Free Republic

To answer possible future democRAT candidate for president Hillary Clinton "What difference does it make?" with another question for her. Do you fly in airplanes because brooms don't have a heat signature to track ?

(snip) A high-ranking Yemeni security official speaking on the condition of anonymity told McClatchy that the claims of a foiled plot had no basis in fact. That source bemusedly attributed media reports about imminent terror strikes to a single official’s comments, which he cast as a misguided attempt at shifting public opinion in the face of increasing and unpopular American drone strikes. Indeed, Yemen has remained at a relative normal – except for increased security measures that sent spy planes over the skies of Sanaa and flurry of apparent drone strikes to points farther afield. The most recent drone attack...

Washington (CNN) -- The State Department has evacuated most of its diplomats from Lahore, Pakistan in response to a terrorist threat against the U.S. consulate, senior State Department and other senior U.S. officials told CNN. "We have picked up what we regard as a threat worthy of taking this action," one senior U.S. official told CNN. The State Department issued an "orderged departure" for all of its diplomats in Lahore Thursday, except for a handful of emergency personnel. The diplomats were moved to Islamabad, the nation's capital, officials said. A travel warning issued by the State Department said the department...

The Obama administration's decision to shutter nearly two dozen U.S. diplomatic posts on Sunday has given jihadists something to celebrate — a sense that America still sees them as a serious threat. Despite the plot being thwarted, many supporters of al-Qaida and other terror groups believe the very fact that President Barack Obama was forced to shutter embassies throughout the Middle East and Africa was a victory in itself, according to The New York Times. "God is great! America is in a condition of terror and fear from al-Qaida," wrote one jihadist in an online forum, according to the Times....

We’ve all run across the pill bug in our gardens. At the first sign of danger, the tiny paranoid crustacean suddenly turns into a ball — in hopes the danger will have passed when he unrolls. That roly-poly bug can serve as a fair symbol of present-day U.S. foreign policy, especially in our understandable weariness over Iraq, Afghanistan, and the scandals that are overwhelming the Obama administration.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said that without getting to the bottom of what happened at the Benghazi consulate, the administration feels like it has to close embassies in the face of a threat “like a bunch of cowards.” “This administration’s idea that you can go give a pretty speech and apologize really well and then everybody will love you, which it has not happened. We’ve lost credibility in Muslim nations under this president,” Gohmert said this morning on Fox. “If you don’t get to the bottom of why our security was breached in Benghazi, just like we never got to...

I have to ask, think this through, what has been the reason for a series of embassies to ever close in our past history? Are we so scared of a group that was once defeated that we cower in fear like this? Or does Obama have other plans? Embassies, closed, this many, at the same time...only in time of war, folks, only in time of war

Vague terrorist threats shutting down nineteen of our embassies, Russian strongman Putin thumbing his nose at President Obama, Iran jerking our chain – the U.S. hasn’t looked this cowardly on the world stage since the Jimmy Carter administration. Here at home, too, we’ve gone back to the Carter future; unemployment is high, Keynesian economics are all the rage, our professorial president is increasingly whiny and ineffectual; all that’s missing is a cardigan sweater and that infernal violin. Our recent contre-temps with Russia is a throw-back to the weak-kneed Carter era. President Vladimir Putin has granted temporary asylum to NSA leaker...

“American intelligence agencies (issued) an unusual global travel alert to American citizens on Friday, warning of the potential for terrorist attacks by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates beginning Sunday through the end of August.” NYT Wait a minute: I thought Osama was dead and GM was alive -- maybe we got that backwards? Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula GM in Detroit: the ash heap of history In response, Big Guy’s birthday celebration originally scheduled for August 4, his alleged day of birth, has been extended through the entire week! A global travel alert and 21 embassies...

HSBC bank has reportedly asked more than 40 diplomatic missions to close their accounts as part of a programme to reduce business risks. The Vatican's ambassadorial office in Britain, the Apostolic Nunciature, is among those said to be affected. The head of the UK's Consular Corps told the Mail on Sunday the decision has created "havoc". The Foreign Office has been in touch with HSBC, stepping in to help diplomats open other bank accounts. HSBC said embassies were subject to the same assessments as its other business customers. They need to satisfy five criteria - international connectivity, economic development, profitability,...

