Free Republic

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged four Iranian nationals over an alleged plot to kidnap a Brooklyn-based journalist and human rights activist who published material critical of the Iranian government. A superseding indictment from the U.S. District Court from the Southern District of New York was unsealed Tuesday, revealing charges against an Iranian intelligence official, Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, as well as "Iranian intelligence assets" Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi and Omid Noori.

"These five guys are not a threat to the United States," says Clinton. "They are a threat to the safety and security of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's up to those two countries to make the decision once and for all that these are threats to them. So I think we may be kind of missing the bigger picture here. We want to get an American home, whether they fell off the ship because they were drunk or they were pushed or they jumped, we try to rescue everybody." Last week President Obama traded the Taliban 5, who were being...

The Obama administration gave the parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl extraordinary insider access to the military’s hunt for their son by having them take part in a series of secure video conferences with senior commanders as well as White House and State Department officials. A former government official involved in American hostage issues said he had never heard of giving a family such access and questioned whether sensitive information could have been conveyed to Robert and Jani Bergdahl and somehow leaked out. A family spokesman said he knows of no such breach. Soon after Sgt. Bergdahl went missing in...

One of the terrorists President Barack Obama released last week in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is already plotting to avenge his captivity by attacking American soldiers serving in Afghanistan, a Taliban commander has claimed. As a condition of the deal with the Taliban that secured Bergdahl’s release, the U.S. relinquished five Taliban associates to Qatar, where they are required to stay for the next year. Already, Noorullah Noori, is pledging to return to return to the battlefield, the commander said. After arriving in Qatar, Noorullah Noori kept insisting he would go to Afghanistan and fight American forces there,’ he...

“Commentary By Adina Kutnicki by Adina Kutnicki AS patriots await the official (Allah-wash) report regarding Bergdahl's (military-related) status, there are certain facts which are indisputable. We will get to that. BUT intertwined with the upcoming Pentagon's evaluation - re the aforementioned deserter and traitor - underlies the "logic" behind trading him for top Taliban leaders. IN this regard, it begs the question: why would the leader of the free world trade any soldier, let alone one with "questionable" loyalty, for high value, prized terror leaders? Well, if one's leanings are Islamist-infused, the question becomes the logical inverse: why not? Not...

The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents' agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, the Guardian has learned. According to sources familiar with the talks in the US and in Afghanistan, the handful of Taliban figures will include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan. More controversially, the Taliban are demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund. Washington is reported to be considering formally handing him over to the custody...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Plans to close Guantanamo are not sitting well with the Sept. 11 victims' relatives who sat stunned while two alleged terrorists declared they were proud of their role in the plot.

Six Chinese Muslims who were held in the Guantánamo Bay prison camp for almost eight years have arrived on the tiny Pacific island of Palau. The detainees from the Turkic Uighur minority were arrested in Afghanistan during the opening days of military operations in 2001 and held as suspected militants until last year when a US military tribunal decided they were not 'enemy combatants'. The release of the men, who were greeted on arrival by Palau's President, Johnson Toribiong, is another small step in US President Barack Obama's struggle to close the controversial prison camp by January. Palau, situated 500...