Free Republic

A U.S. citizen and a foreign national were charged in federal court in Miami on Tuesday with providing financing and recruits to al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist organizations fighting in Syria and other places. Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in India, and Mohamed Hussein Said, a 25-year-old Kenyan, were arraigned on a 15-count indictment charging them with links to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia. Both men, who were arrested in Saudi Arabia and turned over to U.S. custody last week, pleaded not guilty and were ordered held...

The president of Iraqi Kurdistan vowed Saturday to defend the large Kurdish population across the border in neighboring Syria from al-Qaida-linked fighters. The comments from Massoud Barzani follow weeks of clashes in predominantly Kurdish parts of northeastern Syrian near the Iraqi border between Kurdish militias and Islamic extremist rebel factions that have killed dozens on both sides. The fighting in the oil-rich region has emerged as yet another layer in Syria's increasingly complex and bloody civil war. In a statement posted on the Kurdistan Regional Government's official website, Barzani called for a delegation to visit Kurdish areas in Syria to...

SNIPPET: "Mullah Krekar, the Norway-based Islamic extremist, is under investigation by German police for seeking to establish a Europe-wide terror network, Sweden's Expo magazine has reported.   The Germans have asked Sweden to interrogate a 28-year-old man from Västerås, who was in contact with Krekar in 2010.    "The German police have requested that we interrogate him, and they want it done in a court of law," Prosecutor Ronnie Jakobsson told the magazine.    Although the man is not suspected of any crime, German police believe that he has information about an Islamist terror network they suspect Krekar and another...

The Obama administration believes the bloody suicide attacks and car bombings in Baghdad that have killed dozens of Iraqis in recent days were likely carried out by al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). On Saturday evening, the State Department announced that the attacks bear the hallmarks of AQI - led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is now based in Syria.

<p>This year's Ramadan was the most violence since 2007, with 671 people killed. Police said the deadliest of today's attacks took place when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a residential area in the town of Tuz Khormato, 130 miles north of Baghdad, killing eight people and wounding dozens. "My shop's windows were smashed and smoke filled the whole area," says a shoe shop owner, who survived an attack near his store in New Baghdad. "I went outside of the shop and I could hardly see because of the smoke. ... At the end, we had a terrible day that was supposed to be nice because of Eid."</p>

A wave of bomb attacks hit Iraq over the weekend, as people celebrated the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan, with more than 60 reported dead. The BBC reported that 11 bombs targeted both Shiite and Sunni areas of the capital, Baghdad, hitting cafes, markets and restaurants in at least nine different districts. A bomb also killed at least 10 people in Tuz Khurmato, north of the capital. This Ramadan in Iraq is thought to have been one of the deadliest in years, with more than 670 people killed. Most of the violence in the past six months...

Violence has been on the rise across Iraq since a deadly crackdown by government forces on a Sunni protest camp in April, and attacks against civilians and security forces notably spiked during Ramadan. The surge of attacks has sparked fears that the country could spiral into a new round of widespread sectarian bloodshed similar to that which brought the country to the edge of civil war in 2006 and 2007. In the holy Shiite city of Karbala, police said four people were killed in a car bomb attack near a cafe at night. Karbala is 80 kilometres (50 miles) south...

War On Terror: Al-Qaida's destabilization of Iraq snowballs, the Taliban plots its return to power in Afghanistan, and U.S. diplomats now flee Pakistan and other outposts in the region. Behold America in retreat. 'Leading from behind" is the Obama administration catchphrase used to camouflage American global decline. Think of a baseball team's PR flack telling you, "Never mind we're not even playing .400 ball; these boys are going to the World Series!" As described by the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, to whom an Obama aide coined the term in 2011, "it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power...

Security inside Iraq is unraveling at an alarming pace, and al Qaeda terrorists there aren’t just pulling the thread; they’re setting it on fire. More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in bombings and shootings last month, making July the deadliest month since violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims peaked from 2006 to 2008, the United Nations says. On Thursday, gunmen stormed a policeman’s home in Tikrit and killed him, his wife and their three children. When neighbors later approached the house, a nearby car bomb exploded and killed eight people — a noted al Qaeda tactic, though the terrorist group...

