Free Republic

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — Soldiers of Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, along with members of the Concerned Local Citizens of Al Khargulia, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Dec. 2 to open the new Concerned Local Citizens Headquarters. The headquarters project began approximately one month ago when local sheiks coordinated with Troop A leaders to decide where the headquarters would best serve the mission of the CLCs and the needs of the community. After several meetings, the group decided on a local shopping area 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team Soldiers call “Four Corners.” “Four Corners is one of the...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2007 – As Iraqi security forces become increasingly capable in the counterinsurgency fight, their leaders are looking to the future, too, and striving to build long-term institutional capabilities, a U.S. military officer supporting that effort told online journalists today. Navy Capt. David Pine, chief of staff for the Joint Headquarters Transition Team, said Iraq’s defense and military leaders recognize the importance of developing institutional capacity so their forces can sustain themselves in accordance with their national military strategy. The Joint Headquarters Transition Team, part of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, is providing advice, support and mentorship to...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2007 – About 1,000 members of 10th Mountain Division will deploy to Iraq this spring as replacements for troops due to rotate home, Defense Department officials announced today. The division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., has been alerted of the upcoming deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed today. “It was not a surprise. It was more of a confirmation,” Benjamin Abel, the division’s media relations officer, told American Forces Press Service. Since returning from its last deployment in February and March, the unit has received new troops and conducted collective training,...

AD DAWR, Iraq, Feb. 20, 2007 — An abandoned youth center is now the new headquarters for the Ad Dawr police department. An attack on Feb. 11, 2007, left the previous headquarters in rubble. The attack came somewhat as a surprise, said an Ad Dawr police lieutenant through a translator. Ad Dawr is a very close-knit community and violence in the area hasn’t been an issue like it has in other parts of the country. The source of attack was a car bomb detonated from within the perimeter of the police station at around 9 a.m. It killed at least...

Little more than one hour after becoming a private citizen, outgoing Gov. Mitt Romney took steps to leap back into the public arena by officially opening his presidential exploratory committee headquarters and naming members of his national finance team. Romney said he had mixed feelings about leaving office in Massachusetts. "This is the first day in four years where I've been a private citizen. It feels good. It's also a little sad because it's been a terrific experience being governor of the commonwealth," he said. He said he was in front of his TV at his Belmont home when Gov....

Israeli warplanes struck targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah has its political headquarters and blasted a fuel storage tank at a power station south of the capital early today, Lebanese security officials and witnesses said. The impact of at least four missiles were heard in the attack on south Beirut. Anti-aircraft fire from the ground echoed in other suburbs of Beirut as the planes roared over the Lebanese capital. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV and other local stations said a bridge in the area was targeted. There was no immediate word on casualties and it was not clear whether...

2 hours ago GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli aircraft sent missiles tearing through the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday in an unmistakable message to his ruling Hamas group to free an Israeli soldier. Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a Cabinet meeting that Israel would go after "higher-caliber targets" in the future _ a reference to senior Hamas officials inside and outside the Palestinian territories, a high-ranking political official said. Israeli aircraft, tanks and naval gunboats have been pounding Gaza for the past week in an effort to win the freedom of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who...

More Rain Likely for Soaked NortheastBy STEPHEN MANNING Tuesday, June 27, 2006 WASHINGTON - Workers pumped water from the IRS headquarters' flooded basement Tuesday and mopped up at other government buildings Monday after heavy rain swamped the nation's capital. A brief break from the two-day deluge gave crews a chance to reopen commuter routes and set up sandbags to prevent more water from getting inside buildings. More than 7 inches of rain fell on the nation's capital in a 24-hour period Sunday and Monday, shutting down several federal buildings and closing some of the city's busiest tourist attractions just days...

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2006 – Afghan and coalition forces killed a senior Taliban commander April 6 and destroyed a Taliban district headquarters this morning in a series of ongoing offensive operations in southern Afghanistan, military officials there said. A joint coalition force killed the senior Taliban commander in the Musa Qaleh District in northern Helmand Province. The commander was tied directly to dozens of improvised explosive device attacks that killed and crippled multiple Afghans since 2001. He also was responsible for the deaths of Afghan and Coalition soldiers, officials said. We "effectively disrupted the command and control of Taliban fighters...

FORT BELVOIR, Va., Jan. 26, 2006 – The agency charged with reducing threats against American forces celebrated the opening of its new headquarters building, the Defense Threat Reduction Center, here today. The new center consolidates five separate locations and more than 1,400 people assigned to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in the Washington metropolitan area into a single, secure facility. James A. Tegnelia, agency director and host of the ceremony, introduced Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, chief of U.S. Strategic Command, as "part-owner" of the facility in his position as the operational commander responsible for combating weapons of mass destruction....

