United States President Barack Obama on Wednesday said the principal goal of his administration is to root out Al Qaeda and other extremist organisations, but refused to give any preview of his policy on Afghanistan which he is expected to unveil soon.
President Barack Obama warned the Al-Qaeda and its leaders that the US would target them not only in their bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan but also in any part of the world where they take roots.
Rashid Rauf, the terror mastermind believed to be behind the 2006 trans-Atlantic plane bombing plot, and another top al Qaeda operative were among five militants killed in a United States missile attack on Saturday which hit the house of a prominent Taliban commander in Pakistan's troubled north-west.Rashid Rauf, a British-Pakistani citizen, was one of two of the suspected ringleaders of the al Qaeda London Airline plot to destroy the aircraft en route to the United States.
Terrorist outfit Al Qaeda is training a 12-member team of westerners in Pakistan for a special mission including plotting attacks on return to their home countries, a media report has said.
Senior Al Qaeda commander Abu Laith al-Libi was killed along with other militant fighters in a United States missile strike in Pakistan, a website linked to radical Islamic groups has reported.
A madrassa teacher from Bengaluru has been arrested by Delhi Police for suspected links with Al Qaeda, making it the fourth arrest in its ongoing operation against the terror outfit.
FBI spokesperson Richard Kolko told ABC News in an email that 'there have been several reports that Al Qaeda will release a new message calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilians.'
In the video, Zawahari, who took over the reins of Al Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden, said, "I am of the view that the Mujahideen (armed terrorists) in Kashmir -- at this stage at least -- should focus with a single mind on inflicting unrelenting blows on the Indian Army and government so as to bleed the Indian economy and make India suffer sustained losses in manpower and equipment."
A top Obama aide on Sunday said the Al Qaeda is based in Pakistan and that the United States would 'not rush' in finalising the new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban are planning suicide and rocket attacks on the embassies, consulates, NGOs, firms and citizens of the US and UK in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.
"Are we reaching a tipping point to witness the decline of this radical behaviour? We don't know the answer to that yet, but we're watching it very closely," National Intelligence Director Admiral Mike McConnell told the House Select Committee on Intelligence. "Brutal attacks unleashed by the al-Qaeda and its affiliates against Muslim civilians have tarnished al-Qaeda's self-styled image as the extremist vanguard," he said.
"Musharraf has got a situation at home where there is a certain amount of sympathy in some places for, if not Al Qaeda, then certainly for the people who are more inclined to Islam."
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that terrorists operating in Kashmir have nexus with Al Qaeda, Taliban and Pakistani extremists, which is a "very dangerous" combination.
The defence secretary, however, said the US would not be looking to add significant numbers of US forces to run operations in Pakistan.
A spokesman at the US Central Command in Florida, the military command responsible for the region, said there had been no official report of such an attack.
The United States has issued a global travel alert and ordered its embassies throughout the Muslim world to close down temporarily, amid fears of an Al Qaeda terror strike, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.
The Taliban is ready to completely disown the Al Qaeda, and is willing to work with the United States to improve security in Afghanistan, a major report has disclosed.
The arrests have been made in cases related to blasts outside court premises in South India since April this year.
Al-Qaeda and other terror groups like the Taliban and their affiliates are planning to strike against American facilities and its nationals in South and Central Asia, the United States said on Saturday.
The two are members of Al Qaeda's sleeper cell and motivate youths of the steel city as well as other parts of Jharkhand to join and expand the organisation, he said.
Several Muslim nations have condemned remarks by BJP's former national spokesperson Nupur Sharma and its Delhi media head Naveen Kumar Jindal against the Prophet.
The United States is dealing with the Al Qaeda element on the Pakistan side of the border, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel conceded and acknowledged that its drone programme has been pretty successful.
The Delhi police on Friday charge-sheeted 17 accused, 12 of whom are absconding, for allegedly conspiring, recruiting Indian youths and establishing a base of terror outfit Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent.
India-born American citizen Ahmed Kauser Mohammed has been sentenced to 15 years in jail by a United States court for providing thousands of dollars in material support to the Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations.
The plunging global economy is an even bigger threat to the United States' national security than the al Qaeda terrorist network or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, according to America's new intelligence czar.Traditionally, US intelligence chiefs always preface their opening remarks with either terrorist or nuclear proliferation threats, but DenisBlair's first sentences in his testimony before the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was about the economy.
The chief of Al Qaeda's global operations, wanted by the United State over a 2009 plot to attack the New York subway system, was killed in a raid in Pakistan's restive tribal region, the country's military said.
An Al Qaeda-linked plot to launch a Mumbai-style terror attack simultaneously on London and major cities in France and Germany was disrupted by intelligence agencies, a report has said.
"We need to go much further in realising the well established objective of degrading the ability of the Taliban to fight while simultaneously denying safe-havens, finances and armament," Indian Ambassador to UN Nirupam Sen told the Security Council on Tuesday.
Sources close to Islamist groups in north Africa told the Guardian that at least two senior Al Qaida operatives have already reached Libya, provoking fears that north Africa could become a new "theatre of jihad" in future.
In the video titled 'From France to Bangladesh: The Dust Will Never Settle Down', AQIS chief Maulana Asim Umar mentioned Prime Minister Modi in the context of what he claims to be a war against Muslims.
Al Qaeda's leadership has a habit of appointing men affiliated to Kashmiri militant groups in positions of leadership, says Amir Mir
Al Qaeda, which has announced the creation of a separate wing for India, wants to portray Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an enemy of Islam and as such India should take its threat "very seriously", a well-known American counter-terror expert said on Friday even as the United States tried to downplay the terrorist outfit's capabilities.
American intelligence agencies believe that they have killed Sheikh Said al Masri, alias Mustafa Abu al Yazid, Al Qaeda's no. 3 leader, in a recent missile strike in a tribal area of Pakistan. The New York Times quoted a United States administration official as saying that al-Masri was the terror network's main conduit to leader Osama bin Laden. He further said that as Al Qaeda's chief operating officer, he played a role in everything -- from finances to operational planning.
The White House has said that Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Invetigation Agency trace Osama bin Laden, was not working against Pakistan but the Al Qaeda and should not have been held.
Al Qaeda is no more a cohesive organisation with a lucid structure and has splintered over the years, giving rise to lots of other groups, both inside and outside Pakistan writes Amir Mir
The sanctions list subjected him to a travel ban, assets freeze and an arms embargo.
A 32-year-old man from Haryana's Mewat district has been arrested by Delhi Police for suspected links with Al Qaeda.
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