A car bomb in the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor killed nine people and wounded about 100 Saturday, the official SANA news agency said.

It said the bombing was carried out by a suicide bomber and that the dead included guards at a military installation which is near a housing complex, according to Reuters.

---

Syrian state television showed damaged, burning buildings and vehicles after the blast and black smoke could be seen rising above the city, BBC News reported.

The BBC said the explosion was the latest in a series of blasts that were thought to be al-Qaida operations.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believed al-Qaida was responsible for two suicide car bombs that killed at least 55 people in Syria a week ago.

Inside Syria rebel stronghold: 'The city is on mute'

He also said that the death toll in the country's 14-month conflict was now at least 10,000.

A message to Assad? War games held near border

"A few days ago there was a huge, serious, massive terrorist attack. I believe that there must be al-Qaida behind it. This has created again very serious problems," Ban told a youth event at U.N. headquarters in New York, Reuters reported. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Vancouver Island park’s 800-year-old tree falls to illegal loggers
• Japan mayor: I wouldn't hire tattooed Gaga, Depp
• Panetta seeks another $70M for Israel rocket shield
• Library opened by Mark Twain falls victim to cuts
• China abuzz over reported N.Korea boat hijackings

• Queen Elizabeth II's lunch for world monarchs sparks controversy

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

Though the hour was late, Yemen’s social media was still very much awake.

A U.S. drone's missiles had just slammed into a convoy of vehicles in a remote part of Yemen, killing three alleged militants.

The attack – like all other U.S. drone strikes outside warzones – was supposed to be clandestine. Yet within minutes Sanaa-based lawyer Haykal Bafana was reporting the strike in almost-realtime. Just after 1am on May 17 he posted the following on Twitter:

"#Yemen NOW | Missile strike on car in Wadi Hadhramaut. Near city of Shibam. Suspected US drone attack."

---

As Bafana later explained to the Bureau, his relatives live in Shibam, a town of 30,000. "When the drone struck, the town – which was then experiencing a power cut – had completely lit up. My relatives got straight on the phone to tell me about the attack."

The day prior to the strike Bafana had already tweeted that drones were behaving suspiciously in the area. Hadhramaut province, a sparsely-populated former sultanate, is far from Yemen’s troubled south, where most of the fighting and U.S. drone strikes are currently taking place.

More stories from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

There has been militant activity there for some years, report locals, and surveillance drones have been active at night since 2010. But until now there had never been a drone strike. "But suddenly four or five days ago, my relatives were reporting drones over them in daylight, all the time, which was rare. Militants were also being seen moving about in the area, maybe preparing the way for an evacuation from the fighting in the south. Everyone was expecting something to happen," Bafana recalls. He tweeted the news to his followers.

"#Yemen | Hearing multiple claims of drone sightings in Hadhramaut, especially in Shibam/Qatn directorates (KSA route). No attacks so far."

When the deadly attack finally came in the early hours of Thursday morning, the target itself was hardly a secret.

Earlier, Arabic-language online media in the provincial capital of al-Mukalla had reported that a convoy of alleged al Qaeda rebels was heading north. That news was also swiftly tweeted.

Precision strike
Others were clearly also charting the convoy’s progress. As the vehicles approached Shibam at around 1am local time, at least one car, a Toyota Hilax, was destroyed by missiles from above. Yemen’s own air force has neither the know-how nor the equipment to launch a precision strike on moving vehicles in the dark.

News agencies would later report the attack as a drone strike, naming two of the dead as Zeid bin Taleb and Mutii Bilalafi, both described as local al Qaeda leaders. Like the dozens of U.S. drone strikes in Yemen that preceded it, Thursday’s attack was supposed to be secret. Yet Twitter and other social media were tracking in near-real time the events surrounding the operation.

US official acknowledges drone strikes, civilian deaths

"It is incredible how the same type of technology used by the CIA to kill people with drones in the Yemen, is empowering the Yemenis to tweet the attacks as they are happening," Noel Sharkey, professor of robotics at the University of Sheffield told the Bureau.

"They can send us all pictures and bring us closer to the horror they are experiencing. Technology in the small may eventually bring down the over-use of military technology in the large."

