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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Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. 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.

Over and over since Sept. 11, aviation and security officials have said they were shocked that terrorists had hijacked airliners and crashed them into landmark buildings. ''This is a whole new world for us,'' Jane F. Garvey, the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said in testimony before a House subcommittee on Sept. 20. But the record shows that for her and others, there were numerous warnings. In 1994, two jetliners were hijacked by people who wanted to crash them into buildings, one of them by an Islamic militant group. And the 2000 edition of the F.A.A.'s annual report on Criminal Acts Against Aviation, published this year, said that although Osama bin Laden ''is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so." The previous year's edition of that report said that an exiled Islamic leader in Britain proclaimed in August 1998 that Mr. bin Laden would ''bring down an airliner, or hijack an airliner to humiliate the United States.'' The authorities appeared to draw no lessons from the two attacks in 1994.

Note: For many unanswered questions about the official explanation of what happened before and on 9/11 raised by highly credible officials and professionals, click here and here.

A report to Congress reveals details on how U.S. intelligence officials used and protected some Nazi Gestapo agents after World War II. The report was authored by historians hired by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. The report draws from an unprecedented trove of records on clandestine operations that the CIA was persuaded to declassify and from previously inaccessible Army intelligence files. "The CIA records give us a much better picture of the movements of Nazi war criminals in the postwar period. The Army records are voluminous, and will be keeping people busy for many years," said Richard Breitman, of the American University in Washington, D.C., who co-authored the report with Norman J.W. Goda, of the University of Florida. The records were made available under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998. Nazi hunters and lawmakers have long raised questions about what U.S. government knew and its involvement with war criminals during the Cold War. The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act has so far resulted in more than 8 million documents being declassified; a landmark 2005 book on U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis in part authored by Breitman and Goda; and a final report to Congress.

Note: The CIA would never have declassified these documents were it not for pressure from caring citizens which caused Congress to act. For details of the CIA employment of Nazis in its post-war mind-control experimentation on humans without their consent, click here.

An Italian appeals court on [December 15] increased the sentences against 23 Americans convicted in the kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect who was part of the CIA's extraordinary renditions program. In upholding the convictions, the court added one year to the eight-year term handed down to former Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady and two years to the five-year terms given to 22 other Americans convicted along with him, defense lawyers said. They were never in Italian custody and were tried and convicted in absentia but risk arrest if they travel to Europe. The Americans and two Italians were convicted last year of involvement in the kidnapping of ... Abu Omar from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003 — the first convictions anywhere in the world against people involved in the CIA's practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries where torture was permitted. The cleric was transferred to U.S. military bases in Italy and Germany before being moved to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. He has since been released. Amnesty International praised [the] decision as a step toward demanding greater accountability in Europe for the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. Julia Hall, an Amnesty counter-terrorism expert, said in a statement, "The Italian courts have acknowledged that the chain of events leading to such serious abuses cannot go unanswered. Kidnapping is a crime, not a 'state secret.' "

Note: This is amazing news which shows that the CIA is losing its former status as immune in courts of law.

The Transportation Security Administration has come under fire for new body scanners and what some say are highly invasive pat-downs. Thomas Sawyer, a bladder cancer survivor, said he was humiliated after a pat-down broke his urostomy bag, leaving the 61-year-old covered in his own urine. Sawyer said he warned the TSA officials twice that the pat-down could break the seal. Cathy Bossi, a long-time flight attendant and breast cancer survivor, said the TSA made her take off her prosthetic breast. "She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' I said 'It's a prosthesis because I've had a breast cancer,'" Bossi said. "And she said, 'You'll need to show me that.'" In recent days, several passengers have come forward to tell such shocking stories about their experiences with TSA officers. An ABC News employee said she was subject to a "demeaning" search at Newark Liberty International Airport Sunday morning. "The woman who checked me reached her hands inside my underwear and felt her way around," she said. "It was basically worse than going to the gynecologist. It was embarrassing. It was demeaning. It was inappropriate." The head of the Transportation Security Administration John Pistole ... has said the TSA would not change its pat-down procedures.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on increasing threats to privacy, click here.

