Image released by al Qaeda-linked group on January 6, 2008 purportedly shows Adam Gadahn.

Arsalan Iftikhar
AC360° Contributor
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

Holy jihad, Batman!

Did Al-Qaeda just officially offer condolences to innocent civilians murdered by their stupid acts of terrorism?

Well, sort of…

According to CNN, Adam Gadahn- also known as ‘Azzam the American’- appeared in a 17-minute video released on Islamist online forums late Friday, offering condolences to the families of innocent people killed in Al-Qaeda attacks.

“We express our condolences to the families of the Muslim men, women and children killed in these criminal acts…” he says in the video.

Wait a minute. Did a member of Al-Qaeda just admit that their acts of terrorism are ‘criminal acts’?

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Arsalan Iftikhar
AC360° Contributor
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

Dude…You have got to be kidding me…

With the recent arrest of five young American Muslims in Sargodha, Pakistan on alleged charges of terrorism by Pakistani authorities, many of the over 7 million American Muslims were collectively groaning and rolling our eyes whilst saying:

“Are you kidding me? Thanks a lot, you idiots…”

A recent CNN article noted that the potential radicalization of American Muslim teenagers has now become known as “jihadi cool,” a term coined by author/psychiatrist (and former CIA official) Dr. Marc Sageman.

“The path for a lot of these kids is essentially like at-risk gangbangers, who want to ’stand up’ for their community, to address grievances of the global Muslim community more effectively than they’ve seen the elder generation address them since 9/11.”

Many professional ‘de-radicalizers’ have said that the great majority of these young men have little sense of what they are doing. They are “extremely shallow theologically and even ideologically.”

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President Barack Obama with Chinese President Hu Jintao

Fareed Zakaria | BIO
CNN Anchor

President Obama landed in South Korea Wednesday for the last stop on his 10-day trip to Asia. The president made earlier visits to China, Singapore and Japan, in his first Asian journey as president.

In Japan, he made reference to his birth in Hawaii and his childhood spent partly in Indonesia, calling himself "America's first Pacific president." But as the trip winds down, analysts are seeking to answer the question of what Obama accomplished.

Fareed Zakaria, author and host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria: GPS" spoke to CNN Tuesday about the president's trip and about a grim anniversary that's about to be marked in Asia. It's been one year since 10 Pakistani gunmen put India's commercial capital, Mumbai, through an ordeal of terror that killed 170 people. [Zakaria is the narrator of a documentary on the Mumbai attacks premiering on HBO on Friday.]

Keep Reading...

The coordinated attacks on hotels, hospitals and railway stations in Mumbai killed more than 170 people.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

It’s been nearly one year since the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. At least 170 people died in the attack and 300 people were wounded. It was one of the worst acts of violence on Indian soil in decades. Experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace provided insight on the possible motivation of the terrorist, what the attacks revealed about India’s security and the implications for relations between India, Pakistan and the U.S.

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A trial for Osama bin Laden would be a media circus, says Paul Cruickshank, but would be good for the United States.

Paul Cruickshank
Special to CNN

The announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of the 9/11 attacks will soon be moved to New York to face trial in a federal court will be welcomed by some Americans as finally starting the process of bringing the perpetrators of these attacks to justice.

To date, not one person has been convicted for the attacks. But it also will be a reminder that their boss, the man most responsible for killing 3,000 civilians - the majority of them Americans but many from all around the world - is still at large.

President Obama has stated that it is vitally important for the country to put some of the controversial policies of the last eight years behind it. While the forthcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and several figures allegedly involved in plotting the 9/11 attacks in New York will be helpful, nothing would help more than if Osama bin Laden were captured, afforded full due process and put on trial.

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The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is 'perhaps the biggest challenge in the history of federal law enforcement'

Jeffrey Toobin | Bio
CNN Senior Legal Analyst
New Yorker Columnist

The federal courts face an unprecedented challenge in trying accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo detainees for the terrorist attacks that took 3,000 lives, says CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

Mohammed, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi and four other Guantanamo detainees are being transferred to New York to face trial in a civilian court for the September 11 attacks, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday.

