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Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: In the search for a single unifying force in chaotic Afghanistan, such as “moderate” Taliban, to bring political stability before November’s US presidential elections, focus has once again fallen on Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, was used to build bridges with the rest of the world, Asia Times reported on Friday.
Mr Rehman met visiting British Foreign Minister Jack Straw earlier in (…)

By Ghaida Ghantous
Saudi authorities said on Saturday they had killed al Qaeda leader Abdulaziz al-Muqrin and three other prominent militants after they beheaded U.S. hostage Paul Johnson.
State television broadcast pictures of the bodies of Muqrin and the three others, saying all had been involved in the recent surge of violence against foreigners in the kingdom, and said 12 others had been arrested.
"This is a massive blow to the militants," a Saudi security source said.
The men (…)

Last Thursday air traffic controllers guided a plane near the Reagan Memorial Event, but they did not tell the security on the ground, who thought it was a terrorist attack. Cops were screaming, "run, run run!" and had some members of Congress, the Supreme Court and even Rupert Murdoch running for their lives. ’Someone’ intentionally created this terror scare for Congress- how do we know? Because the FAA spokesman was caught in an outright lie. Hundreds of people were terrorized for no (…)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5234996/ By Michael Moran Brave New World columnist MSNBC Updated: 6:34 p.m. ET June 17, 2004
For more than three years, countless reviews, investigations and commissions on the 9/11 attacks concentrated on the intelligence, law enforcement and broader foreign policy failures that allowed al-Qaida to strike a devastating blow at the United States that day. On Wednesday, at long last, the most important of these reviews finally turned its spotlight on the most (…)

By Ghaida Ghantous
RIYADH (Reuters) - Al Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia beheaded American hostage Paul Johnson Friday and their leader was then killed in a shootout with security forces as he tried to dispose of the body, Saudi officials said.
Abdulaziz al-Muqrin’s group posted photographs of the 49-year-old aviation engineer’s severed head on a Web site, six days after he was seized. The Saudi government had refused to free Islamist prisoners by a Friday deadline set by the cell. (…)

Analysis - by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON. Although their hopes for transforming Iraq into a pro-U.S. base in the heart of the Arab world have been badly set back, neo-imperial hawks in the Bush administration are proceeding as fast as possible to reinvent U.S. forces worldwide as ’’globocop’’, capable of pre-empting any possible threat to its interests at a moment’s notice.
In the last month, the Pentagon has confirmed plans to sharply cut forces stationed at giant U.S. bases in Germany, South (…)

No matter what the Bush administration did or did not say about it, it is now clear that Saddam Hussein was not involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that any support for the Iraqi war based on the assumption that he was involved was misplaced.
Misplaced, widely held and, most disturbingly, still given life by the president himself.
Thursday, a day after the 9-11 commission announced its detailed history of the attacks, President Bush repeated his insinuation that (…)

OUR OPINION: REPORT SHOULD DISPEL MYTH USED TO JUSTIFY IRAQ INVASION
The panel investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks yesterday offered a definitive statement that should once and for all lay to rest one of the most pernicious myths surrounding those tragic events. "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States," the staff report declared, directly contradicting a Bush administration view widely used to justify the Iraq invasion. (…)

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that Saddam Hussein "had long-established ties with Al Qaeda." A day later, President Bush pointed to Islamic militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, who may be hiding in Fallouja. "Zarqawi’s the best evidence of a connection to Al Qaeda affiliates and Al Qaeda" in Iraq, he declared.
It’s hard to imagine that either Bush or Cheney had an inkling of what an interim staff report of the independent 9/11 commission would say Wednesday. There is "no credible (…)

It’s hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.
Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.
Of all the ways Mr. Bush persuaded Americans to back the invasion of Iraq last year, the most plainly dishonest was his effort to link his war of choice with the (…)