Free Republic

They became good buddies during the war, the young American soldier and his invaluable Iraqi translator, an easygoing guy who could spot dangers in the shadows and calm jittery nerves in the streets. When it was time to go home, Joey Coon, then an Army National Guard sergeant, set up an e-mail account for Bandar Hasan. He gave his friend a quick lesson on how to use it so they could stay in touch. Joey didn't expect much; Bandar wasn't familiar with computers. But he did call on occasion, and the two joked about him coming to America one day,...

After struggling to turn Khadafy’s insane ramblings at the UN into English for 75 minutes, the Libyan dictator’s personal interpreter got lost in translation. "I just can’t take it any more," Khadafy’s interpreter shouted into the live microphone – in Arabic. At that point, the U.N.’s Arabic section chief, Rasha Ajalyaqeen, took over and translated the final 20 minutes of the speech. "His interpreter just collapsed – this is the first time I have seen this in 25 years," another U.N. Arabic interpreter told The Post. Breaking with protocol, Khadafy brought his own interpreters from Tripoli for Wednesday’s speech rather...

Right to Work Technicians Unveil TOP SECRET Union Boss Translation Device Foundation experts have been hard at work on a device that translates union boss propaganda into plain English. Watch the video for the results of this experiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvXcrmD40VM(warning: profanity from the union thug)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After more than five years, the Pentagon revealed why it is holding a Saudi nicknamed "the Professor" at Guantanamo Bay, saying he once lived with a Sept. 11 conspirator and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden. Shaker Aamer's lawyer denies the allegations, made after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week requested the release of the Saudi, who has been an unofficial leader among the detainees, and four other former residents of Britain. The Bush administration, which has been urging other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners amid international pressure to close the military jail,...

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, Oct. 27, 2008 – Army Spc. Wilson Alnar does a lot of talking. That’s because he’s a translator with the Multinational Division Center Public Affairs Office. U.S. Army Spc. Wilson Alnar, an Arabic translator with the Multinational Division Center Public Affairs Office and a native of Sudan, speaks with an Iraqi policeman while on a mission in Kut, Iraq, Oct. 3, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Maj. Tommy Spagel  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “It’s my job to be that bridge between the Iraqi people and the coalition forces,” said Alnar, an Atlanta resident and...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – An Army translator kidnapped two years ago Thursday is still unaccounted for, the only U.S. servicemember who remains missing in the current Iraq war. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie was visiting his wife's family in central Baghdad Oct. 23, 2006, when a group of armed, masked men dragged him to a waiting car. Al-Taie, a 41-year-old specialist when he was captured, is now 43 and a sergeant. The last public news of him came in February 2007, when a Shiite militant group called Ahl al-Bayt Brigades released a 10-second video of him on the Internet. The military is...

Free iPod Phrase Books released Coolgorilla.com today announced that it has released a series of free iPod Phrase Books that are available for download from the iTunes Store. Provided via a sponsorship agreement with lastminute.com, the Phrase Books are available in six different languages to translate English text into French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Greek audio. A separate podcast for each language delivers the necessary sound files, while another download installs a familiar phrase book menu system on to an iPod for quick and easy access to hundreds of audio translations. "Say goodbye to guide books with their incongruous...

ROCKVILLE, Md. - A Rockville man previously accused of sexually assaulting two little girls, one just 18-months-old, would have left court a free man Monday if federal officials didn't step in. Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy says 23-year-old Mahamu Kanneh was being held on a federal detainer by ICE despite the fact that a Montgomery County judge ordered Kanneh released on his own recognizance after a bond hearing Monday. During the hearing, Deputy State's Attorney Laura Chase argued that Kanneh still presents a danger to the community. Prosecutors are asking that the charges against Kanneh, nine counts of child...

CAMP TAQADDUM — He’s got the strut, the confident Devil Dog swagger. He peppers his speech with “awesome” (and more than occasionally drops the F-bomb). He’s definitely gung-ho. After three years of working with the U.S.-led coalition, “Sam,” an Iraqi translator for the 9th Engineer Support Battalion, has adopted the mannerisms of a typical young Marine. Now, he wants to be one.

Mahmoud and Me September 28, 2006 New York Observer Hooman Majd Ahmadinejad’s Wild Week, by His Translator: ‘I Heard You Sounded Great!’; Meet the Wife; Asks for Michael Moore; Big Dinner at Hilton. On Tuesday, Sept. 19, the day of his now-famous speech, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad entered the General Assembly at the United Nations and sat down with his foreign minister and the Iranian U.N. ambassador. He waved in my direction, and I waved back. Me and Mahmoud, I thought to myself. I had seen the text of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech before he’d even arrived in Manhattan on Monday,...

