al qaeda or al qaeda affiliates, there have been at least 13 previous terror attacks since 9/11 targetingould be the 14th. because of such repeat eed threats, the nypd remains focused on preventing another terrorist attack. we assign a thousand police officers to counterterrorism duties every single day, and this is just another case where our precautions paid off. now let me ask commissioner kelly to provide details. ray? >> thank you, mr. mayor. over two years ago, the new york city police department became aware of a follower of the radical cleric anwar al awlaki. the follower, then residing in schenectady, new york, was talking about traveling to yemen for training before returning to new york to become a martyr in the name of jihad. that was jose pimentell. an unemployed native of the dominican republic and convert to islam who lived most of his life in manhattan. pimentell is a u.s. citizen. before returning to washington heights last year, he lived in schenectady for about five years, where he made even some of his like-minded friends nervous by his extremism. he talked about chang

where are we in this fight agait al qaeda? especially light of osama bin laden and then what happened in yemen. >> i think where were, charlie, is that the core leadership of al qaeda in pakistan h suffered a huge blow with the death of osama bin laden but 's not sufficient to wipe out al qaeda all together. the threat that came from that leadership and carried out the... executed the attacks on 9/11 has bee greatly diminished but what's happened is al qaeda is like corporation. they have franchised that have cropped up in places like north aver a, east africa, somalia, iraq still and in yemen. that's the one that carried out the attempted bombing by the so-called underpants bomber. the nigeriaman who tried to blow himself up and ten months later same organization packed explives in thr printer cartridges, put them on cargo planes and tried to route them the united states. that plot was also thwarted luckily. so you have... al qaeda is still trying to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, create a mass casualty attac

there are very few al qaeda operating in afghanistan. secretary of defense leon panetta said in june 2010 that there were, at most, only 50 to 100 al qaeda members in afghanistan. afghanistan is no longer and has not been for some time a central arena for al qaeda activities. american forces have also effectively pursued the second objective: capturing or killing those who attacked america on 9/11. in recent years, america has captured or killed two dozen high-level al qaeda operatives, including khalid sheikh mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the september 11 attacks, 9/11 attacks, was captured in a raid on a house in the pakistani garrison city of rahla pendi near the capital, islamabad. it includes ramsi bin alshid, the key facilitator of the 9/11 attacks. sheikh said masri, a leader of al qaeda, was killed in a u.s. drone strike. and most importantly, our exceptional intelligence teams and armed services have tracked down and killed osama bin laden, the founder and head of al qae al qaeda. citizens may fairly ask, and they do ask,

our message to al qaeda recruits, don't join al qaeda because you could get killed or wind up dying in jail. isn't that the message we want to send? why in the world would we require our nation to release somebody when the evidence presented to a federal judge is convincing enough for him to sign off on what the military determined at an arbitrary point in time? that doesn't make us better people. it would make us less safe. so this bill is a very sound, balanced work product, and i will stand by it. i will fight for it. and i respect those who may disagree, but why did we take out the language that senator levin wanted me to put in about an american citizen cannot be held indefinitely if caught on the homeland? the administration asked us to do that. why did they ask us to do that? it makes perfect sense. if an american citizen has joined the enemy and we capture them at home, we want to make sure that we know what they're up to and we want to require under law to turn them over to a criminal court where you have to provide them a lawyer an an arbitrary point in time. so the administr

if you're an american citizen suspected of being, joined al qaeda, being a member of al qaeda, you can be held as an enemy combatant. the padilla case in south carolina, where the man was held for five years as enemy combatant, went to the fourth circuit court of appeals and here's what the court said. you can interrogate that person in an intelligence-gathering situation. the only thing you have to do is provide them a lawyer for their habeas appeal review. so here's the due process rights. if our intelligence community military believe that an american citizen is suspected of being a member of al qaeda, the law of the land as it is today, an american citizen can be held as enemy combatant and questioned about what role you play in helping al qaeda, and you do get due process. everybody held as an enemy combatant here, at guantanamo bay, captured in the united states goes before a federal judge, and the government has to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the person is in fact an enemy combatant. there is due process. we just don't hold someone and say good luck, you have t

