Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Pentagon on Monday released the names of six former Guantanamo detainees who U.S. officials say re-emerged as Islamist fighters in Afghanistan after their release from the U.S. military prison in Cuba. The Defense Department said three of those released from the prison for suspected militants resurfaced as senior Islamist fighters in Afghanistan while a fourth was later identified as having been a Taliban deputy defense minister. The six were among 30 former detainees who the Pentagon said have rejoined the fight against U.S. and coalition forces since their release from Guantanamo.

SAN DIEGO – San Diego's laborious and long-delayed 2003 annual financial audit is finished after three tortuous years in which the city's credit rating and reputation tumbled to unprecedented lows following a wide range of accounting errors. Mayor Jerry Sanders is set to announce at an afternoon news conference Friday that auditors from the giant accounting firm KPMG have finally stopped being suspicious of the city's accounting. The Mayor's Office said it received a two-page letter from the firm Friday. The letter, dated Monday, says that KPMG has concluded its audit and found that San Diego's financial statements “present fairly,...

American hostage freed in Nigeria An American engineer and his Nigerian driver, who were taken hostage by gunmen in Nigeria's Delta region, have been freed. The two were seized by armed men in January, together with a British man who was later freed on health grounds. The men were handed over to local officials late on Saturday. Scores of foreign workers have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta region in recent months. At least four foreigners are still being held. In many cases, hostages are freed after their companies or local government officials pay ransoms. The details of the latest...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2006 -- Three terrorists were captured in Afghanistan yesterday, and 26 detainees were released from a Bagram facility. Earlier this week, U.S. troops provided humanitarian assistance in eastern Afghanistan. During an operation near the village of Qasemaul Kalay, in Khowst province, Afghan and coalition forces captured three terrorists who posed a serious threat to peace and stability in Afghanistan, military officials said. No Afghan or coalition forces or Afghan civilians within the compound were harmed during the operation. Elsewhere in Afghanistan yesterday, 26 detainees were released from the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. Officials determined the detainees...

An off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent was held for more than a day by Mexican authorities after crossing the border at San Luis with ammunition in his car before his release late Friday, authorities said. The unidentified agent was arrested Thursday as he entered Mexico at the San Luis Port of Entry in southwest Arizona, said Raul Berumen, a spokesman for municipal authorities in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico. Mexican Customs inspectors found a bag containing 650 rounds of .40-caliber ammunition in the agent's 2006 Nissan Altima, Berumen said. Possessing firearms or ammunition in Mexico is illegal and large warning...

FOX News journalists Steve Centanni and veteran cameraman Olaf Wiig were released by a Palestinian terrorist group early Sunday morning. Centanni, 60, and Wiig, 36, were abducted on August 14th and held captive for 14 days somewhere in Gaza, south of Israel. In an interview with FOX, Centanni said himself, Wiig and a so-called security man were ambushed by a group which consisted of four hooded gunmen. For the first week of Centanni's and Wiig's captivity, there was a virtual news blackout regarding this case with little or no reports on the subject coming from FOX News or any other...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a government request to deny the release of a top fundraiser for an Islamic charity that authorities say has ties to terrorism, his attorneys said. The move by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came days after a federal district judge ordered the release of Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, 45. Hamdan was to be released Monday evening, said Ranjana Natajaran of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Hamdan has been held at the Terminal Island federal detention facility in San Pedro for more than two...

Johnny Briscoe is a free man today, after serving 23 years for crimes the state now says he didn't commit. Briscoe walked out of a state prison in Charleston, Mo., on Wednesday after serving part of a 45-year sentence for convictions involving a 1982 sexual attack on a woman ... Thanks to DNA testing, authorities confirmed ... that Briscoe was innocent and that the real rapist was already in another Missouri prison. ... St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch called him ... and "apologized to him on behalf of the county, particularly for the past six years." ......

PHILADELPHIA - Lil' Kim celebrated Independence Day one day early with her release from a federal detention center Monday morning after nearly 10 months behind bars. The rapper, who was sent to prison for lying about a shootout outside a New York radio station, walked out of the jail looking glamorous in sunglasses and an all-white, cleavage-baring outfit. Carrying a balloon and a bouquet of white roses, she waved to dozens of cheering onlookers _ some carrying signs that said, "Welcome Home, Queen Bee" _ before getting into a silver Rolls-Royce. The car pulled into a nearby parking lot where...

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2006 – Coalition forces today captured an al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist in a raid at his home, one day after the Iraqi government and the coalition released 450 detainees from internment facilities, military officials reported. A noncombatant who coalition troops perceived as an imminent threat was killed. The targeted terrorist had ties to senior al Qaeda leaders throughout the region, officials said. The ground forces secured his house and detained him without incident. At the home, troops found small-arms weapons, hidden ammunition, and $4,000 in sequentially numbered U.S. $100 bills. While securing the target, officials said,...