The terror threat prompting the U.S. government to close nearly two dozen embassies and consulates Sunday is the most specific, credible threat information in years, CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reports. Intelligence officers have reporting from a reliable source that a major plot is under way and that the team to carry it out has been selected and is in place, Miller reports.

The United States intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operatives of Al Qaeda, in which the terrorists discussed attacks against American interests in the Middle East and North Africa, American officials said Friday. The intercepts and a subsequent analysis of them by American intelligence agencies prompted the United States to issue an unusual global travel alert to American citizens on Friday, warning of the potential for terrorist attacks by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates beginning Sunday through the end of August. The bulletin to travelers and expatriates, issued by the State Department, came less than a day...

I know this sounds hysterical to post about a seemingly tin foil conspiracy development but I am prepared to risk some credibility and get it out there so that we can say we weren't completely surprised. First, 120 embassies have been shut down. The rationale is presumably because AQ is planning an attack. Fine, go with that but that's not the real reason I am hearing from credible sources. I'll say in my own defense that I was told by another source last October, a substantial source who nevertheless did not have 100% of my trust, that Israel would attack...

U.S. embassies in a slew of Muslim countries will close on Sunday due to a credible and serious security threat. The embassies will close in response to "a specific threat against a U.S. embassy or consulate," according to a senior U.S. official, who called it a "concerted effort" to target an embassy or consulate in a Muslim country. "We just don't know which one," the official told ABC News. "There could be other targets, not just embassies," another U.S. official said. The threat is considered to be throughout the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Some of the biggest...

The United States will temporarily shut down its embassies and consulates around the world Sunday, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt, as a precautionary measure, the State Department said Thursday Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/01/us-to-shut-down-american-embassies-around-world-as-terror-threats-grow/#ixzz2amyIIbpR

Embassy Row: Gay diplomat an ‘insult’ Church leaders in culturally conservative Dominican Republic are outraged that President Obama nominated an openly homosexual activist to serve as ambassador to the Caribbean nation. Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez, the Roman Catholic archbishop of the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, Bishop Pablo Cedano and the Rev. Cristobal Cardozo, leader of the Dominican Evangelical Fraternity, are urging President Danilo Medino to reject the nominee, Chicago lawyer James Brewster. “It’s an insult to good Dominican customs,” Father Cardozo said last week. Bishop Cedano denounced the nomination for showing “a lack of respect,” and added cryptically:...

An Israeli watchdog group has complained that Israel's embassy in Washington falsely published that Netanyahu endorsed the "two-state solution" in the Knesset earlier this month. The false statement appeared in the Embassy's June 7 email update, according to the watchdog group, Mattot Arim. In fact, Mattot Arim said, the reported event never happened. The Prime Minister had refrained from mentioning the term “2-state solution” when speaking in the Knesset, the group said. "If PM Netanyahu had spoken of the 2-state solution, all sorts of duly elected officials would not of course have been able to participate in the approval vote...

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials confirmed that two American employees of the U.S. embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, were shot outside of a nightclub early this morning. The men were part of the embassy’s defense attaché and were hospitalized after the incident.

CARACAS — Two employees of the US embassy in Venezuela were shot and wounded early Tuesday in the capital Caracas, in a murky incident that local media and a police source said took place at a strip club. "We can confirm that two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington. "Medical staff inform us that their injuries are not life-threatening," he added, noting that they were hurt at "some sort of a social spot" but without specifying the venue or nature of their...

United States Embassy Stockholm, SwedenSecurity Message for U.S. Citizens: Update on ongoing Protests in Stockholm May 22, 2013 On Sunday, May 19, more than 100 cars were set on fire in the northern Stockholm suburb ofHusby by local rioters in protest over a police shooting. Similar incidents occurred on the nights of May 20-23, spreading into other areas near Stockholm. Swedish police have made several arrests and consider the situation contained. However, due to the potential escalation of the riots, the U.S. Embassy cautions U.S. citizens to avoid the following areas during the next several evenings: Husby, Tensta, Kista, Rinkeby,...

