The war at home.

It is not just on "24" anymore, kiddies.

Roto-Reuters: Court orders new sentence for L.A. 'millennium bomber'
A U.S. federal appeals court dropped on Tuesday one of nine criminal counts against "millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian convicted of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport, and ordered a lower court to recalculate his 22-year sentence.

Ressam was sentenced in 2005 on nine counts, including conspiracy to commit an international terrorist act and explosives smuggling.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco reversed his conviction of carrying an explosive while committing a felony. The felony was lying on a customs form by signing another man's name.

The court said it ordered the conviction reversed because the jury was not informed about the charge's link to the underlying crime.
"The government must demonstrate that the explosives aided the commission of the underlying felony in some way," Judge Pamela Ann Rymer wrote for a split three-judge panel. "There is no evidence that the explosives emboldened Ressam to lie or that he used them to 'protect himself or intimidate others."'

"We vacate the entire sentence so that the district court can resentence in light of this decision."

The reversed count carried a mandatory sentence of 10 years, although some of the sentences in the conviction are being served concurrently to arrive at the 22-year total.

The end result on the amount of time Ressam will spend in jail remains uncertain pending the lower court judge's review.

"He could sentence him to 22 years if that's what he feels is appropriate," Ressam's lawyer, Thomas Hillier, a public defender, said in an interview. "There definitely is not an imperative here to lop 10 years off."

Judge Arthur Alarcon issued a dissent in the case, saying he would not overturn the conviction on the ninth count.