Where’s Hillary?

Hasidic paper breaks the rules by editing Clinton out of White House photo

By Joe Pompeo
Hillary Clinton's expression, right hand clasped over her mouth in astonishment, is largely responsible for making the above photo iconic--and, to at least one newspaper, sexually suggestive.
In the photo, President Obama and his national security team are huddled around a conference table in the White House Situation Room, watching CIA director Leon Panetta narrate last Sunday's raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. The mood is clearly tense.
When Women's Wear Daily consulted a coterie of photo editors and designers about why the image is "destined to be one for the history books," Clinton was foremost in their responses.
"The Hillary Clinton expression is the one that holds the photograph fully," Time's photo director told the magazine. "You can see 10 years of tension and heartache and anger in Hillary's face," Conde Nast's Scott Dadich agreed.
Turns out she was probably just coughing during that crucial moment captured by White House photographer Pete Souza. But nevertheless, the image still proved a bit too racy for at least one of the many newspapers that printed it.
That would be the Ultra-Orthodox Hasidic broadsheet Der Tzitung, published in Brooklyn. The paper photoshopped Clinton, as well at the only other woman who could be seen in the room--Audrey Tomason, the national director of counterterrorism--out of the frame.

"Apparently the presence of a woman, any woman, being all womanly and sexy all over the United States' counterterrorism efforts was too much for the editors of Der Tzitung to handle," noted the prominent women's blog Jezebel.
Indeed, "The Hasidic newspaper will not intentionally include any images of women in the paper because it could be considered sexually suggestive," Rabbi Jason Miller explains in The Jewish Week. Though he notes that the publication's "fauxtograpphing" may in fact be a graver act against their religious tenets: "To my mind, this act of censorship is actually a violation of the Jewish legal principle of g'neivat da'at (deceit)."
Beyond that, Der Tzitung's editors apparently missed or blatantly ignored the guidelines stipulated on the official White House Flickr page, where the photo was released for use by news organizations: "The photograph may not be manipulated in any way."
The White House has not issued a response on the altered image.
UPDATE: The editors of Der Tzitung have apologized to the White House for altering the photo and responded to the Wasington Post with a comment clarifiying their position:
"In accord with our religious beliefs, we do not publish photos of women, which in no way relegates them to a lower status... Because of laws of modesty, we are not allowed to publish pictures of women, and we regret if this gives an impression of disparaging to women, which is certainly never our intention. We apologize if this was seen as offensive."

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, renowned nuclear physicist and disarmament activist, who teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, recently visited the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and delivered a talk, the title of which was: Sacred Terror – Theirs and Ours. I was fortunate enough to find out about this and actually attend the lecture. I will attempt to summarize what Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy said, since I thought most of our Pakistaniat readers would like to know what he had to say on the extremely divisive subject of global terrorism, which has become extremely important after 9/11.

Dr. Hoodbhoy started the talk by giving the audience a definition of terrorism.

“Terrorism is the deliberate targeting of non-combatants with the intention to kill or wound.”

If this, indeed, is the definition of terrorism, then it leads us to re-examine some of the events that took place some time ago, but which have all had an impact on history. While much has been written about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they have not really ever been referred to as acts of terrorism. In 1971, when the West Pakistani Army slaughtered close to 100,000 Bengalis, Dr. Hoodbhoy thinks that sort of brutality can also be seen as terrorism, but of course as we all know, history has not recognized it as such.
We all remember the Munich Olympics of 1972, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the Palestinian group “Black September,” a group which had ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization. By the end of the ordeal, the group had murdered 11 Israeli athletes and one German police officer. Of course, the Palestinians thought they were merely taking their revenge from people who were representatives of the country that had deprived them of their homeland. Dr. Hoodbhoy calls this an act of terrorism as well.

There are numerous other similar incidents in history. Dr. Hoodbhoy, very interestingly, talked about former President Ronald Reagan, who on one occasion was quoted as saying, “I am a Mujahideen” while posing for pictures with Afghan Mujahideen including Gulbadin Hikmatyar Apparently, at that time, President Reagan had also said about the Mujahideen that “they were the moral equivalent of the founding fathers of America.”

