By Dominic Evans TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - A Syrian-born Islamist cleric who taught one of the men accused of hacking to death an off-duty British soldier on a London street praised the attack for its "courage" and said Muslims would see it as a strike on a military target. In an interview in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, where he has lived since being banished from Britain in 2005, Omar Bakri, founder of banned British Islamist group Al Muhajiroun, said he knew suspect Michael Adebolajo from his lectures a decade ago.

The jihadist group led by Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar that claimed twin suicide car bombings in Niger which killed at least 20 people threatened on Friday to launch further attacks in the country. "We will launch further operations" in Niger, the group said in a statement posted on Islamist Internet forums that also threatened France and countries involved militarily in battling Islamist extremists in neighbouring Mali.

By David Ingram WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is facing demands in court to reveal more about the U.S. drone program, despite his speech addressing it on Thursday and his government's acknowledgement a day earlier that four Americans have died in drone strikes. Civil liberties advocates, news organizations and the families of those who died have brought lawsuits in New York, Washington and Oakland, California, challenging the government's refusal to provide information.

Republican lawmakers warned that President Barack Obama capitulated to US enemies in his counterterrorism speech Thursday by renewing his call to close Guantanamo and retreating to a pre-9/11 mindset. Some of his critics on Capitol Hill appeared taken aback that Obama argued that Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan were headed to defeat, and that he laid out new and potentially restrictive policies on the lethal use of unmanned drones. "We are still in a long, drawn out conflict with Al-Qaeda," said Senator John McCain, Obama's rival in the 2008 presidential race.