The Air Force is barring its personnel from using work computers to view the Web sites of The New York Times and more than 25 other news organizations and blogs that have posted secret cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Air Force officials said. When Air Force personnel on the service’s computer network try to view the Web sites of The Times, the British newspaper The Guardian, the German magazine Der Spiegel, the Spanish newspaper El País and the French newspaper Le Monde, as well as other sites that posted full confidential cables, the screen says “Access Denied: Internet usage is logged and monitored,” according to an Air Force official whose access was blocked and who shared the screen warning with The Times. Violators are warned that they face punishment if they try to view classified material from unauthorized Web sites. Some Air Force officials acknowledged that the steps taken might be in vain since many military personnel could gain access to the documents from home computers, despite admonishments from superiors not to read the cables without proper clearances.

Note: For key reports from major media sources on government secrecy, click here.

Transcript: [Suzanne] MALVEAUX: A Texas mystery solved -- at least partially. We now know Houston police are going to start using unmanned drone aircraft. But the question remains, well, for what? Stephen Dean of CNN affiliate KPRC has got an exclusive look. STEPHEN DEAN, KPRC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): HPD [Houston Police Dept.], the federal Department of Homeland Security and other invited guests all watching to see how this drone could be used for police work in and around Houston. We tracked that drone from News Chopper 2. And that drone was able to use a high-powered camera to track us. Those cameras can actually look into people's homes or even follow them in moving cars -- which raises all sorts of new questions. HPD quickly hustled together a news conference when it realized our cameras were there for the entire secret test. Executive Assistant Chief Martha Mantabo admits that could mean covert police action. But she says it's too early to tell what else HPD will do with the aircraft. We asked, are these drones headed for ticketing speeders from the sky? MONTALVO: I'm not ruling anything out. DEAN: Back at the secret test site, police helicopter pilots claimed the entire air space was restricted and even threatened our local 2 Investigates pilot with action from the FAA if we didn't leave. But we checked with FAA several times and there never was a flight restriction. That leaves some to wonder whether the police are now ready to use terrorism fears since 911 to push the envelope further into our private lives.

Note: To watch the video of secret police work in action, click here.

Before the sun rose, the informant donned a white Islamic robe. A tiny camera was sewn into a button, and a microphone was buried in a device attached to his keys. The undercover FBI informant - a convicted forger named Craig Monteilh - then drove off for 5 a.m. prayers at the Islamic Center of Irvine, where he says he spied on dozens of worshipers in a quest for potential terrorists. Monteilh's mission as an informant backfired. Muslims were so alarmed by his talk of violent jihad that they obtained a restraining order against him. He had helped build a terrorism-related case against a mosque member, but that also collapsed. The Justice Department recently took the extraordinary step of dropping charges against the worshiper, who Monteilh had caught on tape agreeing to blow up buildings, law enforcement officials said. Prosecutors had portrayed the man as a dire threat. Compounding the damage, Monteilh has gone public, revealing secret FBI methods and charging that his "handlers" trained him to entrap Muslims as he infiltrated their mosques, homes and businesses. He is now suing the FBI. Officials ... confirm that he was a paid FBI informant. Court records and interviews corroborate not only that Monteilh worked for the FBI - he says he made $177,000, tax-free, in 15 months - but that he provided vital information on a number of cases.

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the long series of fake terror scares used by governments to control their domestic populations by fear, click here.

The latest one snared Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American teenager in Portland, Oregon. The Associated Press report by William Mall and Nedra Pickler (11-27-10) ... makes it clear that it was a plot orchestrated by federal agents. Two sentences into the news report we have this: "The bomb was an elaborate fake supplied by the [FBI] agents and the public was never in danger, authorities said." The teenager was supplied with a fake bomb and a fake detonator. Documents released by US Attorney Dwight Holton "show the sting operation began in June." Obviously, the targeted Portland teenager was not hot to trot. The FBI had to work on him for six months. The reporters compare "the Portland sting" to the recent arrest in Virginia of Faroque Ahmed who was ensnared in a "bombing plot that was a ruse conducted over the past six months by federal officials." Think about this. The FBI did a year's work in order to convince two people to participate in fake plots. When the US government has to go to such lengths to create "terrorists" out of hapless people, an undeclared agenda is being served. What could this agenda be? The answer is many agendas. One agenda is to justify wars of aggression that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard created by the US government itself. Another agenda is to create a police state. A police state can control people who object to their impoverishment for the benefit of the superrich much more easily than can a democracy endowed with constitutional civil liberties. Another agenda is to get rich. Terror plots, whether real or orchestrated, have created a market for security.

