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Those two men, Najibullah Zazi at the mosque and Adis Medunjanin at the school, would go on to be accused of plotting a subway bombing that officials have called the most serious terrorist threat to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.

Ever since The Associated Press began revealing New York Police Department spying programs on mosques, student groups, Muslim businesses and communities, those activities have been stoutly defended by police and supporters as having foiled a list of planned attacks.

Recently, for instance, when three members of Congress suggested an inquiry into those programs, Republican Rep. Peter King of New York rallied to the NYPD’s defense.

“Under Commissioner Ray Kelly’s leadership, at least 14 attacks by Islamic terrorists have been prevented by the NYPD,” King said.

But a closer review of the cases reveals a more complicated story.

The list cited by King includes plans that may never have existed as well as plots the NYPD had little or no hand in disrupting. According to a review of public documents, materials obtained by the AP and interviews with dozens of city and federal officials, the most controversial NYPD spying programs produced mixed results. The officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly.

There indeed have been successes, such as the 2004 plot uncovered by the NYPD to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan.

And there have been failures, like Zazi and Medunjanin, who were exactly the kind of people police intended to spot when they developed the spying programs.

And there were other efforts that compiled data on innocent people but produced no meaningful results at all.

Kelly has spent hundreds of millions of dollars transforming the department into one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. In a city that still hurts from 9/11 and still sees a hole in the ground near where the World Trade Center stood, people have had little interest in questioning whether that effort has been effective. City lawmakers, for instance, learned about many of the department’s secretive programs from the AP.

For New Yorkers, the result is that fear of another terrorist attack is used to justify spying on entire neighborhoods. And the absence of another attack is held up as evidence that it works.

—

Some of the NYPD intelligence programs were born out of fear and desperation. After 9/11, police reached for whatever might work.

One idea was to use informants to trawl local mosques and monitor imams to watch for signs of radicalization. Though the NYPD denies the term exists, several former officials said the informants were known as “mosque crawlers.” They would listen in mosques and report back to their handlers.

It was the CIA that first developed that idea overseas and came up with the name. The NYPD program was a version of that effort, according to former CIA officials who were familiar with it. Like many interviewed about the NYPD, they insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence programs.

Former senior CIA officials said the mosque crawlers were ineffective.

In New York, however, the program persisted. With help from the mosque crawlers and secret NYPD squads, documents show, police intelligence analysts scrutinized every mosque in and around the city and infiltrated dozens. The monitoring of imams included even those who worked closely with police and preached against violence.

These days, however, fewer imams are under investigation, an official said.

The NYPD has pledged to do all it can to prevent terrorism. So when a new intelligence program is conceived, several current and former officials said, there is little discussion of its prospects for success.

NYPD intelligence chief David Cohen, a former top CIA official, was asked about that in September 2005 during a deposition in a lawsuit over the department’s policy of randomly searching the bags of subway riders. Civil rights lawyers asked how police knew whether a program deterred terrorism.

“If it works against them, then it works for us,” Cohen replied. “That is deterrent to one degree or other.”

Cohen was asked, How do you know it works? Is there some police methodology?

“I never bothered to look,” Cohen said. “It doesn’t exist, as far as I could tell.”

At times, police officials themselves have raised concerns about intelligence-gathering programs. In about 2008, for instance, police began monitoring everyone in the city who legally changed names. Anyone who might be a Muslim convert or appeared to be Americanizing his or her name was investigated and personal information was put into police databases.

Current and former officials say it produced no results. Police still receive the list of names of people who change their names, court officials said. But one official said the program is on hold while its effectiveness is evaluated.

Kelly has said the NYPD does not trawl neighborhoods and instead only pursues leads. But those leads can be ambiguous, officials say, and can be used to justify widespread surveillance programs.

For example, the NYPD began the “Moroccan Initiative,” a secret program that chronicled Moroccan neighborhoods, after suicide bombings killed 45 people in the Moroccan city of Casablanca in 2003, and after Moroccan terrorists were linked to the 2005 train bombing in Madrid. New York police put people, including U.S. citizens, under surveillance and catalogued where they ate, worked and prayed.

“What we were doing is following leads,” Kelly told City Council members during an October hearing when asked about that program. “The Moroccan issue that was mentioned had to do with a specific investigation.”

But officials involved in the program said there was no specific threat to New York from Moroccans. The Moroccan Initiative thwarted no plots and led to no arrests, officials said.

—

Much of the information in the Moroccan Initiative was gathered by a secretive squad known as the Demographics Unit. Using plainclothes officers known as “rakers,” the squad infiltrated local businesses and community organizations looking for trouble or “hot spots.” Their daily reports helped create searchable databases of life in New York’s Muslim neighborhoods.

One NYPD official said that unit identified a Brooklyn bookstore as a hot spot. That led police to open an investigation and send in an informant and undercover detective, ultimately leading to the arrests of two men in the Herald Square case.

The work of that secret unit, the official said, helped the NYPD arrest a Pakistani immigrant named Shahawar Matin Siraj and foiled an attack.

For years, police have said publicly that the Herald Square case began with a tip but have not elaborated. Siraj’s lawyer, Martin Stolar, said prosecutors provided no documents related to the Demographics Unit at trial.

Siraj was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in 2007. But defense attorneys, and even some inside the NYPD intelligence unit, said police had coaxed the men into making incriminating statements and there was no proof Siraj ever obtained explosives.

The case is arguably the NYPD’s greatest counterterrorism success. But there are others.

The NYPD played an important role in the case against Carlos Amonte and Mohammed Alessa, two New Jersey men who pleaded guilty to charges they tried to leave the country in 2010 to join the al-Qaida-linked terrorist group al-Shabaab. The FBI long had been aware of the two men but had been unable to win their trust with an informant or undercover agent, federal officials said. The NYPD, with its deep roster of Muslim officers, provided the undercover officer who ultimately succeeded in winning their confidence.

