A man whose daughter and Cork-born wife were killed in the 9/11 attacks in New York has died of cancer in the US.

Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law has pleaded not guilty to plotting against Americans in his role as al Qaida’s leading spokesman as a landmark case trying a terror suspect on US soil moves forward.

Three British men planned to detonate rucksacks packed with explosives in a major suicide assault that could have been more devastating than co-ordinated attacks that killed more than 50 people in London in 2005, a court has heard.

THE US will aim to destroy al-Qaida’s central organisation now that its leader Osama bin Laden has been killed and its capabilities degraded by US operations, a top White House adviser said last night.

US OFFICIALS were concerned that Pakistan could jeopardise the Osama bin Laden operation and “might alert the targets,” CIA director Leon Panetta admitted yesterday.

Tensions flared over plans to build a mosque near ground zero as rival demonstrations took place after family members of the victims of the 9/11 attacks took part in a sombre ceremony marking the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the US.

Politics is threatening to overshadow the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks today.

The pastor who planned an “International Burn-a-Koran Day” is still hopeful of meeting the imam overseeing plans for a controversial Islamic centre in New York for talks.

The pastor who planned an “International Burn-a-Koran Day” tonight publicly challenged the imam overseeing plans for a controversial Islamic centre in New York to start talks.

Barack Obama will disclose more today about the botched airline terrorist attack - and what else he will do to beef up security.

ATTORNEY General Eric Holder says self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York for trial in a civilian federal court and he expects to seek the death penalty.

Self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York for trial in a civilian US court and prosecutors expect to seek the death penalty, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

White House environmental adviser Van Jones, embroiled in a controversy over past inflammatory statements, resigned after what he called a “vicious smear campaign against me”.

OSAMA BIN LADEN’s former driver offered the terrorist leader aid and protection that helped make the September 11 attacks possible, prosecutors said yesterday in closing arguments at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

THE first war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay can begin next Monday, a federal judge has ruled, saying civilian courts should let the military process play out as Congress intended.

CIA chiefs failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to September 11, the agency’s own watchdog said in a scathing report.

A man accused of raising money for al-qaida in Iraq and helping to supply foreign fighters for the insurgency there went on trial today in Germany.

Germany’s highest court today refused to take up the appeal of a man convicted of helping three of the September 11 suicide pilots in their plot.

A German court today handed the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison to a Moroccan convicted of being an accessory to murder for aiding the September 11 attackers.

THE United States government admitted there was no proof to back Zacarias Moussaoui’s dramatic courtroom confession that he was to have been a key player in the September 11 attacks.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared today at the trial where a jury is considering whether admitted al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui should be put to death in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks.

US government prosecutors today argued that a terrorist conspirator who studied in London must be executed for causing the deaths of nearly 3,000 people by failing to tell what he knew of the September 11 attacks.

Finally, new cast members are joining the long-running legal drama of confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

The United States is not doing enough to thwart terrorists’ attempts to acquire or make weapons of mass destruction, the September 11 commission has found.

US President George Bush, linking hurricane recovery and the aftermath of the September 11 attacks four years ago, declared today that the nation was ready to “overcome any challenge.”

A German court in Hamburg today convicted a Moroccan man suspected of helping the September 11 hijackers of membership in a terrorist organisation and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

A suspected Muslim extremist accused of helping to plot the September 11 attacks in the United States said today he had never even heard of al-Qaida until he was arrested four years ago on suspicion of leading one of its cells.

Zacarias Moussaoui asked for nothing in exchange for pleading guilty to a role in a terrorist conspiracy that includes the September 11, 2001, attacks, an admission that could bring the death penalty, federal officials said in Washington.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in the US charged over the September 11 terrorist attacks, has told the US government he plans to plead guilty, it is reported today.

Four months after the September 11 commission urged drastic changes to protect the United States from another terror attack, Congress today neared final passage of far-reaching legislation overhauling the US intelligence network and instituting new border and aviation security safeguards.

DEMOCRATIC challenger John Kerry hammered George W Bush over Osama bin Laden and then turned on the US President over domestic issues, criticising cuts in after-school programmes, health care coverage and jobs lost in the past four years.

Senator John Kerry returned to domestic issues today, criticising cuts in after-school programs, health care coverage and jobs lost in the last four years.

The father of September 11 hijack leader Mohammed Atta has insisted his son did not carry out the 2001 attacks, blaming a “Jewish conspiracy” for the outrage.

President George Bush is backing the September 11 commission’s recommendation to create a national intelligence director, but not in the White House as the panel had proposed, administration officials said today.

PRESIDENT George W Bush has overstepped his authority since the September 11 attacks by jailing American citizens suspected of links to terrorism and denying them access to lawyers and courts, an attorney for a US-born terrorism suspect told the Supreme Court yesterday.

US President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will appear before the commission investigating the September 11 terror attacks next week.

GIVING no ground despite rising casualties, US President George W Bush said more troops may be heading for Iraq with authority to use decisive force in a mission that “may become more difficult before it is finished”.

US mational security adviser Condoleezza Rice will provide a detailed account of the Bush administration’s anti-terror actions before the 2001 attacks when she goes before the September 11 commission today.

Eight competing designs for a memorial to the nearly-3,000 victims of September 11 terror attacks – including reflecting pools, walls of names and a tomb for the unidentified – were unveiled as the rebuilding of New York’s World Trade Centre entered a delicate new phase.

NEARING the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks.

The horror of September 11 still haunts New York, but it is the economic fallout from the attack that now poses one of the biggest challenges to the city.

Terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui has claimed he was plotting a second al-Qaida strike to follow-up the September 11 attacks, court papers released today showed.

A group calling itself “September 11” sent terror threats to the British High Commission and American and Australian embassies in New Zealand warning it had 55lbs of cyanide to use against US interests if Iraq was attacked, police said today.