Free Republic

MANILA, Philippines – More than 30 police commandos were killed in a clash with Muslim insurgents Sunday in the southern Philippines in the biggest single-day combat loss for Philippine forces in many years, officials said.

U.S. counterterrorism personnel played a hidden but key role in a bungled commando operation in the Philippines that resulted in dozens of deaths and a political scandal, according to a government investigation released Tuesday in Manila. At least six Americans were present at a Philippine command post during the ill-fated January raid and supplied Philippine forces with surveillance data collected by U.S. aircraft, the investigation found. One of the Americans went so far as to order a Philippine army general to call in artillery fire, though the general angrily refused, investigators found.

"9/11 plotter released in Syria prisoner exchange" SNIPPET: "The al-Qaeda recruiter reputed to have assembled the so-called Hamburg Cell, which planned and largely carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been set free in a prisoner exchange between rebel and regime forces in Syria. Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham has secured the release of 9/11 plotter and alleged al-Qaeda core member Mohammed Haydar Zammar, adding to concerns about the composition of the Islamic Front. A naturalized German citizen of Syrian origin, Mohammed Haydar Zammar left Germany shortly after the attacks and traveled to Morocco, where he was reportedly...

A Saudi family who “fled” their Sarasota area home weeks before 9/11 had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001,” according to newly released FBI records. One partially declassified document, marked “secret,” lists three of those individuals and ties them to the Venice, Fla., flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. Accomplice Ziad Jarrah took flying lessons at another school a block away. Atta and al-Shehhi were at the controls of the jetliners that slammed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. Jarrah was the...

SNIPPET: "Social media is no longer simply a fun way to share updates on the harmless idiosyncrasies of our lives. It can undermine national security, and there ought to be a more robust discussion between the Bay Area technology world and Washington on what to do about it. Cyber-terrorism, especially the potential for electronic tampering with U.S. industrial or military installations, is a paramount national security threat that Washington is working to forestall. We're all working to protect our accounts from hackers. But the cyber-threat getting far less public attention involves the social media networks we use every day and the...

The Philippine military says it has killed three senior militants from al-Qaeda-linked groups in a raid in the south of the country. The air raid took place on Thursday in an area known as a militant stronghold. Officials said two Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leaders and one Abu Sayyaf leader were among a total of 15 people killed. Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, or Marwan, who was on the US FBI's most wanted list with a $5m (£3.2m) reward offered for his capture, was reported killed. According to the military, the militants were killed in the town of Parang on Jolo island,...

Cairo: The son-in-law of former Egyptian president Jamal Abdul Nasser, named by Israeli officials as a source for Mossad, "lost his balance" before a fall from his London balcony, Egyptian state media said yesterday. Ashraf Marwan, who died on Wednesday, had been living in London for many years after leaving Egyptian government service in the late 1970s. Israeli media say that Marwan, who was married to Nasser's daughter Mona, had passed a warning to Israel's Mossad intelligence agency on the eve of the 1973 Middle East war that Egypt and Syria were about to attack. The Times of London reported...

An Egyptian billionaire financier who feared for his life after being accused of being a Mossad spy was found dead outside his Mayfair flat yesterday in suspicious circumstances. Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of the late President Gamel Abdel Nasser, was found beneath his fourth-floor flat in Carlton House Terrace. Police were treating his death as suspicious. Friends of Mr Marwan, a former shareholder in Chelsea Football Club, said that he had feared assassination after being named three years ago as an agent during the Yom Kippur war. Rumours of his death circulated in London’s Arab community last night. Some believe...

CLEVELAND A federal grand jury has indicted three Ohio men on charges of planning attacks on U.S. military personnel in Iraq, according to an indictment. The three men, who all lived in Toledo within the last year, were arrested over the weekend, said Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bauer in Toledo. The indictment was unsealed Monday. They were to be arraigned in federal courts in Cleveland and Toledo on Tuesday afternoon. The suspects recruited others to train for a violent holy war against the United States and its allies in Iraq, the indictment said. The group traveled together to a shooting...

Blogs4Bauer has launched. The site kicked off 24 days prior to season 5 of 24 premier (which is 2 days, 4 hours long). We are looking for contributors, check it out.

I would like to put together a blogroll of avid '24' fans to post items about show and possibly host weekly of the show. If you have any suggestions or ideas, let me know. Either post a comment or email me and let me know if you are in for the Blogs for Bauer. No moles.

A Bronx man has been charged with possessing an illegal cache of about 1,000 counterfeit law enforcement badges, authorities said Tuesday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Sergio Khorosh on Monday at his home after he accepted delivery of about 100 fake U.S. Marshals Service shields. The delivery was being monitored by the agents, who had first intercepted the badges last month in a shipment from Taiwan to San Francisco. During a search of Khorosh’s home, agents discovered about 1,000 more badges, some resembling those of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and New York Police Department, court papers said....

The No. 3-ranking al Qaeda terrorist — whose capture was announced yesterday — was in contact with New York operatives when he was on the run in Pakistan, sources said. Abu Farraj al-Libbi — a top general for Osama bin Laden — had satellite phones and a "high-frequency wireless" with him when he was seized Monday night near the Afghan border, according to Pakistani intelligence. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was briefed yesterday about the implications for the city. But it remains unclear how recently al-Libbi had been in contact with his New York agents — or what was on their...

www.frontpagemag.com       Return to normal view How The Left Undermined America’s Security By David Horowitz FrontPageMagazine.com | February 18, 2002     While the nation was having a good laugh at the expense of Florida’s hanging chads and butterfly ballots, Mohammed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi were there, in Florida, learning to drive commercial jetliners [and ram them into the World Trade Center towers]. It will take a novelist to paint that broad canvas properly. It will take some deep political thinking to understand how the lackadaisical attitude toward government and the world helped leave the country so unready for...