Social media tools like Facebook and Twitter – which played an important role in Yemen’s Arab Spring uprising – are now being used by activists to draw attention to a large increase in U.S. drone strikes in recent weeks.

'Twitter is increasingly important'
As Haykal Bafana notes, within minutes of his tweeting Monday’s attack the news was also posted on Facebook and on local Arabic micro-news sites. "Web use is as low as 2 percent here in Yemen. But it still makes a big difference. Many people get their news from the small local media sites rather than from foreign or state agencies. And Twitter is increasingly important."

When President Obama’s chief counter terrorism adviser John Brennan visited Sanaa on Sunday,  Twitter witnessed an online protest with the hashtag NoDrones.

"Brennan do you hear us?!!! We say #NoDrones #NoDrones #NoDrones. You are killing innocent people and creating more enemies in #Yemen."

'Stooge': Al-Qaida chief al-Zawahiri issues message on Yemen

Yemen-based youth activist Sadam al-Adwar (@sadamtweety), for example, said: "I’m against #terrorism & #extremism, i’m also against #drones. It’s counter-productive & fuels more extremism."

And @WomanFromYemen, otherwise known as NGO consultant Atiaf al-Wazir, told her more than 8,000 followers: "For every headline you read regarding 'militants' killed by drones in #Yemen, think of the civilians killed that are not reported. #NoDrones."

Yesterday’s Yemen drone strike appears to be the first in which events were reported on in real time.

"I’ve never heard of an example of people tweeting while drones were actually in the area," said Dr Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Policy, an expert on Yemen security issues.

"It really gets to the myth that you can keep these strikes covert, and if you do not have an information campaign that supports their use, you leave yourself flat-footed by people reporting what is being done in real time."

Army working on hovering, non-lethal drone-bazooka

There is a precedent. Last year a Pakistani man unknowingly tweeted the presence of U.S. Special Forces attack helicopters on the way to kill Osama bin Laden. On May 1 last year Pakistani IT consultant Sohaib Athar tweeted the following.

"Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."

After a "huge window shaking bang" he debated the significance of the night’s events on Twitter, even as U.S. Special Forces carried out their controversial raid. He quipped to a follower that "moving to Abbottabad was part of the 'being safe' strategy."

But as the news of bin Laden’s death broke Athar lamented: "Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it."

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Inside Syria rebel stronghold: 'The city is on mute'
• Japan mayor: I wouldn't hire tattooed Gaga, Depp
• Library opened by Mark Twain falls victim to cuts
• China abuzz over reported N.Korea boat hijackings
• Will $95-million cable car be ready for Olympics?
• What's behind China's crackdown on foreigners?
• NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin answers Syria questions
• Royal rumble: Spain's queen snubs UK queen
• Germany's Pirate Party rides wave of popularity

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

 

Editor's note: A correction had been made to this article. Click here to view it:

Fugitive al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has released a new audio message about Yemen at a time of escalating fighting in the country that one Yemeni official on Tuesday described as "all-out war."

The release of the audio comes just two days after White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan visited the Yemeni capital of Sanaa to meet with its new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to discuss ramping up the battle against al-Qaida affiliated militants who now control large swaths of the country's southern region.

---

While there is still no public translation of the new Zawahiri audio message, a U.S. government official familiar with the contents tells NBC News it was clearly recorded before the news broke last week about a foiled plot to blow up a U.S. airliner with more-sophisticated underwear bomb.

The message discusses the transition from exiled former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to Hadi, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Watch world news videos on msnbc.com

NBC News terror analyst Evan Kohlmann notes that there is typically a two- to three-week lapse between the events described in Zawahiri’s messages and their public release.  (Kohlmann's Flashpoint Intel service is working to translate the message, but he gives the title as, "Yemen: Between a Fugitive Puppet and a Collaborating Stooge," apparent references to Saleh and Hadi.)

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in the 'Isikoff Files'

Over the past week and a half, Yemeni forces -- backed by U.S. military trainers and drone strikes -- have dramatically escalated their attacks on al-Qaida militants in the south.

A Yemen government official estimated as many as 20,000 troops were now involved in the battle, supported by approximately 50 to 60 U.S. trainers.

