Free Republic

<p>January 6, 2002 -- Osama bin Laden's favorite wife, her bodyguards and one of his babies were reportedly captured in Yemen yesterday, firming up investigators' suspicions the terror chief may be living there.</p> <p>Yemeni authorities arrested Amal Ahmed Al-Sadah, bin Laden's third wife, who sneaked out of Afghanistan with their infant daughter, Safia, The Sunday Express of Britain reported.</p>

Filed at 5:50 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats who cast what some considered a politically risky vote -- opposing the resolution authorizing use of force against Iraq -- are getting a financial reward for their troubles. MoveOnPAC.org, an Internet site, raised more than $1 million this week for four members of Congress that the group calls ``heroes.'' The biggest recipient is Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who hauled in nearly $600,000 after the MoveOn Web site started soliciting donations on Monday, said Wes Boyd, who co-founded the San Francisco-based site and serves as treasurer of its political action committee. Democratic...

After weeks of uncertainty and foot-dragging, the Appeals Court this week made a critical ruling, setting the stage for a potential shakeup in Turkish politics that may block President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s drive for an executive presidency. The court gave the green light for the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) to hold a convention requested by in-house dissidents seeking to remake the party, whose erosion in recent years has played directly into Erdogan’s hands. Leading the dissidents is Meral Aksener, a rare female heavyweight on Turkey’s political scene, whose fortunes may now change not only the MHP’s but also Turkey’s course.

Turkey | An aging but popular exile in the United States, Fethullah Gulen is considered by many behind moves to Islamicize his native land After weeks of demonstrations in 76 cities, police forces in Turkey made one final sweep through Istanbul’s Taksim Square, arresting the remaining protesters and wiping out their tent city. That appeared to be the end of nationwide protests that injured 4,000 and left at least four dead—until a local performing artist arrived on the night of June 17 and peacefully planted himself in the square. With his hands in his pockets, the “standing man” stared solemnly...

Leading Republicans appealed to President Obama this week to reject Russia’s request to fly surveillance planes with high-powered digital cameras during overflights, warning that the new technology would enable the Kremlin to collect intelligence more effectively. Russia’s failure to comply with some provisions of the Open Skies Treaty, which allows member countries to conduct unarmed aerial observation flights over one another, should preclude Vladimir Putin from using planes with high-tech sensors for the overflights, Reps. Ed Royce (Calif.), Mac Thornberry (Texas), and Devin Nunes (Calif.), all of whom are committee chairs, wrote in a letter to the president. “Given the...

As if Bill Clinton’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein weren’t embarrassing enough, the two flew on Epstein’s jet in 2002 to meet with the Sultan of Brunei. Sultan Bolkiah, one of the richest men in the world, not only plans to execute homosexuals, but his brother, Prince Jefri, has been accused of duping American women into “white slavery.” The National Enquirer reports flight logs reveal Epstein — before he was arrested and jailed for soliciting teenage masseuses — picked up the former president at a Japanese naval airport and flew with him to Brunei on May 25, 2002.

Samir Vincent's ongoing court case exemplifies the underreported story of Saddam Hussein's agents who were operating inside the United States in the years prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Vincent's trial involves the Oil for Food scandal and implicates the Iraqi agent in attempting to buy off pro-Iraq (pre-invasion) sentiments within the U.S. government and the United Nations on behalf of Baghdad. The FBI's press release details Vincent's admission of guilt as an unregistred Iraqi agent and is available here. ShaabanAnother recently concluded trial is that of Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban (pictured right). Shaaban, who had met with...

Five-and-a-half years after being convicted of providing material support for terrorism, terror lawyer Lynne Stewart finally received a sentence commensurate with her crime. She was resentenced last week to 10 years. But if George Soros had his way, she would be free today. Stewart made a career out of defending street criminals and terrorists, including Sammy "The Bull" Gravano (pleaded guilty), Weather Underground terrorist David J. Gilbert (convicted), and Larry Davis (acquitted of wounding six policemen and killing several others in 1986, only to be convicted of a later murder and killed in prison). It should have come as...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An American accused in court papers of having ties to Osama bin Laden is now working for the Iraqi government's Foreign Ministry, U.S. officials and a former CIA counterterrorism chief say. Iraqi-born Tarik A. Hamdi was the ``American contact'' for one of bin Laden's front organizations and gave a satellite telephone battery to a bin Laden aide in Afghanistan for a phone used by the terrorist leader, according to an affidavit from Customs Agent David Kane.The affidavit was unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., along with a federal indictment charging Hamdi with lying...

