Terrorism News

A man thought to be a serving British soldier was killed by two armed men in a frenzied attack on a London street Wednesday, in what the government is treating as a suspected act of terrorism.

Witnesses told of a gruesome scene in which the man was hit by a car, then hacked with cleavers and his body dumped in the middle of the road in Woolwich, southeast London.

The two suspects in the killing were injured in a confrontation with police and have been taken to two hospitals, where they are being treated.

CNN affiliate ITN aired a video showing a man with bloody hands and holding a meat cleaver, who says, "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you."

Read more: CNN

A former Army soldier accused of trying to provide support to a terrorist organization in Somalia after he left the military has asked a court to dismiss the case against him, saying he never had any contact with the group.  A lawyer for Maryland resident Craig Baxam wrote in a motion filed Monday in federal court that convicting her client would require him to have coordinated with the terrorist group al-Shabab.  Baxam’s lawyer wrote that Baxam never contacted or attempted to contact al-Shabab and never pledged loyalty to any person or organization affiliated with the group.

Baxam served in the Army from 2007 to 2011 and converted to Islam shortly before leaving.  He is accused of leaving the U.S. for Somalia in late 2011 with the intention of joining al-Shabab.

Source:  CBS Baltimore

Among the many unanswered questions about the two Tsarnaev brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombing is why, days after the attack, they were heading to the suburb of Watertown and its manicured lawns and tulips when police picked up their trail and began a chase.

Investigators want to know what drew the accused bombers to the cluster of side streets in the blue-collar suburb, far from any major thoroughfare, especially if the brothers were on the run after their images had been shown on television by the FBI and after they had allegedly murdered MIT Police Officer Sean Collier.  "It's clear the suspects have connections to Watertown," said Joseph Curatone, the mayor in the neighboring city of Somerville told ABC News. 

...In 2010, Watertown was the scene of FBI raids after agents learned that Faisal Shahzad, convicted of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, came to the suburb to pick up $5,000 cash from a Pakistani citizen living there, according to federal court records.

Read more:  ABC News

Militants on witness protection were able to board flights because their new identities had not been updated on the US no-fly list, a watchdog has found.

The US justice department report said its Witness Security Program had failed to give the new names to the FBI-managed Terrorist Screening Center.

The miscommunication allowed people whom the US had branded as suspected or known terrorists to board airliners.

The justice department said it had now amended its information sharing. A restrictive travel policy had since been fully implemented, it added.

Read more: BBC News

Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, was arrested Thursday morning in Boise, Idaho as part of a federal terrorism investigation.  Federal terrorism charges were filed Thursday afternoon in Boise and Salt Lake City, Utah.  Kurbanov, an Uzbekistan national legally present in the United States, was living in Boise at the time of his arrest.

A federal grand jury in Boise returned a three-count indictment charging Kurbanov with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, and one count of possessing an unregistered destructive device.

Read more:  FBI

Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found hiding in a boat days after the blasts, left a handwritten message describing the attack as retribution for US wars in Muslim countries, CBSNews reported on Thursday.

The CBS News report, citing anonymous sources, said that Tsarnaev used a pen to write the message on an interior wall of the boat, where police found him bleeding from gunshot wounds four days after the April 15 bombing.  The note summed up with the idea that "when you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims," CBS News reported.

Read more:  The Guardian

The US State Department will add Sheikh Abu Muhammad al Julani, the emir of al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists in a decision to be announced formally tomorrow.  The addition of al Julani to the US's list of global terrorists takes place just one month after he reaffirmed his allegiance to al Qaeda's emir, Ayman al Zawahiri, and confirmed that his group is part of the global terrorist network. 

In the December 2012 designation of the Al Nusrah Front, the US said that the group is "a new alias" for al Qaeda in Iraq and is under operational control of AQI's emir, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi al Husseini al Qurshi, or Abu Dua.

Read more:  Long War Journal

The unauthorized disclosure of a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen last year compromised an exceedingly rare and valuable espionage achievement: an informant who had earned the trust of hardened terrorists, according to U.S. officials.  His information was said to have led to the U.S. drone strike that killed a senior Al Qaeda leader, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, on May 6, 2012.

...The informant, reportedly a British subject of Saudi birth, also had convinced members of Al Qaeda’s feared Yemeni affiliate that he wanted to blow up a U.S. passenger jet.  He was trained and outfitted with the latest version of an underwear bomb designed to pass metal detectors and other airport safeguards, officials say. 

The Associated Press distributed a wire story on May 7, 2012, that disclosed details of the bombing plot. 

Read more:  Los Angeles Times

An Al-Qaeda-linked cell broken up in Egypt at the weekend planned to bomb the US and French embassies in Cairo, state news agency MENA quoted investigators as saying on Wednesday.  "The accused planned suicide car bombings outside the embassies of France and the United States in Egypt," MENA said.

In the case of the French mission, the motive was to register a protest "against French military intervention in Mali," investigators were quoted as saying.  The news agency did not say why the American embassy was to be targeted.

On Saturday, Egyptian Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said police had arrested three members of a "terror cell" involved in a transnational plot to bomb a Western embassy and other targets.  Ibrahim said they were captured with 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of fertiliser, and a computer containing instructions on bomb-making.  MENA said the three were Egyptian and quoted security sources as saying they had been among prisoners who managed to escape from prison during the 2011 uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak.

Read more:  Associated Free Press

A North Carolina man who the FBI says spoke of killing U.S. Army soldiers as part of a personal jihad has pleaded guilty to possessing a stolen firearm.  Erwin Antonio Rios admitted guilt Tuesday in U.S. District Court as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.

In an affidavit filed with the court, FBI Special Agent Frank Brostrom said the 19-year-old from Fayetteville holds extremist Islamic views and told a government informant he would like to kill Fort Bragg soldiers.  Authorities said Rios also plotted to travel overseas to commit violence and devised a scheme to commit armed robberies to get money to buy weapons.  The FBI set up a sting where Rios bought what he was told was a stolen handgun and was then immediately placed under arrest.

Source:  Fox News