Our colleague Kim Segal got these mugshots of two brothers earlier today accused of plotting to use an explosive device and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists.
Raees Alam Qazi, on the left, is 20 years old and the younger brother. Sheheryar Alam Qazi is 30.
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis was indicted Thursday on charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and trying to provide material support to al Qaeda in a foiled effort to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City.
Nafis - a 21-year-old exchange student - is accused of plotting to detonate a bomb outside of the bank in October.
Radical cleric Abu Qatada was released from jail on bail today, following a successful appeal Monday against deportation from the United Kingdom to face terror charges in Jordan.
It's the latest stage in a long-running battle over British efforts to deport the man accused of funding terrorist groups and said to have inspired one of the 9/11 hijackers.
[Updated at 11:05 a.m. ET] Abu Qatada is expected to be released on Tuesday, but his bail conditions are still being set, Britain’s Judicial Communications Office said Monday.
Britain's Special Immigration Appeals Commission upheld the radical cleric's appeal against deportation to Jordan earlier Monday
[Posted at 7:47 a.m. ET] Radical cleric Abu Qatada has won a legal battle that means he will not be deported from the United Kingdom to Jordan, the latest round in a long-running battle over British efforts to deport the man accused of funding terrorist groups and said to have inspired one of the 9/11 hijackers.
[Update 5:50 a.m. ET] The car bomb exploded outside a recruiting center about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Baghdad. Four of the dead were soldiers, but most were recruits, police officials said.
[Update 5:40 a.m. ET] Baghdad police officials have upped the death toll from the attack to at least 26 people. Another 30 have been wounded.
[Posted at 5:01 a.m. ET] Three Iraqi soldiers were killed and 11 others were wounded today when a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army base in an area with many Sunni and Shiite residents, police officials said.
Saudi Arabia's king has named Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as interior minister, making him the first in the next generation of the Saudi royal family to rise to such a powerful post.
King Abdullah issued the royal order ousting Interior Minister Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, who had been named to the position in June and is Prince Nayef's uncle, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.
Construction work has started again at ground zero, site of the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, which was flooded by Superstorm Sandy.
About 750 workers are back at it, now that more than 95% of the storm surge at the 16-acre site has been pumped out, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced.
A grenade flew into a Kenyan church today, turning a prayer service into carnage.
The attack in Garissa, a city in northeastern Kenya, killed at least one person and wounded at least 13 others. At least two are in critical condition. It was the latest in a slew of similar attacks in the country.
Pakistani police say they suspect two boys were responsible for the attack that nearly killed a Pakistani teenage girl internationally famous for campaigning for girls' education.
On October 9, Malala Yousufzai was on her school van in the Taliban-held Swat Valley when armed thugs stopped the vehicle and jumped on board. They demanded that other girls riding identify 15-year-old Malala. Then they shot two girls and fired at Malala, striking her in the head and neck.
FULL STORYA Sunni extremist group with links to al Qaeda is claiming responsibility for bombs that exploded in Iraq over the weekend.
A wave of attacks shook Iraqis as they were celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid.
Eleven suspects were arrested Saturday as Indonesian anti-terror police carried out a series of raids which also uncovered bombs and explosives, state media reported.
Police said operations were carried out in Madiun, East Java, Solo in Central Java, Bogor in West Java and Palmerah, as well as Kebong Kacang in Jakarta, according to the official Antara news agency.
"Explosives have been found in the form of bombs or materials ready for use," National Police headquarters spokesman Insp. Gen. Suhardi Alius is quoted as saying.
FULL STORY
Editor's note: Fifteen-year-old Malala Yousufzai of Pakistan was shot in the head by the Taliban on October 9 for demanding education for girls. She is receiving treatment at a hospital in England. Following are the latest developments in Malala's recovery.
[Updated 8:08 a.m. ET] Malala Yousufzai’s lead doctor, Dave Rosser, does not believe she has significant brain damage.
Someone in an Afghan police uniform killed two U.S. troops today - the latest in a string of insider attacks this year.
The attack in Uruzgan Province is being investigated, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan said. More than 50 people have been killed in these so-called "green-on-blue" incidents this year. The Afghan government calls the attacks terrorism.