More glorious fruit of the Arab Spring. "3 Arrested in Plot to Bomb Egyptian Cities and Embassy," by Ben Hubbard in the New York Times, May 11 (thanks to Kenneth): CAIRO — Egyptian security forces have arrested three militants with ties to Al Qaeda who were planning terrorist attacks in Egyptian cities and against a foreign embassy, the interior minister said Saturday. A Western official said the Egyptians had privately identified the embassy as the United States Embassy in Cairo. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said at a news conference that the suspects had been arrested with 22 pounds of explosive...

Egypt’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday that it had detained men belonging to an al Qaeda-linked group who were planning a bomb attack on a foreign embassy in the country. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said Saturday that Egyptian security forces had intercepted a terrorist cell linked to al Qaeda that was on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack on a foreign embassy. “The Interior Ministry was able to direct a successful blow to a terrorist cell that was planning suicide operations,” Ibrahim said during a televised news conference. The minister did not specify which embassy was being targeted,...

The U.S. military has alerted two elite military units in Europe to be on standby if needed to respond to a deteriorating security situation in Tripoli, Fox News has learned. In recent days both the U.S. embassy and British embassy in Libya have removed non-essential staff from their embassies. A specialized Marine unit based in Moron, Spain, is in the process of being repositioned closer to Libya; and in Stuttgart, Germany, a special operations force assigned to AFRICOM has been placed on heightened alert.

The French embassy in Libya has been attacked and two guards have been injured. The attack took place in the country's capital, Tripoli. "There was an attack on the embassy. We think it was a booby-trapped car," the official told Reuters. "There was a lot of damage and there are two guards wounded." A Libyan source said the blast caused serious damage to the building.

KATHMANDU SNIPPET: The Annapurna Post vernacular daily reported on Sunday that the arrest was made on April 13. Identified as Mohsin Khosravian, the suspect is currently in police custody.

 The security officials at the Embassy speculated that the suspect was scouting the facility with a harmful intention "for he carried a tourist map of the Lazimpat area" where the Israeli mission is located. 

He had stayed in a Thamel-based hotel. After his arrest, the suspect told police that he had ventured out to find out a shop to repair his laptop.

 According to the report, the Nepal Police's Central Bureau...

(Reuters) - North Korea has asked Russia to consider the possibility of evacuating staff from its embassy in Pyongyang due to increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula, a spokesman for the Russian embassy said by phone from Pyongyang on Friday.

North Korean Diplomats 'Sell Millions of Dollars Worth of Drugs' North Korea sent a large amount of illegal drugs to its embassy in an East European country last December and ordered diplomats there to sell it for cash by early April, a diplomatic source here claims. "South Korean intelligence obtained the information from a North Korean agent who defected recently," the source said. "Similar orders were delivered to other North Korean embassies." North Korea has ordered each diplomat to raise US $300,000 to prove their loyalty and mark the birthday of nation founder Kim Il-sung on April 15. Each North...

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a classified report late last year that Russia’s military intelligence was responsible for a bomb blast that occurred at an exterior wall of the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, in September. ... The Times reported last week that Shota Utiashvili, director of information and analysis for the Georgian Interior Ministry, said the embassy blast and others in his country were the work of a Russian military intelligence officer named Maj. Yevgeny Borisov. “It is written without hedges, and it confirms the Georgian account,” said one U.S. official familiar with the U.S. intelligence report. This official...

Washington (CNN) -- A final meeting with the president. A farewell address to the State Department staff. A terrorist attack at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey. Hillary Clinton's last day as secretary of state on Friday seemed to be a microcosm of her four globe-trotting years as America's top diplomat. The former first lady had a full schedule, as usual, meeting in private with President Barack Obama at the White House and then attending the send-off ceremony with clapping, cheering workers at the agency she led. Those events were clouded by a suicide bombing earlier in the day in Ankara...

