The former September 11 commission is giving the US Congress and the White House poor marks on protecting the United States against an "inevitable" terror attack because of their failure to enact several strong security measures.

The suspected financial mastermind of an al-Qaida cell accused of helping plot the September 11 attacks depicted himself today as a legitimate businessman and moderate Muslim who once argued angrily with associates over what constituted grounds for holy war.

OSAMA BIN LADEN said in a video aired yesterday that the United States can avoid another September 11 attack if it stops threatening the security of Muslims.

The Al-Qaida terror network spent less than €44,600 on each of its major attacks except the September 11 suicide hijackings and one of its hallmarks is using readily-available items like mobile phones and knives as weapons, a new United Nations report says.

A DESIGN consisting of two reflecting pools and a large grove of trees has been chosen for the World Trade Centre memorial after an eight-month competition that drew more than 5,000 entries from around the world.

THE US State Department warned, two years after the devastation of the World Trade Centre, that al-Qaida could stage a new strike “more devastating than the September 11 attack.”

Disclosures about alleged links between Iraq and the al-Qaida terror group have so far been viewed with some scepticism, and been seen as part of an attempt to win over public opinion in the build-up to military action.

WHEN is a debate not a debate? The answer is when Dáil deputies address such thorny issues as the implicit contradiction between Irish neutrality and the increasing use of Shannon Airport

Seven teams of architects from around the world will today reveal their plans for Ground Zero in New York.

An FBI informant secretly recording a conversation with a tax assessor ended up making what is believed to be the only known uninterrupted audio recording of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York.

One of America’s biggest St Patrick’s Day parades was going ahead today, despite a bitter split over the presence of a convicted IRA bomber.

The Taliban have lost contact with Osama bin Laden and he is no longer under the militia’s control, the spokesman for the movement’s supreme leader said today.

The Central Statistics Office has revealed that the live register increased by 5,200 last month.

New York’s mayor Rudolph Giuliani has ordered a 15% cut in spending by most city departments, predicting the World Trade Centre attack will cost $1bn in revenue this fiscal year, as well as 100,000 jobs.

US and European authorities are zeroing in on a small group of men in England, Germany and the United Arab Emirates believed to have plotted the September 11 attack and provided assistance to the hijackers, government officials said.