Free Republic

PHOTO CAPTION - SNIPPET: "Officials believe that more members of the so-called Düsseldorf cell may still be at large." SNIPPET: "Halil S. is a man who knows his way around computers. When he went online..." SNIPPET: "German security officials allege that the 27-year-old is the fourth member of the so-called "Düsselfdorf Cell." The group is believed to be the al-Qaida cell currently active in Germany and tasked with carrying out a major attack in Europe. Three other members of the cell, Moroccan Abdeladim el-K. and two accomplices, were arrested in late April and are being held in custody. Authorities believe...

Quote: homeland.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-jihadist-use-social-media-how-prevent-terrorism-and-preserve-innovation Subcommittee Hearing: Jihadist Use of Social Media - How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence | 311 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 | Dec 6, 2011 2:00pm On Tuesday, December 6, 2011 the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing entitled "Jihadist Use of Social Media - How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation." The Committee will meet at 2:00 p.m. in 311 Cannon House Office Building. Witnesses Mr. Evan F. Kohlmann Flashpoint Global Partners Mr. William McCants Analyst Analyst for the Center for Naval...

Putting the power of life and death in anyone’s hands is a dubious undertaking, to put it mildly. Giving such responsibility to a pair of academics is questionable, at best. “Senior Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki and another America-born militant were killed in Yemen early Friday morning by a CIA-led U.S. drone strike, marking the highest-profile takedown of terror leaders since the raid on Usama bin Laden’s compound,” Jennifer Griffin & Justin Fishel reported on Fox News.com on September 30, 2011. “Sensing they were on sensitive ground, officials of the Obama Administration illegally leaked information to The New York Times...

I remain utterly confused how people who could be so outraged at the Bush administration over enhanced interrogation used against a few foreign terrorists who participated in killing thousands of Americans can remain silent when it comes to the Obama administration killing American citizens without due process. Where are the screams about abuse of executive privilege? A few short weeks ago, a 16-year-old boy — an American citizen — died in the desert in Yemen. It does not matter that this was al-Awlaki's son. This was the death of an innocent. Seeing the young face of this child broadcast on...

A Dominican with an anti-American grudge has been busted for building a bomb in his upper Manhattan apartment to blow up a police station, sources said Sunday night. -snip- The suspect was identified through one of the al-Awlaki web sites, where he posted anti-American comments, the source said.

SNIPPET: "In July, the British government warned that Al Qaeda’s exploitation of social networking websites is on the rise." SNIPPET: "The massive and multifarious network of websites and social media has presented a challenge to authorities in trying to combat it. Additionally, civil liberty concerns have conflicted with government efforts to spy on communications. Reducing terrorist activity on social media sites has been particularly difficult because users have adopted new forms of communication to conform with the new formats. Many Arabic speakers on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other sites use Arabizi, a form of colloquial Arabic written in the Latin...

SNIPPET: "British Jihadi Anjem Choudary Tweets On March 19, 2011, British jihadi Anjem Choudary, spokesman for the banned Islam4UK organization, co-founder of Al-Muhajiroun, and spiritual advisor to the UK Islamist group Muslims Against Crusades (MAC),[18] launched a Twitter account and began tweeting. MAC made headlines last week for threatening a British MP who subsequently called on their activities to be closely monitored by law enforcement.[19] According to his Twitter account, Choudary is "a Muslim who believes that Islam is something we must believe in (Tawheed), live by (Shari'ah) and struggle and sacrifice for (by way of Daw'ah and Jihad)."[20] In...

The just assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki was a defining moment for American Muslims. We should have been leading the cheers -- but instead many of our self-appointed “spokesmen” squandered their bandwidth. This one is personal. As one of us, Awlaki’s extreme form of Islamism swayed many Muslims to hate America and the West. Worse -- in flagrant defiance of the central tenets of our Islam -- he taught many Muslims to diminish the value of human life. Yet where most Americans saw a traitor who turned on his nation in order to fight our sons and daughters on the battlefield,...