DHA photo A suspected suicide bombing has occurred in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, causing at least two deaths. Two people, including the suspected assailant, as well as a security guard, were killed in the explosion while two others were injured, according to initial reports. The explosion occurred at the entrance used by the embassy personnel and their visitors, CNNTürk reported. A security guard at the X-ray machine at the entrance was killed in the explosion that occurred as the suspected suicide bomber was passing through the machine, the report said. Bomb experts are at the scene of...

 AP July 18, 1994: Rescue workers search through the rubble after the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.   The Iranian government directly ordered an act of terrorism in the Americas after being frustrated in its secret nuclear ambitions, a former chief of Argentine intelligence tells FOX News in an exclusive interview.Miguel Angel Toma, the former head of the Argentina's intelligence service, tells FOX News' Dan Senor that the Iranian government directly ordered a terror bombing on a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994. The interview will air on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, also the top contender to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, had another meeting on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning, with moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Following that meeting, Sen. Collins told reporters that she “continues to be troubled” (hmm, sounds familiar) about Ambassador Rice’s post-Benghazi talk show appearances, and opened another line of attack on Rice’s prospective nomination: her tenure as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, during which bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania occurred. snip From Bloomberg News: "When Rice was confronted with...

Embassy of Israel ✔ @IsraelinUSA @ScottPelley @CBSEveningNews today's show ignored the 150+ rockets fired at Israel this week. No other state would accept a similar reality. 14 Nov 12 Reply Retweet Favorite Conservatives aren’t shy about calling out American news networks for overlooking stories that doesn’t fit the liberal narrative, but the Embassy of Israel took to Twitter today to call out Scott Pelley and the CBS Evening News for not reporting on the rocket attacks on Israel this week. CBS’s Mark Knoller notes that the rare occasion of a presidential news conference dominated the news cycle today.

Why is there NO REPUBLICAN calling together a committee to investigate this? Why are no subpoenas being issued? Why is no one being put under oath? Forgive me if this vanity is an egregious offense to protocol, I do not mean it to be. And take it down if necessary. I just believe this is an enormous question that a lot of us have, and it deserves to be answered. Does anyone know?

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia's anti-terror squad arrested 11 people suspected of planning a range of attacks on domestic and foreign targets including the U.S. Embassy and a site near the Australian Embassy, police said Saturday. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/27/indonesia-reports-suspects-planned-attack-on-us-embassy/#ixzz2AYUPPqIm

SNIPPET: "Indonesian anti-terror police, Densus 88 secure a terror suspect's house during a raid in Mojosongo, Solo in Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested 11 members of an Islamic group allegedly planning attacks on American diplomatic missions, a spokesman says." SNIPPET: "The group had planned to hit the US embassy and a US consulate, as well as a building near the Australian embassy in the capital Jakarta that houses the office of American mining giant Freeport-McMoran, police said. Police said they were from a new outfit called HASMI, the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, and explosives and a bomb-making manual...

Biden saying that was one of the most irritating moments of the debate, because Martha Raddatz QUICKLY moved on from it before Ryan could say anything in his defenseAnyone who thinks she wasn't working to help Biden is a fool.

I wonder what the administration will blame for this murder? Another movie, perhaps? .. Yes, but Osama is dead and al-Qaeda is being defeated. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/yemeni_man_who_headed_security_team_at_us_embassy_assassinated.html#ixzz290Fuodat

SANAA, Yemen | Yemeni security officials say a gunman has assassinated the Yemeni chief of security at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa. The officials say Qassem Aqlani, who was in his fifties, was shot dead while on his way to work early on Thursday. They say a gunman on a motorcycle opened fire at him and fled the scene.

(CNSNews.com) - In the months leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the U.S. Embassy in Libya was seeking to hire two bodyguards with “limited” English language skills at salaries of about $13,000 per year.Job descriptions for these openings that the U.S. Embassy in Libya posted online said the State Department would give preference in filling them to qualified U.S. citizens who were family members of U.S. government employees.The job descriptions explicitly stated that this included the “same-sex domestic partners” of U.S. government employees.In addition to the two bodyguards, the U.S. Embassy in...

