Word: al-qaeda
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...case in late 2005, the Bush Justice Department moved the case to federal court in Miami, where Padilla was convicted of providing material support to terrorists and other charges. The Obama Administration followed suit by moving al-Marri's case to federal court shortly after taking office - the suspect pleaded guilty last April to conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda. (See the top 10 inept terrorist plots...
...face of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon, killing eight members of the Beirut station, among many others. But this suicide bomber, a Jordanian doctor named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was the CIA's worst ever security breach. In an era when grandmothers are routinely screened at airports, al-Balawi was whisked into Forward Operating Base Chapman, the CIA headquarters for the drone war against al-Qaeda, without so much as a pat-down. He was then ushered into a meeting with 13 CIA operatives and his Jordanian handler. (See a pictorial history...
...base, with fewer handlers. But everyone wanted to evaluate this guy in the flesh. The fact that al-Balawi wasn't given even a rudimentary security screening speaks to the credibility he had built up over time, feeding valuable information to Jordan's General Intelligence Department, a trusted CIA partner. "This was an extremely sophisticated, well-thought-out operation," a former senior intelligence official told me. "It took years to set up. And quite frankly, we didn't think al-Qaeda had that capability." (Several intelligence sources told me they thought the operation was run out of the al-Qaeda...
...there was also a quieter and potentially more profound reaction: Given the skill of this operation, how trustworthy are the other sources the CIA has been using to help target its drone attacks against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan? The standard claim has been that the CIA's human intelligence against al-Qaeda - and other threats - has improved dramatically in recent years. "In a very perverse way, this attack may be the best testimony of all that human intelligence has improved," said the former official. But spies are, by nature, paranoid, and there will be suspicion now that...
...with al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen has renewed attention on the nation as a breeding ground for extremists. Saleh - a professed U.S. Ally - has promised action and indeed has sent hundreds of extra soldiers to the front lines of al-Qaeda-dominated territory east of Sana'a. But U.S. officials view him as a fickle leader facing a difficult array of threats - from a sectarian rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, to say nothing of dwindling water supplies and oil reserves. In the past, the Yemeni government has been lax about the threat from al...