Al Qaeda Organization

The young assassins prowled Khartoum's streets for hours on New Year's Eve, looking for Westerners on the way home from parties. They stopped a Land Cruiser but released it after seeing two children in the back seat. Another foreigner was let go because he was the "wrong" nationality, said Khartoum state Gov. Abdul Halim Mutaafi. "They wanted Americans or British," he said.

Mohammed Atef was furious. The Al Qaeda leader had learned that a subordinate had broken the rules repeatedly. So he did his duty as the feared military chief of a global terror network: He fired off a nasty memo. In two pages mixing flowery religious terms with itemized complaints, the Egyptian boss accused the militant of misappropriating cash, a car, sick leave, research papers and an air conditioner during "an austerity situation" for the network.

The Bush administration has not drafted a comprehensive plan to destroy a resurgent Al Qaeda or other militant groups in the tribal areas of Pakistan and has not adequately monitored the billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars sent to the Pakistani government to combat the groups, according to a sharply critical report by an independent government watchdog agency issued Thursday. The Government Accountability Office said the administration's effort has been so ineffective that the U.S.

A car bombing that killed at least six people and wounded dozens of others Monday near the Danish Embassy raised fears that Al Qaeda-linked militants might be moving to fill a void left by other Islamist fighters seeking truces with Pakistan's new government. The powerful blast occurred just outside the embassy gates in a leafy, upscale neighborhood of Islamabad, the capital.

The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in McLean upheld the conviction of an Al Qaeda member who plotted to assassinate President Bush, but it said he must be resentenced. The court rejected a 30-year prison term and ordered a new sentencing hearing for Ahmed Omar Abu Ali. Prosecutors had argued that the judge deviated from sentencing guidelines that called for life in prison.

Any future terrorist attack on the United States probably would originate in Pakistan's western tribal regions, where Al Qaeda leaders have set up their most secure haven since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday. But Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said action to forcibly disrupt the militants' planning effort is unlikely for now.

A year ago, Sunni Arab fighter Abu Abed led an improbable revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq. As he killed its leaders and burned down hide-outs, he became a symbol of a new group called the Sons of Iraq -- the man who dared to stand up to the extremists in Baghdad when it still ranked as a suicidal act. Today, Abu Abed is chain-smoking cigarettes in Amman, betrayed by his best friend, on the run from a murder investigation in his homeland.

An agitated Salim Ahmed Hamdan abruptly walked out of his war crimes trial Wednesday while the military jury watched a video in which the defendant was shown trussed, hooded and being badgered by armed and masked U.S. captors. Hamdan returned after about an hour and watched the rest of the nearly two-hour black-and-white video filmed in a crude cell in an Afghan village. The only illumination was a flashlight into his face.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan may have been only a driver for Osama bin Laden, but the legions of bit players in Al Qaeda are what has allowed the terrorist leader to succeed, an FBI agent testified Friday. "Without people like Mr. Hamdan, Bin Laden would enjoy no support, he would not enjoy protection and he probably would not have been able to elude capture up to this point," Special Agent George M. Crouch Jr. told the military jurors hearing the first U.S. war crimes case in 60 years.

A Pakistani security official said an apparent U.S. missile strike early Monday may have killed a senior Al Qaeda trainer believed to be a chemical weapons expert. Local officials in the tribal region of South Waziristan said that at least 12 people died in the attack, believed to have been carried out by an unmanned aerial drone. Foreign militants were among the dead, and one of them was thought to be Abu Khabab Masri, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.