Defense attorneys say an alleged plot to bomb New York synagogues was hatched and directed by a federal informant. Lawyers for four men from Newburgh have filed a motion to dismiss the terror indictment against them. They said the informant badgered the defendants until they got involved in the plot.

They said the informant chose the targets, supplied fake bombs for the synagogues and a fake missile to shoot down planes. The motion said he also offered to pay the defendants, who attorneys alleged weren’t inclined toward any crime until the informant began recruiting them.

A key witness in the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber was secretly paid up to two million dollars (1.4 million euros) in a deal approved by the US government, according to legal papers released Friday.

The claims were made in new documents published by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, which he maintains prove he is innocent of the 1988 bombing of a passenger jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people.

It has long been known that soon after the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, hundreds or thousands of Taliban prisoners who had surrendered in the city of Kunduz were herded into metal containers and suffocated or shot, allegedly under orders from an Afghan warlord. As Newsweek reported in August 2002, the bodies were then piled into mass graves in Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan, near Shibarghan.

But what the Times did not report was that many of those same detainees also alleged to Spry’s interviewers that U.S. personnel were present during the massacre, a potentially explosive allegation that, if true, might further explain American resistance to a war crimes probe of the deaths. In an exclusive interview, Spry told Salon that he informed Risen about the additional allegation that U.S. forces were present. Risen confirmed to Salon that Spry told him of the allegations, but said he did not publish them, in part, because he didn’t believe them.

ON the steps of New York city hall on Friday, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor, praised the police officers and federal agents who helped disrupt an apparent terrorist plot to blow up a synagogue and shoot down military aircraft.

The mayor was flanked by more than 100 homeland security and counter-terrorist specialists, all of whom had a hand in an elaborate sting that netted four alleged Muslim extremists. Their plan, according to FBI agents, was to detonate a “fireball that would make the country gasp”.

“This whole operation was a foolish waste of time and money,” claimed Terence Kindlon, a defence lawyer who represented the last terror suspect to be tried in New York state. “It is almost as if the FBI cooked up the plot and found four idiots to install as defendants.”

What would happen if terrorists attacked the United States at the start of Barack Obama’s presidency?

The Bush administration doesn’t want to wait to find out. It’s planning to test the incoming government’s readiness next month in a series of tabletop exercises involving top Bush and Obama officials.

Concerned about the first handoff of presidential power since Sept. 11, 2001, the White House also is preparing briefing books and office manuals designed to bring the incoming Obama administration up to speed in a hurry.