Terrorism

Americans should “pray” for the Saudi man wounded in Boston now that he's been ruled out as a suspect, conservative firebrand Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday. 

“The 20-year old hospitalized Saudi has been 'ruled out' as a suspect,” Stockman tweeted. “He is a victim like the others. Pray for him.”

“Injured Saudi is a witness, not a suspect, in Boston bombing,” he tweeted earlier.

The statements aim to tamp down vitriolic anti-Muslim comments that have proliferated since reports first emerged that Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi was being questioned as a “person of interest” after being wounded in the attack. Alharbi is believed to be a 22-year-old student studying English. He has been ruled out as a suspect and is said to be cooperating with law enforcement.

Stockman also accused CNN of politicizing the attack after anchor Wolf Blitzer said "who knows" if the attack was linked to Patriots' Day in Boston.

"Wolf Blitzer should immediately apologize. The mainstream media once again exploit killings to attack political opponents."

Other conservatives were quicker to draw conclusions.

The Pakistani Taliban denied involvement in Monday's bombing in Boston even as it endorsed attacks against the United States.

"We believe in attacking U.S. and its allies but we are not involved in this attack," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told Agence France-Presse. "We have no connection to this bombing but we will continue to target them wherever possible."

While no one has claimed responsibility, the Taliban are natural suspects based on past actions. The group harbored Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan until the U.S. invasion of 2001 and claimed credit for a botched car bombing in New York's Times Square in 2010; a Pakistani-American man, Faisal Shahzad, is serving a life sentence in the attack and appeared in a video made before the attempt alongside Taliban leader Faqir Mohammed.

The State Department abruptly closed Secretary of State John Kerry's meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal on Tuesday amid reports that police questioned a Saudi national in connection with Monday's bombing in Boston.

The 10 a.m. bilateral meeting was scheduled to be preceded by a camera spray for news photographers. Shortly before the meeting the media were told it would be closed, without explanation. Speaking to reporters later, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the cancellation was a scheduling decision to allow Kerry to recover from a 10-day trip abroad and prepare to testify about the president's budget Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

Faisal's visit comes as President Obama prepares to meet with four Middle Eastern leaders over the next few weeks to talk about the situation in Syria. His meeting with Kerry was instead expected to touch on Saudi-U.S. cooperation on antiterrorism amid reports that a 20-year-old Saudi  man who was wounded in the attack was questioned by law enforcement.

The New York Times quoted an unnamed law enforcement official on Tuesday that the man "was not involved in the attack."

Secretary of State John Kerry will stop in Chicago as he returns from a trip to Asia to meet with parents of a U.S. diplomat who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this month.

Anne Smedinghoff, aged 25, was killed on April 6 as she carried out a goodwill mission in Zaul province in Afghanistan, delivering books to a school. Her convoy was struck by a suicide bomber, killing her and wounding four others. 

Pentagon-run aerial drones were conducting surveillance in the skies above Libya prior to the deadly assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last September, top intelligence officials revealed on Thursday.

The unmanned aircraft in Libya last year were operated under the Defense Department drone program and only for surveillance purposes, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told members of the House Intelligence Committee.

The administration touts Fatima, a Pakistani firm, after Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) blocked the company's proposed fertilizer plant. 

President Obama will host the leaders of Sierra Leone, Senegal, Malawi and Cape Verde Thursday afternoon.

The Obama administration on Wednesday further softened its opposition to the flow of arms headed to Syrian rebels from allied nations.

The White House previously described military aid from Arab governments to forces seeking the ouster of President Bashar Assad as “unproductive,” expressing concerns that more weapons would only intensify the bloody two-year civil war.

But on Wednesday, the State Department declined to criticize arms shipments to rebel forces.

The spending bill Congress sent to President Obama Thursday night zeroes out funding for a Pakistan military aid program that was a key part of David Petraeus's counterterrorism plan when he was chief of Central Command.

The Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capability Fund called for $3 billion to be spent on helicopters, equipment and training for Pakistan's special operations forces between 2009 and 2014. Some in Washington were concerned the fund would circumvent the State Department's role in overseeing foreign military assistance.

Two years ago, the fund was moved back into the State Department, with the Pentagon retaining much of its authority on how it was to be used. Now, with Petraeus out of the picture, lawmakers have voted to terminate funding altogether — at least until the end of September.

The State Department on Thursday designated Mali's Ansar al-Dine as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, banning American residents and corporations from providing material support for the group and blocking its property in U.S. jurisdiction.

Ansar al-Dine has been linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The group was formed in 2011 by Iyad ag Ghali, who was designated a terrorist last month.

Al-Dine was behind the takeover of several Malian towns, including Gao and Timbuktu, last year. The group's push southward and the conservative Islamist laws it imposed in its wake prompted France to intervene in January with aerial and intelligence support from the United States.