Free Republic

War On Terror: The anti-war crowd says the small number of enemy fighters inside Afghanistan doesn't justify sending 30,000 fresh troops there. They fail to understand the larger problem. Sen. Barbara Boxer complains al-Qaida is scarcely in Afghanistan. She cites an intelligence report leaked to ABC News that only 100 fighters are actually present inside the country, along with several thousand Taliban fighters. "I do not support adding more troops," the California Democrat argued, "because there are now 200,000 American, NATO and Afghan forces fighting roughly 20,000 Taliban and less than 100 al-Qaida." In other words, why are we even...

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.

SNIPPET: "Al-Qaida's network in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) has released the audio-recorded wills of two mujahideen operatives who were recently "martyred" in clashes with local security forces -- including former Guantanamo Bay detainee #114 Yusuf Muhammad Mubarak al-Jebairy al-Shehri. The younger brother of a senior Al-Qaida member, al-Shehri first left his home in Saudi Arabia in mid-2001 in order to wage jihad alongside the Taliban because he "thought that participating in jihad with the Taliban was the right thing to do... the Taliban were good Muslims.” In the midst of fleeing the crumbling Taliban frontline in late 2001, Yusuf al-Shehri...

At least 15 people were killed and more than 90 injured when two back-to-back explosions ripped through a busy market in eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday, police said. The market was packed with women and children buying clothes, cosmetics and toys when the bombing took place. An eyewitness told local news channel Duniya television over the phone from the scene that he was in a restaurant when the first blast occurred in the Moon Market. "We ran out to save our lives but the second bomb exploded and five to six people fell on the ground," he said....

SNIPPET: "AUSTRALIA'S most notorious terrorist Willie Brigitte will be free from jail next year having served less than half his sentence for conspiring to blow up the nation's only nuclear reactor and the power grid. The Caribbean-born Muslim convert made headlines in 2007 when he was sentenced in France to a maximum nine years, following his arrest in Sydney, for joining an al-Qaida-backed Pakistani terror cell out to bomb Lucas Heights nuclear plant, the national electricity grid or a military base. The French Justice Ministry is considering releasing the 41-year-old, on an early-release good-behaviour plan."

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "A former Guantanamo detainee has emerged as a leading ideologue and theologian for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – one of the strongest al Qaeda affiliates in the world. Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish was captured by Pakistani authorities in late 2001 and then handed over to American officials who transferred him to Guantanamo. Rubaish was held there until Dec. 13, 2006, when he was transferred to Saudi Arabia and placed in the Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists. At some point, Rubaish escaped from Saudi Arabia by fleeing south to Yemen. In February 2009, the Saudi...

Few would deny that Muslims too are victims of Islamist terror. But a new study by the Combating Terrorism Center in the US has shown that an overwhelming majority of al-Qaida victims are, in fact, co-religionists. In the battle against unbelievers, can one also kill Muslims? Even the terror network al-Qaida is troubled by this question. A leading al-Qaida ideologue for the terror network, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has developed his own theologically-based theory of collateral damage that allows militants to kill Muslims when it is unavoidable. Even the Iraqi affiliates of Osama bin Laden's terror group, who are known to...

Al-Qaeda followers are inside the United States and would like to attack targets here and in other countries, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday night.

SNIPPET: "Adel Ben Mabrouk, 39, and Mohamed Ben Riadh Nasri, 43, are suspected of being members of a terror group with ties to al-Qaida. They were immediately taken into custody upon arrival in Milan and will be interrogated, a prosecutor told The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30, 2009 – Iraqi police and U.S. advisors apprehended 15 suspects with alleged ties to al Qaida in Iraq during operations in there in the past few days, military officials said. Iraqi police arrested four suspected members of al Qaida cells today in two joint security operations near Baghdad and Kirkuk, military officials said. In a joint security operation in Karmah, west of Baghdad, police apprehended an alleged associate of a car-bomb cell believed responsible for attacks targeting government buildings and civilians in the Iraqi capital. Police also arrested a suspected accomplice. During a separate operation in a...

