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• Report: CIA hired contractors to help hit al Qaeda

  BNET - 2009-08-20

  WASHINGTON AP - The CIA hired private contractors at Blackwater USA in 2004 as part of a secret program to kill top-level members of al Qaeda, a person familiar with the program said Wednesday.The contracts, which were unsuccessful, were canceled several years ago, the person told The Associated Press. He...

  Tags: U.S. Congress, program, CIA

• Putting Al Qaeda On The Couch

  - 2008-07-28

  September 11 was a recruiting poster for young people who are looking for some kind of direction in their lives. Marc Sageman has charted an unlikely path. The first scholar-in-residence at the New York City Police Department survived the Holocaust to become a psychiatrist, a sociologist and a CIA...

  Tags: Al-Qaeda, CIA, Government, recruiting

• Infighting slows plans for US special forces in Pakistan

  - 2008-06-30

  WASHINGTON AFP — The US administration last year drew up a plan making it easier for US special forces to launch missions into Pakistani tribal areas, but internal disagreements have kept it from getting a green light. An unnamed senior defense official told the daily there was "mounting frustration"...

  Tags: Al-Qaeda, CIA, Pakistan, Washington

• Fresh report of CIA jail in Poland driven by US election: Warsaw

  - 2008-06-23

  WARSAW AFP — Poland's defence minister on Monday labelled a US press report which said that Warsaw allowed the CIA to operate a secret torture base for Al-Qaeda suspects on its soil as simple electioneering. "I see it as an element of the election campaign in the United States,"...

  Tags: Al-Qaeda, CIA, Poland

• Al-Qaeda near defeat in Iraq, on defensive globally: CIA chief

  - 2008-05-30

  WASHINGTON AFP — CIA chief Michael Hayden, in an interview published Friday, said Al-Qaeda is essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive elsewhere, including the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. CIA director Michael Hayden told the Washington Post major gains have been made against Al-Qaeda's allies in the...

  Tags: Al-Qaeda, CIA, defeat, Government, Iraq, Leadership

• Upbeat CIA says Al-Qaeda is on the ropes

  - 2008-05-30

  WASHINGTON AFP — Al-Qaeda is near defeat in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and is on the defensive even in its safe havens along the Afghan-Pakistani border, CIA chief Michael Hayden said in an interview published Friday. The assessment was one of the most upbeat by a top intelligence official...

  Tags: Al-Qaeda, attack, CIA, defeat, Iraq, Pakistan, SECURITY

• Upbeat CIA assessment on Al-Qaeda challenged

  - 2008-05-30

  WASHINGTON, May 30, 2008 AFP — CIA director Michael Hayden came under stiff challenge for portraying Al-Qaeda as on the defensive after global setbacks, even in its safe havens along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Jay Rockefeller, said Hayden's upbeat appraisal was not consistent with intelligence assessments...

  Tags: Al-Qaeda, attack, CIA, director, Pakistan, SECURITY

• Al-Qaeda grooming militants who 'look western': CIA chief

  - 2008-03-30

  WASHINGTON AFP — CIA director Michael Hayden warned Sunday that Al-Qaeda was training operatives who "look western" and could enter the United States undetected to conduct terrorist attacks. General Hayden also said the terror network, which over the past 18 months has established a "safe haven" in Pakistan's tribal...

  Tags: Al-Qaeda, CIA, Pakistan, recruit, training

• Bin Laden associate in US custody: Pentagon

  - 2008-03-14

  WASHINGTON AFP — The Pentagon Friday disclosed the capture of an Afghan national who helped arrange Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora in the mountains of Afghanistan in late 2001. Muhammed Rahim, described as one of Bin Laden's most trusted facilitators and procurement specialists, was turned...

  Tags: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, CIA, Leadership, Pentagon

• CIA chief says legality of "waterboarding" now uncertain

  - 2008-02-07

  WASHINGTON AFP — The head of the CIA said Thursday it is uncertain whether the use of waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning widely condemned as torture, would be lawful if used today against Al-Qaeda detainees. General Michael Hayden, the CIA director, said the legal landscape has changed since...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Al-Qaeda, CIA, PRODUCTIVITY, technique