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RAMALLAH — A United States proposal aimed at convincing Palestinians to withdraw their statehood bid at the United Nations and return to the negotiations table was the "last straw," and convinced Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that appealing to the Security Council was the best option, Fatah official Nabil Shaath told reporters in Ramallah. According to Shaath, the American proposal, which was delivered at the last minute by US envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross, did not mention a moratorium on settlement construction or the status of existing settlements.

Fox News is reporting that a third gun apparently found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was linked to Operation Fast and Furious, but its existence may have been deliberately concealed by the FBI to protect the identity of an informant “who works inside a major Mexican cartel.” That informant, according to the report by Fox reporter William Lajuenesse, “provided the money to obtain the weapons used to kill Terry.” This tends to support statements made by Kenneth Melson, former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to congressional investigators in a...

The sign on the wall reads “Schoolbook Printing and Storage Warehouse,” but the fact that the double gates in the wall have been crudely ripped off suggests that something more interesting might be inside. It turns out that the only books to be found in any of the three large buildings in the walled compound are manuals — how to fire rocket launchers and wire-guided missiles, among others. The buildings are actually disguised warehouses full of munitions — mortar shells, artillery rounds, anti-tank missiles and more — thousands of pieces of military ordnance that are completely unguarded more than two...

“These guns went to ruthless criminals,” Carlos Canino, ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico said in testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday regarding the scandal-plagued Operation Fast and Furious. “It’s alleged that over 2,000 guns were trafficked in this investigation. To put that in context, upon information and belief, the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has approximately 2,500 rangers. That means that as a result of this investigation, the Sinaloa cartel may have received almost as many guns that are needed to arm the entire regiment. Out of these 2,000 weapons, 34 were .50-caliber sniper rifles. That is approximately the number of...

The Obama administration sought to intimidate witnesses into not testifying to Congress on Tuesday about whether ATF knowingly allowed weapons, including assault rifles, to be “walked” into Mexico, the chairman of a House committee investigating the program said in an interview Monday. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, California Republican, said at least two scheduled witnesses expected to be asked about a controversial weapons investigation known as “Fast and Furious”received warning letters from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to limit their testimony. Mr. Issa's committee is set to hear testimony from six current...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Libya has become a new source of smuggled weaponry for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday. With eastern Libya largely held by rebels who rose up against Muammar Gaddafi in February, arms were being brought across the border, through neighboring Egypt, to the Islamist Hamas-ruled territory, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said. "Weapons are available in Libya as a result of the unstable situation there, and Hamas has exploited it to buy weapons from Libyan smugglers," he told foreign journalists in a briefing, without elaborating on the kind of munitions involved.

ATF Acting Director Ken Melson's testimony shows just how far the DOJ has gone to impede the investigation and to protect political appointees.Attorney General Eric Holder continues to duck responsibility for Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed more than 2,500 weapons, including thousands of AK-47 variants and .50 caliber sniper rifles, across the Mexican border and into the hands of the cartels. The weapons were used to murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and an estimated 150 Mexican nationals. In May of this year, Holder was called to testify in front of Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Committee on Oversight...

Operation Fast and Furious (F&F) – a program run by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) that allowed thousands of lethal weapons to cross the Mexican border – was apparently no secret among high-level political authorities at the Department of Justice (DOJ). Among those in the know? Newly-confirmed Deputy Attorney General James Cole. Information is now seeping out about the political whiplash that secured a confirmation vote for Cole in exchange for the DOJ’s release of documents to Congress. In a supremely ironic twist, the documents ransomed by Cole’s confirmation strongly suggest that Cole himself was...

Email Confirms ‘Gunwalker’ Known Throughout Justice Department The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including: * Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer, * Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF * William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF * Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA * Robert Mueller, Director FBI Four other Justice Department directors or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task...

