U.S. : al-Qaida Suspect Cased New York
My Way News

WASHINGTON (AP) - An al-Qaida terror suspect detained in England was sent to the United States in early 2001 by the principal architect of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings to perform surveillance on economic targets in New York, according to U.S. officials and government interviews with other captured terror suspects.

They said the suspect claimed he has associates in America, possibly in California.

Abu Eisa al-Hindi was arrested in a roundup last week in Britain along with 11 others.

The disclosure that al-Hindi also was known as Issa al-Britani provides tantalizing details that further link al-Hindi to recent Bush administration warnings about possible terror attacks against U.S. financial buildings in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.

It also has spurred a furious investigation in New York and elsewhere to trace al-Hindi's travels in the United States and to try to identify his associates during the American period.

"They're looking pretty hard to find anyone in the United States who might be part of this network, but they haven't found anyone so far who's still here," Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterror chief, said Saturday.

The FBI believes al-Hindi may have had two collaborators helping perform the reconnaissance, said a high-ranking law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

TIME Magazine Details Evidence Of Possible al Qaida Attack
Time.Com

FBI official warned a congressional leader he and others could be targeted in Washington and on trips around U.S.

New York – An FBI official warned a congressional leader that he and other top legislative officials could be targeted by al-Qaeda in Washington or on their trips around the country, TIME has learned. The warning came two days before Ridge issued his nationwide alert.

TIME reveals exclusive new detail of al-Qaeda attack plans, in the cover story/special report “Al-Qaeda in America. Inside the Terrorist Group’s Plot to Attack the U.S. Can We Get to Them Before They Strike?” (on newsstands Monday, Aug. 9).

Assessing the accumulation of evidence of a possible attack inside the U.S., a senior intelligence official tells TIME, “This is looking more like the real deal every day.” TIME also learns that Osama bin Laden may already have ordered up another attack: a top homeland security official tells TIME “We have a number of times picked up information that al-Qaeda wants to attack us before the election, and some of the communications attribute that desire to Osama bin Laden.”

Though surveillance for the al-Qaeda attack plans seized July 24 was mostly done in 2000 and 2001, “there remains plenty of cause for concern,” according to TIME. A surveillance report notes windows behind the six columns in front of the New York Stock Exchange building make it appear “a little fragile.” Operatives specifically discuss using “usual methods” such as a heavy gas truck or oil tanker to attack facilities. Surveillance of helicopter ports and cockpits in New York City suggest al-Qaeda has investigated using them for an airborne attack.

A U.S. law-enforcement official told TIME that a recent Pakistani intelligence report made available to senior U.S. intelligence and security officials offers details of alleged al-Qaeda plans to use speedboats and divers for attacks in New York harbor before the November 2004 elections.

TIME has learned that one seized disc contains an updated photo of the Prudential Building in Newark, New Jersey that was added in January of this year. Operatives noted it might be difficult to drive a truck or van into the Prudential’s underground parking garage. So they proposed acquiring a black limo, gutting all but the front seat and presumably filling the empty portion with explosives, TIME reports. They also discussed using an oil truck to ram through the front entrance. Information on New Jersey Transit passenger rail systems and PATH train timetables suggested al-Qaeda may have been exploring ways to escape after pulling off the attack, TIME reports.

A senior U.S. intelligence official tells TIME that the three laptop computers and 51 discs seized in a July 24 raid in Pakistan represent an unprecedented “treasure trove” of information about al-Qaeda’s determination to pull off more acts of catastrophe on U.S. soil. “The discs revealed far more detailed, wide-ranging and current research” than has been made public, a source tells TIME. A senior law-enforcement force tells TIME the FBI is pursuing information from computer files that may lead to al-Qaeda members in the U.S. Perhaps a half-dozen individuals are believed to have been in contact with at least one of three men apprehended in Pakistan.

Judge : Arrest Warrant Issued for Chalabi
FOX News

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq has issued arrest warrants for Ahmad Chalabi, a former Governing Council member with strong U.S. ties, on counterfeiting charges, and for his nephew Salem Chalabi -- head of the tribunal trying Saddam Hussein -- on murder charges, Iraq's chief investigating judge said Sunday.

The warrant was the latest strike against Ahmad Chalabi in his removal from the centers of power. A longtime Iraqi exile opposition leader, he had been a favorite of many in the Pentagon but fell out with the Americans in the weeks before the U.S. occupation ended in June.

Both men denied the charges, dismissing them as part of a political conspiracy against them and their family.

Salem Chalabi, named as a suspect in the June murder of Haithem Fadhil, director general of the finance ministry, called the accusation "ridiculous." His uncle said the charges were "outrageous" and "manufactured lies."

Ahmad Chalabi was somewhat marginalized when he was left out of the new interim government that took power June 28 but has since worked to reposition himself as a Shiite populist. At the helm of the war crimes tribunal for Saddam, the Ivy League-educated Salem Chalabi remains a central figure in Iraq.

"They should be arrested and then questioned and ... if there is enough evidence, they will be sent to trial," Judge Zuhair al-Maliky said.

Rice : We'll Stop Iran's Nuke Program
NewsMax.Com

WASHINGTON - With Iran stepping up its nuclear program, a top White House aide said Sunday the world finally is "worried and suspicious" over the Iranians' intentions and is determined not to let Tehran produce a nuclear weapon.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice also said the Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear program. She credited the changed attitude to the Americans' insistence that Iran's effort put the world in peril.

She would not say whether the United States would act alone to end the program if the administration could not win international support.
Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, announced a week ago that his country had resumed building nuclear centrifuges. He said Iran was retaliating for the West's failure to force the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to close its file on possible Iranian violations of nuclear nonproliferation rules.

Kharrazi said Iran was not resuming enrichment of uranium, which requires a centrifuge. But, he said, Iran had restarted manufacturing the device because Britain, Germany and France had not stopped the investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The United States was the first to say that Iran was a threat in this way, to try and convince the international community that Iran was trying, under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, to actually bring about a nuclear weapons program," Rice said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Al Qaeda Leader from UAE in Pakistani Custody
FOX News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a new blow to Al Qaeda, authorities in the United Arab Emirates captured a senior operative in Usama bin Laden's terror network, who trained thousands of militants for combat, and turned him over to Pakistan, the information minister said Sunday.

The man, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, was secretly flown to the eastern city of Lahore, where he was being interrogated, a Pakistani intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, has arrested about 20 Al Qaeda suspects in less than a month — including a top figure sought by the United States. The arrests prompted a series of raids in Britain and uncovered past Al Qaeda surveillance in the United States.

Akhtar used to run a vast terror camp in Rishkhor, Afghanistan, that was visited by bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar. The camp — a sprawling complex of shattered barracks and dusty fields about 10 miles south of the capital, Kabul — trained 3,500 men in combat skills, including assassination and kidnapping.

Akhtar disappeared in the hours before the United States started bombing Afghanistan in October 2001 and had not been heard from since.