Free Republic

While Islamic State was once associated with Al Qaeda, the atrocities it has committee have now banned its members from paradise, a prominent Al Qaeda terrorist warned in a publication released Monday. “While no one can deny the considerable strength and prowess of the Islamic State group [ISIS] in military terms, at the same time, the crimes it has committed against Muslims cannot simply be overlooked or forgotten with time, because in Islam there is no statute of limitations,” Adam Gadahn, the American citizen also known as Al Qaeda leader Azzam the American, stated before his death in an Al...

Syrian rebels receiving U.S. military training to battle Islamic State militants are being paid $250 to $400 per month, depending on their skills, performance and leadership position, the Pentagon said on Monday. It was not immediately clear how many Syrian rebels were currently being paid. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Defense Department spokesman, said last week that up to 200 Syrian fighters were undergoing training. A further 1,500 have completed the necessary screening. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in May that Syrian fighters participating in the U.S.-led mission would receive "some compensation," but he gave no figures. Navy Commander Elissa...

The FBI is in the midst of a broad campaign to disrupt potential terrorists inspired by ISIS, with several arrests expected before July 4th, law enforcement officials told ABC News. The latest arrest that is part of this campaign came Saturday in New York, where a college student thought al Qaeda was getting soft and "making efforts to prepare an explosive device for detonation,” according to the FBI. Hundreds of investigations are underway in all 50 states. Many involve suspected ISIS supporters, authorities said. ISIS: Trail of Terror In the New York case, Munther Omar Saleh was accused of being...

It has been almost a year since June 29, 2014, when the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) declared the formation of a new caliphate and dropped the second half of its name, rebranding itself as simply the Islamic State. It has survived nine months since Barack Obama vowed to “degrade and ultimately destroy” it.It has survived, and has continued to attract Muslims from all over the world, even after virtually every major world leader and Islamic group has condemned it as un-Islamic. And it shows no sign of going anywhere anytime soon.All this is well-known. What is...

GENEVA/SANAA: A fistfight erupted on the sidelines of peace talks in Geneva Thursday between supporters of different warring factions in Yemen, underlining the divisions that have thwarted United Nations efforts broker a truce in the near three-month conflict. Yemeni opponents of the Houthi forces that drove the government into exile interrupted a news conference by Houthi officials, throwing shoes and insulting them as “criminals” and “dogs” who were “killing the children of south Yemen.” A Saudi-led coalition has been launching airstrikes against the Iran-allied Houthis since late March in a campaign to restore the exiled government and back its armed...

[1]Among the latest six Jihadis freed by Obama from Gitmo as part of his mission is Saad Masir Mukbl al Azani.There are obvious reasons for freeing Saad1. He was identified as a high level Al Qaeda member by other captured terrorists.2. He issued fatwas while allegedly sitting on the fatwa committee with Osama bin Laden’s religious advisor. That may sound non-violent to the religion of peace types, but it meant he was providing the rationale for terrorist attacks.3. He helped indoctrinate Al Qaeda terrorists by teaching them the Koran.I’m sure that being loose he will in no way go...

The Senate on Tuesday reaffirmed a ban against torturing detainees and moved ahead on a more than $600 billion defense policy bill that is entangled in a broader fight in Congress about caps on Pentagon and non-military spending. The Senate overwhelmingly voted 78 to 21 to approve an amendment that bolsters current law and makes the U.S. Army Field Manual on interrogations the standard for all interrogations conducted by the U.S. government. It also gives the International Committee of the Red Cross access to every detainee held by the U.S. The vote comes just months after the Senate intelligence committee...

Top terrorist in Yemen now heads 'steadfastly to God' . . . or somewhere. Drone strike kills Al Qaeda's No 2 in commandIt seems like we get these number two guys a lot, but in fairness, we did get that number one guy some time back. Even so, the more dead Al Qaeda the better. So nice job, America, and no apologies for the use of the drone. The objective of war is not to die for your country, as Gen. Patton is rumored to have said. It’s to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his - not...

The Druze community in Israel is on high alert Sunday, after Al Qaeda massacred 20 Druze in Syria - a move the community has deemed a "red line." "Israel's policy is that it will not intervene in Syria, and we accept that with understanding and love," former minister Salah Tarif, who served in the 12-16th Knessets as part of Labor, stated to Walla! News. "We will also not interfere, but we do have red lines." "We are operating now as a form of witness, as a religious entity to protect our brothers," he added. "We are 'at the ready' like...

War On Terror: Rushing to empty Gitmo, President Obama has freed three bin Laden bodyguards, ignoring warnings they'd rejoin al-Qaida. Given high recidivism rates of already released inmates, what could go wrong? Chances are that the terrorists will return to the battlefield or carry out other acts of terror against the U.S. Obama's own intelligence czar has documented that nearly 30% of prisoners transferred from the Cuban prison have been confirmed or suspected of having re-engaged in terrorist activities.