When the NYPD’s effectiveness is questioned, the department’s most ardent supporters frequently point to a long list of terrorist plots said to have targeted New York since 9/11. The list often is described as plots thwarted by the NYPD.

“One can’t argue with results,” said Peter Vallone, the New York city councilman who heads the Public Safety Committee. “The results of this gargantuan effort have been that at least 13 planned attacks on New York City have been prevented.”

In reality, however, the NYPD played little or no role in preventing many of those attacks.

Some, like a cyanide plot against the subway system, were discovered among evidence obtained overseas but were never set into motion. Others, like the 2006 plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners using liquid explosives, were thwarted by U.S. and international authorities, and plans never got off the ground.

And some, like the 2008 subway plot, went unnoticed by the NYPD despite the money and manpower devoted to monitoring Muslim communities, according to the NYPD files obtained by the AP. The files along with interviews show the NYPD was monitoring Zazi’s mosque, and also the Muslim student organization Medunjanin attended. Zazi and Medunjanin were friends and had been praying together regularly since 9th grade. As the years passed, Zazi grew increasingly upset about civilians killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan; Medunjanin was outraged by the way Muslims were treated at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, and he promoted jihad at the mosque and after basketball games with friends, according to court documents. He said his friends didn’t have the “balls” to do anything.

The plot was discovered after U.S. intelligence intercepted an email revealing that Zazi was trying to make a bomb.

Those programs, meanwhile, have widened the chasm between the police and the city’s Muslims, a community the Obama administration says is a crucial partner in the effort to prevent another terrorist attack. Fed up with a decade of being under scrutiny, some Muslim groups now urge against going directly to police when someone hears radical, anti-American talk.

They reason that the person is probably a police informant.

—

Each morning at the NYPD, Cohen meets his senior officers to discuss the latest intelligence before he briefs Kelly. There is no bigger target for terrorists than New York, the nation’s largest city and the heart of the financial and media world. Cohen repeatedly reminds his officers that, on any given day, they might be the only thing standing in the way of disaster. It’s a mentality that officials say underscores the seriousness of the threat and the NYPD’s commitment to the effort.

Several current and former officials point to that pressure to explain why programs rarely get scrapped, even when there are doubts about their effectiveness. Nobody wants to be the one to abandon a program, only to witness a successful attack that it might have prevented.

At the federal level, intelligence programs are reviewed by Congress, inspectors general and other watchdogs. The NYPD faces no such scrutiny from the City Council or city auditors. Federal officials, too, have been reluctant to question the effectiveness of the NYPD, despite spending more than $1.6 billion in federal money on the department since 9/11.

After House Democrats circulated a letter signed by 34 members of Congress recently asking for a federal review of the NYPD’s intelligence programs, King, the New York Republican, accused them of smearing the police department.

The Justice Department under Eric Holder repeatedly has sidestepped questions about what it thinks about the NYPD programs revealed by the AP. Some Democrats in Congress have asked prosecutors to investigate. Since August, the department has said only that it is reviewing those requests.

During the Bush administration, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and senior Justice Department officials received a briefing in New York about the NYPD’s capabilities, according to a former federal official who attended.

Gonzales left convinced, the official said, that the federal government could not replicate those programs. The NYPD had more manpower and operated under different rules than the federal government, the Justice Department concluded. And the mayor had accepted the political risk that came with the programs.

It was a policy briefing only, the former official said, meaning the federal government did not review the NYPD programs to determine whether they were lawful.

The NYPD’s terrorist cases include ones the federal government has declined to prosecute. Last year, a grand jury declined to indict Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh on the most serious charge initially brought against them, a high-level terror conspiracy count that carried the potential for life in prison without parole. They were indicted on lesser state terrorism and hate crime charges, including one punishable by up to 32 years behind bars.

Last month, NYPD detectives arrested Jose Pimentel on terrorism-related charges. A state grand jury has yet to indict him on those charges. Federal and city law enforcement officials who reviewed the case told the AP there were concerns that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own. The NYPD informant’s drug use in the case also created serious issues, the officials said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller has tried to mute criticisms of the NYPD. On a visit to the Newark, N.J., FBI office a few years ago, current and former officials recall, agents asked Mueller how the NYPD was allowed to operate undercover in the state, with no FBI coordination. Mueller replied that it was a reality the bureau would have to live with, the officials said.

There will always be some debate over the effectiveness of intelligence-gathering programs, particularly ones that butt up against civil liberties. Nearly a decade after the last terrorist suspect was waterboarded in a secret CIA prison in 2003, for instance, politicians and experts still debate whether the tactic gleaned valuable information and whether it could have been obtained without such harsh methods.

During the Bush administration, officials repeatedly pointed to the years without a successful terrorist attack to justify the most contentious programs from the war on terrorism. Vice President Dick Cheney used the years without an attack to defend the secret National Security Agency wiretapping program. Gonzales credited the USA Patriot Act and military actions abroad. And President George W. Bush said the years without an attack validated his polices.

“While there’s room for honest and healthy debate about the decisions I’ve made – and there’s plenty of debate,” Bush said in the final days of his presidency, “there can be no debate about the results in keeping America safe.”

When questioned about its own programs, the NYPD has made the same arguments.

During the 2005 deposition over the subway searches, lawyers pressed Cohen to explain how the NYPD could be so sure its programs really worked.

“They haven’t attacked us,” he said.

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Rezwan Ferdaus, 26, was arrested in Framingham after undercover federal agents delivered materials he had allegedly requested, including grenades, six machine guns and what he believed was 24 pounds of C-4 explosive. Federal officials said the public was never in danger from the explosives, which it said were always under control and closely monitored.