So as you can see, terrorism is a very complex subject, and its definition depends, to some extent, on which side you belong to. Yesterday’s freedom fighters have become today’s terrorists. After 9/11, while the US was engulfed by insurmountable grief, one is ashamed to admit that there was jubilation and actual celebration in most of the Muslim world. Whereas one’s initial reaction is to feel appalled at such apathy at the death of innocent people, it is important to point out that the Muslims are not the only “bad guys” in the world. Recently, Dr. Hoodbhoy saw CNN coverage of the bridge collapse in Minnesota where 13 people died and approximately 100 were injured, and while it was very tragic to hear the stories of the survivors and those of the families who had lost loved ones, Dr. Hoodbhoy says he was reminded of the beginning of the Iraq war, where the very same CNN was simply ecstatic at the collapse of a similar bridge. CNN was going on and on about the precision with which the United States attacks its targets, and there was no sorrow at the loss of innocent lives that accompanied this feat.

Terrorism is born and flourishes when the world gets divided into “us” and “them” and this is a mind-set that is rampant in today’s world.

“The essence of terrorism rests on the psychological detachment from its victims and a contemptuous indifference to their suffering.”

Left unchecked, the negative stereotyping of all Muslims as terrorists will have dire consequences. So what can be done to stop the growing confrontation between the U.S and the Muslims? Dr. Hoodbhoy used the very imaginative allegory of a modern day Moses to whom 10 new Commandments are revealed – 5 of the 10 Commandments are for the U.S and the other 5 are for the Muslims. I will summarize them here for the benefit of our readers.

1. The United States must stop behaving as if planet Earth belongs to them and that they are the world’s policemen. There is U.S. military presence all over the world and the U.S. dominates the land, sea, air and space. They spend a staggering half a trillion dollars on defense, which is more than the defense budgets of the next five countries.

2. Live by the law. When international agreements have been signed and agreed to by the U.S., they should be obeyed. U.S. does not live by the NPT (non-proliferation treaty). Currently, they have agreed to supply nuclear material to India (who as we all know, has not signed the NPT). So the U.S. is in clear violation of the NPT. Interestingly enough, Iran’s nuclear program (which is the reason behind the current threat of bombing Iran) was started by the U.S. itself at the time of the Shah of Iran in the 1970’s.

3. Do not use rhetoric of democracy unless you mean it. The two main reasons for invading Iraq were, of course, the elusive WMD’s and secondly to establish democracy over there. This is very transparent hypocrisy on the past of the U.S., especially since they have supported several dictatorships around the world. All four military dictators in Pakistan have had the full support of the U.S.

4. Ensure that a Palestinian State is created very soon. Despite involving a relatively small land area and number of casualties, especially compared to the genocide in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia, the Palestinian issue has become a very important one for the Muslim psyche. Muslims feel they are being victimized by the Christian West, and Palestine has become a symbol of the injustice done to Muslims in today’s world.

5. Exercise soft power. The wealth and resources of the U.S. MUST be shared with countries that need them. The U.S. helped very generously at the time of the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 and also they played an important role in the relief efforts when the earthquake hit northern Pakistan two years ago. These kinds of actions promote goodwill and will go a long way in easing tensions between the Muslims and this country.

And now we come to the 5 Commandments addressed to the Muslims.

1. Muslims must STOP blaming the West (or the “infidels”) for everything that is wrong with them. Out of the 48 Muslim countries of the world, not one can be called a democracy in the pure sense of the word. Sadly, there has been NO significant scientific achievement in the last 700 years or so, whereas between the 9th and the 13th centuries, during the golden period of Islam, it was only the Muslims who kept the light of knowledge burning. The causes of Muslim decline have all been internal, and NOT the result of conspiracies. If Islam is to become a positive, constructive force in the 21st century, it must change from within, and worldwide opinion will follow.

