Free Republic

Since the New York Times and Wall Street Journal broke the news about the admission of Taliban official Sayeed Rahmatullah Hashemi to a special student program at Yale, we’ve received numerous emails from outraged Yale Alumni. One email stood out from the rest — "I won’t give Yale one red cent this year, but maybe I will give them a red fingernail instead!" She was referring to the Taliban’s policy of pulling the fingernails off of Afghani women who dared to wear fingernail polish. Some of these women even had their thumbs sliced off as punishment. To date, Mr. Rahmatullah...

Bin Laden 'largely a spent force' (Now we know why...) Osama bin Laden is "largely a spent force" whose capture would not affect global Islamic terrorism, a British security consultancy has said. The company headed by former British Army colonel Tim Spicer predicted that bin Laden or his second-in-command Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri will be "taken out of circulation" in 2006. Publishing its annual assessment of the global terror threat, Aegis Defence Services said the greater menace was now from home-grown terrorists in Europe with no previous link to known groups and no formal terror training, such as those who carried...

'Bin Laden ordered me to topple government' By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 17/02/2006) Osama bin Laden ordered a Muslim convert to help prepare a terrorist attack to topple the Australian government, Victoria supreme court was told yesterday. Joseph Thomas, 32, a taxi driver who changed his name to Jihad, was told to act as a sleeper agent and spy on military installations, said Nicholas Robinson, prosecuting. The allegations were made on the first day of the trial of the man the media have nicknamed "Jihad Jack". He denies receiving money from al-Qa'eda in 2002 and 2003, providing the terrorist...

Al-Qaeda knew it was under surveillance in America, but it didn't know much about that system. Soon, it will know and will use this knowledge to its advantage. While some among us are rotating their pre-9/11 planet back in time, future jihad is railing against another of its enemies' fatal weaknesses.

<p>In Massachusetts, an organization known as the Citizens Energy Corporation (CEC) provides low cost heating oil for the state’s disadvantaged each year. On the surface their mission seems laudable; however, the reality is far from valiant. This organization has been used for years by its Chairman, former Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II (son of the late US Senator and Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy,) as both a tool for the implementation of his personal political aims and for Kennedy’s own personal financial enrichment. The CEC operates as a non-profit corporation but despite Kennedy’s personal wealth, which is reported to be in the millions of dollars, he receives compensation from his charitable endeavor of $400,000 a year based on CEC financial reports from 2003 (the last year upon which such reports were available).</p>

Cleared: the bomber's sister 'who praised bin Laden' By John Steele, Crime Correspondent (Filed: 29/11/2005) The brother and sister of one of the first two British suicide bombers were cleared at the Old Bailey yesterday of knowing about his mission and failing to alert the authorities before the attack. Parveen and Zahid Sharif, whose brother, Omar Sharif, joined Asif Hanif in a suicide mission to Israel in 2003, were found not guilty in a retrial after the first jury failed to reach a verdict. Zahid and Parveen Sharif leave the Old Bailey yesterday Parveen, 37, a supply teacher in Derby,...

The world of bin Laden: no drinks, no gambling, no pictures of women By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 17/11/2005) Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty. The first complete collection of the Saudi's statements published today portrays a world in which Islam's enemies will take the first steps towards salvation by embracing the "religion of all the Prophets". Osama bin Laden Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden is billed as the first accurate compendium of the terrorist...

In the middle of the War on Terror, October 15 was a great achievement of the United States, but above all an Iraqi victory. If we divide the number of US soldiers who died in the conflict till October 15, we'd realize that for each fallen hero, 4,500 Iraqi voters were given the right to vote against Terror. In the global conflict with Jihadism, U.S. efforts and sacrifices are triggering greater resources against the empire projected by Ayman Thawahiri and Usama Bin Laden.

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...

Asharq al-Awsat, London- An extremist Islamist internet site has claimed Osama bin Laden was recently injured in fighting around a Spanish military base in Afghanistan. Al Hasba, which has featured statements by al Qaeda’s leader and Abu Musab al Zarqawi, said bin Laden took part in the al Kholoud attack (the eternal attack) and was lightly injured in his left thigh. Islamists in London cast doubt on these reports and indicated that Saudi-born bin Laden has not appeared in any video or audio tape since 27th December 2004, when al Jazeera news channel broadcasted a tape allegedly announcing the appointment...

The Clinton-Bin Laden Connection:There is such a thing as an Unjust War (but Iraq isn’t it.) By William John Hagan Houston Home Journal 08/20/2005 The American liberal is a hypocrite. Where were these "men and women of conscience" when President Clinton failed to respond to murder of American citizens aboard the U.S.S. Cole and at two United States embassies in Africa by Usama Bin Laden? They simply accepted Clinton’s policy of appeasing Bin Laden by not taking any substantial action against Al-Qaeda. And no, firing a cruise missile into a baby food factory and another at nearly empty Al-Qaeda camp...

