Terrorism News Stories

Excerpts of Key Terrorism News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on terrorism from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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How far should a soldier go when interrogating a prisoner? Is torture OK? What if the prisoner knew where Saddam Hussein was hiding? How far is too far? That was the dilemma facing Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer while interrogating an Iraqi major general, among the most important prisoners of the time. During interrogation, the general died. Welshofer says he thought Mowhoush might know where Saddam was hiding. Welshofer questioned Mowhoush, didn’t lay a hand on him, and got nothing out of him. So...Welshofer got creative. He remembered that years before...he helped stuff American soldiers into oil drums to induce claustrophobia and panic. In Iraq, Welshofer did much the same thing, this time, with a sleeping bag. Mowhoush...was 56 years old and not in good shape. Welshofer took an electrical cord, wrapped it around Mowhoush’s middle to hold the bag in place. Then he straddled him. But when Mowhoush didn’t give him the answers he was looking for, Welshofer says he put his hand over his mouth. "I saw that the water pooled in his mouth, and it was at that point that I realized...the general’s dead," Welshofer recalls. It happened in Abu Ghraib. It happened in Afghanistan. It happened in Guantanamo Bay. When you see this across three different arenas and in many different places, it is no longer just a few guys got it in their head to do this. It is coming from somewhere else. And it’s got to come from above.

The FBI, while waging a highly publicized war against terrorism, has spent resources gathering information on antiwar and environmental protesters and on activists who feed vegetarian meals to the homeless, the agency's internal memos show. For years, the FBI's definition of terrorism has included violence against property. That definition has led FBI investigations to online discussion boards, organizing meetings and demonstrations of a wide range of activist groups. The FBI's encounters with activists are described in hundreds of pages of documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act after agents visited several activists before the 2004 political conventions. ACLU attorneys acknowledge that the FBI memos are heavily redacted and contain incomplete portraits of some cases. Still, the attorneys say, the documents show that the FBI has monitored groups that were not suspected of any crime. FBI officials respond that there is nothing improper about agents attending a meeting or demonstration.

MI5 is facing an internal revolt by officers alarmed about intelligence failures and the lack of resources to fight Islamic terrorism. To illustrate their concern, agents have leaked more topsecret documents to The Sunday Times because they want a public inquiry into the “missed intelligence” leading up to the July attacks in London. They believe ministers have withheld information from the public about what the security services knew about the suspects before the bombing of July 7 and the abortive attacks of July 21. The documents include an admission by John Scarlett, head of SIS, the secret intelligence service (also known as MI6), that one of the July 21 suspects was tracked on a trip to Pakistan just months before the attempted bombings. MI5, which is responsible for national security, allowed the July 21 suspect to travel to Pakistan after he was detained and interviewed at a British airport. It stopped monitoring him because it said “the Pakistani authorities assessed that he was doing nothing of significance”. They are critical of Blair, who has ruled out an inquiry saying it would distract the security services from fighting terrorism. The assessment echoes a decision by MI5 to halt surveillance on two of the July 7 bombers 16 months before the attacks. Both were filmed and taped by MI5 agents as they met two men allegedly plotting to carry out a terrorist attack in England.

Who could have imagined that, in the post-9/11 world, the United States government would approve a deal giving control over six major American ports to a country with ties to terrorism? But this is exactly what the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has done. Since 1999, the ports of New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities have been operated by a British concern, P & O Ports, which has now been bought by Dubai Ports World, a company controlled by the government of the United Arab Emirates. While the United Arab Emirates is deemed by the Bush administration to be an ally in the war on terrorism...two of the 9/11 hijackers were citizens of the emirates, and some of the money for the attacks came from there. It was one of only three countries in the world that recognized the Taliban regime. And Dubai was an important transshipment point for the smuggling network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with equipment for making nuclear weapons. Most terrorism experts agree that the likeliest way for a weapon of mass destruction to be smuggled into our country would be through a port. After all, some 95 percent of all goods from abroad arrive in the United States by sea, and yet only about 6 percent of incoming cargo containers are inspected for security threats.

