| March 19, 2008 | - Senator John McCain visited Jordan and told reporters that it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran.” Senator Joe Lieberman was seen whispering into McCain's ear, after which McCain apologized. “The Iranians are training extremists,” he explained. “Not Al Qaeda.” Later, in Jerusalem, a fistfight among photographers, soldiers, police officers, and tourists erupted at McCain's Western Wall photo shoot, resulting in damage to several pairs of sunglasses.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| March 14, 2008 | - Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad, as did a U.S. congressional delegation that included presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who, earlier in the week, admitted to fears that Al Qaeda or another extremist group might increase their attacks in Iraq in an attempt to hurt his chances in the U.S. election.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
TPM
|
| March 4, 2008 | - The U.S. Navy fired missiles into southern Somalia, targeting what the Pentagon called a “known Al Qaeda
terrorist.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 4, 2008 | - The Pentagon said that nine Iraqi civilians had been killed in a strike intended for militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
| Source:
U.S. Says It Accidentally Killed 9 Iraqi Civilians
|
| January 31, 2008 | - Abu Laith al Libi, alleged to be a high-ranking Libyan member of Al Qaeda, was killed in a missile strike in Pakistan.
| Source:
Top Al Qaeda Leader Killed
|
| December 12, 2007 | - Members of a North African faction of Al Qaeda detonated bombs at the U.N. complex in Algeria and at the country's Supreme Court, killing at least 26 people and injuring more than 170.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| December 11, 2007 | - John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of an Al Qaeda
terrorist suspect who was waterboarded, conceded that waterboarding was torture but asserted that its use “probably saved lives.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| December 7, 2007 | - It was revealed that the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes of harsh interrogations of suspected Al Qaeda operatives. CIA director Michael Hayden claimed that this was done to protect CIA employees from possible retaliation by militants, and that congressional oversight committees had been notified. Representative Rush Holt, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, recalled asking “many times” whether such tapes existed. "They said, 'What tapes?'”
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
WP
Source 3:
NYT
Source 4:
LAT
Source 5:
NYT
|
| November 16, 2007 | - Alleged Al Qaeda treasurer Abdelhamid Sadaoui was killed in Tizi Ouzou by the Algerian army.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| November 2, 2007 | - Sunni leaders in Anbar province lobbied the United States for billions of dollars as a reward for joining the fight against Al Qaeda.
| Source:
Yahoo! News
|
| September 13, 2007 | - Sunni sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the leader of the “Anbar Awakening,” who had recently been photographed shaking Bush's hand, was assassinated. “His death has squeezed our heart,” said Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, head of a rival tribal organization. “Now, I swear to God, if we will hear anyone is with Al Qaeda, even if he is still inside his mother's womb, we will kill him.”
| Source 1:
BBC
Source 2:
WaPo
|
| September 9, 2007 | - Frances Fragos Townsend, the top homeland security adviser to President Bush, said that a new videotape released by Osama bin Laden showed that the Al Qaeda leader was “virtually impotent.”
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| September 8, 2007 | -
Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for two suicide bombs that killed at least 50 people in Algeria.
| Source:
BBC
|
| August 21, 2007 | - The CIA's inspector general released a report recommending that former CIA director George Tenet and other senior officials be held accountable for failing to prepare for the threat of Al Qaeda before the September 11 attacks.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 13, 2007 | - Anonymous sources told a reporter that purported Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was told by his American captors, “We're not going to kill you. But we're going to take you to the very brink of your death and back.” Sources also said Mohammed was kept naked in his cell, hung by his arms from the ceiling, and flung against the walls by a leash around his neck. Daniel Pearl's widow and father expressed doubts about the egomaniacal detainee's claim that he beheaded the Wall Street Journal reporter.