2. Whenever and wherever there is an act of terrorism, condemn it LOUDLY and fully. The West has taken the majority of the Muslim communities’ lack of anger at 9/11 as tacit approval of militant Islam. Unfortunately Islam has become synonymous with violence and terror, and many moderate, peaceful Muslims have now become victims as well. The moderate Muslim community must fight against the hijacking of Islam.

3. Stop dreaming of theocracies and the reinstating of the Shariah law. Such ideas belong to the past, and are not compatible with the continuously evolving society and environment to which we belong. Insistence on such ideas can only drag the Muslims further into a medieval abyss.

4. Accept the fact that others do not see morality the way you do. Muslims have been brought up to believe that the only morality worth upholding is sexual morality. Other religions and cultures may not place so much emphasis on sexual morality, but that does not necessarily make them inferior human beings.

5. The last Commandment is for Muslims who have chosen to live in countries other than their homeland. Integrate. Do NOT try and stand out. Do NOT try and be different. And yes, it is possible to do all this AND maintain one’s individual identity, and without compromising principles and values we have grown up with. We must take more of an interest in our surroundings, in politics, and not just national politics but starting at the grassroots level.

To conclude, it is the need of the hour to understand that it was okay to be tribal in the early days, but certainly not so in today’s world. We human beings are similar in a lot of ways and we must strive to become global citizens, and try not to be locked into narrow nationalism. This is a challenge for all of us and we will all have to consciously work at it to survive.

Taliban Recruiting in Sargodha ???

Reporting from Sargodha, Pakistan - One by one, recruits from Pakistan’s Punjab heartland would make the seven-hour drive to Waziristan, where they would pull up to an office that made no secret of its mission.

The signboard above the office door read “Tehrik-e-Taliban.” In a largely ungoverned city like Miram Shah, there was no reason to hide its identity.

The trainees from Sargodha would arrive, grab some sleep at the Taliban office and afterward head into Waziristan’s rugged mountains for instruction in skills including karate and handling explosives and automatic rifles.

“Someone recruits them, then someone else takes them to Miram Shah, and then someone in Miram Shah greets them and takes them in,” said Sargodha Police Chief Usman Anwar, whose officers this summer arrested a cell of returning Punjabi militants before they could allegedly carry out a plan to blow up a cellphone tower in this city of 700,000. “It’s an assembly line, like Ford Motors has.”

The arrests of six Punjabi militants in Sargodha in two raids Aug. 24 illustrated a burgeoning collaboration between Punjabi militants and northwestern Pakistan’s Taliban that has Pakistanis increasingly concerned as the government focuses its military resources on Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in South Waziristan.

Military commanders say their troops assumed control of most of South Waziristan just three weeks after launching a large-scale offensive aimed at uprooting the Pakistani Taliban near the Afghan border. Troops are now clashing with Taliban fighters in Makeen, the hometown of slain Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mahsud.

However, evidence is growing that militants in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, could prove just as dangerous as the Taliban militants from the country’s northwestern region that includes South Waziristan and other parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.

Pakistan has been broadsided by a nationwide wave of terrorist strikes in recent weeks, and several of those attacks have involved militants from Punjab either masterminding or carrying out the violence.

A daring Oct. 10 commando raid on the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, a heavily guarded complex that is Pakistan’s equivalent of the Pentagon, was engineered by a Punjabi militant who also organized the deadly ambush of the Sri Lankan cricket team in March.

Punjabi extremists were also believed to be behind near-simultaneous attacks on three police buildings in Lahore that killed 14 people on Oct. 15.

Years ago, the agendas of the Pakistani Taliban and Punjabi militant organizations such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Muhammad moved in different directions. Whereas the Taliban has long focused its attacks on Pakistan’s Western-allied government, Punjabi groups, which, like the Taliban, are Sunni Muslims, have traditionally targeted Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region and members of Pakistan’s Shiite Muslim minority.

Now, however, the missions of the Taliban and Punjabi militants seem to have merged. Law enforcement officials and analysts say the catalyst was the government’s 2007 siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad where Islamic extremists held scores of people hostage. The eight-day siege in the Pakistani capital ended in the deaths of more than 100 people.

