channeling it at the new U.S. administration.

The authenticity of the 17-minute recording could not be independently confirmed but it was posted on an Islamist militant Web site known as a clearing house for al-Qaida messages.

The recording opened with video scenes of Gaza, showing buildings exploding and wounded crowding into hospitals. Then it settled into a montage of still photographs showing the white-turbaned al-Zawahri, dead Palestinian children, and photographs of Egyptian and Saudi leaders, as well as French President Nicolas Sarkozy standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival.

Al-Zawahri, who is Egyptian, also lashed out at Arab rulers. He singled out Egypt for refusing to open its border with Gaza and preventing humanitarian access to the strip.

“Anybody who imposes a siege on Gaza is an enemy,” he said.

He urged Muslims to not just protest, but to attack U.S. and Israeli targets.

“The Israeli and American interests are spread everywhere,” he said. “If it (attack) doesn’t work in one place, it’s possible in other places. And if the enemy fortified some of its interests, many others remain without cover and under threat.”

An Internet posting purportedly by al-Qaida in Yemen says the group’s No. 2 is a Saudi national who is a former Guantanamo detainee.

The Yemeni group — known as “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” — posted the statement this week on a militant Web site that regularly carries al-Qaida messages.

It says the man returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba about a year ago and from there went to Yemen to join the terror group.

The Internet statement identified the man as Said Ali al-Shihri and says his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372.

The posting could not immediately be verified, and Yemen and Saudi Arabian authorities would not immediately comment on it.

Bin Laden spoke in an audiotape posted Wednesday on Islamic militant Web sites where al-Qaida usually issues its messages. It was his first tape since May and came nearly three weeks after Israel started its campaign against Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

“There is only one strong way to bring the return of Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and that is jihad in the path of God,” bin Laden said in the 22-minute audiotape, referring to the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. “The duty is to urge people to jihad and to enlist the youth into jihad brigades.”

“Muslim nation, you are capable of defeating the Zionist entity with your popular capabilities and your great hidden strength — without the support of (Arab) leaders and despite the fact that most of (the leaders) stand in the barracks of the Crusader-Zionist alliance,” bin Laden said.

The authenticity of the tape could not be independently confirmed, but the voice resembled that of bin Laden in previous messages.

The tape, entitled “Call for jihad to stop the aggression on Gaza,” was played over a still picture of bin Laden and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, one of Islam’s holiest sites. But there were no English subtitles and flashy production effects that usually accompany such messages.

That suggested the message had been hastily put together and issued to best exploit anger in the region over the Gaza offensive, which Palestinian medical officials say has killed more than 940 Palestinians, half of them civilians. Israel said the offensive aims to halt rocket fire from Gaza against Israeli towns.

Bin Laden accused Arab leaders of “avoiding their responsibility” to liberate Palestine.

“If you are not convinced to fight, then open the way to those who are convinced,” he said.

Bin Laden and his lieutenants frequently use the Palestinian issue to try to rally support for al-Qaida and often call for holy war to free Jerusalem.

From Foreign Policy Passport:

In an interview with Charlie Gibson excerpted online and set to air on ABC tonight, George W. Bush will discuss his two-term presidency as it comes to an end. Not all his days in office were happy ones, he concedes, but overall the 43rd U.S. president says that “every day has been pretty joyous.”

When Gibson asked him if he felt responsible for what’s happening with the economy, Bush replied that he was “a little upset” about not pushing reform on insurers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in time because “it would have helped a lot.”

His biggest regret? As he told Gibson, it “has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. … And, you know, that’s not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.”

And while President Bush doesn’t “spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history,” here are 10 other things he should regret:

1. September 11, 2001

While many rate the image of Bush standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center as a strong point in his presidency, he was not the first to appear in front of television cameras that day to address the nation — New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was. It’s difficult to watch the footage of Bush as he waited for seven minutes, frozen in that elementary school classroom after hearing the second tower had been hit.

2. Ignoring Al Qaeda

The 9/11 Commission determined that indeed on August 6, 2001, after months of intelligence reports warning of al Qaeda’s growing sophistication, Bush received a Presidential Daily Brief titled, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.”

3. Weapons of Mass Destruction

In 2004, the CIA released a report that found that there were no WMD in Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion and that Saddam Hussein had relinquished any plans for a nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War. More disturbing were reports that CIA Director George Tenet had delivered secret intelligence to the president in September 2002 revealing that, in fact, there were no WMD. Bush dismissed the intel and pushed ahead.

Click here for the 7 remaining points.

The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

Al-Zawahri also called Obama — along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — “house negroes.”

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house negroes.”

The message also includes old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters’ house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites.

The 11-minute 23-second video features the audio message by al-Zawahri, who appears only in a still image, along with other images, including one of Obama wearing a Jewish skullcap as he meets with Jewish leaders. In his speech, al-Zawahri refers to a Nov. 5 U.S. airstrike attack in Afghanistan, meaning the video was made after that date.

Al-Zawahri said Obama’s election has not changed American policies he said are aimed at oppressing Muslims and others.

“America has put on a new face, but its heart full of hate, mind drowning in greed, and spirit which spreads evil, murder, repression and despotism continue to be the same as always,” the deputy of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden said.

He said Obama’s plan to shift troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure, because Afghans will resist.

“Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them,” he said.

Al-Zawahri did not threaten specific attacks, but warned Obama that he was “facing a Jihadi (holy war) awakening and renaissance which is shaking the pillars of the entire Islamic world; and this is the fact which you and your government and country refuse to recognize and pretend not to see.”

He said Obama’s victory showed Americans acknowledged that President George W. Bush’s policies were a failure and that the result was an “admission of defeat in Iraq.”

But Obama’s professions of support for Israel during the election campaign “confirmed to the Ummah (Islamic world) that you have chosen a stance of hostility to Islam and Muslims,” al-Zawahri said.