Washington (CNN) -- Military prosecutors have recommended the death penalty for the accused mastermind of the deadly 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole.
The announcement Wednesday from the Defense Department is another signal the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri will be moving closer to trial before a military commission. As one of 16 high-value detainees, he has been held for years at the U.S. Navy's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. If approved, this would be the first death penalty trial in the reconfigured military trial system.
Intelligence sources have said al-Nashiri headed al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf region before his 2002 capture by U.S. intelligence agents. CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed six years later that al-Nashiri and two other high-value terror suspects were subjected to waterboarding, a harsh interrogation technique.
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An The US military build-up in Kandahar is likely to further strengthen the hold of the Taliban over the vital southern Afghanistan city, a highly respected security organisation said today in a bleak report warning of record Taliban violence and rising civilian deaths across the country.
The report by the Afghanistan NGO Security Office, which monitors trends in violence on behalf of aid organisations, said Nato's counter-insurgency strategy was not showing any signs of succeeding amid rising violence, the unchecked establishment of local militias and a huge increase in attacks on private development workers across the country.
It revealed that June marked a record for Taliban attacks – up 51% on the previous year to 1,319 operations.
At the same time the number of civilians killed by both sides of the conflict rose by 23%, despite...