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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Taliban insurgents had planned to use five Americans, now detained in Pakistan, who had contacted the militants via the Internet, to carry out attacks in the U.S.-allied country, a police official said on Saturday. Usman Anwar, police chief in Sargodha, where the men were arrested this month, said emails had revealed plans for the young men from Virginia to travel to a Pakistani nuclear power plant. "We believe that they were supposed to be used inside Pakistan," Anwar told Reuters by telephone. "In their last email to the Taliban, we found they mentioned the Chashma Nuclear Plant...

This unfolding story of the man who attempted (nearly successfully) yesterday to blow up Northwest Airlines 253 in mid-air is nerve wracking on several levels. First, the fact that the leg-bomber and/or his accomplic(es) managed to smuggle liquid and powder bomb components onto this trans-Atlantic flight, assemble them in flight, and ignite the mixture is cause for grave consternation for every law enforcement agency with any role to play in preventing this kind of thing. If this jihad-addled yahoo got this close to killing 289 innocent people, my hunch is that there are other such yahoos out there all ginned...

MIR ALI, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike killed three people Saturday in a northwest Pakistani tribal region where militants focused on fighting the West in Afghanistan are concentrated, two Pakistani intelligence officials said. The missile strike was apparently the latest in a lengthy campaign of such attacks by the U.S., which rarely discusses the covert program but has in the past said it has taken out several top al-Qaida operatives. Pakistan publicly opposes the strikes but is believed to secretly aid them. Saturday's strike occurred in the Babar Raghzai area of North Waziristan and also wounded two people,...

Man on Flight to Detroit Claims al Qaeda Ties; Obama Tightens Security WASHINGTON -- U.S. prosecutors charged a 23-year-old Nigerian man with attempting to carry out a Christmas Day terrorist bombing on a Northwest Airlines flight on its approach to Detroit. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was charged in a federal criminal complaint with placing a destructive device on Flight 253. Federal Bureau of Investigation analysts, in preliminary tests, determined the device contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a highly explosive compound, the Justice Department said. In addition, FBI agents recovered what appear to be the remnants of the syringe from the...

DETROIT — A prominent Nigerian banker said Saturday he feared his son was the man authorities say tried to blow up a plane as it prepared to land in Detroit before nearby passengers — who saw a glow and heard what sounded like firecrackers — tackled him. The suspect tried ignite the explosive device onboard a Northwest Airlines plane from Amsterdam just before it landed in Detroit on Friday, officials said. Travelers who say they smelled smoke and heard a popping noise said at least one man climbed over a seat and jumped on the man.

HEADLINE ONLY. Article will be posted when available.

(snipped) Hoekstra says that Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab may have a common link with the Fort Hood shooter that shot 13 people in November. AFP, Dec. 26: There was a suggestion of links between Abdulmutallab and radical US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, who had contacts with the US army psychiatrist accused of gunning down 13 people at a Texas military base last month. "He may have been in contact with the American imam al-Aulaqi," Peter Hoekstra, the most senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and a member of Congress for Michigan, told AFP.

An al Qaeda terrorist tried to blow up a plane packed with Christmas travelers yesterday as it was about to land in Detroit -- but was thwarted by heroic passengers who tackled the madman, authorities said. The 23-year-old Nigerian suffered serious burns, and at least two other passengers were injured in the terrifying violence aboard the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam. "This could have been catastrophic," Rep. Peter King (R-LI) told Fox News. "We were lucky." President Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, ordered his national security team to ensure that "all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air...

ISLAMABAD (AP) ― Police are trying to determine whether five Americans detained in Pakistan had planned to attack a complex that houses nuclear power facilities, authorities said Saturday. The young Muslim men, who are from the Washington, D.C., area, were picked up in Pakistan earlier this month in a case that has spurred fears that Westerners are traveling to the South Asian country to join militant groups. Pakistani police and government officials have made a series of escalating and, at times, seemingly contradictory allegations about the men's intentions, while U.S. officials have been far more cautious, though they, too, are...