On Tuesday, Sept. 19, the day of his now-famous speech, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad entered the General Assembly at the United Nations and sat down with his foreign minister and the Iranian U.N. ambassador. He waved in my direction, and I waved back. Me and Mahmoud, I thought to myself. I had seen the text of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech before he’d even arrived in Manhattan on Monday, Sept. 18: I was his interpreter, or at least his English voice, at the U.N. snip What were not covered by the media were Mr. Ahmadinejad’s last two appearances on the Thursday afternoon...

A U.S. injustice to an invaluable Iraqi. The murder of freelance journalist Steven Vincent a year ago today made international headlines. Vincent was in Basra, completing research on his second book. He broke the story about Shia death squads; ironically, this may be what led to his death at their hands. Vincent was special. Many journalists parachuted into Iraq, talked to a handful of established contacts, and spent more time in the Green Zone than out and about. Their accounts might have been best-sellers, but they were riddled with mistakes and superficiality. Vincent’s first book In the Red Zone, in...

TRUTH in the David Hicks affair remains as elusive as ever after fresh allegations this week from inside the US military that the Guantanamo Bay commissions are so seriously flawed that a fair trial is impossible. The most damaging blows yet to the commissions -- still supported by the Howard Government -- came from three US Air Force prosecutors involved in the trials who have quit the investigation in protest. One, John Carr, said the process appeared to have been rigged and that the first four cases -- including Hicks -- had been been "handpicked" and would not be acquitted....

I need some expertise on reading the greek language, or greek translated to latin. . . to english. I'm a bit lost.

The Justice Department has backed away from a court battle over its authority to classify and restrict the discussion of information it has already released, handing a local advocacy group a victory by granting it explicit permission to publish letters written by two senators that contain the contested information. The case was considered a potential test of limits to the government's power to restrict access to information in the public domain on national security grounds. Former attorney general John D. Ashcroft had strongly defended the practice in this case by likening it to putting "spilt milk" back in a jar...

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court turned aside efforts to open to the public closed-door arguments Thursday in the case of a fired FBI contractor who alleged there were security breaches and misconduct at the bureau. Sibel Edmonds is seeking to revive her lawsuit against the government. It was thrown out of U.S. District Court when the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege, which allows the government to withhold information to safeguard national security. Edmonds says she was dismissed from her job as a wiretap translator because she told superiors she suspected a co-worker was leaking information to targets...

NEW YORK -- An Arabic interpreter for the Army may have secretly helped Iraqi insurgents by improperly taking classified documents from Iraq home to Brooklyn, where he made dozens of phone calls to numbers linked to the insurgency, a federal prosecutor said Monday. The man's attorney said he simply had been maintaining innocent relationships with Iraqi contacts approved by his military supervisors. After returning to the U.S. earlier this year, the man had more than 100 cell phone conversations with numbers directly involved with the insurgency, Buretta said, including numbers found at suspected safehouses for Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,...

FALLUJAH, Iraq(July 5, 2005) -- After fleeing from his native Iraq in 2001 and embarking on a journey, which took him through five different countries and eventually to the United States as a refugee, an interpreter with II Marine Expeditionary Force, Headquarters Group, II MEF (Forward), has returned home to aid Marines in the rebuilding process in the city of Fallujah. Johnny, a name he uses in place of his birth name to keep his identity hidden, works in the S-4 shop of the II MHG headquarters office, translating documents and helping bridge the communication gap between Marines and local...

<p>One by one, little noticed in the daily mayhem, dozens of interpreters have been killed - mostly Iraqis but 12 Americans, too. They account for 40 percent of the 300-plus death claims filed by private contractors with the U.S. Labor Department.</p>

BOSTON (AP) - The FBI admitted Saturday it accidentally gave classified documents back to the American translator who pleaded guilty to taking them from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, who was released from jail earlier this month, contacted the FBI's Boston office Tuesday after he realized agents had inadvertently given him the compact disc containing the secret files along with his personal property. Mehalba had the disc in his possession for only a "matter of hours" before the FBI retrieved it, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ricciuti. "Someone in the bureau obviously made a...