Then-President Pervez Musharraf ordered security forces to seize the mosque after militants at the sprawling compound set fire to the capital’s Environment Ministry building. The siege had been preceded by months of challenges to Musharraf’s leadership from the mosque’s radical leaders, including an insistence that Pakistan adopt Islamic law.

After the siege, Punjabi militant groups that had been tolerated — and in some cases fostered — by Pakistani authorities viewed the government as an enemy.

Experts say Pakistan has neglected to adequately brace for the threat posed by Taliban-trained Punjabi militants. Their cells have spread throughout Punjab province, and law enforcement officials say Punjabi militants have established their own training camps in southern Punjab, a desolate wasteland where the police presence is minimal and a feudal society dominates.

“At the moment, the government is bewildered. It doesn’t know how to manage this challenge coming from Punjabi militants,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based security analyst.

“In the past, Punjab militants were merely facilitating the Taliban. But now they have joined with the Taliban to engage in terrorist attacks.”

Southern Punjab provides militant groups a haven to train and reconnoiter. Like the Taliban’s primary stronghold in Waziristan, vast tracts of southern Punjab are regarded as tribal areas where rule is laid down by local sardars, or feudal leaders. In some places, the only glint of law enforcement comes in the form of the poorly trained border military police, who take orders largely from feudal leaders, said Maj. Gen. Yaqub Khan of the Pakistan Rangers Punjab.

In an interview on Pakistan’s Express News television channel in mid-October, Khan said militants freely move between South Waziristan and the tribal area surrounding the southern Punjab city of Dera Ghazi Khan.

Khan said the jurisdiction of his paramilitary force, which is under the control of the Interior Ministry, is limited to securing a gas pipeline.

“There are no police in the region,” he said. “We have confirmed reports that terrorists gather and get training in this region, and they have definite linkage with militants fighting in FATA.”

Pakistanis in Dera Ghazi Khan and surrounding villages fear that, as the government continues its crackdown on Taliban militants along the Afghan border, fleeing Taliban fighters may attempt to establish themselves in southern Punjab.

“No one is serious about preventing the Talibanization of our area,” said Khawaja Mudasar Mehmood, a Dera Ghazi Khan politician with the ruling Pakistan People’s Party. “We face spillover from South Waziristan. Taliban militants are already passing into this area, and the border military police can’t prevent it.”

In Sargodha, the link to the Taliban is Mohammed Tayyab, who heads the Punjabi Taliban cell in Miram Shah and had close ties with Mahsud, said Anwar, the Sargodha police chief. Tayyab has been accused of engineering the November 2007 suicide bombing attack on a Pakistani air force bus in Sargodha that killed eight people.

After several raids, Tayyab and his militant group are keeping a lower profile in Miram Shah, but they still tap Sargodha for fresh recruits and train them in Waziristan, Anwar said. A primary conduit for recruitment was a madrasa, or Islamic seminary school,run by the father of four brothers who were arrested by Sargodha police in August, accused of planning an attack on the cellphone tower.

“Likely recruits at the madrasas are teens, 14 or 15, without strong links to family,” Anwar said. “Poverty is a factor, but having no social links, no future, is the main cause.”

Law enforcement officials say the military offensive in South Waziristan has accelerated collaboration among Punjabi militants, the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. Punjabi militants have been waging the attacks on behalf of their Taliban and Al Qaeda allies, government officials say, hoping to erode popular backing for military operations in Waziristan.

The problem with battling militancy in Punjab is that the government cannot undertake a crackdown on the scale of the offensives against the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan’s Swat Valley or in Waziristan, experts say. Punjab is too densely populated and many in the province still cling to the belief that Pakistan’s next-door enemy, India, is behind much of the terrorism in Punjab.

“People don’t really recognize Punjabi militants as a threat, or they think these terrorist groups are agents of foreign countries,” said Rizvi, the analyst. “So when you start arguing that the roots of the problem lie outside Pakistan, then you don’t recognize the threat actually emerging here.”

