Free Republic

SNIPPET: "From Cilacap, Baridin apparently took shelter in Garut district, West Java province, where he acted as a traveling sugar salesman. When he was captured he had a pair of identity cards under aliases." SNIPPET: "Earlier this week, in fact, the newly-promoted head of Special Detachment 88, General Tito Karnavian, stated that there was evidence that the remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah are still attempting to recruit new members despite some of their most aggressive leaders getting killed over the past quarter." December 24, 2009 09:59 AM Print

AP Photo/Susan Walsh10. Both sides of the aisle consistently reject it...and the more you push it, the more people turn against you (Obama's disapproval rating is now 56%). 9. You must deliberately stack the deck with slanted calculations and misleading budget gimmicks to manufacture the illusion that it is "deficit-neutral." ObamaCare will explode the deficit with 111 new federal bureaucracies. 8. While insisting that "reducing costs" is the central purpose, you refuse to do anything at all about the primary cause of skyrocketing costs--frivolous lawsuits (because trial lawyers are huge Democrat campaign donors). 7. Rather than reducing costs, as advertised,...

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Pittsburgh was treated to an impressive show the week of the recent G20 conference. A nice assortment of military choppers of various types and missions, along with odder aircraft difficult both to identify and explain. Both police and the National Guard were out in force, with downtown nearly sealed off. None of this hardware was used against the "3,000 - 4,000" (more like a few hundred) anarchist demonstrators when they turned their righteous wrath on a dozen Starbucks and a Whole Foods store. No serious confrontation was expected and none occurred. Because all of it - the Guard troops, the...

Oct 3, 2009 JAKARTA - A CLOSE aide of slain Malaysian terror leader Noordin Mohammed Top has handed himself in to Indonesian authorities, police said Saturday. National police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said in a text message Aris Ma'ruf, 23, surrendered to police in the Central Java district of Temanggung late Friday after months on the run. 'After interrogation, he was brought to the Central Java police headquarters to be handed over to the Central Java head of Special Detachment 88,' he said, referring to Indonesia's crack US and Australia-backed anti-terror squad.

War On Terror: Indonesian police killed the deadliest terrorist in East Asia Thursday, avenging the murders of 200 and striking a blow against al-Qaida. It took time, but Indonesia never gave up. This is how wars are won.Noordin Mohammed Top, diabolical mastermind behind every major terror attack on Indonesia since 2002, got the death he deserved — cowering in a toilet as the edifice around him exploded and burned. It was a long time coming. Malaysian-born Noordin became Indonesia's nightmare in 2002, after his role in the al-Qaida-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah blasts on Bali, killing 202. In 2003, he bombed a...

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia's most wanted Islamist militant was killed in a police shoot-out in Central Java, police said on Thursday, lifting a major security threat ahead of a planned visit by U.S. President Barack Obama. Malaysian-born Noordin Mohammad Top, who set up a violent splinter group of regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah, was widely considered the mastermind of the bomb attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta in July, as well as other attacks in Bali and in Jakarta which killed scores of Westerners and Indonesians. National police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri announced Top's death at a news conference,...

Thank you Detachment 88. -Cindy # Nick Grace contributed to this report. PHOTO CAPTION: "A photo of Noordin Mohammed Top after he was killed during a raid in Java. The photo was taken with a cell phone. Photo provided by Nick Grace." SNIPPET: "Southeast Asia’s most wanted al Qaeda-linked terrorist has been killed during an overnight raid by counterterrorism police in Solo in Central Java, Indonesia. Police have confirmed that the elusive Noordin Mohammed Top has been killed along with four other terrorists during the assault on a safe house in Java." SNIPPET: "Within the past 24 hours, Indonesia's elite...

Indonesian authorities are celebrating the death of terrorist leader Noordin Mohammed Top, who was killed in a police raid in Java yesterday. Police have also found what they claim is evidence showing Top was Al Qaeda's leader in South-East Asia. But analysts say Indonesia's terrorist network could quickly recover from his death. Police were not specifically looking for Top when they swooped on a property in Solo in central Java, but after avoiding police for years, the infamous terrorist leader's luck had finally run out. Top was one of four men shot dead by the special anti-terrorist police detachment, 88,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - With negotiations on a new international climate treaty proving difficult, the Obama administration's chief climate negotiator on Thursday called on the Senate to act as soon as possible and pass legislation to control the gases blamed for global warming. Todd Stern, the State Department's special envoy for climate change, told a House panel that it was critical for the Senate to pass legislation to give the U.S. the "credibility and leverage" that it needs to convince other countries to reduce their pollution. While Stern cited progress, he said there's still a divide between developing countries worried that...

