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...

Saturday's Washington Post had an article which quotes the usual unnamed intelligence sources saying that they are surprised to discover that al Qaeda has "reconstituted" itself. This surprise derives from, inter alia, the computer data found recently in Pakistan, intelligence sources (both ours and friends'), and simply looking at the range of activities in which the terrorists engage. This surprise is, as usual, unsettling, since it has been quite clear for some time now that al Qaeda and the other major terrorist groups — Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Jamaa, etc. — are all working together, and have been ever since...

January 6, 2014 Group Run by al Qaeda Terrorist Invited to Brief Dems on Drone Policy Alana Goodman The representative of a human rights group headed by a designated al Qaeda terrorist was denied a visa by the State Department after being invited by congressional Democrats to discuss drone strikes.Mohammad Al Ahmady, the Yemen director for Geneva-based NGO Al Karama, was expected to brief Reps. Alan Grayson (D., Fla.), Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), and Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) the morning of the Nov. 19, according to press release from Grayson’s office.Ahmady, who also serves as a top official in an...

Scandal: A month before the terrorist attack, the State Department was warned Benghazi couldn't protect itself and was surrounded by Islamist militia and al-Qaida camps. It was 3 a.m. and the administration pressed "snooze." When the U.S. mission in Benghazi called an Aug. 15 emergency meeting, it wasn't to discuss an obscure Internet video. It was to discuss the lack of security for a consulate surrounded by at least 10 terrorist camps. An Aug. 16 cable to the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and obtained by Fox News reported that the State Department's senior security officer "expressed concerns...

Dr. Warren Weinstein, an American aid worker held hostage by al Qaeda, was accidentally killed in a U.S. counter-terrorism operation, as was an Italian hostage, Giovanni Lo Porto, and another American who was an al Qaeda leader, the White House announced on Thursday. Officials also announced that a separate operation killed Adam Gadahn, another American who became a prominent al Qaeda member. The White House said it was unaware the four were present at the sites. President Obama was set to make a statement after 10 a.m. ET. "The operation targeted an al-Qa'ida-associated compound, where we had no reason to...

Tehran, Dec 28 (ANI): al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri were spotted in Iran's Najamabad city two months ago, The News reported on Sunday while quoting a British daily. The daily attributed the story to a source having links with the Revolutionary Guards. The report said: "A man with links to Iran's intelligence services and hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC) has told the daily that he saw the al-Qaeda leader in Iran two months ago. He saw him arrive at an RGC guesthouse close to the small town of Najmabad on 23 October." The Al-Qaeda leader,...

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. And prosecutors say the documents are essential for understanding the scope of al Qaeda’s plotting. More than 1 million documents and files were captured by the Navy Seals who raided bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011. One year later, in May 2012, the Obama administration released just 17...

When the London Telegraph reported last week that newly uncovered documents link 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta to Iraq-based Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, it wasn't the first time one of the 9/11 hijackers had been reported to have such ties. In a development that adds evidence to the case that Iraq played a direct role in the worst attack ever on the U.S., reports show that Ziad Jarrah - who piloted the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers had discovered they were on a suicide mission - also had ties to Nidal. Like Atta, Jarrah traveled to Hamburg, Germany, where...

We must stand up to terrorism,” bleated Hillary Clinton a few days ago in a tweet expressing outrage against BokoHaram, the jihadist organization that has abducted hundreds of young girls in Nigeria. Yet, when she was actually in a position to stand up to Boko Haram’s terrorism as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton instead protected the group.At the Daily Beast, Josh Rogin reports: The State Department under Hillary Clinton fought hard against placing the al Qaeda-linked militant group Boko Haram on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations for two years. And now, lawmakers and former U.S. officials are saying that the decision may have hampered the...

"What is the Islamic State? Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as...

SNIPPET: "SANAA, May 19 (KUNA) -- A senior Yemeni official warned on Tuesday of acts of sabotage that could be jointly launched by Al-Qaeda Organization in the Arabian Peninsula and the local militant group of Al-Hawthis." SNIPPET: ""The organization could join hands with Al-Hawthis in wreaking havoc on Yemen and use the country as a launch pad for their terrorist acts regionally and internationally," he warned. Al-Alimi made the remarks after Al-Qaeda leader Abu Basir Nasser Al-Wahayshi approved in an audio tape on Wednesday the militant activities in southern part of the Arabian Peninsula in a clear reference to Yemen....

House Panel to Ask for NSA Spying Probe A congressional panel will ask the National Security Agency's internal watchdog to investigate whether the super-secret spy agency eavesdropped without warrants on a Muslim scholar and later hid that evidence in a 2005 terror prosecution that got him a life sentence.The House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel and the judge overseeing the case want the NSA's inspector general to find out if the government failed to disclose evidence that might have cleared the name of a Northern Virginia spiritual leader Ali al-Timimi, Rep. Rush Holt (D- New Jersey) told the New York Times.That...

Khorasan is al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda is Khorasan. To date, nothing has been established to suggest a distinguishing difference in ideology between the two separately named entities. Instead, experts suggest that Khorasan should be viewed as an elite unit, largely consisting of members from al-Qaeda's "core" group, who are predominantly focused on plotting attacks against the West.

The FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it. Taken during his years as a detainee at the US-run Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, this is the only known photograph of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. But while he may lack the photogenic qualities of his hero, Osama bin Laden, he is fast becoming the new poster-boy for the global jihadist movement....

Iraqi Al Qaeda's entry into Syria's civil war caused "a political disaster" for Islamist militants there, the movement's global leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in a video message, urging the faction to redouble its efforts in Iraq instead. Zawahri has repeatedly tried to end infighting between the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and another Al Qaeda-aligned group, the Nusra Front. He said on May 2 in a message translated by SITE Monitoring that if ISIL had accepted his decision not to get involved in Syria and had instead worked to "busy itself with Iraq, which needs double its...

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a brief self-congratulatory trip to Tripoli, Libya, in October 2011 -- with U.S. military assets lurking offshore in case they needed to rescue her -- she joked, in the presence of then-Ambassador Gene Cretz and Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, that they had not-so-long-ago been worried that the ambassador might end up the target of a murderous Libyan assault. "As Gene and Assistant Secretary Feltman and I were walking through here, they were talking about how the last time Jeff was here was when we were very worried that Gadhafi and [Libyan...

The latest issue of Al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine contains an article about using car bombs in U.S. cities as well as abroad during election seasons, both presidential and congressional, as well as on Christmas and New Years Eve. The cities and areas listed in the piece include Washington, D.C., New York, Northern Virginia, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Terry L. Loewen was identified as the suspect who allegedly wanted to set off a bomb at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in Kansas.

Federal officials say they've arrested a Kansas man who allegedly wanted to set off a suicide bomb at the Wichita airport. Officials were to announce details of the case at a news conference at 2 p.m. ET in Wichita. In advance of the news conference, an official familiar with the case told NBC News that the suspect was "an older white man," who became radicalized after reading extremist Islamic material on the web.

A 58-year-old airport worker was charged Friday with allegedly planning a suicide bombing at a passenger terminal at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in Kansas. The suspect, Terry Lee Loewen, an avionics technician who lives in Wichita, was arrested earlier in the day as he attempted to use his security pass to drive a vehicle that he thought contained explosives onto the tarmac at the airport, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Wichita. In fact, the car contained only dummy explosives. U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Loewen spent months developing a plan to drive a carload of explosives...