al qaeda

A sherriff's deputy in Georgia warned middle school kids last week that they could end up on the government's terrorist watch list for life if they were caught making bomb threats against their school. The deputy in Oglethorpe County was speaking to an assembly of 10- to 15-year-olds after eight of their fellow students were charged with making terrorist threats for leaving threatening notes in their school hallways.

The top two U.S. intelligence officials traveled secretly to Pakistan this month to press President Pervez Musharraf to allow the CIA greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups are all active, according to several officials who have been briefed on the visit.

An MSNBC correspondent compares Ron Paul to a terrorist on live television, claiming he represents the al-Qaeda wing of his party.

A 15-year-old boy arrested by Pakistani puppet authorities has reportedly confessed to joining a team of assassins sent to kill Benazir Bhutto. The teenager was reportedly arrested in the town of Dera Ismail Khan in North West Frontier province. In addition to the Bhutto assassination, the boy also "confessed" of plotting to attack Shiites during their ‘Ashura festival on Sunday.

The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency's custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the CIA's secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

Hundreds of emergency responders descend on Fort Lee for a mock terrorist attack today. They are there to prepare, should disaster really strike. It’s called “Talon Shield” and it is only a drill. But to those training at the army base, it's has to be as real as possible because if disaster strikes, it’s communication between all of those first responders that can make the difference between life and death.

A message to all those concerned with the 2008 presidential election - Republican, Democratic and independent: it's irrelevant. Who cares whether your candidate is for or against abortion or gay marriage or tweaking the health care system? Who cares how he/she feels about Ronald Reagan? Who cares if they are for or against impeachment? It's as irrelevant as Jimmy Carter's observations on George W. Bush are not. We, as Americans, are in a vast state of denial. We're acting as if everything is OK, as if times were normal, as if we can carry on, in 2008, as though the Bush administration never happened. But everything that has not already changed is changing now.

"Another [9/11 type terrorist] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets" (Statement by Pentagon official, leaked to the Washington Post, 23 April 2006)

The US government is building a massive database designed to identify individual terror suspects from fingerprints on objects such as a tea glass in an Iraqi apartment or a shell casing in an abandoned Al Qaeda training camp. The database is being created in part by forensic specialists searching for and preserving evidence overseas. They are collecting unidentified latent fingerprints in places once occupied by Al Qaeda and other suspected terrorists.