They will face trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York - a short distance from the World Trade Center towers that were destroyed in the September 11 attacks. Holder said he expects the government to seek the death penalty in the cases.

Mohammed is the confessed organizer of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. But his confession could be called into question during trial. A 2005 Justice Department memo - released by the Obama administration - revealed he had been waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, a technique that President Obama has called torture.

CNN spoke with Toobin on Friday morning. A former assistant U.S. attorney, Toobin is a senior analyst for CNN and author of "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court."

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Robert Lacey
Author

I chose these words to open my new book Inside the Kingdom, because I needed to understand the tragedy of 9/11 and the nation that produced no less than fifteen of the nineteen hijackers on those planes. Saudi Arabia has never been a spot that wins much favor in the west. How can you love a country that charges you $70 or more for a product that costs less than $10 to get out of the ground – and then gives you terrorists as well?

But I wanted to go beyond that – to find out how the culture and religion of a society could go so wrong as to produce such a poisonous boiling-over of intolerance and hatred. In theory Saudi Arabia should not exist – its survival defies the laws of logic and history. Look at its princely rulers, dressed in funny clothes, trusting in God rather than man, and running their government on principles that most of the world has abandoned with relief. Shops closed for prayer five times a day, executions in the street – and let us not even get started on the status of women. For many the Kingdom remains one of the planet’s enduring – and, for some, quite offensive – enigmas.

But in these notorious distinctions lies an answer that I would urge you to consider – for when you look harder, the differences are not quite as great as they seem. It was not so long ago in the west, certainly in the memory of our parents and grandparents, that women were second class citizens denied the right to vote; most respectable people were devout and rather intolerant believers, scared and suspicious of other races and faiths: capital punishment was considered a necessity – with public lynchings of non-whites in the south; books and plays were censored (our movies still are); people dressed in stiff and formal clothes – a sort of uniform; father knew best, and ‘nice’ girls remained virgins until marriage. For centuries western life was lived within the comfort of those structures and strictures, and it is only in the last 90 years (one modern lifetime) that we have started to look for new values – which we sometimes seek to define by criticizing those who are reluctant to abandon the security of what went before.

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Militant attacks, such as this one in Islamabad on Monday, are turning the Pakistani population against jihadists.

Peter Bergen
CNN

It hasn't been too often in the past couple of years that you could write about good news from Pakistan. But if there is a silver lining to the atrocities that have plagued the country in the past several years, it is the fact that the Pakistani public, government and military are increasingly seeing the jihadist militants on their territory in a hostile light.

The Taliban's assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the country's most popular politician; al Qaeda's bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad; the attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore; the widely circulated video images of the Taliban flogging a 17-year-old girl; and multiple large-scale attacks on Pakistani police and army installations by the Taliban have provoked real revulsion among the Pakistani public.

In fact, historians will likely record the Taliban's decision to move earlier this year from Pakistan's Swat Valley into Buner District, only 60 miles from Islamabad, as the tipping point that finally galvanized Pakistan to confront the fact that the jihadist monster it had helped to spawn was now trying to swallow its creator.

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Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, head of counterterrorism, was slightly injured in August.

Arsalan Iftikhar
AC360° Contributor
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com

In the most recently ‘absurd’ story on terrorism that I have heard in quite a long time, the would-be assassin of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (head of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism efforts) apparently decided to hide his bomb in his underwear, apparently believing that cultural taboos would prevent a search in that part of his body, according to a Saudi government official close to the investigation.

According to CNN, the prince was slightly injured when the bomb exploded in the August 2009 attack a few months ago. Several news reports this week have said that the assailant had hidden the bomb inside of his own RECTUM, but according to the Saudi official, the government assessment discounted those reports, based on various factors.

Even so…Are you serious?

Terrorists are now literally sticking bombs up their own asses to blow people up?

Wow…

Read More...