Americans receive a steady stream of warnings and alarms about new and horrific perils that await them. Pandemics, dirty bombs, cyber attacks, bioterror and other exotic threats are always on the verge of being unleashed onto a shamefully unprepared republic. Yet, judging from statistics on life expectancy, violent deaths and war, we live in much less perilous times than any generation before us. Avian flu, for example. We are cautioned that a pandemic...is only months away. One World Health Organization estimate says 2 million to 7 million people will die in the next pandemic. But it is not 1918. The WHO reports that since 2003, there have been 152 cases of avian flu, resulting in 83 deaths. A flu pandemic has been regularly predicted since 1997 and (knock on wood) it has never arrived. Dirty bombs -- conventional explosives mixed with radioactive material -- present another example of overreaction. In 2004, experts warned in the normally staid Wall Street Journal that a terrorist attack with a dirty bomb was an imminent certainty. They announced: "Shame on our leaders and on us if the lamentations of the next blue-ribbon panel will be intoned over the graves of hundreds of thousands of Americans, the collapse of our economy, and perhaps a fatal blow to our way of life." But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says a dirty bomb would contaminate "up to several city blocks." The commission's advice, if one goes off, is to walk away and take a shower.

Note: This informative article, by a program director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, demonstrates clearly how the hype and fear around terror is much more damaging than terrorism itself. For more on this from both BBC and my own experience as a presidential interpreter, click here.

Conventional wisdom says that none of us is safe from terrorism. The truth is that almost all of us are. In most years allergic reactions to peanuts, deer in the road and lightning have all killed about the same number of Americans as terrorism. In 2001, their banner year, terrorists killed...one fifteenth the number killed by car accidents. And if something far worse than Sept. 11 does occur, the country will recover. A disaster of biblical proportions visited New Orleans. The Republic has not crumbled. The terrorist risk to the United States is serious, but far from existential. Human psychology leads us to overestimate the likelihood of dangers that are novel and uncontrollable. The news media and social interaction reinforce these common errors. People overestimate terrorism's risk and demand excessive protection from it. From government bureaucrats seeking larger budgets, to contractors hawking technology, to congressmen campaigning, danger sells. It delivers money and votes. It also sells newspapers. Careerist think tank and academic analysts learn that grants, invitations to Capitol Hill and jobs are more likely to go to those who trumpet threats and defenses against them than those who tell Americans to worry less. America tends to exaggerate national security dangers. Victory is persuading...regular Americans not to be afraid. Conventional pundits of homeland security worry that the public will become complacent. We should worry that it won't.

Five government whistleblowers said Tuesday they had faced retaliation for calling attention to alleged government wrongs. They told their stories to the House Government Reform Committee's national security subcommittee, whose chairman, Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., indicated an interest in altering the law to better protect national-security whistleblowers. Army Spc. Samuel Provance laid out what he considers to be a pattern of systemic abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. He said his rank was reduced for disobeying orders not to speak about mistreatment he saw at the prison. Russ Tice, a former NSA analyst, has called attention to possible constitutional abuses and security breaches at NSA. He said he was given psychological evaluations deeming him mentally unstable, and his clearance was revoked. He's now unemployed. Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer says the Defense Intelligence Agency has made a series of allegations against him since he disclosed information about a program known as Able Danger. He says the program identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the attack. Richard Levernier, a retired Energy Department nuclear security specialist, said he lost his security clearance and effectively his job for giving the media an unclassified report about shortfalls in nuclear security.

They were loyal conservatives and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. James Comey...resigned as deputy attorney general in the summer of 2005. Comey's farewell speech...contained...an unusual passage. Comey thanked "people who came to my office, or my home, or called my cell phone late at night, to quietly tell me when I was about to make a mistake; they were the people committed to getting it right....Some of them did pay a price for their commitment to right, but they wouldn't have it any other way." These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror. Demanding that the White House stop using what they saw as farfetched rationales for riding rough-shod over the law and the Constitution, [they] fought to bring government spying and interrogation methods within the law. These government attorneys did not always succeed, but their efforts went a long way toward vindicating the principle of a nation of laws and not men. They did not see the struggle in terms of black and white but in shades of gray -- as painfully close calls with unavoidable pitfalls. They worried deeply about whether their principles might put Americans at home and abroad at risk. Their story...is a quietly dramatic profile in courage.