(CNN) -- The son of U.S.-born militant cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki was among those killed in a trio of drone attacks in southern Yemen on Friday night, a security official said. The attacks, carried out in the Shabwa district, killed seven suspected militants, the defense ministry said. It would not confirm that Abdul Rahman Anwar Awlaki was among them. The senior security official in Shabwa, who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the younger Awlaki had been hiding in the mountains of Shabwa for more than eight months. He had...

Obama’s State Department (run by Hillary Clinton) has contacted the family of al-Qaeda propagandist and recruiter Samir Khan to “express its condolences” to his family. Samir Khan a right hand man to Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed along with his jihadist buddy in an air strike in Yemen that took place on September 30.

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution is unequivocal: no American shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." No amount of ducking and diving will evade the inescapable fact that, for the first time, U.S. military officials in an aggressive overreach of constitutional authority deliberately targeted an American citizen for killing. And no amount of legalistic wordplay will alter the reality that al-Awlaki was denied due process. (No, Mr Gingrich, the signing of a death warrant by an American President does not constitute "due process," except perhaps in North Korea or Iran. Our...

[Hitchens is hard core when it comes to Islamists!] Probably because it mainly provides the kind of short-term cinematic satisfaction that characterizes the Hellfire terminus, the flashy ending of al-Qaida’s main media star has only led to the reopening of some pressing questions about the nature of the jihadi menace. It has also forced us to confront the idea of words as weapons, and the relationship between ideas and actions, in a world of conscienceless criminal violence that operates without employing any code or precedent of its own. To phrase the essence of the problem succinctly, you are perhaps more...

http://internet-haganah.com/harchives/007413.html "Whither the jihadi forums?" SNIPPET: "There are currently only three jihadi forums that are sufficiently active and well-connected to be of any interest whatsoever. Why we claim to be on the verge of defeating al-Qaida while simultaneously watching passively as they use these forums to regroup and regenerate is beyond me. These are the forums three: • al-Fidaa, a forum created by al-Qaida core. That it is directly linked to al-Qaida by definition moves it to the top of the list. Current membership: 2,462, all of whom can be considered "active" if only because they just joined the forum....

The killing on Friday of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen described as a powerful al-Qaeda terrorist, has stirred considerable debate about whether it's appropriate for a president to order an American assassinated. Evidently, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain shares those concerns. The above video was recorded just after the first nationally televised GOP presidential debate of the 2012 campaign cycle, held in Greenville South Carolina on May 5 of this year, according to its YouTube page. "He should be charged. And since he's an American citizen, he should be tried in our courts," Cain said of al-Awlaki. When asked if...

Outside the U.S. government, President Obama's order to kill American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without due process has proved controversial, with experts in law and war reaching different conclusions. Inside the Obama Administration, however, disagreement was apparently absent, or so say anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post. "The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials," the newspaper reported. "The document was produced following a review of the legal issues raised by striking a U.S. citizen and involved...

SNIPPET: "AN EXTREMIST Islamic group suspected of planning a crime spree across Sydney to raise money for the Taliban has been uncovered by counter-terrorism police. The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that NSW Police and national security agencies have been investigating the group members for over a year, with the case currently active. The extremists have been the subject of a top secret operation led by the NSW Police Force, ASIO, Australian Federal Police and the NSW Crime Commission. A group of men, aged between 20 and 30, all Australian citizens of Middle Eastern-descent, have been identified as the core members."...

The American government at the direction of the President targeted and killed an American citizen who was an unlawful combatant and a terrorist. This was a good thing in this case, but it also opened the barn door for the President deciding to kill an American citizen acting as prosecutor, judge, jury and in effect executioner without any judicial review or due process (especially interesting considering the President and his administrations instance on treating other terrorists as common criminals and giving them full due process and civilian trials== until that blew up and the Congress told them they couldn't bring...

For once we’re all in agreement this guy was a terrorist. But a reminder is in order of just who Awlaki was not so long ago. Just before the 9/11 attacks, he was the imam of the large Falls Church mosque in northern Virginia. He was the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University. The New York Times reported that, a few weeks before 9/11, Awlaki preached a sermon in the U.S. Capitol. After the 9/11 attacks, Awlaki was widely believed to be a moderate. He was first imam to pray at the U.S. Capitol with the Congressional Muslim Staff Association...