The recruits gather in scorching desert hideouts in Somalia, use portraits of President Barack Obama for target practice, learn how to make and detonate bombs, and vow allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Training camps in the lawless nation of Somalia are attracting hundreds of foreigners, including Americans, and Somalis recruited by a local insurgent group linked to al-Qaida, according to local and U.S. officials. American officials and private analysts say the camps pose a security threat far beyond the borders of Somalia, including to the U.S. homeland. In interviews with The Associated Press, former trainees gave rare details on the...

War On Terror: As Khalid Sheikh Mohammed receives the benefits of U.S. justice, three Navy SEALs face court-martial for allegedly punching a captured terrorist who hanged Americans from a bridge in Fallujah. Apparently our efforts to impress the world about the marvels of our criminal justice system require us to give foreign terrorists such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the man who invented the manned cruise missiles that flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and plowed into a Pennsylvania field on its way to the Capitol Building, the full rights and protections of the American citizens he conspired...

Fearing that Taliban supremo Mullah Omar might be targetted by US drones, Pakistan's ISI has helped him to flee from the border town of Quetta to the mega port city of Karachi, where he has established a new Shura council. One-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban recently found refuge from potential US attacks in Karachi with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) assistance, the Washington Times reported quoting US intelligence officials. "Mullah Omar travelled to Karachi last month after the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He inaugurated a new senior leadership council in Karachi, a city that so...

SAN`A, Yemen (AP) - A Yemeni politician and religious figure - designated a suspected terrorist by the United States - declared his innocence Saturday and called on Washington to substantiate its allegations. On Tuesday, Sheik Abdulmajid al-Zindani, an Afghan war veteran and the spiritual leader of the Islamic-oriented Islah Party, was added to a U.S. Treasury Department list of those suspected of supporting terrorist activities. The allegation claimed al-Zindani, who is in his 60s, had "a long history of working with Osama bin Laden, notably serving as one of his spiritual leaders." The Treasury Department said al-Zindani had actively recruited...

Does anyone read the newspapers in the U.S. government? How about checking out the dispatches coming from its generals in the field? Here’s a news story which tells all. A Reuters’ dispatch from Iraq interviews the commander of U.S. forces there. What’s he say? Al-Qaida is joining forces with Saddam Hussein’s supporters. And where are both al-Qaida’s forces fighting in Iraq and Saddam’s backers headquartered with lots of money stolen from Iraq? Syria. Syria? So Damascus is now allied with al-Qaida, the perpetrators of the September 11 attack to kill Americans and defeat the United States in Iraq? Is that right,...

SNIPPET: "RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Increasing numbers of English-language Web sites are spreading al-Qaida's message to Muslims in the West. They translate writings and sermons once largely out of reach of English readers and often feature charismatic clerics like Anwar al-Awlaki, who exchanged dozens of e-mails with the Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood shootings. The U.S.-born al-Awlaki has been an inspiration to several militants arrested in the United States and Canada in recent years, with his Web-based sermons often turning up on their computers."

The greatest hurdle Americans need to get over in order to properly respond to the growing threat of radical Islam is purely intellectual in nature; specifically, it is epistemological, and revolves around the abstract realm of “knowledge.” Before attempting to formulate a long-term strategy to counter radical Islam, Americans must first and foremost understand Islam, particularly its laws and doctrines, the same way Muslims understand it—without giving it undue Western (liberal) interpretations. This is apparently not as simple as expected: all peoples of whatever civilizations and religions tend to assume that other peoples more or less share in their worldview,...

SNIPPET: "TERROR mastermind Rashid Rauf has been linked to a fresh Al Qaida plot to launch attacks on the US. The Birmingham-born extremist has been named by witnesses due to testify against Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested for plotting suicide bombings in New York. MI6 officers have linked the plot to a complex terror network said to be directed from Pakistan by Rauf and fellow jihadists. Zazi, 24, was identified through an intercepted communication, and was further implicated by US national Bryant Neal Vinas, who was captured in Pakistan last November. Vinas, 26, allegedly admits meeting Rauf and receiving training...