| Source:
New Yorker
|
| July 24, 2007 | - President George W. Bush delivered a speech intended as a “surge of facts” to refute claims that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is not connected to Osama bin Laden.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 2, 2007 | - Police found a pair of Mercedes-Benz sedans filled with gasoline and nails parked in the center of London, and two men crashed a Jeep Cherokee into the glass doors of Terminal One at Glasgow Airport. The vehicle failed to penetrate the doors, but the driver poured gasoline over himself and the Jeep, and the Jeep blazed. The throng of travelers in the terminal stampeded away from the inferno, and the flaming driver staggered out of the Jeep, threw punches, and shouted, “Allah, Allah.” The crowd of travelers in the terminal stampeded away from the fireball. Stephen Clarkson, a bystander, pounced on the burning man. “I managed to knock the fellow to the ground,” said Clarkson. “His clothes had partially burned from his body. His hair was on fire. His whole body was on fire.” Police arrested the charred driver and the unscathed passenger. The discovery of a suspicious device on the driver’s person resulted in the evacuation of the hospital where his burns were being treated, and authorities blew up a suspicious car in the hospital parking lot. Detectives blamed an eight-person Al Qaeda cell controlled by someone they called “Mr. Big” and commenced raids. Three suspected collaborators of the would-be suicide bombers, including a 27-year-old woman, were apprehended.
| Source:
Telegraph
|
| June 7, 2007 | - In Iraq, the Sunni-dominated Islamic
Army announced that it would no longer threaten the “project of Jihad” by continuing to fight Al Qaeda.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| May 25, 2007 | -
Congress passed a bill allocating $100 billion for war spending without a timetable for troop withdrawal. Congressional
Democrats allowed the vote to reach the House and Senate floors despite widespread opposition among their ranks because they didn't want to go on Memorial Day break while soldiers remained wanting. Ten Democratic senators including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton voted against the bill. “I was very disappointed to see Senator Obama and Senator Clinton embrace the policy of surrender,” said Senator John McCain. “This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it's the equivalent of waving a white flag to Al Qaeda.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters she would “never vote for such a thing” just before finalizing the bill with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who called the legislation proof of “great progress.” Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin told his Democratic colleagues that he would reluctantly support the measure because “we do not have it within our power to make the will of America the law of the land.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
Washington Post
|
| May 24, 2007 | - The Defense Department released a how-to guide recovered from an “Al Qaeda
torture chamber” near Baghdad. The manual illustrates interrogation techniques such as “eye removal,” “drilling hands,” and “blowtorch to the skin,” and was found along with whips, wire cutters, pliers, handcuffs, hammers, electric drills, screwdrivers, meat cleavers, and a person suspended from the safe-house ceiling.
| Source 1:
FOX News
Source 2:
The Smoking Gun
|
| May 8, 2007 | - The trial of Rafiq Sabir, a physician charged with conspiring to provide medical care to Al Qaeda, began. Evidence presented in the case included a recording of jazz bassist and martial-arts expert Tarik Shah, a good friend of Sabir's, teaching an FBI informant how to rip out a throat. “It fills their lungs with blood,” he explained.
| Source:
NYT
|
| May 1, 2007 | - The Iraqi interior ministry claimed that the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq had been killed.
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| February 20, 2007 | -
British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that he would bring home more than 1,600 of the 7,100 British troops in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney said that the withdrawal was “an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well”; he also said that breaking “the will of the American people” was Al Qaeda's strategy. “They win because we quit.” “Dick was always very realistic,” said Kenneth Adelman, an arms-control official in the Reagan Administration and friend to Cheney. “I don't really understand how month after month he gets briefings showing Iraq's getting worse and worse, and he engages in all this happy talk.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Fox News
Source 3:
Washington Post
|
| January 11, 2007 | - U.S. air strikes in Somalia killed seven people. Somali officials believed the dead included Al Qaeda operative Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, reputed mastermind of the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but U.S. officials said they were still chasing him.
| Source 1:
Yahoo! News
Source 2:
CBS News
|
| December 1, 2006 | - The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness team issued a “situational awareness report” warning of an Al Qaeda “cyber threat.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 12, 2006 | - Adam Pearlman, the “American Al Qaeda,” was charged with treason, making him the first U.S. citizen so indicted since World War II.
| Source:
CBS News
|
| September 28, 2006 | - The new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed that 4,000 foreign insurgents have died since the 2003 invasion.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| September 8, 2006 | - A declassified CIA intelligence report concluded that prior to the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein “did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or Al Qaeda.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 8, 2006 | -
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman lost the Democratic
Senate primary election to anti-Iraq-war candidate Ned Lamont. Lieberman then announced that he would run as an independent candidate, and that “Team Connecticut” would “surge forward to victory.” Vice President Dick Cheney said that Lamont's victory was encouraging to “Al Qaeda types.”