Wednesday’s arrest was the latest of several terrorism cases to spring from federal sting operations. In other cases, reputed would-be terrorists became involved in fictional plots against various targets, such as Dallas skyscrapers or a Chicago nightclub. In this case, though, authorities say Ferdaus planned the scheme.

A federal affidavit says Ferdaus, of Ashland, began planning “jihad” against the U.S. in early 2010 after becoming convinced America was evil through jihadi websites and videos. He contacted a federal informant that December and months later, allegedly began meeting to discuss the plot with undercover federal agents he believed were members of al-Qaida.

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A U.S. citizen who graduated from Northeastern University with a bachelor’s degree in physics, Ferdaus said he wanted to deal a psychological blow to the “enemies of Allah” by hitting the Pentagon, which he called “head and heart of the snake,” according to the affidavit.

“Allah has given us the privilege,” he allegedly told the informant. “… He punishes them by our hand. We’re the ones.”

Ferdaus made a brief initial appearance Wednesday in federal court on charges of attempting to destroy federal buildings and providing support to a foreign terrorist organization, al-Qaida. A detention hearing was scheduled for Monday.

Telephone messages were left at the office of his attorney, Catherine Byrne, and at the address listed for Ferdaus in the affidavit.

Several alleged domestic plots have been thwarted since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; and Virginia.

Terrorism arrests involving federal stings have often been followed by claims of entrapment, but none of the cases brought since Sept. 11 has been thrown out by a court on such grounds.

U.S. Rep. William Keating of Massachusetts, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said lawmakers have been warned for months of an emerging threat from homegrown extremists. He said al-Qaida is casting a wide net to radicalize individuals or small groups already in the country because of the significant advantages.

Ferdaus is accused of planning to use three remote control airplanes measuring from 60 to 80 inches in length. He allegedly planned to pack five pounds of explosives in each plane, while saving some of it to blow up bridges near the Pentagon.

The planes, guided by GPS and capable of speeds greater than 100 mph, would hit the Pentagon and blow the Capitol dome to “smithereens,” according to Ferdaus’ plan, detailed in the affidavit. Ferdaus then planned a follow-up attack with six people divided into two teams, all armed with automatic weapons, according to the affidavit.

Ferdaus traveled to Washington in June to do surveillance, the affidavit said, and he drew up a 15-phase attack plan. He also allegedly rented storage space to work on the planes in Framingham, telling the manager he planned to use the space for music.

Asked at one point about possibly killing women and children, Ferdaus allegedly said all unbelievers of Islam were his enemies.

Prosecutors also accuse Ferdaus of supplying the undercover agents with cellphone devices he said could be used to remotely detonate explosives. When the undercover agents falsely told him the devices had been used to kill three U.S. soldiers in Iraq, he allegedly became visibly excited and said he felt “incredible. … We’re changing the world.”

Ferdaus is unmarried and has no children, the affidavit said.

He had at least one previous brush with the law. In 2003, The Boston Globe reported that he and two other Ashland High School seniors were accused in a vandalism spree at the school.

At least 42 people were killed and another 100 injured when a female suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowd of people waiting for United Nations emergency food rations in north-west Pakistan.

The burqa-clad attacker lobbed grenades into the crowd of mostly women and children before detonating the explosives wrapped around her waist, officials said.

The victims were refugees from fighting in the Bajaur region who had gathered at a World Food Program site in the town of Khar.

Meanwhile in Africa, seven blasts ripped through the restive Nigerian city of Jos, killing at least 31 people in a region riven by conflict between Christians and Muslims.

Officials said 74 people were hurt, many of them seriously.

Gov. Jonah Jang called it a “black Christmas.”

“When we should be celebrating peace, here we are crying,” he said.

Many of the dead were last-minute Christmas shoppers, or commuters caught in the cars by traffic jams caused by the first explosions.

Nigerian government official Choji Gyang said there was no claim of responsibility but Islamic fundamentalists are suspected of carrying out the attacks.

“For long, they have been threatening to use violence against Christians and free the region from the shackles of Western imperialism,” Gyang told CNN.

The government had recently started receiving letters purporting to be from Muslim organizations threatening attacks against Christians, Gyang said.

“The security officials didn’t take the threat letters seriously. They were thought of as gimmicks, and at the end of the day, they became reality,” he said.

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European officials often step up security around the holidays, but this year especially after a Nigerian man last Christmas Day taped explosives to his underwear and allegedly tried to blow up a plane as it approached Detroit.

There also have been growing concerns in Europe about holiday season attacks following a suicide bombing in Sweden and attacks on two embassies this week in Rome.

Dutch police searched a call center, four houses and two motel rooms in the Rotterdam area, prosecutors said in a statement Saturday. No weapons or explosives were found.

Six of the suspects live in Rotterdam, five have no permanent residence and one man comes from Denmark, they said.

Last year, 24-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who had studied in London, boarded a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit from Amsterdam. He is accused of trying to blow up the flight, and a judge in a federal court in Detroit has entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

On Thursday, anarchists sent mail bombs to the Rome embassies of Chile and Switzerland, injuring two mail employees at those embassies.

A top Italian security official said the attackers wanted to avenge blows by those countries against their movement.

Last Monday, 12 men were also arrested in Britain in the largest counterterrorism raid there in nearly two years. The men – whose ages range from 17 to 28 – were arrested in London, Cardiff, Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham. At least five were of Bangladeshi origin.

Security officials said a large-scale terror attack was aimed at British landmarks and public spaces. Lord Carlile, the government’s independent watchdog for terror, said the alleged plot appeared significant and involved several British cities, but he did not identify the targets.

