Free Republic

Senator Barack Obama's foreign policy credentials took a further blow on Tuesday after his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination won the backing of Fidel Castro. The former Cuban president gave a qualified endorsement to Mr Obama whom he described as "the most-advanced candidate" in the race for the White House. The unwelcome support of the ailing revolutionary icon is likely to give Senator John McCain further opportunity to question Mr Obama's foreign policy credentials. The Republican nominee has consistently tried to exploit the support offered for Mr Obama by Hamas, which is listed by the US state department as...

Related Stories - Latest coverage of the Iraq war BAGHDAD -- A U.S. offensive dubbed Operation Rat Trap killed two important Al Qaeda-linked militants, in addition to the insurgent propaganda chief whose death was announced earlier, the U.S. military said today.

Lebanese report: Hezbollah planted disabled children in basement to die By Israel Insider staff and partners August 1, 2006 A French language Lebanese publication, citing an unnamed source in Hezbollah, has claimed that the organization placed a rocket launcher on the roof of the notorious building in Qana to provoke an Israeli attack and brought invalid children inside to serve as victims and blacken Israel's name. The Lebanese magazine LIBANOSCOPIE, associated with Christian elements which support the anti-Syrian movement called the "March 14 Forces," report that Hizbullah masterminded a plan that would result in the killing of innocents in Qana,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday angrily denied a newspaper report that suggested President George W. Bush in 2003 declared the existence of mobile biological weapons laboratories in Iraq while knowing it was not true. "It's reckless reporting. Everybody should be agitated about it," White House spokesman McClellan told reporters of The Washington Post report. On May 29, 2003, Bush hailed the capture of two trailers in Iraq as mobile biological laboratories and declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." Two days earlier, on May 27, 2003, the Pentagon confirmed on Wednesday, a Defense Intelligence Agency...

NEWARK, N.J., March 27 (UPI) -- An embarrassing hole in security surrounding former U.S. President Bill Clinton turned up when one of his chauffeurs was found to be a wanted man. Shahzad Qureshi, 42, was in one of three cars awaiting Clinton at Newark Airport last week when a Port Authority policeman happened to check license plate numbers. The computer came back showing the Pakistani national had skipped a residency-status hearing in 2000, and a deportation order had been issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the New York Post reported. Qureshi was still in jail Monday awaiting immigration processing,...

The Star’s Topeka correspondents Kansas lawmakers pledge effort to overrule Sebelius TOPEKA — Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill Tuesday that would allow Kansans to carry concealed weapons, setting up a face-off with lawmakers already vowing to attempt to overrule her. It is uncertain whether the majority of lawmakers who support the bill can meet the two-thirds votes required to override the veto, which was widely expected. An attempt to reject the veto could come as early as today. Sebelius, a Democrat, also vetoed a bill that could have lowered compensation settlements for workers injured on the job. In a...

PISMO BEACH, Calif. - A homeless man who entered a Denny's restaurant at lunch time muttering and looking dazed opened fire, gunning down two people, wounding a couple and then turning the gun on himself, police said. The gunman, holding a semiautomatic handgun in one hand and a revolver in the other, entered the restaurant Wednesday and began shooting within a few steps of the front door, sending patrons and workers fleeing to the restaurant's bathrooms and kitchen. The dead were identified as Frank Velasquez, 65, of Oceano, who was killed in front of his wife and 5-year-old great-granddaughter, and...

The interior minister said Tuesday authorities had foiled an al-Qaida plot that would have put hundreds of its men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government. A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, in an interview with The...

Tunnel Found on Mexican Border By John Pomfret Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 27, 2006; Page A03 LOS ANGELES, Jan. 26 -- U.S. and Mexican authorities have discovered an elaborate tunnel that stretches the length of eight football fields connecting Mexico and the United States and was apparently used for drug trafficking, authorities said Thursday. The tunnel, unearthed Wednesday, runs from a warehouse in Tijuana and surfaces in the United States under an abandoned warehouse west of the Otay Mesa port of entry. Mexican authorities announced that they had seized about two tons of marijuana on the Mexican end,...