Air France - flight 447 - Rio to Paris - June 1, 2009 - crashed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. American Airlines - flight 587 - New York JFK to Santo Domingo - Nov. 12, 2001 - crashed in a Queens neighborhood. In my humble opinion, the above-mentioned flights had a terrorism component to them that has not yet been revealed and/or published. Thoughts?

.."According to the family members, Mutallab has been uncomfortable with the boy's extreme religious views and had six months ago reported his activities to United States' Embassy, Abuja and Nigerian security agencies. The older Mutallab was said to be devastated on hearing the news of Abdul Farouk's attempted bombing arrest. A source close to him said he was surprised that after his reports to the US authorities, the young man was allowed to travel to the United States."

A Dutch airline passenger told The Post how he leapt into action when an alleged Muslim terrorist tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner packed with 300 people just moments before landing. Chaos erupted as alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23, tried to set off a sophisticated explosive device strapped to his body. "Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends. "When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, ‘Fire! Fire!’"

Seconds after passengers spotted flames climbing above the back of a window seat midway down the left side of Northwest Flight 253, Friday's routine descent toward Detroit's main airport turned into horror, mayhem and instant heroism. Just as the widebody Airbus A330 made a rumbling sound as the landing gear started down, horrified travelers in seats around the young Nigerian later detained as a terrorism suspect started screaming, according to eyewitness reports by passengers. Flight attendants quickly joined the hubbub around the man in seat 19A, repeatedly screaming "What are you doing?" There was a pop and then smoke wafted...

KABUL -- The Taliban distributed a new video Friday of a U.S. soldier who was captured this summer in Afghanistan, with an offer to release him in a prisoner exchange.A spokesman for the international forces here denounced the video, but declined to comment on the possibility of an exchange or on efforts to rescue the captive.Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, an airborne infantryman from Ketchum, Idaho, was seized by Taliban-aligned militants on June 30. The military says he is the only American soldier who has been captured by insurgent forces during the war here.

Man on Flight to Detroit Claims Al Qaeda Ties; Obama Tightens Security DETROIT -- A passenger on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight tried to detonate an explosive device that was strapped to his leg and later told investigators that he was trying to blow up the plane and had affiliations with al Qaeda, according to a senior U.S. official. The man, who has not been publicly identified by officials, told investigators that he was given the device by Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, where he was also given instructions on how to detonate it, the official said. The Associated Press...

Private Bergdahl - assuming he's still alive - is spending Christmas as a captive of the Taliban. His captors spent the last day or two uploading a video showing Private Bergdahl reading a statement. The video was divided into four segments and uploaded to YouTube on 25 December 2009. The YouTube account is:

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials said a Northwest Airlines passenger from Nigeria said he was acting on behalf of al-Qaida when he tried to blow up a flight Friday as it landed in Detroit. And a White House official called the Christmas incident an attempted act of terrorism. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., identified the suspect as Abdul Mudallad. King said the flight began in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam en route to Detroit. One of the U.S. intelligence officials said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it. The passenger...

Romulus, Mich. - A senior U.S. counterterror official says a passenger aboard a Delta Air Lines flight in Detroit was planning to blow up the plane but the explosive device failed. The official said the passenger was being questioned Friday evening. It was not immediately clear why the passenger wanted to attack the flight that was arriving from Amsterdam

The world, and our region of it, was expecting a lot around this time at the end of last year. We had been promised a new president in the White House, by all measures a historic leader in terms of skin color, the intelligence of his speech and his sincere manner of expression. We had been promised a speech by Barack Obama addressed to the Muslim world that would turn the page on Bush's warmongering and his provocative language of hate. And indeed Obama didn't deprive us of that. He stood before students at Cairo University, reminded us of his...

Instead of slogging through everything on my own as usual, Big Hollywood has picked up all 10 episodes of the series for wider distribution, and have assigned their “tech genius” Darren Rush, to get these converted and in shape in full glorious hi-definition so you don’t have to watch the shit version like the one here (though Episode One doesn’t look so bad). We start work today. Thank you Andrew Breitbart and John Nolte.

