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NORFOLK, Va., Aug. 27 (UPI) -- A Somali man Friday pleaded guilty in federal court in Norfolk, Va., to attacking the USS Ashland in the first successful U.S. piracy prosecution in 150 years. Jama Idle Ibrahim told the court he believed the Ashland was a merchant vessel he could hold for ransom. The ship was attacked April 10 in the Gulf of Aden. "Today marks the first conviction in Norfolk for acts of piracy in more than 150 years," U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said. "Modern-day pirates must be held accountable and will face severe consequences." Ibrahim, also known as Jaamac...

Barack Obama has become accustomed to being the center of attention. For many like him, that's one of the biggest appeals of politics, the television exposure it attracts and the power that seems to come with that instant recognition and fame. "As Advertised on TV" When you walk into a room now where pre-screened people have paid sometimes $40,000 just to be in your earthly presence, people stand, heads turns, lips whisper and hands clap. That's a heady experience, even if you weren't raised by grandparents because your birth parents chose to be absent. A modest upbringing, it seems, does...

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- NASCAR officials will review an incident in which Greg Biffle took a swing at Boris Said in the garage following Monday's Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen International. According to witnesses, Biffle approached Said's car after a wild green-white-checkered finish in which Said got into the back of David Ragan, Biffle's Roush Fenway Racing teammate.

The Federal Trade Commission has approved a controversial firm which scours social media sites to check on job applicants. It means anything you've ever said in public on sites including Facebook, Twitter and even Craigslist could be seen by your would-be employer.[Snip]It raises the frightening prospect of any social media posting, even it's years old or was meant as a joke, being used in background checks. Applicants who use online pseudonyms aren't safe, either - the firm uses special software to link those nicknames with real, offline names known to employers.

Kenneth Melson of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms faces controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns into Mexico. He is said to be eager to testify to Congress. The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is strongly resisting pressure to step down because of growing controversy over the agency's surveillance program that allowed U.S. guns to flow unchecked into Mexico, according to several federal sources in Washington.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2011 – Somali pirates killed all four Americans they had held hostage aboard a sailing vessel in the Indian Ocean this morning, U.S. Central Command officials announced. U.S. officials were negotiating with the pirates for the safe return of the captured Americans when the murders took place, officials said. Centcom officials said that in the midst of negotiations, U.S. forces responded to gunfire aboard the S/V Quest. When the forces reached the boat, officials said, they discovered all four hostages had been shot by their captors. Despite immediate steps to provide life-saving care, all four hostages ultimately...

An Afghanistan Christian and father of six, is imprisoned and scheduled to die. His crime? He believes Christ is his Savior. And he is scheduled to die because of it. No defense lawyer will take his case for fear of retribution. And he has been told that if he renounces Christ things would go easier. But he doesn’t. He won’t. Said Musa, who lost his leg from a landmine in the 1990’s and has worked since then as a medical worker for the Red Cross fitting children with prosthetics, has been in jail for eight months. According to a public...

SAN DIEGO -- U.S. border authorities have arrested a controversial Muslim cleric who was deported from Canada to Tunisia three years ago and was caught earlier this month trying to sneak into California inside the trunk of a BMW, according to court documents. Said Jaziri, the former Imam of a Muslim congregation in Montreal, was hidden inside a car driven by a San Diego-area man who was pulled over by U.S. Border Patrol agents...east of San Diego. Jaziri allegedly paid a Tijuana-based smuggling group $5,000 to get him across the border...saying he wanted to be taken to a "safe place...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Plans to close Guantanamo are not sitting well with the Sept. 11 victims' relatives who sat stunned while two alleged terrorists declared they were proud of their role in the plot.

SNIPPET - quote: October 11, 2010 North Carolina Muslim Admits Working with al Qaeda: "Proud to be an American Traitor" [Full text] ****Jawa Report Exclusive**** I think we can quit with the speculation about where he went and why Update by Rusty: The full text of Khan's story can be found at the end of this post. (Excerpt) Read more at mypetjawa.mu.nu ...

The search continued Wednesday for a man accused of murdering his two teenage daughters and leaving their bodies in his taxi cab. The Denton County Sheriff's SWAT team had surrounded a Lewisville home for hours Wednesday in search of Yaser Abdel Said, a 50-year-old cab driver, police said. Authorities entered the house about 4 p.m. to find it empty. The bodies of Sarah Yaser Said, 17, and her sister Amina Yaser Said, 18, were found Tuesday evening in Irving inside a Jet Taxi vehicle that Mr. Said drove, Irving police spokesman David Tull said.

