5 terrorism suspects extradited from UK to US

  By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSONNEW YORK -- An ailing extremist Egyptian-born preacher and four other terrorism suspects arrived in the United States early Saturday under tight security to face trial after losing their lengthy extradition fight in England, authorities said.

The preacher, Abu Hamza al-Masri, was taken to a federal lockup next to the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan to face charges that he conspired with Seattle men to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and that he helped abduct 16 hostages, two of them American tourists, in Yemen in 1998.

The one-time nightclub bouncer will be housed there along with Khaled al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdul Bary, who will face trial on charges that they participated in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. They were indicted in a case that also charged Osama bin Laden.

In the 1990s, al-Masri turned London's Finsbury Park Mosque into a training ground for extremist Islamists, attracting men including Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.

Two other defendants - Syed Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad - were scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., on Saturday morning, U.S. Marshal Joseph Faughnan said. It was not immediately clear exactly when al-Masri, al-Fawwaz and Bary will appear in federal court in Manhattan.

Ahmad and Ahsan face charges that they ran websites that sought to raise cash, recruit fighters and seek equipment for terrorists in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Authorities say the websites included Azzam.com, which investigators say was used to recruit members for the al-Qaida network, Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime and Chechen rebels.

Al-Masri is not the first ailing Egyptian-born preacher to be brought to Manhattan for trial. A blind sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, is serving a life sentence after he was convicted in 1995 in a plot to assassinate then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and of plotting to blow up New York landmarks, including the United Nations and two tunnels and a bridge linking New Jersey to Manhattan. Abdel-Rahman has numerous health issues, including heart trouble.

In England, lawyers for the 54-year-old al-Masri, who has one eye and hooks in place of hands he claims to have lost fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, said he suffers from depression, chronic sleep deprivation, diabetes and other ailments.

The overnight trip to the United States came after a multi-year extradition fight that ended Friday, when Britain's High Court ruled that the men had no more grounds for appeal and could be sent to the U.S. immediately. The men have been battling extradition for between eight and 14 years.

"I'm absolutely delighted that Abu Hamza is now out of this country," British Prime Minister David Cameron said. "Like the rest of the public I'm sick to the back teeth of people who come here, threaten our country, who stay at vast expense to the taxpayer and we can't get rid of them."

"I'm delighted on this occasion we've managed to send this person off to a country where he will face justice," he added.

Al-Masri has been in a British jail since 2004 on separate charges of inciting racial hatred and encouraging followers to kill non-Muslims.

While al-Masri has been portrayed in the British media as one of the most dangerous men in the country, the case against Ahmad in Connecticut has raised concerns among legal experts and human rights advocates.

The London computer expert is accused of running terrorist-funding websites in a case that was brought in Connecticut because an Internet service provider was allegedly used to host one of the websites. He and Ahsan both face charges including using a website to provide support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country.

Some lawyers and lawmakers have expressed concerns about the case against Ahmad because Britain agreed to extradite him even though his alleged crimes were committed in Britain and British courts declined to prosecute him for lack of evidence.

In prison since 2004, Ahmad has been held without charge for the longest period of any British citizen detained since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In a statement read on his behalf outside court in London Friday, Ahmad said his case had exposed flaws in U.S.-U.K. extradition arrangements. "I leave with my head held high, having won the moral victory," he said.

His father, Ashfaq Ahmad, said he would continue to fight for his son.

"It's not just one Babar Ahmad. Tomorrow there will be another Babar Ahmad and another one," he said.

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Bank heist suspects hurl cash during Los Angeles chase

  Eyewitness NewsLOS ANGELES -- Suspected bank robbers fleeing county sheriff's deputies hurled cash from a speeding SUV on Wednesday, drawing people into the streets until a pickup blocked their path and they had to surrender.

In a bizarre scene followed by TV helicopters, a large crowd pressed in as deputies with guns drawn pulled two men from the SUV in South Los Angeles. City police came to their aid and formed skirmish lines to move the crowd back.

Along the pursuit's route through a low-income part of the city, people were seen scooping up the money.

"It's our neighborhood stimulus package!" resident Diane Dorsey told the Los Angeles Times while she watched the bedlam unfold from her front yard at the corner of Kansas and Vernon avenues.

Police Department spokesman Cmdr. Andrew Smith said it appeared the suspects threw the money in hopes of drawing people into the roadway to block the pursuing patrol cars.

"A lot of people came out their houses, they saw this on TV, they saw that money was being thrown," Smith told KNBC-TV.

Several hundred people gathered around the deputies during the dangerous moment of arrest.

"I think one of the folks told me that they thought there was more money in the vehicle and maybe they were hoping to get a little bit of that," Smith said.

One officer had a foot run over during the incident but was expected to be OK, he said.

The incident began about 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles in the suburban Santa Clarita area where four men committed an armed bank robbery, Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker told KCAL-TV.

The robbers fled south by freeway and en route two robbers bailed out of the SUV in the Sylmar area of the San Fernando Valley. One suspect was taken into custody there Wednesday afternoon but the other remained at large.

The SUV pursuit continued into downtown Los Angeles where the SUV exited the freeway and began a circuitous route through the older, narrow streets of the city's central and southern areas.

