Free Republic

Just months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, an al Qaeda supporter snuck onto American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with explosives packed into his shoes, but his failed attempt to detonate spared the lives of nearly 200 people and sent him to prison for the rest of his life. According to the FBI, the 10 ounces of homemade explosives in his shoes were enough to blow a hole in the side of the plane and kill everyone on board. "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid, the 50-year-old British citizen who trained with the terror group in Pakistan and...

An Italian news investigation uncovers Tablighi Jamaat’s global influence, ties to terrorism, and its ambitious goal to establish Sharia, posing a severe threat to the safety and security of Italy and Europe. In a recent video exposé, Italian news group Fuori dal Coro unveils the growing influence of Islam in Italy through an extensive investigative video. The report focuses on Tablighi Jamaat, a contentious Muslim missionary movement recognized as the world’s largest religious proselytizing group. Operating globally, the group raises concerns due to its ties to terrorism, promotion of universal imposition of strict Islamic rules, and its ambition to replace...

Updated information:NEW YORK (Reuters) - The group that claims it has kidnapped a Wall Street Journal reporter in Pakistan has sent e-mail to news organisations threatening to kill him within 24 hours unless the U.S. government released Pakistani prisoners held in the Afghan war. The e-mail, sent to The Wall Street Journal, CNN and The New York Times, among others, accused reporter Daniel Pearl of being a spy for Israel. It also warned other U.S. journalists in Pakistan to leave the country within three days. "We have interrogated Mr. D. Pearl and have come to the conclusion that contrary to ...

Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen has released the following statement: “We understand that Pakistani authorities are taking steps to ensure that Omar Sheikh remains in custody while the Supreme Court appeal seeking to reinstate his conviction continues. The separate judicial rulings reversing his conviction and ordering his release are an affront to terrorism victims everywhere. We remain grateful for the Pakistani government’s actions to appeal such rulings to ensure that he and his co-defendants are held accountable. If, however, those efforts do not succeed, the United States stands ready to take custody of Omar Sheikh to stand trial here....

How US stopped Hambali Natalie O'Brien and Patrick Walters February 11, 2006 IT should have been no surprise that the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah and its operations chief Hambali were named by US President George W. Bush as the figures behind a 2002 plot to fly a plane into California's tallest building. JI and Hambali, mastermind of the Bali bombing, were not only intimately connected with al-Qa'ida's chief strategist Khalid Sheik Mohammed in the plan to destroy the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, they had been in cahoots for years, planning to blow up US airliners and...

Osama bin Laden´s son-in-law has been captured and is in the hands of the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI, two administration officials said on Thursday. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, was captured within the last week in Jordan, according to a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Peter King of New York. The lawmaker had been told of the capture by law enforcement officials. Congress was notified when Ghaith was taken into U.S. custody, the officials said.

Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it? Did you know his trial is over? Did you know he was sentenced? Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV or Radio? Didn't think so.!!! Everyone should hear what the judge had to say. Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court. Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say His response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his 'allegiance to Osama bin Laden,...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was investigating the man who allegedly planned the Sept. 11 airplane hijackings and attacks on New York and Washington when he was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan, according to two former Central Intelligence Agency officials. Bob Baer, a former case officer in the agency's Directorate of Operations, said he provided Pearl with unpublished information about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has since been accused by American officials of being one of the masterminds of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a top aide to Osama bin Laden. Mohammed is...

A fifteen-year-old student pilot apparently trying to recreate the 9/11 kamikaze attack on the World Trade Center slammed a stolen Cessna 172 private airplane Saturday into Tampa, Florida's Bank of America building, the city's tallest structure. Charles J. Bishop, a 15-year-old flight student from Great Britain, stole the small aircraft from Albert Whitted Municipal Airport in nearby St. Petersburg at about 5 p.m., law enforcement sources said. Bishop was killed as the Cessna carrying 56 gallons of fuel slammed into the Bank of America tower, leaving the tail section of the plane dangling precariously from its side. The fuel did ...

This is the first picture of British shoe bomber Richard Reid serving life without parole in a Colorado prison known as 'The Alcatraz of the Rockies'. He was jailed in 2003 jailing for trying to blow up an aeroplane by detonating explosives in his shoes - and sports a gleeming pair of prison issue trainers.Failed Al Qaeda terrorist Reid is serving life without parole for trying to kill 197 people on board a transatlantic jet on December 22, 2001 The 38-year-old pleaded guilty in 2003 to attempted ­murder at his trial for trying to kill all those on board American...

