U.S. troops have found a laboratory under construction in southern Afghanistan where al Qaeda guerrillas apparently planned to produce biological weapons, the United States said on Saturday. Full Story

A Scottish MP has vowed to push for a government-backed inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing when he meets Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Full Story

President Bush, visiting Peru three days after a deadly car bombing near the US Embassy here, vowed yesterday that the United States would help the country battle terrorism. Full Story

A top federal bioterrorism official said yesterday that he found “awfully suspicious” the fact that a Sept. 11 hijacker sought treatment for a lesion resembling cutaneous anthrax. Full Story

Two terror attacks on two continents this week, attributed to groups the authorities thought they had beaten long ago, suggest just how hard it is to win a war against terrorism. Full Story

THE GRAND JURY CHARGES THAT: COUNT ONE (Conspiracy to Commit Acts of Terrorism Transcending National Boundaries). Full Story in HTML or Full Story in PDF

When President Bush authorized the creation of military tribunals for suspected terrorists last November, he insisted they would provide “full and fair” trials. Exactly how full and how fair is now coming into sharper focus. And as new details are disclosed, they`re only adding more fuel to an already fiery debate over the propriety of…

The dispute between Congress and the White House over whether Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge will testify before lawmakers has mushroomed into a constitutional struggle with stakes far greater than the relatively small value of a single official`s words. Full Story

Federal agents on Wednesday raided 14 homes and offices around northern Virginia for information about terrorist financial networks, an operation aimed in part at Sami Al-Arian. Full Story

Secretary of State Colin Powell has decided to designate the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Jerusalem on Thursday, as a “foreign terrorist organization,” State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said on Thursday. Full Story

The Bush administration plan for trying suspected foreign terrorists before special military courts gives some ground to critics who feared the tribunals would run roughshod over due-process rights, but it retains some tough features that will make it easier for prosecutors to win convictions. Full Story

Over the objections of Arab-American groups and civil libertarians, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft announced Wednesday that investigators plan to interview 3,000 more young Arab men, following a similar set of 5,000 requested interviews that began in November. Full Story

Federal prosecutors are paving the way toward seeking the death penalty against Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person indicted in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, if the French citizen is convicted of conspiring to kill thousands of people. U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty and lead prosecutor David Novak spelled out the government`s…

After months of searching the bomb-ravaged wreckage of terrorist training camps and other sites in Afghanistan, investigators have concluded that while Al Qaeda researched chemical and biological weapons there is no indication that it acquired or produced them, government officials say. Full Story

A group claiming to be an offshoot of the Red Brigades guerrilla movement in Italy has posted a 26-page document on the Internet explaining why it “executed” a top government adviser. Marco Biagi, 52, was shot dead on Tuesday in Bologna with the same pistol used to kill another government aide in 1999, the interior…

A joint security meeting with Israelis and Palestinians ended early Thursday without a cease-fire agreement because of “gaps and differences” on both sides, a senior Israeli defense ministry official said. The official, however, said the two sides agreed to another security meeting and will continue negotiating in the coming days. The official would not elaborate…

Only days ahead of a visit to Peru by U.S. President Bush, a car bomb exploded late Wednesday in a shopping center parking lot near the U.S. Embassy in Lima, killing at least nine people — including two embassy security guards — and injuring at least 25 others, according to government and law enforcement officials.…

A surveillance videotape found in what the U.S. military calls an al Qaeda safehouse in Afghanistan shows, what authorities say, the reach of a Singapore terrorist cell. The group is called Jemaah Islamiya, or JI, and Singapore officials arrested key members last December at about the same time U.S. officials released the videotape. Full Story

Two years ago, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was moving forward on an ambitious plan to beef up its checks of foreign nationals seeking permission to study in the United States, an effort designed to thwart terrorists from manipulating the loosely controlled student visa system. Full Story

In neo-Nazi circles, 74-year-old Albert Huber is something of a celebrity. The retired Swiss journalist gives talks to far-right groups around the world, condemning Zionists and arguing that the Holocaust was exaggerated. Over the past two decades he made regular trips to the United States, lecturing at Aryan youth and Nation of Islam meetings. Huber`s…

Two of the three Indonesians arrested in the Philippines last week have claimed links with leading political parties, police sources said yesterday. One of them has also admitted to being a key lieutenant of Muslim cleric and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader Abu Bakar Bashir. Full Story

