Free Republic

“We all have to die, so why not die the Islamic way?” Sami Osmakac, a 25-year-old immigrant who plotted a suicide terror attack in Tampa,told a confidential informant. When the informer tried once more to dissuade him from his plans, by asking whether he wanted to get married and have children, Osmakac replied that he would build his family in Paradise. Osmakac was arrested Saturday night, after receiving nonfunctioning guns and explosives from the FBI and making a martyrdom video. Although he initially planned to blow up a car bomb outside of Tampa’s nightlife district of Ybor City, he altered...

The Obama administration finally highlights Iran’s key role in supporting al Qaeda On July 28, the Treasury Department designated six al Qaeda operatives involved in shipping money and men from the Persian Gulf to senior al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The move targets a node of the global terror network that is critical to its overall strength, freezing any of its financial assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting any transactions with the operatives. Of the many conduits for al Qaeda funds and personnel across the world, the U.S. government believes this one is the most important. “This network...

A private intelligence report from Hillary Clinton's confidant, Sid Blumenthal, claimed that Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist organization, had set up shop in Cuba, according to an email released by the State Department over the weekend. The group was actively "casing" facilities related to U.S. interests, the intelligence report also says. The dispatch read: During the week of September 5, 2011 extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America.The confidential...

Hillary Clinton and her unofficial political adviser Sidney Blumenthal planted a positive op-ed in the mainstream news publication Bloomberg View in 2011. But this was no mere op-ed from a former staffer or random think-tank expert. They sent it in as an editorial, bylined to “The Editors” of Bloomberg, and it ironically praised Clinton’s role in Libya a year before the disastrous Benghazi terrorist attack. Clinton credited her “good friend” for writing the piece. Though the Clinton-Blumenthal tag team did not write the piece themselves, their fingerprints were clearly all over it. Blumenthal emailed Clinton at her private email address...

(CNN) -- "Real Housewives of D.C." star Michaele Salahi has been missing since Tuesday morning and may have been kidnapped, her husband's manager told CNN on Wednesday. "It is our belief as of last night, Michaele Salahi may have been kidnapped or abducted and is being held under duress and forced to tell persons, including authorities, she is OK," manager Gina Rodriguez said.

Africa appears to be in the process of throwing up two new alarming problems, one of them piracy on the west coast, to add to that already rampant on the east coast, and generational fracturing within South Africa's ruling party. A third disturbing problem is that the approach to Africa by the administration of President Barack Obama is becoming increasingly dominated by the U.S. military, in the form of the U.S. Africa Command, created in 2008 during the administration of former President George W. Bush. AFRICOM's latest maneuver, undoubtedly part of an effort to prevent Defense Department budget cuts in...

MADISON, Wis. – They illegally seized the property of their political targets in an unconstitutional investigation. Now two top investigators in Wisconsin’s political John Doe probe are asking the state Supreme Court to hold on to that property so they can use it to defend themselves against civil rights lawsuits. David Budde and Robert Stelter, investigators with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office, want to intervene in John Doe special prosecutor Francis Schmitz’s appeal. Schmitz is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling last month that shut down the investigation. As part of that ruling, the court ordered...

On September 25, the 23rd Arab-American Candidates’ Night Dinner was held in Virginia, attended by 46 Democrats and Republicans seeking office, with former governor and current Democratic Senate candidate, Tim Kaine, as a major speaker. The dinner honored a top Muslim Brotherhood official affiliated with Hamas named Jamal Barzinji, an inconvenient and overlooked fact for Kaine’s campaign team. Tim Kaine was the governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010 and then was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was on the short-list to become President Obama’s running mate. He is now running for Senate and will likely face...

Just as the Obama administration continues to reel from three major scandals, Republicans are zeroing in on yet one more — this one involving Obamacare as it nears implementation. GOP legislators are targeting Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the solicitations she made to some of the nation’s top insurance companies and other groups for donations to Enroll America, the nonprofit group charged with selling Obamacare to the public. “Our guys on the Hill think this is the fourth scandal,” Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak told Reuters this week. “It fits into that narrative Republicans are building not only about incompetence...

