Free Republic

A new precedent has been set. Despite extensive denial that drone strikes would endanger Americans, Attorney General Eric Holder has now openly admitted that four US citizens were killed through overseas drone strikes since 2009. While not on United States soil, the deaths of the US citizens in nations like Yemen and Pakistan highlight the new precedent being set by US government heads who wish to use drones as a form of lethal enforcement on US soil. With Holder admitting that Americans have already died via drone strikes following his statements that Obama can already initiate drone strikes on US...

Barack Obama sacks adviser over talks with Hamas Barack Obama had criticised former President Jimmy Carter for holding direct talks with Hamas Tom Baldwin in Washington One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed today that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas - prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him. Robert Malley told The Times he had regularly been in contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza but is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution...

The following is summarized from San Antonio television news reports. At two o'clock this morning at least three men entered the Bexar County Courthouse in downtown San Antonio, Tx. They were apprehended by San Antonio police as they left the building. Three suspects were arrested. Two others are being questioned by police and FBI agents. Terror related concerns were raised when cameras, unspecified documents, and a travel itinerary were found in the Winnebago in which the men were traveling. KENS-TV reported the itinerary was extensive and included visits to a number of "sensitive" areas. The station reported the men are...

The US attorney general has acknowledged four US citizens were killed in drone strikes since 2011. The US specifically targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, Eric Holder wrote in a letter to the Senate judiciary panel. Awlaki's 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, Samir Khan and Jude Mohammad were "not specifically targeted by the US". The disclosure of the killings in Yemen and Pakistan marks the first formal public acknowledgement of the US citizen deaths in drone strikes. "The president has directed me to disclose certain information that until now has been properly classified," Mr Holder wrote. 'Continuing threat' America's top law enforcement official...

One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. The American responsibility for Mr. Awlaki’s death has been widely reported, but the administration had until now refused to confirm...

UK: Muslims screaming "Allahu akbar" behead British soldier with machete on public street In the face of appeasement and denial everywhere in the West, the jihad grows more brazen. Here is the feed from the BBC: 1753: Senior aides to Mayor of London Boris Johnson describe the Woolwich killing as a 'sickening deluded deranged act of violence', says the BBC's Robin Brant. 1744: Senior Whitehall sources have told the BBC that the Woolwich attackers are thought to have tried to film their attack whilst shouting "Allahu Akbar" - God is Great, says political editor Nick Robinson. The men were said...

Michael Steinbach, former head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division and now special agent in charge of Miami, told over 30 congressional staffers in March of 2012 that, contrary to the White House's classification, the bureau does not refer to the Fort Hood shooting as "workplace violence." As head of the FBI counterterrorism division, Steinbach oversaw the investigation into the mass murder at Texas Army base. Steinbach made this claim during an unclassified counterterrorism briefing on Capitol Hill.

Senior Obama officials tell the US Senate: the 'war', in limitless form, will continue for 'at least' another decade - or two Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted "disposition matrix", a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be "disposed of": indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, assassination-by-CIA-drones, etc. Their rationale for why this was needed now, a full 12 years after the 9/11 attack: Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at...

SNIPPET: "U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports said the websites of Ansar al-Mujahidin, Shumukh al-Islam and Al Fida — all accredited as official outlets of the terrorist group once led by Osama bin Laden — were knocked off the Internet by cyberattacks in early May. Two of the sites — Ansar al-Mujahidin (as-ansar.com) and Shumukh al-Islam (shamikh1.info) — came back up Monday and Tuesday. The site Al Fida remains down." SNIPPET: "The disruptions are prompting many jihadists to shift from Web forums to Twitter for communications and propaganda messaging."

SNIPPET: "A genuinely inspiring issue of AQAP's flagship English language publication. This is what pages 1, 2, & 3 look like:" SNIPPET: "The remaining pages were rendered intentionally blank by person or persons unknown."