The U.S. State Department warned yesterday that the Juarez Cartel may target its consulate office in Ciudad Juarez -- just over the border from El Paso, TX -- or other U.S. interests as reported by Mary Forgione for the Los Angeles Times. The "emergency message" states: Information has come to light that suggests a cartel may be targeting the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez or U.S. Ports of Entry. In the past, cartels have been willing to utilize car bombs in attacks. Earlier this month a drug cartel in Ciudad Juarez spray painted a public warning to U.S. DEA agents...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Rebel leaders won recognition as the legitimate government of Libya from the United States and other world powers on Friday in a major boost to the rebels' faltering campaign to oust Muammar Gaddafi. Recognition of the rebels, announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a meeting in Turkey of the international contact group on Libya, is an important diplomatic step which could unlock billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds.

When the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report -- “The Department of Justice’s Operation Fast and Furious: Accounts of ATF Agents -- it infuriated law enforcement officers and American citizens across the country. One police commander in New Jersey told Law Enforcement Examiner, "We need to get to the bottom of this renegade operation fast. I am furious that our government actually contributed to the killing of two American law enforcement officers -- one in the U.S., the other in Mexico." The at times shocking report includes testimony from four Bureau of...

Gunwalker: Holder’s resignation is almost inevitable And the only way that doesn’t happen is if he is fool-enough to stay in office, Obama is fool-enough not to fire him, and Congress has no choice but to remove him from office. Consider: On the 4th of July, a national holiday, acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives gave testimony to House and Senate investigators on Operation “Fast and Furious,” aka “Gunwalker.” Without telling his bosses. And bringing his own lawyer, not the Bureau’s and not the Department of Justice’s. To quote Allahpundit — Dude! This morning, House...

Brit Hume was on Fox News Sunday this morning while the panel was discussing Operation Fast and Furious: [VIDEO AT SITE] Hume: This is a real scandal. And once again we have the classic question "what did the Attorney General, for example, know and when did he know it." This Obama Justice Department reminds me of nothing so much as the Nixon Justice Department. You have the scent of high level knowledge, of serious wrongdoing, and you have the smell of cover-up and I think the stench of cover-up on this gunrunning operation is very strong indeed. How high this...

Obama faces criticism from all sides for terrorism suspect’s offshore interrogation, civilian trialPAUL KORING WASHINGTON— Globe and Mail Update Last updated Thursday, Jul. 07, 2011 7:56PM EDT After holding a Somali terrorism suspect for two months on a U.S. warship, the Obama administration secretly flew him to New York for trial in a civilian court, leaving both rights groups and Congress infuriated. The clandestine imprisonment at sea echoed Bush-era – and widely condemned – efforts to deny detainees constitutional protections while interrogating them offshore. Meanwhile, opting to surreptitiously bring the Somali to a U.S. federal court not far from where...

President Obama is extending full constitutional due-process rights to a Somali terrorist. This sets a troubling precedent. Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was captured sometime in April on a boat traveling between Yemen and Somalia. He was detained on board a U.S. warship for two months and interrogated by intelligence officials. He reportedly revealed a great deal of valuable information regarding his connections to the Somalia-based al-Shabab militant group and the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. So far, so good. (Snip) The Warsame indictment is an end run around Congress, which last year voted to bar the transfer of terrorist

ISLAMABAD: The US has established contacts with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar to negotiate an end to the conflict in Afghanistan, a media report said on Tuesday. Abdul Haqiq, a former Afghan Taliban spokesman who used the alias Mohammad Hanif, played a key role in helping Washington reach out to Mullah Omar, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted a source as saying. Haqiq was arrested by US and Afghan intelligence agents in Afghanistan in June 2007. He was one of the high profile Afghan Taliban spokesmen along with Yousuf Ahmadi, appointed after chief spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi was arrested in...

Debra Burlingame, the sister of Charles "Chic" Burlingame (pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon) met with President Obama today, along with other families who were victims of 9/11. Burlingame said she confronted Obama about Attorney General Eric Holder prosecuting the men who interrogated KSM, which may have produced intelligence leading us to bin Laden. Burlingame describes the encounter with Obama: "As a former attorney I know you can't tell the Attorney General what to do, he said, 'No, I can't.' But I said 'we -- that shouldn't stop you from giving your opinion. We wouldn't be here...

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REPORT: Obama signed secret order authorizing covert U.S. support for rebel forces in Libya...developing..... Just a head line for now....