Police removed computers from the suspects’ homes. They have up to 28 days to either charge the men or release them.

Possible targets that were scouted include the Houses of Parliament in London and shopping areas around the U.K., according to a security official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

French officials, meanwhile, have ordered plainclothes police patrols in key tourist sites for the holidays, including an extra 6,000 more police for New Year’s Eve.

Europe has been the target of numerous terror plots by Islamist militants. The deadliest was the 2004 Madrid train bombings, when shrapnel-filled bombs exploded, killing 191 people and wounding about 1,800. A year later, suicide bombers killed 52 rush-hour commuters in London aboard three subway trains and a bus.

In 2006, U.S. and British intelligence officials thwarted one of the largest terror plots yet, a plan to explode nearly a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners.

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KIGALI, Rwanda — A grenade exploded near a bus station in Rwanda’s capital late Wednesday, wounding at least seven people in an attack that came two days after the country’s presidential election, a police spokesman said.

The election commission said Wednesday that full provisional results showed President Paul Kagame was re-elected with 93 percent of the vote and that turnout was 97 percent.

Kagame has overseen strong economic growth in Rwanda but has been criticized for crackdowns on dissent and opposition groups. Opposition parties were banned from the vote and some Rwandans said they were forced to cast ballots for him.

Police spokesman Eric Kayiranga said seven people were hospitalized for injuries after the grenade explosion, including two seriously. Witnesses earlier had estimated around 20 people were wounded.

At the scene of the blast, there were blood stains on the ground and a motorbike lay in the street.

“I saw a grenade (rolling) past and then I felt myself falling down,” Michael Mugisha, a student who had blood on his shirt and a bandage under his right eye, said at the hospital. “People were running. There were so many people.”

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Rwanda has seen several grenade attacks this year, including one in May and at least two in February. Authorities previously blamed the February attacks on a dissident Rwandan general. That general, former army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, was shot and wounded outside his South African home last month, and his wife blamed Kagame.

Rwanda’s most prominent opposition politician, Victoire Ingabire, has said that she fears violence could again break out in Rwanda because of Kagame’s approach to handling ethnic Hutus. Ingabire was arrested earlier this year on charges of genocide ideology and was not allowed to run in Monday’s election.

More than 500,000 Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Kagame, an ethnic Tutsi, has tried to downplay the role of ethnicity in post-genocide Rwanda, and people in the country rarely refer to themselves as Hutu or Tutsi and can face charges for speaking publicly about ethnicity.

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Human rights groups and other critics also had decried the arrest of several opposition figures in the lead-up to Monday’s election, and noted that several others were killed or attacked under suspicious circumstances. The Rwandan government has denied any involvement in those attacks.

In Brussels, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton congratulated Rwanda on the organization of the elections. But Ashton noted that the EU remained concerned about the serious incidents which marred the pre-electoral period and urged Rwandan authorities to ensure that judicial proceedings were carried out.

“Further opening of the political space and strengthening the public debate throughout the country would significantly contribute to safeguarding Rwanda’s achievements and will benefit all Rwandese,” Ashton said.

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A father, his two sons and four other North Carolina men are accused of military-style training at home and plotting “violent jihad” through a series of terror attacks abroad, federal authorities said Monday.

Officials said the group was led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business. But two decades ago, Boyd, who is a U.S. citizen, trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and fought against the Soviets for three years before returning to the United States.

An indictment released Monday does not detail any specific terrorist plans or targets overseas, although it claims some of the defendants traveled to Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging “violent jihad” and returned home without success.

“These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right here at home,” U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said. He would not give details of the alleged plots beyond what was in a news release and indictment.

The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison. Court documents charged that Boyd, also known as ‘Saifullah,’ encouraged others to engage in jihad.

Boyd’s beliefs did not concur with his Raleigh-area moderate mosque, which he stopped attending and instead began meeting for Friday prayers in his home, said Holding, who did not say whether any or all the defendants met with him.

“These people had broken away because their local mosque did not follow their vision of being a good Muslim,” Holding said. “This is not an indictment of the entire Muslim community.”

In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan — accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Each was sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was later overturned.

Their wives told The Associated Press in an interview at the time that the couples had U.S. roots but the United States was a country of “kafirs” — Arabic for heathens.

Jim Stephenson, a neighbor of Daniel Boyd in Willow Spring, said he saw the family walking their dog in the neighborhood and that the indictment shocked the residents.

“We never saw anything to give any clues that something like that could be going on in their family,” Stephenson said.

Two of the suspects are Boyd’s sons: Zakariya Boyd, 20 and Dylan Boyd, 22. The others are Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21. Hysen Sherifi, 24, a native of Kosovo and a U.S. legal permanent was also charged in the case. He was the only person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.

No attorneys for the men were listed in court records.

Reached at her home in Silver Spring, Md., Boyd’s mother said she had not heard of their arrests and knew nothing about the current case.

“It certainly sounds weird to me,” Pat Saddler said. “That’s news to me.”

Hassan’s father declined to comment Monday night while others did not have listed numbers or did not return calls.

It’s unclear how authorities learned of the activities, although court documents indicate that prosecutors will introduce evidence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

After the unsuccessful attempt at jihad in Israel, the men returned home, officials said. Court papers also say Yaghi went to Jordan to engage in jihad in 2006.

Boyd was also accused of trying to raise money last year to fund others’ travel overseas to fight. One of the men, Sherifi, went to Kosovo to engage in violent jihad, according to the indictment, but it’s unclear if he did any actual fighting.

Police acting on a warning Tuesday found a bundle of dynamite inside a Paris department store at the height of the Christmas season, and a group demanding that France withdraw from Afghanistan claimed responsibility.