SAN'A, Yemen – Yemen's military hit suspected al-Qaida hideouts Thursday and targeted a gathering of top militant leaders, possibly killing a radical cleric linked to the U.S. Army major accused of the Fort Hood mass shooting, in strikes carried out with U.S. intelligence help, officials said. At least 30 militants were believed to be killed in the second such strike in a week. Pentagon officials could not confirm Thursday whether U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed in the strike. Al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico and attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, before moving in 2002 to...

DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart and United States Attorney Preet Bharara announced today the arrests of three individuals for drug and terrorism charges. OUMAR ISSA, HAROUNA TOURÉ, and IDRISS ABELRAHMAN arrived in the Southern District of New York early this morning to face charges of conspiracy to commit acts of narco‑terrorism and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The charges stem from the defendants' alleged agreement to transport cocaine through West and North Africa with the intent to support three terrorist organizations ‑‑ Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb ("AQIM"), and the Fuerzas Armadas...

They said that if they were handed over to the US, there was a possibility that they would be treated inhumanly and didn’t want to be insulted and humiliated by the American intelligence agencies, Online news agency reported. In these circumstance, they said they were appealing to the Pakistani government to decide their fate and that they would prefer the death sentence to deportation. Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/hang-us-dont-deport-us-5-americans-held-on-terror-charges_100294293.html#ixzz0ac9kYEQf

SNIPPET: "...let's get back to the woeful tale of Bro. Ismail Royer, as presented at the Umar Lee blog:" SNIPPET: "Mr. Royer, formerly associated with CAIR, is currently serving a 20 year sentence for his work on behalf of designated Terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba. Lashkar e Taiba is notable among other things for having killed 171 people in Mumbai in 2008, among many other atrocities."

The secretive U.S. air strike against suspected al-Qaida in Yemen last week is the latest in what has been a fast-growing campaign to better equip and fund Yemeni forces so they can eliminate the expanding al-Qaida safe havens there. The Pentagon has poured nearly $70 million in military aid to Yemen this year, a massive financial infusion compared to nothing in 2008. Much like the effort with Pakistan's Frontier Corps, the military has boosted its counterterrorism training for Yemeni forces, and is providing more intelligence, which probably includes surveillance by unmanned drones, according to U.S.. officials and analysts. The heightened...

Former President Bill Clinton came within minutes of being assassinated in the Philippines by terrorists controlled by Osama bin Laden, a new book has revealed. ...Marisa Porges, a former government counter-terrorism advisor and an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, said the assassination plot, if true, would suggest al Qaeda was more developed than some thought it was prior to 9/11”.

“Absurd, if not obscene” is how former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey characterized the recent claim by Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that relocating terrorist detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois will create new jobs in the surrounding area. In an exclusive interview with HUMAN EVENTS yesterday, Mukasey replied to claims by Durbin, in both remarks outside the White House and in an article in The Hill, that the move of nearly 100 Guantanamo prisoners to the Illinois-based facility “will have a tremendously positive impact on the local economy -- creating more than...

Time magazine may think U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is 2009’s “Person of the Year,” but Time is wrong: 2009 was dominated by Barack Obama, even though it wasn’t a great year for him. Obama’s human frailties surfaced. Words, not deeds, are his forte. Critics and fans tended to agree that, so far, his presidency is one of great intentions (if not great expectations). He’s good at saying what he’d like to do, but has difficulty doing (or being able to do) very much. Cheerleaders confuse rhetoric with results. Obama is the most accessible president in recent times. He’s...

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a former tax attorney, teams up with former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy to pen a piece in the National Review Online today calling on Congress to block the Obama administration’s decision to grant a civilian trial to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 plotters. Bachmann, who has long been ringing alarm bells over importing terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, joins a fresh chorus of conservative critics who oppose giving the self- acknowledged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks a crack at a civilian trial in New York City.

SNIPPET: "If a major homegrown terrorist attack happens on U.S. soil in the coming years, 2009 will be looked at as the year when the warning signs were missed. According to the Rand Corporation, the U.S. has experienced 30 homegrown terrorism plots since 9/11. One-third of these occurred in 2009; a frightening spike that warrants more attention than it is currently being given by public officials. The Obama Administration began its term by refusing to include terms like “radical Islam” as part of its lexicon. The Global War on Terrorism was alternatively called an “overseas contingency operation” or “a campaign...