Pajamas Media | Friday, December 12, 2008 The funeral for Shirwa Ahmed last week in Burnsville, Minnesota, punctuated a growing national security threat metastasizing inside the U.S. — one Homeland Security and law enforcement authorities have quickly taken note of. Ahmed, who killed himself in a suicide bombing attack in Somalia in October, is just one of up to 40 men from the Twin Cities area who have disappeared and are feared to have returned to their homeland for training with the al-Shabaab terrorist group to wage jihad. The FBI is investigating similar disappearances in other major Somali communities in...

Note: Photo and Graphic Included. NOTE The following text is a quote: FIGHTING TERROR 14 Indicted for Supporting al Shabaab 08/05/10 Two Americans are under arrest and 12 other U.S. citizens have been charged with acts of terrorism that include providing money, personnel, and other material support to the Somali-based terrorist organization al Shabaab. Results of an FBI-led global investigation were announced today at Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, where indictments were unsealed charging individuals in Minnesota, Alabama, and California. Twelve of the 14 under indictment are fugitives believed to be in Somalia. About al Shabaab On Feb. 29,...

The European Union on Monday expressed concern over the death of a 28-year-old man allegedly killed at the hands of Egyptian police, and called for an impartial inquiry into the matter. "The EU Heads of Mission express their concern about the circumstances of the death of Khaled Said in Alexandria on 6 June," European ambassadors based in Cairo said in a joint statement. According to witnesses, Said was killed when plainclothes policemen dragged him out of an Internet cafe and beat him to death on a busy Alexandria street. Disturbing images of Said's battered and bruised face have appeared on...

Note: The following text is a quote: Eight Area Men Sentenced on Federal Racketeering Charges Involving Conspiracy to Transfer Cash and Checks to the Palestinian Territories ST. LOUIS, MO—The United States Attorney’s office announced today that eight members of a criminal enterprise operating out of five St. Louis area convenience stores have been sentenced on charges of federal racketeering or related charges. As far back as 2000, the RICO conspiracy has involved bank fraud, receipt of stolen property, conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business, purchasing contraband cigarettes for resale, evading reporting requirement on exporting monetary instruments, and transporting monetary instruments...

"Air Force strikes in Gaza" SNIPPET: "IDF retaliates for deadly Qassam attack: Air Force hits several Gaza targets, including metal foundry, smuggling tunnel; Vice PM Shalom says Israel to offer strong response to rocket attack that killed Thai worker Thursday" SNIPPET: "IDF aircraft struck at least four targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave killed a Thai worker in Israel, Hamas security officials and witnesses said." SNIPPET: "Israel also sent a letter of complaint to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to visit Israel at the weekend,...

"Russian 'Bin Laden' killed by Moscow's special forces Russia exulted in the death of a terrorist dubbed "the Russian Bin Laden," yesterday claiming it has proof he was behind a deadly train bombing last November that left 28 people dead." By Andrew Osborn in Moscow Published: 7:11PM GMT 07 Mar 2010 SNIPPET: "The FSB intelligence service said a special forces operation had resulted in the death of Sheikh Said Buryatsky, an Islamist convert whose real name was Alexander Tikhomirov."

Note: The following text is a quote: Terror Charges Unsealed in Minnesota Against Eight Defendants, Justice Department Announces The Justice Department announced that terrorism charges have been unsealed today in the District of Minnesota against eight defendants. According to the charging documents, the offenses include providing financial support to those who traveled to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization; attending terrorist training camps operated by al-Shabaab; and fighting on behalf of al-Shabaab. Thus far, 14 defendants have been charged in the District of Minnesota in indictments or criminal complaints that have been unsealed and...

Sherwangei, Pakistan (CNN) -- A passport bearing the name of Said Bahaji, a suspect linked to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been found in a town captured by the Pakistani military. The passport was found in South Waziristan, where the Pakistani military has been battling to wrest territory from the Taliban in Pakistan. It contained a Pakistani visa issued in August 2001 showing that the bearer entered Pakistan on September 4, 2001, and appeared unusually new for a document eight years old. CNN has not independently confirmed its authenticity. The photo in the passport resembles...