An Arabic translator who took classified documents from the US military base at Guantanamo Bay yesterday received a 20-month sentence in US District Court in Boston and said he was trying to do a good job by working on the material at home. Ahmed Mehalba, 32, a linguist, admitted he removed a computer disk containing 368 secret documents from the military base, but his lawyers urged leniency, because he was off his medication for bipolar disorder at the time. In the summer of 2003, Mehalba took the disk with him to his native Egypt during an emergency leave from the...

NEW YORK (AP) — A Yemeni sheik accused of funneling millions of dollars to terrorist networks warned U.S. agents that "Allah will bring storms" to America because of his arrest, according to newly filed court papers. Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad made the remark last year after a German court ordered him extradited to the United States to face charges that he helped finance al Qaeda and Hamas, prosecutors said in the documents filed in U.S. District Court. The statement — spoken in English to agents bringing al-Moayad from Frankfurt, Germany, to New York on Nov. 16, 2003 — counter defense...

U.S. Marine in Mysterious Case Declared Deserter   Jan 5, 5:05 PM (ET) By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, charged a month ago with desertion in a mysterious case in which he left his unit in Iraq only to turn up in Lebanon, has failed to return to his base in North Carolina, the Marine Corps said on Wednesday. In a statement, the Marines said that Hassoun "has been declared a deserter" after not returning on Tuesday to Camp Lejeune from authorized leave. The statement said Hassoun had been required to return to the...

The U.S. is engaged in a bloody war in Iraq for the purpose of eliminating the remnants of a terrorist regime, foreign terrorists, and bringing democracy to Iraq and the region. It is a big gamble that has put radical Islam on the defensive around the world. But shocking evidence demonstrates that controversial former U.S. Marine and former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now writes for the anti-American Arab "news" organization Al Jazeera, was involved in a controversial effort to stop the war by enlisting prominent personalities in a "peace" campaign.

New details of Saddam capture Pulled from spider hole, Saddam asks: "America, why?" Thursday, August 5, 2004 Posted: 1:46 AM EDT (0546 GMT) Saddam Hussein after his capture (CNN) -- After an extensive search of an Iraqi farm on December last year, U.S. Special Forces and a translator named Samir brushed aside leaves and dirt from one area of the farm, uncovering the spider hole where Saddam Hussein was hiding. "I grabbed him," Samir told CNN in a recent interview. "I was like I am not going to let him go." "I told him that if you're a real...

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit by Fired FBI TranslatorBy Ted Bridis Associated Press Writer Published: Jul 6, 2004 WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Tuesday by a whistle-blower who alleged security lapses in the FBI's translator program, ruling that her claims might expose government secrets that could damage national security. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said he was satisfied with claims by Attorney General John Ashcroft and a senior FBI official that the civil lawsuit by Sibel Edmonds could expose intelligence-gathering methods and disrupt diplomatic relations with foreign governments. The judge said he couldn't explain further because...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A Lebanese translator who disappeared in the first week of the Iraq war was killed in the same firefight that claimed the life of a veteran British TV correspondent, the translator's employer, ITN DNA tests carried out by British military investigators indicate that remains found at the site of the gunbattle are those of Hussein Osman, ITN said in a statement. Osman's father, Hosni Osman, told The Associated Press the British Embassy in Beirut told him his son's body had been found and that it would be flown to Lebanon for burial within the next two weeks....

SEOUL, June 21 -- Jolted by video footage showing one of their countrymen being held in Iraq by kidnappers threatening to behead him, hundreds of South Koreans joined candlelight vigils and prayer groups Monday while the government scrambled to negotiate the hostage's release. In the video, first broadcast Sunday by the Arabic satellite TV network al-Jazeera and rerun countless times here Monday, Kim Sun Il, 33, screamed for his life while his hooded, armed captors demanded that South Korea quit the international military coalition in Iraq. The video was released three days after the government had finalized plans to begin...

Iraqi native helps train Soldiers who will rebuild her nation By Spc. Ryan WoodJanuary 23, 2004 FORT POLK, La. (Army News Service, Jan. 23, 2004) -- A native-born Iraqi, who began her career as an elementary school teacher in Baghdad, now works as a translator and cultural specialist for the U.S. Army at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk. Daily, Noora Alshahlan translates news broadcasts into Arabic for broadcast into “the box,” a training area established to replicate the situation in Iraq. Soldiers who are preparing for deployment to the Middle East train in the “box” and...

