US Man Plotted to Use Backpack Bomb on Florida Beach - FBI

BBC AMERICA: A 23-year-old man has been charged with planning to detonate a backpack bomb on a Florida beach, US officials say.

The US justice department said Harlem Suarez, also known as Almlak Benitez, has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

He allegedly planned to bury a bomb containing nails at a beach in Key West and detonate it with a mobile phone.

Prosecutors claim he was inspired by the Islamic State militant group, which has called for attacks on the West.

According to the FBI, Suarez recorded a video in May in which he said: "We will destroy America and divide it into two. We will raise our black flag on top of your White House and any president on duty." » | Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Blair Lied and Lied Again: Mandarins Reveal that 10 Days Before Iraq Invasion PM Knew Saddam Couldn't Use WMDs
MAIL ONLINE: The full extent of how Tony Blair misled the public about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction before and after the Iraq War was laid bare yesterday.

The Chilcot Inquiry heard that just ten days before the invasion of Iraq Mr Blair was told Saddam had no way of using weapons of mass destruction.

And weapons experts revealed that the former Prime Minister took Britain to war based on intelligence that his own spies rated just 'four out of ten' for accuracy.

On the eve of the conflict, intelligence chiefs told Mr Blair that the Iraqi dictator had no warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons, dramatically undermining the Prime Minister's case for war.

Yet Mr Blair gave the go-ahead for the invasion despite strong evidence that Iraq was no threat to Britain.

Then, after the war, officials had to tell Mr Blair not to 'declare success too rapidly' in the quest to find WMD in Iraq as he continued to make misleading statements claiming that 'massive evidence' had been found.

The revelations reinforce the case that intelligence evidence that Saddam was no threat was ignored by Mr Blair to take Britain to war on a false prospectus. >>> Tim Shipman | Thursday, November 26, 2009

Hussein Pointed to Iranian Threat: Specter of Arms Allowed Him to Appear Strong, He Told U.S.
THE WASHINGTON POST: Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region."

Former president George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq six years ago on the grounds that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to international security. Administration officials at the time also strongly suggested Iraq had significant links to al-Qaeda, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Hussein, who was often defiant and boastful during the interviews, at one point wistfully acknowledged that he should have permitted the United Nations to witness the destruction of Iraq's weapons stockpile after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. >>> Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer | Thursday, July 02, 2009