For once we’re all in agreement this guy was a terrorist. But a reminder is in order of just who Awlaki was not so long ago. Just before the 9/11 attacks, he was the imam of the large Falls Church mosque in northern Virginia. He was the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University. The New York Times reported that, a few weeks before 9/11, Awlaki preached a sermon in the U.S. Capitol. After the 9/11 attacks, Awlaki was widely believed to be a moderate. He was first imam to pray at the U.S. Capitol with the Congressional Muslim Staff Association...

Tapper to Carney: "Do you not see at all... does the Administration not see at all how a president asserting that he has the right to kill an American citizen without due process and that he's not going to even explain why he thinks that he has that right, is troublesome to some people?"... http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=14642685

WASHINGTON (AP) — An American-born cleric killed in Yemen played a "significant operational role" in plotting and inspiring attacks on the United States, U.S. officials said Friday, as they disclosed detailed intelligence to justify the killing of a U.S. citizen.

Terror mastermind and senior Al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki is dead a senior U.S. official confirms. Al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamic militant cleric who became a prominent figure in Al-Qaeda's most active branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits to carry out attacks in the United States, was killed Friday in the mountains of Yemen, American and Yemeni officials said. excerpt - Yemeni security officials and local tribal leaders said al-Awlaki was killed in an air strike on his convoy that they believed was carried out by the Americans. They said pilotless drones had been seen over the...

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — The top commander of U.S. special operations forces said Wednesday that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida is bloodied and "nearing its end," but he warned the next generation of militants could keep special operations fighting for a decade to come. Navy SEAL Adm. Eric T. Olson described the killing of bin Laden by a special operations raid on May 2 as a near-killing blow for what he called "al-Qaida 1.0," as created by bin Laden and led from his hideout in Pakistan. Olson said the group had already lost steam because of the revolts of the Arab...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

SEATTLE -- Men from Washington and California have been arrested in plot to attack a Seattle military recruiting station, the Department of Justice says. Justice Department officials said the two men, who were arrested late Wednesday night, took possession of machine guns that they purchased and planned to use in an attack on the Military Entrance Processing Station on East Marginal Way and that the two also planned to use grenades in the attack. Here's the complete news release from the Department of Justice: Two men were arrested late last night and are charged by criminal complaint with terrorism and...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials. The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few...

A Saudi linguist convicted of sexually assaulting a housekeeper and keeping her a virtual slave for four years won a 20-year reduction in his prison sentence Friday, and his defence attorneys hope it means he'll be released from prison soon. District Judge J. Mark Hannen sentenced Homaidan al-Turki to between eight years and life in prison during a hearing Friday in Centennial. Hannen cited al-Turki's good behaviour in prison in cutting the sentence from its original 28 years to life. ... Al-Turki insists he is innocent and a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment. His case has angered Saudi authorities — several...

Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher said revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out. Western and Arab officials say the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change is a counterweight to al-Qaeda's push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible. But al Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, in an article published online on Tuesday, said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organize. ... AQAP military leader Qasim...

SNIPPET: "An examination of online activities by binyamine leads to the conclusion that he is likely involved with Dar al-Murabiteen, and that he links multiple terrorist networks together through his work translating, transcribing, and distributing jihadi media content. He is linked, in no particular order, to • Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan • The Pakistan and Afghan Taliban • as-Sahab, al-Emara, and al-Malahem media outfits • al-Shabaab and their al-Qimmah forum This is what Granovetter meant by a bridging weak tie - the kind of "weak" tie that is strong, as he links multiple networks. Among other things, all this...

You might think that a top terrorist targeted for assassination by the Obama administration would be on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.” You might think he would be under indictment by the Department of Justice, which has a penchant for prosecuting war criminals in civil court. But in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), you’d be wrong. United States counterterrorism officials agree that Awlaki, a dual U.S.-Yemeni citizen, is one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. Attorney General Eric Holder says Awlaki is right up there with Osama bin Laden. It...

In the bookstore I run, I used to carry lectures on CD by Anwar al-Awlaki. That's the pre-radical al-Awlaki, who recorded lectures about prophets and the hereafter and Islam in general. Now, that al-Awlaki is gone and has been replaced by a terrorist who publicly justifies killing American civilians. ...I was most worried about what the public, the authorities, and other Muslims would think. On the other hand, by removing the CDs I was censoring, and censorship is, generally speaking, a bad thing. I asked a retired bookseller friend what she thought... She recalled that when her store was open...

