First, there was a major AQ terror plot targeting sites all across Europe that was busted over the weekend. So much for the idea that they're just a bunch of impotent cave-dwellers...
Western intelligence sources say they have uncovered a plot by al-Qaeda to carry out co-ordinated attacks in the UK, France and Germany.
It is understood the plan involves small teams of militants seizing hostages and murdering them, similar to the attacks in Mumbai in 2008.
Intelligence officials believe the plot was inspired by the al-Qaeda leadership in the remote tribal areas of Pakistan.
Sources say recent US drone attacks in the region have targeted the planners.
The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner said the plot was believed to have moved from the aspirational stage to actual planning.
Western security agencies may have been hoping to keep the matter out of the public realm for longer so criminal evidence could be gathered, our correspondent added, but initial details were leaked to the US media.
However, in the UK, no imminent arrests are expected, and the national threat level remains at its current level of severe.
In an effort to foil the attacks, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has ramped up missile strikes from unmanned drones against militants in the Pakistani tribal regions, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing security officials.
So far, it looks like there was no real threat to the US, other than any tourists we had over there.
Intelligence officials have found "no U.S. dimension" to alleged terror plots targeting European cities, NBC News reported Wednesday.
Militants based in Pakistan were planning simultaneous strikes in London, as well as cities in France and Germany, according to Britain's Sky News.
The Wall Street Journal reported that investigators were examining whether the plot extended to the U.S.
However, a senior counterterrorism official told NBC News early Wednesday that no U.S. link had been uncovered.
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OBL himself is a key 'witness' at one of the upcoming "Gitmo" trials.
Prosecutors plan to give Osama bin Laden a starring role in the terrorism trial of the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in civilian courts, a test case in the debate over whether suspects scooped up in the war against terrorism can be prosecuted like everyone else.
[-- snip --]
The government plans to use bin Laden's words, including a television interview in which he said U.S. civilians were targets of his holy war against the West, as evidence in Ghailani's trial.
"To establish that the defendant intended to kill Americans in particular, it is relevant that the leader of the conspiracy was emphatically and repeatedly directing his followers to, in fact, kill Americans," prosecutors wrote in court papers last week.
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NATO capped an AQ commander in Afghanistan.
NATO said Wednesday it has confirmed that a senior al-Qaida commander who led attacks along the Pakistan border and several other militants were killed in an air strike over the weekend in eastern Afghanistan.
NATO said the strike killed Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, a senior al-Qaida commander who coordinated the attacks of a group of Arab fighters in eastern Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, and elsewhere.
It said Abu Atta al Kuwaiti, an al-Qaida explosives expert, and several Arab foreign fighters were also killed in the strike, which was carried out Saturday.
Pakistan is investigating reports a CIA missile strike killed another senior al-Qaida commander as he traveled in a tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said Wednesday. Sheikh Fateh al-Masri's death would be the covert U.S. missile program's latest blow to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
Al-Masri is believed to have replaced Mustafa al-Yazid, who was killed in a missile strike in May and was described by the group as its No. 3 commander.
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And the Spanish have arrested an American suspect with AQ affiliations for a variety of financial shenanigans.
Spanish police have arrested a U.S. citizen of Algerian origin who is suspected of financing al-Qaida's North African affiliate, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
Mohamed Omar Debhi, 43, was arrested Tuesday in the town of Esplugues de Llobregat near Barcelona. His arrest is not connected to terrorism alerts this week in France and Britain and is just a coincidence, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity in line with ministry rules.
Debhi is suspected of laundering money and sending some of it to an associate in Algeria, Toufik Mizi, to be passed on to cells of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, a ministry statement said. Mizi is wanted in Spain after eluding a police raid in 2008.
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So what do you guys think?
By: Brant
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