First, the good news: It turns out President Obama was right. Al-Qaida is being destroyed. One could even say he deserves some credit for this happy turn of events. Which brings us to the bad news: Al-Qaida is dying out because it's being replaced by something far worse. According to a fascinating report in the Guardian newspaper, two of Al-Qaida's leading clerics say that the Islamic State has all but destroyed its parent organization. Basically, people in the market for Jihad think the Islamic State offers the best product on the market. It's ironic. For a decade, terror analysts...

Two of Al Qaeda's spiritual leaders have said that the terror organization is barely functioning after losing money and manpower to the rapidly rising Islamic State group, according to a report. Abu Qatada and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi have described Al Qaeda as being without "organizational structure," the Guardian reports. Maqdisi said Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri is isolated from his top lieutenants and "operates solely based on the allegiance. "There is no organizational structure. There is only communication channels, and loyalty," he reportedly said. Qatada, who was deported to Jordan from Britain in 2013 to face terrorism charges, also acknowledges...

There are growing fears that Syria's second city, Aleppo, could be taken over by Islamic State (IS) as fighting to the north between government and rebel forces intensifies. With the military being driven out of the adjacent province of Idlib by a newly-formed rebel alliance, the Army of Conquest, focus has shifted to the fate of Aleppo, an ancient trading hub near the border with Turkey that has been a battleground for the past three years.

..the man US terrorism analysts call “the most influential living jihadi theorist” has turned his ire toward Isis – and emerged, in the last year, as one of the group’s most powerful critics. Soon after the Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of a caliphate last June, Maqdisi released a long tract castigating Isis as ignorant and misguided, accusing them of subverting the “Islamic project” that he has long nurtured. Maqdisi’s war of words with Isis is emblematic of the new fratricidal split within violent Islamic radicalism – but it is also a sign that al-Qaida, once the...

The decision comes after an interview in which a former militant revealed the government collaborated in attacks carried out in 2007. Spain's top prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, called on Monday to investigate claims of links between the former Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh and al-Qaida. The decision comes after an investigation made by Qatar's Al Jazeera TV network, which revealed in an interview earlier this month that a former member of the designated terrorist group confirmed that Saleh had collaborated with the group. The revelation has sparked the prosecutor's reaction as one of the case cited by the former al-Qaida member...

Two weeks ago, courtesy of the investigative work of Nafeez Ahmed whose deep dig through a recently declassified and formertly Pentagon documents released earlier by Judicial Watch FOIA, we learned that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad. In his words: "According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of the strategy, but described this outcome as a strategic opportunity to “isolate the Syrian regime.” Now, in a follow up piece to his stunning original investigative report...

After the pro-Western government of China was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan in 1949, when the Communists took over mainland China, bitter recriminations in Washington led to the question: "Who lost China?" China was, of course, never ours to lose, though it might be legitimate to ask if a different American policy toward China could have led to a different outcome. In more recent years, however, Iraq was in fact ours to lose, after U.S. troops vanquished Saddam Hussein's army and took over the country. Today, we seem to be in the process of losing Iraq, if...

The United Nations special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, is set to recommend blacklisting the Israel Defense Forces as a terror group for regularly causing harm to children. The designation would place the IDF in the same group as terror groups such as Islamic State, Boko Haram, and the Taliban. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is leaning towards leaving Israel off the list—despite heavy lobbying by the Palestinians and pro-Palestinian groups—over concern of damaging the world body’s relationship with the Jewish state. The Israeli Foreign Ministry slammed the hypocrisy of the...

Feb 28, 2002 -- (BBC Monitoring) Text of report by Russian news agency Ekho Moskvy. [No dateline as received] Russia is using Belarus as a "channel" for selling arms to such countries as Iraq, Iran and Libya, the former chairman of the Belarusian parliament, the leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party, Stanistaw Shushkevich, has said in an interview for Ekho Moskvy radio. He added: "Russia is a major country and cannot break UN sanctions, but it is of course very convenient for it to have such an obliging leader by its side." "I am practically sure that it is ...

A longtime Clinton confidant reportedly advised then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton two days after the 2012 Benghazi terror attack that an Al Qaeda-tied group had planned the deadly assault and used a protest as cover -- but despite this warning, Clinton's U.N. ambassador went on to publicly claim the attack was simply "spontaneous." The guidance from ex-Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal was contained in a memo sent Sept. 13, according to The New York Times. It is the latest documentation effectively contradicting the administration's early narrative that the attack was driven by protests over an anti-Islam Internet video -- and raising...