Sticks of dynamite tied together but without a detonator were found in the Printemps department store, a favored shopping destination for tourists, and a Christmas season attraction because of its festive window displays.

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said the explosives appeared “relatively old.” Police said they were found in the third floor restroom of the menswear department. Five sticks were found together, officials said.

“There was no risk of explosion,” the minister said.

French news agency Agence France-Presse said it received a letter Tuesday morning from a group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front saying that several bombs had been planted in the store. Police said they searched the store and found the dynamite because of the warning.

Alliot-Marie said the group was “totally unknown” to police but that the claim was being studied.

In the letter, the group demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan before the end of February, and threatened attacks if France refuses.

“Otherwise we will go back into action in your big capitalist stores and this time without warning you,” the letter said, according to AFP.

A Pakistani militant group apparently used an Indian operative as far back as 2007 to scout targets for the elaborate plot against India’s financial capital, authorities said Thursday, a blow to Indian officials who have blamed the deadly attacks entirely on Pakistani extremists.

As investigators sought to unravel the attack on Mumbai, stepping up questioning of the lone captured gunman, airports across India were put on high alert amid fresh warnings that terrorists planned to hijack an aircraft.

Also Thursday, police said there were signs that some of the six victims of the attack on a Jewish center may have been tortured. “The victims were strangled,” said Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police official. “There were injuries noticed on the bodies that were not from firing.”

Members of an Israeli rescue group which had a team in Mumbai said it was impossible to tell if the bodies had been abused, however, because no autopsies were conducted in accordance with Jewish tradition.

The surviving gunman, Ajmal Amir Kasab, 21, told interrogators he had been sent by the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and identified two of the plot’s masterminds, according to two Indian government officials familiar with the inquiry.

Kasab told police that one of them, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, Lashkar’s operations chief, recruited him for the attack, and the assailants called another senior leader, Yusuf Muzammil, on a satellite phone after hijacking an Indian vessel en route to Mumbai.

The information sent investigators back to another reputed Lashkar operative, Faheem Ansari, who they hope could be key in pulling together different strands of the investigation.

Ansari, an Indian national, was arrested in February in north India carrying hand-drawn sketches of hotels, the train terminal and other sites that were later attacked in Mumbai, said Amitabh Yash, director of the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police.

During his interrogation, Ansari also named Muzammil as his handler in Pakistan, adding that he trained in a Lashkar camp in Muzaffarabad — the same area where Kasab said he was trained, a senior police officer involved in the investigation said.

In Pakistan, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters he had no information on Lakhvi or Muzammil but that authorities would check.

Ansari “told us about a planned Lashkar attack on Bombay, on southern Bombay,” said Yash, referring to Mumbai by its previous name. “He gave us eight or nine specific locations where the attack would be carried out,” he said, adding that Ansari had detailed sketches of the places and escape routes from the sites.

Ansari said he carried out the reconnaissance in the fall of 2007, which also included the U.S. consulate, the Bombay stock exchange and other Mumbai sites that were not attacked.

Ansari is now in Indian custody, according to Yash. It was unclear if he was being questioned again, but Maria said they were working to determine if Ansari played a role in how the attackers “got such intricate knowledge of the sites.”

Indian authorities have faced a torrent of criticism about missed warnings and botched intelligence, and revelations that Ansari disclosed details of the Mumbai plot 10 months ago will be added to the list. Linking an Indian national to the plot also undermines India’s assertion that Pakistan is solely responsible.

Yash said during extensive interrogations Ansari confessed to scouting Mumbai, arranging a safe-house there for Lashkar militants and provided details on his involvement in the group. “We got everything out of him, whatever he knew,” he said.

Ansari linked up with Lashkar while working at a printing press in Dubai. He was taken by sea to Pakistan to the Lashkar camp in Muzaffarabad and received a false Pakistani passport and citizenship papers, which police recovered when he was arrested.

In 2007, Ansari said, he traveled to Katmandu, Nepal, and then crossed back into India and settled in Mumbai, where he conducted reconnaissance for a future attack, Yash said.

He was arrested Feb. 10 in the northern city of Rampur after suspected Muslim militants attacked a police camp, killing eight constables. He said he was there to collect weapons to bring to Mumbai for a future attack.

Yash said Ansari’s arrest did not derail Lashkar’s plans for an attack. “When they found that their mole in Bombay had been caught…they carried out the operations in a different way,” he said.

Meanwhile, police officers said they were trying to get as much detail as possible from Kasab.

“A terrorist of this sort is never cooperative. We have to extract information,” said Deven Bharti, the head of the Mumbai crime branch.

Indian police are known to use interrogation methods that would be regarded as torture in the West, including questioning suspects drugged with “truth serum.”

Bharti provided no details on interrogation techniques, but said “truth serum” would probably be used next week. He did not specify what drug would be used.

During questioning, details of Kasab’s recruitment by Lashkar began to emerge, said police, describing him as fourth grade dropout from an impoverished village who was gravitating to a life of crime.

“Lashkar recruited him, preying on a combination of his religious sentiments and his poverty,” said Maria.

The revelations came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with leaders in Islamabad after visiting India’s capital — part of a U.S. effort to pressure Pakistan to share more intelligence and pursue terrorist cells believed to be rooted in the country.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari promised Rice his country would take “strong action” against any elements in Pakistan involved in the siege.

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department designated as terrorists four individuals who hold leadership positions in Lashkar, including Lakhvi, and ordered any of their U.S. assets to be frozen. Also named were Muhammad Saeed, the group’s leader; Haji Muhammad Ashraf, its chief of finance; and Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, a financier with the group.

Meanwhile, India put its airports on alert following threats of possible airborne attacks. Security forces swarmed New Delhi’s international airport early Friday after the sound of gunfire was heard, police said, but no one was injured or killed. Police said it was not a terrorist incident.