If 2010 was the year America finally woke up to political Islam's ne farious reach on US soil, with luck 2011 will be the year we launch an offensive against it. One way to begin that process is through hearings that Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, plans to hold on American Muslim radicalization. Attention to this issue offers an opportunity for American Muslims to confront the radicalization problem and provide solutions -- as only they can. My group, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, believes these hearings will shed light on the...

Youtube needs to crack down much harder on vid eos that promote violent jihad. While the Web site has made some efforts to remove videos that violate its ban on terror promotion, thousands remain. Indeed, videos that glorify and promote terrorism continue to flood the site; YouTube needs to find a way more consistent and sustained approach, or find itself sucked into an endless game of "whack-a-mole." In October, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens-Brooklyn) wrote YouTube executives asking them to remove all material featuring Anwar al-Awlaki -- the American-Yemeni cleric fingered as the ideological inspiration of Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times...

At the top-of-the-hour newsbreak it was reported a "material witness" being held since Sept related to the 9/11 attacks has gone missing. His lawyer has reported he has no information on the whereabouts of his client. The client has not been seen since last Wednesday morning when he appeared in NY to give testimony. He was told then, apparently, that he faced charges back in San Diego for falsifying information on his application for asylum. The suspect is a student at San Diego State University.

A conservative advocacy group on Friday called on the Justice Department to investigate a weekly prayer session on Capitol Hill that Muslims with terrorist ties have been participating in since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, issued the demand one day after FoxNews.com revealed that notorious Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was among the controversial figures who has attended the weekly Friday Jummah prayers hosted by the Congressional Muslims Staff Association during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. The group held prayers informally for about eight years before...

An Al Qaeda leader, the head of a designated terror organization and a confessed jihadist-in-training are among a "Who's Who" of controversial figures who have participated in weekly prayer sessions on Capitol Hill since the 2001 terror attacks, an investigation by FoxNews.com reveals. The Congressional Muslim Staff Association (CMSA) has held weekly Friday Jummah prayers for more than a decade, and guest preachers are often invited to lead the service. The group held prayers informally for about eight years before gaining official status in 2006 under the sponsorship of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of two Muslims currently serving in...

War On Terror: The most dangerous terrorist has a much-deserved bull's-eye on his back, but the ACLU is trying to remove it. The group's defense of Anwar al-Awlaki is its most subversive move yet. A fugitive al-Qaida leader on the CIA hit list, Awlaki has been fingered as the mastermind behind the FedEx bomb plot, as well as last Christmas' airline bomb plot. He's best known for mentoring the Fort Hood terrorist and some of the 9/11 hijackers. "He has involved himself in every aspect of the supply chain of terrorism — fundraising for terrorist groups, recruiting and training operatives,...

A radical US-born Yemeni Islamist cleric has called for the killing of Americans in a new video message posted on radical web sites. Anwar al-Awlaki said no permission was needed to kill Americans as they are from the "party of devils". It comes shortly after authorities intercepted air cargo bombs sent from Yemen to the US in a plot linked to Mr Awlaki. Investigators have linked Mr Awlaki to the US army base killings in Fort Hood, Texas, last year's Christmas airline bomb attempt, and the failed Times Square bombing in New York.

In a new video message posted on a jihadist Web forum on Monday, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric based in Yemen whose most inflammatory sermons were withdrawn from YouTube last week, said that the killing of Americans by Muslims requires no special sanction. According to The Associated Press, Mr. Awlaki told jihadists in his latest, Arabic-language video: “Don’t consult with anybody in killing the Americans, fighting the devil doesn’t require consultation or prayers seeking divine guidance. They are the party of the devils.” Despite the fact that he was born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, and educated in both...

Ibrahim Hassan Al Asiri --- "believed to be the movement's resident bombmaking expert - skills he first put to chilling use in a suicide attack in which he recruited his own younger brother, Abdullah, 23, to act as the "martyr". The attack was an audacious attempt on the life of the Saudi Deputy Minister of the Interior, Prince Muhammad Abdul Aziz Al-Saud..."

