Free Republic

'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh has penned an op-ed under the name Yahya Lindh that was published on the day the nation marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The bizarre opinion piece, published by The Intercept, does not identify the author as the notorious American who left his northern California home to fall in with the Taliban and met Osama bin Laden before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Headlined 'The Guantánamo Bay Internment Camp Is an Unresolved Vestige of the American Occupation of Afghanistan,' the article marks his most public overture since being released from prison after serving a 17-year...

John Walker Lindh, an American convert to Islam who fought for the Taliban, joined al-Qaeda, met with Osama bin Laden, and has praised ISIS, has been released from prison after completing 17 years of his 20-year sentence. Lindh (also known as Yahya, Sulayman al-Faris, and Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi) will be living in Virginia. David Wood discusses the issue.

John Walker Lindh - or Abdul Hamid, as he may well prefer to be styled - comes out of prison today. At the time we were assured he was just a goofy kid who'd gone off to find himself and accidentally found the Taliban instead. But here we are, eighteen years later, and he's even more fully committed to global jihad than before. And, for some reason, the Irish Government chose to confer citizenship on a convicted jihadist while he was in gaol, so we can at least stop calling him the American Talib and instead refer to him as...

(CNN)John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban" whose capture in Afghanistan riveted a country in the early days after the September 11 attacks, has been released from prison, his lawyer said. After serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, Lindh, the first US-born detainee in the war on terror, on Thursday walked out of a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and will join the small, but growing, group of Americans convicted of terror-related charges attempting to re-enter into society. Lindh will live in Virginia subject to the direction of his probation officer, his lawyer, Bill Cummings, tells CNN. But...

Father of 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh 'Proud' of Son's Testimony in Group Prayer Lawsuit The father of John Walker Lindh, the young American who was captured in Afghanistan after 9/11 and sentenced to prison for aiding the Taliban against U.S. troops, said he is proud of his son for fighting in court today for the right to pray with other Muslim prisoners. "I was really proud of John," Frank Lindh told ABCNews.com. "Today he did such a good job of explaining the daily prayer. It was a really well informed testimony. It shows how much depth of knowledge he...

Maybe some of my fellow readers can help me through my confusion. I read in the Washington Post: ALEXANDRIA, Va. –– John Walker Lindh will likely go on trial in late August on charges that he conspired to kill Americans and aided terrorists while a foot soldier for the Taliban in Afghanistan. My confusion comes from a number of things. 1. There is no crime defined for serving any foreign power, in civil service or the military. It is not abnormal for Americans to serve in the military of a foreign power, and in fact many are required to do ...

Although Abdul Hamid has largely been forgotten, he is the young man sitting in the pew next to you at Mass. Abdul was the renowned American boy John Walker Lindh who turned Taliban fighter in Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001. The argument can be made that he is an icon for many American Catholic youth of our current day. John Walker Lindh was “raised Catholic” in his suburban California home. By the age of 16, he left his spiritual heritage in search of “his own spiritual path.” That eventually led him to Islam and to his senseless death...

Here is one of those shameful only in America stories: A convicted terrorist serving 20 years in a high-security Indiana facility is suing the Federal Bureau of Prisons because the mandatory jail uniform violates Muslim wardrobe rules. Can anyone imagine this occurring in any other country? The unbelievable story comes out of the Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary in western Indiana. The facility houses 1,514 male offenders, including a convict dubbed the American Taliban. His name is John Walker Lindh and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks he was captured in Afghanistan for aiding the Taliban against United States troops. Lindh subsequently...

John Walker Lindh was a middle-class kid in Northern California who converted to Islam and went to travel the world. U.S. authorities eventually captured him in Afghanistan after 9/11, when he was allegedly fighting alongside the Taliban. His story was the focus of a "Law and Order" episode, and a song called "John Walker's Blues" by Steve Earle. For the last five years, Lindh has been living in a secret prison facility in Indiana with convicted terrorists, neo Nazis and other inmates who get special monitoring. On Monday, Lindh will come out of the shadows and into a federal courthouse...

President Obama has promoted Tony West to the number three job at the Department of Justice – associate attorney general. The former Civil Division head will oversee a wide array of issues, including enforcement of federal election laws in the 2012 presidential election, but also GITMO detainee policy. Before coming to the Justice Department, West and his San Francisco law firm represented some of the most radical Islamic terrorist causes, including the American Taliban John Walker Lindh. West’s firm also was involved in the case of Mohamed vs. Jeppesen Dataplan, effectively attacking the CIA high value detainee rendition program....