Posted: Nov 13, 2009 3:14 PM Updated: Nov 13, 2009 3:15 PM MARION, IL (KFVS) - SNIPPET: "Ali Al-Marri, 43, is serving an eight year sentence for being a so called "sleeper agent." He has admitted to training in Al-Qaeda camps and having contact with the alleged planner of the September 11th attacks."

Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a former French investigative magistrate who specialized on al Qaeda and investigated the terror group in Pakistan, has more damning information on al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the groups' ties to each other and the Pakistani state. From Reuters: In an interview, Bruguiere said he was convinced Lashkar-e-Taiba, first set up to fight India in its part of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, had become part of an international network tied to al Qaeda. 'Lashkar-e-Taiba is no longer a Pakistani movement with only a Kashmir political or military agenda. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a member of al Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba has...

SNIPPET: "An al Qaeda leader wanted by the US for a string of deadly attacks has been named the new leader of terror group's network in East Africa. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, one of several al Qaeda leaders charged with carrying out the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was appointed the leader of al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa. Fazul was "inaugurated" during an open ceremony in the southern city of Kismayo, according to a translation received by The Long War Journal of an article posted Waaga Cusub, a website operated by the Hawiye clan,...

Clueless Chris Matthews: "See - we have a problem," Matthews said. "How do we know when someone like Hasan is going to make his move and do we know he's an Islamist until he's made his move? He makes a phone call or whatever, according to Reuters right now. Apparently he tried to contact al Qaeda. Is that the point at which you say, ‘This guy is dangerous?' That's not a crime to call up al Qaeda, is it? Is it? I mean, where do you stop the guy?" [VIDEO AT SITE]I love it how Dr. Jasser is trying to...

According to an intelligence source speaking to the Northeast Intelligence Network, forensic analysis of Nidal Malik HASAN’s computer and other media determined that HASAN had routinely visited al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist web sites in months and weeks leading to last week’s massacre at Fort Hood. According to this investigative source, HASAN also downloaded material from the web site operated by former Dar al Hijrah mosque leader and terrorist facilitator Anwar Nasser al Awlaki. As reported here, al Awlaki was an imam at the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Fall Church, Virginia in 2001, where he advised and facilitated two...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

Note: The following text is a quote: Forces Arrest Terrorism Suspects in Iraq American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2009 – Iraqi forces, aided by U.S. forces advisors, detained several terrorism suspects in Iraq in recent days, including one believed responsible for the Oct. 11 bombing in Ramadi, military officials reported. Special weapons and tactics personnel and U.S. forces advisors, under the direction of the Iraqi military and the Anbar Operations Center, detained a suspect Oct. 25 in Hit, northwest of Ramadi. The man is suspected in the planning and coordination of the Oct. 11 attacks on the Ramadi...

It's been another dreadful week in the war of civilizations. On Sunday, 153 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in back-to-back car bombings in Baghdad. On Tuesday in Kabul, five UN staffers and three Afghans were killed in an attack on a UN guesthouse. And on Wednesday in Pakistan, 100 people - mostly women and children - were killed and 160 wounded in a shopping district bombing in Peshawar. The week also saw 24 American service personnel killed in Afghanistan, making 58 fatalities for the month - the deadliest since 9/11. This is a war of civilizations in...

Quote: October 27, 2009 MAYBE MULLAH OMAR IS SIMPLY AFRAID OF THE CHINESE Vahid Brown has the lowdown on the dustup between al-Qaida Core and the Afghan Taliban Posted on 27 October 2009 @ 13:11 GMT

SNIPPET - quote: Doing a Google search today for "al Qaeda", I accidentally hit "map" instead of "news". And you know what? Al Qaeda is on the map.

A U.S. Air Force psychologist described an al-Qaida sleeper agent as a sometimes kind, respectful man who nonetheless would attack the United States if given a chance. The psychologist testified during the first day of a sentencing hearing for 44-year-old former Bradley University graduate student Ali al-Marri, who has admitted training in al-Qaida camps and having contact with those involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The second and what is scheduled to be the final day of al-Marri's sentencing is Thursday in U.S. District Court in Peoria. The Qatar native faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A mine killed 16 wedding guests in Pakistan's tribal belt on Friday while a suicide bomber targeted an air force base, inflicting another reverse on the military in its war on the Taliban. A car bomb exploded outside a restaurant in the northwestern city of Peshawar, wounding 15 and underlining the threat to civilians in a nation where more than 190 people have died during Taliban-linked attacks in 19 days. The explosion ripped through the wedding party minibus in the Sorandara area of Mohmand, where security forces have been pressing an offensive against Islamist rebels for...