Recently, I sat down with a friend who has spent almost three decades working as an intelligence operative in the defense of our nation. During the course of our conversation, I asked him what -- based on his vast experience -- was the number one threat facing our nation? Without even pausing to think about it, he forcefully answered, “Our mainstream media.” More than Al Qaeda, more than homegrown terrorists, more than heavily armed Mexican drug cartels, more than non-existent borders, more than out-of-control and extremely violent domestic gangs, and even more than biological and nuclear terrorism, this dedicated intelligence...

Iran confirmed Saturday that its forces had taken over East Maysan oil field, located on the Iran-Iraq border. The move caused a 2.4% spike in oil prices. "The Iranian forces are on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders. This oil field is Iran's" said an Iranian armed forces statement quoted by the Islamic Republic Arab-language television station, al-Alam. Proprietary of the East Maysan oil field had been the center of a dispute between Tehran and Bagdad for a lengthy period of time. Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji said the move was the latest in a series...

Last week the House overwhelmingly approved a measure to put a new round of sanctions on Iran. If this measure passes the Senate, the United States could no longer do business with anyone who sold refined petroleum products to Iran or helped them develop their ability to refine their own petroleum. The sad thing is that many of my colleagues voted for this measure because they felt it would deflect a military engagement with Iran. I would put the question to them, how would Congress react if another government threatened our critical trading partners in this way? Would we not...

Showdown in Sterling on 12/22: rally against the jailhouse jihad moving north to Thomson No, al Qaeda will not break out of “beyond Supermax.” They’ll just wage jailhouse jihad at every opportunity and force guards to extract them from their cells when its feeding time. The slightest bruise will be dutifully reported to the press by their pro bono lawyers. Those indicted will have similar fun in lockups around the country for, in addition to Manhattan and Brooklyn, an additional 50 detainees will be farmed out for federal prosecution. Gitmo in the heartland Attorney General Eric Holder is, of course,...

Pakistan government has made it mandatory for all foreigners to have security clearance by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The Government has declared that security clearance by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is a prerequisite for all foreigners entering Pakistan, a private TV channel was reported by Daily Times as stating on Friday. The decision is said to have been taken in the wake of prevailing law and order situation in Pakistan. 'The decision was made due to the prevailing law and order situation in the country. The decision is also applicable to all those people who have acquired other citizenships after...

Soldiers Christmas Project The Night Before Christmas is poetic reading for Families at Home to help support our troops on the front as well as those sent home. Support the Wounded Warrior Project.

Ramadi, Iraq Iraqis remain deeply concerned about Iranian influence in their country five months before the US begins the massive drawdown of its troops from Iraq. Next year, elections will be held in March, and the 112,000 American forces will shrink by more than half by the end of August. As that transition nears, Iraq has made significant progress toward greater security.

At the end of an hour-long meeting Sunday evening with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that "Egypt has more to fear from Iran than we do." The foreign minister went on to stress that "The greatest danger in the Middle East today is Iran, which is a greater threat to moderate Arab nations than to Israel." Teheran, according to Lieberman, is "attempting to duplicate the model of Hizbullah in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen." Earlier on Sunday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak welcomed Suleiman to Jerusalem, saying that Egypt is a "central player" in the Middle East....

If the intervention in Iraq was indeed "a war for oil," then some of that war's more positive consequences were to be seen in Baghdad last week. The country's oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, presided over an auction at which development rights for seven major oil fields were awarded in competitive bidding among several international consortia. Three features of the outcome were worthy of note. The auction was to award service contracts rather than the production-sharing agreements that the major corporations prefer. The price was set at between $1.15 and $1.90 per barrel, as opposed to the $4 that the bidders...

In the latest of many shameful lapses, the federal agency in charge of securing the nation’s transportation system approved background checks for a dozen illegal immigrants working in sensitive areas of a busy U.S. airport. The illegal aliens, from Central America and Mexico, worked in operational areas of Stewart International Airport, a 2,400-acre facility located about 60 miles north of New York City. Stewart is a major passenger airport for the state’s mid-Hudson region that also handles large quantities of cargo and serves as a military field. The illegal aliens all had security badges approved by the Transportation Security Administration...

