Free Republic

In January, 2000, Malaysia’s capital was where key members of Al Qaeda held their “Kuala Lumpur summit” to plan the bombing of the USS Cole that October, as well as the later attacks of 9/11/01. In light of this, and other facts pointing to Kuala Lumpur playing host to a hotbed of Islamic terrorists over the years, the baffling mystery of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 provokes renewed scrutiny of Kuala Lumpur in fostering international terrorism to date. In this context, Malaysia’s Islamic government and prevailing majority Mohammedan culture comes across as either grossly incompetent, or even somewhat...

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES - There are so many links between the Abu Sayyaf Group of the Philippines, which beheaded an American hostage a few months ago, and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network, that on paper they look like the route map for a Peshawar-based airline. The links run from that high, bleak border city in Pakistan to terrorist dens in Afghanistan and Yemen; to murders and bombings in the Philippines; to the first attack on the World Trade Center; to a foiled attempt to assassinate the pope during a 1995 visit to Manila. A captured Abu Sayyaf guerrilla, ...

Descriptions of the alleged plot uncovered by British authorities have distinct echoes of the so-called Operation Bojinka, an attempt by supporters of al Qaeda in the mid-1990s to simultaneously destroy airliners over the Pacific using liquid explosives. The explosives, which can be hidden in a small bottle, like those used for contact lens solution, are hard to detect, and were originally developed by Yousef, whose uncle, Mohammed, was the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks. In December 1994, Yousef tested his device using a fraction of the explosives planned for the main bombs. Halfway through the short flight, Yousef disappeared...

We are reading only about 24 arrests today. If we were already in the heralded antiwar world of Ned Lamont and the war-against-the-war crowd, it could be much different. We could just as easily be reading about ten jumbo jets exploded out of the sky. Or 3,000 murdered innocents — mostly American and British citizens. Reality has once again inconveniently burst the antiwar, anti-security, anti-American balloon, just as the November victory ballrooms were being booked. Just as central casting was whipping the articles of impeachment into shape. The high crimes and misdemeanors of George W. Bush include: hunting down terrorists,...

AHMED HIKMAT SHAKIR IS A shadowy figure who provided logistical assistance to one, maybe two, of the 9/11 hijackers. Years before, he had received a phone call from the Jersey City, New Jersey, safehouse of the plotters who would soon, in February 1993, park a truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center. The safehouse was the apartment of Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, who scorched his own leg while mixing the chemicals for the 1993 bomb.When Shakir was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks, his "pocket litter," in the parlance of the investigators, included contact...

The very same day that the Clintons go to Long Island to meet with the TWA Flight 800 families, security guard Richard Jewell is patrolling the grounds of Centennial Park in Atlanta. He's a little Barney Fife-ish, but a good guy and very observant. Right around midnight, Jewell spots a large, olive-green, military-style backpack, known as an Alice pack, under a bench. He immediately shares this information with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. When the GBI cannot find the pack's owner, the GBI officer and Jewell begin to clear an area around the pack. Soon afterward, the pack explodes. Two...

This is my first post so I hope I got it right. This is breaking here in San Anonio. A single engine plane has been forced down at Stenson Field south of San Antonio. Homeland Security, DPS and SAPD are on the scene. They are waiting for a Chinese tranlator but they have Chinese illegals in custody and said that the pilot was someone Homeland Security has been looking for. I'll post more as it comes available.

THE mastermind behind September 11 was granted a visa to visit Australia one month before the al-Qa'ida strikes on New York and Washington but authorities realised their error only after the attacks. The tourist visa was granted to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed after he made an application using an alias through the Australian high commission in Islamabad in August 2001. However, at that stage Australian authorities had not entered any of the aliases used by Khalid -- al-Qa'ida figurehead Osama bin Laden's military commander -- on their alert lists. That was done only in the days following the attacks, which killed...