By Alex Rodriguez

LA Times

Diya – a Hero’s Daughter

Text & Photos by Fauzia Minallah

Diya with her father Pervez Masih’s photograph

Diya is only three, she is lost and has many questions about her father Pervez Masih. Pervez was a janitor at the International Islamic University. On the fateful day when IIU was attacked by suicide bombers, he was the hero who stopped the terrorist from entering the cafeteria for female students. Pervez lost his life, while saving the lives of more than 300 students.

He will always be remembered as a true hero by us. Diya will always be known as a hero’s daughter by us.

Diya 3 and her mother Shaheen

The Minister of Interior, Mr. Rehman Malik, publicly announced that his family will receive a compensation of approximately $10,000. According to his widow Shaheen and sister Perveen, so far, the family has not been contacted by anyone from his office. The IIU administration helped the family with Rs. 10.000 for the burial costs, employed his widow Shaheen as a sanitary worker and promised to help with Diya’s education. Other than that there has not been any help from anyone for Pervez’s family. The only person who has helped this hero’s family so far is a young student of Behria University, Maham Ali. She motivated her friends to donate funds for Pervez’s family. She collected Rs. 52,500 and bought toys and clothes for Diya.

Maham and Diya.

We might be going through tough times, but even in this darkness there is hope. And for me that hope is in young people like Maham. She was our pillar of support by collecting funds for our effort in helping the internally displaced Pakistanis.

As a society we need to recognize our heroes, we need to rise above our prejudices and name streets, buildings and squares after Pervez Masih. So what if he was a poor Christian sanitary worker, he saved the lives of 300 Muslim students. Shaheen is happy that the IIU administration have employed her, but we should ask ourselves, is it fiiting for a hero’s wife to remain at the bottom of the social order? Doing the most menial job?

At least on November 16th on the ‘International Day of Tolerance’, Maham was there to cheer up Diya- a hero’s daughter.

Here is a CNN story on Pervez Masih:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/11/pakistan.hero/

Accused 9/11 Mastermind to Face Civilian Trial in N.Y.

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

Published: November 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it would prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in a Manhattan federal courtroom, a decision that ignited a sharp political debate but took a step toward resolving one of the most pressing terrorism detention issues.

Enlarge This Image

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announcing Friday that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others would be tried in federal court in Manhattan.

The decision, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., could mean one of the highest-profile and highest-security terrorism trials in history would be set just blocks from where hijackers for Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Mr. Holder said he would instruct prosecutors to seek death sentences for Mr. Mohammed and four accused Sept. 11 co-conspirators who would be tried alongside him.

But while the civilian system would handle those cases, he said five other detainees would be prosecuted before a military commission.

Those facing a military trial include Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of planning Al Qaeda’s 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen. All 10 detainees are being held at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“Today’s announcement marks a significant step forward in our efforts to close Guantánamo and to bring to justice those individuals who have conspired to attack our nation and our interests abroad,” Mr. Holder said.

No decision has yet been made about where to hold the military trials, Mr. Holder said. But the administration’s decision to bring five Sept. 11 detainees onto United States soil for prosecution in the civilian legal system drew immediate fire from members of Congress as well as relatives of victims and neighbors of the federal courthouse.

They argued that Qaeda suspects did not deserve the protections afforded by the American criminal justice system, that bringing them into the United States would heighten the risk of another terrorist attack, that civilian trials increase the risk of disclosing classified information, and that if the detainees were acquitted they could be released into the population.

“We should not be increasing the danger of another terrorist strike against Americans at home and abroad,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York.

Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, questioned the wisdom of trying terrorism suspects in civilian courts, arguing that military commissions were more appropriate. But many other Democrats praised the move, noting that New York had been the setting for other high-profile terrorism trials — including the prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman, the “blind sheik” who was convicted of plotting to blow up the United Nations headquarters and other New York landmarks.