Note: Though the source of this article is not considered major media, the writer, Paul Craig Roberts, served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics. He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps-Howard News Service. Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Tom Flanagan — a former senior adviser to the [Canadian] prime minister — should be charged with incitement to commit murder for calling for Assange's assassination. "It is correct that Mr. Flanagan and the others seriously making these statements should be charged with incitement to commit murder," Assange replied. During a panel interview on the [CBC's "Power & Politics with Evan Solomon" show] Flanagan said U.S. President Barack Obama "should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something." Assange ... disputed the contention of Flanagan and numerous governments that his organization's publishing of secret U.S. diplomatic cables has put people's lives in danger. "WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history," Assange said. "During that time there has been no credible allegation, even by organizations like the Pentagon, that even a single person has come to harm as a result of our activities. This is despite much-attempted manipulation and spin trying to lead people to a counter-factual conclusion. We do not expect any change in this regard."

Note: For lots more from reliable sources on government and corporate secrecy, click here.

In 1961, a top CIA scientist reported in an internal memo that "the feasibility of remote control of activities in several species of animals has been demonstrated ... Special investigations and evaluations will be conducted toward the application of selected elements of these techniques to man," according to The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control, a 1979 book by former State Department intelligence officer John Marks. “[T]his cold-blooded project,” Marks wrote, “was designed ... for the delivery of chemical and biological agents or for ‘executive action-type operations,’ according to a document. ‘Executive action’ was the CIA's euphemism for assassination.” Victims have sought justice for years, in vain. Now, almost 40 years later, a federal magistrate has ordered the CIA to produce records and witnesses about the LSD and other experiments “allegedly conducted on thousands of soldiers from 1950 through 1975.” U.S. Magistrate Judge John Larsen’s Nov. 17 order exempted the agency from having to testify about electrode tests on humans, but Gordon P. Erspamer, lead attorney for the veterans, says “we are pursuing this as well.” Papers filed in the case describe “electrical devices implanted in brain tissue with electrodes in various regions, including the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, the frontal lobe (via the septum), the cortex and various other places,” Erspamer said.

Note: For a revealing summary of CIA mind-control experimentation, click here.

Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans. It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet. Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state. It comes despite the Coalition Agreement promised to "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason". The plans are expected to involve service providers storing all users details for a set period of time. That will allow the security and police authorities to track every phone call, email, text message and website visit made by the public if they argue it is needed to tackle crime or terrorism. The information will include who is contacting whom, when and where and which websites are visited, but not the content of the conversations or messages. The move was buried in the Government's Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on increasing government and corporate threats to privacy, click here.

U.S. State Department documents released by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks provided candid views of foreign leaders and sensitive information on terrorism and nuclear proliferation, The New York Times reported on [November 28]. The documents show Saudi donors remain chief financiers of militant groups like al Qaeda and that Chinese government operatives have waged a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage targeting the United States and its allies, according to a review of the WikiLeaks documents published in the Times.

Note: Why did so few major media mention this key fact about Saudi financing of Al Qaeda?

FBI Director Robert Mueller, acknowledging serious lapses in how the FBI mishandled some information prior to Sept. 11, suggested for the first time that investigators might have detected the terrorist plot if they had pursued leads more diligently. Mueller's acknowledgment came amid two new disclosures of what could be missed hints about Sept. 11. The first was a warning from another agency to the FBI that a Middle Eastern country was seeking to buy commercial flight simulators. The second was a memo from an Oklahoma City FBI agent who reported observing large numbers of Middle Eastern pilots and flight students in his area. Neither memo apparently drew much attention at the time. Mueller's remarks came after his announcement of a broad reorganization of the FBI, partly because of its failure to predict the attacks. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced loosened restrictions on domestic spying, handing the FBI authority to monitor Internet sites and libraries. The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized the loosening of restrictions on domestic spying, saying they could renew abuses of the past. Mueller, who took over as FBI director just days before Sept. 11, is the first senior official in the Bush administration to say that counterterrorism investigators might have detected and averted the attacks if they had recognized what they were collecting.

Note: Yet no one in the US government was held accountable for these failures.