Note: If you want to understand the complexities involved behind the scenes at the top levels of US politics, I most highly recommend reading this entire article. It is five webpages in length.

A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations". The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap". It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act. Officials in the Pentagon wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it. The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks. The military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans. "Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public. Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system," it reads. The document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum". US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum". The fact that the "Information Operations Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon.

Note: For other revealing news articles on military corruption, click here. For other revealing news articles on government corruption, click here.

In a clumsy effort to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, the CIA in 2004 intentionally handed Tehran some top-secret bomb designs laced with a hidden flaw that U.S. officials hoped would doom any weapon made from them. But the Iranians were tipped to the scheme by the Russian defector hired by the CIA to deliver the plans and may have gleaned scientific information useful for designing a bomb, writes New York Times reporter James Risen in "State of War." Two nuclear weapons experts...added that a deliberate flaw in the plans could have been easily found by the Iranians. The New York Times delayed for a year publication of its article on the NSA's domestic spying, in part because of personal requests from the president. Critics have questioned whether the paper could have published the information before last year's presidential election if it had decided against a delay. Newspaper officials have refused to comment on reasons for the delay or on the exact timing. Top New York Times officials also refused to publish a news article about the reported CIA plot to give intentionally flawed nuclear plans to Iran, according to a person briefed on the newspaper's conversations by one of the participants. That person said the New York Times withheld publication at the request of the White House and former CIA Director George J. Tenet.

One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that...our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat...I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated. If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them. If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marine Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy...I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy. Never would I have expected this nation -- which emerged stronger from a civil war and a civil rights movement, won two world wars, endured the Depression, recovered from a disastrous campaign in Southeast Asia and still managed to lead the world in the principles of liberty -- would cower behind anyone just for promising to "protect us."

Former CIA chief Stansfield Turner lashed out at Dick Cheney on Thursday, calling him a "vice president for torture" that is out of touch with the American people. Turner's condemnation...comes amid an effort by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, to pass legislation forbidding any U.S. authority from torturing a prisoner. McCain was tortured as a Vietnam prisoner of war. Cheney has lobbied against the legislation, prompting Turner to say he's "embarrassed that the United State[s] has a vice president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible." Turner...scoffed at assertions that challenging the administration's strategy aided the terrorists' propaganda efforts. "It's the vice president who is out there advocating torture. He's the one who has made himself the vice president in favor of torture," said Turner, who from 1972 to 1974 was president of the Naval War College, a think tank for strategic and national security policy. "We military people don't want future military people who are taken prisoner by other countries to be subjected to torture in the name of doing just what the United States does," he said.

The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry. Even the most junior investigator would immediately know that the name and photo ID of Atta in 2000 is precisely the kind of tactical intelligence the FBI has many times employed to prevent attacks. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it "was not historically significant." This astounding conclusion -- in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger and incorporate it into its findings -- raises serious challenges to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself. The Able Danger team had identified Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers by mid-2000 but were prevented by military lawyers from giving this information to the FBI. The Pentagon...blocked several military officers from testifying...about the Able Danger program. The chairman of the 9/11 Commission reacted to Able Danger with the standard Washington PR approach. [He] demanded that the Pentagon conduct an "investigation" to evaluate the "credibility" of Col. Shaffer and Capt. Phillpott. The final 9/11 Commission report...concluded that "American intelligence agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the attacks." This now looks to be embarrassingly wrong. The Joint Intelligence Committees should reconvene and, in addition to Able Danger team members, we should have the 9/11 commissioners appear as witnesses so the families can hear their explanation why this doesn't matter.

Note: If the above link fails, click here.

A powerful coalition of judges, senior lawyers and politicians has warned that the Government is undermining freedoms citizens have taken for granted for centuries and that Britain risks drifting towards a police state. One of the country's most eminent judges has said that undermining the independence of the courts has frightening parallels with Nazi Germany. Senior legal figures are worried that "inalienable rights" could swiftly disappear unless Tony Blair ceases attacking the judiciary and freedoms enshrined in the Human Rights Act.