Drew Griffin
CNN 

Program Note: Moammar Gadhafi says he offered his condolences to the families of victims who died in the 1988 Lockerbie bombings. Last month, Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was released from prison and returned to Libay. We'll be talking to Brian Flynn, whose brother was killed in the attack, about Ghadafi's comments tonight. 10 p.m. ET.

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, 57, boards a plane after his release from prison.

Brian Flynn
For The Guardian

Imagine if one of the September 11 hijackers had lived, that he was fairly tried, convicted and sentenced to a lengthy jail term. Then, after just a few years, under an agreement with the Afghan government, we sent him back to serve out his term with the Taliban under Osama bin Laden.

Although it seems almost impossible, a painfully similar scenario is playing out in the Scotland. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi – the terrorist convicted in the Lockerbie bombing – may soon be released by the Scottish government and handed over to Libya, the very government that plotted this cowardly mass murder.

The evidence against Megrahi is overwhelming and has withstood more than two fervent appeals. He was a member of Libyan intelligence travelling under a false passport to Malta on the day of the bombing, and lied about it more than once. Any rational person reviewing the evidence would conclude that Megrahi is guilty. Even more damning, the court's conviction clearly stated that Megrahi committed the murder for "furtherance of Libyan intelligence". There has been no regime change or democratic revolution. And yet the Scottish government is eager to return this murderer to his dictator – Muammar Gaddafi – a man who has gone on the record as hating all things western.

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A lawyer for Najibullah Zazi disputes claims that bomb-making plans were found on his client's computer.

CNN

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI have issued security bulletins to raise awareness regarding "terrorist interest" in attacking sports and entertainment venues as well as luxury hotels.

The bulletins, which were sent to law enforcement Monday, said that authorities did not know of any credible or specific terrorist plots to attack U.S. stadiums, arenas or luxury hotels.

However, it said that terrorist groups such as al Qaeda view crowded stadiums and arenas as potential targets. It said hotels are also attractive targets for terrorists.

Keep Reading...

Najibullah Zazi is accused of making false statements to officials about an alleged bomb plot in the United States.

The U.S Department of Homeland Security

Investigators are focusing on about a dozen more people in connection with a wide-ranging terror investigation that has netted arrests in Colorado and New York City, a source familiar with the investigation said Tuesday.

Federal agents arrested three men late Saturday in connection with what the Justice Department has said was a plot to detonate bombs in the United States.

Najibullah Zazi, his father Mohammed Wali Zazi and Muslim cleric Ahmad Wais Afzali are charged with lying to federal agents.

All three suspects are originally from Afghanistan. Mohammed Wali Zazi is a naturalized U.S. citizen, while Afzali and Najibullah Zazi are permanent legal residents. If convicted, each could face eight years in prison.

The Department of Homeland Security released this unclassified report that suggests terrorists are still focused on luxury hotels. Read it here.

A lawyer for Najibullah Zazi disputes claims that bomb-making plans were found on his client's computer.

The U.S Department of Homeland Security

Investigators are focusing on about a dozen more people in connection with a wide-ranging terror investigation that has netted arrests in Colorado and New York City, a source familiar with the investigation said Tuesday.

Federal agents arrested three men late Saturday in connection with what the Justice Department has said was a plot to detonate bombs in the United States.

Najibullah Zazi, his father Mohammed Wali Zazi and Muslim cleric Ahmad Wais Afzali are charged with lying to federal agents.

All three suspects are originally from Afghanistan. Mohammed Wali Zazi is a naturalized U.S. citizen, while Afzali and Najibullah Zazi are permanent legal residents. If convicted, each could face eight years in prison.

The Department of Homeland Security released this unclassified report about potential security threats to popular sport and entertainment venues.CIP (FOUO) Notice 61-09 Potential Threat to Popular Sport and Entertainment Venues

A lawyer for Najibullah Zazi disputed claims that bomb-making plans were found on his client's computer.

CNN

Najibullah Zazi, the man at the center of a probe into a suspected terror plot against a target in the New York area, has admitted ties to al Qaeda, an administration official familiar with the matter told CNN Friday.

