Sources: Several who went to Pakistan with Zazi back in U.S.

Several people who traveled from New York to Pakistan last year with a man accused of plotting a terrorist attack have since returned to the United States, sources close to the investigation told CNN. A grand jury has been in session in New York in the last week as further charges are considered in the expanding terror investigation, CNN learned.

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Possible body of British hostage handed over in Iraq

A body that may be that of a Briton taken hostage in Iraq two years ago has been handed over to Iraqi authorities, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced Wednesday. The disclosures reported by the country’s official news agency were highly unusual

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Adviser: Obama urging ‘more aggressive’ fight against al Qaeda

President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser Thursday vowed the U.S. would defeat al Qaeda and declared the president has urged him to be more aggressive in destroying the terrorist organization. John Brennan, Obama’s senior adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, projected an assertive stance toward the battle against al Qaeda — which Brennan said “remains the most serious threat” the U.S

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Recruits reveal al Qaeda’s sprawling web

When Bryant Neal Vinas spoke at length with Belgian prosecutors last March, he provided a fascinating and sometimes frightening insight into al Qaeda’s training — and its agenda. Vinas is a young American who was arrested in Pakistan late in 2008 after allegedly training with al Qaeda in the Afghan/Pakistan border area. He was repatriated to the United States and in January pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to murder U.S.

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American’s odyssey to al Qaeda’s heart

On September 10, 2007, almost exactly six years after al Qaeda attacked the United States, Bryant Neal Vinas, a 24-year-old American citizen born in Queens, New York, boarded a flight from the city en route to Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, determined to fight jihad in neighboring Afghanistan. Brought up a Catholic by his Latin American immigrant parents, who divorced when he was young, Vinas tried to join the U.S. army in 2002 but dropped out after just a few weeks

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