Exclusive Public ‘at risk’ as 70 terrorists released   High risk ... Saajit Badat, left, and Moinul Abedin  UP to 70 convicted terrorists due to be released this year will not be properly monitored, a probation chief warned yesterday. The "high risk" extremists, some of them bomb makers, could be walking the streets after being freed on licence. But Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said cuts to services meant adequate checks could not be kept on them. He added: "They have to be supervised by us and the police at a fairly intensive...

War On Terror: The Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on? From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser. We may now have a clue as...

Politics: A battle ensues between one vice president who defended freedom well and another who sorely needs his boss's teleprompter. Biden accuses Cheney of rewriting history while claiming that Iraq is this administration's victory. Maybe Vice President Joe Biden should think about writing talking points on his hand as his rhetoric reaches levels of absurdity where no politician has gone before. After last weekend's round of competitive gabfests, one would expect to see a billboard of former Vice President Dick Cheney with a caption, "Miss me yet?" We do, sir, we do. After yeoman service helping President Bush fight the...

Obama says he has not made a final decision to move the 9/11 trial out of New York City but he indicates the trial and security costing a mere billion dollars from “his stash,” i.e. taxpayer dollars, will not be the deciding factor. Wherever it is held, Attorney General Eric Holder wants transparency. Apparently, Obama has finally found something he is willing to see C-SPAN conduct non-stop coverage of: the 9/11 trial. Do they still prefer a federal show trial? You betcha! Meanwhile, Obama’s “intelligence” choir is singing the praises about a Bush 43 intelligence failure: Richard Reid being allowed...

First, [he] would have gathered [his] entire national-security team, not just the Justice Department ... Second, assuming Abdulmutallab had been designated as an enemy combatant, the interrogators would have thoroughly interrogated him to learn if he had information that could prevent a future attack. ... Third, once they were satisfied that he had no additional intelligence to provide, he would have been transferred for prosecution to either the civilian or the military system. ... But don’t take our word for it. Let’s briefly review what the Bush administration actually did after 9/11. (Warning to all leftist drones: Do not click...

McCarthy points out Reid was just one of many attacks we saw. Allowing Richard Reid to remain silent did nothing to prevent Flight 253. Instead of making that same mistake, President Bush had thousands of terrorists interrogated and dozens of attacks were prevented; not affording Constitutional rights to terrorists (besides Reid) prevented those attacks. Initially repeating a past mistake with Abdulmuttalab is not mitigated by the fact President Bush "did it" eight years earlier. McCarthy went on to write: That brings us to a third point Democrats would prefer to forget: “The Wall,” the internal regulations adopted by the Clinton...

Republicans may have a hard time keeping up their talking point about how reading Miranda rights to the Christmas Day bomber represented a dangerous new direction under President Barack Obama. It turns out that that back in December 2001, Richard Reid — the “shoe bomber” — was read or reminded of his Miranda rights four times in two days, beginning five minutes after being taken into custody. Furthermore, the Bush administration specifically rejected the idea of a military tribunal — another step that Republicans have argued should have been taken in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to...

The Obama administration apparently never made or discovered a mistake not worth repeating....Stupid is as stupid does, that Richard Reid was read "his" rights was a poor example to follow; that too was an intelligence failure. Reid was arrested not three months into our invasion of Afghanistan, while the hunt was still under way in Tora Bora, and several months before Jose Padilla, Binyam Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Ramzi Binalshibh were captured. Bush 43 could have ordered Reid turned over for military detention as his November 13, 2001 Military Order proscribed and yet he at least seemed to learn from...

The Obama administration has found a new angle to justify its decision to treat Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab like a civilian criminal: Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber was tried in a civilian court during George W. Bush's presidency. However, as Mike Sullivan - who prosecuted Richard Reid in federal court - noted in a recent interview with Fox News: Military tribunals had only been established a few weeks prior to the attempted shoe bombing incident. Sullivan expressed confidence that "had Mr. Reid's plane landed at Logan Airport in Dec. 2003, versus Dec. 2001, we would have had the discussion and made...

Holder's decision to Mirandize the Christmas bomber was bad enough. Telling the world he was talking again waseven worse Security: The administration says the Christmas bomber is now cooperating with authorities. We thought they got all the information he had in a 50-minute chat. So just why are we letting our enemies know he's talking? In any war, it's vitally important that you know what your enemy is planning and doing, just as it's important that your actions and plans remain secret. And when you know about your enemy's plans it's important they don't know that you know. We were...