Obama camp: Ryan budget would have cut embassy securityBy Julian Pecquet - 10/07/12 05:09 PM ET Democrats are hitting Mitt Romney over the House GOP budget's potential cuts to embassy security as the Republican candidate and his allies on Capitol Hill seek to make inadequate protection in Libya a campaign issue. Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), put forward a budget blueprint this year that would have cut non-defense discretionary spending by 19 percent by 2014. While the blueprint doesn't specify cuts to embassy security, applying that figure across-the-board would yield a $300 million reduction in State Department funding...

SNIPPET: "Two U.S. planes have flown radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other suspected terrorists to the United States, hours after Britain's High Court cleared the way for their extradition. The planes departed a Royal Air Force base immediately after the British High Court rejected last-minute appeals by Hamza and the others. The five had raised legal questions about human rights and prison conditions they expected to face in the United States. In rejecting the appeals, the British court cited an “overwhelming public interest” in seeing the extraditions carried out. Hamza is wanted on U.S. charges that include...

On and around September 11, 2012, al Qaeda attacked multiple American assets around the world. The attack that has received the most attention is the deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But the U.S. consulate in Libya was not the only diplomatic facility assaulted by al Qaeda-affiliated groups in September. Terrorists with ties to al Qaeda’s senior leaders, including al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri, were involved in at least three other U.S. embassy sieges in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, and possibly elsewhere. A timeline of these assaults is...

h/t Doug Ross

The anti-Islam film that is being used as an excuse for violent protests in many countries had "nothing to do with" a deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi earlier this month, Libya's leader told NBC News. This assertion flies in the face of the view expressed by President Barack Obama, that the attack was part of a reaction to "The Innocence of Muslims" video. Obama hinted at this view again Wednesday in his speech at the UN General Assembly. In an exclusive interview with NBC News' Ann Curry, Mohammed Magariaf – who is president of Libya's National Assembly...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered Libya more help on Monday as it seeks to rein in militias, stressing that Washington will remain a firm partner despite this month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. ...snip... A senior U.S. official said Clinton reviewed U.S. assistance to Libya as it works to secure chemical weapons and other dangerous armaments and to crack down on armed militia groups that have sprung up since the ouster of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi. "The secretary offered to intensify our support and help for the Libyan government in all...

When a false narrative collapses, it tends to accelerate on the way down. Just eight days after UN Ambassador Susan Rice went on five Sunday talk shows to insist that the sacking of our consulate in Benghazi and the murder of our ambassador resulted from a protest over a YouTube video that "spun out of control," only 23% of likely voters buy that argument in Rasmussen's latest poll. In fact, two-thirds think it was "very likely" a preplanned terrorist attack --- as evidence has begun to show: Most voters think the recent protests at U.S. embassies in the Middle East...

President Barack Obama has thanked the Egyptian president for securing the U.S. Embassy during protests against a film made in the United States that mocked Prophet Mohammad and sparked worldwide demonstrations and violence. Obama's rival in the U.S. presidential race, Mitt Romney, called for a tougher line with Egypt after protesters scaled the compound wall and tore down the U.S. flag on September 11. Police clashed with demonstrators for four days after that incident and barriers were erected to stop them getting near the compound. In a letter, Obama repeated Washington's condemnation of the film and said he looked forward...

The murder of a U.S. Ambassador is not only tragic, but it is also very unusual. It was the first time in 33 years an American diplomat had been killed while serving this nation. This is a major incident that should lead to congressional investigations and a full review of what happened. Since this incident occurred, the Obama administration has been unable to keep their story straight. Initially, the administration said the attack was a violent reaction to an amateurish anti-Muslim movie. Eventually, this cover story fell apart causing Jay Carney, the President’s Press Secretary, to finally admit that it...

A video released over the weekend, which some news outlets claimed had showed Libyan men trying to save U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens as his body is recovered from the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, has turned out to show the opposite. Arutz Sheva posted a report on the video with the translation given by prominent news sources, but raised immediate doubts as to the authenticity of its interpretation, which have now been shown to be well founded. According to an alternative translation provided to Alex Jones' Infowars by a native Arabic speaker, there is no evidence whatsoever that the men in...