SNIPPET: "Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, 30, and Mohamed Hussein Said, 25, face an indictment charging them with conspiring to provide and attempting to provide material support to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, according to authorities." SNIPPET: "The defendants, while based overseas in 2011-13, allegedly sent thousands of dollars via Western Union to an al-Qaida terrorist affiliate, al-Nusrah Front, which is fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. They also allegedly sent funds to al-Shabaab, another terrorist group seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed transitional government in Somalia."

In wake of Tuesday’s decision by police officials in charge of the Temple Mount to ban non-Muslims entrance to the holy site, some two hundred protesters stood Wednesday morning at the foot of the Mugrabi entrance seeking to reverse their exclusion. The mass protest was prearranged following an announcement by Police Commander Avi Bitton that the Temple Mount will remain closed to Jews and tourists at least until after the end of Ramadan’s closing festival of “Eid” which is to be next Sunday, the 11th of August. video .....

President Barack Obama has continued slow-walking a visa application from an Afghan translator who helped a Medal of Honor recipient save American lives, the Washington Free Beacon reports. “Four years ago, an Afghan translator known as ‘Hafez’ [a pseudonym used to protect his true identity] charged into enemy fire to help Marine Corporal Dakota Meyer rescue wounded American soldiers during one of the most famous battles in the Afghanistan war,” the Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman wrote on Wednesday. “Meyer received the Medal of Honor for his courage in the battle of Ganjgal--the first living Marine to receive the honor since...

...Those who talk about a durable peace are by definition giving up on Palestine...

Moscow, August 7, Interfax – Delays in the process of suppressing terrorists in Syria can result in setting up an Islamic caliphate in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes. "Earlier, we saw how some members of the Security Council didn’t want to condemn terrorist acts in Syria, saying, that, no matter how cynical it may sound, those who carry out these acts struggle against the regimen, which exhausted itself. This position is absolutely unacceptable, terrorism should be treated without any double standards," he said at a press conference summing up his talks with Ghana Foreign Minister Hannah Tetteh....

#BreakingNews - Activists: #FSA downs Iranian cargo plane at #Damascus International Airport. #Syria

Arizona Senator John McCain is in Egypt with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham just weeks after the new government, run by the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the military. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was heavily protested by millions of people as he tried to turn the fragile State into a dictatorship under Sharia law. More from The Daily Beast: During their whirlwind tour of Cairo Tuesday, two top GOP senators held the most extensive meeting to date between U.S. officials and senior officials in the embattled Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters are fighting in the streets to overturn last month’s...

The Syrian Army attacked a large group of antigovernment insurgents near the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday, killing more than 60, according to monitors and state media. The rebels killed near Damascus belonged to the Nusra Front, and some were foreigners, SANA said. It published a series of photographs showing bloodstained bodies in olive drab uniforms lying on what seemed to be open sandy, desert ground. The Nusra Front is an extremist group that the United States has designated a terrorist organization. In recent months, government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been seeking to clear areas around Damascus of...

The U.S. intelligence community has been leaking information on Israeli air strikes in Syria, and U.S. President Barack Obama is behind the leaks, according to a report in the World Tribune. Diplomats told the Tribune that the Obama administration has enabled the U.S. intelligence community to disclose details of Israeli military operations against the armed forces under Syrian President Bashar Assad. These leaks include reporting Israeli air and naval strikes on advanced Iranian and Russian weapons that arrived in 2013. “This is a decision that could come only from Obama,” a diplomat said. “[T]his reflects his dismay over the Israeli...

March 4, 2013 Obama Claims Al Qaeda Defeated, Al Qaeda Claims It Has Scud Missiles Daniel Greenfield Hmm this is a tough one. Whom to believe? The man who set the Muslim world on fire and unleashed the Islamist takeover of entire countries. Or Al Qaeda. In any case, Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the local Al Qaeda affiliated groups, claims to have captured a bunch of Scud missiles. They are reportedly planning to turn them into orphanages for the poor or possibly kill a lot of people. There’s just no way to know. Syrian rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda recently captured...