| Source:
Chicago Sun-Times
|
| June 17, 2006 | - It was reported that a man named Abu Hamza Al Muhajer would take over for Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi, the assassinated leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. “He has left behind lions,” said Al Muhajer of Al Zarqawi, “that have been trained in his den.”
| Source:
Middle East Times
|
| June 9, 2006 | -
United States forces succeeded in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, with two five-hundred-pound bombs that were dropped on a safe house north of Baghdad. Zarqawi reportedly survived the bombing at first and even tried to get away but was strapped to a stretcher, where he died. The U.S. military denied reports that American soldiers had beaten the dying terrorist. "He died while American soldiers were attempting to save his life," said General George Casey. Al Qaeda promised to respond with “major attacks.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Bloomberg
Source 3:
New York Times
|
| April 26, 2006 | - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, released a video in which he showed his face and claimed that the Bush Administration had lied about its military victories. "America," said Zarqawi, "will go out of Iraq, humiliated, defeated."
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| April 10, 2006 | - It was revealed that the U.S. military had mounted a propaganda campaign, targeting Iraq and the United States, intended to make Abu Muab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader (or possibly former leader) of Al Qaeda in Iraq, appear more powerful than he is. One document describing the campaign was called “Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response.”
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| April 3, 2006 | - It was reported that Al Qaeda member Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was forced to step down as the leader of a coalition of Iraqi militant groups; he was replaced by a native Iraqi.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 10, 2006 | -
Al Qaeda was communicating via social networking website MySpace.com.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| February 24, 2006 | - In Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda attempted to bomb the Abqaiq oil facility but was thwarted. Two guards died in the attack.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
NineMSN
|
| February 5, 2006 | - Twenty-three people, 12 of them convicted Al Qaeda terrorists, escaped via a tunnel from a prison in Yemen. One of the escapees, Jamal Ahmed Badawi, had been sentenced to death for organizing the October 2000 attack on the destroyer U.S.S. Cole.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| January 15, 2006 | - The United States bombed Pakistan. The missiles were intended to kill Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was expected at a dinner; instead, 18 people were killed, including women and children, and al-Zawahiri remains alive.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| December 16, 2005 | - The Iraqi military announced that they had captured Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, but accidentally released him.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| November 30, 2005 | - Operation Steel Hammer, intended to end Al Qaeda operations in Hit, west of Baghdad, was launched with a force of 1,500 U.S. Marines, 500 U.S. Army soldiers, and 500 Iraqi soldiers.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| November 23, 2005 | - After three years in prison, U.S. citizen Jose Padilla was indicted on charges that he conspired to murder individuals overseas and provide support for terrorists; no mention was made of prior accusations that Padilla intended to use a “dirty bomb” or claims that he conspired with Al Qaeda to blow up U.S. apartment buildings. “The indictment,” explained a former Justice Department official, “is doubtless a strategy by the Bush Administration to avoid a Supreme Court ruling that would likely hold that U.S. citizens cannot be detained incommunicado as enemy combatants if they are detained on U.S. soil.”
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| November 5, 2005 | -
U.S. and Iraqi forces launched Operation Al Hajip Elfulathi (Steel Curtain) in Husaybah, a town on Iraq's Syrian border that serves as a transit point and staging area for militants. The offensive began on the third day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan. “Instead of having my family for a picnic in an amusement park,” said a refugee named Omar Obaidi, “I am taking them out of the town, walking and expecting death every moment.” A statement promising retaliation for the offensive, purported to be from Al Qaeda, was posted on a local mosque. In Baquba the spokesman for the Iraqi National Dialogue Council was shot five times.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| November 2, 2005 | - It was reported that the CIA had set up a secret system of prisons, called “black sites,” around the world. Originally intended solely for Al Qaeda leaders, the prisons now detain a number of people whose link to terrorism is less certain. “It's just a horrible burden,” said an intelligence official.
| Source:
The Washington Post
|
| October 31, 2005 | -
U.S. aircraft dropped explosives on a house in Iraq near the Syrian border, hoping to kill an Al Qaeda leader. An Iraqi doctor estimated 40 civilians were killed and 20 wounded in the precision bombing. "There are no insurgents in this area," said a tribal leader.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| September 14, 2005 | - Newly declassified portions of the 9/11 Commission Report revealed that the FAA had warned in 1998 that Al Qaeda operatives could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," although the FAA thought this was "unlikely."
| Source:
The Smoking Gun
|
| May 8, 2005 | - President George W. Bush announced the capture of a “major facilitator and chief planner for the Al Qaeda network.” The captured man turned out to be a mid-level Al Qaeda operative named Abu Faraj al-Libbi. “He used to make the coffee and do the photocopying,” said a former associate.
| Source:
Times Online
|
| March 29, 2005 | - Noting their mutual hatred of Jews, a neo-Nazi in Florida called on Al Qaeda to join forces with the Aryan Nations.