Not my video. Credit goes to those at Rebel Christmas Card.

UBL was 17th of 24 sons and 31 daughters. UBL has stated that it was "not a Koranic union", that (his mother) A'alia was only Mohammed’s maid and concubine (she was referred to by the other wives as “the slave”).UBL became boyhood friends with the future Crown Prince Abdul Rahman (currently 2nd in line for King).In 1967 UBL inherited $300 million. By 15, UBL was influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.UBL set up at least three terrorist training camps in North Sudan. UBL established training bases in northern Yemen. 11 children by Najwa: Abdullah (1976), Abdul Rahman (1978), Sa’ad (1979), Osman...

Polish soldier killed in Afghanistan Associated Press 2009-12-19 11:58 PM A Polish soldier has been killed in fighting with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Dariusz Kacperczyk, an armed forces spokesman, says Private Michal Kolek was shot Saturday after he and other soldiers were called in to support a Polish patrol that was attacked in central Ghazni province. The death of the 22-year-old Kolek brings to 16 the number of Polish troops who have been killed in Afghanistan since their mission started in 2002. Poland is to reinforce its contingent of some 2,000 troops in Ghazni in March by adding...

President Obama's scramble to close Guantanamo is picking up speed as his arbitrary one-year deadline approaches, with Yemen and Illinois as the latest detainee destinations. Neither decision will enhance U.S. security. The government of Yemen announced yesterday that it will take six detainees, and more could follow if this transfer goes smoothly. Yemenis account for 97 of the 210 men still left at Gitmo, and 34 have been cleared for release. The problem is that Yemen is emerging as one of the world's sanctuaries for al Qaeda, and its government has essentially run a nonaggression pact with the terrorists.

Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization has become increasingly reliant on organized crime, including cocaine smuggling, human trafficking and kidnapping, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Manhattan's federal court. The charges filed against three alleged al-Qaeda associates by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan is the latest chilling evidence of a convergence between terrorism and organized crime. Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman were snatched in Ghana on Wednesday by a Drug Enforcement Administration sting and shipped to New York, where they arrived on Friday to face charges of conspiracy to commit acts of narco-terrorism and providing material support...

In an editorial column published on 18 December, the editors of The Toledo Blade point out that capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden would not defeat Al Qaeda and capturing or killing Mullah Omar would not defeat the Taliban. They are correct in this but their notions do not go far enough. The fact of the matter is, Al Qaeda and the Taliban could cease to exist tomorrow and the U.S. and Western civilization would still face a Jihadist threat...

I just finished reading Sarah Palin's excellent book (number one on the New York Times bestseller list), "Going Rogue - An American Life." In one of the last chapters, I came across a passage in which Palin references the writings of Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell is a well-known syndicated columnist and academic economist. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. Palin writes about Sowell's book "A Conflict of Visions." In this publication, Sowell explains how "visions" shape our opinions and the way we look at social and political issues. Sowell calls these visions the "unconstrained"...

BEIJING - With 30,000 more United States troops on their way to Afghanistan, it is growing clearer that they will not suffice and that larger challenges loom. Afghanistan is also increasingly developing into a political proxy war between India and Pakistan. Pakistan, which backed the mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s and offered a safe haven and breeding ground to the Taliban in the 1990s, is now looking askance at the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, which it sees as pro-India. Conversely, India has fond memories of the time when Kabul was firmly under Moscow's hands and...

Dr. Jones and the members of the Dove World Outreach Center, have found an innovative way to spread the word about Islam. They did it holiday style and they will obviously never back down in this war. I applaud them for their strength. To view this short video....

A new Islamic mosque will open its doors just steps from Ground Zero where Muslim terrorists murdered 2,751 people in the name of Allah on Sept. 11, 2001 – and its leading imam, who conducts sensitivity training sessions for the FBI, has reportedly blamed Christians for starting mass attacks on civilians. The five-story building at Park Place, just two blocks north of the former World Trade Center site, was the site of a Burlington Coat Factory. But a plane's landing-gear assembly crashed through the roof on the day 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked the airliners and flew them into the Twin...