On Aug. 17, 1995, Amir Maawia Siddiqi, the son of a bookshop owner in a small village in Pakistan, set down his oath of allegiance. “I, Amir Maawia Siddiqi, son of Abdul Rahman Siddiqi, state in the presence of God that I will slaughter infidels my entire life,” he wrote. “And with the will of…

Six months ago, they were mere Cold War trash: hundreds of small radioactive power generators scattered across the Soviet Union decades ago and largely forgotten, except when the odd lumberjack turned up with severe radiation burns. But in the aftermath of Sept. 11, these aging but potentially lethal devices are being viewed in a troubling…

A grenade attack on a Protestant church packed with Sunday worshippers killed five people, including an American woman and her daughter, in an assault clearly aimed at Pakistan`s foreign community. Full Story

U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, in overall charge of coalition forces in Afghanistan, said Monday that “Operation Anaconda” was drawing to a close. Full Story

The United States has alerted its allies to watch out for attempts by Osama bin Laden`s al Qaeda network to produce weapons of mass destruction, FBI chief Robert Mueller said Monday. Mueller, in Manila, raised the concern in talks with Philippine officials before flying back to the United States at the end of a tour…

U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni brought top Israeli and Palestinian security officials together Monday for talks on an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian- ruled areas and a cease-fire. Full Story

President Bush declared yesterday that “all options are on the table” — including nuclear weapons — to confront states that threaten to use weapons of mass destruction, as he issued his strongest warning to date that his administration plans to take on Iraq`s Saddam Hussein. “He is a problem, and we`re going to deal with…

As part of an annual program supporting advanced technology projects, the Defense Department is funding development of a system to improve communications among state and local public safety agencies and DOD personnel. Full Story

The chance that a missile with a nuclear, chemical, or biological warhead will be used against US forces or interests is greater today than during most of the Cold War, a senior US intelligence official said yesterday. Robert Walpole of the CIA told a Senate panel that analysts believe the threat from Iran`s nuclear program…

For a glimpse into the new world of U.S. intelligence gathering since Sept. 11, consider the meandering path of a simple telephone number. Retrieved from the rubble of Afghanistan — whether from an address book, a computer hard drive or a scribbled note — this hypothetical telephone number is first reviewed by Defense Intelligence Agency…

If you give them the Kentucky Derby, then they`ll want Pimlico and the Preakness, the whole Triple Crown,” Tom Ridge says. “Where do we stop?”Full Story

Israel again expanded the scope of its offensive against Palestinian towns and refugee camps today, sending thousands of troops and more than 150 tanks and armored vehicles into the West Bank city of Ramallah and an adjacent camp. The assault, coming on the heels of a similar attack overnight in the Gaza Strip, touched off…

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge yesterday unveiled a new system to alert government, law enforcement and the public to the risk of terrorist attacks, even as he acknowledged that it could be many years before the country is secure enough to enjoy the lowest warning level. The five-level, color-coded system was crafted to reduce the…

Exactly six months after terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi flew two jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Florida flight school that trained the men received paperwork showing that their student visas had been approved. The two suicide hijackers had applied for the visas through their flight school, Huffman Aviation International, in August 2000.…

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge is preparing to unveil a new terrorism alert system that would give state and local governments and the public more precise information when the government issues warnings of potential attacks, officials said yesterday. Full Story

A group of Oklahoma City bombing survivors and relatives of those killed launched a petition on Saturday asking Congress to give them the same multibillion dollar financial aid as those harmed in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Full Story

Arriving here from Pakistan in mid-November, Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni told acquaintances that he had come to Indonesia to disburse an inheritance to his late father’s second wife. But instead of writing a check and leaving, he settled into a small boarding house in a crowded, lower-middle-class neighborhood, where he visited the local mosque and…

Whether it’s an overlooked gun or an unplugged metal detector, security breaches at U.S. airports still make daily headlines, reflecting the fact that improved airline security is a work in progress six months after Sept. 11. To get a sense of how security at America’s busiest airports measures up next to more vigilant international ones,…

Thousands of FBI agents have rounded up more than 1,300 suspects across America since September 11, but they have failed to find a single al-Qaeda cell operating in the United States. Tom Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security, admitted yesterday that he suspected that there were active cells in the US, but he could not…