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| February 11, 2005 | - A report showed that, between April and September 2001, the Federal Aviation Administration received fifty-two reports about Al Qaeda's plans to hijack airplanes.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| January 19, 2005 | - Both Al Qaeda factions
| Source:
New York Daily News
|
| November 5, 2004 | - The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a group linked to Al Qaeda that claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings in March, released a statement chastising Americans for reelecting President Bush. "The coming days will show you that the one you preferred will lead you to an unbearable hell," the statement said. "The next days will show you that your support of the criminal will not bring you security and will not prevent the mujahedeen from hurting you where you are. The next days will prove this."
| Source:
Australian
|
| September 2, 2004 | - Investigators reported that Osama bin Laden apparently does not fund Al Qaeda operations with his personal fortune, as was previously believed.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| August 14, 2004 | -
Al Qaeda was reportedly planning a big assassination, and
| Source:
Agence France-Presse
|
| August 3, 2004 | - The United States raised its terror alert level and said that Al Qaeda might be planning to attack financial institutions in New York, Washington, and Newark, New Jersey. Howard Dean pointed out that, once again, the timing of a new federal terror alert was suspiciously convenient; other Democrats, such as Joseph Lieberman, denounced Dean's suggestion as "outrageous."
| Source:
Independent, Washington Post
|
| July 23, 2004 | - The 9/11 commission released its report and catalogued the many failures of intelligence and law enforcement that permitted Al Qaeda to carry out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; the commission concluded that "we are not safe."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 8, 2004 | - Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security, warned that Al Qaeda might be planning an attack to disrupt the November elections, but he said that he was aware of no specific threat or details about the alleged plan. The color-coded threat level remained unchanged, and many observers suspected the announcement was made to distract attention from Senator John Kerry and his new running mate, Senator John Edwards, whom President Bush accused of being too inexperienced.
| Source:
Associated Press, Nelson Report
|
| June 17, 2004 | - The 9/11 commission released two staff reports concluding that there is no credible evidence that Iraq ever entered into an alliance with Al Qaeda; the commission also detailed for the first time the surprising level of confusion and miscommunication among top administration officials on the day of the attacks.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 16, 2004 | - The president held a news conference and said that Afghanistan represents the "first victory in the war on terror"; meanwhile, heavy fighting with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other forces continued, an official from the Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation was assassinated outside his home.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 12, 2004 | - An American engineer was kidnapped in Saudi Arabia.
| Source:
Bloomberg
|
| June 9, 2004 | - An American military contractor was shot dead in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 31, 2004 | - Suspected Al Qaeda militants killed 22 people and took many hostages in an attack on the oil industry town of Khobar, in eastern Saudi Arabia.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 8, 2004 | - A new Justice Department report warned that Al Qaeda is recruiting supporters in American prisons.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 26, 2004 | -
Administration lawyers asked a judge to prevent a former FBI translator from testifying in a lawsuit brought by families of September 11 victims; the translator told the 9/11 commission that the government had considerable evidence months before the attacks that Al Qaeda was planning to use aircraft as weapons in the United States.