The warning received by the airports “spoke of possibility of aircraft being hijacked by terrorists,” India’s air force chief, Fali Homi Major, told reporters Thursday.

The alert focused on three major airports — New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai — but security was stepped up across India.

Several extra layers of security were set up and some passengers’ bags were scanned for explosives.

“Passengers have been asked to pass through six-stage security checks,” said Brij Lal, a senior police official organizing security at the airport in the northern city of Lucknow.

Nirmala Sharma, a passenger who flew from New Delhi to Lucknow, said her bags were checked a half dozen times and she went through a metal detector three times. “Sometimes it seemed tedious, but it seems to be the need of the hour,” she said.

Tensions between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India flared after the attacks last week in Mumbai that killed at least 172 people and wounded 239 others.

“Such a tragic incident must bring opportunity rather than the defeat of a nation,” Zardari said in an interview with Aaj television. “We don’t think the world’s great nations and countries can be held hostage by non-state actors.”

A top Indian police officer said Sunday that the only gunman captured after the attacks said he belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group with links to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir

Joint Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria added that the gunman, Ajmal Qasab, said he was trained at a camp in Pakistan.

Lashkar has long been seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service to help fight India in Kashmir. The group was banned in Pakistan in 2002 under pressure from the U.S., a year after Washington and Britain listed it a terrorist organization.

Other Indian leaders have blamed “elements in Pakistan” for the attack, but have not said whether they believe the terrorists had the backing of any state agencies.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said his country “would itself take action against the miscreants if there is any evidence against a Pakistani national,” according to a statement released by his office.

He also cautioned that India should not make allegations in the media. “The blame game should be avoided at all costs as (it) may affect the state of relations between the two countries,” he said.

Zardari’s spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said Islamabad has “demanded evidence of the complicity of any Pakistani group” but has received none.

The nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars since the subcontinent was divided at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, two over the Himalayan region of Kashmir.

The United States is watching the situation closely, knowing that any flare-up in tensions between the two countries could damage its hopes of defeating al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she expects Pakistan to cooperate fully with any probe, something Islamabad has already said it will do so long as India gives it the evidence.

“What we are emphasizing to the Pakistani government is the need to follow the evidence wherever it leads,” Rice told reporters in London. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that’s what we expect.”

Rice is cutting short a European trip to visit India later this week

Pakistan’s prime minister, president and foreign minister have reached out to their counterparts in Asia, the U.S. and Europe since the attack to talk about the tensions.

Prime Minister Gilani has called for a meeting of all political party leaders Tuesday to reach consensus on post-Mumbai policy.

Parliamentary opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ahmed Khan urged the government to be firm with India, saying any evidence of involvement by a Pakistani citizen should be presented to the country.

“Put up or shut up,” he said.

MUMBAI, India (AP) — It took just 10 young men armed with rifles and grenades to terrorize this city of 18 million and turn its postcard-perfect icons into battlefields until security forces ended one of the deadliest attacks in India’s history early Saturday.

After the final siege at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel, adoring crowds surrounded six buses carrying weary, unshaven commandos dressed in black fatigues, shaking their hands and giving them flowers. One of the commandos said he had been awake for nearly 60 hours since the assault began Wednesday. Another sat sipping a bottle of water and holding a pink rose.

“What happened is disgusting,” said Suresh Thakkar, 59, who reopened his clothing store behind the hotel Saturday for the first time since the attacks. “It will be harder to recover, but we will recover. Bombay people have a lot of spirit and courage.”

The bloody rampage carried out by suspected Muslim militants at 10 sites across Mumbai, the nation’s financial capital formerly known as Bombay, killed at least 195 people and wounded 295. Among the dead were 18 foreigners, including six Americans.

Orange flames and dark smoke engulfed the Taj Mahal after dawn Saturday as Indian forces killed the last three militants with grenades and gunfire. Hours after the fire fight, parts of the landmark hotel were in shambles, its corner facade charred black and a red carpet leading to double doors littered with broken glass.

“Suddenly no one feels safe or secure,” said Joe Sequeira, the manager of a popular restaurant near the Oberoi hotel, another site targeted in the attacks. “It will take time. People are scared but they will realize it’s no use being scared and sitting at home.”

While soldiers scoured the massive 565-room Taj Mahal for any remaining captives and defused booby traps, a city known for its resilience in the face of tragedy began mourning and cremating its dead. At least 20 killed in the fighting were members of security forces.

A previously unknown Muslim group called Deccan Mujahideen – a name suggesting origins inside India – has claimed responsibility. But Indian officials said the sole surviving gunman, now in custody, was from Pakistan and voiced suspicions of their volatile neighbor. Nine other attackers were killed, they said.

Each new detail about the attackers raised more questions. Who trained the militants, who were so well prepared they carried bags of almonds to keep their energy up? What role, if any, did archrival Pakistan play in the attack? And how did so few assailants, who looked like college students, wreak so much damage?

Pakistan denied it was involved and demanded evidence for Indian charges. Islamabad has pledged to share intelligence with its rival neighbor but went back on its initial promise to send its spy chief to aid the probe, saying it would send a lower ranking official instead.

As officials pointed the finger at neighboring Pakistan, some Indians looked inward and expressed anger at their own government.

“People are worried, but the key difference is anger,” said Rajesh Jain, chief executive officer at a brokerage firm, Pranav Securities. “People are worked up about the ineffectiveness of the administration. Does the government have the will, the ability to tackle the dangers we face?”

On Saturday, officials said they believed that just 10 gunmen had taken part in the attacks. The sole survivor, identified a Pakistani national, Mohammad Ajmal Qasam, was being interrogated, officials said.