As President Obama repeatedly tells America that his plan for healthcare reform will not lead to the elimination of private health insurance, statements he made in 2007 and 2003 tell a different story altogether. In shocking video uncovered

The website of a New York TV network whose aim is to improve American perceptions of Islam was shut down this morning, two days after its founder admitted to the beheading of his wife. And while that irony might bring a momentary smile, another attempt to conceal the facts behind an honor killing right here in America should stir nothing short of outrage. Muzzammil Hassan, CEO of Bridges TV, whose motto is "connecting people through understanding," apparently didn't think Thursday's honor killing -- and make no mistake about what this was -- at the station might somehow blur that message....

Psychologically, we tend to believe that what we see with our own eyes, especially if it is “acted out” for us, is the “truth.” Our brains are wired so that visual images assume a permanent reality–even if that reality is a computer-generated or photo-shopped Big Lie. Mohammed al-Dura did not die in his fathers’ arms even though that carefully staged image was seen round the world. Israel did not massacre anyone in Jenin even though that Big Lie has also taken on a life of its own.

In the United States, celebrations of Israel's fifty years as a state have tried to project an image of the country that went out of fashion since the Palestinian Intifada (1987-92): a pioneering state, full of hope and promise for the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, a haven of enlightened liberalism in a sea of Arab fanaticism and reaction. On 15 April, for instance, CBS broadcast a two hour prime-time program from Hollywood hosted by Michael Douglas and Kevin Costner, featuring movie stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathy Bates (who recited passages from Golda Meir minus, of course, her most...

The invaluable Andrew McCarthy takes note of a connection between Barack Obama and Edward Said, an apologist for terrorism, who played a key role in changing the field of Middle East Studies towards an anti-Western and anti-Israel bias. Said, a writer and professor at Columbia University, trained many of the Middle East professors who now broadcast his message to thousands of students across America and the world. Said hated Israel so much that he was seen throwing rocks from Lebanon at Israeli soldiers across the border. His role in distorting the field of Middle Eastern studies has prompted a counter-movement...

Almost a year after two teenage girls were found dead — allegedly executed by their father — in the back seat of a taxicab in Texas, the FBI is saying for the first time that the case may have been an "honor killing." Sarah Said, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were killed on New Year's Day, but for nine months authorities deflected questions about whether their father — the prime suspect and the subject of a nationwide manhunt — may have targeted them because of a perceived slight upon his honor.

Almost a year after two teenage girls were found dead — allegedly executed by their father — in the back seat of a taxicab in Texas, the FBI is saying for the first time that the case may have been an "honor killing." Sarah Said, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were killed on New Year's Day, but for nine months authorities deflected questions about whether their father — the prime suspect and the subject of a nationwide manhunt — may have targeted them because of a perceived slight upon his honor. UNLAWFUL FLIGHT TO AVOID PROSECUTION - CAPITAL MURDER-...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An attorney who volunteered to help Barack Obama improve his relationship with Muslim and Arab-Americans has resigned from the campaign amid questions about his connection to a fundamentalist imam.

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

On New Year's Day, Patricia Said stood at the door of a small house in a Hispanic neighborhood of Lewisville, pleading with her daughter Amina to come home. The girl cried and clung to her boyfriend, Eddie, a college student who lived in the house with his mother and sister. For a week, Amina, an 18-year-old senior at Lewisville High School, had been living a nightmare. Her father, Yaser Said, had pulled a gun on Christmas Eve and threatened to kill her because of her relationship with Eddie.

Rashid Khalidi is a 'respected' Palestinian' terrorist: a member of the PLO since the days it was officially lebeled a terrorist organization, he is now a professor at Columbia University (where else?), holding the Edward Said chair in Arab Studies. Said was also a member of the PLO. As it turns out, Khalidi and his wife are also good friends of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama. The company he keeps says alot about Barack Hussein Obama. But it says nothing positive to Israel's supporters.

Sheik Jamal Said stood before the packed mosque and worked the crowd like an auctioneer. Speaking Arabic, the prayer leader asked for a donation of $10,000. No one responded. He asked for $5,000, and three men raised their hands. < SNIP> The recipient of the worshipers' generosity was Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist accused by the U.S. government of aiding terrorists. And the prayer leader's passionate appeal is a reflection of the ascendancy of Muslim hard-liners at the mosque, one of the most outspoken and embattled in the U.S. The mosque did not become this way without a struggle. Relying...