American Taliban John Walker Lindh's father wrote this piece in the Sunday New York Times. Frank Lindh writes that his son was apprehended "unarmed and wounded." He also writes that his son "had no involvement with terrorism." Item: In a statement of fact signed by Lindh and his attorneys, John Walker Lindh stipulates 6. In or about late May or June 2001, the defendant agreed to attend a training camp for additional and extensive military training. In or about June 2001, the defendant traveled to the al-Farooq training camp, a facility associated with Usama Bin Laden, located several hours west...

Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera has broadcast a tape that appears to show one of the 11 September hijackers reading his last will and testament. The channel also aired a brief clip of wanted Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, who is shown kneeling beside his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, as al-Zawahri praises the actions of the bombers. The channel identifies the hijacker as Ahmad al-Haznawi al-Ghamdi, a name which closely resembles that of Ahmed al-Ghamdi, who was on Flight 175 that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Al-Jazeera said the footage - which it says it checked...

CHICAGO (AP) — A 29-year-old Illinois man who idolized American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh has been arrested after attempting to detonate what he thought was a bomb inside a van outside a federal courthouse, officials said Thursday. Michael C. Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested Wednesday and charged in a criminal complaint with one count of attempting to murder federal officers or employees and trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. Federal officials said the case has no connections with the major terrorism investigation under way in Colorado and New York. "This alleged plot drives home...

INDIANAPOLIS — Two Muslim inmates held in a special unit at the U.S. prison in Terre Haute say they aren’t allowed to pray in groups as often as their religion commands and have asked a federal judge to ease limitations on worship imposed by the Bureau of Prisons. The prison in western Indiana houses several high-security inmates, including American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence for aiding Afghanistan’s now-defunct Taliban government. The June 16 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana challenges limits on Islamic worship in the prison’s restrictive Communications Management...

Nuradin Abdi was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall. Iyman Faris was convicted in 2003 of planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Christopher Paul was convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the U.S. and Europe. All three terrorists worshiped and socialized at a small mosque in Columbus, Ohio, and, according to David B. Smith, an attorney for Faris, were part of a larger group of jihadists and extremists who frequented the mosque. The FBI now is investigating reports of links to that same mosque by Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammad...

Prison officials are easing restrictions on John Walker Lindh, the Californian captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan who became known as the "American Taliban," according to government documents...officials are expanding the number of people who can contact Lindh, who is serving a 20-year prison term without possibility of parole in a medium-security prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Lindh pleaded guilty more than six years ago to charges of supporting the Taliban and carrying a rifle and two hand grenades onto the battlefield in Afghanistan, where radicals fought the Northern Alliance aligned with U.S. forces..... Lindh's relatives depicted him as a...

Tony West was “American Taliban” terrorist John Walker Lindh’s defense lawyer On March 9, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on one of Barack Obama’s latest nominees. This time it was to assess the suitability of Tony West, Obama’s nominee for the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Division. Things went “smoothly” according to the San Jose Mercury News, also publishing a nice bio of West. The Washington Post merely mentioned the hearing was “notable.” Similarly the East Bay Express simply makes mention of the hearing having occurred. Apparently there was nothing of...

Tony West, a high-powered San Francisco lawyer whose clients have ranged from corporate giants to "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, has been nominated by President Obama as an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Division. West, 43, an Oakland resident, met Obama in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention and was one of his finance co-chairs in California last year, when the campaign raised a record $65 million in the state. A graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School, West worked as a Justice Department attorney under President Bill Clinton, a federal prosecutor in San...

If it's December, it's time for the left to throw another shameless pity party for convicted American jihadist John Walker Lindh (aka Suleyman al-Faris, aka Abdul Hamid). Every Christmas season for the past four years, the Taliban accomplice and his parents have asked President Bush to pardon him. This country should save its tears and mercy for the defenders of freedom. The farther we move from the September 11 attacks, the cloudier our collective memory of Lindh's case becomes. Sympathetic journalists have rewritten the history, embracing him as a naive young hippie-dippie from Marin County, Calif., who was just caught...

San Francisco, CA (AP) -- The parents of American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh are asking President George W. Bush to set their son free before Bush leaves office next month.