Free Republic

SNIPPET: "Moeed Abdul Salam didn't descend into radical Islam for lack of other options. He grew up in a well-off Texas household, attended a pricey boarding school and graduated from one of the state's most respected universities." SNIPPET: "It is not clear to what extent Salam's family knew of his radicalism, but on his Facebook page the month before he died, he posted an image of Anwar al-Awalki, the American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, beside a burning American flag." SNIPPET: "The family, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the U.S. decades ago."

SNIPPET: "From a compound in Lahore, Pakistan to a home in the quiet Brad Drive neighborhood in Rockville, there's growing concern about the fate of kidnapped American contractor Warren Weinstein. "It's just a Byzantine world, it's not straight up", says Chis Meyers, a neighbor and a widely travelled retired marine. "There's people who are going to pick out Americans", he adds. Authorities say Weinstein, 70, an industrial development expert, employed by Arlington-based J.E. Austin associates was kidnapped around 3:45 Saturday morning Pakistani time. Police say eight to ten men approached Weinstein's Lahore house on a ploy. "They had come up...

SNIPPET: "I. When considering the matter of jihadis online, remember that most of what we think we know is based on analyses of the comments made by an handful of vocal activists. The vast majority of jihadis online, be they on forums or social networking sites[i], say nothing." SNIPPET: "The real challenge is threat assessment." SNIPPET: "V. These are questions I ask about any jihadi online: • Where are they? • Who do they know? • What have they downloaded? • What have they uploaded? • What communities have they joined? • What sites are they involved in operating? VI....

SNIPPET: "Dr. Zakir Naik is a 44 year-old Muslim preacher born in India. He has gained a significant international following by establishing a satellite television network, Peace TV, which promotes Wahhabi Islam; it is based in Mumbai/Bombay, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai, and has a supporting organization, the Islamic Research Foundation. Naik has mainly broadcast his message in English as well as Urdu. But Peace TV is an ambitious enterprise that now aims at Albanian Muslims, among others. Zakir Naik is distinguished by one characteristic: incitement of provocative disdain for any other Muslims than Wahhabis and Pakistani jihadists, as well as...

Note: Photo included. # SNIPPET: "Two French security advisers helping the Somali government have been kidnapped in the capital Mogadishu, French officials have said. Gunmen who were wearing police uniforms entered the hotel where the two were staying and took them away, eyewitnesses said. The abductions took place in a government-held part of Mogadishu. Islamist rebels are battling troops from the UN-backed interim government for control of the city." SNIPPET: "The French foreign ministry said the two advisers were in Mogadishu on an official mission to provide help to the government. They were seized at the Sahafi Hotel, which has...

A Pakistani man was detained at the U.S. Embassy in Chile yesterday after field tests detected explosive residue on his hands and personal items, the State Department said today. A U.S. official tells ABC News the man had been recently added to a U.S. terror watch list, and as a result his U.S. visa was in the process of being revoked. In accordance with U.S. law, the man had been notified of the intention to revoke his U.S. visa and he was at the embassy to discuss the matter.

TTP Leader Hakimullah Mehsud Declares: 'From Now On, the Main Targets of Our Fidaeen [Suicide Bombers] Are American Cities' The first, which the YouTube page titled "Hakeemullah Mehsud is Alive and Healthy and Delivering news about Attacks on USA," is 2:17 long, and shows a still satellite image of North America with a still image of Hakimullah Mehsud. Speaking in Urdu, he states that the date is April 19, 2010 and threatens bombings in U.S. "states & cities"; as he speaks, explosions are shown taking place across the map. (To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2463.htm. NOTE: You...

Note: Telephone transcript and web posts included. 15 December 2009 "AMF X 2" SNIPPET: "Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed were sentenced to prison yesterday in US District Court in Atlanta, Georgia. Sadequee got 17 years, and Ahmed 13 - both are subject to 30 years court supervision upon release. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the second link and read some of Judge Duffy's remarks to Sadequee). • Terrorism Defendants Sentenced • Federal Judge Sentences 2 Muslim Americans for Conspiring to Aid Terror Groups Sadequee and Ahmed were part of the global network of jihadis that...

The trip from a strict Pakistani boarding school to a bohemian bar in Philadelphia has defined David Headley’s life, according to those who know the middle-age man at the center of a global terrorism investigation. Raised by his father in Pakistan as a devout Muslim, Mr. Headley arrived back here at 17 to live with his American mother, a former socialite who ran a bar called the Khyber Pass. Today, Mr. Headley is an Islamic fundamentalist who once liked to get high. He has a traditional Pakistani wife, who lives with their children in Chicago, but also an American girlfriend...

Special Dispatch - No. 2505 August 25, 2009 Pakistan Taliban Commander: We Have 'Thousands of Suicide Bombers' Who Can 'Target Washington, Paris, London, and Kabul' On August 25, 2009, a Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper reported that Waliur Rehman, the commander of the Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal district of South Waziristan Agency, had said that his group has "thousands of suicide bombers" who can "target Washington, Paris, London, and Kabul."

Obama's biggest character flaw James Lewis The President of these United States recently expressed his love for "the Urdu poets," a piece of inspired BS that nobody in their right minds believed for a second. But then the P was narrowcasting to Pakistan, he thought, and Americans weren't supposed to be listening. Yet character is revealed in those little snippets of Obama's mind -- his glorious fantasy life, his everlasting hope that somebody will fall for another piece of schtick, and his essential fraudulence as a human being. Obama's biggest audience is himself, and no doubt he preened and pranced...