The 90-minute chase came to an end when a big, heavy duty pickup made a right turn from a side street and blocked the SUV's path. It was not clear whether that driver did so intentionally.

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India: No leads or suspects yet in Mumbai bombings

Wreckage of motorbikes lie at the site of a bomb explosion outside Opera House in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, July 13, 2011. Three explosions rocked India's busy financial capital at rush-hour Wednesday, killing at least eight people and injuring 70 in what officials described as another terror strike on the city hit by militants nearly three years ago. (AP Photo)

  By NIRMALA GEORGEMUMBAI, India -- No terror group has claimed responsibility for the triple bombings that killed 17 people in India's financial capital, and investigators had no immediate suspects in the attacks that came without warning, the country's top security official said Thursday.

Angry residents of Mumbai blamed the government for an apparent intelligence breakdown that left the city vulnerable, but Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the latest attack did not represent a failure of the country's anti-terror network.

"Whoever has perpetrated this attack has worked in a very, very clandestine manner," Chidambaram said at a news conference after an emergency security meeting.

The bombings shook three separate neighborhoods within minutes during Wednesday's busy evening rush and were the country's worst terror strike since the siege of Mumbai that killed 166 people nearly three years ago. After that, India enacted sweeping security reforms and has avoided another major attack in the nearly three years since.

That did little to reassure residents who questioned how the attack could happen despite massive security measures taken in recent years.

"After the 2008 blast and all the media hype (about safety), we thought we were safe," said Anita Ramaswami, a 33-year-old accountant. "But things still are the same and people in Mumbai continue to feel vulnerable."

Top Indian officials said the government may never be able to guarantee a terror-free nation in a region so plagued by extremist groups.

"We live in the most troubled neighborhood in the world.

Pakistan-Afghanistan is the epicenter of terror ... every part of India is vulnerable," Chidambaram said.

"It's very difficult to stop every single terror attack," agreed Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of the ruling Congress Party. "The steps taken by our government over the last couple of years are quite profound steps."

News reports said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was expected to visit Mumbai later Thursday evening.

Indian officials have refused to speculate on who might be behind the attack.

"We are not pointing a finger at this stage," Chidambaram said. "We have to look at every possible hostile group and find out whether they are behind the blast."

Indian officials have accused Pakistan's powerful spy agency of helping to coordinate and fund earlier attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai siege. Peace talks between the countries were suspended after that attack and resumed only recently.

Chidambaram did not rule out that the blasts might have been aimed at derailing a new round of peace talks still expected to start in a few days.

The Hindu nationalist opposition called Pakistan the hotbed of terror in the region, called for its spy agency to be declared a terror outfit and criticized the Indian government for not dealing more sternly with Islamabad.

"The government of India must shed its ambivalent attitude to terrorism. The total policy of India toward terrorism should be of zero tolerance," said L.K. Advani, a senior leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. "Our message to Pakistan should be that you must dismantle the infrastructure for terrorism that you have created."

Soon after the blasts, Pakistan's government expressed distress about the loss of lives and injuries.

A steady drizzle Thursday washed away bloodstains and threatened evidence at the scenes of the bombings, which ripped off storefronts, shredded a bus stop and left bodies strewn in the dirt of Mumbai's crowded neighborhoods and market. Investigators covered the blast sites with plastic sheets to protect the evidence.

Investigators were viewing closed circuit television footage and speaking to wounded witnesses to try and put together a picture of what happened at each location, Rakesh Maria, the head of Mumbai's Anti-Terror Squad, told reporters.

The bomb in the Dadar area in central Mumbai was placed on a bus shelter; in the Opera House business district in southern Mumbai it was hidden under some garbage on the road; in the Jhaveri Bazaar jewelry market a few miles (kilometers) away it was hidden under an umbrella, near a motorcycle, officials said.

All three were improvised explosive devices made of ammonium nitrate with electric detonators, authorities said.

"The IEDs were not crude and showed some amount of sophistication and training," said R.K. Singh, India's home secretary.

Surveillance cameras were in place at all three blast sites, Chidambaram said, but he did not reveal if any information was gleaned from them.

Meanwhile, families raced to find word about their relatives.

One man described hunting for information about his brother, who was in the jewelry market when the bomb went off.

"We are in that market every day from morning to night," he told NDTV news channel, as he held back tears. "We went from hospital to hospital and finally found his body in the morgue."

Kaushik Adhikari, 18, said his father, a goldsmith, was wounded in the same blast.

"He was hit by a shrapnel in the stomach and operated on. Doctors say he is stable," he said. "This has come as a big shock. We realize how uncertain life has become."

Press Trust of India reported the federal government had announced families of those killed in the blasts would be compensated 200,000 rupees ($4,500). The local government announced a compensation of 500,000 rupees ($11,200).

Chidambaram lowered the casualty toll to 17 confirmed deaths. He said a severed head was found that could be an 18th casualty. He did not explain the discrepancy from an earlier government statement that listed 21 deaths. Additionally, 131 were injured, 23 of them seriously.

The blasts marked the first major attack on Mumbai since 10 militants laid siege to the city for 60 hours in November 2008.

That attack targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a busy train station.

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Associated Press writers Muneeza Naqvi, Ashok Sharma and Ravi Nessman in New Delhi contributed to this report.

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