On the eve of Tuesday afternoon’s vote by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the confirmation of John O. Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the White House agreed to provide more information both on the legal basis for targeted killings and on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans last September. With a committee vote set for a closed session beginning at 2:30 p.m., senators will get access to all Justice Department legal opinions on the targeted killing of Americans, the committee’s Democratic chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, said in a statement. Two such...

The Russian warning to the United States government in 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, was based on two intercepted telephone calls discussing jihad, both involving his mother, a law enforcement official said on Saturday. The Russian authorities informed the F.B.I. in March 2011 that Mr. Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who had lived in the United States for about a decade, had changed drastically, had adopted extremist views and planned to travel to Russia to meet with underground groups. The F.B.I. sent agents to interview Mr. Tsarnaev and his...

Waltham police have stepped up their investigation of a 2011 triple homicide where a friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was brutally murdered, according to a relative of one of the victims who was interviewed by the Globe. The relative said Sunday that police have renewed the investigation at the request of victims’ relatives who believe Tamerlan, and perhaps his younger brother, Dzhokhar, played a role in the homicides. Authorities have said the victims all had their throats slit.

SolarCity US DOE loan approval fails According to news reports, US-based solar installation firm, SolarCity will not be able to complete and comply with documentation deadlines of September 30th to be considered for a US Department of Energy loan, previously announced. Earlier this month, the DOE had made a conditional commitment for a partial loan guarantee to SolarCity for PV system installations on residential and other buildings at US military bases. The US$344 million loan would go towards 371MW of new solar power generation capacity. The project, code named SolarStrong, will be led by SolarCity, with USRG Renewable Finance acting...

Solar panel installer SolarCity said on Friday it was the second company in as many days that will not get finalization of U.S. government loan aid by a September 30 deadline. The Department of Energy informed SolarCity of its inability to close the loan 48 hours ago, blaming increased paperwork resulting from a Congressional investigation into the Department of Energy's $535 million loan guarantee awarded to bankrupt solar company Solyndra, SolarCity said in a letter to the Republican lawmakers heading the probe.The DOE loan guarantee program, which is under fire for missing signs its first recipient of loan aid, Solyndra,...

Everett Stadig recuperating in the hospital after being shoved and breaking his hip. Photo courtesy of Everett Stadig. Denver, Colo., Nov 21, 2012 / 04:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The arrest of a prominent Denver relator who allegedly assaulted a senior citizen collecting signatures for a pro-life petition has lead to new developments in three unsolved rape cases. “Were it not for Mr. Costello’s arrest at the grocery store in July, there would have been no new leads, and there would have been no charges filed in connection with these three unsolved sexual assaults,” Lynn Kimbrough of the Denver District...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iranian-American man who U.S. officials say has links to Iran's security forces pleaded not guilty in federal court on Monday to plotting to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington in a bomb attack. , 56, who was arrested on September 29 in New York, faces several charges including conspiracy to murder a foreign official, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism. Another man, Gholam Shakuri, was also charged in the plot but is believed to still be in Iran. U.S. officials said he is a...

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. State Department announced this week that it finally is going to designate the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organization, it was a nonevent for most of our countrymen. That's because few Americans know how deadly the organization is. For that we can thank those at Foggy Bottom who are wedded to the naive hope of a near-term "diplomatic breakthrough" in Afghanistan. Couple that misguided belief with the Obama administration's self-deception that the radical Islamic jihad against the West ended with the demise of Osama bin Laden and it's understandable why the Haqqani network...

A key witness in a war crimes case against a senior Kosovo figure has been found dead in Germany, the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo (EULEX) said Wednesday. "EULEX confirms that Agim Zogaj, known as witness X in the Klecka case, was found dead in a park in Germany," the mission's statement said. It added that the "German authorities are conducting the necessary investigation to determine the circumstances of his death." According to local media reports, Zogaj had agreed to testify in the case of Fatmir Limaj, one of the most prominent commanders of the ethnic Albanian guerrillas...

The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world. If it does not, American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region. Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by...