On 19 July 2013, Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an unclassified letter to Senator Carl Levin concerning the risks of US military intervention in Syria. While the letter is was ostensibly delivered to the Senate, it actually delivered the equivalent to ten American thermonuclear bombs hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously. While the letter was supposedly written by Dempsey, it was surely approved and intensely vetted by President Obama himself. So while the letter had Dempsey’s signature, it was Obama’s policy. The Dempsey/Obama letter outlined all the catastrophic effects which would...

Maulana Asim Umar, from a video by As Sahab. His face is intentionally blotted. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda arm, has released a video featuring Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Maulana Asim Umar, who calls on Indian Muslims to participate in the "global jihad to give a final push to the collapsing edifice of America." The video, titled "Why is There No Storm in Your Ocean?," was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. It was produced in May, but posted on jihadist forums on July 23. Asim Umar tells the Muslims of India that...

OCEANSIDE — While her Marine husband was in prison at Fort Leavenworth for killing an unarmed Iraqi, Reyna Hutchins got a call from the FBI: her name was on a "hit list" of a suspected American terrorist, an Al Qaeda sympathizer. "As much as they tried to reassure me that I was safe, I was still scared," she said. She worried each time she started her car that a bomb might be attached. She kept her curtains closed, fearing that she would become a target of a sniper. When she ventured out, she was constantly looking over her shoulder. "I...

On the same day that the U.S. Department of State issued a global terrorism warning, a message suspected to be from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was posted on multiple jihadist web forums on Friday. In the 14-minute audio message, the 62-year-old al-Zawahiri criticizes the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood-backed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, blaming the military coup that resulted in his removal on Americans and 'Zionists.' The crusaders, the seculars, the Americanized army, (former Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak's thugs and some members of Islamic parties with the support of Gulf money and American plotting, all agreed to topple Mohamed...

France and Germany are closing their embassies in Yemen on Sunday and Monday, which follows in the wake of the United States, which issued a global travel alert yesterday citing an al-Qaeda threat. That alert also caused the State Department to announce it would close its embassies this Sunday around the Muslim world. Interpol, meanwhile, issued a global security alert Saturday in connection with suspected al-Qaeda involvement in several recent prison escapes including those in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan. The alert calls on Interpol's 190 member countries to help determine whether these events are co-ordinated or linked.

Iran’s outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said 5,000 new centrifuges are ready to start operating at the country’s nuclear facilities. These are in addition to the 12,000 centrifuges already in operation. “12,000 centrifuge machines are now running in our nuclear sites and 5,000 new centrifuges are ready to start operation,” the hardline president told the country’s IRIB1 TV. … The West fears Iran is making steady progress towards nuclear weapons while the country insists its uranium enrichment was only for peaceful purposes. Meanwhile, a US think tank has noted that Iran may be able to achieve weapons-grade uranium by mid-2014....

BAGHDAD: Violence killed around one thousand people in July, government and United Nations figures show, making it Iraq's deadliest month since 2008 when the country was emerging from a bloody sectarian conflict. Bombings ripped through crowded cafes and mowed down worshippers at mosques last month, when militants also carried out brazen assaults on two prisons. "The impact of violence on civilians remains disturbingly high," UN envoy Gyorgy Busztin said in a statement. "We haven't seen such numbers in more than five years, when the blind rage of sectarian strife that inflicted such deep wounds upon this country was finally abating,"...

The recent series of prison breaks is not coincidental. In less than a week, we have 500 senior Al Qaeda leaders escape during two assaults on prisons in Iraq, more than 1,000 in a prison assault in Libya, and another 250 in a particularly nasty Taliban assault on a Pakistani prison.

SNIP Sissi: The dilemma between the former president and the people originated from [the Muslim Brotherhood’s] concept of the state, the ideology that they adopted for building a country which is based on restoring the Islamic religious empire. That’s what made [former president Mohamed Morsi] not a president for all Egyptians, but a president representing his followers and supporters. Weymouth: When did that become obvious to you? It was obvious on the first day – the day of his inauguration. He started with offending the judiciary and not giving them the appropriate treatment. The Brotherhood experience in ruling a country...