An emotional commemoration of the six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center will be observed in New York City on Monday as two memorials to the roughly 3,000 victims will be unveiled in ceremonies near “Ground Zero.” Full Story

Vice President Dick Cheney will discuss the U.S. war on terrorism on Monday with Washington`s “strongest ally,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair, six months to the day since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Full Story

Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday a classified Pentagon report reviewing U.S. nuclear options was simply “sound, military, conceptual planning” and not a precursor to any imminent U.S. action. Full Story

Israel retaliated Sunday for a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 11 Israelis in a Jerusalem cafe by destroying the Gaza headquarters that Yasser Arafat used as a showcase for Palestinian sovereignty. Full Story

Warren Buffett, the veteran investor, vowed on Saturday to limit insurance policies against terrorist attacks after his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, after suffered heavy losses because of September 11. In his annual letter to shareholders, Mr Buffett admitted that General Re, Berkshire`s reinsurance subsidiary, had not charged enough in past years to insure against the…

The Bush administration, in a secret policy review completed early this year, has ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, naming not only Russia and the “axis of evil”–Iraq, Iran, and North Korea–but also China, Libya and Syria. Full Story

Early last summer, FBI analysts who monitor anti-American terrorist groups became nervous about what they were hearing: nothing. Full Story

Patricia Holliday is downright disgusted with the drugs, and last week she began organizing her Annapolis Gardens neighbors to go after the dealers — and the bullets and mayhem they bring — with a new Neighborhood Watch program. This week, she and her neighbors were handed another target: international terrorists. Full Story

Radioactive materials in wide use in the United States could be turned into weapons of terror that would probably kill few people but would spread panic and produce severe economic damage, scientists told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today. Full Story

Never-before-seen photos obtained by NBC News show American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon on Sept. 11. NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski explains that the sequence of five photos, taken from a Department of Defense security camera, shows the Boeing 757 hitting the ground an instant before it plows into the building and explodes in a deadly…

Throughout the country, offices, schools, transportation systems and public places such as stadiums have tightened security. I.D. badges on chains are now a standard part of many people’s workday wardrobe. Air travelers expect to be scanned from head to toe. Full Story

A year and a half into the current Palestinian uprising, the Mideast conflict saw its deadliest day Friday as Israeli troops killed 32 Palestinians in raids of villages and refugee camps. News of the impending return of President Bush’s chief envoy to the region did little to dampen violence, which included a deadly Palestinian attack…

Eleven people were arrested on charges of belonging to a youth organisation that supports the armed Basque separatist group ETA, a government spokesman told CNN. The members, belonging to the group Segi, were arrested at various locations across Spain. Full Story

Israeli troops raided towns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip early Friday, killing 26 Palestinians, including a general. A few miles from one of the battles, a Palestinian gunman attacked dormitories and a Bible study hall in a Jewish settlement in Gaza, killing five Israeli teenagers. Despite the fighting, the bloodiest in 17 months…

A national training standard should be established and maintained by the federal government for first responders who are poorly prepared and equipped to recognize or respond to a weapon of mass destruction attack, emergency officials told a congressional subcommittee yesterday. The United States should also ensure that first responders possess equipment that is lightweight, mobile…

In a striking example of how much has changed since Sept. 11, National Neighborhood Watch, the folksy community program that has helped nab burglars and muggers for 30 years, will be expanded to help detect and deter suspected international terrorists. Full Story

Basque security chiefs in northern Spain are meeting in the regional capital, Vitoria, to review the current security arrangements for local politicians amid a continuing threat of attack by the Basque separatist group, ETA. The Spanish Government has recommended that people in public life in the Basque region are escorted everywhere by bodyguards, but this…

The United States Congress has approved a proposal which could expand US military involvement in Colombia. It follows concerns over an intensification of fighting between the Colombian Government and the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) following the collapse of peace talks. Colombia is one of the main recipients of US aid, but under…

Leftist rebels blockaded roads and seized several motorists as hostages, stepping up actions following the collapse of peace talks, authorities said Wednesday. Violence around the South American nations surged after President Andres Pastrana broke off talks and ordered a military offensive against the rebels. The president was retaliating for the hijacking of an airliner and…

Israeli troops backed by tanks and aircraft fought their way into two Palestinian refugee camps on Thursday, defying U.S. pressure to end an offensive that has increased fears of all-out war. Full Story