"We have begun to reintroduce small numbers of trainers into Yemen," a Pentagon spokesman, a Navy Capt. John Kirby, told reporters this week. 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Iranians already feeling pain of sanctions
• EU forces attack Somali pirates on land for first time
• Aussie Olympic hopeful loses bet over 'mankini' at opening ceremony
• Hipsters to the rescue? UK celebrity venue in spat with Jaguar
• Vatican allows mobster to be exhumed for clues in disappearance
• Iran hangs ‘Israel spy’ over nuclear scientist killing
• Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

Western intelligence agencies believe that al-Qaida doctors have been trained to implant bombs inside the bodies of suicide bombers, Britain's Sunday Times reported.

The doctors, thought to have been trained by a man who worked with the top bomb-maker for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have the ability to put explosive compounds in breasts and abdomens of suicide bombers, the newspaper reported without citing its sources.

---

The lead doctor was thought to have been killed in a drone attack earlier this year and likely worked with the master bomber-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, according to the newspaper.

CIA foiled al-Qaida plot to destroy US-bound airliner

The CIA want to track down the group of doctors, the newspaper reported. 

"There is a transferable skill and there is still some concern," said a Western security official who spoke to The Sunday Times on condition of anonymity.

Experts said explosive compounds such as pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) could be surgically implanted in an aspiring suicide bomber, who would them allow the wounds to heal, according to the newspaper. Body scanners in most airports around the world would not be able to detect the device, which could be detonated by injection, the newspaper added.

The news follows revelations on Monday that that AQAP tried to arm a suicide bomber with a non-metallic device that was an upgraded version of an "underwear bomb" that was carried on to a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day 2009, but failed to detonate.

Reports: Al-Qaida leader wanted in USS Cole bombing killed in Yemen airstrike

The device that authorities seized in the undercover operation contained what was intended to be a more reliable detonating mechanism, counter-terrorism officials said Monday.

U.S. officials said that the latest plot was foiled by the CIA and allied foreign intelligence services, without identifying the allies. British authorities put heavy pressure on the Obama administration not to disclose Britain's role in the investigation.

Several U.S. media outlets reported that Saudi Arabia was the key partner in the operation.

But it turned out that British intelligence played what appears to be a more central role in foiling the plot to send a suicide bomber on to an airplane. The operation was a cooperative venture between Britain's domestic and foreign intelligence services known as MI5 and MI6, officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Al-Qaida kidnapped Iranian envoy in bid to free bin Laden kin, colleagues

As details of the operation emerge, it appears to be a striking example of how U.S., European and Middle Eastern intelligence services cooperate on complex counterterrorism missions.

A spokesman for Britain's Foreign Office declined to comment, saying that in such cases it never confirmed or denied the involvement of British intelligence. A spokesman for British intelligence also declined to comment. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Gunmen kill senior Afghan peace negotiator
• 3 Boston University students die in New Zealand crash
• UK report: Dalai Lama fears poison plot by fake believers
• Researchers: Japan will have no kids under age 15 by 3011
• Greece abandons quest to form government, lurches toward new elections
• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp axed
• WWII fighter plane found preserved in Sahara Desert

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Updated at 5 p.m. ET: The CIA foiled a plot by al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner this month, senior U.S. officials told NBC News.

Officials said the plot involved a bomb that improved on the one that had been sewn into the underpants of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who failed in a plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009. That device did not detonate.

This bomb had a more refined detonation mechanism and was "totally non-metallic," which officials told NBC News would have made it more difficult to detect by traditional screening processes.

---

A U.S. counterterrorism official told NBC News there were “refinements on reliability” in particular that made this bomb more sophisticated and more likely to explode.

In addition to being a threat to commercial planes, the official said this type of bomb could be used in crowded places, on other transportation systems or for assassinations.

The official noted that the bomb “was never near a plane” and “never posed a risk.” The plot was disrupted well before it threatened Americans or U.S. allies, the official added.

The U.S. received the device last month. The FBI is currently conducting technical and forensics analyses on it. 

The official would not specify which international security service provided the intelligence that led to the unraveling of the plot, as there is concern about retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets inside Yemen.

Counterterror officials deem the thwarted plot a "success story," NBC News reported. The FBI said in a statement that the successful operation was the "result of close cooperation with our security and intelligence partners overseas."