<p>TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE -- Senior Airman Ahmad Al Halabi, the 24-year-old Syrian-born translator accused of espionage at the Guantánamo Naval Base in Cuba, was arraigned Tuesday amid complaints from his attorneys that the Air Force is blocking them from representing him adequately. Al Halabi, who was arrested in July while en route from Guantánamo to his planned wedding in Syria and charged with spying, did not enter a plea Tuesday. His attorneys have said he is not guilty.</p>

Case opens for accused Guantanamo spy January 14, 2004 BY KIM CURTIS TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- A court-martial opened Tuesday against an Arabic translator for the Air Force who is accused of spying at the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp. Senior Airman Ahmad I. Al Halabi, 24, is accused of trying to deliver more than 180 written and e-mail messages from Guantanamo detainees to Syria. The government says he stored the messages on his laptop and planned to carry them overseas. He also is accused of trying to deliver secret documents about prison camp operations and names and...

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) -- A court-martial opened Tuesday against an Arabic translator for the Air Force who is accused of spying at the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp. Senior Airman Ahmad I. Al Halabi, 24, is accused of trying to deliver more than 180 written and e-mail messages from Guantanamo detainees to Syria. The government says he stored the messages on his laptop and planned to carry them overseas. He also is accused of trying to deliver secret documents about prison camp operations and names and other personal information about detainees to Syria with "reason to believe...

“No more nightmares,” said Mohammed Taha. “A lot more good will happen in Iraq after 35 years of nightmares.” Taha was just one of thousands of Iraqis who reacted with joy about the news that Saddam Hussein was captured Dec. 13 and is now in U.S. custody. What makes Taha unique is that he is one of a handful of Iraqi exiles working as a translator for the U.S. Air Force here. After the initial shock and disbelief, Taha reflected on the wounds Hussein and the Ba’ath party inflicted on his family. “My brother was killed. Three or four of...

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.(Nov. 18, 2003) -- In waging the War on Terror, Arab linguists are a hot commodity for America and her allies. On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, where many civilians and combatants speak Arabic, linguists are needed more than ever. One Woolwich, Maine, native, was recently recognized for his linguistic skills and contributions during Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom and is currently assigned to 2nd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force here. "I never thought I would have been doing what I've done," said Sgt. Chad E. Lindsey. The Chop Point School graduate now looks back on...

GCHQ translator 'revealed secrets' By Neil Tweedie and John Steele (Filed: 14/11/2003) A former employee of GCHQ, the signals intelligence agency, was charged yesterday with leaking details of an Anglo-American operation to eavesdrop on members of the United Nations Security Council in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Katharine Gun, 29, who was sacked from her job as a translator with the agency, is accused of passing classified information to an unauthorised person under Section 1 (1) of the Official Secrets Act. The charge follows the publication of an article in The Observer in early March disclosing a request...

BOSTON (AP) — A former Guantanamo Bay translator arrested after he was found with classified documents at Logan International Airport was charged Wednesday with gathering defense information and making false statements. The grand jury's indictment alleges that Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, who has been in federal custody since his arrest, lied to investigators when he told them he was not carrying any government documents from Guantanamo Bay. Customs agents found 132 compact discs in his luggage, including one that contained hundreds of classified documents labeled "SECRET." He also allegedly lied about not understanding the meaning of the term "secret" with regards...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force translator who worked at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for al Qaeda and Taliban suspects will face a court-martial on charges of spying and aiding the enemy but will not be sentenced to death if convicted, the Air Force said on Friday. Reuters Photo   The general who ordered the espionage trial for senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi of Detroit, Michigan, "did not refer the case as a capital case," the Air force said in a statement. Capital cases may carry the death penalty. Al Halabi, 23, is being held at Vandenberg Air...

<p>WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) &#8212; An interpreter at the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, who was arrested last month carrying classified documents, had government clearance to access the information, his attorney said in court yesterday.</p> <p>But federal prosecutors, while acknowledging Ahmed Fathy Mehalba was cleared to see classified documents, said he was forbidden to transport any information.</p>

WORCESTER, Mass. -- Federal authorities said in court today that an Arabic linguist with top security clearance at the terrorist detention camp on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had gone to Egypt with reams of classified and secret documents. The linguist, Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, was stopped Sept. 29 at Logan Airport in Boston while on his way home from Egypt. He was found to be carrying 132 computer discs in his luggage. Now, a review of just one of those discs has turned up 725 documents labeled as "secret," "sensitive," or "classified" material from the highly secure Guantanamo Bay prison camp, officials...

