Free Republic

Court Victory For Gilchrist “It was long overdue and warmly welcomed” was the quote made by Jim Gilchrist upon receiving the news, “the hijacker’s case they had fraudulently filed in the name of the Minuteman Project was thrown out of court; on none other, than, Friday the 13th!” There is no doubt Marvin Stewart, Debbie Courtney and Paul Sielski had a very bad Friday the 13th, when they learned Judge Wilkinson threw them out on their ear. Not only that, but once again, Courtney was slammed with a big fat court fine! The sanction was over $ 1,000.00, which is...

Saudi Arabia foiled a 2003 terror plot by militants who planned to hijack a plane and blow it up over a densely populated American city, a Saudi official said Sunday. The official said the plan, first reported Sunday in government-guided Al-Watan newspaper, was for the attackers to transit through the U.S. to another destination so they could avoid applying for hard-to-get American visas required for Saudis. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the militants were preparing to execute the alleged plot when it was halted.

TRIPOLI, Libya - Hijackers in Sudan's wartorn Darfur region seized a jetliner carrying nearly 100 people, including local Darfur officials, and forced it to land at a World War II-era airfield in the heart of the Sahara Desert in neighboring Libya, officials said. A Libyan official at the remote Kufra airport said there were 10 hijackers belonging to a Darfur rebel group and were demanding enough fuel for the Boeing 737 to continue to France. -snip-

Folks, we have a national disaster brewing over the 9-11 Flight 93 memorial. Years ago an uproar ensued over the plan to memorialize those who died on Flight 93, considered the first battle on the War on Terror which Americans won, under the Islamic symbol of the crescent. I am not against Islam in general, and I am not of the opinion that vast Muslim community is ready for war with the rest of the world. But Islamic extremists are responsible for 9-11 and many other attacks on the West before and after 9-11, so we must make sure that...

The U.S. military confirmed yesterday that it was holding an Afghan reporter, Jawad Ahmad [pictured right], because of his extensive ties to the Taliban. Jawad was a stringer for Canadian Television (CTV). Apparently his cell phone had Taliban phone numbers on them and indicated that the journalist had done extensive interviews with them. He also was in possession of Taliban propaganda videos. Have we just met the Afghani Bilal Hussein? Reporters Without Borders, of course, is outraged that a journalist--a journalist!--is being detained. After all, aren't all journalist--journalists!--immune from any and all suspicion? To be honest, this may be one...

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Self-proclaimed al-Qaida members hijacked a Turkish airliner on its way from Northern Cyprus to Istanbul on Saturday, the private television station NTV reported. The hijackers demanded that the airplane be flown to Tehran, Iran, said Tuncay Doganer, CEO of the private Atlasjet airline company. But the plane landed at an airport in Antalya, a Turkish province on the Mediterranean coast, after pilots said there was not enough fuel to fly to Iran, Doganer said. There were 136 passengers and six crew on board the plane, Doganer said. He said some of the passengers had been released....

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- A Moroccan convicted as an accessory to murder in the September 11, 2001 attacks made an emotional declaration of innocence as a court opened hearings Friday to set his sentence. Judges could sentence Mounir el-Motassadeq, a friend of three of the suicide pilots, to as long as 15 years in prison in the latest chapter of a tangled, five-year legal saga. In November, a federal appeals court ruled that judges in Hamburg wrongly acquitted el Motassadeq in 2005 of direct involvement in the attacks, even as they sentenced him to seven years in prison for belonging...

More than 18 months before they carried out the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, a new videotape shows two of the Sept. 11 hijackers laughing and smiling for a camera. Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah look much different in the tape than they do in photographs made famous after the attacks in New York and Washington. Both seem younger, are bearded, and the infamously bleak gaze of Atta, the ringleader, is replaced by a somewhat softer expression. Osama bin Laden also appears on the tape, speaking to a large group of people in January 2000. The Sunday Times, which...

Every time you see a documentary or film about 9/11, the mind drifts to the fantasy of -- What if we nabbed them? What if, as Mohammed Atta is going though security in the Logon airport wearing that blue shirt, he is stopped by someone who has been following the whole plot, who says, "Got ya, bud. Plot's over. Your virgins are going to have to wait." Today, right before our eyes, we stopped 9/11. Thousands of simple, average Britons and Americans were going to visit grandma or see a friend get married. Some were doing their jobs, just another...

UAE firm to run 6 U.S. ports Nation tied to 9/11 hijackers could influence terminals, including Baltimore's Originally published February 12, 2006 WASHINGTON // A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports, including Baltimore, as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism. The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular...