<p>Even before the bomb scares that set off security alarms on Friday, U.S. security officials have been increasingly concerned about terrorism strikes originating in Yemen. With this incident, suspicions will focus in particular on a U.S.-born radical Islamic cleric in Yemen, who has emerged as a prominent and eloquent advocate for violence against American civilians.</p>

(CNN) -- SNIPPET: "The charge centers around a one-way ticket that authorities allege Abdel Hameed Shehadeh purchased from Queens, New York, to Islamabad, Pakistan. Shehadeh originally told investigators that the purpose of his trip was to visit an Islamic university and attend a friend's engagement party. But he later admitted to FBI agents in Hawaii that he bought the ticket in order to join a fighting group such as the Taliban, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York Monday."

Islamic preacher Anwar al-Awlaki has compiled a long list, that shows Muslims how they can support the jihad. If you scroll through the list, you will see that Muslims do not have to be violent to take part in the jihad. Number 30 is particularly disturbing, but not surprising. Sheikh Anwar Al awlaki_-_44_Ways_To_Support_Jihad

Al Qaeda's American mouthpiece Saturday urged wannabe terrorists in a new video to act alone instead of trying to join cells attempting 9/11-type spectacular strikes. Californian Adam Gadahn urged individual violent jihad in a 40-minute tape, which endorsed an Al Qaeda ally's call last week for sympathizers to mimic the Ft. Hood killings and attempted bombings over Detroit last Christmas and in Times Square in May. "My brothers: know that Jihad is your duty," Gadahn ranted in Arabic. "You have an opportunity to strike the leaders of unbelief and retaliate against them on their own soil."

NOTE The following text is a quote: Virginia Man Accused of Providing Material Support to Terrorists ALEXANDRIA, VA—Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, of Fairfax County, Va., was arrested today on charges that he provided material support to al Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization. Neil H. MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Shawn Henry, Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, made the announcement after Chesser was arrested and the charging documents were made public. “This case exposes the disturbing reality that extreme radicalization can happen anywhere, including Northern Virginia,” said U.S. Attorney...

SNIPPET - quote: October 11, 2010 North Carolina Muslim Admits Working with al Qaeda: "Proud to be an American Traitor" [Full text] ****Jawa Report Exclusive**** I think we can quit with the speculation about where he went and why Update by Rusty: The full text of Khan's story can be found at the end of this post. (Excerpt) Read more at mypetjawa.mu.nu ...

Norris and all Americans currently live under the "Rushdie Rules," which punish whoever disrespects Islam, Muhammad, or the Koran. Make fun of Muhammad and you're on your own. Local and national politicians had nothing to say about her plight. Journalists, usually keen to protect one of their own, went silent. No organization sprung up to raise money for her protection.

SNIPPET: "A jihadist blogger accused of running an online how-to guide for Al Qaeda could be charged with terrorism very soon, sources say. A federal grand jury has started reviewing evidence against Samir Khan..." SNIPPET: "The grand jury is now deliberating whether there is enough evidence to charge Khan with "material support to a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder overseas," sources close to the case told NPR....

If al-Qaida looks and sounds different as we approach 9/11's ninth anniversary, it's because it's under new American management. No fewer than four U.S. citizens and a permanent U.S. resident have risen to senior leadership posts. These five English-speaking leaders are actively planning or facilitating attacks against their countrymen, while recruiting and radicalizing other American turncoats to carry them out. By remaking itself into an American enterprise, al-Qaida is now more lethal than ever. Its new generation of leaders understands the way America works, having lived here for decades. They have a better sense of our security blind spots. They...

"Ghazawat Washington Conference" SNIPPET: "Be advised that the Ghazawat Washington Conference is scheduled for July 31 beginning at 10 AM EDT. Note that "Ghazawat" is defined as 'battles to expand Muslim territory.'" SNIPPET: "Obviously, the conference is not going to address peace, diversity and tolerance. The conference will discuss victory over non-believers and taking control. The names of the participants are likely familiar. The event will be broadcast globally on Paltalk room "Authentic Tawheed" and also live streamed on: www.authentictawheed.com, www.salafimedia.com, and www.revolutionmuslim.com."