JERUSALEM – A Jewish group's headquarters were raided today by hundreds of security officials just days before the movement, led by residents of Judea and Samaria, was to present a plan calling for Jews of the area to secede from Israel and create their own autonomous Jewish entity. The massive police raid came after a WorldNetDaily article this weekend broke the story regarding the Judea Initiative, which is seeking to gather signatures from Judea and Samaria's nearly 200,000 Jews for a manifesto declaring the creation of a sovereign Jewish authority that would govern itself independently according to Jewish law and...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A blown fuse cut power to the top 23 floors of the U.N. headquarters on Monday, sending nonessential staff home on the third day of the annual General Assembly debate. Officials said there had been no threat against the building, and the debate continued uninterrupted. The U.N. Web site was down as was phone service in the 39-story tower on Manhattan's East Side. The outage forced U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to relocate his lunch with the foreign ministers and ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council, Britain, France, Russia, China and the United...

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (Aug. 21, 2005) -- “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster,” was said by Sun Tzu, a Chinese general, over 2,500 years ago. Today, the same standard is being carried out by the signals intelligence gatherers of 3rd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD), and providing the necessary support to accomplish that mission is the goal of its Headquarters and Service Company. “If there are weapons or gear that needs to be moved, or an [air conditioning unit] used for creating an acclimatized environment is down and it...

What do Islamist terrorists want? The answer should be obvious, but it is not.A generation ago, terrorists did make clear their wishes. Upon hijacking three airliners in September 1970, for example, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demanded, with success, the release of Arab terrorists imprisoned in Britain, Switzerland, and West Germany. Upon attacking the B'nai B'rith headquarters and two other Washington, D.C. buildings in 1977, a Hanafi Muslim group demanded the canceling of a feature movie, Mohammad, Messenger of God," $750 (as reimbursement for a fine), the turning over of the five men who had massacred the...

One of the main culprits of the Watergate scandal, John Dean, who spent 4 months in prison, surfaced as a media hero. He has also surfaced as an expert on the alleged scandalous behavior of the Bush Administration. He wrote the book, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. But the facts, which have survived several challenges in court, indicate that Dean had a much bigger role in Watergate than reported by Woodward and Bernstein. The book Silent Coup argues that the Watergate break-ins were really meant to cover up embarrassing information about a call-girl ring whose...

Burglars break into Kentucky State Republican Headquarters Associated Press FRANKFORT, Ky. - Burglars broke into the state Republican headquarters on Sunday night, vandalized an office and stole a computer server, state party chairman John McCarthy said. The burglary occurred between 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. EST, McCarthy said. The thieves threw a chunk of concrete through a back window to gain access to the office, located about five blocks south of the Capitol, McCarthy said. The office has an alarm system, but it did not activate, McCarthy said. "I don't know why," he said. Police responding to public disturbance calls...

In April 2004, followers of Iraqi Shi‘ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched a well-coordinated uprising across southern Iraq. While Western media focused on events in Sadr City, Najaf, and Karbala, violence occurred elsewhere as well. A Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) source forwarded the following after-action report regarding violence in the town of Al-Kut, the capital of the Wassit governorate and home to the Ukrainian contingent.The unclassified report, written by a coalition security contractor, highlights dysfunction between regional coalition offices and the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad, as well as tension between diplomats and security officers. The summary faulted a British...

I recall (imperfectly) that back in the 1960's there was a mortar attack on the UN Headquarters building. I seem to recall that someone set up a mortar in Brooklyn and fired into the UN Headquarters building in Manhattan. Am I alone im my recollection f this event, or can some freeper help me? With all the attendant finger pointing regarding a mortar attack on a mess tent in Iraq, with the obligaroty hand wringing and witch hunt for the "responsible party", I would be interested to recall who the "responsible party" was when the UN was attacked all those...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. forces on Thursday said they believe they have found the main Fallujah headquarters of the terrorist group headed by Al Qaeda-linked Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.Meanwhile, a group attacked U.S. Marines and Iraqi government forces from a house inside the terror hotbed city on Thursday, killing one Marine and one Iraqi soldier, a U.S. military official said. One Marine and one Iraqi soldier also were wounded.U.S. and Iraqi forces also arrested 104 suspected guerrillas in an insurgent neighborhood in central Baghdad, including nine who are believed to have fled Fallujah, Interior Ministry spokesman Sabah Khadim said. Most were...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT - news) will sell its midtown Manhattan headquarters building to a partnership led by Tishman Speyer Properties for $175 million, the companies said. The sale is expected to close before the end of the year, although N.Y. Times Co. will remain in the building as a tenant until its new headquarters are ready in 2007, according to the announcement made on Monday. After the N.Y. Times Co. moves out, Tishman Speyer said it plans to convert the facility into an office building. N.Y. Times Co., publisher of the flagship New York...