Related: More than 30 Yemeni troops killed in militant attack

According to The Associated Press, the would-be suicide bomber was instructed to buy a ticket on the airliner of his choosing and decide the timing of the attack.

The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case, said the individual is not a threat but would not say where he is located. He did not provide information about the individual’s nationality or age.

It's unclear who built the bomb, but the device does bear similarities to other explosive devices built by master bomb-maker Ibrahim al-Asiri. However, Asiri may not have been directly involved in this plot. 

Related: Reports: Al-Qaida leader wanted in USS Cole bombing killed in Yemen airstrike

According to one official, there is "evidence that Asiri has passed along his bomb-making knowledge to others." The official would not say whether Asiri or an apprentice were involved in this plot.

In an exclusive meeting, a senior U.S. intelligence official told NBC News that Asiri posed the single most dangerous threat to the United States. 

According to the official, Asiri is the most capable of carrying out al-Qaida’s threat to launch a significant terrorist attack to kill Americans inside the United States.

Asiri designed the first underwear bomb that failed over Detroit and he was also the maker of the printer ink cartridge bombs that were discovered before they were shipped to the United States.

The senior official said counter-terrorism officials were seriously troubled by the ink cartridge bombs because they were "particularly sophisticated."

Related: Al-Qaida kidnapped Iranian envoy in bid to free bin Laden kin, colleagues
Related: Bin Laden fretted about al-Qaida affiliates' missteps, letters show
Related: Bin Laden in hiding: Hatching horrific plots despite crippling attacks on al-Qaida

Asiri has also implanted a bomb inside his brother in a failed attempt to assassinate Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi deputy interior minister. The minister survived, but Asiri’s brother did not.

Asiri is not just a bomb maker but has also taken to “training the trainers,” sharing his skills with others. Officials believe he is responsible for this bomb, the one sewn into Abdulmutallab’s underwear and the one used during the attempted assassination attempt of Nayef. As director of Saudi counterterrorism, Nayef is one of the United States’ most trusted allies in the fight against al-Qaida.

For each bomb, officials are seeing a new level of refinement and sophistication.

The U.S. counterterrorism official said the thwarted attack and the recent drone death of Fahd al-Quso, an FBI “most-wanted terrorist,” was a “one-two body blow” to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which U.S. officials have recently described as the most aggressive of the al-Qaida franchises. 

They also believe that al-Quso, director of external communications for the franchise, would have had to approve the planned May attack.

Officials also say the plot had no apparent ties to the anniversary of the killing of bin Laden. One official told NBC News the timing was coincidental.

A White House statement said President Obama was told of the plot in April. 

"The disruption of this IED (improvised explosive device) plot underscores the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad," the statement read.

Reporting by NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski and Robert Windrem and The Associated Press is included in this report. 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Secret Service agents were 'brutes,' prostitute says
• Meet Monsieur Caramel Pudding, France's next president
• Al-Qaida releases video of American hostage
• Report: Fake bomb exposes London Olympic security
• Woman, child survive mauling by cheetahs

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Islamist gunmen killed at least 32 government soldiers on Monday when they stormed a military position in southern Yemen where militants control broad swathes of territory, a military official said.

Yemen has seen a surge in violence in the south since President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi took office in February, prompting the government to respond with air strikes and the United States with drones that target militants.

---

Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) said the latest raid was a response to recent statements by Hadi that he would defeat the militants, who have been emboldened by more than a year of political upheaval.

Monday's attack came hours after a suspected U.S. drone strike killed two men in a neighboring province, including one the government described as a senior member of al-Qaida.

The military official told Reuters gunmen attacked Yemeni troops outside the city of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, killing at least 32 servicemen. They had captured a number of soldiers and made off with weapons and ammunition, he added.

At least 40 soldiers were wounded in the attack, the official and medical sources said. A spokesman for Ansar al-Sharia, an al-Qaida-linked group that seized Zinjibar last year, said his side had captured 28 soldiers and a tank in the raid.

A different military source was cited by the defense ministry website as saying 22 soldiers had been killed.

"At five o'clock this morning, terrorist elements from the al-Qaida network carried out a treacherous and cowardly act of terrorism," said the source.

Suspected drone strike
In a similar attack in March, militants killed about 100 troops in Zinjibar after Hadi took office.

