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(Reuters) - Inquiries into the bloody assault on an Algerian gas plant are uncovering increasing evidence of contacts between the assailants and the jihadis involved in killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya nearly a year ago.The extent of the contacts between the militants is still unclear and nobody is sure there was a direct link between the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the carnage at In Amenas, where 39 foreign hostages were killed in January.But the findings, according to three sources with separate knowledge of U.S. investigations, shed some light on the connections between Al Qaeda affiliates...

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Arab allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussing the creation of a military pact to take on Islamic militants, with the possibility of a joint force to intervene around the Middle East, The Associated Press has learned. The alliance would also serve as a show of strength to counterbalance their traditional rival, Shiite-dominated, Iran. Two countries are seen as potential theaters for the alliance to act, senior Egyptian military officials said: Libya, where Islamic militants have taken over several cities, and Yemen, where Shiite rebels suspected of links to Iran have...

A daunting reality looms for President Barack Obama's Democrats ahead of U.S. congressional elections on Tuesday: Voters from the Republican Party are much more fired up. Reuters/Ipsos polling data shows Republicans are more certain they will vote, and see their ballot as a way to voice disapproval of Obama's handling of the Ebola outbreak and his health insurance reform law. Obama's approval rating is just 38 percent, according to other Reuters/Ipsos polling data, and he is a lightning rod for Republicans. "If there's a unifying theme here, it's a lack of confidence in the administration's management," Campbell said. In the...

Former CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson — who claims the government hacked her computer, TV and phone while she reported on the Benghazi terror attack — has released a new video showing what could be evidence of the government taking over her computer. “That very night, with [White House spokesman Eric] Schultz, [White House Press Secretary Jay] Carney and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line...

There are several debates when it comes to Barack Obama. One has to do with whether he is more Marxist or more Muslim. The answer may involve his usage of one to promote the elevation of the other ... Though Brzezinski rightly expressed concerns that the ‘Arab Spring’ could turn into the ‘Arab Winter’, he essentially advocated a repeat of his 1979 Afghanistan strategy in Libya ... After Gadhafi was overthrown, four Americans were murdered in Benghazi and the U.S. abandoned its embassy in Tripoli. Those of us with much less worldly experience knew it was a bad idea. How...

Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States on Friday, accusing Washington of provoking armed conflicts and undermining global security in a quest to lord its power over the rest of the world. In a 40-minute speech that mixed harsh criticism with veiled warnings against trying to oust the Russian bear from its role as “master of the taiga,” or boreal forest, Putin cast his nation's former Cold War nemesis as an aggressive force responsible for much of the violence racking the world today. “They are throwing their might to remove the risks they have created themselves, and...

BAGHDAD, July 21 (UPI) -- Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday. The official daily al-Sabah quoted the sources as saying the missiles were discovered in trenches near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads," the sources said. They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in...

A costly legal battle between Goldman Sachs and the Libyan sovereign wealth fund could have more permanent repercussions for the global banking industry, experts have told CNBC. The Libyan Investment Authority has accused Goldman of misleading it and taking advantage of its lack of financial knowledge to make "substantial" profits on a series of derivative trades back in 2008. The bank denies the allegations and a full hearing has been touted to begin in early 2016 after a preliminary hearing was completed earlier in the month. The LIA claims the disputed derivative trades in early 2008 cost $1 billion, and...

Reprinted from RedState.com. When conservatives consider the casualties of Obama’s national security policies, their attention is drawn quite naturally to Benghazi. In this shameful episode, the Obama Administration sacrificed an ambassador and three American heroes to protect a deceptive presidential campaign message in which Obama claimed that the war against al-Qaeda was over and won (“Osama bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaeda is on the run”). The facts are these: Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American heroes were sent into an al-Qaeda stomping ground that the British and other diplomatic consulates had already evacuated; they were denied the security they...

AN IRAQI scientist-turned-author says the most significant pieces of his country’s dormant nuclear programme were buried under a lotus tree in his backyard, untouched for more than a decade before the US-led invasion in 2003.But their existence, Dr Mahdi Obeidi writes in a new book, is evidence that the international community should remain vigilant as other countries try to replicate Iraq’s successes before the 1991 Gulf war to develop components necessary for a nuclear weapon. In The Bomb in my Garden, Dr Obeidi details Saddam’s quest for a nuclear bomb: "Although Saddam never had nuclear weapons at his disposal, the...

The Red Crescent in Libya has called for a ceasefire in Benghazi to allow the evacuation of families trapped by street fighting between an alliance of Sunni groups and a mix of government forces. Banks, government offices, and some hospitals are closed in Libya's second-largest city. Egyptian war planes, continued to bomb Sunni positions.

