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The chances are relatively remote that the 13 people linked to the C.I.A who were ordered arrested by an Italian judge last week will ever stand trial there, experts in international law said Sunday. The 13 people, charged with illegally seizing an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and flying him to Egypt for questioning, are presumed to have left Italy. If they are indeed Americans and C.I.A. officers and operatives, as described in the arrest warrants, and if they are now in the United States, the American government may in theory be obligated to extradite them....

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) criticized Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean Wednesday night for using "religion to divide." Obama told reporters gathered at the Rock the Vote awards dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., that Dean needs to tone down his rhetoric. Dean said on Monday that the Republican Party was "pretty much a white, Christian party." "As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat," Obama said. "I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be...

Does al-Qaida have nukes? SPECIAL REPORT Publishing date: 12.05.2005 20:03 Intelligence specialist alarmed by WMD Commission Report By LTC Joseph C. Myers Does al-Qaida have a nuclear weapon? With all of our pressing focus on events in the War on Terror overseas, that is the most important question here at home. Historically the pattern of WMD proliferation in the world has been principally state to state: China to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and possibly North Korea; or North Korea to Pakistan, and maybe a former Soviet Republic to North Korea. I would have assessed it as a “low probability” that al-Qaida...

In a massive roundup by Iranian security officials, as many as 50 Iranian CIA operatives were exposed and killed, leaving the U.S without any intelligence sources in that critical Middle Eastern nation. The shocking story surfaced on Feb. 2, when former Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle told the House Intelligence Committee about what he called the "terrible setback that we suffered in Iran a few years ago when, in a display of unbelievable, careless management, we put pressure on agents operating in Iran to report with greater frequency and didn't provide improved communications." He called it an example of the...

Counterterrorism efforts got a major boost last week when an American district court found three Muslim organizations and one individual, mostly based in the Chicago area, guilty of funding Hamas and fined them an astonishing US$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, it validates...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Fri Oct 29, 1:12 PM ET Anti-Bush protesters chant and hold up signs at a campaign rally for President Bush (news - web sites) at Verizon Wireless Arena Friday, Oct. 29, 2004 in Manchester, N.H. The protesters where blaming Bush for the 386 tons of explosives missing in Iraq (news - web sites) while the U.S. has been in control. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Chinese 'operatives' face Pakistani wrath By B Raman The kidnapping of two Chinese engineers working on an irrigation project in South Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan by a group of pro-Osama bin Laden jihadis last week and the death of one of them on Wednesday, during a rescue operation mounted by the US-trained Special Services Group, the parent army unit of President General Pervez Musharraf, draws attention once again to the growing threat to Chinese lives and interests in Pakistan from jihadi terrorists belonging to the International Islamic Front (IIF) of bin Laden. In an...

Friends... I am saddened by the fact that this article had to be written. This is not how we want to run our country. A Single Factor may decide this Election… Sadly, the DNC is so desperate to win this election that they have decided to remove all obstacles and play by their own set of rules, which is no rules at all. The DNC has lost its soul, and Party reform must be considered. JB Williams Political Columnist www.JB-Williams.com JBW@JB-Williams.com A Single Factor may decide this Election… Written by JB Williams ©2004-09-27 Is it “the economy stupid”? The war...

Heavy metal music and popular American children's songs are being used by US interrogators to break the will of their captives in Iraq. Uncooperative prisoners are being exposed for prolonged periods to tracks by rock group Metallica and music from children's TV programmes Sesame Street and Barney in the hope of making them talk. The US's Psychological Operations Company (Psy Ops) said the aim was to break a prisoner's resistance through sleep deprivation and playing music that was culturally offensive to them. However, human rights organisation, Amnesty International, said such tactics may constitute torture - and coalition forces could be...

The Israeli intelligence community prides itself on its ability to penetrate the Shi'ite Hezbollah movement and other militant anti-Israeli groups in Lebanon. While most of the dozens of Shi'ite Lebanese hauled before military courts in Beirut on charges of collaborating with Israel each year are probably innocent, the paranoia vividly underscores the efficacy of Israeli espionage. Recently, however, it appears that the tables are turning. During the last two years, Hezbollah has been surprisingly successful in recruiting Arab Israeli citizens to gather intelligence about Israeli military movements and prospective targets for terrorist operations, smuggle weapons into the country from Lebanon,...