War on Terror

(CNSNews.com) – After a conservative group posted a video on Tuesday calling for the Department of Justice to release the names of department lawyers who previously worked in the private sector representing or advocating on behalf of terrorist detainees, a DOJ spokesman responded with a statement that still does not name the attorneys.

“As we noted in a letter to senators, the Justice Department's attorneys are subject to ethics and disclosure rules as required under both department guidelines and this administration’s own ethics rules, which are the strongest in history,” said a statement from Matthew Miller, spokesman for the DOJ.

“One week after this department secured a guilty plea from Najibullah Zazi for attempting to attack the New York subway system and indicted two of his co-conspirators for their alleged role in that attack, it should be clear that fighting terrorism and keeping the American people safe is our number one priority,” Miller’s statement sai  read more »

ISLAMABAD- The Taliban's top military commander has been arrested in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation in Pakistan in a major victory against the insurgents as U.S. troops push into their heartland in southern Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the group's No. 2 leader behind Afghan Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and a close associate of Osama bin Laden, was captured in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, two Pakistani intelligence officers and a senior U.S. official said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release such sensitive information...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has died, the country's top civilian security official told The Associated Press on Wednesday. It was the government's first categorical confirmation of the death of the feared militant, whose passing is likely to weaken, but not vanquish, the al Qaeda-linked insurgent network he led.

In a sign of the continued militant threat, a suicide bomber attacked a vehicle carrying tribal police near Pakistan's volatile border with Afghanistan, killing 17 people, including 10 policemen, said a local government official.

Reports of Mehsud's death emerged after a spate of U.S. missiles hit his stronghold in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt in mid-January. Mehsud was said to have died of wounds suffered in one of the strikes in the Waziristan region -- another big victory for the CIA-led missile campaign that killed Mehsud's predecessor just six months ago...

The Supreme Court took no action Tuesday on a controversial appeal asking the justices to keep under wraps classified photographs of War on Terror detainees that have been likened to the infamous pictures at Abu Ghraib prison.

The court's consideration of the case coincides with congressional efforts to pass a law giving the secretary of defense the authority to exempt the photographs from Freedom of Information Act disclosures. A measure to do that passed a joint conference committee of the House and Senate last week.

The justices were scheduled to discuss the matter in their closed-door meeting Friday but may have been persuaded to postpone judgment by the government, which last week sent a letter to the court asking them not to move on the case...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's top defense and diplomacy advisers said the United States retains the Afghanistan war goal that he outlined just two months into his presidency — to sideline al-Qaida — but changing circumstances require a reassessment of how to get there.

A "snap decision" on whether to add more U.S troops would be counterproductive, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.

Whatever the president decides, the military will salute, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said...

President George W. Bush got a firsthand look Monday at the situation in the seven-year-old Afghanistan war, as his administration prepares to hand over a strategy overhaul to his successor including significantly increasing the U.S. troop presence.

Bush spoke to U.S. soldiers and Marines stationed in Afghanistan at a hangar on the tarmac at Bagram Air Base. The rally for over a thousand military personnel took place in the dark, cold pre-dawn hours -- it was about 5:30 a.m. local time when the president strode into the hangar to loud cheers...

A top U.S officer says the military is beginning a massive building effort in
Afghanistan to house the roughly 20,000 additional
troops, including an undetermined increase in Marines, that are expected to
begin pouring in early next year...

Former Osama bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan is being transferred from the U.S.
detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, back to his home country of Yemen, a
senior defense official said Monday.

Hamdan was convicted of aiding al-Qaeda in August and
sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison. He would be eligible for release in January
with credit for time served...

President Bush says the War on
Terror cannot be treated primarily as a matter of law enforcement — a remark
seemingly at odds with an approach taken by Democratic presidential candidate
Barack Obama...

A split decision Wednesday in the trial of Osama bin Laden's driver for a war crime eased some concerns about whether terrorism suspects would get fair trials in the military tribunals at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The jury of six military officers acquitted Salim Hamdan of conspiracy charges but convicted him of the lesser charge of providing material support for terrorism, which could send him to prison for life.