Terrorism

A day after an anti-Semite allegedly shot and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, experts disagreed about whether it was an isolated event or the latest sign of a growing threat by domestic hate groups. The danger appeared to come from two directions: far-right fanatics who feed on domestic conspiracy theories and Muslim extremists who oppose U.S. policies abroad. Both have launched deadly attacks in recent weeks.

The daughter of a suspect accused of plotting to bomb New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport is free on $50 bond following her detention on suspicion of weapons possession unrelated to the alleged plot. Sauda Kadir, 31, said police detained her after they saw photos taken last Christmas showing relatives posing with "toy guns." Her father, Abdul Kadir, was arrested this month in Trinidad and Tobago, accused with three others of plotting to blow up a jet fuel artery feeding the airport.

Despite President-elect Barack Obama's call to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and end its war crimes tribunals, it could take years to shut the facility. Like a mammoth ocean liner, the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba cannot easily be turned from its original course as an interrogation site for suspected terrorists -- as Obama conceded Sunday.

Britain's foreign minister suggested that the U.S.-led war on terrorism may have "done more harm than good" as he issued a sharp rebuke Thursday to the Bush administration. David Miliband's speech at the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai was among the first public remarks from a senior British official criticizing how the Bush administration's battle against terrorism has been conducted since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

All charges against Guantanamo prisoners should be dropped in light of the admission by the top war-crimes tribunal official that some of the 22 men facing trial were tortured, the tribunal's defense chief said Friday. The letter to Convening Authority Susan J. Crawford urged her to clear the controversial court's slate before the Tuesday inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, who has vowed to shut Guantanamo as one of his first actions.

Add another casualty to the list of victims of the Mumbai attacks: the credibility of India's 24-hour television news channels. In the wake of the November assault that killed more than 170 people, India's TV channels, often accused of sensationalism, have come in for rebuke, accused of informing their viewers so quickly and completely that the alleged masterminds in Pakistan were able to tell the attackers what Indian security personnel were planning and when.

Afghan authorities said Tuesday that they had broken up a suicide bombing cell responsible for a string of attacks in the capital, including a massive explosion last month that killed an American serviceman and wounded five other U.S. soldiers.

An Afghan delegation will join a U.S.-led policy review of the war in the region, President Hamid Karzai and U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke announced Sunday. Karzai and Holbrooke were overtly cordial to each other in a 13-minute media briefing at which neither took questions. Holbrooke allowed Karzai to announce that President Obama had approved the request for the Afghan delegation. Holbrooke also said the U.S. supported the announcement of the Aug.

A Tustin man of Afghan origin, who failed to mention in his application for U.S. citizenship that his brother-in-law is designated as an Al Qaeda terrorist, appeared in federal court Friday to answer charges that could send him to prison for 35 years. Ahmadullah Sais Niazi's detention hearing in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana was postponed until Tuesday, but the 34-year-old defendant used the occasion to accuse federal agents of trying to force him to become an informant. "I was blackmailed.

Over the strong objections of the government, a federal judge in Orange County agreed to grant bail Tuesday for the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden's alleged security coordinator in a case that is stirring debate about the FBI's use of informants. Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, a Tustin man of Afghan origin who earned his U.S. citizenship five years ago, would be electronically monitored and confined to his home if his family can guarantee $500,000 bail.