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Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Department of Justice had failed to prove something it insisted for years was true: that a Fremont man tried to travel to Syria in 2015, to join a terrorist organization.

Officers seized thousands of uniforms and other military gear on the way to terror groups Isis and al-Nusra Front. Spain's National Police reported on Thursday that officers had intercepted 20,000 uniforms and other military gear that were being sent to terror groups Isis and al-Nusra Front - the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. "With nearly 20,000 uniforms and military accessories seized, they would have been able to equip an entire army, which would be perfectly prepared to enter combat in any of the centres of conflict where terrorist jihadist organizations operate in the world," the Interior Ministry reported on Thursday. Police...

Ansar al Islam, which goes by the moniker Jamaat Ansar al Islam in Syria, has been coordinating its efforts with the Al Nusrah Front and Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar in a major battle for two Shiite villages north of Aleppo. The villages of Zahra and Nubl have been besieged by anti-regime elements since late November. Rebel forces have previously surrounded the villages and cut off electric and water services to the citizens. The two towns are located on a road to Turkey that is a key supply route into Aleppo. Ansar al Islam is an al Qaeda-affiliated group that...

Given that the “moderates” are our allies, you would think this problem could be avoided by coordinating with them on where to attack and where not to. But there’s a hitch: We … don’t trust them enough to rely on the intelligence they give us.You’d trust a group that’s fighting so closely alongside Al Qaeda (a.k.a. the Nusra Front) that bombing the latter means collateral damage for the former, wouldn’t you? Since U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria began on Sept. 22, there has been no coordination between the U.S. military and its alleged partners on the ground, according...

Twelve years after 9/11, the U.S. has changed sides. The Long War Journal reported on June 29 that the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, which is “al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria,” has “cooperated with Free Syrian Army units to establish sharia, or Islamic law, in Aleppo and in eastern Syria.” What is the Free Syrian Army? The "moderates" whom we are training and to whom we are giving weapons: “the US government is backing the Free Syrian Army despite the group’s known ties to the Al Nusrah Front.” "Training of Syrian insurgents steps up in Saudi...

Myopic focus on alleged chemical weapons use by the Assad regime in Syria is wrongheaded, as it has been all along. The salient issue is whether the United States should intervene militarily on behalf of enemies of the United States — the “rebel” factions, in which ties to al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood run deep. If chemical weapons use, rather than American national security, is to be our obsession, however, it is worth remembering al Qaeda’s history in that regard. In 1998, the Clinton Justice Department filed its initial indictment against Osama bin Laden for conspiring to carry out mass-damage...

(CNSNews.com) - While President Barack Obama is now asking Congress to authorize him to use military force against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad because that regime used chemical weapons on its own people, the State Department is maintaining a travel warning advising Americans not to travel to Syria because the al-Nusrah Front, the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria--which is particiapting in the rebellion seeking to overthrow Assad--has carried out about 600 attacks in the country since November 2011. These al Qaeda terrorist attacks, according to the State Department, have killed many Syrian civilians. "There is also a threat from...

SNIPPET: "Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, 30, and Mohamed Hussein Said, 25, face an indictment charging them with conspiring to provide and attempting to provide material support to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, according to authorities." SNIPPET: "The defendants, while based overseas in 2011-13, allegedly sent thousands of dollars via Western Union to an al-Qaida terrorist affiliate, al-Nusrah Front, which is fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. They also allegedly sent funds to al-Shabaab, another terrorist group seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed transitional government in Somalia."

Now wait a minute. We're constantly told that no Muslims in the U.S. -- none -- adhere to Al Qaeda's understanding of Islam, and only greasy Islamophobes think otherwise. So how did Amiir Farouk Ibrahim, no doubt known to all and sundry back home in Pennsylvania as a solid and respectable burgher of serious mien, come to misunderstand his peaceful religion so resoundingly? "American passport found at al Qaeda base in northern Syria," by Bill Roggio for the Long War Journal, July 23 (thanks to Jerk Chicken): A passport said to belong to an American citizen was found among a...