Either a plea deal or charges are possible, the official said.

The terror plot that came to light this week following raids in New York may have been targeting a major transportation center, sources close to the investigation told CNN on Thursday.

There was planning and preparation for an attack, presumably in the New York area, where there would be a large number of people and where security screening is lax such as a large railroad or subway station, essentially where there is no airport-style screening, the sources said.

New York came to a halt Friday as people held a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m.

CNN/Opinon Research Corporation

Concern about a terrorist attack in the United States is roughly half of what it was immediately after the September 11 attacks, according to a new national poll.

Thirty-four percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national survey released on the eve of the eighth anniversary of 9/11 say they think an act of terrorism in the U.S. over the next few weeks is likely, with 64 percent indicating such an attack is not likely. The 34 percent figure is down 20 points from three years ago and is nearly half the 66 percent who in late 2001 felt a terrorist attack was likely.

The poll also indicates that only one in 10 say that a terrorist attack is likely in the community where they live. More than six in 10 say they have confidence in the Obama administration's ability to protect the country from terrorism, although only one in four say they have a great deal of confidence.

Find full results to the poll here...

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (second from left) arrives in Tripoli, Libya.

Octavia Nasr | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Editor, Mideast Affairs

It’s been hard to convince Arabs that Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was released only on compassionate grounds. They’ve been calling his release a deal and they’ve been discussing the facts as well as the fallout, the noise and controversy that ensued.

For Libyans, it was no doubt a victory. On the same day, they descended on a palace of their leader Moammar Ghaddafi, cheered him on and called him their “happiness maker.”

For the rest of the Arab world, it was considered a deal early on. First, the timing was suspect. His release occurred one day before the beginning of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, about a week ahead of Libya’s 40^th anniversary of the revolution that brought Moammar Ghaddafi to power, and a month before Ghaddafi’s planned trip to the US where his visit - and the air-conditioned tent that will house him - are already the subject of controversy.

Then came the hero’s welcome, which effectively sealed Arab suspicions. And if that wasn’t enough, Ghaddafi’s son and heir apparent, Saif al-Islam, spoke to a local station and said that al-Megrahi’s release was part of every negotiation with the British government. He said it was part of a “trade deal” struck between the two countries. These comments angered the UK and the US but overjoyed the majority of Libyans and got some Arab editors and commentators talking.

For most Arabs, this is a business deal. Columnist Obaidaly Obaidaly says “al-Megrahy is just one element of this deal which involves closing the Lockerbie chapter forever and opening a new chapter in relations between Libya and the west.” According to Kwaileet, oil, gas, technology and defense contracts involving primarily U.S. and British companies are likely to be signed, if they haven’t been signed already.

The facts remain the same. The only man convicted in the Pan Am flight 103 which killed a total of 270 people, mostly Americans, walked free with a big smile. He received warm congratulatory hugs by one of the most influential people in his country, and the first words he uttered publically were a declaration of his innocence.

In his opinion piece for Al-Arabiya.net, Obaidaly concludes that “al-Megrahi is the key to the future relations between Libya and the west” which the author has no doubt “will become obvious in the near future.”

So, if Scottish authorities cite compassion as the grounds for his release and Libyan leaders talk about his release as an integral role in “deals,” does that make al-Megrahi’s release a compassionate deal?

As the tension rises between the US and the UK over this high-profile release, an Arab world watches in awe and disappointment. One opinion editorial described what happened last week as a “cautionary tale.”

“It is not about the rights and wrongs of the decision taken by the Scottish Justice Minister” the piece argues. “It is not about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s clumsy handling of the matter and it is not about sending a positive signal to terrorists as a handful of US senators and FBI director Robert Mueller have suggested.” The author then concludes, “It is simply that when the truth is absent, division, heartache and anger remain.”

The Arab world has a history of searches for the “truth” between assassinations, coups and revolutions that bring leaders to power for decades or for life. Many Arabs, especially intellectuals, think that they can trust western governments with the truth. Judging by the reaction, this is one case that’s making them re-consider.