What struck Jim Wier first, as he entered the Wal-Mart vice president's office, was the seating area for visitors. "It was just some lawn chairs that some other peddler had left behind as samples." The vice president's office was furnished with a folding lawn chair and a chaise lounge. And so Wier, the CEO of lawn-equipment maker Simplicity, dressed in a suit, took a seat on the chaise lounge. "I sat forward, of course, with my legs off to the side. If you've ever sat in a lawn chair, well, they are lower than regular chairs. And I was on...

Christopher Hitchens is one of America's and the English speaking world's leading public intellectuals. He is the author of more than ten books, including, most recently, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (2003), Why Orwell Matters (2002), The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), and Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001). He writes for leading American and British publications, including The London Review of Books, The New Left Review, Slate, The New York Review of Books, Newsweek International, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post. He is also a regular television and radio commentator. For many years,...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A U.N. report condemned Zimbabwe's government for destroying urban slums in a "disastrous venture" that has left 700,000 people without homes or jobs, and demanded that those responsible be punished, according to excerpts obtained late Thursday. The report, to be released Friday morning, said a further 2.4 million people have been affected in varying degrees by the countrywide campaign in which thousands of shantytowns, ramshackle markets and makeshift homes have been demolished. Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, has been "carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering," said the report's...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi scientist killed in the U.S. invasion and now linked by arms hunter David Kay to possible nuclear weapons research was working on an advanced gun, not atomic bombs, fellow physicists say. They and eyewitnesses also say Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id was killed not when he tried to "run a roadblock," as asserted by Kay, but when a U.S. tank crew blasted his civilian car without warning on an open street. These accounts of the physicist's research and death, provided by 10 Iraqis and supported on key points by U.N. arms inspectors, challenge a core element of...

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands Mar 29, 2005 — Researchers want to excavate an old Japanese jail where aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator were rumored to have been detained before they vanished in 1937. The Historic Preservation Office of the Northern Mariana Islands has applied for a grant with the National Park Service to fund the excavation, hoping to solve the 67-year-old mystery of what became of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. The Northern Mariana Islands, about 3,800 miles southwest of Hawaii, were administered by Japan from 1914 to 1944 and are now a U.S. commonwealth. "In the past,...

Al-Zarqawi Said to Declare 'Fierce War' 13 minutes ago BAGHDAD, Iraq - A speaker purporting to be Iraq's most feared terror leader declared a "fierce war" on democracy and said in an audiotape posted Sunday on the Web that the Americans were using next weekend's Iraqi elections to install the Shiites in power. "We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said the speaker, who identified himself as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part...

More signs of Syria turn up in Iraq The Iraqi ambassador to Syria tells the Monitor that photos of high-ranking Syrian officials were found in Fallujah. By Nicholas Blanford | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor DAMASCUS, SYRIA - When US troops stormed the rebel-held city of Fallujah last month, they uncovered photos of senior Syrian officials that have further strained the already tense relations between Syria and Iraq, according to the Iraqi ambassador to Syria.Several captured insurgents were found in possession of the photographs, confirmation, according to Iraqi officials, that some elements in the Syrian regime - perhaps...

Kan. Woman Said to Show Off Stolen Baby 24 minutes ago By JOHN MILBURN, Associated Press Writer MELVERN, Kan. - A woman charged with killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb was showing the child off to people at a cafe and to her pastor hours before she was arrested, residents said Saturday. Lisa M. Montgomery, 36, was charged Friday with kidnapping resulting in murder and was expected to appear in federal court Monday. The baby, whose mother had been eight months pregnant, was in good condition. Hours before her arrest, Montgomery and her husband showed...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s defense minister on Wednesday accused neighboring Iran and Syria of supporting terrorists in his country and charged that a senior Iraqi Shiite was leading a "pro-Iranian" coalition into next month's national elections. Concerns have been raised over rising Iranian influence in the political future of Iraq, where the majority Shiites are expected to dominate elections scheduled for Jan. 30. Campaigning for the vote began Wednesday. Hazem Shaalann, who has previously accused Tehran of interfering in Iraq's affairs, said that Iranian and Syrian intelligence agents, plus former operatives from Saddam Hussein (news...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Secrets, Donors and the Edward Said Chair Columbia University’s newly established Edward Said Chair in Middle East Studies is noteworthy for several reasons. The position is named for the recently deceased professor best known for his defense of Palestinian “resistence.” And Rashid Khalidi, an overt supporter of Palestinian violence and – according to a just-published biography of Yasir Arafat from Oxford University Press – a former PLO press spokesman[i], has joined Columbia to fill the post. But there is something even more objectionable about this chair: It is anonymously endowed and Columbia University – perhaps against the law – refuses...

