Terrorists

Like many folks in this tranquil town, Patty Liberty has no problem living just down the road from some of the world's most notorious terrorists. Zacarias Moussaoui, known as "the 20th hijacker" for his attempts to join in the Sept. 11 attacks, resides at the supermax prison just outside the city limits. So do would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid and Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski lives there too.

The death of Abu Laith al Libi, a Libyan Al Qaeda chief, has cast a spotlight on the rise of Libyan militants in a network dominated by Egyptians and Saudis, Western anti-terrorism investigators say. Al Libi was killed last week in an American missile strike on a hide-out in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, officials say. In addition to overseeing a paramilitary campaign in Afghanistan, Al Libi had become a top figure in a propaganda barrage on the Internet, according to experts.

For more than two decades, Imad Mughniyah was among the most wanted terrorists on Earth, a top Hezbollah commander with close ties to Iranian intelligence, pursued by the United States, Israel and other nations for attacks that killed hundreds of their civilians and soldiers. Known as the Fox, Mughniyah was a frustratingly elusive figure to his pursuers -- accused of many acts of terrorism, convicted of none.

They are politicians and businessmen, bureaucrats and pharmacists, a police commander and a TV journalist. Police arrested them and seized an arsenal in nationwide raids this month, the biggest crackdown in Morocco since suicide bombings killed 45 people, including the 12 bombers, in Casablanca five years ago. During the last week, Moroccans have clustered on rainy mornings around kiosks along this capital's colonnaded downtown avenues, marveling at the latest newspaper reports on the case.

If Al Qaeda strikes the West in the coming months, it's likely the mastermind will be a stocky Egyptian explosives expert with two missing fingers. His alias is Abu Ubaida al Masri. Hardly anyone has heard of him outside a select circle of anti-terrorism officials and Islamic militants. But as chief of external operations for Al Qaeda, investigators say, he has one of the most dangerous -- and endangered -- jobs in international terrorism.

Abu Ubaida al Masri, a suspected mastermind of Al Qaeda plots including the London transportation bombings of 2005, has died of an infectious disease in Pakistan, Western anti-terrorism officials said Wednesday. The Egyptian militant is thought to have died of hepatitis C, a U.S. anti-terrorism official said.

An Al Qaeda in Iraq leader blamed in the 2004 capture and slaying of an Army reservist has been killed in a raid here, the U.S. military said Thursday. Acting on a tip, U.S. forces carried out the raid Nov. 11 in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood, killing Haji Hammadi and another armed insurgent, a military statement said. Hammadi was accused in the capture and killing of Staff Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin, 20.

Two years after being routed from Somalia's capital, an anti-Western Islamic movement is poised for a comeback in the besieged Horn of Africa nation. Although the movement is divided by competing ideologies and goals, it has nonetheless made many gains recently through a combination of brutal force and political dialogue. The militant wing, Shabab, which claims affiliation to Al Qaeda, now controls 90% of southern Somalia, including parts of the capital, Mogadishu.

Protesters from Kuwait to the Cuban countryside to the Miami military headquarters that commands Guantanamo Bay denounced Thursday the Pentagon's indefinite detention of terrorism suspects at the offshore prison, which opened five years ago. Hooded protesters in orange jumpsuits demonstrated outside U.S. embassies throughout Europe, and rights activists marked the date with demands for the release or trial of the remaining 395 men at the prison in southern Cuba.

Islamic extremists involved in a deadly Jan. 3 gun battle with police in Tunisia had blueprints of foreign embassies and documents naming foreign envoys, Interior Minister Rafik Belhaj Kacem said. He did not identify the embassies or diplomats. At least 14 people, including two members of the security forces, were killed in the shootout in Soliman, 25 miles south of the capital, Tunis. Fifteen people were arrested.