Most of the Pan Am 103 victims were Americans. It is in this country that the outrage is loudest against the release of al-Megrahi and the hero’s welcome he received in his native Libya. So how will Americans welcome Ghaddafi when he lands on US soil and heads to his mobile home (an air-conditioned tent that travels with him wherever he goes) in New Jersey in September? One can only imagine.

Follow Octavia on Twitter @OctaviaNasrCNN

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (second from left) arrives in Tripoli, Libya.

Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer

Britain on Friday rejected claims made by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi that the release of the Lockerbie bomber was linked to trade deals between Libya and Britain.

Sief al-Islam made the comments in an interview with Libyan channel Al Mutawassit, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The interview was conducted while al-Islam was flying from Scotland to Libya on Thursday with Abdelbaset al Megrahi on board, according to AFP.

Al Megrahi had been serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people, including 189 Americans, were killed. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill freed him after doctors concluded he has terminal prostate cancer and estimated he has three months to live.

"All British interests were linked to the release of Abdelbaset al Megrahi," AFP reported, citing the Al Mutawassit broadcast.

"In all commercial contracts, for oil and gas with Britain, (al Megrahi) was always on the negotiating table," al-Islam said, according to AFP, adding that then Prime Minister Tony Blair raised al Megrahi's case each time he visited Libya.

The British Foreign Office in London promptly denied the claims, saying in a statement issued late Thursday that "there is no deal."

"No deal has been made between the UK Government and Libya in relation to Megrahi and any commercial interests in Libya," said the statement, obtained by CNN. "All decisions relating to Megrahi's case have been exclusively for Scottish ministers, the Crown Office in Scotland and the Scottish judicial authorities."

Al-Islam also called al Megrahi's release "a victory that we offer to all Libyans," according to AFP.

The State Department blasted al-Islam's comments. Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley told CNN that "al Megrahi is a terrorist and mass murderer, and any triumphalism is disgusting."

"We have told the Libyans that he should not be considered a hero - not today, not ever. The Libyans are aware that their treatment of Megrahi will have a profound impact on our bilateral relationship," Crowley said.

President Barack Obama on Friday said the joyous welcome al Megrahi received after arriving in Libya was "highly objectionable." British officials also offered criticism.

Al Megrahi always maintained his innocence, complaining that he had to spend years in prison for something he did not do.

"The remaining days of my life will have to be spent under the shadow of the wrongness of my conviction," he said in a statement issued Thursday through his attorney. He also offered sympathy to the families of the victims.

The Libyan government had accepted responsibility for the bombing and compensated victims' families in a $2.7 billion deal which paved the way for sanctions against LIbya to be dropped and for Tripoli to improve ties with the West.

But on Thursday after al Megrahi's return, the Libyan official news agency JANA issued a statement from the government saying that al Megrahi was "a political hostage," as evidenced by his release.

**UPDATE**

Statement by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Chairman of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, on the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi

The efforts of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation to secure the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi from prison have succeeded, and he is now home in Libya.

On the occasion of this historic event, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Government of Scotland for taking this courageous decision and for its understanding of the special humanitarian circumstances of the case. This decision reaffirms the Libyan people’s confidence in the Scottish people and their government. This confidence was felt as well when the Leader decided to accept the trial before the Scottish judge. As the Leader announced on 2 March 1999, the extradition of Abdul Basset al-Megrahi to the Government of Scotland occurred because of our confidence in the Scottish people.

I would also like to personally thank our friends in the British government who played an important role in reaching this day, and I can assure them that the Libyan people will never forget the courageous stand of the British and Scottish governments. I can also assure them that the friendship between our people will continue to be strengthened and that this past chapter is now firmly behind us.

I also turn to the families of the victims with sympathy and ask them to consider that even though Abdel Basset al-Megrahi has declined to pursue his appeal, it does not change the reality that there is a great deal of data, evidence and new facts that attest to his innocence. It is my hope that this will be proven one day.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Chairman of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation