CNET News’ Robert Vamosi reports on analysis of the latest missive from Osama bin Laden digital image forensics expert Neal Krawetz, which Krawetz’s analysis suggests is a mashup of old audio and video with new audio, quite possibly supplied by someone other than Osama himself. My findings? I strongly believe that Bin Laden is dead. [...]

As everyone is by now aware, today is the sixth anniversary of the biggest terrorist attacks ever on American soil. Their inspiration, Osama bin Laden, has issued a video celebrating his achievement. Osama bin Laden urged sympathizers to join the ”caravan” of martyrs as he praised one of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers in a [...]

A newly released Osama bin Laden video has been released and is being vetted by the intelligence community. he U.S. government has obtained a new video of Osama bin Laden marking the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and is analyzing it, three officials said Friday. Several intelligence agencies were looking at the video [...]

Islamist websites are touting a new Osama bin Laden video — which would be the first in nearly three years — to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. AP: Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden plans a new video to be released in the coming days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. [...]

Despite his resignation from the Senate, the Larry Craig story won’t die. Arianna Huffington spent her Labor Day wondering, “In the Age of Terror, Isn’t Busting Toe-Tappers an Insane Use of Our Law Enforcement Resources?” Sometimes a clever title is used as a hook to attract reader attention but the article itself goes in a [...]

The Larry Craig scandal has been, if nothing else, educational. Most of us are learning for the first time that public restrooms are a major hangout for gay men looking for a quickie and that there’s a secret signaling code. That’s a good thing, since it’s apparently illegal to send this code in Minneapolis and [...]

Foreign Affairs is giving each of the major 2008 presidential candidates space to write a manifesto of their views on international relations. Rudy Giuliani has weighed in with “Toward a Realistic Peace.” [Also at RCP.] It is not particularly realistic — let alone Realist — and certainly does not contemplate peace. Highlights: “We have responded [...]

President Bush told a group of airmen yesterday that critics who chide him for claiming al Qaeda in Iraq are part of the group that attacked us on 9/11 are simply wrong. President George W. Bush argued forcefully [Tuesday] that an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Iraq is linked tightly to the central Al Qaeda leadership, [...]

Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, aka Abu Shahid, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq has been captured. The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group’s foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter. Khaled [...]

A previously unseen video featuring Osama bin Laden has renewed speculation as to whether the al Qaeda leader is still alive and running the show. CNN: Osama bin Laden stresses the importance of martyrdom for Muslim causes in a videotape that purportedly contains a 50-second message from the al Qaeda leader. The 40-minute videotape, whose [...]

Michael Gordon and Jim Rutenberg argue in today’s NYT that the Bush administration has consistently exaggerated the role of al Qaeda in Iraq for propaganda purposes. That’s undeniably true. “Al Qaeda” is a powerful buzz word and both the terrorists and politicians play it up for effect. In the case of the administration, they made [...]

Donald Rumsfeld pulled the plug on a 2005 mission that might have taken out several top al Qaeda leaders for fear of alienating Pakistan, Mark Mazzetti reports in today’s NYT. A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after [...]

Some experts believe al Qaeda’s latest video shows desperation over their plight in Iraq. A new video by al-Qaida’s deputy leader Thursday left no doubt about what the terror network claims is at stake in Iraq — describing it as a centerpiece of its anti-American fight and insisting the Iraqi insurgency is under its direct [...]

Retired fighter Jock Robert “Buzz” Patterson has made a name for himself by churning out books about how Democrats hate America and want us to be weak. His first two efforts, Dereliction of Duty: How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security and Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize [...]

The most interesting exchange from last night’s Republican debates was between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani over the cause of the 9/11 attacks. Paul asserted that they were “blowback” resulting from American interventionism in the Middle East, putting him right in Giuliani’s wheelhouse. Is Ron Paul crazy as loon? Or is he on to something [...]

A terrorist plot on Fort Dix has been thwarted, AP reports. Six men were planning to attack the Fort Dix Army base and “kill as many soldiers as possible,” federal authorities said Tuesday. The men, Yugoslav nationals, were arrested early Tuesday, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the United States Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. [...]

Salon is reporting that elements of al-Qaeda have reorganized and are growing in strength. The news is alarming. U.S. and French intelligence agencies are convinced that terrorist network al-Qaida has reorganized and, what’s more, developed new training camps in both Afghanistan and the remote tribal regions of northern Pakistan. They believe that a new generation [...]

