Al-Qaeda terrorist vows to behead enemies with a giant-size blade

October 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has vowed to continue targeting the Al Qaeda that is threatening the US from Pakistan and beyond, even as the terror network is said to have "lost operational capacity" after a series of recent missile strikes. "We know that Al Qaeda and its extremist allies threaten us from different corners of the globe-from Pakistan but also from East Africa and Southeast Asia; from Europe and the Gulf," Obama said in a visit Tuesday to the National Counterterrorism Centre just outside Washington in McLean, Virginia.

October 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - FBI Director Robert Mueller has expressed fears that al Qaeda-linked Somalian terrorist group al-Shabaab may attack America. Mueller was responding to a question whether al-Shabaab would send American recruits back to the U.S.

October 2nd, 2009 TORONTO - A Canadian Muslim, who was part of the 18-member terrorist plot to carry out mayhem in Canada three years ago, was Friday jailed for seven years. A court in the Indian-dominated city of Brampton on the outskirts of Toronto sentenced Ali Mohamed Dirie, 26, for his role in the so-called Toronto-18 terror plot.

September 21st, 2009 BAGHDAD - Iraqi authorities detained 52 Al Qaeda members Monday, a police source said. The source told reporters that the Al Qaeda members detained in the town of Jurf al-Sakhar, about 30 km south of Baghdad, were behind a series of terrorist attacks against Iraqi security forces as well as civilian targets.

September 1st, 2009 LAHORE - Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Bajaur Agency chief Maulvi Faqir has said that Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban had no role in the appointment of new Pakistan Taliban chief. He said the Tehreek-e-Taliban council had independently chosen and appointed Hakimullah Mehsud as Baitullah's successor.

August 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has said that even though the allied forces have challenged Al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan for eight years, the Taliban- Al-Qaeda alliance has now become stronger than ever before. In an interview to The Boston Globe, Admiral Mullen said the Taliban's alliance with Osama bin Laden and other top leaders of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network has become stronger than ever, highlighting that public support to the 'war on terror' in Afghanistan was 'waning'.

August 16th, 2009 DAKAR - Mauritania will send 4,000 troops to the Sahara region to combat Al Qaeda linked terrorists who have intensified their activities there, according to media reports reaching here from Mauritanian capital Nouakchott Sunday. The decision announced by Mauritania's defence ministry Saturday was made in line with the outcome of the Wednesday meeting of defence chiefs of Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

August 1st, 2009 LONDON - A British MP has called for an investigation into whether British secret service organisation MI5 recruited sympathisers of the international Al Qaeda terrorist network, the Telegraph newspaper reported Saturday. According to the newspaper, counter-terrorism sub-committee chairman Patrick Mercer made the call after the expulsion from MI5 of six Muslim recruits, of whom two allegedly attended Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan.

July 15th, 2009 NEW YORK - Richard Barrett, the coordinator of the UN Security Council's al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Committee on Wednesday said that the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, may target India again. "Lashkar-e-Taiba tactics is quite obvious.

July 11th, 2009 LONDON - Islamist insurgents in Somalia have beheaded seven people for allegedly abandoning their Muslim faith and spying for the government. The public killings, which took place in Baidoa town, come in the wake of a failed offensive by the Islamists, who tried to seize Somalia's capital, Mogadishu two months ago.

June 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta said Thursday that Osama bin Laden, head of Al Qaeda terrorist network, is still in Pakistan and his capture remains the CIA's priority. "I guess one of our hopes is that as Pakistani military moves in, combined with our operations, we may have a better chance to get at him," said Panetta at the Capitol Hill.

June 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda has threatened to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border to stage another mass-casualty terrorist attack on the country, according to a media report. US counter-terrorism officials have authenticated a video by an Al Qaeda recruiter threatening to do so, the Washington Times reported Wednesday describing it as "the latest sign of the terrorist group's determination to stage" such an attack.

May 30th, 2009 LONDON - The extent to which Al-Qaeda has dangerously penetrated into Britain can be gauged from the fact that it no longer relies on sending British-born men to Pakistan for terror training, instead it is now recruiting 'ready made' terrorists from among the Taliban based in Pakistan. British investigators, who have been quizzing the 10 men arrested in the North West, believe that Al Qaeda has developed links with the Taliban which provide it trained militants who can carry out terror strikes at significant locations, The Telegraph reports.

April 20th, 2009 LONDON - For the first time, the jailed radical Islamic cleric Abu Qatada has been linked to terrorist organisation al-Qaeda by one of the terror group's own leaders. Adil al-Abbab, revealed recently as Osama Bin Laden's head of religious affairs in Saudi Arabia, said: "Free our prisoners and the prisoners of the Muslims.

March 5th, 2009 LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for terrorists in Pakistan 'to be brought under control, arrested and brought to trial'. Speaking after Tuesday's terrorist attack wounding six Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, Brown also revealed that the 'vast majority' of Al Qaeda militants are now in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.