Free Republic

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has tripled its monthly production of higher-grade enriched uranium and the U.N. nuclear watchdog has "serious concerns" about possible military dimensions to Tehran's atomic activities, the agency's chief said on Monday. As International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano voiced his concerns at an IAEA meeting, U.S. President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Washington "has Israel's back" and would not let Iran get nuclear arms. Amano told a news conference at the IAEA in Vienna there were indications of unspecified "activities" at an Iranian military site which his inspectors want to visit as...

Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Osama bin Laden-inspired terrorist group that sank the country into sectarian violence five years ago, is trying to make a comeback in post-U.S.-occupied Iraq, analysts and intelligence officials say. Washington is closely watching whether AQI, as it is called, in the next year can reassemble networks smashed by the U.S. counterterrorism campaign. American commandos and intelligence officers killed AQI leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in 2006 and then scores of other chieftains until, by 2011, the group was decimated. But right after the last U.S. troops left Iraq in mid-December, the Sunni Muslim AQI claimed responsibility...

The official said the attorney general plans to say that lethal force is legal under a Sept. 18, 2001, joint congressional resolution. The Authorization for Use of Military Force enacted a week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks authorizes the use of all necessary force in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.

A former prime minister of Iceland on Monday rejected charges he failed to adequately protect his country’s economy from financial shocks, as he took the stand in the first criminal trial of a world leader to result from the 2008 financial crisis. Geir Haarde said neither he nor financial regulators knew the real state of Icelandic banks’ precarious finances until they collapsed in October 2008.

Al-Qaida’s style of jihad may be about to change, because of the loss of several of the terror group’s key leaders including Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, and the fact that they may be replaced in a fashion by several chiefs released recently by Iran and Syria. That doesn’t, however, mean less violence is expected, only different. It was reported earlier this month that Iran had granted greater freedom to five al-Qaida leaders on its soil. The most prominent official is Saif al-Adel, a key operations chief. According to the 9/11 Commission, he disagreed with the 9/11 attacks. Saif...

Last year several Hellfire missiles finally put an end to Anwar Al-Awlaki, a leading Al-Qaeda figure who had been involved in several terrorist attacks carried out against the United States, including the Times Square Bomber and the Underwear Bomber. It has even been alleged that Al-Awlaki may have had pre-existing knowledge of the attacks of September 11. Before all that though, Anwar Al-Awlaki had been the president of the Muslim Students Association at Colorado State University, home of the Rams and the future leader of external operations for Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Al-Awlaki’s path from MSA president to terrorist...

What I really want to talk about tonight is to warn America not to go down the same Islamic road that Europe finds itself on, particularly so Britain, which is almost on the point of no return — or perhaps no peaceful return. Samuel Huntingdon was not necessarily writing about Britain when he penned his prescient book "The Clash of Civilisations”, but one particular theme he raised very much applies to my poor old country where he refers to the dying of civilisations and the lack of concern amongst their native people, due to what he terms the "Illusion of...

The Libyan jailed for life following the 1988 Lockerbie bombing told investigators he travelled to Malta regularly to have sex. Prosecutors said the bomb which destroyed Pan-Am Flight 103 was in a suitcase loaded on the island. Previously secret documents, seen by BBC Scotland, detail the explanations of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, 59, for his presence on Malta.

Hackers gained "full functional control" of key Nasa computers in 2011, the agency's inspector general has told US lawmakers. Paul K Martin said hackers took over Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) computers and "compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users". He said the attack, involving Chinese IP addresses, was under investigation.

Journalists are much more tolerant of attacks on Christianity than Islam. It is a fact. ABC is airing a television show called “Good Christian Bitches.” Never mind the outrage over the recent Sandra Fluke business, but there is a double standard. And let’s not fool ourselves as the media would never tolerate a story where “Muslim” was substituted for “Christian” in that show. The media’s present politically correct excuse is that Islam binds certain minority group’s cultures in a way Christianity does not. First, that is crap and speaks of a secular ignorance about many Christian communities even in this...

The U.S. Navy says it has rescued an Iranian merchant seaman and recovered the bodies of three others after their boat capsized during rough weather in the Gulf.