Separately, but also in Abyan province, a militant was killed when a bomb he was carrying went off accidentally, a local official said. The bomber had aimed to attack tribesmen who have joined forces with the army against Islamist fighters.

Reports: Al-Qaida leader wanted in USS Cole bombing killed in Yemen airstrike

Yemen's government and Ansar al-Sharia both said that a missile strike hours earlier in neighboring Shabwa province had killed Fahd al-Quso, who was convicted of involvement in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen's southern port of Aden.

Residents of Shabwa and Ansar al-Sharia said the missile was fired from a U.S. drone. A drone strike last year killed a U.S. citizen whom U.S. officials subsequently claimed had helped plan a failed attack on a U.S. airliner.

The use of drones has angered the public in Yemen as it has in other countries such as Pakistan, where Washington also uses unmanned aircraft to kill militants.

Washington has backed a power transfer that saw President Ali Abdullah Saleh replaced by his deputy in February, after a year of mass protests against Saleh. The United States now wants Hadi to unify the fragmented army and turn it against militants.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Secret Service agents were 'brutes,' prostitute says
• Meet Monsieur Caramel Pudding, France's next president
• Al-Qaida releases video of American hostage
• Report: Fake bomb exposes London Olympic security
• Woman, child survive mauling by cheetahs

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Updated at 1:20 p.m. ET: ISLAMABAD -- An American aid worker abducted by al-Qaida in Pakistan last year pleaded with President Barack Obama to meet his captors' demands for the release of prisoners. 

The SITE monitoring service, which follows al-Qaida's statements, quoted Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped in the central Pakistani city of Lahore last August, appealing to Obama directly. 

"My life is in your hands, Mr. President. If you accept the demands, I live; if you don't accept the demands, then I die," it quoted Weinstein as saying in the video.

---

The video was posted on Islamist websites on Sunday. It is the first time Weinstein has been seen since being seized by gunmen.

Weinstein appears dressed in a clean, neatly pressed shalwar kameez -- the country's traditional dress -- and is shown seated a table with a stack a books and two large plates of food before him. He occasionally takes bites of the food as he delivers his message.

Report: US secretly releases Afghan insurgents

Weinstein had lived and worked in Pakistan for more than five years before being snatched.

His kidnapping puzzled many who knew him. Friends said Weinstein had gone to great lengths to learn and adopt local customs, even learning to speak some Urdu.

Senior Taliban commanders told NBC News that Pakistani Taliban members were responsible for Weinstein's kidnapping and that they had shifted him from place to place for three months until they reached a location they considered "secure" in the country's tribal areas.

Heart condition
A news report in January quoted a "ranking Pakistani militant" who claimed to have seen Weinstein in December 2011. The source claimed Weinstein was in good health, receiving regular medical treatment and prescription medicines.

A former colleague of Weinstein's told NBC News Weinstein's health had been deteriorating in the months before his kidnapping, and he suffered from a heart condition he was managing with medication and diet.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in an audio recording in December that the group was responsible for Weinstein's abduction and demanded the release of all those in U.S. detention for ties his Islamist militant group or the Taliban. 

He also demanded an end to airstrikes by the United States and its allies against militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia and Gaza. 

Reuters contributed to this report. 

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Secret Service agents were 'brutes,' prostitute says
• Meet Monsieur Caramel Pudding, France's next president
• Al-Qaida releases video of American hostage
• Report: Fake bomb exposes London Olympic security
• Woman, child survive mauling by cheetahs

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

Updated at 7:42 p.m. ET: Two Yemeni members of al-Qaida, including a top leader wanted in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, were killed in their car by an apparent U.S. drone strike in southern Yemen, residents there and a spokesman for an al-Qaida-linked group said Sunday.

The strike occurred in the Wadi Rafad valley in Shabwa province.

One of the dead men was believed to be Fahd al-Quso, who was convicted for a role in the 2000 bombing of USS Cole in the port of Aden, and the other was Fahed Salem al-Akdam, residents said, Reuters reported.

---

The plane that fired the missile had been sighted in the sky, they said.

The U.S. did not immediately confirm the deaths, according to The Associated Press.

No one else was killed and no one else was traveling in the vehicle, the residents said.
   