| Source:
Independent
|
| April 11, 2004 | - The White House, under pressure from the commission, declassified the August 6 briefing, which in fact warned that Al Qaeda might be planning to hijack airplanes in the United States.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| April 9, 2004 | - National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified publicly and under oath before the commission investigating September 11; Rice acknowledged that President Bush had received a classified CIA briefing on August 6, 2001, entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," though she characterized the report as "historical information based on old reporting." She also acknowledged that the report mentioned the existence of Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States but "there was no recommendation that we do something about this." Rice also admitted that Richard Clarke, whose book on the Bush Administration's antiterrorism failures prompted her public testimony, sent her a memo in January 2001 in which he mentioned sleeper cells. Again, Rice said, "there was no mention or recommendation of anything that needs to be done about them." Rice said that she couldn't remember whether she had ever mentioned the existence of the sleeper cells to the president prior to August 6.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 29, 2004 | - Condoleezza Rice did appear publicly on 60 Minutes and confirmed Clarke's claim, originally denied by the White House, that on September 12, 2001, President Bush ordered Clarke to focus on possible Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks, which the CIA had already concluded were carried out by Al Qaeda.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 28, 2004 | - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking of Pakistan's
nuclear-weapons trafficking, said, "I do not believe that there's any evidence or any suggestion that President Musharraf was involved." Musharraf, for his part, denied that he had made a deal with the Americans to crack down on Al Qaeda in return for lenient treatment for selling nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya, Iran, and others; he also denied that his country's proliferation had done much harm. "If I hand over a missile or a bomb to any extremist, believe me, he can do nothing about it," Musharraf said. "He cannot explode it."
| Source:
Reuters
|
| March 22, 2004 | - Richard Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism under Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, published a book in which he claims that George W. Bush has done a "terrible job" fighting terrorism. Clarke says that prior to September 11, Bush ignored warnings about the threat from Al Qaeda and that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in the days just after the attacks, wanted to bomb Iraq rather than Afghanistan because Iraq had better bombing targets. Clarke charges that the president made it very clear that he wanted to find a connection between September 11 and Saddam Hussein even though there was no evidence of such a link.
| Source:
CBS News
|
| February 28, 2004 | - Powerful Republicans were said to be urging President Bush to get rid of Dick Cheney, who continued to insist, contrary to all evidence, that stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, and that Saddam Hussein was allied with Al Qaeda. "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" Cheney asked an interviewer. "It's a nice way to operate, actually."
| Source:
Asia Times
|
| January 14, 2004 | - It was revealed that the U.S. military found a directive in the possession of Saddam Hussein telling his followers not to cooperate with foreign Arab jihadists who might enter Iraq to fight the Americans, because their agendas are incompatible.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 9, 2004 | - Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that he never saw any hard proof of Iraqi links to Al Qaeda but failed to explain why he lied to the U.N. Security Council last February.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 22, 2003 | -
Counterterrorism officials said that all the recent Al Qaeda attacks were a sign that the organization has been weakened.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 17, 2003 | -
Al Qaeda
suicide bombers blew up two synagogues in Istanbul.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 18, 2003 | -
President Bush admitted that he has "no evidence" that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks, though he continued to assert, contrary to all known evidence, that there were "ties" between Hussein and Al Qaeda.
| Source:
Los Angeles Times
|
| August 19, 2003 | -
Al Qaeda's Abu Hafs Brigades took credit for the recent blackout and said that it was a gift to the Iraqi people.
| Source:
MEMRI.org
|
| July 15, 2003 | - The Justice Department said that it will defy an order by a federal judge to allow Zacarias Moussaoui, who is being tried in connection with the September 11 attacks, to cross-examine a captured Al Qaeda member who is a witness in the case.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 21, 2003 | - The Justice Department announced that it had arrested a Muslim truck driver from Ohio who has admitted to working with Al Qaeda, and officials said that he was planning to attack the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 9, 2003 | - Two of the highest-ranking Al Qaeda leaders in United States custody denied that Al Qaeda had worked with the Iraqi government.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 27, 2003 | -
Iran announced the arrest of several suspected Al Qaeda members; the White House said that the arrests were "insufficient."
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 15, 2003 | - Car bombs killed 34 people, including nine terrorists, at foreign compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Al Qaeda was blamed for the attacks, which were carried out by 15 Saudi citizens.
| |
| March 18, 2003 | -
Bush repeated the discredited charge that Iraq has armed and trained Al Qaeda terrorists, and he even mentioned the “poison factory” that, upon inspection, had no plumbing.
| |
| March 11, 2003 | -
The Bush Administration found it necessary to deny that torture will be used against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader captured in Pakistan last week, but confirmed that “routine techniques” such as sleep and light deprivation and withholding food and water and medical attention might be used.
| |
| March 11, 2003 | -
Officials confirmed that during the questioning of Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda leader who was shot several times when he was captured, American interrogators withheld pain killers; and they confirmed that terrorism suspects are routinely forced to stand or kneel in “uncomfortable positions” for long periods wearing black hoods in the extreme cold and heat.
| |
| March 11, 2003 | -
Officials confirmed that during the interrogation of Omar al-Faruq, another senior Al Qaeda operative, sleep and light deprivation and prolonged isolation were used, that Faruq was fed very little, and that he was exposed to temperatures ranging from 10 to 100 degrees. In the end, he decided to talk.
| |
| March 11, 2003 | -
Someone in the Bush Administration told a reporter that the president took the extraordinary step of sitting still by himself — “in solitude, undisturbed” — for ten whole minutes before he walked purposefully down a long hall on a red carpet to his first prime-time press conference in more than a year, where he told the world that he was prepared to launch an invasion of Iraq within days.