a man called an al qaeda sympathizer now under arrest.nn national security contributor fran townsend will tell us what this means about the state of al qaeda. and cnn goes in depth this week. who is newt gingrich? new political baggage emerging for the former house speaker, including ties to the health care industry and a mortgage giant. can he convince the tea party he's really an outsider? we'll ask his former spokesman and a democratic congressman, who served with the speaker. those stories and much more coming up in about 20 minutes on "american morning" including an interview with christie turlington, the supermodel, about her latest project. this is your "am: wake-up call." can i help you? yeah, can i get a full-sized car? for full-sized cars, please listen to the following menu. for convertibles, press star one. i didn't catch that. to speak to a representative, please say representative now. representative. goodbye! you don't like automated customer service, and neither do we. that's why, unlike other cards, no matter when you cal

the if you're an american citizen suspected of being joint al-qaeda, being a member of al-qaeda, you can be held as an enemy combatant.. the padilla case in southh carolina where the man was heldl for five years as an enemy combatant went to the fourth fou circuit court of appeals, and here's what the court said. you can interrogate that person in an intelligence-gathering int situation. the only thing you have to do is provide d them a lawyer for ther habeas appeal review.he so here's the due process rights. if our intelligence community, t military believe that anve american t citizen is suspectede being a member of al-qaeda,al the law of the land as it is today, an american citizen can be held as an enemy combatant and questioned about what role you play in helping al-qaeda,nga and you do get due process. everybody held as an enemy combatant here, at guantanamouat bay capture inside the united states goes before a federal judge, and the government has to prove by a preponderance of the evidenceer that the person is, n fact, an enemy combatant. there is due process. we just j don't

i believe an al qaeda operative is not a common criminal, and if an american citizen joins al qaeda, they should be treated as an enemy combatant as one possibility. but if you want to go down the other road, you can go down that road. i just don't want us to take off the table for the first time in the history of america that an american citizen trying to help the enemy kill us here at home somehow can no longer be talked to by our military to gather intelligence. that's a crazy outcome. i think we've got a really good bill that gives maximum flexibility to the executive branch but preserves the tools that we're going to need now and in the future, and to my colleagues, please explain -- please ask yourself if in world war ii we could hold an american citizen who tried to help the nazis blow up america as enemy combatant, why would you want to hold an american citizen who is helping al qaeda who did more damage to the homeland than the nazis, as an enemy combatant? why would you want to take off the table the ability to hold that person humanely interrogate them to find out why they

we are at war with al qaeda and people determined to be part of al qaeda should be treated as people who are at war with us. but even with that statement, we give the administration a waiver. that's how much flexibility we give to the executive executive. how much time have i used, mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator has three and a half minutes remaining. mr. levin: i yield the floor. mr. mccain: mr. president, how much time remaining on both sides? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona has just over five minutes. the senator from colorado has eight minutes. mr. udall: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. udall: i want to clarify for the record before i recognize senator webb for five minutes that some here have claimed that the supreme court's hamdi decision upheld the indefinite detention of u.s. citizens captured in the united states. it did no such thing. hamdi was captured in afghanistan, not the united states, and justice o'connor, the author of the opinion, was very careful to say that the hamdi decision was limited to -

>> you're talking about al qaeda, correct? you have to understand who the al qaeda really is. fashion -- as a matter of fact, paul wolfowitz explained it very clearly after 9/11. he said that al qaeda is inspired by the fact that we had bases in saudi arabia. so if you want to inspire al qaeda, just meddle in that region. that will inspire the al qaeda. he went on to say that that was a good reason for us to remove the base we had had for 15 years in saudi arabia and that we should have done that. so there is a response. al qaeda responds to that. and they're quite annoyed with us. if you have a no-fly zone over syria, that's an act of war. what if we had china put a no-fly zone over our territory? i don't think we would like that. i think we should practice a policy of good will to other people. what about saying that we don't do anything to any other country that we don't have them do to us? when we have a no-fly zone over iraq, it was for meant to be regime change. evidently, some want to have regime change. what is our business? why should we spend more money and more live

