Al Qaeda Organization

A federal prosecutor urged a jury Thursday to convict seven Miami men on terrorism conspiracy charges for an alleged plot to bomb Chicago's Sears Tower, saying they offered themselves as a ready-made cell to a man they believed was an emissary from Al Qaeda. But defense attorneys for two of the men on trial called the case an outrageous example of government entrapment, in which the men pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and promised to commit criminal acts in hopes of getting $50,000.

President Obama said Monday that the U.S. would press ahead with its offensive against terrorist cells worldwide, just minutes after an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Yemen claimed responsibility for the airplane bombing attempt over Detroit on Christmas Day. "This was a serious reminder of the dangers that we face and the nature of those who threaten our homeland," Obama said in his first comments about the incident aboard a Northwest Airlines flight...

Three men alleged to be Al Qaeda associates were charged Friday with conspiring to smuggle cocaine through Africa -- the first U.S. prosecution linking the terrorist group directly to drug trafficking. The three suspects, who were charged in federal court in New York, are believed to be from Mali and were arrested in Ghana during a Drug Enforcement Administration sting. Although U.S. authorities have alleged that Al Qaeda and the Taliban profit from Afghanistan's heroin trade, the case is the first in which suspects linked to Al Qaeda have been charged under severe narco-terrorism laws, federal officials said.

The U.S. handed over its largest reward in the campaign to wipe out Al Qaeda-linked militants in the southern Philippines, giving $10 million to Philippine informants in the killing of two top terrorism suspects. Four masked informants collected on promised $5-million rewards against Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadafi Abubakar Janjalani, who was slain in a September clash on southern Jolo island, and against his presumed successor, Abu Solaiman, who was killed on Jolo in January. More than 7,000 U.S.

An Al Qaeda paymaster who disbursed money to the Sept. 11 hijackers shared a credit card account with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, establishing the first known link between the plot and the man U.S. officials believe conceived it, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress in testimony that was declassified Thursday. The tie to Mohammed--among the Al Qaeda operatives most wanted by U.S.

U.S. counterintelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Al Qaeda sympathizers or operatives may have tried to get jobs at the CIA and other U.S. agencies in an effort to spy on American counterterrorist efforts. So far, about 40 Americans who sought positions at U.S. intelligence agencies have been red-flagged and turned away for possible ties to terrorist groups, the officials said. Several such applicants have been detected at the CIA.

Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman Zawahiri, said Britain's transfer of security in southern Iraq shows that insurgents are gaining the upper hand in the country. "Reports from Iraq point to the increasing power of the mujahedin and the deteriorating condition of the Americans," Zawahiri told an off-camera interviewer from Al Sahab, the terrorist network's media arm, in a video posted on the Internet on Sunday. The video had English subtitles.

A federal grand jury in New York indicted a Denver man on a terrorism charge Thursday after federal authorities alleged that he and possibly three others had gone on a buying spree of bomb-making chemicals and were preparing an attack on U.S. soil. The one-count indictment alleges that Najibullah Zazi, 24, worked for more than a year on a plot to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. Justice Department documents did not name the alleged co-conspirators, but said that three other Denver-area residents had bought unusual amounts of chemicals from beauty-supply stores, including hydrogen peroxide and acetone, which can be used to make explosives.

The suicide bomber who killed eight people at a CIA compound in Afghanistan was a Jordanian recruited by that nation's spy service who lured operatives to a meeting with a promise of important new information about Al Qaeda's inner circle, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official. The bombing last week killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer who is believed to have served as the main point of contact with the informant. The disclosure that the deadliest incident in recent CIA history may have been the work of a double agent suggests a new level of sophistication in Al Qaeda's efforts to retaliate against the agency, which is responsible for an intense campaign of Predator drone strikes on the terrorist network in Pakistan over the last two years.

Accused Al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah Marri on Thursday pleaded guilty to supporting the architects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a plea agreement entered before U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm in Peoria, Ill., Marri admitted to one count of conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.