Free Republic

For $250,”friends” — or $1000 for a “champion” (photo included) — you too can attend a fundraiser with Chelsea Clinton for her mother at the home of Michael and Sholeh Chegini in Newport Coast, California, according to an invitation to the event obtained by Right Turn. Michael Chegini served on the board of directors and thereafter the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a notorious group with links to the Iranian regime that opposed, among other things, any sanctions on Iran. “The Clintons never miss an opportunity to put money ahead of principle,” a spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition...

A few weeks ago, the US Central Command announced that an air raid had killed an ISIS chemical weapon expert in Mosul. The ISIS operative, Iraqi engineer Mahmoud al-Sabawi, used to work at Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons program before he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 US led invasion. The idea that ISIS terrorists have access to chemical weapons brings back images of the genocide inflicted on the Kurds by Saddam Hussein in the late 1980’s. The Halabja Massacre killed up to 5,000 and injured between 7,000 and 10,000 more. If ISIS jihadists have a stash of chemical weapons,...

Iraq uncovers al-Qaeda 'chemical weapons plot' The authorities in Iraq say they have uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons, as well as to smuggle them to Europe and North America. Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said five men had been arrested after military intelligence monitored their activities for three months. Three workshops for manufacturing the chemical agents, including sarin and mustard gas, were uncovered, he added. Remote-controlled toy planes were also seized at the workshops. Mr Askari said they were to have been used to release the chemical agents over the target from a "safe" distance of 1.5km...

As the civil war in Syria enters its third year, there is much discussion of the regimeÂ’s chemical weapons and whether SyriaÂ’s Bashar al-Assad will unleash them against Syrian rebels, or whether a power vacuum after AssadÂ’s fall might make those horrific tools available to the highest bidder. The conversation centers on SyriaÂ’s chemical weaponry, not on something vastly more serious: its nuclear weaponry. It well might have. This is the inside story of why it does not. Relations between the United States and Israel had grown rocky after IsraelÂ’s incursion into Lebanon in 2006, for Secretary of State Condoleezza...

I ended the war in Iraq” is now a standard claim by President Obama. He makes the assertion in every debate and public appearance. The claim is wrong. It’s phony, and it’s made by a politician who tried relentlessly to block America’s most successful strategic operation of the war: the “surge.” On Feb. 5, 2007, and a few weeks later on Feb. 17, Sen. Obama voted against the surge. Among military analysts and historians, the surge of 20,000 additional troops into Iraq during the spring of 2007 is credited with reducing attacks on American troops and sectarian violence by 70...

THE FOILING OF AN Islamist terrorist plot this week in Germany is noteworthy for several reasons that may not have been obvious from the headlines. The first is the involvement of an ethnic Turk. On Tuesday, police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia seized three men identified as a Turk and two German converts to Islam (under German court rules, their full names were not released). While the activity of converts in terrorism is not new, the Turkish community in Germany has so far been free of the plague of religious extremism. Turkish and Kurdish immigrants to Germany and...

The twin-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago would seem to be the last place to raise alarm bells over the threat of radical Islam. Trinidad was briefly catapulted into the spotlight in June 2007 when reports surfaced that one of the suspects linked to an alleged plot to attack New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was a Trinidadian national and that the suspects reached out to Yasin Abu Bakr, the leader of Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM, Association of Muslims), for assistance in executing their plan. JAM is an enigmatic Trinidadian Muslim militant group that is implicated in violence,...

Four men including former PNCR Member of Parliament Abdul Kadir were yesterday charged by United States law enforcement officials with allegedly conspiring to blow up the John F Kennedy International airport as well as tanks storing aviation fuel and underground fuel pipelines. Those charged with Kadir are former JFK worker Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese-born US citizen; Kareem Ibrahim, an imam from Trinidad; and Guyanese Abdel Nur. Kadir and Ibrahim were arrested in Trinidad, while Defreitas was held in New York. Up to press time, however, Nur had not been apprehended and was thought to be still at large in Trinidad....

An alleged plot to send anti-aircraft missiles and guns to Syria or Iran was thwarted after a key figure was arrested in Philadelphia, the FBI said in documents released Monday. -snip- He was after missiles that could "take down an F-16," the affidavit says. Little did Tarraf know, he was requesting the weapons from an undercover agent, according to documents. The affidavit alleges that Tarraf paid a $20,000 cash deposit to the agent in July for machine guns and shoulder-fired Stinger missiles, MyFoxPhilly.com reported. The documents say Tarraf's dealings with the undercover officer date back to June 2007. -snip-

The title page of Nidal Hasan's PowerPoint demonstration for a medical lecture in June 2007, indicates how little interest he took in medicine and how much in the perceived contradiction between being a Muslim and an American soldier. As the Pentagon and Senate launch what one analyst dubs "dueling Fort Hood investigations," will they confront the hard truth of the Islamic angle? Despite encouraging references to "violent Islamists" by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Democrat of Connecticut), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, there is reason to worry about a whitewash of the massacre that took place on Nov. 5; that is...

POLICE were last night hunting an Iraqi, suspected of plotting car-bomb attacks in Britain, who went on the run just days before two vehicles packed with petrol, gas and nails were found in central London. The first device was discovered in a Mercedes parked outside one of the city's biggest nightclubs, Tiger Tiger, at about 1am when hundreds were packed inside for a ladies' night. Police, alerted by ambulance workers who thought they saw fumes inside the car, defused the bomb. Officers later found similar materials in a Mercedes that had been parked nearby. They said it contained gas, fuel...

(AP) -- Federal prosecutors have asked that an anonymous jury be impaneled for the trial of six men accused of plotting to attack soldiers on Fort Dix. In a motion filed Monday, the U.S. attorney's office said potential jurors might fear for their safety because of the nature of the charges and the international publicity around the case. The request could be discussed at a meeting Friday before U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler. Attorney Rocco Cipparone, who represents Mohamad Shnewer, told the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill for Tuesday's editions that he opposes an anonymous jury, fearing it would only fuel...

University of Minnesota staff were key coordinators of the recent violent protests at the Republican National Convention (RNC). The university employees are also members of the local clerical union of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. The AFSCME is part of the AFL-CIO union. Protests turned violent at the 2008 RNC located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Police have arrested hundreds of demonstrators for violent attacks on police officers and bystanders and other more nuisance crimes. The Saint Paul Police have identified an anarchist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee as being at the center of the violence....

N Korean ship 'linked to Israel's strike on Syria' By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 4:52pm BST 17/09/2007 A suspicious North Korean freighter that re-flagged itself as South Korean before off-loading an unknown cargo at the Syrian port of Tartous is at the centre of efforts today to investigate Israel's recent airstrike on Syria. Israel has not given any details on the operation in Syria An Israeli on-line data analyst, Ronen Solomon, found an internet trace for the 1,700-tonne cargo ship, Al Hamed, which showed the vessel started to off-load what Syrian officials categorised as "cement" on Sept 3....

A search warrant filed in Hennepin County connects a shooting investigation to a possible terror plot. According to court documents, four Somali teenage males were riding in a cab on June 24 the same night a man was shot in the chest around 9:00 p.m. Video surveillance at the Glendale Housing Projects captured the cab fleeing near the scene of the shooting. Police were able to identify the taxicab and located the vehicle at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport four days later. Inside the cab, police found a handwritten note describing acts of terrorism and bombings. Police questioned an 18-year-old relative...