a few days ago "the washington post" reported that al qaeda -- the al qaeda corps has contracted and weakened since then, and it's leadership ranks have been reduced to two membe members. to be sure, that does not mean that al qaeda is no longer a threat. particularly coming from groups outside of its core. but it's a remarkable achievement nevertheless. our current counterterrorism strategy is not broken. indeed, just the opposite is true. we are winning the war against al qaeda. there is no indication -- none -- that we need to fundamentally alter our approach to locating terrorists here or overseas. under director mueller's leadership, the f.b.i. has turned itself inside out and over the last ten years since september 11, it has been an intelligence-gathering counterterrorism machine. i can't say that i have always agreed 100% with 100% of the f.b.i.'s tactics and there are times when i worry that they may be overstepping. but, make no mistake, if our goal hunting down the bad guys, the f.b.i. knows what they're doing. there is no reason to think we need to change course and creat

but it's in the london telegraph and all of the news that al qaeda under nato control has been given libya is now being sent to syria was used course in the eighty's against the russians used against the serbs in the ninety's i mean this is a joke al qaeda is the bogeyman they used to do this but the whole thing is pointed at the american people but here's the key when we started reporting this last week when they brought this bella it has a section saying americans are exempt but it has another section saying unless we say so so it's got the fine print. and then i had noticed all these ip addresses hitting our article then minutes of it going up which they don't even hide it goes back to military bases and p.r. firms they were ready saying i was a liar and force dot com was lying using the lying section and in fact it was in the grand rapids press congressman justin amash said quote it's carefully crafted to mislead the public they had all the war mongering neo cons and others come out in the last week and say it's not in there it's not true it doesn't affect citizens a few things o

kind of training from al qaeda.berg said that he acted as a lone wolf. and authorities are saying, don, that he had learned th eed how a pipe bomb after reading a magazine, an online al qaeda propaganda magazine. >> we know that the suspect is being arraigned either now or at any moment in manhattan criminal court. is there any activity outside of his home, any police activity or anything of note here? >> there is a police car here. there's a lot of reporters around here. and reporters -- i also spoke to the uncle a little while ago. the uncle spoke in spanish about this situation. he was very surprised when pimentel was arrested. and he said that he actually didn't notice anything strange with him. he didn't have any problems with him. he said he was just getting -- he noticed he was getting more and more into a new religion, and he said that he didn't really have a lot of contact with him. boo because when he would come home, he would be sleeping. but he didn't really notice any problems. >> ines ferre outside of

new york police round up a suspect accused of plotting to set off bombs and sympathizing with al qaeda. >> police even demonstrated the explosive firepower as they moved in to capture the suspect before he could act. it's monday, november 21st. >>> happy monday morning, everybody. i'm rob nelson. >> i'm sunny hostin. >>> well, police arrested 27-year-old jose pimentel who lived with his extended family in upper manhattan. detectives accused him of building homemade bombs and plotting to plant them in police cars. investigators also reveal ed pimentel posted suspicious messages on the web. >> scary story, too. al qaeda sympathizer on top of that. >>> also this half-hour, terrifying calls from bill collectors. the number of illegal, threatening phone calls is up. what you can do to deal with this form of harassment. no one likes to get a call from a bill collector, when they take a nasty threatening tone. >> it's illegal. we'll learn more about that. >>> and later on, the big winners and memorable performances from last night's "american music awards." i love that show. our own show busi

he is described as a home grown terrorist who admired al qaeda. wabc's lucy yang looks into the suspect's past. >> reporter: he told us that jose pimentel is his sister's son and lived with him all the same, the 63-year-old uncle said he had no idea what his nephew was doing inside his bedroom which he always kept locked. when asked about his nephew allegedly growing up to be an angry terrorist, he says jose kept all thoughts of al qaeda to himself. the uncle adds pimentel was arrested on the street saturday. the police later coming to the apartment to confiscate evidence. residents describe jose as a loner, he would hang out bumming cigarettes keeping to himself. no one suspected any such terror plot brewing in the mind of one. pimentel was born in the dominican republic, came to the u.s. when he was 8, a u.s. citizen, unemployed and far from patriotic. >> i am shocked, of course, i have kids. for me it's -- something really to worry about. how come someone is making bomb here inside the building? >> reporter: jose pimentel was seen smoking on th