BOSTON - A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday. But their plans — in which the men used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the...

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Well, this afternoon I read the criminal search warrant and affidavit and the criminal complaint filed on Tarek Mehanna today (So you wouldn't have to, my possums.) I kept Mr. Mehanna's attorney's admonishment to remember that his client was innocent until proven guilty. I also know that the government is required to prove its allegations in open court. Several things popped out at me.

9/11-101 Sarah Carlsruh, October 20, 2009 September 11th, 2001 is now a part of U.S. history, and so the issue of how to teach about it in high school history classes is necessary, albeit controversial. The Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and the American Institute for History Education (AIHE) hosted a Summer Institute for Teachers in Philadelphia this June. Mary Habeck, associate professor of strategic studies at John Hopkins University and author of Knowing Your Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror, spoke on the topic, “Teaching the Long War and Jihadism.” In an essay based on her presentation,...

Note: The following news brief is a quote: Turkey Arrests 50 Suspected al-Qaida-Linked Militants By VOA News 15 October 2009 Turkish police have detained at least 50 suspected al-Qaida-linked militants in raids across nine provinces. Local media say the militants, thought to be members of a group (the Islamic Jihad League) tied to al-Qaida, were planning attacks against U.S., Israeli and NATO targets in Turkey. They say the suspects may have had contact with al-Qaida's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, and may have been trained in Afghanistan. Turkey's Hurriyet daily says police Thursday seized an unlicensed gun, documents, CDs and laptops during...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Pakistani troops and the Taliban fought fierce battles Sunday in a militant sanctuary near the Afghan border, with both sides claiming early victories in an army campaign that could shape the future of the country's battle against extremism. A Taliban spokesman vowed the Islamist militants would fight to "our last drop of blood" to defend their stronghold of South Waziristan, .. Victory for the government in South Waziristan's tribal badlands would eliminate a safe haven for the Taliban militants blamed for surging terrorist attacks and the al-Qaida operatives they shelter there. .. Defeat would give...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces fought fierce battles with Taliban militants on Sunday, a day after launching a long-awaited offensive aimed at bringing the writ of state to lawless tribal lands on the Afghan border. The offensive on the global Islamist hub of South Waziristan follows a string of brazen militant attacks in different parts of the country, including an assault on army headquarters, in which more than 150 people were killed. About 28,000 soldiers are battling an estimated 10,000 hard-core Taliban, including about 1,000 tough Uzbek fighters and some Arab al Qaeda members, after surrounding militant territory and...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – More than 30,000 Pakistani soldiers launched a ground offensive against al-Qaida and the Taliban's main stronghold along the Afghan border Saturday, officials said, in the country's toughest test yet against a strengthening insurgency. The United States has long pushed the government to carry out an assault in South Waziristan, and it comes after two weeks of militant attacks that have killed more than 175 people across the nuclear-armed country. That has ramped up pressure on the army to act. Pakistan has fought three unsuccessful campaigns since 2001 in the region, which is the nerve-center for...

SNIPPET: "The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new communiqué from Al-Qaida's network in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) announcing the foundation of a specialized media wing known as the "Andalus Foundation." According to the statement, "due to our belief that the battle of pen is no less important than the battle of the sword, and in continuation of our development of jihadi media,...""

SNIPPET: "New Abu Yahya al-Libi video released on 6 OCT – I havent had a chance to blog for awhile so I thought I’d go through the transcript line-by-line, pulling out anything that I find of note, and then annotate as I go through it. One quick note: Abu Yahya is no longer wearing his pinky ring, the one that he’s been wearing since late 2005 – this is the first video that I havent seen it (although it may just be at the shop getting cleaned) – here’s a screen cap:" SNIPPET: "Wow, could I be any more right...

