Free Republic

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said in an interview published Sunday that she would not have ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Marking the 15th anniversary of September 11 terror attacks, Stein instead told the Des Moines Register that she would have tried to bring the terror leader to trial in accordance with international law.

The day before the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, former President Bill Clinton told a group of businessmen in Australia that he "could have killed" the man behind those attacks, Osama bin Laden, in 1998, but he decided against launching a strike out of concern for civilian casualties. It's a startling and tragic bit of irony that remained hidden until Wednesday, when Michael Kroger, the former head of the Liberal Party in Australia, released the audio during an interview on Sky News. Mr. Clinton knew he was being recorded, but the audio was never released because Kroger said he'd...

Since rumors began to spread that a startup called Palantir helped to kill Osama bin Laden, Alex Karp hasn’t had much time to himself. On one sun-baked July morning in Silicon Valley Palantir’s lean 45-year-old chief executive, with a top-heavy mop of frazzled hair, hikes the grassy hills around Stanford University’s massive satellite antennae known as the Dish, a favorite meditative pastime. But his solitude is disturbed somewhat by “Mike,” an ex-Marine–silent, 6 foot 1, 270 pounds of mostly pectoral muscle–who trails him everywhere he goes. Even on the suburban streets of Palo Alto, steps from Palantir’s headquarters, the bodyguard...

Esther Duflo is one of those people who are taken seriously by the sort of people who eat up TED talks with a silver spoon. Her big number is how to help people in the Third World up from poverty, which is a surprisingly profitable branch of economics when you consider the sheer number of NGOs and billionaires interested in getting into the aid business. But there’s one particular billionaire at Duflo’s back. Abdul Latif Jameel. Esther Duflo is one of the co-founders of the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, more commonly known as J-PAL for the father of Abdul...

BEIRUT -- Al-Qaida's media arm has released an audio in which the purported son of the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatens revenge against the U.S. for assassinating his father.

UPDATE - 7/2/16 James Reynard Collins, also known as "Bin Laden", 34, has been arrested and is in the South Central Regional Jail after being arraigned. Charleston Police say that Collins turned himself into authorities. Collins is from 200 Carter Avenue in Powelton but the incident happened in Charleston.

The military tribunal verdict convicting Salim Hamdan of providing material support to terrorism was eminently just. The guy was, after all, Osama Bin Laden's driver, and he was, after all, arrested with two surface-to-air missiles in the back of his car. And there was, after all, the video of a 1998 Al Qaeda news conference for Pakistani journalists that at one point showed Hamdan with a machine gun and at another juncture captured him smiling at Bin Laden. And there were, after all, the undisputed facts that Hamdan fell in with Bin Laden in 1996 and worked with him through...

Salim Hamdan was just sentenced to five and half years for chauffeuring Osama bin Laden through McDonald’s drive-thrus, or whatever the Afghani equivalent is, while he plotted the 9/11 attacks. Hamdan has been holed up in Guantanamo Bay for over five years without a trial, so he’s actually eligible for release in five months, although Bush & Co. have threatened to hold him indefinitely after he has served him time. The media has been all over the story because 1) Not every programming minute can be filled by the Olympics; and 2) It potentially sets a precedent for suspected terrorists...

Mr. Hamdan, We're Ready For Your Closeup Aug. 17, 2008(CBS) Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.Of course George Clooney’s production company has just purchased the rights to a book written about Salim Hamdan, the most famous mechanic and driver in the history of the world. The sensitive star knows a good story when he sees one, and Hamdan’s story (the final chapters of which have yet to be written) over the past six years surely ranks as one of the best of the decade. Hamdan drove Osama bin Laden for a while (imaging having that...

Shortly before midnight on May 1st, 2011, President Barack Obama stood at a lectern in the East Room of the White House and delivered a startling announcement: American forces had located — and killed — the most wanted terrorist on the planet, Osama bin Laden.

Arms dealer .. Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar. Yes he's got a lot of names. Also a longtime associate of Osama bin Laden who helped establish training camps for Al Qaeda after the US bombed them. He served as an explosives and weapons trainer at terrorist training camps. And commanded a training camp. He was an arms dealer who worked with Osama bin Laden and plotted to carry out IED attacks against US forces. He also has ties to Zawahiri and the mastermind of the USS Cole Bombing. He's listed as posing a high risk to the US...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has brought conspiracy charges against a Yemeni man and a Sudanese man, both described as having close ties to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), making them the first Guantanamo Bay prisoners to face criminal charges, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Tuesday. The Defense Department said Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul of Yemen and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan were charged with a single count each of conspiracy to commit war crimes and will be brought to trial before a military tribunal. Pentagon spokesman...

When Ibrahim al Qosi was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2012, a lawyer for the former Usama bin Laden aide said he looked forward to living a life of peace in his native Sudan. Three years later, Qosi has emerged as a prominent voice of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, appearing in a number of AQAP propaganda videos -- including a 50-minute lecture calling for the takeover of Saudi Arabia. ...

Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she gets paid over $200,000 for a speech because of interests in various matters including "a lot of interest in the bin Laden raid." Partial transcript follows:

Defense Department's top attorney , "all remedies legally available" against the publication of No Easy Day, (of the) firsthand account of the mission (which culminated in the demise of 0 bin Laden). "You are in material breach and violation of the nondisclosure agreements you signed," wrote Pentagon general counsel Jeh Charles Johnson. The letter; threats of a criminal prosecution seizure of as well as go after publisher Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Group. In a written response, "Mr. Owen sought legal advice about his responsibilities before agreeing to publish his book and scrupulously reviewed the work to ensure that it...

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 Navy SEALs have been everywhere in the media in the last few years: in films, books, magazines, video games, on news shows and the Internet. While publicity is always good for the military, is this the type of PR you want for a covert special warfare unit? Are the SEALs a special operations group or a circus act in wet suits? Every time I turn on Fox News, some muscle bound SEAL is on promoting a book like “Manage your company like a SEAL”, “The SEAL Cookbook”, “160 Ways to Garrote a Tango.” If they’re not pumping up a...

A funny thing happens when a candidate decides to run for president; embarrassing or controversial actions in the candidate's past are magically altered or reinvented entirely to make him look good. And that's what happened when Joe Biden decided to give an alternative history account of his role in the decision to attack the compound in Abbottobad where Osama bin Laden was eventually killed. Previously, several participants - including President Obama and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - said that Biden was opposed to the raid. But yesterday, we learn that Biden actually told the President (in private)...

He has also benefited from a powerful alliance with the Pakistani military spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, the original sponsor of the Afghan Taliban insurgency. ...snip... Mullah Mansour, a stout man believed to be just under 50, does not, unlike his famously reclusive predecessor, live in hiding. His circumstances are not those of a jihadist leader living a fugitive existence, fearing drone strikes and avoiding cellphones in case they are tracked — in fact, one person who knows him says the Taliban leader owns a cellphone company. Some of the time, he lives in a southern neighborhood of Quetta, Pakistan, known...

Barack Obama released Osama Bin Laden’s bodyguard this week from Gitmo. Abdul Rahman Shalabi was trained as the 20th hijacker in the 9-11 attacks. 20th hijacker shalabi Obama released Shalabi to Saudi Arabia this week. Shalabi was released from Gitmo on September 21, 2015. Investor’s Business Daily reported, via Pamela Geller: “ How much does President Obama still want the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison shuttered? He just released the man trained to be the 20th hijacker for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. In May, 2008, Rear Adm. David M. Thomas, then-commander of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay, sent...