A leading Swedish newspaper reported this week that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a claim that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication. "They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article.

SNIPPET: "Indonesian police confirmed that DNA tests proved that wanted terrorist Noordin Mohammed Top was not killed during last week's raid on a farmhouse in Java in Indonesia." SNIPPET: "DNA tests confirmed that the body of the person killed was that of another wanted terrorist named Amir Ibrohim. Ibrohim, who is also known as Amir Abdullah, worked as a contractor for the JW Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels and is said to have aided in the July 17 attacks. He was reportedly seen on tape escorting one of the suicide bombers during the July 17 attacks. Ibrohim is also believed...

AN ELITE Indonesian police squad has killed a man believed to be the most wanted Islamic militant in southeast Asia, Noordin Mohammad Top, who was linked to bombings in Jakarta and on the island of Bali. Officers of Detachment 88 stormed a house amid green rice paddies in central Java yesterday morning, using robot cameras to find their target as they blasted from room to room with grenades. The man made a last stand inside the bathroom as walls shattered around him, screaming out the name, “Noordin Top”, before black-clad marksmen fired volleys of shots into the room, witnesses said....

RADICAL Islamist Noordin Mohammed Top, the man accused of a series of suicide bombings in Indonesia, is one of Asia's most-wanted and elusive militant leaders. But his long and bloody game of cat-and-mouse with Indonesia's US-trained elite counter-terrorism forces may have come to an end in a storm of gunfire during a raid on a suspected hideout in Central Java today. His death has been reported by local television but police would confirm only that they believed the 40-year-old former accountant was hiding in the house when it was besieged by security forces late yesterday. At least three people are...

Antiterrorism police killed two alleged terrorists and arrested three others suspected of involvement in last month's deadly hotel bombs in Jakarta, a police spokesman said. The nighttime raid on a house near Jakarta uncovered more than 1,000 pounds of explosives, and a car fitted out for another terrorist attack, said Nanan Sukarna, the police spokesman. Meanwhile, a standoff with terrorists at a house near Temanggung, a town in central Java, a province on Indonesia's main island, which began at 5 p.m. local time on Friday continued on Saturday morning. Police say they believe inside the house was Noordin Mohamed Top,...

TWO body bags were seen being taken from a suspected hideout of terror suspect Noordin Top in Indonesia after a raid by police special forces. He was killed during a raid on his hideout, local television reported. The television station did not disclose its sources and police have not confirmed the report, which came as ambulances arrived at the suspected hideout following a 17-hour siege involving heavy gunfire and explosions. A witness said that two body bags were taken from the house. Elite police carrying assault rifles entered the house in Central Java after it had been besieged as part...

Jakarta, Indonesia (AP) - Explosive material recovered from the scene of two suicide bombings at hotels in the Indonesian capital is "identical" to that used by the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah in earlier attacks, police said. An unexploded bomb left in a room of the J.W. Marriott in Jakarta resembled devices used in attacks on Bali and one found in a recent raid against the network on an Islamic boarding school in Central Java, national police spokesman told a news conference Sunday.

JAKARTA, July 23 (Reuters) - The Indonesian wife of Noordin Top, the region's most-wanted militant because of his role in a string of bomb attacks in Indonesia, did not know his real name and thought he was a teacher, her lawyer said on Thursday. Malaysian-born Top is one of the prime suspects behind last week's near-simultaneous suicide bomb attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton, two luxury hotels in Jakarta's main business district, which killed nine people and injured 53, including Indonesians and foreigners. Police and security analysts said the attacks bore the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), the militant...

WASHINGTON (AP) - With health care legislation at a crossroads, the nation's hospitals are near agreement with a key lawmaker and the White House to pick up part of the cost of President Barack Obama's plan for expanded coverage, officials said Monday. The precise size of the deal was not available, although several days ago, talks were focused in the range of $150 billion to $155 billion over a decade. These officials said under the emerging agreement, hospitals would accept lower-than-anticipated payments under Medicare and Medicaid, the federal health care programs for seniors and the poor.

CNSNews.com ) - When President Obama said last week that he wants a government-run, government-owned health insurance provision to be included in the health-care reform bill being readied by Congress, only one of the nation’s top five, large-circulation newspapers thought it was worthy of front-page coverage.