-excerpt- The killings began with the gang kidnapping two police commanders from their homes in the western Iraqi city of Haditha around 2 a.m. It ended with the gang raising the flag of Al Qaeda at a police checkpoint...

A Yemeni government spokesman tells Fox News that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is responsible for the deaths of at least 60 Yemeni soldiers in the southern province of Abyan after a massacre Sunday. The attack at a forward operating base or FOB, about 10 miles from the strategic city of Zinjibar, an area largely controlled by the network's affiliate, included suicide bombers and VBIEDS (vehicle borne improvised explosive devices.) The assault began from the east, and like a one-two punch, a second assault was launched form the north with AQAP operatives taking control of the Yemeni military's...

Middle East foreign policy is Obama’s greatest strength and Romney’s greatest weakness. When I say ‘Obama’s greatest strength,’ I’m referring to voter perception and marketability. For example, get ready to hear Obama take credit for killing Osama bin Laden from the Situation Room about 10,000 times between now and November. Obama even devoted his 2012 State of the Union Address to previewing his foreign policy “wins.” But with zero military service under his belt and no international foreign policy experience, Romney is coming from behind. Romney also lacks a clear foreign policy agenda (like Rep. Ron Paul has) that appeals...

Afonso de Albuquerque arrived at the Indian Ocean in 1506 commanding a squadron of five war vessels integrated in Tristão da Cunha's Armada. In the summer of 1507, after the conquest of Socotra, the Armada's main objective, Afonso de Albuquerque departed on his own commanding a fleet of six vessels and 500 marines to take the easternmost island at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, called by local folk Hormuz. Defeating a garrison of 15,000 men with his artillery, Albuquerque took Hormuz and commissioned the construction of a fortress. This island would eventually lend its name to one of the...

BEAVERCREEK, Ohio - After a military mother told him her daughter doesn't understand her mission in the Air Force, Mitt Romney questioned how President Obama can "sleep at night," knowing troops overseas don't understand "precisely what they're doing there." "If your daughter is not familiar with the mission that she's on, how in the world can the commander in chief sleep at night, knowing that we have soldiers in harm's way that don't know exactly, precisely, what it is that they're doing there," Romney said. Vicki Chura, from Fairfield, Ohio, was one of several people who stood to ask Romney...

The joint U.S.-Israel Arrow Weapon System successfully intercepted a ballistic target missile during a flight test conducted today. This test is part of the Arrow System Improvement Program (ASIP) and was conducted jointly by the Israel Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency at the U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division-Pt. Mugu Sea Range. At 10:30 p.m. local time (Pacific Standard Time), the target missile was launched from a Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) off the coast of California, within the Pt. Mugu test range. The target was representative of potential ballistic missile threats facing Israel. The Arrow...

The Air Force is the world's most advanced air and space force and, with the integration of fifth generation aircraft, is gaining new tactical advantages that transcend beyond just stealth into areas such as enhanced maneuverability, multi-role capabilities and fused sensor and avionics systems that can communicate with other weapons systems. That's why it is imperative that U.S. forces continue to develop and begin to use fifth-generation fighters as they transition to the new Pacific-based strategy, according to Lt. Gen. Herbert J. "Hawk" Carlisle, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Requirements, Headquarters U.S. Air Force. During the Air...

In a visit to the heavily armed border with the South, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, ordered his troops on higher alert, escalating his militaristic language in spite of American calls to improve ties with the Seoul just a week after his country agreed to a nuclear freeze in return for badly needed food aid. .Mr. Kim has been hailed as the North’s leader since the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December, and has frequently visited frontline military units. But his trip to Panmunjon, a compound straddling the border where the armistice ending the Korean War was...

In mid 1995, I was accorded the privilege of an invitation to travel to Pyongyang, North Korea to discuss, with key North Korean institutions, the feasibility of inviting foreign direct investments into what was then and now a nation that no one really knows or understands. My mission at that time was orchestrated by the North Korean Trade Office in Singapore and the projected outcome was to entice one or more mining companies from Australia to commence exploration. The offers on the North Korean table were extremely appetising. I flew to Beijing and boarded an old Antanov aircraft which was...