The President of these United States recently expressed his love for "the Urdu poets," a piece of inspired BS that nobody in their right minds believed for a second. But then the P was narrowcasting to Pakistan, he thought, and Americans weren't supposed to be listening. Yet character is revealed in those little snippets of Obama's mind -- his glorious fantasy life, his everlasting hope that somebody will fall for another piece of schtick, and his essential fraudulence as a human being. Obama's biggest audience is himself, and no doubt he preened and pranced in his mind's eye when he...

If you want to make high-brow small talk at one of President Barack Obama’s cocktail parties, don’t bother brushing up your Shakespeare. Try reading Urdu poetry. As POLITICO’s Ben Smith points out in his blog, Obama showed off his intellectual flair by evoking a standard of Pakistani culture in a recent interview with Dawn, a popular English-language newspaper in Pakistan. “‘I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I was still in college; was in Karachi and went to Hyderabad. Their...

The fact that President Obama had good Pakistani friends at (struck out) Columbia (end strikeout) in college was one that was basically kept out of his campaign on the theory that anything with any connection to Islam would feed a viral rumor the campaign was trying to kill. Now, though, it's another useful diplomatic tool, as in his interview with Dawn this weekend: ‘Any plan to visit Pakistan in the near future?’ ‘I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I...

Indiana University's programme for India studies, aimed at training high school students in Hindi and Urdu, has received about $120 million from the Obama administration. The money has been granted to the University under the 'STARTALK Program' of the US government, which was started by the previous administration of George W Bush, to increase the foreign language proficiency of Americans in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, Swahili and Urdu. "Our goals are for the participating students to acquire the linguistic and cultural competence to communicate successfully in the language and obtain various learning strategies and skills," said Sungok Hong, a...

SNIPPET: "The CIA is attempting to recruit more spies by advertising on the internet, radio and television, and by holding meetings with American Muslims to make up a severe shortage of Arabic speakers.... Leon Panetta, the new CIA director, will meet Muslim groups in cities such as Detroit to spearhead personally the new drive to recruit Arabic speakers. He recently lamented the fact that only 13 per cent of CIA officers speak a foreign language, and just 22 per cent come from minorities. "In order to accomplish our vital intelligence mission we want to market our employment opportunities to speakers...

Indian officials suspect the Islamic terrorists in Mumbai may have British links after examining BlackBerry phones they used to monitor news reports. Key figures in the terrorist gang were equipped with the devices that meant they were able to monitor British news, even when the authorities turned off power. A senior officer in the country's elite Black Cat commando unit told the Telegraph, the gunmen were able to trawl the internet for information once they lost cable television feeds to the two luxury hotels and office block. The men looked beyond the instant updates of the Indian media to find...

For over a year, we have been waging a relentless, nearly solitary battle in apprising the Congress and the American public about a billion dollar boondoggle and scandal: the lack of credible Arabic translators for our national security and intelligence agencies. As a result hundreds have been killed in Iraq from infiltration of our military and civilian intelligence agencies by agents of Islamist terrorists. Our FBI and CIA have been infiltrated by Muslim linguists who have successfully evaded polygraph tests and been able to pass on vital information to terror groups in the Middle East such as Hezbollah. Tens of...

A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English. Codie Stott's family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers. Yesterday the 14-year-old - who was released without charge - said it had been a simple matter of common sense and accused the school and police of an over-the-top reaction. The incident happened in the same local education authority where a ten-year-old boy was prosecuted earlier this year for calling a...

The recent train bombings in India have intensified the scrutiny of the Pakistan-based, al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. In particular, one key question is being asked: What role does LET play in the war against Islamofascists and their allies? The al Qaeda-linked Wahhabi group, formed in 1989, has been blamed for a number of attacks on Indian officials and civilians. It was added to the U.S. terrorist list in December 2001. LET’s agenda, as announced in one of their pamphlets and detailed by MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, is to wage jihad with the goal of imposing their narrow version...

HADITHA DAM, Iraq (July 27, 2005) -- As the Marines with 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment continue their fight in the Global War on Terrorism, most of them think of it as business and not personal. However, for some Marines who are of the Islamic faith, the war in Iraq hits a personal note. Cpl. Mohammed N. Rahman, who is a Sunni Muslim, fights not only to free the people of Iraq from the insurgents grip and to protect his country (America), but also to redeem his beloved religion. “This is a personal offense, not only to me but others...

The Associated Press NAPLES, Italy Jan. 31 — Police arrested 28 Pakistanis found in possession of explosives, hundreds of forged documents and maps of the Naples area with "sensitive targets" circled, authorities said Friday.In a statement, police said they had uncovered an "al-Qaida terrorist cell," but gave no further details on the Pakistanis' alleged involvement with al-Qaida or any other international terrorist group.A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said late Friday officers "might have gotten ahead of themselves" in announcing an al-Qaida link in the headline of their news release.The official also dismissed Italian news reports that the...

Drop French, say heads and teach Urdu instead By Macer Hall, Education Correspondent (Filed: 02/06/2002) Head teachers will this week call for schools to teach African and Asian languages instead of French and German in a reform designed to reflect the "ethnic mix" of the British population. At its annual conference in Torquay, the National Association of Head Teachers will discuss giving African languages, including Somali and Hausa, the same importance as the main European tongues. The head teachers also suggest that Albanian, Punjabi and Urdu be added to the curriculum. They say that expanding the teaching of such languages...