A local government official in Shabwa confirmed the attack, and, separately, a statement from the al Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sharia group said, "Al-Qaida affirms the martyrdom of the Fahd al-Quso in an American attack this afternoon in Rafad.''

Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role in the USS Cole bombing in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.

A New Yorker magazine story from 2006 described al-Quso as a member of the al-Qaida support team in Aden. Al-Quso had been tasked with capturing video of the blast from a nearby apartment for al-Qaida but he slept through his morning alarm and didn't set up his camera on time.

Al-Quso served more than five years in a Yemeni prison for his role in the attack and was released in 2007. He briefly escaped prison in 2003 but later turned himself in to serve the rest of his sentence.

Watch the most-viewed videos on msnbc.com

Al-Quso was also one of the most senior al-Qaida leaders publicly linked to the 2009 Christmas airliner attack. He has allegedly met with the suspected bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Yemen before he left on his way to execute his failed bombing over Detroit.

In December 2010, al-Quso was designated a global terrorist by the State Department, an indication that his role in al-Qaida's Yemen branch had grown more prominent.

Local Yemeni official Abu Bakr bin Farid and the Yemeni Embassy in Washington confirmed al-Quso was killed in Rafd, a remote mountain valley in Shabwa, according to AP. It is the area where many of al-Qaida leaders are believed to have taken cover, including the U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, killed in a U.S. airstrike in Yemen last year.

Yemeni government officials reported that Al-Quso and al-Awlaki were killed in an airstrike in 2009 in Rafd, but they both resurfaced alive.

Al-Quso was known for his ability to move in disguise. He was from the same tribe as al-Awlaki, and local tribesmen said he was a close aide. He studied ultraconservative Salafi Islam as a teenager in northern Yemen, then returned home to learn welding.

The White House and the State Department had no immediate comment.

Yemen's government has been waging an offensive on al-Qaida militants, who have taken advantage of the country's political turmoil over the last year to expand their hold in the south.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Defendants enrage families at Sept. 11 hearing
• Woman, child survive mauling by cheetahs at wildlife park
• PhotoBlog: Tornado near Tokyo kills one, injures dozens
• Clinton to tell India: Cut back on Iran oil
• Report: Fake bomb exposes London Olympic security

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- Held in a secret prison in Guantanamo that is under such tight security even its exact location on the base is classified, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants until Saturday had not been seen in public since a pretrial hearing the day after President Barack Obama's Jan. 21, 2009, inauguration. 

Their arraignment Saturday also came more than three years after the Obama administration's failed effort to try the suspects in a federal civilian court and close the prison at the U.S. base in Cuba.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in 2009 that Mohammed and his co-defendants would be tried blocks from the site of the destroyed trade center in downtown Manhattan, but the plan was shelved after New York officials cited huge costs to secure the neighborhood and family opposition to trying the suspects in the U.S. 

---

The men never entered formal pleas in previous hearings, but Mohammed had told the court that he would confess to planning the attacks "from A to Z" and hoped to be a "martyr."

He dismissed the military justice system, saying, "After torturing, they transferred us to inquisition land in Guantanamo." 

The arraignment is expected to be followed by a hearing on defense motions that challenge the charges and extreme secrecy rules imposed to prevent the release of information about U.S. counterterrorism methods and strategy. 

New rules adopted by Congress and Obama forbid the use of testimony obtained through cruel treatment or torture. The defendants were held at secret CIA prisons overseas where they were subjected to what the government called "enhanced interrogation techniques." Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, officials have said. 

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion Friday asking the judge to prohibit the government's use of a 40-second delay and a white noise machine to prevent any spectators from hearing classified information, including details about the harsh treatment in the secret CIA detention sites overseas. 

"If the defendants are unable to express themselves directly to the American public then how are we to know whether justice is being served," said ACLU director Anthony Romero. 

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch and a former federal prosecutor, say coerced testimony from witnesses is still admissible, even if it isn't from defendants, and the case would be better off in civilian court instead of being heard by a judge and jury panel picked by the Pentagon. 

"There still are major problems in terms of whether the trial will be fair and, more important, will they be perceived as fair," Roth said. 

The government has pledged to make the proceedings more transparent by broadcasting the hearing to families at U.S. military bases. News cameras, however, are still not permitted inside the courtroom, where the media and other observers are kept behind double-paned, soundproof glass. 