Olmert: Syrian peace overtures not genuine PM Olmert says Israel is for making peace with all its neighbors, describes Assad's peace overtures as false pretenses Ronny Sofer Latest Update: 12.20.06, 15:16 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert renewed his opposition to peace talks with Syria , describing recent peace overtures by Syrian President Bashar Assad as false pretenses. "Syria continues to support terror in Iraq, is collaborating with the Iranian President and is sparing no effort to topple the government of (Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad) Siniora," Olmert said during a joint press conference with his Norwegian counterpart Jens Stoltenberg in Jerusalem. "We...

A SOLDIER was attacked in an Exeter underpass by a gang who chanted “Lee Rigby” as they kicked him on the floor. The 18-year-old, known as Alexander, has been a member of the Coldstream Guards for six months. But on route to his home in St Thomas, Exeter, he said he was targeted by the hateful mob as he is a serving member of the armed forces. After a period of about two minutes he managed to escape after fighting off but fear his injuries could have been a lot worse. The incident happened at just before 2pm on Wednesday...

Fred Barnes while on the panel tonight on Special Report just stated Chirac is urging the Turks not to allow us bases and overflight rights.

PARIS (Reuters) - France assured Turkey Wednesday that it would help defend it if there was a war in neighboring Iraq, even though Paris vetoed NATO defense planning proposals this week. French President Jacques Chirac telephoned Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to pledge support and protection in the event of war, his spokeswoman said. "Chirac assured the Turkish president of France's full solidarity and said France would fulfill its obligations if Turkey was threatened," spokeswoman Catherine Colonna quoted Chirac as telling Sezer. Chirac told Sezer France's decision to veto NATO planning to protect Turkey in case of war did not...

Egypt is in turmoil again. Syria is embroiled in civil war. Iran continues building a nuclear device. Militants in Iraq have killed more than 4,000 people so far this year, more than 800 of them in July alone, according to the aptly named Iraq Body Count. And what is Secretary of State John Kerry's focus? It is the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Again facing U.S. pressure, Israel has agreed to renewed peace talks. It rejected demands from the Palestinian side for withdrawal from "occupied" lands and the freezing of new "settlements" as preconditions, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did agree to...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday that he sides with Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz because they are not afraid to ask important questions, and it is disheartening to watch establishment Republicans like Gov. Chris Christie "grow hysterical." "I consistently have been on the side of having the courage that Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have and I think it's sad to watch the establishment grow hysterical, but frankly they're hysterical because they have no answers," Gingrich said while appearing on "The Laura Ingraham Show," Politico reports. Gingrich was on Ingraham's show to offer his opinion on the...

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...

If a light bulb goes out somewhere in the Middle East, someone will come forward to blame a Jewish conspiracy. So when the Muslim Brotherhood's man is forced from office in the wake of massive Egyptian opposition rallies, it can't be due to his failings in office. Rather, Mohammed Morsi is the victim of a "Zio-American" scheme, senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil told Jordan's al-Sabeel newspaper earlier this week. The goal is not only to wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood, Bardawil said, but to destroy Egypt "in service of the Zionist project in the region," al-Sabeel wrote. The newspaper is...

For one Arizona Cardinals cheerleader, hearing the national anthem and seeing the American flag before games have a special meaning. It wasn’t easy for Megan Welter to go from Iraq veteran to NFL cheerleader, but the journey, she said, was worth it. “Our country has given us so many freedoms,” Welter told ABC15. “To be a part of fighting for that and maintaining that means a lot. It gives me goosebumps.” After graduating in 2007, Welter put her dance career on hold to “to take a job that was going to be meaningful, so I decided to join the Army."

Islamic messiah Mahdi expected to return with Jesus, kill infidels Iran is again asserting that Armageddon is at hand and that the Islamic regime’s followers, indeed all of Islam, must prepare for a monumental change in the world. Officials of the Islamic regime last month held their annual conference on the Mahdism Doctrine to prepare for the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam, Mahdi. Shiites, whose clerics rule Iran with an iron fist, believe that at the end of times, Mahdi, a 9th century prophet, will reappear with Jesus Christ at his side, kill all the...

Israeli intelligence satellites have spied the loading of rockets and other material in Iran believed to be destined for the Gaza Strip, the UK-based Sunday Times reported, citing Israeli officials. According to the report, Iran began preparing the weapons shipment around the same time Israel and Hamas negotiated a cease-fire late last week. The shipment is said to include Iranianmade Fajr-5 medium-range rockets, the same model that was fired toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during Operation Pillar of Defense, the Sunday Times reported.