The gunmen were as brazen as they were well trained, using sophisticated weapons, GPS technology and mobile and satellite phones to communicate, authorities said.

“They were constantly in touch with a foreign country,” said R.R. Patil, deputy to the chief of Maharashtra state’s chief, without giving further details.

“Whenever they were under a little bit of pressure they would hurl a grenade. They freely used grenades,” said Dutt.

Suspicions in Indian media quickly settled on the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, long seen as a creation of the Pakistani intelligence service to help wage its clandestine war against India in disputed Kashmir.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said some “signatures of the attack” were consistent with Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammed, another group that has operated in Kashmir. Both are reported to be linked to al-Qaida.

U.S. officials were worried about a possible surge in violence between Pakistan and India – the nuclear armed rivals have fought three wars against each other, two over Kashmir – and were sending FBI agents to India to help investigate.

President George W. Bush pledged full U.S. support for the investigation, saying the killers “will not have the final word.”

“As the people of the world’s largest democracy recover from these attacks, they can count on the people of world’s oldest democracy to stand by their side,” Bush added in a brief address from the White House.

Indian security officers believe many of the gunmen may have reached the city using a black and yellow rubber dinghy found near the attack sites.

The Indian navy said it was investigating whether a trawler found drifting off the coast of Mumbai, with a bound corpse on board, was used in the attack.

The trawler, named Kuber, had been found Thursday and was brought to Mumbai, a peninsula surrounded by the Arabian Sea, said Navy spokesman Capt. Manohar Nambiar. Authorities suspect the boat had sailed from a port in the neighboring state of Gujarat.

The fighting narrowed to the Taj Mahal hotel on Friday night, hours after elite commandos stormed a Jewish center and found at least eight hostages dead Friday.

The bodies of New York Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, were found at the Jewish center. Their son, Moshe, who turned 2 on Saturday, was scooped up by an employee Thursday as she fled the building. At least two Israelis and another American were also killed in the house, said Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch movement, which ran the center.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said nine bodies had been found in the center.

Among the foreigners killed in the attacks were six Americans, according to the U.S. Embassy. The dead also included Germans, Canadians, Israelis and nationals from Britain, Italy, Japan, China, Thailand, Australia and Singapore.

By Saturday night the death toll was at 195, the country’s deadliest attack since 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai killed 257 people. But officials said the toll from the three days of carnage was likely to rise as more bodies were brought out of the hotels.

In the southern city of Bangalore, black clad commandos formed an honor guard for the flag-draped coffin of Maj. Sandeep Unnikrishnan, who was killed in the fighting at the Taj Mahal hotel.

“He gave up his own life to save the others,” said J.K. Dutt, director general of India’s elite commando unit.

It seems as if the John McCain camp, its surrogates and supporters have been increasingly trying to divide America. They are attempting to divide and conquer the United States by stirring up fear and division by racism, xenophobia, distrust and hatred.

The McCain camp and their supporters have run one of the most negative campaigns in the history of the United States. If they lose, they will leave millions of Americans who believe the President is a Muslim, a supporter of terrorists, a socialist and a communist. If McCain wins millions of people who supported Obama will believe he won because of hateful, dishonest, negative and racist campaign.

In campaigning, the McCain camp has separated America into two different places: The good and decent Americans who love America, are deeply religious and live in small towns or white working class America and the rest of America that hates America, isn’t religious and does not see America as they see America. The other America is represented by the ‘liberal elite,’ ‘Taxachusetts,’ and ‘Hollywood.’ Urban areas are defined by ‘welfare queens,’ ‘gang members,’ ‘corrupt community organizers’ and ‘black extremists.’ Where are the rest of working class Americans who live in cities, work hard go to church and pay their taxes? McCain and Palin have done nothing to address these people

Recently a McCain surrogate said that, McCain support was strong in ‘real Virginia’ but not in northern Virginia where the DC elite had moved. Basically saying that anyone who didn’t agree with McCain wasn’t a real Virginian. Are people who work in DC not real Virginins? Maybe the country is changing and Virginians don’t have the same outdated, racist, right wings ideas that they had during the 60′s.

Sarah Palin recently said that she enjoyed campaigning in parts of the country that are Pro-America suggesting that areas in which she isn’t popular aren’t pro-America. It is almost fascist to suggest that anyone who opposes your views or positions are doing so because they aren’t real or pro-America. Its amazing that with her secessionist past, no one has called out Palin on her ‘pro-America’ hypocrisy. While Obama has developed a diverse coalition of people from many regional, ethnic, sociological and religious backgrounds, campaigning in many former red states, McCain and Palin have not reached out to any former blue states or any groups that fall out  of the boundaries of their ‘base.’

While Obama has attempted to unify the country regardless of race region, religion, McCain is trying to divide the country on those same lines. People from certain areas are good and Pro-America while people in other areas are part of a liberal elite.  McCain has also used traditional phrases connected with African Americans to scare working class white Americans from Barack Obama’s economic policies. McCain recently said that Barack Obama would turn the IRS to a welfare agency. This is basically a message to white people that Barack Obama will take their hard earned money to pay his lazy black friends.

Republican Rep. Robin Hayes said at a recent McCain/Palin rally in North Carolina that ‘liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.’ Many liberals are also hard workers who achieve and believe in God.

The Republicans have made appoint of associating Barack Obama with things that are foreign and evil.  Right Wingers have a long history of labeling progressive black leaders as communist. Martin Luther King and many other members of the Civil Rights movement were attacked as communists by opponents of integration. Nelson Mandela was attacked as a communist by right-wingers who supported the Apartheid regime. This was also a tactic Nixon and McCarthy would use against political opponents, using the old red-scare tactics on anyone who did not support their economic policies.

