Free Republic

A Guantanamo Bay detainee who was accused of trying to join the 9/11 hijackers has been sent back to Saudi Arabia for ‘treatment for mental illness,’ the Biden Administration said Monday. Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani was sent from the famed prison to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he will receive treatment at a psychiatric facility. “After two decades without trial in U.S. custody, Mohammed will now receive the psychiatric care he has long needed in Saudi Arabia, with the support of his family,” law professor at the City University of New York Ramzi Kassem, who represented al-Qahtani, said. “Keeping...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl1908.aspx Treasury Identifies Kassem Rmeiti & Co. for Exchange and Halawi Exchange Co. as Financial Institutions of “Primary Money Laundering Concern” 4/23/2013 In First Use of Section 311 Against a Non-Bank Financial Institution, Treasury Acts to Protect the U.S. Financial System from Foreign Exchange Houses Tied to Global Narcotics and Money Laundering Networks and Hizballah WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today named two Lebanese exchange houses, Kassem Rmeiti & Co. For Exchange (Rmeiti Exchange) and Halawi Exchange Co. (Halawi Exchange), as foreign financial institutions of primary money laundering concern under...

Some of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah's responsibilities have been taken away by the organization's backer Iran, the pan-Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat claimed Thursday. Reportedly, Nasrallah is no longer in control of the organization's military wing, which is now headed by Nasrallah's deputy Sheikh Na'im Kassem. The Iranian official Asharq Alawsat cites as the one who demoted Nasrallah is none other than Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The report follows a similar report by Israeli daily Ma'ariv Wednesday, but none of the reports have been officially confirmed by Iran. Western intelligence sources cited by Asharq reported that Teheran was furious...

The relations between Russia and the Shiite's religious leadership in Lebanon started to develop in the beginning of the seventies. The spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shia community, Imam Moussa Al-Sadr, visited Moscow in 1972 and asked Soviet authorities to issue humanitarian aid to his people. At the same time cooperation between the Marxist factions of the PLO that were active in Lebanon and Soviet military intelligence – GRU, intensified greatly. Several soviet officers (speaking fluent Arabic) even visited Palestinian terrorist training camps in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon between 1972-1975. Using their connections in PLO they managed to establish...

Italy probes possible CIA role in abduction By John Crewdson (Chicago) Tribune senior correspondent An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparent kidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in the streets of Milan served military authorities this week with a demand for records of flights into and out of a joint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy. Italian newspapers have reported that the prosecutor, Armando Spataro, is investigating the possible role of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the disappearance of Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan, better known as Abu Omar, a popular figure in Milan's Islamic community who vanished Feb. 17, 2003....