With battle lines based on religious differences, the region is lining up behind two rival powers No Iraqi would have missed the subliminal message of al-Qaeda’s triumphant announcement yesterday. When the movement’s leaders claimed credit for two audacious prison breaks outside Baghdad, they declared how “months of preparation and planning” had culminated in these blows against a “Safavid government”. The Safavids have not actually been in government for a while – for a good 300 years, in fact. They were a Persian dynasty that dominated Iran and its empire, including a big slice of present-day Iraq, in the 16th and...

An Iranian semi-official news agency is reporting that a member of a small religious minority set himself on fire next to the country’s parliament building. ISNA’s late Saturday report says the man, a member of the Ahl Al-Haq, suddenly poured a bottle of fuel on his body and lit it. It said he was taken to hospital. …

The Kurdish militia captured the border town of Ras al Ayn on Sunday, which had been under rebel control since last November. A day later, the United States said it was "very concerned" at reports that the militia was about to declare self-rule in northern Syria. "Such a declaration is highly provocative, as it will certainly exacerbate tensions between Arabs and Kurds," Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Monday. Turkey, which embarked on a broad peace process in March with Kurdish militants at home, has warned that it won't tolerate an autonomous Kurdish province across the Syrian border. This...

Two spectacular al Qaeda prison breaks in Iraq, freeing over 500 of its members in two separate prisons simultaneously this week, demonstrate the group is back with a vengeance. Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch is also the moving force behind the jihadist success in Syria. The resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq has sobering implications for what is likely to follow the drawdown of NATO forces in Afghanistan for the al Qaeda mother ship in Pakistan. The double jailbreaks at Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons were massive attacks. Suicide bombers, teams of attackers using mortars and small arms, and two dozen...

WASHINGTON – As violence and political turmoil tear through a war-wrecked Iraq, military experts are warning Congress that Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist cells are regrouping and working together not only in Iraq but in the entire region to undo a decade of U.S.-led progress. “We left (Iraq) on the edge of being stable,” Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a former military intelligence officer, told Fox News. While saying it's clear the job was "not done," he warned: “Al Qaeda as an entity is coming back strong within the region and is doing things to destabilize governments, which, at this point in time,...

Sen. Lindsey Graham told a "cheering" audience Tuesday that if the relationship between the U.S. and Iran doesn't improve by the end of summer, he will ask Congress to authorize going to war."If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a resolution that will authorize the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb," the South Carolina Republican said, according to a post on CQ Roll Call, at a conference for members of Christians United for Israel today. "The only way to convince Iran to halt their nuclear program is to make it...

In an almost palpable irony, Russian and U.S. officials simultaneously announced their intent to move forward with controversial arms transfers to opposing sides in the Syrian civil war Monday.

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s al-Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility Tuesday for a jailbreak from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison that unleashed hundreds of militants into an already unstable region and boosted the group’s resurgent fortunes in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant said in a statement that hundreds of prisoners were freed late Sunday in two coordinated assaults in which fighters used suicide bombs and mortars to storm the two top security prisons on Baghdad’s outskirts at Abu Ghraib and Taji. Both were once run by the U.S. military and housed the country’s most senior al-Qaeda detainees....

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned on Monday that U.S. troops are “close to the breaking point,” after many deployments — and Congress risks worsening the situation if it doesn’t help the Pentagon with its budget. “Our people are strong and resilient after 12 years of war, but they are under stress — and so are the institutions that support them,” Hagel told the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the group’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky. “Last week at Fort Bragg’s Soldier and Family Assistance Center, I met a first sergeant who told me that in Afghanistan, he froze up and...

An Iraqi government spokesman says Baghdad has signed a deal with Iran to import natural gas for power generation, further intertwining the economies of the two Shiite-dominated countries. Electricity Ministry spokesman Musab al-Mudaris said Tuesday that the four-year deal stipulates that Iraq buy 850 million cubic feet a day of gas at international market prices. …

BAGHDAD/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of convicts, including senior members of al Qaeda, broke out of Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail as comrades launched a military-style assault to free them.