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Saudi authorities announced a massive anti-terrorism sweep Wednesday that netted more than 500 members of a purported al Qaeda-linked terrorist cell said to be planning attacks on Saudi targets, including major oil installations...

...The announcement is a reminder that al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia remains a real threat, despite the successes that Saudi authorities have had since their campaign against the group began in 2003, CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen said... LINK

In a great journalistic coup, Michael Ware and the CNN team in Iraq have unearthed the largest collection of al Qaeda in Iraq material outside the hands of the US military. What they found in this collection of videos and memos underlines a key aspect of the al Qaeda organization in Iraq; it is highly organized, and not simply a loosely-knit collection of jihadists.

A debate has recently erupted in the pages of Foreign Affairs, the leading American journal of international… more

Less than a day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain promised that if he won the presidency Osama bin Laden would be captured or killed by 2013, a message from al Qaeda’s leader appeared on jihadist websites reminding the world that he is alive and well.

Bin Laden’s audiotape message commented on the recent 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel; promised that he would fight for the liberation of Palestine, and told his Muslim listeners that they… more

. . . Terrorism analyst Peter Bergen took aim at McCain's bin Laden prediction. "Maybe some key lieutenants, but bin Laden has not made the mistakes to get caught or killed, and we haven't had actionable information on where bin Laden is since the battle of Tora Bora in 2001," Bergen said. Bergen pointed out that President Bush has said the United States and its allies would get bin Laden, but has put no timetable on it --… more

At the foot of cliffs in central Afghanistan, about 5,000 fragments of what were once among the world’s great artistic and religious treasures, the Buddhas of Bamiyan, sit in rudimentary shelters.

Their destruction by the Taliban in March 2001 was an act of cultural vandalism on a spectacular scale. The two tallest standing Buddhas in the world -- which had stood as silent sentinels over the snow-capped valley of Bamiyan for more than 1,500 years -- were reduced to mere rubble.

Wire… more

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. intelligence officials say Osama bin Laden is likely hiding in Pakistan, and the former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit says the United States will have to be "extraordinarily lucky" to get the al Qaeda leader.

"Sometimes you get lucky," Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996-1999, told CNN. "But looking for Osama bin Laden in the Hindu Kush is not like looking for Eric Rudolph in North Carolina."

ZURICH, Switzerland(CNN) -- Osama bin Laden and his number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, would have first met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi around 1999, just after he had been released from a Jordanian jail and made his way to Afghanistan.

Al-Zarqawi went there to set up a training camp in the western part of the country for a small group of his Jordanian followers known as Tawhid, an organization that aimed to overthrow the Jordanian government.

During this… more

Thousands of people from around the world knew her simply as Marla.

In dusty, remote Afghan villages, on the streets of Baghdad, and in the corridors of power in Washington, when you mentioned Marla everyone knew who you were talking about and a smile would invariably come to the person's face. She had hundreds of best friends in every corner of the globe. She treated everybody as if they were incredibly special. She loved everybody.

After spending several months in Afghanistan in… more

Federal officials have captured a U.S. citizen with suspected ties to al Qaeda who allegedly planned to build and explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States, the Justice Department said Monday.

U.S. officials said Washington was the probable target of the plot. FBI Director Robert Mueller said the plot was in the "discussion stage" when the suspect, Abdullah Al Muhajir, was arrested. Mueller said the plot had not gone any further, to the knowledge of U.S. authorities.

Attorney General John… more