BESLAN, Russia (AP) - Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and overcame separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled the building through explosions and gunfire. Health officials said more than 200 people died, the Interfax news agency reported. Ninety-five victims were identified - many of them children whose shattered, bloodied bodies were placed on lines of stretchers - and Interfax quoted unnamed sources in the regional Health Ministry as saying more than 200 people were killed by fire from the militants or died from their wounds. Hundreds of hostages...

Wednesday, August 11, 2004 The Last Night Alive In the 50s sci-fi horror movie Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, a Professor Thurgood Elson is sent down in a diving bell to investigate the approach of a prehistoric rhedosaurus on the East Coast of the United States so that the Armed Forces can prepare for its defense. Momentarily forgetting his military mission, Professor Elson succumbs to his academic curiousity and delays having himself hoisted to safety while he continues to describe the morphological wonders of the monster until a break in the transmission informs the audience that he has left it too...

When Rashid Khalidi took over the newly established Edward Said Chair of Middle East Studies at Columbia University last fall, the appointment was generally viewed as an academic coup for the school, which had succeeded in wooing away a prominent Middle East expert from the University of Chicago, a longtime rival. But Khalidi soon became the target of an Internet campaign that questioned his patriotism. Conservative critics zeroed in on his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq and his public expressions of sympathy for the Palestinian cause. "Columbia vs. America," declared a story on Campus Watch, a Web site...

<p>THE HAGUE - Dutch mariniers in Iraq has found grenades of which the cargo is not clear. The ministry of defence in The Hague does not exclude that possibly talk is of grenades with a chemical or biological cargo.</p> <p>If that proves be this way, it the first time would be that has been found there in Iraq such weapons. It concerns ten artillery grenades which were discovered on 8 October in the province ash Samawah, the area where operate the mariniers. According to the zegsman the projectiles saw?anders there? from then normal and it concerns grenades?waarvan the cargo unclear is.</p>

NEW YORK -- Edward W. Said, a Columbia University professor, literary critic and leading spokesman in the United States for the Palestinian cause, has died, his editor at Knopf publishers said Thursday. He was 67. Said died at a New York hospital, said editor Shelly Wanger. He had suffered from leukemia at least since the early 1990s.

J. P. Morgan Chase has dismissed two investment bankers, one of whom was a managing director, after a fellow banker complained that they had sexually accosted a woman who worked with them, current and former employees at the company said this week. The two bankers who were dismissed, Palden Gyuimed Namgyal and Norman Gretzinger, made unwanted and inappropriate advances toward the woman in a bar, these people said. When the woman, a less-senior investment banker at J. P. Morgan, protested, another high-ranking investment banker who was there intervened, they said. He later reported the incident to the firm's personnel department,...

“A symbolic gesture of joy" What follows is the defense, the apology, by Edward Said, who went to Lebanon and threw a rock at an Israeli guard building over the boarder. He was roundly condemned for this act. This is the leading intellectual of MESA, advisers to the Clintons Administration, policy makers for 8 years?! MESA is still extorting funds from the government. CASTING A STONE: University Professor Edward Said aroused controversy in July when, during a visit to Lebanon, he was portrayed in a photograph hurling a stone toward the Israeli border. The photograph was distributed by the French...

Palestinians have seldom faced a worse, or a more seminal, moment, writes Edward Said. How, then, might it be grasped? Six distinct calls for Palestinian reform and elections are being uttered now: five of them are, for Palestinian purposes, both useless and irrelevant. Sharon wants reform as a way of further disabling Palestinian national life, that is, as an extension of his failed policy of constant intervention and destruction. He wants to be rid of Yasser Arafat, cut up the West Bank into fenced-in cantons, re-install an occupation authority -- preferably with some Palestinians helping out -- carry on with...