Harun Fazul, the senior al-Qaeda operative killed in Somalia last week, could have been captured at the start of his terror career fully 13 years ago. He had just overseen the crime that put the terrorist organization on the map: the Aug. 7 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands. At that time, he ranked high enough to give orders to the men who detonated the massive ...

Height: 6 ft. 2 inches. Age: 25. Eyes: Blue. Cheeks: Pink. Hair: Sandy. Feet: Large. When he arrived at the Embassy in France no shoes big enough were handy. Habits: Smokes not; drinks not. Does not gamble. Eats a thoroughgoing breakfast. Prefers light luncheon and dinner when permitted. Avoids rich dishes. Likes sweets. Calligraphy: From examination of his handwriting Dr. Camille Streletski, Secretary of the French Graphological Society, concluded: Superiority, intellectualism, cerebration, idealism, even mysticism. Characteristics: Modesty, taciturnity, diffidence , ...

Like many flight attendants, William Conn, 30, of Miami, often took advantage of an airline practice called deadheading, in which employees hitch rides to work assigned flights in other cities. For almost a year, dressed in a Pan Am uniform, using an unauthorized ID number and traveling under the name B. Cohen, he jetted around the world on various Pan Am flights, virtually for free. As is customary, he usually pitched in to help the crew and even received letters of commendation from flight attendants and ...

Coleen Rowley became enamored with the FBI's fictionalized ideal long before she heard of the real thing. Her favorite show was The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a spy spoof about two debonair agents who work to save the world from evil. In the fifth grade, Rowley wrote to the show's producers, asking to join the cadre of supersecret spies. She got a rejection letter. "They said it didn't exist," Rowley remembers. "But they told me that in the United States, we ...

We'll never know what it was like to be aboard Air France Flight 447 as it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on May 31, apparently killing all 228 aboard. For now, the closest we may get is listening to the passengers on a similar Airbus 330 jet whose flight computer put it into an uncommanded dive over northwestern Australia last October. Qantas Flight 72 had been airborne for three hours, flying uneventfully on autopilot from Singapore to Perth, ...

The question of where life began is one of the enduring mysteries of science. Charles Darwin himself speculated that it might have happened in "a warm little pond," while modern biologists think the superheated water around seafloor volcanic vents is a more likely spot. But a far more exotic proposal has been floating around for years: maybe life first arose in outer space and came to earth fully formed. It's an astonishing idea, but it's not completely ...

The challenges inherent in getting a 162,000-pound aircraft off the ground and landing it safely are pretty obvious to most observers. But at cruising altitude, above 10,000 feet, pilots face a different critical challenge: staying focused."You can't read a novel, but you could read a manual about procedures or about the airplane," the former Boeing 767-400 pilot said. "You can't read a newspaper. You can't use a laptop. That's strictly prohibited." However, some airlines make documents, including manuals, available only ...

For the 18th year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday voted to condemn the 47-year embargo against Cuba by the United States."You can't read a novel, but you could read a manual about procedures or about the airplane," the former Boeing 767-400 pilot said. "You can't read a newspaper. You can't use a laptop. That's strictly prohibited." However, some airlines make documents, including manuals, available only in digital form and provide company laptops for pilots to ...

Federal investigators on Monday may interview flight attendants from a Northwest Airlines jet that overshot the runway at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport last week by 150 miles, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.The report identified the pilot as Timothy B. Cheney and the first officer as Richard I. Cole. "The pilot ... indicated they had become involved in conversation and had not heard radio communications," the report said. "They indicated there had been no involvement from anyone in the ...

Federal investigators have interviewed the pilots of a Northwest Airlines flight that overshot the airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said on Sunday.