Iraqi army reinforcements moved Sunday into positions near the northern city of Mosul, ready to strike al-Qaeda in Iraq targets in their last urban stronghold, a top Iraqi officer said.
Maj. Gen. Riyad Jalal, a senior officer in the Mosul region, said the additional forces were encamping in an Iraqi base near the city, and would open an offensive against al-Qaeda fighters “immediately after all the added troops arrive.”
Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.
U.S. marshals escort Jose Padilla from a helicopter in Miami, Florida, in January 2006.
1 of 2 The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke marks another step in the extraordinary personal and legal odyssey for the 37-year-old Muslim convert, a U.S. citizen who was held for 3½ years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest amid the “dirty bomb” allegations. He had faced up to life in prison.
Judging by hundreds of questions submitted online to al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, it seems the terror network’s self-proclaimed supporters are as much in the dark about its operations and plans as Western analysts and intelligence agencies.
Al Qaeda’s No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, seen here in a 2001, was supposedly taking questions via the Internet.
Among their concerns: Where will it strike next? Does it control small militant groups in the Mideast and Europe? Why hasn’t it hit America again?
Al Qaeda’s media arm, Al-Sahab, announced last month that Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, would take questions from the public in an “online interview.”
Security agencies in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province have arrested a teenaged boy on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
Aitezaz Shah, 15, was arrested on Thursday in Dera Ismail Khan town in the NWFP, 280 km southwest of Islamabad, security sources told Al Jazeera on Saturday.
Shah, who hails from Karachi, told investigators that he was part of a squad of five suicide bombers sent by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud to assassinate Bhutto in Rawalpindi, the sources said.
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida’s American spokesman urged fighters to meet President Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East, according to a new video posted on the Internet Sunday.