Indonesian police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid says. In an interview with SBS's Dateline program, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups. While he believed terrorists were involved in planting one of the Kuta night club bombs, the second, which destroyed Bali's Sari Club, had been organised by authorities. Asked who he thought planted the second bomb, Mr Wahid said: "The orders...came from within our armed forces not from the fundamentalist people." Timsar Zubil, who set off three bombs in Sumatra in 1978, told the program intelligence agents had given his group a provocative name - Komando Jihad - and encouraged members to commit illegal acts. "We may have deliberately been allowed to grow," he said. Another terrorism expert, George Aditjondro, said a bombing in May this year that killed 23 people...had been organised by senior military and police officers.

Note: This information strengthens the whistleblower testimony of WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks in a Jakarta terror trial last January reported in the international press. For more, click here.

Let's call in Craig Crawford, MSNBC analyst and author of “Attack the Messenger.” Good evening, Craig. CRAWFORD: Hi, there. You're sounding a bit skeptical tonight. OLBERMANN: Yes, and I'm going to raise this question as skeptically and bluntly as I can. It's not a question that doubts the existence of terror, nor the threat of terrorism. But we've cobbled together in the last couple of hours a list of at least 13 occasions...on which -- whenever there has been news that significantly impacted the White House negatively, there has been some sudden credible terror threat somewhere in this country. How could the coincidence be so consistent? CRAWFORD: It is a pattern. One of the most memorable was just after the Democratic Convention in the 2004 election, when they talked about the threat to New York and even the...World Bank, and it turned out that was based on intelligence that was three years old.

Note: For more on the suspicious timing of terror alerts on the CBS website:
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2005/10/07/publiceye/entry924555.shtml

Federal health officials are still testing the samples from air sensors on the Mall and in downtown Washington that collected a small amount of the tularemia agent. Health officials in the Washington area were notified Friday that the filters on biohazard sensors that make up the BioWatch network detected the bacteria Sept. 24, when tens of thousands of people were on the Mall for antiwar demonstrations. The naturally-occurring biological agent -- which is on the "A list" of the Department of Homeland Security's biohazards, along with anthrax, plague and smallpox -- was detected in small amounts. Detection of the bacteria turned into an incident with nationwide implications, because thousands of protesters had come from throughout the country. Police said that more than 100,000 people attended the rally; organizers put the figure at 300,000.

Note: Isn't it interesting that this very rare occurrence coincided perfectly with a huge antiwar demonstration?

Jose Padilla, who was born in New York and grew up in Chicago, landed at O'Hare airport more than three years ago and hasn't been seen since. He disappeared into a succession of jails and military prisons without being charged with a crime, without trial and without even a hearing on the allegations against him. In a ruling that puts the liberties of every citizen at risk, a federal appeals court said Friday there's nothing wrong with that. Worse, the ruling -- expected to be appealed -- isn't limited to O'Hare airport or to Padilla. The court said Congress has given the president authority to order the jailing of anyone anywhere for as long as he wishes, as long as he claims it's connected to the war on terrorism. That sounds more like the power accorded a dictator than the president of the United States. Repeal of the Constitution's Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendments wasn't part of the package when Congress passed that anti-terrorism resolution after the 9/11 attacks.

President Bush on Thursday renewed the national emergency he declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In a letter to Congress, Bush said the nation is still under the terrorist threat that led him to declare a national emergency three days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The president's declaration allows for the mobilization of reserve military forces and other steps. By law, a national emergency declaration automatically expires on the anniversary date of its declaration unless the president renews it. Bush's action will renew the declaration for another year.

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has called for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him "a terrific danger" bent on exporting Communism and Islamic extremism across the Americas. "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson told viewers. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." [Watch video of Robertson's comments at link above] Robertson, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, called Chavez "a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us badly." "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." Robertson accused Chavez, a left-wing populist with close ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro, of trying to make Venezuela "a launching pad for Communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent." "This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen," he said.

Note: If a prominent Muslim calls for the assassination of a Western leader, he is almost certain to be labeled a terrorist and placed on the most wanted list.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.