Last evening, I attended the Media Research Center’s 20th Anniversary Gala as a guest of Matt Sheffield of MRC’s Newsbusters blog. While the festivities went late into the evening, thanks to not starting the presentation until after everyone had finished dessert and a rather rambling performance by substitute presenter Mary Matalin, it was quite fun. [...]

David Hicks, an Australian citizen being held as an unlawful combatant in Guantanamo Bay, has pleaded guilty to the charge of supporting a terrorist organization. David Hicks has pleaded guilty to one count of supporting a terrorist organisation. The plea to a late night specially convened military commission came after an apparent deal was reached [...]

Khalid Sheik Mohammed has signed a two page confession taking responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and dozens of other terrorist operations in a hearing at Guantanamo Bay over the weekend. WaPo: Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, confessed at a Guantanamo Bay military hearing that he planned and funded [...]

After having been relegated to the sidelines for years, Osama bin Laden and especially Ayman al-Zawahri, have regained a central role in directing al Qaeda and have reconstituted a large training operation on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde of the NYT. The United States has also identified several new Qaeda [...]

Glenn Greenwald, who as of today is blogging for Salon, has a rather shocking post up entitled, “Extremist Bush supporter calls for murder of scientists.” I figured some whacked out global warming foe had gone over the edge. It turns out the culprit is none other than “University of Tennessee Law Professor and right-wing blogger [...]

Hillary Clinton is the front-runner to follow John Kerry as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. Over the weekend, she displayed a similar penchant for getting into trouble for flubbed jokes. Ian Bishop explains in a cover story for the New York Post: Hillary Rodham Clinton left caucus-goers here yesterday believing that Bubba had given [...]

Algeria’s top terrorist group has rebranded itself as an al Qaeda franchise. Algeria’s main Islamist militant group has changed its name to al Qaeda after getting the approval of Osama bin Laden, according to a statement posted on the Internet on Friday. The move by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) marked the [...]

Saddam Hussein is dead. Some Arab media, including state-run Iraqiya television, Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and the U.S.-financed Al-Hurra, reported about an hour before daylight Saturday (about 10 p.m. EST Friday) that Saddam had been executed. There was no confirmation from the Iraqi government. A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam’s execution, rejecting a last-minute [...]

Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a top leader in the Taliban, was killed in a U.S. airstrike. A top Taliban military commander described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed in an airstrike this week close to the border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Saturday. A Taliban spokesman [...]

Marc Danziger reports that, “With the help of some friends who have been doing a smidgen of looking, and it appears – appears, but is not certain – that there is in fact a Jamail Hussein in the Yarmouk police station in Baghdad.” He promises an update today as more details are confirmed. Curt at [...]

Lisa Beyer has a powerful op-ed in Time with the provocative title “The Big Lie About the Middle East — Tell James Baker: Arab nations don’t care about the Palestinians.” In lumping the Iraq mess in with the Palestinian problem–and suggesting the first could not be fixed unless the second was too–the Baker-Hamilton commission lent [...]

The Washington Times has an extensive report on the incident last week where imams returning from a conference in Minneapolis were removed from a US Airways flight and subsequently banned from the airline. It is entitled “How the imams terrorized an airliner.” Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated [...]

There’s a bit of cheery news from Iran this morning. Iran is nearing the completion of its nuclear fuel cycle program: TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran would soon celebrate completion of its nuclear fuel program and claimed the international community was ready to accept it as a nuclear state. Iran [...]

A bizarre story in London’s Telegraph is entitled “Iran plotting to groom bin Laden’s successor.” The details are scarce: Iran is trying to form an unholy alliance with al-Qa’eda by grooming a new generation of leaders to take over from Osama bin Laden, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. Western intelligence officials say the Iranians are [...]

Via Andrew Cochran, I see that the Bush administration’s terrorism policy is getting endorsement from two incredibly unlikely sources. Former CIA bin Laden hunter Michael Scheuer, whose Imperial Hubris made him the darling on leftist critics of the Bush and his Iraq War policy (granted, mostly those who hadn’t bothered to read the book) argued [...]

Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass, who served in the administrations of George H.W. and George W. Bush, sees a New Middle East emerging. His vision, described in the current Foreign Affairs, is not pretty: Just over two centuries since Napoleon’s arrival in Egypt heralded the advent of the modern Middle East — some [...]

That’s the message of a new RNC ad entitled “The Stakes.” Here’s the video: Breitbart: The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic terror attacks against the U.S. homeland. The ad portrays Osama bin Laden and quotes his threats against America dating to February 1998. “These are [...]

