Free Republic

I am tired of sitting by and doing nothing while Obama and his cohorts steal this election. There was an ad in our local paper about a "Freedom and Democracy Get Out the Vote Effort".

The prospect of an Obama presidency, supported by a legislative branch controlled by like-minded liberals, and only the slightest conservative margin in the judicial branch, poses a greater risk to American liberty than any domestic enemy in our nation’s great history. Should Obama defeat John McCain in the only opinion poll that matters this election cycle, the poll on Tuesday, 4 November (merely 32 days from now), that would be a stunning offense of staggering proportions to our national heritage, an offense equaled only by the impending assault against the liberties set forth in our U.S. Constitution following an Obama...

Months of attacks by unmanned US predator aircraft have caused carnage among the middle ranks of terrorist leaders in the lawless lands along the border with Afghanistan, where al-Qa'eda remains dangerous despite suffering a serious defeat in Iraq. Their victims have included experienced Arab leaders and, it is now thought, Adam Gadahn, a former heavy-metal fan and so-called "killer computer nerd" originally from California. Nothing has been heard from him for months, leading intelligence experts to conclude that he may be dead. Mr Gadahn has been credited with helping transform al-Qa'eda's al-Sahab propaganda wing into a slick operation which communicates...

A Georgian Foreign Ministry official said Friday Georgia is to recall all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow because of the Russian military presence in Georgia. Nato Chikovani says Georgia will withdraw its staff on Saturday, following a parliamentary vote in favor of the move on Thursday. Russian news agencies cite Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nestrenko as criticizing the move, saying it will not benefit bilateral relations. Georgia is angry at the lingering presence of Russian troops in Georgia despite Russia's promise to withdraw in accordance with an EU-brokered cease-fire. Also on Friday, officials in South Ossetia said...

According to the report, the Pakistani officials confirmed that Maulana Faqir Muhammad was killed during the fighting between the Taliban and the Pakistani security forces in the tribal district of Bajaur Agency.Big news if true....Muhammad is friend and protector of Ayman Zawahiri.

Several clashes in Afghanistan's south and east have killed 30 Taliban fighters, officials said Sunday. A group of Taliban insurgents attacked police checkpoints in Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province on Friday, sparking clashes that killed 23 militants, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Four police were wounded and 13 other militants were detained, it said. Following the clash, the police abandoned the checkpoints, the statement said.

BREAKING NEWS — Senior Al Qaeda commander Abu Saeed al-Masri has been killed in recent clashes with Pakistani forces in a Pakistani region near the Afghan border, a security official told Reuters on Tuesday. "He was believed to be among the top leadership of Al Qaeda," the senior security official told the news agency on condition of anonymity. Al-Masri, which means Egyptian, was the senior most Al Qaeda operative

By ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 3, 4:15 PM ET CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida confirmed Sunday the death of a top commander accused of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole eight years ago. Abu Khabab al-Masri, who had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States, is believed to have been killed in an airstrike apparently launched by the U.S. in Pakistan last week.

Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of a chemical and biological weapons expert whose killing in a suspected US strike was reported by Pakistan, an Islamist militant website said on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT Abu Khabab al-Masri was among a group of "heroes" who joined "the caravans of martyrs," said a statement signed by Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, Al-Qaeda's general commander in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda No.2 al-Zawahiri may be dead: report Islamabad, Aug 2 (PTI) Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second most powerful leader after Osama Bin Laden, might be critically wounded and possibly dead, according to a media report. The CBS News reported that it had obtained from sources in Pakistan a copy of an intercepted letter which urgently requests a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan's tribal areas. The letter, reportedly written by Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, refers to al-Zawahiri by name and states that he is in "severe pain" and his "injuries are...

Al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be injured or even dead, according to a CBS News report based on an intercepted letter that urgently requests a doctor to treat Zawahiri

Iran, ahead of deadline, says will resist foesReuters TEHRAN - Iran's president said on Friday the Islamic Republic would "stand against" its enemies with its "power," speaking just before a deadline set by Western officials in a dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Western powers gave Iran two weeks from July 19 to respond to their offer to hold off on imposing more U.N. sanctions on Iran if Tehran would freeze any expansion of its nuclear work. That would suggest a deadline of Saturday, although Russia, one of the six powers facing Iran, has opposed a deadline and Iran dismissed the...

Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri is rumored to have been killed in a July 28 U.S. airstrike in Pakistan

WASHINGTON, July 9, 2008 – Iraqi soldiers and police are demonstrating increased capability, yet more work needs to be done in view of the continued terrorist threat in Iraq, a senior U.S. military officer said at a Capitol Hill hearing today. Iraq’s security forces acquitted themselves well during recent Iraqi-initiated anti-terrorist operations in Baghdad’s Sadr City section, Basra, Mosul and Amarah, Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, the former commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq and the NATO training mission in Iraq, said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Army Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick took over command...

KABUL (AFP) — More than 400 militants have been killed in a 10-week-old operation led by US Marines in a remote district of southern Afghanistan but fighters remain in the area, a commander said Wednesday. Marines and British troops under NATO command in late April launched the operation in Garmser district, a desert area on the border with Pakistan described as an insurgent "logistics hub" and key opium-producing centre. Citing figures from Helmand province governor Gulab Mangal, the Marine commanding officer in Afghanistan told reporters in Kabul that more than 400 Taliban-linked rebels had been killed.

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2008 – The enemy in the eastern portion of Iraq’s Anbar province has been neutralized, the coalition commander in the area said today. Video Al-Qaida in Iraq still can launch occasional horrific attacks, but in Ramadi and Fallujah -- once strongholds of the terror group -- security is allowing the region to transfer to provincial Iraqi control, Marine Corps Col. Lewis Craparotta, the area’s coalition commander, told Pentagon reporters in a briefing via satellite from Camp Fallujah today. Still, the colonel said, coalition and Iraqi forces must remain vigilant, as al-Qaida wants to come back into...

Afghan, U.S. troops kill 32 Taliban in clashes Sat Jun 28, 1:00 PM ET Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops killed 32 Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, including some who dressed as women in an attempt to escape, the U.S. military said on Saturday. The Taliban opened fire with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades on a patrol of Afghan security forces and coalition troops in Uruzgan province on Thursday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

KABUL (AFP) - Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed 32 Taliban-linked militants in fighting in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said Saturday. The rebels were slain after attacking the forces patrolling in southern Uruzgan province's Khas Uruzgan district on Thursday, the statement said. "A total of 32 militants were killed by Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces in two separate engagements in the Khas Oruzgan District, the statement added. A 10-year-old Afghan child and two Afghan national policemen were wounded during the battle, it added, without giving details on how the child was hurt. The attack, the latest in an...

KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led coalition troops killed some 55 Taliban insurgents who ambushed them in southeastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border, the U.S. military said on Monday. There has been a sharp rise in violence along Afghanistan's eastern frontier in recent months. NATO generals say de-facto ceasefires between Pakistan's new government and militants in its border region free up insurgents to infiltrate into Afghanistan. Taliban insurgents ambushed the coalition forces with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in the Zerok district of Paktika province on Friday, a U.S. military statement said. Among those killed were three Taliban leaders. "Around...

ARGHANDAB DISTRICT, Afghanistan -- Hundreds of Taliban fighters have been killed or wounded after two days of fierce fighting over a strategic area just northwest of Kandahar City that insurgents had taken over at the start of the week. By Thursday, all that remained was the mopping up of small scattered pockets of resistance, jubilant political leaders and Afghan and Canadian military commanders told reporters from a mountainside perch overlooking the entire battlefield in a wide river valley. "This will give them a good lesson," Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said, referring to Taliban insurgents. Mr. Khalid said residents who had...

Just because the U.S. military now lacks what defense eggheads call a peer competitor — a country capable of beating us in a head-to-head confrontation — that doesn't mean it lacks for imagination in conjuring fearful foes. Sure, it was easier for John F. Kennedy to blow smoke about a non-existent "missile gap" with the Soviet Union, or for Ronald Reagan to convince us of the need for a "Star Wars" missile shield when Moscow was still our superpower rival (it may no longer be, but we're still spending $10 billion annually on missile defenses). Snip...The scientists also warn that...

The Enemy Has a Name   By Daniel Pipes FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, June 17, 2008 If you cannot name your enemy, how can you defeat it? Just as a physician must identify a disease before curing a patient, so a strategist must identify the foe before winning a war. Yet Westerners have proven reluctant to identify the opponent in the conflict the U.S. government variously (and euphemistically) calls the "global war on terror," the "long war," the "global struggle against violent extremism," or even the "global struggle for security and progress." This timidity translates into an inability to define...