DAMASCUS, Nov 15 (KUNA) -- A Gulf Air passenger plane took off to Manama safely from Damascus International Airport on Tuesday after the flight was delayed due to location of a gun in a bag, a Bahraini diplomatic source said. The source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the flight was delayed after the Syrian authorities detained seven Iraqi women who tried to board the plane with a gun concealed in one of their bags.Preliminary interrogations revealed that a man, who did not show up at the air facility, was expected to accompany them on the flight. The women and...

It's been four years of bad news for flight attendants. First, 9/11 happened. Then, they were laid off. With airline bankruptcies like Northwest's, they are being laid off again. Now, in another blow, the movie, "Flight Plan," is hitting theaters, tomorrow. Starring Jodie Foster, it's an outrageous piece of propaganda and incredible display of the irresponsible. I'm embarrassed to say that a very distant cousin of mine--Charles J.D. Schlissel--is executive producer of this outrage. The J.D. must stand for "Just Despicable." If you're a freedom-loving American like me, the rotten tricks of this movie will disgust you. If you want...

For the past couple of weeks the Discovery Channel has been advertising their documentary of Flight 93, the Flight That Fought Back. I couldn't watch it, I am just not ready to. I remember the phone ringing early in the morining. All my dad said was, "Turn on the TV." I had a feeling that the world was about to get bloody, but I can't say that I imagined that where we would be today. So much has changed since that day. Military terms are now commonly bantered about. Shock and Awe, IED, and RPG are now terms almost every...

Is this a memorial to the hijackers, or to the flight 93 victims? What kind of clueless idiot designed this? This is the chosen design for the Memorial for flight 93 that crashed into the Pennsyvania field on September 11, 2001. It was unveiled yesterday in Pennsylvania? What must the families of the victims think of this travesty? There were a couple of family members interviewed who liked it, but I don’t know if they truly realize the symbolism. A crescent is to a Muslim what a cross is to a Christian. This would be like putting a cross...

By Abigail R. Esman World Defense Review columnist "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" declared the posters taped across the city, the banner strung above the massive hole that once had been the World Trade Center, in the months after 9/11. And for a year, anyway, tourists came to pay respects at Ground Zero while New Yorkers brought flowers to their local fire departments, contributed to funds benefiting the families of those killed, pasted American flags to the windshields of their cars, and somberly marked the eleventh day of every month that passed. But four years later, to walk the streets of...

This is a man who, undeniably, was called from a 1993 World Trade Center bombing safehouse, got a 9/11 hijacker through Malaysian customs, apparently attended a foundational 9/11 gathering, disappeared from sight (as did the hijackers and their co-conspirators) right after the Malaysia meeting, and turns up in Qatar a few days after 9/11 with contact information for the brother Khalid Sheik Mohammed (the 9/11 mastermind) and other terrorists. What is the good reason not to be curious about this apparent co-conspirator (whom the CIA once thought important enough to travel to Jordan to interview)? Why didn't the 9/11 Commission...

In September 2000, one year before the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11, a U.S. Army military intelligence program, known as “Able Danger,” identified a terrorist cell based in Brooklyn, NY, one of whose members was 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta, and recommended to their military superiors that the FBI be called in to “take out that cell,” according to Rep. Curt Weldon, a longtime Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who is currently vice chairman of both the House Homeland Security and House Armed Services Committees. The recommendation to bring down that New York City cell -- in which two other Al Qaeda...

WASHINGTON - The Sept. 11 commission will investigate a claim that U.S. defense intelligence officials identified ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers as a likely part of an al-Qaida cell more than a year before the hijackings but didn't forward the information to law enforcement. Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa. and vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said Tuesday the men were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger." If true, that's an earlier link to al-Qaida than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta. Sept....

U.S. Reiterates $5 Million Reward for Lebanese Hijackers of an American Jet in 1985By Zeina Karam Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 29, 2005 BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - The U.S. Embassy reiterated on Wednesday the government's offer of a $5 million reward for information on the whereabouts of Lebanese Shiites who hijacked an American TWA jetliner in 1985 and killed a Navy diver on board. The rewards have been around since after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. But this was the first time the embassy in Beirut issued a reminder about them. Washington may be hoping more information...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Two Sept. 11 hijackers "should have drawn some scrutiny from the FBI," when they lived openly in San Diego in 2000, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded in a report that chronicles the bureau's failures to connect the dots leading up to the attacks. The head of the San Diego FBI office took issue Thursday with the inspector general's report, saying it "greatly exaggerates" the possibility that local agents could have prevented the attacks. The 368-page review found that the FBI missed opportunities to learn about the al-Qaida operatives when they lived in the San Diego...