Lawyers for the defendants had opposed the government's plan to show the hearings just to the families. 

"We believe that the world needs to see what's happening," said Cheryl Bormann, a civilian attorney appointed to represent Walid bin Attash. 

Prisoners now have access, at government expense, to civilian defense attorneys who specialize in complex death penalty cases. But human rights groups and defense lawyers still condemn the proceedings as flawed and fundamentally unfair. 

Lawyers appointed to represent the men say they face hurdles they would never encounter in a civilian court, including strict limits on what they can say about their clients, whose every utterance is treated as presumptively classified. 

"All I can do is try and protect my client's rights to every extent I can and try and hold the government to their burden to provide a fair and transparent justice system and to actually mean it," Bormann said. 

Mohammed and his co-defendants were first arraigned on the U.S. base in Cuba in June 2008. The case quickly bogged down in pretrial motions and was put on hold as Obama sought to move the case to the federal court in New York. 

But members of Congress balked and blocked the administration from transferring prisoners from the base to the mainland. That prevented the closure of the prison, where the U.S. still holds 169 prisoners. 

"There is a consensus now ... that military commissions have a narrow but critical role in our counterterrorism and justice system," said Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, a Harvard Law School classmate of Obama's who was appointed chief prosecutor last year. 

Mohammed confessed to military authorities that he planned or carried out about 30 plots around the world. He admitted personally killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and said he conceived the plot to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight by would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid in 2001. Mohammed was captured in 2003 in Pakistan. 

Roth, who will be part of a human rights contingent observing Saturday's arraignment at Guantanamo, said the prosecution can work around the ban on coerced testimony, perhaps even unwittingly, by introducing classified summaries of intelligence to support their case. 

Even with the changes, the defense lawyers say the commissions are anything but fair. They complain that their mail is improperly reviewed by the military, interfering with attorney-client privilege, that they aren't given enough resources to investigate cases the government spent years building, that too many hearings are still held in secret and that they are barred from disclosing anything their clients tell them. 

"You can take a $5 mule and put a $10,000 saddle on it and call it reformed," said Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, a military lawyer for Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi. "You still have a $5 mule; it just has a fancy saddle."

PARIS -- A French court sentenced an Algerian-born nuclear physicist to five years in prison Friday for his role in plotting terrorism with al-Qaida's north African wing. 

Adlene Hicheur, a former researcher at Switzerland's CERN laboratory, was convicted of "criminal association with a view to plotting terrorist attacks." 

---

Hicheur, who has been behind bars since he was arrested in October 2009, could have received up to 10 years in prison. 

The 35-year-old scientist and his defenders say he was a victim of allegedly overzealous French anti-terrorism laws and that he explored ideas on jihadist websites but never took any concrete step toward terrorism. 

Speaking after the judgment, Hicheur's lawyer called the verdict "scandalous." 

Lawyer Patrick Baudouin said Hicheur hasn't decided whether to appeal the verdict. If he does not, with time off for good behavior, his client "should be out rather quickly," he added. 

Didn't want to be a suicide bomber
The case centered on about 35 emails between Hicheur and an alleged contact within al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb named Mustapha Debchi, who tried to convince him to carry out a suicide bombing.

Hicheur declined, but in one response suggested striking at the barracks of a battalion of elite Alpine troops in the eastern town of Cran-Gevrier. 

Hicheur claimed he was on morphine for a herniated disk and going through a personal "zone of turbulence" when he wrote a 2009 email that advocated an attack on the barracks. 

Greenpeace paraglider prompts concerns of nuclear reactor safety 

Prosecutor Guillaume Portenseigne rejected Hicheur's claims of a lack of lucidity and characterized the defendant as "a man who had everything going for him ... but just got led astray in a radical jihadist Islam." 

Al-Qaida operative found guilty of bomb plot

At the two-day trial in March, the prosecutor called Hicheur "a budding terrorist" who only needed a "determining meeting" to slip into concrete action. 

Bin Laden in hiding plotted to assassinate Obama

Hicheur's lawyer argued that "everything has been done to demonize" his client, "to make him into ... France's most dangerous terrorist, potentially susceptible to participate in a bombing." 

Hicheur's defenders said recent terror attacks in France did not help his case. 