Wed October 15, 2003 01:07 PM ET By Greg Frost WORCESTER, Mass. (Reuters) - A civilian translator at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for al Qaeda and Taliban suspects had hundreds of documents labeled "secret" in his possession when he was arrested last month, an FBI agent said on Wednesday. Prosecutors accused Ahmed Fathy Mehalba last month of lying to federal officials about classified information he was carrying when he arrived in the United States from Egypt, where he had been visiting relatives. The arrest of Mehalba, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent, brought to three the number of...

WASHINGTON (AP)--An Air Force officer has made a secret recommendation of what charges should be pursued against a translator accused of espionage at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terrorist suspects, the translator's lawyer said Tuesday. The report from Col. Anne Burman suggests to Air Force officials which of the 32 charges against Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi should go to trial. Air Force generals will decide whether al-Halabi will face a court-martial on the espionage and other charges--and whether military prosecutors can seek the death penalty if al-Halabi is convicted of the most serious counts. Burman's entire report is...

<p>The Muslim organizations that certify chaplains for the U.S. military have come under renewed scrutiny since the arrest of Army Chaplain Yousef Yee and two Muslim translators who worked with al Qaeda prisoners in Guantanamo Bay — and that's all to the good. The Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences (GSISS) and the American Muslim Foundation (AMF) were already being investigated, and it may well be that somehow Mr. Yee picked up his radical Islam from some contact with these groups. But so far another possibility has been overlooked, perhaps because its political incorrectness quotient is positively off the scale: The possibility that Yee was sincere when he denounced the September 11 attacks, and that his mind was changed by the Guantanamo prisoners themselves.</p>

ASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — American interpreters at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who are under suspicion of espionage may have sabotaged interviews with detainees by inaccurately translating interrogators' questions and prisoners' answers, senior American officials said on Monday.It is unclear in how many cases, if any, this may have happened, the officials said. But military investigators are taking the issue seriously enough to review taped interrogations involving the Arabic-language interpreters under scrutiny to spot-check their accuracy.If the investigators' worst fears are realized, officials said, scores of interviews with suspected Qaeda or Taliban prisoners at the Cuban detention center...

Scientists claim to invent instant translator Scientists claim to have invented an instant translator which will allow people talking on phones in different languages to understand each other. A research team from Rousse in Bulgaria claim to have patented the technology which converts words spoken in one language into digital code which can then be immediately interpreted into another language. The translator chip can be inserted into any phone, the scientists claim. Project leader Koycho Mitev told BTV national television: "A person can talk freely on the phone in their mother tongue and at the other end of the world...

Guantanamo interviews to be revised in spy scare By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 06/10/2003) A line-by-line review has been ordered of every interrogation at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp involving an air force interpreter suspected of espionage and treason. Intelligence officers face the nightmare prospect that Ahmad al-Halabi, a Syrian-born linguist who served at the camp in Cuba for eight months, may have edited or deliberately distorted information given by al-Qa'eda and Taliban suspects during interrogation sessions. Tapes of those interrogations - some lasting hours - are being freshly translated. "If the subject answered 'five' and [Halabi] told interrogators...

<p>October 3, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - The FBI is investigating whether a translator at the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave extremist groups the names of al Qaeda operatives who are being exposed by detainees during their interrogations, it was revealed yesterday. Law-enforcement officials confirmed that authorities found the names of dozens of al Qaeda operatives, whose names surfaced in interrogations with the Guantanamo Bay detainees, on a computer disk carried by camp translator Ahmed Mehalba when he was arrested earlier this week.</p>

Ahmed Mehalba was taken into custody at Logan's International Airport late on Monday

Just broke on CNN......this is a civilian translator!

<p>The case of the Guantanamo Bay Arabic-language translator arrested for espionage yesterday illustrates the inevitable consequence of the critical shortage of reliable, American-born interpreters reported extensively by WorldNetDaily over the past year.</p> <p>Syrian-born Air Force airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, who served at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba holding suspected al-Qaida terrorists, has been accused of trying to give Syria information about the detainees.</p> <p>He could face execution on charges of espionage and aiding the enemy.</p>

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria denied Wednesday it had any links to a U.S. Air Force translator of Syrian descent who has been charged with espionage during an assignment at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, 24, has been detained for allegedly sending e-mail with information about the prisoners at Guantanamo "to unauthorized person or persons whom he, the accused, knew to be the enemy," according to the U.S. military. The U.S. Air Force indictment does not say who "the enemy" is. Al-Halabi is also accused of planning to give classified information about the...