but, al qaeda, there is a fear that al qaeda could look at libya as a safe haven. >> and there's lotsweaponry that al qaeda would like to get their hands on. ed, my question is -- i spoke with former secretary of state condoleezza rice today and i asked her if foreign policy experience mattered in a president. i want you to listen to what she said. >> i would say to the candidates, yes, you don't have to know the ins and outs of foreign policy because nobody would expect that kind of exposure. but the basics of foreign policy, you can master those during the campaign and it's important for the american people to know that you care enough about these issues to do that. >> so the question is, do the american people care if herman cain or any other candidate -- and there have been others who have had some foreign policy flubs -- does it matter? >> sure, it matters. in this day and age of world crisis, economic and the middle east being in a turmoil, you've got to have some basic knowledge. you certainly don't have to be condi rice or henry kissinger. but you ought to at least have some k

suspect described as a lone wolf, al-qaeda sympathizer.ave the federal budget cutting super committee on the verge of failing to make a decision. republican co-chair jeff of texas calling the inability to make a deal a huge missed opportunity. they need to make cuts of 1.$2 trillion to our deficit. let's get you back to "huckabee." >> each weekday join me for the huckabee report on radio, all across america. it's also available as a podcast. sign up for the facebook page or follow me on twitter. washington has always had its share of crooked characters and corrupt cronies, but none more infamous in recent years than jack abramhoff. a highly influential lobbyist with close ties to the bush administration and ranking congressman, he would make deals with powerful politicians, often promising high paying jobs in the future. he would give lavish gifts in exchange for political favors, including tax breaks for his clients. >> he gave things of value to public officials, including foreign and domestic trips, campaign contributions, excessive mea

apparently inspired by al-qaeda. and meet morgan, the whale whose freedom was decided by a dutch judge. >> an emergency cabinet meeting in cairo where the number of people killed in protest has risen to 20. let's look at the pictures coming in live from tahrir square. the egyptian health ministry said hundreds more people have been injured. we can see people gathering in some numbers. today police have continued to use tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disburse people using guns in tahrir square. they want military rule to quickly transfer task to a civilian government. elections are due in a week's time. more now from emily buchanan. >> it looks like guerilla warfare. this is a battle for the streets of cairo and the future of egypt. police fired tear gas while protesters hold back -- throw back stones and pieces of pavement. tahrir square filled with those desperate to stop their revolution from unraveling. activists believed the army could be their ally. now there is concern that an order earl -- orderly trans

cases of attempted al qaeda attacks on american soil have been highly publicized and received extensive scrutiny understandably in congress. we are not aware of more than half a dozen cases total over the last decade. the reason that the debate on this issue always seems to come back to the same handful of cases appears to be that there are -- that there only are a handful of cases that are covered by this provision potentially. now, the administration contends in her next quote that the mandatory military custody is unwise because our allies will not extradite terrorist suspects to the united states for interrogation and prosecution or even provide evidence that suspected terrorists about -- excuse me -- or even provide evidence about suspected terrorists if they will be sent to a military brig or guantana guantanamo." mr. president, this provision expressly states that the waiver authority may be used to address these concerns and to assure an ally that a suspect will not be held in military custody if transferred to the united states and if that assurance is necessary to obtain that

en estados unidos dentro de la poblaciÓn hispana. >> claramente al qaeda ha buscado a hispanos, porque moverse dentro del Ámbito sin ser detectado >> en diseÑo de pasado, arrestaron a este nicaragüense convertido al islam y lo acusaron de planear un atentado. meses antes, arrestaron en el a carlos monti, dorigen donicano.. varios de ellos han estado en internet para adoctrinarse. >>an habido oportunidades para que ellos se fueran de qu la sociedad otras maneras de buscar grupo en el cual poderse vincular. >> fue arrtado en kenia y puesto en nos del fbi en estados unidos, se le acusÓ de trenarse con al qaeda para cometer atendos. tamÉn 2008. se le acusÓ de entrenarse con alcalÁ, planear ataque con bombas y participar en dos ataques de alcalÁontra soldados nortmericanos. en el 2002, jodÉ padilla quien quiso notia cuando lo arrestaron bajo la sospecha de que quÍa detonar una bomba radiacti en nueva york. >> el reporte anti terrorista realizado el aÑo pasado dice que despuÉs del 11 de septmbre del 2001 en estados unidos, 139 norteamericanos musulmanes cometieron o planearon actos terrorist

