Free Republic

Former spy chief named in September 11 lawsuit is likely to be welcomed by the diplomatic community SAUDI ARABIA has chosen as its next ambassador to London its controversial former spy chief, a man who courted Osama bin Laden during the Cold War. According to diplomatic sources, the Saudi authorities have selected as their new envoy Prince Turki al-Faisal, a leading member of the Saudi Royal Family and head of intelligence for nearly a quarter of a century. His appointment is expected to be confirmed within weeks and he is likely to take up his post as early as next...

WASHINGTON: The famous African explorer Dr David Livingstone might have been impressed, even if the agenda was suspect. Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear proliferator-hero Abdul Qadeer Khan traversed the breadth of Africa in his hey day as a nuclear salesman , going to as romantic a getaway as Casablanca in Morocco and as remote an outpost as Timbuktu in Mali.   US officials might dearly like to get hold of Khan’s travel agent, or simply his itinerary, since he seems to have pretty much charted his own course during his profligate proliferating days. According to accounts now surfacing in the Pakistani media,...

SNIPPET: "On Thursday, April 2, a federal judge ruled that Guantánamo detainee Hedi Hammamy is being held for good reasons. Judge Richard Leon of the DC District Court found the US government’s evidence was sufficient to show that Hammamy supported al Qaeda and the Taliban. Hammamy, who is also known as Abdul Haddi bin Hadiddi in the US government’s unclassified Guantánamo files, was arrested by Pakistani authorities in April 2002 and transferred to Guantánamo months later. Government prosecutors demonstrated that Hammamy’s passport was recovered in a cave in the Tora Bora Mountains, which were the main fallback zone for fleeing...

Top brass flew to Baghdad with publicity-shy empowerment businessman Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, Jessica Bezuidenhout and Andre Jurgens Two of the ANC's most powerful officials travelled to Iraq with a controversial Johannesburg businessman just weeks before he landed a R1.2-billion state oil deal. Sandi Majali is one of about 270 people around the world who have been named in an alleged sanctions-busting scam involving oil from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. The names appeared in Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation documents found after the fall of Saddam. Majali, 41, who heads the media-shy empowerment company Imvume Resources, has for the...

The secret war On the North-West Frontier, soldiers are trying to tighten the noose around bin Laden's forces. But in Europe and America, there is no clear enemy to fight - yet every expert knows that a terrorist atrocity is coming Mark Townsend in Tangier, John Hooper in Madrid, Greg Bearup in Peshawar, Paul Harris in Washington, Peter Beaumont in Baghdad, Antony Barnett, Martin Bright, Jason Burke and Nick Pelham in London Sunday March 21, 2004 The Observer There were shadows in the rocks. As the 12 US Special Forces soldiers arrived at a remote mountain region in eastern Afghanistan...

Counterterrorism efforts got a major boost last week when a U.S. district court found three Muslim organizations and one individual, mostly based in the Chicago area, guilty of funding Hamas and fined them an astonishing $156 million. The four were found liable for their roles in the murder of an American teenager, David Boim, on May 13, 1996, when he was shot by Hamas operatives as he waited for a bus near Jerusalem. This case is important in itself, providing some measure of justice and relief for the Boim family. Beyond that, it helps fight terrorism in four ways. First,...