The Week: Most Recent Terrorism

Did Obama overshare with Hollywood about the bin Laden raid?

The Week — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:12:00 -0400

Though the White House warned that leaking info concerning the fatal raid on Osama bin Laden could pose security risks, it seemingly changed its tune when Hollywood came calling with plans to transform the raid into a movie. According to records obtained by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Obama administration granted Hollywood filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow (director of The Hurt Locker) and screenwriter Mark Boal extraordinary access to officials involved in the bin Laden operation, and let them tour classified CIA facilities, including the mock...

Jailed for helping to catch bin Laden: Can the U.S. rescue Dr. Shakil Afridi?

The Week — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:05:00 -0400

Pakistan has convicted a doctor named Shakil Afridi of treason and sentenced him to 33 years in prison because he tried to help the CIA identify Osama bin Laden. Afridi, viewed as a traitor by his government, was arrested after the U.S. raid that killed the al Qaeda leader, and Islamabad has ignored U.S. calls for his release. Is there anything Washington can do for him? Here's what you should know:

What exactly was Afridi's supposed crime?
He led a phony hepatitis B vaccination campaign in an attempt to get DNA samples from the children in the compound in Abbottabad where the al Qaeda...

The death of the Lockerbie bomber: Did he get off too easy?

The Week — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, died of prostate cancer Sunday, three years after Scottish authorities released him on "compassionate" grounds because doctors said he had just three months to live. Megrahi served only eight years of a 27-year sentence, and British Prime Minister David Cameron said Megrahi should never have been freed. But Megrahi's family maintains that he was innocent. Will Megrahi's death bring closure to the relatives of the 270 victims, or is the news that Megrahi died surrounded by his loving relations just...

9/11 mastermind KSM's military trial: Already a disaster?

The Week — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:50:00 -0400

The long-awaited military trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is off to a messy start at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On Saturday, Mohammed and four other accused plotters repeatedly disrupted what should have been a routine arraignment hearing, taking breaks for prayers and refusing to answer the judge's questions. A defense attorney wore traditional Muslim garb and asked that female prosecutors dress more conservatively to avoid offending her client. Is the controversial military tribunal already an embarrassment?...

The foiled al Qaeda underwear bomb plot: 5 takeaways

The Week — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:40:00 -0400

Al Qaeda is alive and well — in Yemen at least. U.S. authorities say they've foiled a plot by the terrorist network's Yemeni affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), to blow up a U.S.-bound plane with an "underwear bomb." It's the second time AQAP has tried to use an underwear bomber to target an aircraft — on Christmas Day in 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian militant linked to AQAP, tried to bring down a plane over Detroit, but his bomb fizzled. Here, five takeaways from the latest failed scheme:

1. The bomber never made it to the plane
U.S. officials insist...

Ordering the bin Laden raid: Was it really a tough call?

The Week — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:40:00 -0400

The raid that killed Osama bin Laden has become quite the political football this election season. Obama's campaign brought it up, suggesting in an ad that ordering the raid deep inside Pakistan was a bold and risky move that GOP challenger Mitt Romney would not have made. Romney countered by saying that any president, "even Jimmy Carter," would have done the same thing Obama did. Donald Rumsfeld, Defense secretary under George W. Bush, backed up Romney this week, saying that ordering the raid wasn't a "tough call." Was it really an easy decision to send in the SEALs?

It took guts: No leader...

The bin Laden document dump: 7 highlights

The Week — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:00 -0400

The U.S. Army has released a trove of letters and documents captured in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden at his safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a year ago. The documents — numbering roughly 200 pages and dating from September 2006 to April 2011 — offer a revealing glimpse into the terrorist mastermind's worldview, his plans for al Qaeda, and his reactions to pivotal developments in the Arab world. Here, seven highlights from the cache:

1. He wanted to kill Obama and Petraeus
Bin Laden exhorted his followers to take out airplanes carrying President Obama and General David Petraeus...

Has a California treasure hunter found bin Laden's body?

The Week — Thu, 03 May 2012 09:50:00 -0400

Last spring, days after a team of Navy SEALs shot and killed Osama bin Laden, helicoptered his body out of Pakistan to a Navy warship, then dumped it somewhere in the Arabian Sea, California undersea treasure hunter Bill Warren decided to go find it. A year later, Warren tells Spain's El Mundo newspaper that he's nailed down the spot where the Navy heaved the body overboard, and will mount an expedition this summer to drag bin Laden's corpse up from its watery grave, photograph it, and take DNA samples. Here's what you should know about Warren's strange quest:

Who exactly is Bill Warren?
He owns...