Accused Saddam Agent Says He Met With Hillary at White House By IRA STOLL, STAFF REPORTER OF THE SUN | March 27, 2008 A Michigan man facing federal criminal charges of illegally working for Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Intelligence Service says he met with Hillary Clinton at the White House in May 1996. In a 1997 interview with this reporter, Muthanna Hanooti said that at the meeting, Mrs. Clinton was "very receptive" to his request for an easing of the American sanctions on Iraq that were in place at the time. He said Mrs. Clinton "passed a message to the State...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1095652/posts Accused spy for Iraq worked for California congresswoman (Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose)Sac Bee ^ | 3/11/04 | AP- Washington Lockerbie Trial Document: Susan Lindauer Susan Lindauer Revolving Doors   http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1095691/posts Saddam Spy Suspect Lindauer: 'I'm an Anti-war Activist'NewsMax ^ | 3/11/04 | Limbacher     http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1095762/posts American charged in Iraqi conspiracy [Andy Card's distant cousin]CNN ^ | March 11, 2004     http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1095744/posts How Susan Lindauer Was Caught NRO ^ | 11 March 2004 | Byron York"discussed the need for plans and foreign resources to support [resistance] groups operating within Iraq." Lindauer is a former journalist for U.S. News...

Manufacturers of French arms are back in Cairo The Tribune offers a series of new industrial land conquest of French armaments. Egypt, which has offered this year for four corvettes 1 billion euros, shows again interested in the Rafale. Egypt and God will surprise to the French armament industry in 2014 in the absence yet of major contracts signed by more traditional customers in France (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia .. .) For DCNS scored a real coup in Egypt thanks to a very efficient commercial "raid". In less than six months, the naval group sold in Cairo four corvettes...

Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month ceasefire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza. Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded, as the Israeli Air Force conducted over a hundred strikes -- on graduation ceremonies for Hamas fighters, police stations and storage sites for rockets. About Israel's right and duty to defend its border towns,...

An explosion in southern Lebanon last week destroyed what is believed to have been a Hezbollah weapons depot. This latest in a series of mysterious “accidents” in Hezbollah-controlled precincts proved, as one Israeli official wryly remarked, that those who “sleep with rockets and amass large stockpiles of weapons are in a very unsafe place.” With the Party of God’s overland supply route through Syria choked off by the 22-month-long uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and Israel virtually in total control of the maritime route, Hezbollah’s stockpile is being systematically degraded.Yet the arsenal of Iran’s other regional proxy force, Hamas,...

An indictment Tuesday of a Libyan militant already behind bars for the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans confirms that computers with sensitive and classified information were stolen from the consulate during the assault. Fox News was first to report in July that at least two computers were stolen from the consulate. While the State Department initially dismissed Fox's report, the new, 18-count indictment against Ahmed Abu Khattala confirms that sensitive and classified information was lost, including the location of the top secret CIA annex. Abu Khattala, 43, the first militant to be prosecuted for the Benghazi violence, had...

October 11, 2014 4:00 AM Why Won't Republicans Get to the Bottom of Benghazi? It’s not just Democrats who don't want a full public airing. By Andrew C. McCarthySomething bothers me about the first and only hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Something I haven’t been able to shake. It was a desultory hearing. That’s not the main thing that bothers me, but it grates. Many Americans still seek real accountability for the jihadist-empowering policies and recklessly irresponsible security arrangements that preceded the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack — to say nothing of the fraud and stonewalling that...

Leadership: The former president on whose watch Americans were taken hostage and the mullahs rose to power in Iran gets it right in condemning the current president's failed handling of Syria and the Islamic State. We've often referred to Jimmy Carter as our worst president. But considering the recent IBD/TIPP poll showed 53% of Americans labeling Barack Obama's presidency a failure in just its sixth year, the incumbent may soon claim the title. It's one thing to make mistakes out of gullibility, quite another to foul up the world out of gross incompetence. It is said that Carter's presidency literally...

...Lets start by stating the obvious: AQIM is not a product of the Arab Spring. AQIM exists because of the military coup that ended the 'Algerian Spring' two decades ago. And it has not been strengthened by the Libyan revolution, but rather by the failure of state-building in northern Mali, the absence of post-conflict reconciliation and reintegration in Algeria, and a lack of accountability for a shadowy Algerian security establishment whose brutal methods have proven woefully inadequate to the challenge. AQIM's real origins AQIMs history can be traced directly to the coup staged by a handful of Algerian generals against...