He was described as “a leader impervious to doubt.” Bush said that “as we head into the 21st century, when it comes to our security, we really don't need anybody's permission.” Asked about the danger of undermining the authority of the United Nations, Bush replied: “I want to work — I want the United Nations to be effective. It's important for it to be a robust, capable body. It's important for its word to mean what they say.” Bush asserted that Saddam Hussein “has trained and financed Al Qaeda-type organizations,” and he said that his job “is to protect America. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. People can ascribe all kind of intentions. I swore to protect and defend the Constitution. That's what I swore to do. I put my hand on the Bible and took that oath. And that's exactly what I am going to do.” Bush mentioned the September 11 attacks eight times. Some commentators were surprised by Bush's odd, passionless tone; there was speculation in the Washington Post that the president was on drugs.
| |
| March 4, 2003 | -
Pakistani authorities arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader who is suspected of planning the September 11 attacks, and turned him over to the United States.
| |
| February 18, 2003 | -
Al-Jazeera, the popular Arab television station, broadcast another Osama bin Laden tape; Bin Laden, or someone who sounded like him, made the usual denunciations of the United States and called on the Iraqi people to resist the upcoming American invasion.
Colin Powell claimed that the tape was proof of an alliance between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, even though Osama referred to Saddam as an “apostate.”
| |
| February 11, 2003 | -
Powell referred to a “potentially sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network” but provided no conclusive evidence of collaboration.
| |
| February 11, 2003 | -
France, Germany, and Belgium vetoed a NATO plan to reinforce Turkey's defenses in anticipation of an attack from Iraq; American officials were said to be “livid,” and Colin Powell said the action was “inexcusable.” There was talk of a “crisis of credibility.” Ansar al Islam, the militant group that supposedly has links both to Saddam Hussein and to Al Qaeda, gave reporters a tour of the camp that Colin Powell identified as a poison factory.
| |
| February 4, 2003 | -
The president said that Secretary of State Colin Powell will soon present new evidence of Iraq's evildoing, including its alleged ties to Al Qaeda, to the United Nations Security Council.
| |
| February 4, 2003 | -
CIA analysts continued to maintain that there is no evidence of Iraqi aid to terrorists, and officials at the FBI also said they were baffled by the president's claims: “We've been looking into this hard for more than a year,” said one anonymous source, “and you know what, we just don't think it's there.” Hans Blix, the head of the United Nations chemical and biological inspections team, rebutted many of the president's reasons for attacking Iraq; Blix said that there was no evidence that Iraq was hiding illegal weapons or weapons scientists in neighboring countries, that there was no credible evidence of Iraqi intelligence agents posing as scientists, and that there was no evidence of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda. “There are other states where there appear to be stronger links,” he said.
| |
| November 19, 2002 | -
The FBI warned that Al Qaeda might be planning a “spectacular” attack; the Bush Administration was annoyed at the FBI for releasing the warning, and Senator Bob Graham attacked the administration for ignoring Al Qaeda in its obsession with invading Iraq.
| |
| November 12, 2002 | -
The CIA, using a Predator drone, assassinated an Al Qaeda leader and several of his companions in Yemen; it turned out that one of the men was an American citizen.
| |
| October 29, 2002 | -
Lobbyists were giddy at the prospect of a Republican Senate; one anonymous source remarked that “it's the domestic equivalent of planning for postwar Iraq.” The Pentagon announced that it will set up a new intelligence unit because senior officials are not happy with the reports they are getting on Iraq, especially the judgment that Iraq has no connection with Al Qaeda and that it has no intention of attacking the United States.
| |
| October 29, 2002 | -
The Yemeni government was holding about 40 sons of tribal leaders hostage to ensure the tribes' cooperation in the search for Al Qaeda members. “It is something ordinary in Yemen, a tradition,” said one sheikh.