WASHINGTON – Recent al-Qaida attacks using primitive bombs and inflicting relatively small numbers of casualties have persuaded some that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network has been unable to secure weapons of mass destruction or has been unable to smuggle them into the U.S. and other key target countries. In the wake of a series of reports from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin about the nuclear terrorism threat, some skeptics of al-Qaida's ability to detonate nuclear weapons inside the U.S. most often suggest the problems with maintenance and technical attention. Others suggest Osama bin Laden may have purchased duds on the black...

Son of Spiritual Mentor of Osama Bin Laden Calls Attacks on Civilians Criminal The Associated Press Published: Jul 26, 2005 CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The son of Osama bin Laden's spiritual mentor said the recent string of terror attacks that have swept Egypt, Britain and other countries are "a crime." Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian who led Islamic militants in Afghanistan and was killed there by a roadside bomb in 1989, is considered the mentor of bin Laden, but the younger Azzam said his father would fight against groups that target civilians and use his name. "All those using my father's...

War is Peace By William John Hagan (Houston Home Journal, Perry, GA) New York, Washington, London and Madrid have all become victims of terrorism as a direct result of state sponsored terrorism. Prior to September 11th, 2001, several Islamic nations virtually declared war on the Western Alliance of the United States, Britain, and Israel by funding Al-Qaeda. Starting in 1988, Iran funded Ayman al Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda's number two in command. Iraq was also a direct and indirect supporter of Al-Qaeda. Prior to, during and after my career in Yugoslavia during the Croatian-Serbian War, I kept a close eye on the...

The exasperation of Porter Goss, the Director of the US' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with Pakistan's role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other remnants of the Al Qaeda, is evident from his remarks on bin Laden during an interview with the "Time" magazine which has been carried by it this week. The interview has come in the wake of the arrest of one Hamid Hayat, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, his father and some others by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) earlier this month. They belonged to a 2500-strong Pakistani community living at a place...

Does al-Qaida have nukes? SPECIAL REPORT Publishing date: 12.05.2005 20:03 Intelligence specialist alarmed by WMD Commission Report By LTC Joseph C. Myers Does al-Qaida have a nuclear weapon? With all of our pressing focus on events in the War on Terror overseas, that is the most important question here at home. Historically the pattern of WMD proliferation in the world has been principally state to state: China to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and possibly North Korea; or North Korea to Pakistan, and maybe a former Soviet Republic to North Korea. I would have assessed it as a “low probability” that al-Qaida...

Pak nuke scientist A Q Khan met Osama: Report Sunday, 03 April , 2005, 12:24 New Delhi: Pakistani scientists Abdul Qadeer Khan and Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood had held meetings with Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders, exchanged letters with militant organisations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and attended their gatherings and rallies, a media report said. "When the CIA searched (Sultan Bashiruddin) Mehmood’s UTN (Umma Tameere-Nau) office in Kabul, they found large amounts of data on the construction and maintenance of nuclear weapons from the Kahuta laboratories. It also found letters exchanged between the UTN and Islamist extremist organisations including Lashkar-e-Toiba",...

Reward Offered for Bin Laden in PakistanSLAMABAD, Pakistan - A television and radio campaign offering a $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) hit the airwaves in Pakistan this week in a U.S.-government funded drive to get fresh leads about the al-Qaida leader. The 30-second television spot flashes photographs of bin Laden and 13 other top terror suspects, including his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with an emotional appeal for help in bringing them to justice. "Who are the people who are suffering from terrorism? Our mothers,...

January 24, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — The White House is expected to double the bounty on Osama bin Laden's head — dead or alive — to $50 million by the end of next month. The expected bounty increase coincides with ramped-up publicity efforts by the State Department to remind Afghans and Pakistanis of the reward. Bin Laden disappeared in the mountainous region straddling the two nations. The State Department began taking out ads this month in a major Pakistani newspaper, renewing the reward offer for bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and a dozen other terrorists. A similar TV ad...

   Bin Laden Seeks Geneva Ruling on Beheadings by Scott Ott (2005-01-07) -- Al Qaeda chief executive Usama bin Laden today requested a formal ruling from the U.N. Human Rights Commission on how to conduct beheadings of civilian and military prisoners in ways that comply with the Geneva Conventions."Al Qaeda seeks the global credibility that comes only from adherence to the Geneva Conventions," Mr. Bin Laden wrote. "Specifically we want to know what kind of cutlery is permissible, guidelines for videotaping the beheading and any advice about dealing with crowds as they burn, hang and mutilate the corpses of the...