Federal authorities have been aware for years that suspected terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden were receiving flight training at schools in the United States and abroad, according to interviews and court testimony. Three days after the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III described reports that several of the hijackers had received flight training in the United States as "news, quite obviously," adding, "If we had understood that to be the case, we would have -- perhaps one could have averted this." A senior government official yesterday acknowledged law enforcement officials were aware that ... a dozen people with links to bin Laden had attended U.S. flight schools. Abdul Hakim Murad ... was arrested in Manila in 1995 and later convicted in New York of plotting to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners over the Pacific, then crash a suicide plane into CIA headquarters. According to law enforcement officials and press reports, the 19 suspected terrorists received flight training from at least 10 U.S. flight schools. At least 44 people sought by the FBI for questioning received some flight instruction.

Note: Why did the upper levels of the FBI "not know" about the suspicious people in US flight schools, when so many lower-level FBI personnel were desperately trying to inform them of these facts? For many other unanswered questions about the official account of 9/11 from highly respected professionals, click here and here.

[An] FBI counter-terrorism agent [is] accusing the agency of prohibiting him from conducting his probe into terror financing activities because he complained about obstruction by bureau superiors. Chicago-based FBI Special Agent Robert Wright ... said the recent trajectory of his FBI career has taken a downward spiral since he complained about two incidents that inhibited his ability to continue terror funding and money laundering probes of members of ... Hamas and Hezbollah. The FBI has been under fire since it was revealed that FBI field alerts to Washington of Middle Eastern men training at U.S. flight schools during the summer of 2001 were buried in paperwork, and agents in Minneapolis who circumvented normal channels to contact the CIA about suspected "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui were reprimanded. Agents who have complained about bureaucratic barriers in the past have been punished, and Wright said that he is one of them. Wright has been demoted to "paper pusher" and "chief dishwasher" at the Chicago field office since he complained about the wrenches thrown into his probe. Wright is under threat of retribution should he talk to members of Congress about what he knows. Wright said throughout his six-year posting in counter-terrorism, he was involved in probes of Hamas and Hezbollah. His most successful 'get' netted $1.4 million in terrorist money in 1998, money that he said today was linked to Saudi businessman and financier Yassin Kadi, who was identified late last year as a close associate of Usama Bin Laden.

Note: For lots more on what happened with Robert Wright, click here. For many still-unanswered questions from highly respected government officials and professors about the behavior of the highest levels of the FBI and other US government agencies before, during and after the 9/11 attacks, click here and here.

A growing pilot and passenger revolt over full-body scans and what many consider intrusive pat-downs couldn't have come at a worse time for the nation's air travel system. Thanksgiving, the busiest travel time of the year, is less than two weeks away. Grassroots groups are urging travelers to either not fly or to protest by opting out of the full-body scanners and undergo time-consuming pat-downs instead. Some pilots, passengers and flight attendants have chosen to opt out of the revealing scans. One online group, National Opt Out Day calls for a day of protest against the scanners on Wednesday, November 24, the busiest travel day of the year. Another group argues the TSA should remove the scanners from all airports. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)... is taking legal action. Pilots' unions for US Airways and American Airlines are urging their members to avoid full-body scanning at airport security checkpoints, citing health risks and concerns about intrusiveness and security officer behavior. "Pilots should NOT submit to AIT (Advanced Imaging Technology) screening," wrote Capt. Mike Cleary, president of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association. "Frequent exposure to TSA-operated scanner devices may subject pilots to significant health risks," Cleary wrote. The website We Won't Fly urgers travelers to "Act now. Travel with Dignity."

Note: For a powerful, one-minute video showing just how invasive these searches are, click here.

American authorities sent David C. Headley, a small-time drug dealer and sometime informant, to work for them in Pakistan months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, despite a warning that he sympathized with radical Islamic groups. Not long after Mr. Headley arrived there, he began training with terrorists, eventually playing a key role in the 2008 attacks that left 164 people dead in Mumbai. The October 2001 warning was dismissed, the authorities said, as the ire of a jilted girlfriend and for lack of proof. Less than a month later, those concerns did not come up when a federal court in New York granted Mr. Headley an early release from probation so that he could be sent to work for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration in Pakistan. It is unclear what Mr. Headley was supposed to do in Pakistan for the Americans. Two of the former drug dealer's ex-wives had gone to American authorities between 2005 and 2008, before the Mumbai attacks, to say they feared he was plotting with terrorists. Combined with the earlier warning from the former girlfriend, three of the women in Mr. Headley's life reported his ties to terrorists, only to have those warnings dismissed. An examination of Mr. Headley's story shows that his government ties ran far deeper and longer than previously known. One senior American official knowledgeable about the case said he believed that Mr. Headley was a D.E.A. informant until at least 2003, meaning that he was talking to American agencies even as he was learning to deal with explosives and small arms in terrorist training camps.

