On his recent Asian trip, President Obama backed away from his 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Why the change of heart when polls show declining popular support for the war? Perhaps because, unlike most of the American public, the president is paying attention to our enemies. For example, most Americans haven’t heard of Ahmed Sidiqi. Obama has.
he sued a church in kansas and its pastor. why? because that church is known for protesting at the funerals of u.s. service members with signs saying america is doomed and thank god for dead soldiers, at the funeral. arguments are wednesday. also before the court whether a federal official override state effort to crack down on illegal immigrants. back to our top story. a possible terror threat to european cities triggered a security advisory for americans traveling abroad. the state department wants americans in europe to take common sense safety precautions. intelligence officials believe a group of hamburg jihadist are at the center of the plot. the group traveled to pakistan last year, one member, ahmed sidiqi is in custody in
afghanistan being questioned but not charged. let s go deeper into this plot. terrorism expert joins me live from hamburg. paul, i guess it s this sidiqi s information that we re acting on. is that right? well, here in hamburg, a lot of the information came from a german citizen who was from hamburg, he witness over to the tribal areas, he joined al qaeda there, he became involved with this plot and then he s provided a lot of this intelligence to american authorities. drew, about a mumbai-style attack against at least three european countries. when we talk about mumbai-style attack, some remember what happened back in 2008. some may not. what was interesting and frankly, frightening about it was it was very low tech, and it happened all across that city.
men, ten men in the mumbai attack using automatic weapons and small explosives, hand gra natds and the like. and this plot not only coordinated around a couple of hotels in one city but planned for britain for france and planned for germany. officials say that they ve interrupted this as such a stage that it had not got beyond pakistan. it was still being planned and none of these potential attackers had come back to europe. all information that this german afghan provided. ahmed sidiqi arrested in kabul in july of this year, ali. thanks. paul crook schank, in london. when we hear about this, these two things have a connection. when we hear about the top al qaeda commanders or even lieutenants who are captured or killed, mostly killed these days what does this do to the structure of al qaeda? i mean, there are obviously great resources an strategy that