TERRORISM

Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer quit on Thursday after his security blunder forced police to bring forward a major operation to thwart a suspected al Qaeda plot involving Pakistani nationals.

Six car bombs exploded across Baghdad Monday, killing at least 34 people and wounding scores, police said, after a spate of arrests targeting Sunni Arab fighters raised tensions in the Iraqi capital.

A Yemeni court sentenced an Islamist to death and handed down jail sentences against two others on Monday after convicting them of seeking to work for Israeli intelligence services.

Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not hiding in Pakistan's Baluchistan province whose people will resist any U.S. attempt to extend its war against militancy there, the province's chief minister said on Friday.

A suicide bomber blew himself up near Sanaa airport on Wednesday, apparently to target a convoy of South Koreans investigating an al Qaeda suicide that killed four Korean tourists this week, a security source said.

U.N. human rights investigators on Tuesday announced a global investigation into secret detention and said they would not relax scrutiny of U.S. counter-terrorism policies under President Barack Obama.

Pakistani investigators were following important leads to identify who was behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Wednesday.

Pakistan publicly acknowledged for the first time Thursday that last year's attack on Mumbai was largely planned on its soil and that it had arrested most of the key plotters.

On Thursday, Pakistan insisted it would help India to bring those behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks to justice.

Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, is reported to have issued a video recording calling on Muslims to wage jihad against Israel over its offensive in Gaza.

Top Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah, accused of masterminding a hijacking, suicide bombings and hostage takings of U.S. and Israeli targets in the 1980s, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus, the Shi'ite Muslim group said on Wednesday.

A suspected U.S. missile strike that killed up to 13 foreign militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan region this week had targeted second or third tier al Qaeda leaders, according to residents in the tribal area.

A bomb hidden in a box of birds killed 13 people and wounded 57 at a popular pet market in central Baghdad on Friday, police and witnesses said, describing the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in two months.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said that an army operation is still planned against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, but diplomats suggested on Tuesday that any action would now be limited in scope.

A Spanish court found 21 people guilty of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings but cleared three men of masterminding Europe's deadliest Islamist attack, which killed 191 people.

Vilified as a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism and a backer of Iraqi insurgents, the president of Iran was actually able to make New Yorkers burst into laughter but not at a joke.

The world should not watch out for dreaded terrorist outfit Al-Qaeda's leader Osama Bin Laden but should concentrate on capturing his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, the Sunday Telegraph has reported.

In a new video released by dreaded terrorist outfit Al-Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab, Thursday, September 20, Osama Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri has urged war against Pakistan and said the United States was being defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts.

Americans stood in silence to remember the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11 attacks on Tuesday as Osama bin Laden resurfaced to praise the suicide hijackers who carried them out six years ago to the day.

Americans will commemorate the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed about 3000 people and gripped the nation's psyche, by organizing silent processions and lighting candles in memory of the victims, even as reports poured in that Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is seen mocking the U.S. in a new video release.

Congressional negotiators have agreed on legislation that would tie U.S. aid to Pakistan to significant progress by Islamabad in cracking down on al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militants, congressional sources said on Thursday.