Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted and executed for detonating a bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995, was charged with 11 felony counts that included use of a weapon of mass destruction and eight counts of first-degree murder — but not terrorism.

So what’s the difference?

Matthew Lippmann, who is a professor of criminology, law and justice at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said the United States only recently began charging people with terrorism.

“What we’re looking at are conventional crimes, but they’re prosecuted under a particular statute that allows the government to prosecute them much more harshly,” he said.

Chapter 113B of Title 18 of the United States Code addresses federal crimes that are considered terrorism, which include use of weapons of mass destruction and the bombing of public places, as well as providing support to terrorists.

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts identifies a crime as terrorism if the defendant is charged with at least one of the terrorism offenses in the code, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Using this definition, more than 300 people were prosecuted for terrorism in federal court from FY 2004 to April 2009.

Charles E. Tucker Jr., who is executive director of the International Human Rights Institute at DePaul University, said people can be charged under both state and federal law.

“Timothy McVeigh was prosecuted both under Oklahoma law and federal law,” Tucker said. “The issue was that there was some concern that he would not get the death penalty, so he was charged with separate counts under Oklahoma law.”

Lippmann said there are parallels to the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993, for which four men were convicted on charges that included explosive destruction of property and assault on a federal officer.

“They were definitely acts of terror, but they were conventional crimes that were undertaken with the additional intent of intimidating the United States,” he said.

U.S. officials told the paper that the suspect, who U.S. officials declined to identify, provided an “independent stream” of evidence that the Pakistani Taliban were behind the attempt and admitted to helping Shahzad travel into Pakistan’s tribal area for bomb training. Officials familiar with the investigation cautioned about inconsistencies in the two suspects’ accounts, The Post reported, noting that phone records, e-mails and other communication were still being examined.

There are discrepancies, unnamed officials told the paper, relating to the details and chronology of Shahzad’s travel and training. Officials said the conflicts have raised some questions about the reliability of the suspects’ information, but have not cast significant doubt on the overall understanding of the plot, The Post reported.

Further reading: The Washington Post story

The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday, May 11, that U.S officials were investigating a connection between Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the Times Square attempted bombing, and elements of Pakinstan’s intelligence service. An unnamed source told The Daily Telegraph that Shahzad’s “background as the son of a senior Air Force officer may have brought him into contact with intelligence agents who helped build the Afghan Taliban and who have channeled cash and training to home-grown Jihadis.”

According to an article published by the Homeland Security News Wire on Wednesday, May 12, many terrorists groups in Pakistan are supported, or were created, by the ISI “to be used in the on-going conflict with India over Kashmir.” It also reported that in the past five years, “the ISI and Pakistani military provided training and logistical support for several terrorist attacks inside India — the most recent one being the December 2008 attack in Mumbai, which killed 166 people.”

Further reading: Homeland Security News Wire story, The Daily Telegraph story

“There’s at least a basis to believe that one of the things they did was provide him with funds and so we’re trying to trace back,” Holder said, according to a BBC News report on Friday, May 14.

The raids were part of the continuing investigation into the Times Square bombing attempt. One man was arrested because he overstayed his visa, and another was already awaiting a ruling from an immigration court hearing, BBC News reported.

Further reading: BBC News story, New York Times story

The Post also reported that Holder defended the Obama administration’s counterterrorism approach, saying that protecting Americans against terrorism “remains the highest priority for the Department of Justice. The administration will continue to use all lawful means to protect our national security, including, where appropriate, military, law enforcement, diplomatic and economic tools and authorities.”

Holder also said that “the criminal justice system has proven its strength in both incapacitating terrorists and gathering valuable intelligence,” and urged Congress to modernize and clarify the public safety exception to the Miranda warnings “so that interrogators would have “a greater degree of clarity” on how the exception can be used in questioning terrorism suspects,” The Post reported.

Further reading: The Washington Post story

On May 11, the committee was briefed privately by intelligence and law enforcement officials on the investigation of Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing, and how similar cases could be prevented, the paper said.

Three ideas emerged from the briefing: tracking people who travel between the U.S. and Pakistan every year, tracking how money is transferred between the U.S. and Pakistan and sending the no-fly list to airlines every 30 minutes. The Obama administration has proposed a two-hour required update for no-fly lists.