The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has sent "experts in warfare and information technology" to Syria to establish a base and monitor the fighting there. The disclosure of the existence of the Pakistani Taliban's Syrian cell occurred just two days after a group that bears the same name as an al Qaeda unit in Pakistan claimed to have executed an attack on Hezbollah in Beirut. The Pakistani Taliban sent 12 "experts in warfare and information technology" to Syria in the past two months to aid Syrian jihadists, while the base was established in Syria six months ago, the BBC...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2013/tunisian-man-charged-with-visa-fraud-related-to-terrorism-intended-to-remain-in-u.s.-to-facilitate-an-act-of-international-terrorism Tunisian Man Charged with Visa Fraud Related to Terrorism, Intended to Remain in U.S. to Facilitate an Act of International Terrorism U.S. Attorney’s Office May 09, 2013 Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; George Venizelos, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and Raymond W. Kelly, the Police Commissioner of the city of New York (NYPD), today announced the unsealing of charges against Ahmed Abassi, a Tunisian citizen, for...

Two years ago today, SEAL Team Six sent Osama bin Laden on his way to Davy Jones’ Locker — but his Islamist terror machine is anything but sinking to the depths. It remains a vicious, global threat. Since Osama’s demise, the terror group’s strength has ebbed in some areas, but flowed strongly in others. Indeed, one current estimate concludes that al Qaeda affiliates and associates (i.e., groups, cells or operatives) are active in more than 30 countries (of some 190) on four continents. Including our continent. While we don’t yet know the whole story behind the Boston bombing, just last...

Image that accompanied Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's audiotape announcing the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The flag was originally al Qaeda in Iraq's banner, but has been adopted by other al Qaeda affiliated and associated groups. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. The emir of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (also known as Abu Dua), has announced a new brand for his organization's efforts: the "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant." The new name replaces all previous brands used by al Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq and Syria, including the...

Eric Harroun is an Arizona native who rioted with rebels in Cairo and fought in Syria for Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al Nusra. **SNIP** Harroun's descent into Islamic fanaticism seems to have begun sometime after his discharge from the military. With seemingly no way to pursue his lifelong dream of being a soldier, he fell in with two Iraqi brothers, Maadh and Hayder Ibrahim, who he met while attending Pima Community College in Tucson, and began to identify himself as a Muslim, according to people who know him.

The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, al Qaeda in Iraq's affiliate in Syria, led an assault today that resulted in the takeover of a major dam on the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Additionally, the terror group claimed credit for a suicide assault on an intelligence headquarters in the city of Palmyra. The Al Nusrah Front spearheaded today's assault on the "strategic" dam in Thawra in Raqqa province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Nusrah Front led "other factions" of the insurgency to take control of Thawra, which "is considered one of the...

On the same day the US government announced that al Qaeda in Iraq's Al Nusrah Front was a terrorist organization, Al Nusrah and nine other jihadist groups banded together in the Syrian province of Deir al Zour and formed a Mujahideen Shura Council. The 10 jihadist groups, headed by the Al Nusrah Front, released a statement yesterday announcing the council's formation "on jihadist forums and pro-Syrian resistance social networking sites," according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which obtained and translated the message. "The jihadi Islamic brigades in the city of proud Deir al Zour in the Levant of Islam...

The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group that is fighting Bashir al Assad's regime in Syria, and allied jihadist groups took control of the last major Syrian Army base in western Aleppo after a two-month-long siege. The base is believed to be involved in Syria's chemical weapons program. The Sheikh Suleiman base, or Base 111, fell to the Al Nusrah Front and "several Islamist rebel battalions linked to it," a representative of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. Foreign fighters are also said to have played a key role...

More than 3,000 U.S. military personnel have secretly returned to Iraq via Kuwait and 17,000 more are on their way in response to the civil war in Syria that has spilled over into northern Iraq, according to a report published Monday by Iran's Press TV. The news follows by four days a report from the Russian news service RT that the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower has joined the USS Iwo Jima off the coast of Syria. Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week issued stern warnings to Syria about unspecified but serious "consequences" that would follow if...