[Updated 9:56 a.m.] An official with the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not authorized to speak on the record, condemned today's attack. Previously, the ministry has said it lodged a complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad about drone strikes in Pakistani territory on October 10 and 11. The ministry called those "a clear violation of international law and Pakistan’s sovereignty."
[Posted 8:03 a.m.] Missiles blew up part of a compound Wednesday in northwest Pakistan, killing three people - including one woman - a government official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday she has "absolutely no information or reason to believe there is any basis" to suggest that U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens believed he was on an al Qaeda hit list.
The remark came after a source familiar with his thinking told CNN that in the months leading up to his death, Stevens worried about constant security threats in Benghazi and mentioned that his name was on an al Qaeda hit list.
Stevens spoke about a rise in Islamic extremism and al Qaeda's growing presence in Libya, the source said.
The White House, for the first time Thursday, declared the attack that killed Stevens and three other people a terrorist attack.
FULL STORY
A former Navy SEAL who wrote a book about his personal account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden could be penalized for not first seeking military approval of its contents before publication, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.
"I think we have to take steps to make clear to him and to the American people that we're not going to accept this kind of behavior," Panetta told CBS' "This Morning" program, which broadcast the interview on Tuesday.
"If we don't, then everybody else who pledges to ensure that that doesn't happen is going to get the wrong signal that somehow they can do it without any penalty," Panetta said.
Newly published "No Easy Day" was written by Matt Bissonnette under the pseudonym Mark Owen. The book was not pre-approved by the Pentagon.
The new book "No Easy Day" by former U.S. Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, who wrote under the name Mark Owen, gained widespread attention because of his firsthand account of how he and other members of SEAL Team Six killed Osama bin Laden.
On Sunday night, Bissonnette shared more of the intimate details of the mission in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes."
Bissonnette wore heavy makeup and his voice was disguised as he described what he said was not just a "kill-only" mission, but a chance to capture the mastermind of the September 11 attacks alive, if possible.
FIRST ON CNN: Pentagon double checked actions of SEALs during bin Laden raid
"We weren't sent in to murder him. This was, 'Hey, kill or capture,'" he told interviewer Scott Pelley. Bissonnette said that in the weeks leading up to the mission, the SEALs trained on a full-size model of the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where they would eventually kill bin Laden. It was rare, Bissonnette said, to get 100 chances to train on a mock-up like that for three weeks.
Bissonnette said that while it was the most important mission he would ever be a part of, much of what the team members did was routine, until the moment they could finally exhale, knowing they had killed their biggest target.
Below are some of the most interesting exchanges between Bissonnette and Pelley, according to CBS transcripts, about the preparation for the mission, the raid itself and his reaction to it all when it was finally over.
On how they cleared the house as they hunted for bin Laden after taking early fire:
Matt Bissonnette: Guys start making their way up the stairs. And it's quiet. It's pitch black in the house. No lights. All night vision. Get to the second floor. Intel had said, "Hey, we think that Khalid, his son, lives on the second floor."
Scott Pelley: This is Osama bin Laden's son?
Bissonnette: Yeah. The guy in front of me who is point man, he sees the head pop out and disappear really quick around the corner. He's like, "OK, you know, what – who is it? What do you think?" "Yeah, I don't know." He literally whispers, not amped up, not yelling, not anything. He whispers, "Hey, Khalid. Khalid." He whispers Khalid's name. Doesn't know if it's Khalid or not. Khalid literally looks back around the edge of the hall. And he shoots him. What was Khalid thinking at that time? Look around the corner. Curiosity killed the cat. I guess Khalid too.
Pelley: Somebody started shooting at you from inside the house? And the bullets were coming through the door?
Bissonnette: Yep. Immediately, my buddy who was standing up started returning fire. I could – yeah, I kind of rolled away from the door, blindly returned fire back through. You couldn't see what was on the other side. And then it went quiet. Thankfully, the SEAL that was there with me, that initially returned fire with me spoke Arabic. So he immediately started calling out to the people inside. Started hearing the metal latch on the inside of the door. Are they gonna come out with a suicide vest? Are they gonna throw a hand grenade out? Are they gonna, you know, spray their AK? Door opens up, a female holding a kid, couple kids right behind her.
