Free Republic

Former UK Chief of Staff Lord Dannatt has called for a ground invasion against Islamic State (ISIS) on Monday, claiming that the cultural and security impact of the group calls for an international armed effort to expand beyond the current airstrike campaign. "The capture and likely destruction of the 2,000-year-old Roman colonnades at Palmyra, Syria, by Islamic State constitutes a potential cultural crime on a gigantic scale," Dannatt wrote in the Daily Mail. "These majestic ruins represent thousands of years of human civilisation and there is now surely no doubting just how great a threat IS [ISIS - ed.] poses...

The terror group strips girls naked, conduct virginity tests, and send them to slave auctions after they have attacked their villages, often killing their husbands, fathers and brothers ISIS terrorists are picking out the “prettiest virgins” from the women they capture and sending them to their Syrian stronghold to be sex slaves, according to a UN expert. And there are horrific reports about the fate of the brave women who resist the murderous terrorists - including one victim who was burned alive for refusing to perform “extreme sexual acts”. Fierce haggling usually breaks out at slave auctions, where the girls...

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez today asked the State Department to give the return of convicted cop-killer Joanne Chesimard “the utmost importance” in new negotiations with Cuba. In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Menendez said that Chesimard and other fugitives must be extradited to the U.S. before Cuba is removed from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. …

A man who ran for Congress last year in East Tennessee has pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on a small Muslim enclave in New York. Federal agents began investigating Robert Doggart of Signal Mountain following a Facebook posting in which he claimed a community outside of Hancock, New York, was planning a terrorist attack and "must be utterly destroyed," according to the plea agreement entered last month.

U.S. Special Operations Forces had to fight “hand to hand” in Friday night’s raid that killed the Islamic State terrorist group senior commander Abu Sayyaf, several defense officials told The Daily Beast Saturday. Troops from the U.S. Army Delta Force landed near a multi-story building with Ospreys and Blackhawks and were met with resistance when they entered, including “hand to hand” combat, one official told The Daily Beast. There was some resistance from armed guards and from the terrorist commander himself, but the troops were well prepared to handle that, another official said.

US Special Operations Forces killed an Islamic State military and financial leader and captured his wife during a raid in eastern Syria last night, the US military confirmed today. The operation, which included airstrikes followed by an air assault conducted by special operations troops, was designed to capture Abu Sayyaf, a senior leader in the Islamic State, and his wife, Umm Sayyaf. The raid took place “in al-Amr,” or the Al Omar oil field in Deir al Zour province in eastern Syria, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said in a statement released by the US military. The oil field is...

In the southern city of Aden, more than 150 airstrikes hit the city's airport, witnesses and security officials said. Houthi rebels and their allies are locked in fierce fighting there against forces loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Monday's airstrikes also hit airports in the city of Hodeida and the capital, Sanaa, witnesses and officials said. They said other airstrikes targeted Yemen's eastern province of Marib and the Houthi stronghold of Saada. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to talk to journalists. Witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity over fear of reprisals. Iranian-allied...

Dereliction: For two years on Hillary Clinton's watch, the State Department refused to designate a Nigerian Islamist group as a terrorist organization. This group has murdered thousands as it wages a real war on women. Sometimes Hollywood celebrities get it right, as Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres and others did in a protest outside the Beverly Hills Hotel. That property is one of the Dorchester Collection of hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, who has announced his country's embrace of Shariah law. The protesters recognize that Shariah law is a brutal criminal code employed by Islamists that prescribes...

Survivors of a 1996 terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen are offendedthat an Iraqi official with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was welcomed to the White House this week. “Outrage at the visit to the White House really doesn’t describe what I feel,” said William M. Schooley, who survived the June 25, 1996, bombing of the Khobar Towers. “I watched outstanding airmen die that night and witnessed horrific carnage. The survivors of Khobar Towers have been swept under the rug and now have received the greatest insult,” he added. The Washington Times first reported...

[Editor's note: This article orginally appeared on the cover of the May 27, 2002, issue of HUMAN EVENTS.]Sen. Bob Graham (D.-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told HUMAN EVENTS May 21 that his committee had received all the same terrorism intelligence prior to September 11 as the Bush administration. "Yes, we had seen all the information," said Graham. "But we didn't see it on a single piece of paper, the way the President did." Graham added that threats of hijacking in an August 6 memo to President Bush were based on very old intelligence that the committee had seen...