The GOP is also vigorously attempting to connect Barack Obama to people’s fear of Islamic terrorism. The repeated emphasis on his middle name on right wing talk radio and McCain’s campaign rallies is a blatant attempt to connect him to the former arch enemy of the United States. The repeated attempt to connect Obama to Osama bin Laden by rhyming his name is another attempt to connect Obama to another of our country’s arch enemies. Virginia Republican Party Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick compared Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden on a radio program. When asked about it McCain at first said it was acceptable and then downplayed it.

Maybe I’m an optimist but I believe that the racist supporters of John McCain are not at all representative of the views of ‘White America.’ While many white Americans may still have stereotypes and prejudices about blacks, the outright hatred and dehumanization of African Americans has been limited to the fringe of the white population. However, it has been this fringe that John McCain has been actively courting.

When John McCain ran in 2000 against George Bush in 2000, he cried out against Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson calling them agents of intolerance. He also criticized South Carolina for still flying the Confederate Flag. McCain has since embraced the agents of intolerance, speaking at their schools and courting the ultimate agents of intolerance in Rush Limbaugh and Bill Cunningham. By letting Sarah Palin appear on both shows, he is condoning their racist, hate fueled behavior. By ignoring the mainstream media’s requests for interviews and appearing on the shows of known hate mongers  and bigots, McCain has placed his faith not in the judgement of the American people but in the racism and bigotry of the American people.

John McCain is using the same robo-calling firm that George Bush used on him in 2000. This is the same firm that said he was a traitor, who gave secrets to the Russians in Vietnam and had a child with a black prostitute.

The robo-calling which insinuate that Obama is a terrorist have resulted in a long time Republican state senator from Wisconsin announcing she is supporting Barack Obama.

“All of us should be extremely wary of the half truths and outright untruths that have been spread by the recent negative campaigning and shameful automated phone calls,” said Barbara Lorman of Fort Atkinson. “While my admiration for Senator Obama has grown with his positive approach to addressing the challenges facing our nation, my disappointment with the McCain campaigned has deepened. The negative tactics are inappropriate, downright dishonorable and have no place in the State of Wisconsin.”

It seems as if McCain is trying to take the country back forty years, where good Americans support the war, are very religious and hate socialists, radicals, progressive African-Americans and communists. McCain’s camp has done nothing to address the issues of African-Americans, Latinos and the only working class representative he has is a plumber who makes more then $250,000 a year.

McCain is disregarding the rest of the country for what he considers the GOP base. He is in effect trying to reinstate Nixon’s silent majority. However, America is a vastly different country now and Nixon’s silent majority has turned into an angry, violent minority.

McCain is attempting to win the election by splitting the country in two. He is dividing the country by race, religion, region, class and values. Let’s show him his cynical view of the US is all wrong.

There have been a number of videos circulating around the internet showing the ignorance, fear and hatred of McCain/Palin supporters. Many are disturbing and show the deep rooted ignorance of McCain’s supporters as well as what McCain and Palin are doing to to incite this anger. Here are our Top 5 McCain Palin Hate-Mob videos.

Number 1: McCain/Palin Ohio Hate Fest

In this video, Obama is referred to as a nigger and woman calls him a Muslim and fears that if he was elected the ‘blacks will take over.’

Number 2: McCain/Palin Hate Talk Express

This video is a compilation of several other videos of  McCain and Palin supporters spewing their right wing talk radio fueled hatred and fear as well as the statements McCain and Palin made to encourage their behavior.

Number 3: The Hate Talk Express Hits Pennsylvania

In this video a protester confronts McCain and Palin supporters on Palin charging victims for rape-kits, asking if his friend should have to pay for her rape kit, a McCain/Palin supporter says that she shoud die. The McCain/Palin supporters call Obama a terrorist and a Muslim and call protesters commie-faggots.

Number 4: The Hate Talk Express Comes back to Ohio

In this video there’s more of the McCain/Palin mob calling Obama a terrorist and questioning his patriotism and praising Sarah Palin without knowing anything about her. A young boy with his parents says of Obama, ‘You need gloves to touch him’

Part 2

Number 5: Man with Obama Monkey. I don’t know what is more disturbing, the fact that he is comparing Obama to a monkey, or the creepy pedophile smile he has.

McCain’s campaign has taken a very negative turn. Rather than speaking about his own credentials and his own plans for America, or attempting to unite American people, the McCain campaign has turned into hate rallies against Obama.

McCain’s supporters have referred to Obama as a traitor, terrorist, communist, socialist and  accused him of treason and said ‘kill him’ and ‘off with his head.’ Obama has accused McCain of ‘stoking anger and division.’ Uniting people for hatred and division has always resulted in negative repercussions.

Hitler, of course, united angry mobs by their hatred of the Jews. Mussolini would rally people with hatred for communists. Politicians like George Wallace would use racism and hatred for blacks to forward their political goals as well. Many African dictators use tribal divisions and animosity to forward their political goals as well.

By not addressing the racist, negative, violent rants of his supporters and surrogates, McCain is condoning what they are saying. Many in politics and the media believe that these attempts to demonize Obama and the acceptance of negative statement from the crowd. Palin especially can be called on for not only condoning the negative demonizing attacks but encouraging them.

The difference between the two campaigns could not be more extreme. While Obama tries to unite people with hope, optimism and a desire to make this country a better place, McCain has been uniting people with fear, hatred and division. The McCain camp’s quiet encouragement of this negative behavior will only cause more division in the nation in a time of great apprehension and turmoil.

McCain Supporters Call Obama Terrorist and Say Kill Him

Obama Anticipated These Attacks

McCain Agrees With Angry Supporter That Obama is a Hooligan

McCain Concedes That Obama is a Decent Person and You Don’t Have to be Afraid of Him