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2008 – Afghan and coalition forces killed 35 insurgents during operations yesterday and June 14, military officials said. Afghan national security forces and coalition forces killed 20 militants who attacked a combined reconnaissance patrol in the Deh Chopan district of Afghanistan’s Zabul province yesterday. Officials said the militants attacked the combined forces with rockets, mortars and small-arms fire in a mountainous river valley. Afghan and coalition forces returned fire and called in precision aircraft strikes to kill the militants. During a June 14 operation, 15 insurgents were killed after they attacked a combined Afghan and coalition patrol...

Mexico is beginning to look like a real war zone. The headlines in the news media are reminiscent of those from some of the most brutal days of the Iraq War. They speak of executions, beheadings, cryptic messages and dozens of people killed in a single day. But the war against drugs that Mexico is waging is not one that can easily eliminate the enemies. snip The Mexican government has made the fight against drugs its No. 1 priority.snip The rival drug cartels are killing each other off, law enforcement agents are hunting down drug dealers, and their hit men...

An al-Qaeda trainer and explosives specialist involved in a range of European terrorist networks has been killed in Pakistan, the latest senior militant to die in a spate of controversial American missile strikes. The death two weeks ago of Abu Suleiman al-Jazairi, a highly experienced Algerian militant, has been confirmed only in the last few days, intelligence sources in Pakistan and Western Europe told The Observer. Al-Jazairi, thought to have been 45, died along with at least 15 others when the house in which he was staying in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal district was hit by a missile fired from a...

MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — Iraqi security forces shot dead at least 11 suspected Al-Qaeda operatives who were hiding in a sheep truck near the northern city of Tikrit on Friday, the defence ministry said. The men were killed in fighting at a checkpoint between ousted dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit and Baiji, ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said. "Members of the Iraqi special forces intercepted a truck transporting animals, but there were 11 Al-Qaeda fighters hiding in it," Askari told AFP, adding that one of the men was a foreigner from an unidentified Arab nation. Askari said the...

WASHINGTON -- An Al Qaeda figure killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan last week is believed to have been an Algerian allegedly involved in training militants and plotting attacks against the West, officials said Friday. The Algerian, known by the nickname Abu Sulayman Jazairi, apparently died May 14 in the strike that killed as many as 14 people and destroyed a compound near the village of Damadola, an Al Qaeda stronghold in northwestern Pakistan, officials said. A knowledgeable U.S. official and a senior European anti-terrorism official said Jazairi was thought to be dead.U.S. anti-terrorism forces are targeting front-line planners...

HAWIJAH, Iraq, May 21, 2008 – Sheiks, villagers and coalition troops attended a May 18 reconciliation meeting at Forward Operating Base McHenry. The sixth meeting under Operation Restore Peace afforded a pathway toward reconciliation to combatants who have been linked to attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces. The program, which citizens call “Musalaha,” has been credited -- along with the Sons of Iraq program, in which local people aid security efforts -- with more than a 90 percent decrease in violent attacks against both forces and civilians in the Hawijah district, about 60 miles southwest of Kirkuk in Iraq’s Tamim...

Arkan Hasnawi. Click the image to view wanted the Mahdi Army leaders in Baghdad. The US military killed a senior member of the Mahdi Army, according US and Mahdi Army sources. Arkan Hasnawi, a senior lieutenant of the Mahdi Army commander in Sadr City, was killed in a guided rocket strike in Sadr City on March 3. The news of Hasnawi's death comes as details emerge on the senior leadership of the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the blurring of the lines between Sadr's militia and the Special Groups. Hasnawi was among several senior Mahdi Army leaders killed or...

It was a typical quiet morning on April 22, with the temperature intensifying as a bright orange sun emerged high from the horizon. Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, a rifleman with 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, and Cpl. Jonathan T. Yale, a rifleman with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, RCT-1, were standing post, just as they’ve done numerous times before. During a standard length watch in a small checkpoint protected by concrete barriers where they overlooked the small gravel road, lined with palm trees leading to their entry control point. However, this morning would be different. Quickly...

BAGHDAD — When the Surge Strategy is documented in history, the Sons of Iraq program will be listed as one of its successes. Now, long-term plans are being developed so that gains aren’t lost as its members transition into other roles. In the past year, the SoI have been instrumental in transforming the security landscape of Iraq. Since the start of the program, areas where SoI operate have witnessed an unprecedented drop in violence and terrorist-related activities. Currently, about 36,000 SoI operate in Multi-National Division – Center, the region South and Southeast of Baghdad. Organized via local tribal authorities, SoI...