FIVE Sydney men have been found guilty of conspiring to plan a terrorist attack using high-powered guns and homemade bombs designed to cause mass death and destruction on Australian soil. A Supreme Court jury took four weeks and three days to find Mohamed Ali Elomar, 44, Abdul Rakib Hasan, 40, Mohammed Omar Jamal, 25, Moustafa Cheikho, 32, and his uncle Khaled Cheikho, 36, guilty of conspiring to do acts in preparation for a terrorist act or acts. The Daily Telegraph reports the men, all from Sydney's south-west, were accused of stockpiling weapons and chemicals for use in the pursuit of...

Snippet - Quote: 12 October 2009 ANTI-CHINA/PRO-UIGHUR AGITPROP CAMPAIGN Considering how much of what al-Qaida knows about warfare they learned from Chairman Mao rather than the Prophet Mohamed, this campaign is ironic at best.

A French physicist with the European atomic research centre near Geneva was charged with terrorism offences by a Paris judge last night after investigators said that he offered to work with the North African branch of al-Qaeda. Adlène Hicheur, 32, who is of Algerian origin, was arrested last week with his younger brother after intelligence agents intercepted his alleged internet contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The physicist, who works at the giant atomic collider at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which straddles Swiss and French territory, told the Islamic group that he was interested in committing an...

WASHINGTON – The Taliban are in much stronger financial shape than al-Qaida and rely on a wide range of criminal activities to pay for attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, a senior Treasury Department official said Monday. David Cohen, the department's assistant secretary for terrorist financing, said the extremist group extorts money from poppy farmers and heroin traffickers involved in Afghanistan's booming drug trade. The Taliban also demand protection payments from legitimate Afghan businesses, he said during a speech at a conference on money laundering enforcement. ... According to Cohen, al-Qaida is a cash-strapped organization that is losing...

Pakistan's nuclear weapon bases have been attacked by al-Qaeda and the Taliban at least three times in the last two years, it has emerged. The allegations, by a leading British expert on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, increased fears that terrorists could acquire a nuclear device or could trigger a nuclear disaster by bombing an atomic facility. In a paper for the respected anti-terrorism journal of America's West Point Military Academy, Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Bradford University, detailed three attacks since November 2007 and raised the spectre of more incidents in the future. He said...

The Iraq Army, in an operation guided by the U.S. military, has captured about 150 suspected Al Qaida operatives in the north. Officials said the Al Qaida operatives and loyalists of the late President Saddam Hussein were arrested in a crackdown in October around the northern city of Mosul. They said the mission, titled "Nineveh Wall" and guided by the U.S. military, was meant to disband the core Al Qaida presence in northern Iraq linked to neighboring Syria. Officials said many of the Al Qaida fugitives were in contact with financiers and handlers in Syria. They cited Mohammed Yunis Al...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior administration official says President Barack Obama is prepared to accept some Taliban involvement in Afghanistan's political future and is inclined to send only as many more U.S. troops to Afghanistan as are needed to keep al-Qaida at bay. The assessment comes from an official who has been involved in the president's discussions with his war council about Afghanistan strategy. The official was authorized to speak to The Associated Press about the discussions but not to be identified by name because the talks are ongoing.

War Strategy: When Bush and Petraeus proposed the surge in Iraq, Democrats demanded that the general testify before Congress. So why has the Senate blocked a similar invitation to our commander in Afghanistan? Those with memories longer than the 24-hour news cycle recall that in the dark days of the Iraq War, David Petraeus was summoned to Washington to explain the surge strategy that would eventually lead to victory in Iraq. Democrats hoped for a show trial. MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times labeling the commanding general of our efforts in Iraq "General Betray-us." Then...

KABUL – Al-Qaida's role in Afghanistan has faded after eight years of war. Gone is the once-formidable network of camps and safe houses where Osama bin Laden and his mostly Arab operatives trained thousands of young Muslims to wage a global jihad. The group is left with fewer than 100 core fighters, according to the Obama administration, likely operating small-scale bomb-making and tactics classes conducted by trainers who travel to and from Pakistan. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that al-Qaida has "lost operational capacity" after a series of military setbacks and vowed to continue the battle to cripple the terror...