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| October 22, 2002 | -
President Bush said he thought that Al Qaeda was responsible for the Bali, Indonesia, terror bombing and reemphasized the firmness of his desire to disarm Saddam Hussein. Abu Bakar Bashir, the Muslim cleric whom American intelligence officials have blamed for the attack in Bali, refused to condemn the bombing and said that “the United States intelligence agency is behind the Bali bombings in an attempt to justify their accusation that Indonesia is a terrorist base.” He also warned Australians not to cooperate with America “because it will bring tragedy for your country.” Indonesia, which does not yet have American-style antiterrorism laws that permit detention without evidence, was reluctant to arrest Bashir but finally did so after he collapsed and was admitted to a hospital.
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| October 22, 2002 | -
The Council on Foreign Relations in New York released a report arguing that the Bush Administration will never succeed in cutting off funds to Al Qaeda and other terrorists until it confronts Saudi Arabia, where most of such funds are raised.
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| October 15, 2002 | -
Fifteen people were charged with aiding the attackers, one of whom left a videotape in which he claimed to be a member of Al Qaeda, which last week released two audiotapes, one recorded by Osama bin Laden, to Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television station, threatening to carry out new attacks on the United States and its allies.
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| October 8, 2002 | -
“I am a member of Al Qaeda,” said Richard Reid as he pled guilty to trying to blow up a plane with a bomb he had hidden in his shoe.
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| October 1, 2002 | -
Mike Thompson of California and Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington traveled to Baghdad hoping to persuade Iraqi officials to submit to new weapons inspections and thus prevent the war; Mr. McDermott said he was suspicious of attempts by the White House to tie the Iraqis to Al Qaeda and flatly stated on television, “I think the President would mislead the American people.” Senator Trent Lott replied that McDermott “needs to come home and keep his mouth shut.”
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| September 24, 2002 | -
The six Arab men from Lackawanna, New York, who were accused of being a secret Al Qaeda cell were charged with “providing material support” to terrorists under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective death Penalty Act, which a federal judge recently declared “unconstitutional on its face.” The government admitted it had no evidence of any specific crime that the men were planning to commit, though prosecutors alluded to “catastrophes of biblical proportion.” Almost 15 million people in southern Africa are in danger of starving, the head of the World Food Program said, and Ethiopia announced that it was running out of food.
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| September 17, 2002 | -
Federal authorities placed the United States on “orange alert” and American embassies in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia were closed after an Al Qaeda prisoner claimed that terror attacks were scheduled for the September 11 anniversary.
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| September 17, 2002 | -
Five Yemeni men in Lackawanna, New York, were charged with being an Al Qaeda terrorist cell, and American forces in Pakistan captured Ramzi bin al-Shibh, an Al Qaeda operative who officials said was supposed to have been the “twentieth hijacker” on September 11.
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| August 20, 2002 | -
A number of videotapes made by Al Qaeda were discovered; several contained footage of dogs being killed by what appeared to be chemical weapons, and one contained a documentary in which Osama bin Laden called Saddam Hussein a bad Muslim.
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| August 6, 2002 | -
Senator Trent Lott claimed that President Bush does not need congressional approval to invade Iraq since he was given the authority last fall to pursue military action against Al Qaeda.
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| August 6, 2002 | -
The senator said that he “suspects” there are Al Qaeda elements in Iraq.
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| July 16, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft warned Congress that Al Qaeda has a “hidden but active presence in the United States” and that restrictions on law-enforcement agencies must consequently be loosened even further.
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| June 18, 2002 | -
Bush Administration officials were reportedly annoyed with Attorney General John Ashcroft for overstating the “dirty bomb” angle in the arrest of Jose Padilla, who was demoted from “potential bomber” to “scout” in a matter of days.
President Bush said that Padilla was “a bad guy and he is where he needs to be—detained.” Justice Department officials said that they decided to hold Padilla as an “enemy combatant,” because they don't have enough evidence to charge him with an actual crime, but said they would not try him before a military tribunal, because he is an American citizen. One official remarked that “he's going to stay in the can until we're through with Al Qaeda.”
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| June 18, 2002 | -
Rumsfeld, who said that he had “seen indications” that Al Qaeda is operating in Pakistan, recently mused that “there are no knowns.