A prominent member of al Qaeda was killed in fighting with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist website on Sunday. Abu Suleiman al-Otaibi, formerly one of the group's leaders in Iraq, was killed in a "fierce battle with the worshipers of the cross" in Paktia, it said without giving the date of the battle. Another al Qaeda member, identified as Abu Dejana al-Qahtani, also died in the fighting, it added. Afghan officials said they had no information on the report. But the government earlier said in a statement that "five opposition" fighters...

In this earlier thread I commented on the incredible ignorant statement by Obama that FDR and Truman talked to our enemies: The other side can label and name-call all they want, but I trust the American people to recognize that it’s not surrender to end the war in Iraq so that we can rebuild our military and go after al Qaeda’s leaders. I trust the American people to understand that it’s not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies – like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did. Its a breathtaking quote and...

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2008 – Coalition and Iraqi forces killed at least three enemy fighters, captured 55 suspects, and seized weapons in Iraq over the past three days, military officials said. In Iraq today: -- Coalition troops detained four suspected terrorists during raids in Mosul targeting members of the local al-Qaida in Iraq network responsible for attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces. -- Using information gleaned in previous operations, coalition forces detained four suspected terrorists in a separate raid in Mosul. -- Iraqi and coalition forces captured two wanted men and two additional suspects 15 miles northwest of Baghdad. One...

The apparent respite in yesterday's fighting was illusionary as US forces killed an additional 27 Mahdi Army fighters and a senior Special Groups leader during a series of engagements in the afternoon and throughout the night in Sadr City. One of the larger clashes occurred as US force were attacked while constructing the barrier that divides the southern portion of Sadr city where US and Iraqi troops have established a foothold. The fighting began just before noon as Mahdi Army fighters attacked US troops with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire as they were building the concrete security barrier...

U.S. and Iraqi troops killed 38 militants in fierce clashes with militants in Baghdad, including 22 who attacked a military checkpoint in a Shiite militia stronghold, the U.S. military said Monday. Suspected Shiite extremists, apparently taking advantage of a sandstorm that blanketed the capital, attacked several checkpoints and hammered the U.S.-protected Green Zone in the fiercest salvo in weeks on Sunday. The sandstorm had grounded the American aircraft that normally prowl for launching teams. -The clashes on Sunday concentrated in Sadr City, the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, where American soldiers used Abrams main battle tanks to repel the attackers....

US and Iraqi troops continue to battle the Mahdi Army in Baghdad. Forty-one Mahdi Army fighters were killed in recent clashes in Baghdad and Hussaniyah. Twenty-two were killed in a single engagement as they attack a checkpoint in Baghdad. Most of the Mahdi Army fighters were killed as they attacked checkpoints and patrols during a sandstorm in Baghdad. Mahdi Army fighters used the sandstorm to take advantage of the lack of air cover to attack US and Iraqi positions in eastern and northeastern Baghdad. Helicopters, fighters and unmanned aerial vehicles were grounded due to lack of visibility. The biggest clash...

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi police say gunmen have assassinated a local commander of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the southern city of Basra. A police official says Ali Ghalib, a commander of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in the Hakimiya neighborhood in central Basra, was gunned down by gunmen on a motorcycle as he was driving on Monday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. The assassination comes amid intensified clashes between al-Sadr's followers and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

US forces have killed a leading military commander in Al-Qaeda and three of his aides in an air strike in Saladdin district, according to an Iraqi police source on Saturday. The source told KUNA that the US forces targeted the car that the operatives were driving with a missile, and identified the commander as Mohammad Muzahem Al-Harbouni. The operation took place 25 km east of Sammara.

FrontPageMag.com April 24, 2008 Virginia Muslim police sergeant who tipped off jihadist gets probation Let's see. He hindered a counter terrorism case, may have tipped off the jihadist more than once, and checked to see if his own name was on the terror watch list. For that he gets six months probation, from a judge who clearly has no idea whatsoever of the larger issues involved in the case. Will he retain his job with the police? Is anyone concerned that he may again aid jihadists who are waging war against the United States? Is anyone with any influence asking...

