A delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will visit Syria next week to assess recent American claims that the installation attacked by Israeli warplanes last year was indeed a nuclear reactor in the final stages of construction. Two months ago, Michael Hayden, the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and other senior American intelligence analysts broke months of official silence about the September 2007 Israeli air strikes against a target located near the Syrian town of Al Kibar. Their intensive briefings for members of Congress, congressional staff, and, on background, the media, confirmed earlier suspicions that the […]

Twenty-six Americans are presently being tried in absentia in an Italian court for the 2003 abduction of the Egyptian cleric Osama Mostafa Hassan Nasr: better known, as “Abu Omar.” The Americans are accused of having kidnapped Nasr as part of the CIA’s program of “extraordinary renditions.” They are supposed to have held him in an American military base before “rendering” him to Egypt for interrogation. Seven Italian intelligence officials who allegedly aided in the operation have been charged as well. Last month, the New York Times, Associated Press, and Los Angeles Times all ran stories citing in dramatic and sometimes […]