There are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns, that is to say there are things we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.” He also noted that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
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| June 11, 2002 | -
Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that federal authorities had prevented a terrorist attack on Washington, D.C.; Ashcroft said that the arrest last month of an American Al Qaeda operative named Abdullah Al Mujahir at Chicago O'Hare airport had disrupted “an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States with a radioactive dirty bomb.” An unnamed official admitted, however, that Mujahir, whose real name is Jose Padilla, did not actually possess such a bomb: “We don't believe it went beyond the planning stages.” The attorney general also proposed regulations requiring 100,000 Muslim and Middle Eastern foreigners to register with the federal government and submit to fingerprinting; potential terrorists who are already in the country are expected to comply voluntarily.
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| June 4, 2002 | -
A federal judge in New Jersey told the Bush Administration that its policy of holding secret hearings for all immigrants held in connection with the September 11 investigation violates the due process clause of the Constitution; the judge said the government may hold secret hearings but only after showing “specific evidence in an individual case of why it must be secret.” Intelligence officials revealed that the C.I.A. had identified two of the September 11 hijackers as Al Qaeda members in October 2000 but had simply watched as the men traveled to America; the agency did nothing to prevent their entry into the United States or to alert the I.N.S. or the F.B.I. so that the terrorists could be put under surveillance. The F.B.I. seized on the information as the missing link that could have enabled them to prevent the September 11 attacks.
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| May 21, 2002 | -
The next day it was reported that in 1996 an Al Qaeda operative confessed on videotape to the F.B.I. that he had planned to use his American flight training to fly a plane into C.I.A. headquarters.
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| May 21, 2002 | -
In 1999 that confession and other information led to a widely distributed intelligence analysis by the Library of Congress warning that “suicide bomber(s) belonging to Al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency or the White House.” Vice President Dick Cheney warned that a new Al Qaeda attack on the United States was “almost certain.” A trucking industry group offered the services of the nation's truckers in the war on terrorism.
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| April 30, 2002 | -
Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda leader who was captured in Pakistan last month, told American officials that his comrades were close to building a crude “dirty” nuclear bomb.
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| March 26, 2002 | -
Roughly 200 Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters were killed, or possibly 800.
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| March 26, 2002 | -
American forces searching deserted caves in eastern Afghanistan discovered that Al Qaeda soldiers were using laptops to communicate with one another as they moved from cave to cave.
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| February 12, 2002 | -
At the urging of Secretary of State Colin Powell, President Bush changed his mind and decided to extend Geneva Conventions protections to Taliban prisoners (but not members of Al Qaeda) taken in the Afghan war, though they will not be classified as prisoners of war, which would require their repatriation if the war ever ends.
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| January 29, 2002 | -
Singapore uncovered an Al Qaeda “sleeper cell” there and arrested 13 people; the terrorists had apparently developed an extensive and highly disciplined network throughout southeast Asia.
Officials were surprised that the terrorists were able to operate for years without being detected in a police state where civil liberties are largely nonexistent.
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| January 29, 2002 | -
A Pentagon official said that America was looking for “bad guys to chase” in Indonesia, where Al Qaeda has reportedly been stirring up trouble.
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| January 8, 2002 | -
They want the Al Qaeda the dickens out of their country.” Afghan warlords were stealing food aid, making famine relief in some areas difficult, and there were reports that some warlords were using their influence with American forces to arrange air strikes against rivals, which could account for several questionable attacks.
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| December 18, 2001 | - Hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters made their last stand in Tora Bora, Afghanistan; Osama bin Laden was not found, however, and there were reports that he had escaped to Pakistan.
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| November 20, 2001 | - Retreating Al Qaeda
terrorists in Afghanistan left behind nuclear designs written in Arabic, German, Urdu, and English; foul-smelling liquids; and a recipe for building a nuclear bomb that included detailed descriptions of how TNT can cause plutonium to begin its deadly chain reaction.
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| January 27, 2000 | - Seif al-Islam Qaddafi, the 36-year-old son of Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was linked to attacks that killed 38 Iraqis, wounded 225, and destroyed 50 buildings in a Mosul slum. The London School of Economics graduate, known in Libya as “the Engineer” for his reputation as a reformer and an advocate of human rights, allegedly funds the Seifaddin Regiment, which is allied with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
| Source:
AP
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