Al Qaeda Organization

A federal judge sentenced an Al Qaeda "sleeper" agent to eight years in prison Thursday -- about half the time prosecutors had requested -- because the agent received what the judge called "unacceptable" treatment in a U.S. Navy brig. U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm could have sentenced Ali Marri to as much as 15 years. Prosecutors had endorsed that, presenting testimony that he remained a threat. But Mihm handed down the lighter sentence of eight years and four months in consideration of what he called "very severe" conditions under which Marri was kept during the almost six years he was held without charges in a U.S. Navy brig in South Carolina.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called Israel's offensive on Gaza a "holocaust" and accused Arab leaders of not doing enough to stop the fighting, in his latest audio recording aired on Al Jazeera. Bin Laden accused some Arab countries of "collaborating" with Israel on the offensive in December-January that killed about 1,300 Palestinians. He did not name any specific Arab countries in the brief audio played on Al Jazeera. The Arabic satellite channel did not say how it obtained the recording, and the authenticity of the tape could not be verified.

A newly declassified memo shows that the Bush administration was warned about the threat posed by Al Qaeda in January 2001, five days after President Bush took office. The memo was sent from former White House terrorism chief Richard Clarke to then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice. The memo was described at the Sept. 11 commission hearings, though its full contents weren't released until now. It is posted on the Internet site of the National Security Archive at www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/.

A car bomb exploded near a police station in a town east of Algiers, killing at least four officers and injuring 20 other people, officials and witnesses said. The explosion tore off the front of the police station and damaged neighboring buildings. Al Arabiya satellite television had reported that Al Qaeda's North Africa branch claimed responsibility for the attack, but the claim couldn't immediately be confirmed with Algerian officials. The blast followed twin suicide bombings on Dec. 11 at United Nations offices and a court building that killed at least 37 people in the capital.

Pakistan reiterated that it would not let U.S. forces hunt Al Qaeda and Taliban militants on its soil, after a news report said the Bush administration was considering expanding military and intelligence operations in the nation's tribal regions. The Foreign Ministry dismissed as speculative a New York Times story saying President Bush's top security officials discussed a proposal Friday to deploy U.S. troops along the Pakistani-Afghan border. The border area has long been considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden.

An American Al Qaeda militant urged fighters to meet President Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East, according to a video posted Sunday on the Internet. Adam Gadahn, who was raised in Orange County, also tore up his U.S. passport in the nearly hourlong tape. The video came three days before Bush is scheduled to arrive for a weeklong trip in the region to push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. "Now we direct an urgent call to our militant brothers . . .

Under cover of darkness Tuesday, American soldiers crept across a bridge where just days before insurgents had left a chilling warning: a severed head with a message identifying the Iraqi victim as a U.S. collaborator scrawled across the forehead with a black marker. Through the biting cold, the troops crunched down a winding gravel road, past frost-glazed reeds, empty storefronts and spacious homes surrounded by orange and pomegranate trees.

President Pervez Musharraf said U.S. troops were not welcome to join the fight against Al Qaeda on Pakistani soil, despite the growing threat from Islamic extremists. Musharraf said that Pakistan would resist any unilateral U.S. military action against insurgents in its mostly lawless tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan. "I challenge anybody coming into our mountains," he told Singapore's the Straits Times newspaper. "They would regret that day." The region along the border has long been considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden.

Islamic extremists attacked and seized a small Pakistani army fort near the Afghan border, leaving at least 22 soldiers dead or missing. A military spokesman said this morning that the militants had left the fort and disappeared into the surrounding hills. Although the fighters did not gain significant ground in the attack Tuesday night on Sararogha Fort, they did further erode confidence in the U.S.

The young man had been through a miserable few years. He had been rejected by the army and failed to finish his studies. Security officials kept summoning him for talks. At 25, he left his parents' home in the city, telling them he wanted to be a shepherd. They heard nothing more from him until newspapers reported that he was wanted in Germany for involvement in a plot to bomb a pair of trains.