“New York is not afraid of terrorists,” said Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, adding, “Any suggestion that our prosecutors and our law enforcement personnel are not up to the task of safely holding and successfully prosecuting terrorists on American soil is insulting and untrue.”

Mr. Holder said he was confident that the men would be convicted, and other administration officials said they had ample legal authority to keep classified information secret. They also suggested that they could continue to detain anyone deemed to be a “combatant” under Congress’s authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda.

Mr. Mohammed and the other detainees would not be moved right away. Under a recently enacted law, the administration must give Congress 45 days notice before bringing any Guantánamo Bay detainee into the United States. Mr. Holder said the administration would comply with that requirement as it seeks indictments from a grand jury.

The decision to prosecute some detainees in civilian court was a major policy shift from the Bush administration, which contended that suspected Al Qaeda members should not be treated like — nor given the rights of — ordinary criminals. It had charged the Sept. 11 defendants before a military commission at Guantánamo, which has a more flexible standard for evidence.

Days after his inauguration, President Obama signed orders halting the Bush era military commission trials and instructing officials to shut the prison within a year. But it became clear that closing the facility would be easier said than done, as political and legal pressures made it tough to move terrorism suspects into prisons in the United States, and other countries refused to accept them.

In a speech in May, Mr. Obama said that some detainees would be tried in civilian court, but that others could be prosecuted before a modified system of military commissions. Congress recently enacted legislation adding safeguards to the panels.

Kenneth Wainstein, an assistant attorney general for national security during the Bush administration, said he took “great comfort” from the Obama administration’s decision to use commissions to handle detainees who cannot be tried in civilian courts for reasons of evidence, security or applicable charges.

“They made what I think for them was a difficult policy and political decisions to retain military commissions — to fine-tune them but retain them,” he said, characterizing Mr. Holder’s approach as a “good call.”

In his May speech, Mr. Obama also said some detainees who are deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute could be brought to the United States for preventive detention — essentially holding them indefinitely without trial. Mr. Holder on Friday offered no new details about that plan, which has drawn fire from civil-liberties groups and local communities.

In July, a task force of Justice and Pentagon prosecutors developed a system for evaluating what to do with each detainee, taking account of factors like where offenses took place, the identity of victims, and the manner in which evidence was gathered.

There was an internal debate over who would ultimately handle what is likely to be among the most visible trials in years.

Some military prosecutors who had spent years building cases against the accused Sept. 11 conspirators wanted to keep them.

New York prosecutors wanted them, too, as did those in the Eastern District of Virginia, which has jurisdiction over the area surrounding the Pentagon, where one of the planes struck.

Mr. Holder said that over the past few weeks, he had “personally reviewed” the 10 cases and made the final determination about which system would prosecute the two sets of detainees. He also decided that the Sept. 11 prosecutorial team would include attorneys from the Eastern District of Virginia.

Political considerations did not come into play in his decision, he said.

On the morning before Friday’s announcement, Mr. Holder called Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and Gov. David Paterson of New York to inform them of his decision. Mr. Bloomberg said that he supported having the trial in the city, and that its police force could handle any security issues.

“It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

Civil-liberties and human-rights groups praised the decision to try the detainees in federal court. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the announcement “an enormous victory for the rule of law.”

He also announced that the A.C.L.U. and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers would shut down a joint effort to provide defense attorneys for the detainees facing military commissions. They spent about $4 million on the effort, he said.

But civil liberties groups expressed disappointment that the Obama administration would continue to use military commissions — even with the modifications. They said they would continue to press for all detainees to receive regular trials or court-martials.

The prospect of prosecuting Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Nashiri has been particularly difficult because their defense lawyers are expected to argue that they were illegally tortured by the Central Intelligence Agency during their confinement. Both were subjected to waterboarding, a controlled drowning technique.

About 215 detainees remain at Guantánamo, although about 90 have been cleared for release. The task force is continuing to evaluate their cases and Mr. Holder is expected to make more announcements are expected in coming weeks.

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the conviction of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Mr. Rahman was found guilty in 1995 of conspiracy to blow up buildings in and around New York.