Note: This story certainly raises the question whether the Mumbai attacks were not in fact a false-flag operation. For many reports from reliable sources that reveal similar ties between government agencies running clandestine operations and terrorist attacks, click here.

A special prosecutor cleared CIA employees ... of any criminal charges for destroying videotapes that showed waterboarding of terror suspects, even though two sources close to the case say a key witness was never questioned. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that special counsel John Durham never issued a grand jury subpoena for testimony from Jose Rodriguez, the CIA's former top clandestine officer, who approved the destruction of the tapes. Rodriguez' lawyer, Bob Bennett, had made clear that his client would not testify without a grant of immunity. But Durham's failure to call Rodriguez, or even question him as a witness, surprised one lawyer close to the case, indicating it could raise questions about the special counsel's claim that he had conducted a "thorough" investigation. The decision not to prosecute anyone in the videotape destruction came five years to the day after the CIA destroyed its cache of 92 videos of two al-Qaida operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri, being subjected to waterboarding, which evokes the sensation of drowning. The deadline for prosecuting someone under most federal laws is five years. Jamell Jaffer, a lawyer for the ACLU, criticized the decision. "The problem here is not just the destruction of the tapes, but what the tapes depicted – interrogators using barbaric methods endorsed at the highest levels of the government."

Note: It appears that the courts are not willing to put a stop to the increasing criminality and usurpations of power of the National Security State. For abundant documentation from major media sources of the illegalities and atrocities committed by US intelligence and military in the GWOT, click here.

Two of the largest pilots' unions in the nation are urging commercial pilots to rebel against current airport screening rules. In late October, the Transport Security Administration implemented more invasive patdown rules. Travelers and pilots were faced with a new dilemma -- have a revealing, full-body scan or what some are calling an X-rated patdown. Pilots are piping mad over the options, saying the full-body scanners emit dangerous levels of radiation and that the alternative public patdown is disgraceful for a pilot in uniform. Some pilots have said they felt so violated after a patdown, they were unfit to fly. The patdowns, implemented Oct. 29, allow TSA officers to pat down passengers with the front of their hands, instead of the backs of their hands. A security expert who demonstrated the new procedure on a mannequin for ABC News explained the changes. "You go down the body and up to the breast portion," said Charles Slepian of the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center. "If it's a female passenger, you're going to see if there's anything in the bra." The new patdown protocol could be used at any of the nation's 450 airports on passengers who require additional screening. Tens of thousands of passengers are submitted to patdowns and full-body scanners every day. More than 300 full-body scanners are being used at 65 airports across the country.

Note: And what about the general public having to submit to being groped?

In naming Henry Kissinger to direct a comprehensive examination of the government's failure to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush has selected a consummate Washington insider. Unfortunately, his affinity for power and the commercial interests he has cultivated since leaving government may make him less than the staunchly independent figure that is needed for this critical post. Indeed, it is tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed. It seems improbable to expect Mr. Kissinger to report unflinchingly on the conduct of the government, including that of Mr. Bush. He would have to challenge the established order and risk sundering old friendships and business relationships. The new inquiry will be undone if the 10-member panel is hesitant to call government organizations and officials to account. There can be no place for the kind of political calculation and court flattery that Mr. Kissinger practiced so assiduously during his tenure as Richard Nixon's national security adviser and secretary of state. Nor is there any tolerance for the kind of cynicism that Mr. Kissinger applied to the prosecution of the Vietnam War.

Note: Kissinger was later forced to decline this offer as it was revealed that he was a paid advisor to members of the bin Laden family. To confirm this, watch minutes 15 to 18 of the amazing 84-minute 9/11 documentary, "9/11: Press for Truth," available here. This excellent video is focused on the revealing investigations of the "Jersey Girls," who lost their husbands in the attacks and uncovered Kissinger's bin Laden connections. Yet though the major media reported widely that Kissinger resigned for "conflict of interest" reasons, none of the media mentioned that it was because of his bin Laden connections. To find out why, click here

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.