<p>Looks Like DOJ HAS BEEN TAPPING AP NEWS TELEPHONE LINES TO DISCOVER THEIR CONFIDENTIAL SOURCES IN CONGRESS!</p> <p>The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.</p>

More glorious fruit of the Arab Spring. "3 Arrested in Plot to Bomb Egyptian Cities and Embassy," by Ben Hubbard in the New York Times, May 11 (thanks to Kenneth): CAIRO — Egyptian security forces have arrested three militants with ties to Al Qaeda who were planning terrorist attacks in Egyptian cities and against a foreign embassy, the interior minister said Saturday. A Western official said the Egyptians had privately identified the embassy as the United States Embassy in Cairo. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said at a news conference that the suspects had been arrested with 22 pounds of explosive...

FBI agents aren’t allowed to treat individuals associated with terrorist groups as potential threats to the nation, according to a startling, newly discovered FBI directive. The fact that a terrorism suspect is associated with a terrorist group means nothing, according to the FBI document, “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training.” The “touchstone” document, dated March of this year, is available online but hasn’t been reported on by major media outlets. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents are to be instructed that “mere association with organizations that demonstrate both legitimate (advocacy) and illicit (violent extremism) objectives should not automatically result in a...

WASHINGTON –While visiting a mosque in the Washington area last week, a senior White House security official lavished praise on a Muslim cleric who happens to be a top leader of the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America, FBI investigators point out. "They are so ignorant," said one FBI veteran regarding the White House. "This is unbelievable bullsh--." White House sources explain that deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough was unaware of the cleric's radical ties, and added that the presidential assistant attended the outreach event as a show of support for the Muslim community ahead of Thursday's congressional hearings on...

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Democratic Party fundraiser with leaders of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood front groups in May of this year. The invitation-only fundraiser was sponsored by Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; Andre Carson, D-Ind.; and Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and took place on the evening of May 16, 2012, at the W Hotel in Washington D.C. In attendance were about 20 members of a Syrian dissident group and 10 officials representing Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas front groups. Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)...

New evidence reveals the Obama administration’s version of the events that took place in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 was based on a tissue of lies. The Weekly Standard’s Steven Hayes has obtained a timeline and a series of emails revealing the self-serving efforts made by administration officials, who heavily edited CIA talking points about the attack that cost four Americans, including ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, their lives. Also revealed is who made the changes and why they made them. The revelations are part of a report published by the five Republican Committee chairmen that has been largely dismissed...

Two more people have been arrested in Seattle and New York, FBI officials said yesterday, as investigators tried to break up a suspected terrorist network they believe was plotting a bomb attack against a US target .... Graham Fuller, a specialist on Islamic extremism and a former CIA analyst, said: "I'm a little sceptical about the possibility that the GIA is now targeting us because it would have been accompanied by some kind of rhetoric. Therefore I would speculate that these guys are working on their own or hired by someone else." And Mr Fuller argued that Mr Ressam's Afghan...

Two men from East Elmhurst, Queens have been arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a Manhattan synagogue. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was joined by top city law enforcement officials at City Hall earlier today in announcing the arrests of Ahmed Ferhani, 26, and Mohamed Mamdouh, 20. Ferhani, who is from Algeria, and Mamdouh, was is from Morocco, are both charged with engaging in terrorism, weapons possession and hate crimes. An arraignment is expected later today. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the men told undercover officers that they hated Jews and wanted to kill them. He also says they had...

VIDEO at link. Family Researh Council employee Leo Johnson who was shot by a gunman but still managed to subdue the shooter on Aug. 15, 2012, in the lobby of the conservative organization's building in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com) –Domestic terrorist Floyd Corkins told the FBI that he found the Family Research Council as a target because they were listed online as an "anti-gay" group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Corkins walked into the FRC's Washington, D.C., headquarters last Aug. 15, carrying a pistol, 100 rounds of ammunition and knapsack filled with 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. He later admitted that he...

Canadian authorities announced Monday they have broken up an Al Qaeda-linked terror plot to attack a passenger train as it crossed over a bridge in the Toronto area. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday that two suspects have been arrested on terrorism charges. Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, who live in greater Montreal and Toronto -- were conspiring to carry out an Al Qaeda-supported attack against Via Rail, but posed no immediate threat to the public. "It was definitely in the planning stage but not imminent," RCMP chief superintendent Jennifer Strachan told reporters at a news conference. Read more:...