Terrorism News

An industrial mechanic with General Electric Co., who is also allegedly a member of the Ku Klux Klan, designed a deadly mobile radiation device that he intended to sell to Jewish groups or a southern branch of the Ku Klux Klan, according to a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday in Albany.

The device was intended to be a truck-mounted radiation particle weapon that could be remotely controlled and capable of silently aiming a lethal beam of radioactivity at its human targets. The concept was that victims would eventually die from radiation sickness.

Read more: Albany Times Union

The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack that killed four American troops and the Afghan government announced it was suspending negotiations with the US on an extended troop agreement today, casting a double shadow over peace talks between the US and the Taliban scheduled to begin tomorrow.

Sky News reports that the Taliban acknowledged it was behind a rocket attack last night on Bagram Air Base, launched just hours after the US announced it would be holding peace talks with the Islamist group on Thursday.  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: "Last night two big rockets were launched at Bagram which hit the target.  Four soldiers are dead and six others are wounded.  The rockets caused a major fire."  A senior defense official confirmed to NBC News that the four killed were Americans.

Read more:  Christian Science Monitor

The death toll has risen to at least 14 in an attack by al-Shabaab gunmen Wednesday on a U.N. compound in Mogadishu, Somalia, officials say.  At least 15 others were wounded, CNN reported. 

The dead included four U.N. employees, three women civilians and seven militants, said Abdikarim Hussein Guled, the country's interior and national security minister.  One attacker blew himself up at the entrance, said a police officer, while other militants wearing suicide vests entered the compound.  Somali and African Union forces surrounded the buildings and were able to secure the building after a firefight, the AU forces said in a Twitter message.

Read more: UPI

The FBI and the New York City Police Department announced they are offering a reward of up to $65,000 for information related to the suspect or suspects involved in the 2008 bombing of the Times Square Armed Forces Recruiting Station.

Police also re-released surveillance footage showing a suspect riding a blue Ross bicycle to the scene and placing what is believed to be the bomb in front of the recruiting station. (Watch the video at left.)

In a press release, officials said: "Although the suspect appears to be working alone, he or she may have had a lookout or surveillance team of as many as five other individuals in Times Square at the time of the attack."

Read more: CBS News

Afghanistan officials will open a U.S.-backed office in the Gulf nation of Qatar as early as Tuesday to facilitate direct peace talks with the Taliban, according to three senior administration officials.

Taliban spokesman Muhammed Naim later confirmedat a new conference in Qatar that the group would participate in the peace talks.

Naim said the Taliban are willing to use all legal means to end what they called the occupation of Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press.

The announcement comes as Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that Afghan security forces have taken the lead from NATO. The administration officials spoke on the condition they not be identified because the White House planned to make an official announcement of the peace talks later on Tuesday.

Read more: USA Today

A top leader in al-Qaeda's north Africa branch has been killed in fighting with France, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has said, according to a statement carried by the private Mauritanian news agency ANI.  According to the statement released by AQIM on Sunday, Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, considered a top commander within the group, was killed in the ongoing fighting in Mali.  The statement did not provide details of the date of Zeid's death, though it comes three months after France first announced he had been killed.

The AQIM said the Algerian-born Abou Zeid, died "on the battlefield defending Umma (the Muslim community) and sharia law."  Paris had announced in March that Abou Zeid was killed in fighting with its forces after France led an offensive to rout al-Qaeda linked groups from northern Mali.  Both France and Chad, whose troops were also involved in the offensive, said the 46-year-old fighter was killed at the end of February.

Read more: Aljazeera

Taliban will open a political office in the Gulf state of Qatar on Tuesday, Al Jazeera has learned.  The office of the Afghan armed group in Doha is aimed at facilitating peace talks.  In March, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, met the emir of Qatar to discuss plans for the Taliban to open an office in the Gulf state.  He discussed "issues of mutual interest" with Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the state news agency QNA said, without elaborating on the substance of their talks.

Karzai also met with Afghan and Arab officials and businessmen.  The delegation travelling with the Afghan president included Zalmai Rassoul, the foreign minister; Salahuddin Rabbani, the head of the High Peace Council.  Until earlier this year, Karzai was strongly opposed to the Taliban having a meeting venue outside Afghanistan, but the US has pushed for the Taliban to be present at the negotiatiing table as Washington prepares to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in the next two years.

Source Aljazeera

The leader of al-Qaeda’s Iraq arm defiantly rejected an order from the terror network’s central command to stop claiming control over the organization’s Syria affiliate, according to a message purportedly from him that was posted online Saturday.  The statement by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who heads the Islamic State of Iraq, illustrates a growing rift within al-Qaeda’s global network.  It also highlights the Iraqi wing’s determination to link its own fight against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad with the cause of rebels trying to topple the Iran-backed Syrian regime.

The statement surfaced as rockets rained down on a Baghdad camp housing Iranian exiles, killing three people in the latest sign of growing unrest inside Iraq.

In an audio message posted online, the speaker identified as Baghdadi insists that a merger he announced in April with Syria’s al-Nusra Front, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra, to create a cross-border movement known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant will go on.

Read more:  Washington Post

A small-town Kentucky police department mourning the ambush slaying of one of its men has received threats that more officers will be targeted, prompting an investigation by the FBI and state police, the police chief said Tuesday.

The department received a written threat last week that "there are more to come," a reference to the nighttime ambush slaying of Bardstown Officer Jason Ellis, 33, last month while the K-9 officer was headed home from work, said Chief Rick McCubbin.

"We don't even know if any of the threats are credible, but obviously we're going to treat them as if they are credible," McCubbin said, adding that police would continue operating as usual, while taking extra precautions, in Bardstown, a town of 12,000 about 40 miles southeast of Louisville.

Read more: Fox News

A self-described anarchist who could face life in prison if convicted in a failed plot to blow up a four-lane highway bridge near Cleveland told a jury on Tuesday that he had no ill intent.

Joshua Stafford, 24, is the only one of five defendants to go on trial in the alleged failed plot to destroy the bridge, which is located 30 miles south of Cleveland and runs through Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

"I did not have malicious intent to cause destruction," Stafford, who is representing himself and plans to testify on his own behalf, told the jury in opening statements.

Stafford, who has been charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction among other charges and who has a history of severe mental problems, faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

Read more: Reuters (via Yahoo)