Further reading: The Washington Times story

New York mass transit federal funds will drop from $153 million last year to $111 this year while port security funds drop from $45 million to $33.8 million, officials said.

New York received more than $100 million in security grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , ABC News reported. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told ABC News that New York has received a net increase of $47 million for port and transit security over the previous year’s budget.

Further reading: The New York Post story, The Wall Street Journal story, ABC News story

Two targets were hit: a vehicle driving three militants through a village and a nearby compound used for training recruits, the Financial Times reported.

A Pakistani intelligence official told the newspaper that the attack was “Washington’s payback” because the U.S. claimed Shahzad is connected to Taliban militants and is said to have trained in the region.

CNN reported that local Pakistani officials said the area is controlled by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a “renowned commander and shrewd tactician” who “has been close to al-Qaida and another terror group known as the Haqqani Network.”

In a profile published in April 2010 in Foreign Policy magazine by Mansur Khan Mahsud, research coordinator of the FATA Research Center in Islamabad, Bahadur is described as “a strategic pragmatist, maintaining close relations with a host of militants in North Waziristan while avoiding confrontation with the Pakistani state that might initiate a powerful crackdown.” Mahsud also stated that Bahadur is “the most important Pakistani militant leader in North Waziristan.”

The New York Times reported on Tuesday, May 11, that the attacks “appeared to be a continuation of the air campaign to degrade the capabilities of” al-Qaida, the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban in North Waziristan, raising questions about strained relations between the U.S. and Pakistan.

“You can’t bomb a country increasingly and expect cordial relations at the same time,” an unnamed Pakistan foreign ministry official told the Financial Times.

Further reading: Financial Times story, CNN story, Bahadur profile in Foreign Policy magazine, The New York Times story

According to the BBC, nine former prisoners were held in a building separate from the Detention Facility in Parwan, the main prison on the base.  The BBC reported that the former prisoners told BBC journalists that they referred to the separate building as the “Tor Jail,” which translates as “black jail.”

“They told consistent stories of being held in isolation in cold cells where a light is on all day and night. The men said they had been deprived of sleep by U.S. military personnel there,” the BBC said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross told the BBC that U.S. authorities “have been notifying it of names of detained people in a separate structure at Bagram” since August in accordance with an executive order issued by President Barack Obama on Jan. 22, 2009. The ICRC also told the BBC that it has been notified of detainees at the Detention Facility in Parwan since February 2008.

The BBC reported that Vice Adm. Robert Harward, in charge of U.S. detentions in Afghanistan, denied the abuse allegations as well as the existence of a second detention facility at Bagram, saying the Detention Facility in Parwan was the only detention center in the country.

According to an ICRC operational update posted to its website, the Red Cross has visited the base 142 times since October to check on the detainees’ treatment.

Further reading: BBC story, Executive Order 13491—Ensuring Lawful Interrogations, ICRC operational update – Persons detained by the US in relation to armed conflict and the fight against terrorism

The Washington Post reported on Saturday, May 8, that the FBI sent a team to Pakistan last Friday to investigate links to foreign terrorist financing in the attempted Times Square bombing. A former U.S. official briefed on the investigation told the Post that investigators were tracking a money courier who may have helped funnel cash to Shahzad from overseas. Investigators also believe Shahzad may have obtained money to fund the Times Square operation from a hawala, an informal money-transfer network popular in South Asia and the Middle East. Hawalas have been linked to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Investigators landed in Islamabad, where the FBI has a legal attaché office that works with Pakistani law enforcement and intelligence officers, reported the Post, noting that cooperation with Pakistani officials is “considered crucial in nailing down the radical ties” of Faisal Shahzad.

According to dawn.com, owned by Pakistani media company DAWN Media Group, the FBI has sought access to retired Air Vice Marshal Baharul Haq, Shahzad’s father, who is in protective custody. Dawn.com also reported that a friend of Shahzad in Karachi was arrested and has been moved to Islamabad for further questioning by both the FBI and Pakistani intelligence.

“Pakistan would provide every possible support to United States in the investigations pertaining to Faisal Shehzad, accepting this new controversy has damaged Pak-US relations to some extent,” foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said.

Further reading: Reuters article, Washington Post story, dawn.com story on access to Shahzad’s father, dawn.com story on Pakistani cooperation announcement