Donald Trump, faced with his own words from 2002 that directly contradict his claim he opposed an Iraq invasion early on, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday night he opposed the war by the time it started. But in an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto one day into the Iraq invasion, Trump did not express his opposition to war, and said it appeared to be “a tremendous success from a military standpoint.” Trump predicted the war would continue to be great for Wall Street.

LOS ANGELES - An Egyptian immigrant's deadly attack on an Israeli airline ticket counter last year has been ruled a terrorist attack related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an FBI spokesman said Friday. "Given his political views and the fact that El Al is an Israeli government-owned airline, that met the criteria for a terrorist attack," said Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Los Angeles field office of the FBI. Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, 41, opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport's El Al ticket counter on July 4 last year, killing two people before being shot dead by an airline security...

(Nov 27, 2013) Referred to as ‘Common Core lead standards authors’ by the Council of Chief State School Officers, David Coleman and Jason Zimba are just two in a long list of Common Core creators whose academic roots are with the education-for-a-revolution machine borne by Annenberg Institute, Carnegie Corporation, Bill Gates, et al. Today, Coleman and Zimba are head of Student Achievement Partners, an organization that played a leading role in developing the standards and actively supports districts and states in implementing them. Prior to Student Achiement Partners, Coleman and Zimba were co-founders of the Grow Network (now owned by...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A former third-grade teacher at a Muslim school was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday for providing support to a Pakistani terrorist organization. Ali Asad Chandia, 29, who taught at the al-Huda school in College Park, Md., is one of 11 Muslim men convicted in what prosecutors called a "Virginia jihad network." The network involved a group of men who played paintball in the Virginia woods in 2000 and 2001 as a means of training for global holy war. After the Sept. 11 attacks, some group members turned their efforts against the United States, traveling to...

23 mins ago WASHINGTON – The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power, The New York Times reported.

Chemical attack foiled in UK 22/11/2003 15:50 - (SA) London - A terror attack in Britain was foiled after a company financed by "the Islamic community" tried to buy a large quantity of toxic chemicals, arousing the supplier's suspicions, the Financial Times newspaper reported on Saturday. British laboratory Amersham Biosciences received an order in Autumn 2002 for 500kg of saponin from a company giving a London post office box address, the newspaper said. It said the "terrorist group" planning to launch the lethal attacks was London-based. "Their plot came to light when the supplier became suspicious about the quantities of...

On 9 November, a 38-year old Belgian named Muriel, blew herself to pieces in Baghdad near a group of Iraqi policemen, killing five other people. The woman had converted to Islam after marrying a Belgian of Moroccon origin. Her husband was shot down by American troops. The American authorities informed the Belgian authorities of the woman’s identity a few weeks ago, but Brussels kept it secret. Yesterday evening the Franco-Luxemburgian network RTL announced the news. Last night, the Belgian police arrested 14 people. Nine of them are Belgians, mostly of foreign origin, three are Moroccans and two are Tunisians. They...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted the visa ban on the European theoretician of radical Islam and virtuoso Jew-baiter, Tariq Ramadan, allowing him to take up a position similar to that he was offered at Notre Dame University, but which was filled because of his unavailability. At the same time, a U.S. entry prohibition against a South African leftist, Adam Habib of Johannesburg University, was voided. The decision to admit Tariq Ramadan is profoundly wrong. Adam Habib is an innocuous figure. Tariq Ramadan is not. Ramadan was first barred from the U.S. in 2004 ... the denial of...

ALBANY -- The spiritual leader of an Albany mosque repeatedly called a phone number in Syria that an FBI report indicates had been used to gather terrorist intelligence for Osama bin Laden, according to classified documents unsealed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The FBI report, which was based on information from a confidential informant, was among several once-secret documents that federal authorities say raise questions about Yassin Aref's connections to terrorist organizations across the Middle East. Aref, 35, a Kurdish refugee who moved to Albany with his family in 1999, is in jail without bond while awaiting trial on...

The UK Daily Mail is making big headlines (at the top of the Drudge Report page as I write) with its exclusive story purporting to prove that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was committed to war with Iraq at a time he was telling the British public that he was seeking a diplomatic solution. The email it cites came from “a batch of secret emails held on the private server of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton which U.S. courts have forced her to reveal.” I think the Daily Mail has buried the lead. For one thing, the secret memo...