Charles Krauthammer laments the fact that the Foley scandal and Woodward book have moved the National Intelligence Estimate that said the Iraq War has made us less safe out of the spotlight, leaving that conclusion to “remain an unrebutted charge long after Foley is forgotten and Woodward is remaindered.” Aside from the fact that the [...]

The Sunday Times of London reported that soundless video of Mohammed Atta and the 9/11 hijackers has been discovered: FILM of the ringleader of the September 11 hijackers reading his “martyrdom” will inside Afghanistan at Osama Bin Laden’s headquarters has emerged five years after the Al-Qaeda outrage. It is the first time that a videotape [...]

Al-Qaeda’s second in command put out a long commercial long commercial for the Democratic Party today. The deputy leader of al-Qaida called President Bush a failure and a liar in the war on terror in a video statement released Friday, and he compared Pope Benedict XVI to the 11th century pontiff who launched the First [...]

Bruce McQuain asks, “Where was Afghanistan in the NIE?” Afghanistan was just as much an invasion of a Muslim country as was Iraq. And in the case of Afghanistan, it was a Muslim country being run precisely as the jihadists think the world should be run. What could be a more perfect “cause celebre” than [...]

Robert Kagan has a withering critique of recent media reports based on leaks from a National Intelligence Estimation saying that the war in Iraq has created more terrorists. He observes that in both the NYT and WaPo stories, “there were no quotations from the NIE itself, so all we have are journalists’ characterizations of anonymous [...]

The National Intelligence Estimate concludes that the Iraq War has spawned a new generation of terrorists. A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the [...]

Pope Benedict’s statements about Islam’s violent history, which I dismissed Friday as the pope being Catholic, have, ironically, sparked violence and threats of more violence. Rioting yesterday caused substantial property damage but, thankfully, no reports of injuries. Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs attacked five churches in the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday, following remarks [...]

Jim Henley believes a recent post of mine was too dismissive of Andy Rooney‘s foreign policy analysis. Joyner: “Andy Rooney explains why the [9/11] tragedy was really our fault:” Americans are puzzled over why so many people in the world hate us. We seem so nice to ourselves. They do hate us though. We know [...]

Earlier, I collected a series of 9/11 anniversary reflections from the press and the blogosphere. Many of them were moving but none were particularly novel. By that, I mean that everyone pretty much agreed that the day was horrible, changed a lot of things about the world, and reflected on people who were murdered that [...]

Mike Krempasky provides six videos of the controversial segments of ABC’s “Path to 9/11″ miniseries. This is especially interesting given that the Senate Democratic leadership has threatened ABC’s broadcast license, several former Clinton officials are threatening to sue, and lefty bloggers like John Aravosis are “launching an all-out war” against ABC and mother company Disney. [...]

John Aravosis provides the full text of a letter by the Democratic leadership in the Senate to Disney over the “Path to 9/11″ miniseries. The opening paragraphs: We write with serious concerns about the planned upcoming broadcast of The Path to 9/11 mini-series on September 10 and 11. Countless reports from experts on 9/11 who [...]

Steve Benen is concerned by a Newsweek piece discussing Bush administration’s internal debate on how to publically describe the enemy: Last fall White House aides were grappling with a seemingly simple question that had eluded them for years: what should the president, in his many speeches on the war on terror, call the enemy? They [...]

Unlike most on the right side of the blogosphere, I took Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld to task for suggesting that those who disagreed with administration policies in the war against Islamist terrorists are akin to those who appeased Fascism in the 1930s. Last night, Keith Obermann got into the act, with a 6:41 monologue [...]

America’s high school kids are getting infinitesimally dumber, as evidenced by the biggest SAT score drop in 31 years. The high school class of 2006 got stuck with a new, longer version of the SAT and didn’t fare well on it. Average reading and math scores fell a total of seven points — the sharpest [...]

A friend of mine emailed an MSNBC reprint of an AP story reporting that Don Rumsfeld today likened critics of the Iraq War to those who tried to appease Hitler in the 1930s. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq and counterterrorism policies of trying to appease “a [...]

Osama bin Laden is obsessed with Whitney Houston and plotted to kill Bobby Brown out of jealousy, at least according to some nutcase. Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden is so obsessed with singer Whitney Houston he thought about killing her husband, Bobby Brown, it was claimed last night. The suggestion is made by Sudanese poet [...]