In an apparently unrelated case in March, a young man also of Algerian descent killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in the cities of Toulouse and Montauban and claimed ties to al-Qaida. Mohamed Merah, 23, died later in a shootout with police.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Blind China activist offered US fellowship
• Meet Monsieur Caramel Pudding, likely French president
• Water access spurs resentment in West Bank
• Suicide bombers kill 12, wound 110 in Russia
• Apology to journalist fired for WWII surrender scoop
• End of nuclear? Japan to shut down last reactor
• Wild celebrations as Argentina nationalizes oil company

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

In letters from his hideout in Pakistan written in the five years before his death, Osama bin Laden fretted about dysfunction among the far-flung affiliate organizations in his terrorist network, according to documents seized during the U.S. military’s raid on his compound that that were released on Thursday. 

Seventeen declassified letters seized in last year's raid on bin Laden's compound by U.S. Navy SEALs were posted online Thursday by the U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center, accompanying its analysis of their contents titled, "Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?" The letters -- 175 pages in Arabic -- probably represent only a small fraction of materials taken from the compound, the center’s distinguished chair, retired Gen. John Abizaid, said in a note published with the translations.

---

U.S. intelligence analysts have spent countless hours poring over the vast stash of computerized and paper data seized during the raid that killed bin Laden, as NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski and Robert Windrem reported earlier this week.

But the letters released Thursday, which were written between September 2006 and April 2011, add new nuances to the previous reports. 

Among other things, they show the al-Qaida founder was troubled by the actions of other Islamist groups that aligned themselves with his terrorist network.

As Associated Press reporter Kimberly Dozier puts it:

The documents show dark days for al-Qaida and its hunkered-down leader after years of attacks by the United States and what bin Laden saw as bumbling within his own organization and its terrorist allies.

The so-called affiliate organizations – including al-Qaida in Iraq, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula; the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Student Movement of Pakistan); and the Somalia-based Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen – were of particular concern to bin Laden. 

In the words of the report’s authors: 

Rather than a source of strength, bin Ladin was burdened by what he viewed as the incompetence of the “affiliates,” including their lack of political acumen to win public support, their media campaigns and their poorly planned operations which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Muslims. 

"I plan to release a statement that we are starting a new phase to correct (the mistakes) we made," bin Laden wrote in 2010. "In doing so, we shall reclaim, God willing, the trust of a large segment of those who lost their trust in the jihadis."

Nothing in the papers points directly to al-Qaida sympathizers in Pakistan's government. Bin Laden described "trusted Pakistani brothers" but didn't identify any Pakistani government or military officials who might have been aware of or complicit in his hiding in Abbottabad. 

Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

The letters also indicate that American Adam Gadahn played a much greater role in al-Qaida than has been acknowledged by U.S. authorities, who have often dismissed him as a propagandist and spokesman. In fact, Gadahn appeared to act as an adviser to bin Laden and in one letter urged that al-Qaida disassociate itself from al-Qaida in Iraq. 

One letter also outlined Gadahn’s views of U.S. news organizations as part of a discussion of how al-Qaida might go about publicizing the 10^th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S.

Related stories

Security-conscious bin Laden's methods of undetected travel revealed

Kill Obama so 'utterly unprepared' Biden becomes president, bin Laden told followers

Technolog: Al-Qaida spokesman called its Internet forums 'repulsive': report

Bin Laden in hiding: Hatching horrific plots despite crippling attacks on al-Qaida

He indicated a particular dislike of Fox News, writing, “Let her die in her anger”; said MSNBC-TV appeared to be “good and neutral a bit,” while complaining about the firing of Keith Olbermann; said CNN appeared to be aligned with the U.S. government but was better in its Arabic reports; and made flattering comments about CBS and ABC.

NBC News senior investigative producer Robert Windrem contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Blind activist Chen Guangcheng: 'I want to leave China on Hillary Clinton's plane'
• 'A little fixing up'? Philippines hides slum behind wall ahead of poverty conference
• Sarkozy fails to floor Hollande in France election television debate
• Has Britain's Prime Minister Cameron lost his gloss? Voters issue their verdict
• Catholic priest: I've been secretly married for a year
• Five years on, parents of missing Madeleine McCann cling to hope
• Bold move as Syria leader makes time for chess