“Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn-born convert to Islam whom the government once accused of plotting to detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ in the United States, was sentenced on Tuesday [January 22, 2008] to 17 years and 4 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to help Islamic jihadist fighters abroad. The sentence was more lenient […]
1/15/2008
“Another poll conducted in Pakistan in January 2008 by the same organization [nonprofit group Terror Free Tomorrow] showed support for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, bin Laden, and other militant Islamist groups had dropped by half from the previous August. In August 2007, 33 percent of Pakistanis supported Al Qaeda, and 38 percent supported the Taliban. […]
1/15/2008
“The Iraqis did get rid of the old Saddam-era flag and replaced it, in January 2008, with a flag of three horizontal stripes–red, white and black to reflect Arab liberation colors–with green Arabic script in the white panel with the phrase ‘God is great.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes […]
1/13/2008
“The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq is telling its followers to soften their tactics in order to regain popular support in the western province of Anbar, where Sunni tribes have turned against the organization and begun working with U.S. forces, according to group leaders and American intelligence officials. The new approach was outlined last […]
1/12/2008
“In January [12] 2008, AQAP’s [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s] Arabic-language magazine Sada al Malahim featured an interview with the wanted jihadi Abu Hummam al Qahtani. Qahtani said, ‘If the enemy’s interests in the Arabian Peninsula were devastated, his access to our petroleum interrupted, and the oil refineries put out of order, this would […]
1/9/2008
“On January 9, 2008, Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, and Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, visited Islamabad [Pakistan], where they discussed with [Pakistani President Purvez] Musharraf and [General] Ashfaq Kayani a plan to make operational in FATA [Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas] a secret CIA base that could mount attacks on militants […]
1/2/2008
Following the CIA’s admission that it destroyed footage of suspected terrorists being subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques, Chairman and Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, published an op-ed in The New York Times on January 2, 2008. “More than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. […]
1/2/2008
In an interview with The New York Times on January 2, 2008, Joint Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton said, when they “found out that the CIA had withheld the relevant [interrogation] videotapes and later destroyed them, they accused the CIA of ‘obstruction,’ a federal crime.” – Jane Mayer, The Dark […]
12/31/2007
In Iraq, “in the second half of 2007, U.S. combat deaths declined steadily. After peaking in May at 126, there were 93 KIAs [killed in actions] in June, when the surge troops all were in the country, then 66 in July, 55 in August, and–eventually–just 14 in December.” [The 31st of the month used for […]
12/27/2007
After returning to Karachi, Pakistan, on October 18, 2007, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. “The assassins persisted, striking her down on December 27, 2007, while she was attending a political rally in Rawalpindi… The UN investigators concluded that Benazir was probably killed by al Qaeda and its Pakistani Taliban allies, […]