welcome. >> hi, carol. >> peter berger, our expert on al qaeda, says if this is the best al qaeda hasshouldn't worry. do you agree? >> the problem, we can say that in the media. i remember being responsible for preventing these thing. you say to yourself, one idiot just has to get lucky. look, this was a long investigation, two years with an informant. i'm a little troubled by the fact the fed, the fbi was not involved. after all, this was a targeting of u.s. service members and others. inspired by al awlaki, now deceased. the feds may have been able to help here. that said, they had a successful arrest and we'll see what we learn from it. >> why do you suppose the feds were not more involved? >> carol, look, as you well know, as our viewers know, the fbi and local police departments are often very competitive. we don't know very much about the informant involved. what the basis of investigation and the involvement of the informant was. there are a lot of reasons and guide lives the fbi follows that are different for the nypd. whether they were just not told about it or whether they h

new york city officials say pimentel is an al-qaeda sympathizer and a follower of anwar al-awlaki, the radical american-born clerrc who was killed back in september."the suspect was a so-called lone wolf motivaaed by his own resentment of he presence of american troops in praa and afghanistan, as well &pas insppred by al-qaeda propaganda."new yorkkpolice say they had been watching pimenttl since may 2009... ut only acted now when he allegedly staated to build the pipe bomb.i'm rrck vincent, reporting. pimentel's attorney says his clieet doesn't match thee ppofile of someone who would commit terrorism... and that the case against hii isn't as strong as prosecutors say it is. pimentel faces five charges, including criminal possession of a weapon in the first degree as a crime off providing suppprt for an act of terrorism. trrops in iraq gathered for theirrlast thanksgiving meal there... because hey're packing up camp for good. you see solddersshaving a traditional thanksgiving lunch &pat camp victory in baghdad. the meal is earlier than normal because the camp is closing due to the plann

has a non-factor far this year was remarkable in egypt this year and it took longer for al qaeda to produce a video message supporting the protests that took the protesters to overturn the mubarak government you know it's remarkable. this so so we can be hopeful but clearly if things go wrong if new governments feel to deliver there is the prospect of a real transference very very very real possibility a lot of talk about. being part of. uprising or revolution or whatever you want to call it and leave you will see i do think that libya has the ingredients to be successful even under could i fear it was a it was a society that was modernizing sort of. the real question is can everyone come together and see that. let's get a legitimacy through our. but there have been elements there have been individuals and small groups associated with al qaeda that have you know that are in libya or have emanated from libya or there's a very definite libyan strain. but as an organized force i don't i don't necessarily see this but there is obviously al qaida in the magreb is there could they try to

allegedly was inspired by al-qaeda. although his citizenship was not immediately known.et's get to jennifer griffin. joining us by phone, a pentagon correspondent, to give us a perspective on this. >> this is an unusual press conference to come on sunday night at 7:30:00 p.m. you would expect for the new york city mayor and the police chief to be making this sort of announcement about a terrorist that it would have federal implications. we are told from a source the fbi was not contacted, is not involved in this case, that this is a local matter in new york city. as you mentioned, this is a 27-year-old american who has been taken into custody. they have been watching him for the last 2 1/2 years but the last six months he started to assemble a bomb. we have the holidays coming up and i think the new york city authorities are concerned with so much travel taking place that they just want to alert people to be alert. this is a lone wolf, an american who was caught, based on information from an informant. this person was allegedly building a bomb, some sort of bomb that cou

las autoridades estÁn preocupadas por grupos terroristas como al qaeda estarÍan reclutando potencialesa ha buscado a hispanos, porque ellos se pueden mover dentro de la sociedad estadounidense y tienen la flexibilidad de moverse dentro del Ámbito sin ser detectados. >> en diseÑo de pasado, arrestaron a este nicaragüense convertido al islam y lo acusaron de planear un atentado. meses antes, arrestaron en el aeropuerto de kennedy a carlos monti, de origen dominicano.. varios de ellos han estado en internet para adoctrinarse. >> han habido oportunidades para que ellos se fueran de la sociedad, que han buscado otras maneras de buscar un grupo en el cual poderse vincular. >> fue arrestado en kenia y puesto en manos del fbi en estados unidos, se le acusÓ de entrenarse con al qaeda para cometer atentados. tambiÉn bryan, capturado en pakistÁn en 2008. se le acusÓ de entrenarse con alcalÁ, planear un ataque con bombas y participar en dos ataques de alcalÁ contra soldados norteamericanos. en el 2002, jodÉ padilla quien quiso noticia cuando lo arrestaron bajo la sospecha de que querÍa detonar una