INGRAHAM: I just -- every time I hear someone in a position of power say that the war on terror has been abandoned when we have three quarters of the al Qaeda leadership in our custody, when our men and women in battle have done such an enormously great job all around the world, not just in Afghanistan, not just in Iraq, but our special forces operating in every country from The Philippines to Indonesia, all over this are globe. I think it's an insult to the troops, and I don't think Senator Graham really means it. B. GRAHAM: It's...

ASPEN — A man who left bomb threats and homemade bombs around Aspen on New Year's Eve shot and killed himself in his car a few hours after his threats cleared much of the resort town, Aspen Police said. Assistant Aspen Police Chief Bill Linn said James Chester Blanning, 72, walked into two Aspen banks Wednesday afternoon and left packages wrapped in holiday paper along with notes saying the boxes contained bombs. The notes threatened "mass death" and demanded $60,000 cash, along with criticisms of President George Bush, Linn said.

Thomas Jefferson, Patron Saint of American Liberals, would not recognize his spiritual offspring in today’s liberal President Obama and his handling of the Middle East. Jefferson, as a trade commissioner and then ambassador in Paris for six years (1784-90), faced almost daily the tragedy of American hostages enslaved by violent Muslims and his own frustrating inability to liberate them. However, what he learned served him well as the leading hawk for war a decade later when he became president and went to war against belligerent Islam.

A woman was arrested Tuesday after she allegedly climbed a fence and got onto Mineta San Jose International Airport property, officials said. Airport Public Information Officer Vicki Day said a UPS airline employee spotted the woman, who was then subsequently arrested. Donations for Nonprofit Stolen in San Jose Day said the security breach did not interrupt the airport's schedule. No other details were immediately available. Tuesday's security breach is the fifth in the past year. Airport officials recently released video of a security breach at the airport that took place on Jan. 29. The most notable security breach at the...

On the brink of a new Middle Eastern catastrophe: Saudi Arabia sends war planes into Yemen in a terrifying clash with Iran leaving region at boiling point Religious fissure between Sunni and Shia Muslims erupted into conflict Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels 18 civilians were injured after Saudi warplanes targeted Sana’a in Yemen Britain and America supported the Saudi-led military intervention Coalition deployed 100 fighter jets and 150,000 soldiers to fight in region Truly, it is a terrifying development. The great religious fissure between Sunni and Shia Muslims that dominates the Middle East has erupted into...

Two Saudi pilots ejected over the Red Sea on Friday after their fighter plane suffered a technical problem and were rescued with US assistance, state media said. "A plane of the F-15S type was stricken by a technical fault yesterday evening over the Red Sea and the two pilots were forced to use their rescue seats," state news agency SPA quoted a defense ministry official saying.

The U.S. Air Force and Navy rescued two Saudi pilots Friday after they ejected from their F-15 fighter over the Gulf of Aden during combat operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Saudi jet apparently suffered some mechanical problem forcing the pilots to eject. A U.S. Air Force Pave Hawk special operations helicopter and crew were dispatched from Djibouti to rescue the Saudi pilots.

Yemen's beleaguered government said Saudi-led airstrikes against its Houthi militia opponents would not last long on the second day of a Gulf Arab-led campaign against the Iranian-allied militia that could escalate a proxy conflict spreading through the region. Warplanes targeted Houthi forces controlling Yemen's capital and their northern heartland on Friday and, in a boost for Riyadh, fellow monarchy Morocco said it would join the rapidly-assembled Sunni Muslim coalition against the Shi'ite Muslim group. Tribes in Yemen's oil producing Marib region said they supported the air campaign, but Houthi forces advanced south despite the airstrikes and Pakistan, named by Saudi...

Saudi Arabia had announced on Wednesday night that it had begun a military campaign in Yemen, the beginning of what a Saudi official had said was an offensive to restore a Yemeni Government that had collapsed after rebel forces took control of large swaths of the country.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Guantanamo war crimes prosecutions of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked planes attacks will be delayed by two months because of lost files caused by Pentagon computer problems, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday. A weeklong pretrial hearing had been set to begin on Monday in the death penalty case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and four alleged co-conspirators. The judge overseeing the case postponed the hearing until June 17 at the request of defense lawyers who said three to four weeks' worth of their confidential work files had...