Pelley: You got your finger on your trigger and you're looking at a woman with her children?
Bissonnette: Yeah, yeah. Split second. I mean, we had just received fire. My buddy's speaking Arabic. And he's asking her, you know, "Hey, where's your husband? What's going on?" She – and – and she replies back to him, "He's dead. You shot him."
On how they killed bin Laden, but weren't sure it was him:
Pelley: Khalid is dead on this landing. The point man is stepping past Khalid. And now, you're No. 2 in the stack. You're right behind the point man?
Bissonnette: Yep. I'm kinda trying to look around him. Hear him take a couple shots. Kind of see a head – somebody disappear back into the room.
It’s already No. 1 on Amazon’s bestseller list.
Like little kids with the latest Harry Potter sequel, Washington and the rest of the world will be eagerly thumbing through “No Easy Day” when it hits bookshelves Tuesday. The memoir of a Navy SEAL who helped kill Osama bin Laden in May 2011 purports to tell the full story of how the globe’s most-wanted terrorist met his end.
Mentions of the book's author spiked on Twitter on Thursday morning, as did the term "Navy SEAL book." About 4,500 mentions were made by mid-morning. The book was mentioned more than 8,000 times on August 22, when news broke of its release.
Carl Carver tweeted, "This sort of thing is NOT healing relations in Middle East, predicted as the starting point of WWIII !"
"It seems like once a year since I graduated college I get super excited for a book release, this year No Easy Day by Mark Owen is that book," Drake Stahr tweeted.
The RangerUp fan page on Facebook, a popular spot for military folks, had a range of comments.
A U.S. soldier laid out an elaborate plot by a group of active and former military members to overthrow the government, telling a southeast Georgia court Monday that he was part of what prosecutors called an "an anarchist group and militia."
Dressed in his Army uniform, Pfc. Michael Burnett spoke in a Long County court about the group of Army soldiers and its role in the December deaths of a former soldier Michael Roark and his teenage girlfriend Tiffany York. Roark, he said, was killed because he allegedly took money from the group and planned to leave.
"I don't know how it got to the point where two people got murdered," Burnett said in court.
Burnett talked about how he and three others accused - Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, Sgt. Anthony Peden and Pvt. Christopher Salmon - had first begun getting together "just going out shooting guns, just guy stuff."
"And then Aguigui introduced me to 'the manuscript,' that's what he called it, a book about true patriots," the soldier said.
The four men became part of a group that aimed "to give the government back to the people," according to Burnett, who admitted that revolution was its goal. They called it FEAR - Forever Enduring Always Ready, and spent thousands buying guns and bomb parts.
The government needed a change, Burnett told the court. "I thought we were the people who would be able to change it."
Assistant District Attorney Isabel Pauley said it was "unknown" how many others belonged to the group. She identified Aguigui as the leader of what she described as "an anarchist group and militia" that included active and former troops.
"Defendant Aguigui actively recruited new members at Fort Stewart and targeted soldiers who were in trouble or disillusioned," she said.
At the time of their arrest, group members had plotted a number of "acts of domestic terror," the prosecutor said.
FULL STORY
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Comments: Hope, inspiration born from tragedy 11 years after 9/11
Editor's note: We're listening to you. Every day, we spot thought-provoking comments from readers. What follows is a look at some of the posts we noticed today.
As we look back on the September 11 attacks, the now-traditional twin beams of light seem to draw an 11 in the sky over New York. iReporter Rachel Cauvin shared the above image 11 years since this defining moment in U.S. history. We're hearing from readers on a variety of stories about this day.
Elizabeth and Stephen Alderman wrote an opinion article about their youngest child, Peter, who died on 9/11 at age 25. They established the Peter C. Alderman Foundation in his honor in 2003. We heard from several readers who were touched by the story.
After 9/11, how we honor our son's memory
Some could sadly relate and found hope from the story.
Others said they found inspiration. FULL POST
Filed under: Comments • September 11 • U.S.