Word: jihadist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Spain now permits holding terror suspects incommunicado for up to 13 days. France boasts a raft of harsh laws dating from the mid-'80s when its terrorist threat began evolving from leftist radicals toward jihadists. A suspect can be tried for "associating with wrongdoers involved in a terrorist enterprise," detained without charge for up to six days - and, once charged, jailed for three years before trial. One French case now approaching the three-year mark is that of Djamel Beghal, a veteran of al-Qaeda's Afghan camps. After being arrested in the Dubai airport, Beghal confessed...
...expanding religious dimension to the insurgency presents fresh challenges for the U.S. as it tries to stamp out the resistance and prepare Iraq for self-rule. U.S. officials have long believed that jihadists threaten the stability of Iraq because of their willingness to commit suicide attacks, even against civilians. Saddam's arrest may have enhanced the appeal of jihadist groups to Iraqis. A senior U.S. intelligence official in Washington says jihadist leaders are rallying recruits by telling them that "now that Saddam's gone, the U.S. doesn't have the excuse of being there to eliminate the old regime...
...jihadists are stirring up those sentiments in the one place that generally remains off limits to the Americans: the mosque. U.S. and Iraqi officials say a worrying number of mosques are providing support for insurgents, whether jihadist, Baathist or both. Early this month U.S. and Iraqi troops raided Ibn Taymiyah mosque in Baghdad, arresting the mosque's imam and 31 suspected militants and uncovering a cache of weaponry. Still, according to a senior military official, U.S. forces in Iraq have conducted relatively few raids inside mosques for fear of offending ordinary Iraqis. Says the official: "You could win the battle...
What remains unclear is whether the jihadists can ever command the popular support required to become a sustainable guerrilla force. Military analysts say that while the jihadists' numbers are growing, the insurgency still doesn't constitute a significant threat to U.S. forces. "We're dealing with onesies and twosies," says retired Army Lieut. Colonel Ralph Peters, referring to the number of insurgents typically involved in each assault. "We're not dealing with waves of Iraqis coming over the walls of our compounds in mass attacks." Khaled, the leader of the jihadist cell outside Baghdad, acknowledges that U.S. forces have killed...
Meanwhile, passenger lists for Air France flights scheduled around Christmas included about a dozen names that were "of interest," says a U.S. intelligence official. Most notable was a name matching that of a Tunisian jihadist who holds a pilot's license. On Christmas Eve six Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles were summarily canceled. "The Americans came to us with extremely detailed and explicit intelligence information," says a French official. "The Americans felt with so many questions still looming, the safest thing would be to cancel the flights--an opinion we shared. It's as simple as that...