Norway's Anders Behring Breivik prosecution: A model for U.S. terror trials?

The Week — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:32:00 -0400

Anders Behring Breivik, Norway's confessed mass killer, appears to be making good on his plan to turn his trial into a "circus" to showcase his extremist, anti-Muslim views. Breivik admits to killing 77 people last July, but says he did it to defend his country against multiculturalism, likening the young Labour Party members he gunned down to the Hitler Youth. Norway's prosecution stands in stark contrast to the U.S. policy of barring high-profile terrorism suspects from civilian courtrooms altogether. Is the Breivik case an example of how not to handle high-profile terror cases? Or does Breivik...

Is al Qaeda publicizing a planned attack on New York?

The Week — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:17:00 -0400

The story: A glossy graphic with 3D effects threatening New Yorkers showed up this week on terrorism-linked foreign websites. The NYPD and FBI are investigating the movie-like poster — which features the Manhattan skyline and the warning, "al Qaeda coming soon again in New York" — but as far as they know, "there is no specific or credible threat to New York at this time." (See the image at right and below.) Still, the image was first found on a website "where serious al Qaeda people communicate and exchange information about techniques, about explosive devices," NYPD intelligence analysis...

Osama bin Laden's life on the run: 5 new revelations

The Week — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:05:00 -0400

Nearly a year after American commandos killed Osama bin Laden, new details are emerging of the notorious al Qaeda leader's life in hiding after the 9/11 attacks. The additional pieces of the puzzle come from an interrogation report of Amal Ahmad Abdul Fateh, bin Laden's 30-year-old Yemeni widow, who is currently in Pakistani custody. Experts warn that the report is not totally reliable, given that Fateh's words are paraphrased by a Pakistani police officer. Nevertheless, it is "the most detailed account yet" of bin Laden's post-9/11 life, says Declan Walsh at The New York Times. Here, five takeaways...

Bin Laden's 'chilling' plot to kill President Obama

The Week — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:55:00 -0400

Up until his death last May, Osama bin Laden was hoping to pull off his most audacious attack since Sept. 11, 2001: the assassination of President Obama. Or so says a report by David Ignatius in The Washington Post. What's unclear is how he hoped to organize such a long-shot scheme given his relative isolation in Pakistan. Soon-to-be-declassified documents seized by the U.S. commando team that killed bin Laden indicate that the al Qaeda leader was still commanding his terrorist network from his walled hideout in Abbottabad, even though it sometimes took months for him to receive replies from his...

10 years of Gitmo: The world's 'vortex of shame'

The Week — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:55:00 -0500

It will get much less attention than last year's 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, says Elizabeth O'Shea in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, but Wednesday marks a decade since "one of the blackest moments of the war on terror: The opening of Guantanamo Bay detention camp." Gitmo still holds 171 of the 779 prisoners who have been detained there — without "a fair trial and the presumption of innocence." Eighty-nine of today's detainees have been cleared for release, but are stuck in limbo after Congress blocked their transfer. Gitmo "represents an affront to the bedrock...

Indefinite detention for terror suspects: Did Obama sell out?

The Week — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:32:00 -0500

President Obama signed a $662 billion defense bill on Saturday that includes GOP-authored provisions giving the military greater authority to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely — even if they're U.S. citizens. Obama had threatened to veto the bill, and still has "serious reservations" about the detention rules. But Obama said Congress made last-minute changes that rendered the National Defense Authorization Act "minimally acceptable," and he vowed never to allow open-ended military detention of citizens without trial. Still, did Obama betray his progressive supporters?

No doubt about it...

Leaked: The legal case for killing Anwar al-Awlaki

The Week — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:32:00 -0400

A secret Obama administration legal memo cleared the way for the killing of radical, U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, declaring that it would be legal for the U.S. to kill him despite an executive order banning assassinations, according to a report in The New York Times. The "crucial" legal analysis, written a year before the drone strike that killed Awlaki last month, said the killing would only be justified if Awlaki, a U.S. citizen, could not be taken alive. Does this 50-page memo settle the debate over the legality of Awlaki's killing?

No. The government needs to defend its...

Was the U.S. wrong to kill Anwar al-Awlaki?

The Week — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:21:00 -0400

The American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki — a key figure in al Qaeda — was killed Friday in a long-planned American drone strike in Yemen. Al-Awlaki's killing marks the first time that a U.S. citizen has been targeted in the war on terrorism, and raises thorny constitutional issues. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was quick to criticize President Obama, saying that "to start assassinating American citizens without charges — we should think very seriously about this." Is this an unconstitutional assassination or simply the justified killing of an American enemy?

This is...