Free Republic

When Osama bin Laden was banished from Sudan in 1996, he left the country in a rented Soviet jet — an aged and antique Tupolev flown by a Russian pilot he did not trust. With him were a few bodyguards, his military commander, Saif al-Adel, and two sons named Sa’ad and Omar — both young men in their late teens. Although it was the corrupt Islamic government of Sudan that had robbed Osama bin Laden of much of his vast personal wealth, he blamed America for his misfortunes, according to Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright. “He held America responsible for the...

In recent days, pro-al Qaeda jihadists claimed to confirm a recent news report saying that several senior al Qaeda leaders have been released from Iranian custody. Sky News reported earlier this week that five veteran jihadists were released in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who had been kidnapped in Yemen. Several jihadists on Twitter who are connected to al Qaeda have said the report is accurate. One of them is known as “Al Siyasi al Mutaqa’id,” who has relayed accurate information on al Qaeda in the past. The five jihadists who were reportedly freed are: Saif al Adel, Abu Mohammed...

DUBAI, July 19 (Reuters) - An Iranian general collaborated with al Qaeda to arrange the transit through Iran of nine of the September 11 hijackers, the Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported on Monday. "A general in the apparatus (Revolutionary Guard) coordinated with the number two man in al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, to provide 'safe passage' to around nine of those who carried out the attacks," the London-based paper said. It cited as its source an official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and said Zawahri, who requested the help, had links with the general going back to the early 1990s. Iranian...

n an unusual last-minute act before the new administration takes over the reins, acting Treasury Secretary Stuart A. Levy’s former office issued a stunning report on Friday, laying out long-standing ties between Iran and the top leadership of al-Qaida. As undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence since that job was created in July 2004, Levy spearheaded the Treasury Department’s efforts to take the war on international terrorists to the financial battlefield, by denying individual terrorists and terrorist-support states such as Iran access to international financial markets. Less known, until last Friday, was Levy’s involvement in tracking down fugitive al-Qaida members...

At the mid-March 2012 congressional hearings on the "Iran-Hezb'allah Threat to the Homeland," chaired by Representative Peter King, top officials from the DEA, the FBI, and the New York City Police Department, as well as senior scholars addressed the alarming capability and motivation of this Axis of Jihad to strike inside the U.S. Critical and timely, this was the latest in a series of hearings that Rep. King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has held to focus attention on the deadly threat to America's national security from the forces of Islamic jihad and sharia. There was an unmentioned...

Mzoudi was a liaison to al Qaeda, witness said. A man claiming to be a former Iranian spy testified Friday that Abdelghani Mzoudi, the second man to be tried for an alleged role in the Sept. 11 attacks, was involved in the preparations to hit the World Trade Center. The witness, who goes by the alias Hamid Reza Zakeri, took the stand at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg and claimed that Mzoudi, was "responsible for part of the organization" of the suicide attacks that destroyed the twin towers in New York and damaged the Pentagon. Zakeri testified Mzoudi...

Show availability of Iran for al Qaeda training, plotting. This week, prosecutors in New York introduced eight documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan as evidence in the trial of a terrorism suspect. The U.S. government accuses Abid Naseer of taking part in al Qaeda’s scheme to attack targets in Europe and New York City. The files do not support the view, promoted by some in the Obama administration, that bin Laden was in “comfortable retirement,” “sidelined,” or “a lion in winter” in the months leading up to his death. Some of the key revelations in the newly-released...

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - A Moroccan accused of helping the September 11 suicide hijackers received training in encryption techniques at an al Qaeda camp in Iran in 1997, an Iranian defector said on Friday. But his testimony to a German court was promptly undercut by comments from Germany's intelligence services, who questioned his credibility and said his evidence was worth very little. Hamid Reza Zakeri, the cover name of a man who says he worked in Iranian intelligence and defected in 2001, was testifying toward the end of Germany's second major trial of suspected members of al Qaeda's Hamburg cell....

I suggested during our conference call yesterday that the only friend the Muslim Brotherhood has in high places is Barack Obama. I didn't mean that facetiously. Turkey's application to join the SIno-Russian Shanghai Cooperation Organization following Prime Minister Erdogan's July 19 pilgrimage to Russia is a diplomatic humiliation for the United States, and of the first order. Just when Washington is demanding that Russia withdraw support for the Assad regime in Syria, and when Turkey is the linch-pin for American logistics in support of the Syrian opposition, Erdogan has proposed in effect to joint the Russian-Chinese club (without being compelled...