Hardline Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir walked out of a Jakarta jail today after serving time for links to the 2002 Bali bombings. Bakir planned to return immediately to an Islamic school in central Java once dubbed the "Ivy League" of militants. Wearing his trademark white skullcap and shawl, a smiling Bashir was surrounded by supporters shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) and by media before getting into a car and being driven away. Seen by the West as the spiritual head of the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah (JI) regional militant network, Bashir was convicted of being part of a...

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2006 – In a joint initiative, the Iraqi government and Multinational Force Iraq released more than 220 security detainees June 11 from coalition-run internment facilities, U.S. military officials reported. "You must give the government a chance and become productive members of society," Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi told some detainees prior to their release from Abu Ghraib Theater Internment Facility. The release is part of an Iraqi government plan to release up to 2,500 detainees by the end of June, U.S. military officials said. The release consists of those not guilty of serious, violent crimes such as...

Brothers arrested in terror raid freed without charge (Filed: 09/06/2006) Two brothers arrested following a controversial anti-terror raid by police during which one of the them was shot, have been released without charge. Mohammed Abdul Kahar and Abul Koyair were being questioned at London's high security Paddington Green police station after the raid in Forest Gate, east London, last week. But tonight the 20-year-old and 23-year-old were released, and a police spokesman said that the search of their home had been completed. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We appreciate the police operation has caused inconvenience and disruption to the occupants...

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2006 – Iraqi and coalition forces captured eight terrorist leaders in recent operations in Baghdad neighborhoods. Also, the Iraqi-led Combined Review and Release Board released more than 200 detainees. Yesterday, Iraqi forces raided two targets in the Karada area of Baghdad and detained seven individuals responsible for homemade bomb attacks against Iraqi security forces. The first target was a dormitory on Baghdad Technical University's campus where two student cells, operating out of dormitory rooms, built bombs and later initiated attacks against Iraqi army and police forces. Four students were detained during this operation. At the second target,...

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2006 – Multinational Force Iraq released 299 male detainees from coalition-run prisons, and coalition forces responded to insurgent small-arms fire yesterday, military officials in Iraq reported. The Iraqi-led Combined Review and Release Board reviewed the detainees' files and recommended release. The CRRB was established in August 2004 and consists of members from the Ministries of Human Rights, Justice and Interior, as well as officers from the multinational forces. To date, the board has reviewed the cases of more than 36,700 detainees, recommending more than 18,750 individuals for release. In other news, coalition forces delivered precision munitions in...

Former Tucson sector Border Patrol agent Scott James says he caught his fair share of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico during his years of service with the agency. Not that it really mattered, he added. James, who resigned from the Border Patrol two months ago, said his job, like those of his colleagues, was little more than a sham. Enforcing the law was the last thing the Department of Homeland Security wanted, he said. Some illegal immigrants apprehended on the border are from Pakistan, Iraq, China and other countries considered by the Department of Homeland Security to be...

An Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity has appealed for asylum in another country, the United Nations said Monday after hundreds of Muslims marched against a court's decision to dismiss his case.Afghan officials did not say whether Abdul Rahman had been released after the case against him was dismissed Sunday, but the U.N. statement came amid unconfirmed reports that he was being freed."We do understand that he will be released," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. "We're pleased by that."Earlier Monday, hundreds of clerics, students and others chanting "Death to Christians!"...

Released hostages 'refuse to help their rescuers' By Oliver Poole in Baghdad (Filed: 25/03/2006) The three peace activists freed by an SAS-led coalition force after being held hostage in Iraq for four months refused to co-operate fully with an intelligence unit sent to debrief them, a security source claimed yesterday. The claim has infuriated those searching for other hostages. The Canadians: Harmeet Sooden and Jim Loney Neither the men nor the Canadian group that sent them to Iraq have thanked the people who saved them in any of their public statements. One of them, Norman Kember, 74, a retired physics...

WASHINGTON, March 20, 2006 – Iraqi and coalition troops detained suspects and seized weapons caches throughout Iraq, and an Iraqi review board recommended the release of a number of male detainees being held in the country, Multinational Force Iraq officials reported. In Salah Ad Din province today, Iraqi Army and Task Force Band of Brothers units continued "Operation Swarmer." The operation was launched March 18 to clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra, military officials reported. Today's operation yielded an additional three caches of small-arms ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades. The combined forces also detained three men suspected of...

John "Junior" Gotti, who insists he quit the mob family run by his late father, the "Dapper Don," watched jury selection start yesterday at his racketeering retrial in Manhattan. One prospective juror was quickly disqualified: a former supervisor of the FBI's organized crime squad. The most serious charge facing Gotti is the 1992 kidnapping of radio host Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime-fighting group, who allegedly was targeted by "Junior" Gotti because of his on-air rants against the late John Gotti.