BAGHDAD - Muqtada al-Sadr is considering setting aside his political ambitions and restarting a full-scale fight against U.S.-led forces — a worrisome shift that may reflect Iranian influence on the young cleric and could open the way for a shadow state protected by his powerful Mahdi Army. A possible breakaway path — described to The Associated Press by Shiite lawmakers and politicians — would represent the ultimate backlash to the Iraqi government's pressure on al-Sadr to renounce and disband his Shiite militia. By snubbing the give-and-take of politics, al-Sadr would have a freer hand to carve out a kind of...

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2008 – Coalition and Iraqi forces killed or captured dozens of terrorists and criminal militia members during multiple engagements in Iraq yesterday, military officials said. In Suq Ash Shuyukh, southeast of Nasiriyah, Iraq, a combined force of more than 300 Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police and Iraqi Special Weapons and Tactics personnel, advised by U.S. Special Operations Forces, killed 40 criminal militia members and arrested an additional 40 after the Iraqi forces were attacked by the militia members. Using assault rifles and automatic weapons, the criminal militia attacked Iraqi Security Forces in the morning. Regional police and Army...

Bilal Hamuda Machmud Zaalah, head of the Islamic Jihad in Qabatya, and his deputy, Adin Machmud Hasani Avidot, also a member of the terrorist group, were killed today during a joint operation by the IDF and the ISA near Jenin. Forces from a reconnaissance battalion in the Paratrooper Brigade surrounded an area suspected to be the site in which the two men were hiding and then identified the two hiding in a in a nearby vehicle. After confirming that the two men were armed, forces fired at the wanted men, killing both. The forces uncovered explosives, an M-16 rifle equipped...

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2008 – Extremism is the enemy of success in Iraq, whether in the form of Iranian-backed "special groups,” criminal militias or al-Qaida, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday. “It’s those who are not willing to participate in the political process and do so peacefully -- those are the enemy. And those we are trying to help are trying to build a stable government and a stable country,” Gates said speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Gates fielded questions ranging from the strain on the military to how quickly the U.S. will be able to withdraw more...

Petraeus and Crocker Meet the Real Enemy By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | 4/11/2008 There must have been times when Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker thought they were back in embattled Sadr City when they faced Democrats on Capitol Hill this week -- no Iraqi insurgents or al Sadr militiamen could have been more hostile. No wonder. The goals of the Democrats and both al Qaeda and al Sadr insurgents are the same: the defeat of the United States in the war in Iraq. From the opening statement by Sen. Carl Levin -- a vitriolic tirade against the war...

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April 07, 2008 © 2008 WorldNetDaily A group of concerned citizens has been raising alarms about the Islamic elements planned for the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville, Pa., for years. And a member of Congress has demanded the National Park Service make changes in its plans. But there's been no substantive response, and now the activists say it's time for the American people to let officials know whether they want to pay for and have installed in the memorial a crescent that points to Mecca to make up a "mihrab," the foundational point for every Islamic mosque, a tower that...

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2008 – U.S. and Iraqi security forces killed 48 insurgents and captured 11 others during a series of operations conducted across Baghdad yesterday, military officials reported. In operations yesterday: -- Coalition forces in western Baghdad captured an alleged associate of al Qaeda in Iraq’s southern belt leadership. -- North of Baghdad, coalition forces encountered two persons armed with AK-47 rifles. Perceiving hostile intent, the coalition force engaged the armed men, killing them. Four other suspected terrorists were detained. -- U.S. soldiers killed five militants during a firefight in eastern Baghdad. -- In southeastern Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers under...

BAGHDAD (AFP) — At least 461 people were killed in week-long clashes between Shiite militants and security forces in Iraq, according to an AFP tally based on reports by security officials. Fighting erupted on Tuesday when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered security forces to crack down on strongholds of Shiite militiamen, mostly those loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in the southern port city of Basra.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. warplane strafed snipers in the southern city of Basra, killing at least 16 suspected militants after Iraqi troops came under heavy fire, the American military said Iraqi police earlier claimed eight civilians, including two women and a child, had been killed in a predawn airstrike in the Hananiyah neighborhood, a known Shiite militia stronghold. But Maj. Brad Leighton, a U.S. military spokesman, said U.S. and Iraqi special operations forces had identified snipers on several roofs before the strike was ordered. An AC-130 gunship then opened fire on enemy positions on three roofs. "Initial reports indicate 16...