Free Republic

Now that Congress has recessed, and since the conventions aren’t for a couple of weeks, Thursday’s The Situation Room turned back to the "hot" issue of what many liberals are calling on congressional Democrats to do: arrest and lock-up Karl Rove for his failure to testify on the issue of the firing of U.S. attorneys in late 2006. CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, as part of a report on this possible move by the Democrats, conducted a search for the supposed jail inside the U.S. Capitol. He also addressed the little-used power of the legislature to arrest and try government officials...

ALEXANDRIA, VA - A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for Sami Al-Arian to stand trial for criminal contempt, ruling there is an "insufficient legal basis" for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad supporter's claim of selective government prosecution. U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema set a March 9 jury trial date for Al-Arian.

JANUARY 15, 2009...22:58 "IDF Targets Senior Hamas Leader, Summary of Today’s Events, 15 Jan 2009, 22:10 IST" SNIPPET: "January 15th, 2009 IDF Targets Senior Hamas Leader Said Siam Summary of Today’s Aerial Attacks In a joint IDF and ISA operation in Gaza City early Thursday evening, the IAF targeted a building in which the following senior Hamas operatives were residing – Said Siam, Ia’ad Siam and Salah Abu-Sharah. The forces reported a direct hit."

Israel's air force fired around 20 missiles at targets in Gaza City on Saturday, causing heavy damage, a Reuters witness said. The IDF has confirmed the report. (Hanan Greenberg and Reuters)

Nothing much is changed here. The fact that all three organizations are designated by the United States as Terrorist Entities has done little to prevent US companies from providing them with services for many years now. The sites are those highlighted in reports from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in 2007 and 2008.

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

BEIJING: The Chinese government has indicated it is not interested in investigating allegations that the Bank of China was involved in transferring millions of dollars to Hamas and Islamic Jihad for carrying out terrorist activities in Israel between 2004 and 2007.The allegations have been made in the form of lawsuits filed in US courts by a group of 100 Israelis including parents of a 4-year old boy killed in terrorist attack in 2004. The group has alleged that BOC put through dozens of wire transfers totalling several million dollars to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Islamic leaders tied by federal investigators to the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America – including one under active investigation for alleged terror-financing – have recently donated to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign for president, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by WND. Jamal M. Barzinji earlier this year gave Obama $1,000, a gift that records show has not been returned. Other Democratic candidates, including Rep. Jim Moran, have refunded donations from Barzinji since federal agents raided his Virginia home and offices in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Obama's top Muslim adviser resigned earlier this month over controversy surrounding his...

Islamic leaders tied by federal investigators to the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America – including one under active investigation for alleged terror-financing – have recently donated to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign for president, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by WND. Jamal M. Barzinji earlier this year gave Obama $1,000, a gift that records show has not been returned. Other Democratic candidates, including Rep. Jim Moran, have refunded donations from Barzinji since federal agents raided his Virginia home and offices in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Obama's top Muslim adviser resigned earlier this month over controversy surrounding his...

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- A University of Idaho graduate student who is under investigation for suspected terrorism ties obtained unauthorized access to a campus lab containing radioactive material, court documents allege. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a Saudi national working on his computer science doctoral degree, quietly moved his student office from the Computer Science Department into the school's engineering isotope lab, apparently without his adviser's knowledge, according to the documents. "The investigation of Sami Al-Hussayen has, from its outset, been focused on suspected material support to terrorism, particularly to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network," FBI agent Michael Gnecknow said in the...

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) has announced that its leadership has refused former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s request for a meeting. According to PIJ’s QudsNews website, Egyptian authorities contacted PIJ Secretary-General Dr. Ramadan Shallah on Carter’s behalf earlier this week, inviting Shallah to meet with Carter in Cairo. Shallah is listed on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists, and the reward for information leading to his apprehension is $5 million.

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

Gainesville -- Officials at Mar-Jac Poultry said they were shocked to find out Thursday that federal officials suspect the company might have ties to terrorist funding. Company Vice President Doug Carnes said at least a half-dozen U.S. Customs agents spent all day Wednesday gathering financial records and charitable contribution files. They were "real nice, professional and complimentary," he said, but they didn't disclose the nature of their visit. It was only on Thursday that Carnes was alerted by company officials in Virginia as to what the agents were looking for. "I'm shocked. I'm in disbelief. I've worked for them for...

After a near-miss at one western Negev kibbutz over the weekend, Kibbutz Zikim was less fortunate Sunday when a rocket landed directly under the window of a kibbutz residence, causing extensive damage and hurting a three-year-old boy. Rom Gertal was playing on the floor of his living room with his mother sitting a few meters away when the Kassam rocket launched from the northern Gaza Strip slammed into the side of the small kibbutz home. Sivan Katzir said she immediately ran over to her son and picked him up. Within minutes, kibbutz residents and emergency teams flocked to the house,...

The First and Last Enemy: Jew-Hatred in Islam The First and Last Enemy: Jew-Hatred in IslamBy Andrew G. Bostom Fawaz Damra, the former Imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland was convicted in 2004 for lying to immigration officials about his links to the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and subsequently deported. Yet Damra was touted as a promoter of  interfaith dialogue even after evidence of his participation in fundraising events for the PIJ, was produced, along with a videotape of the Imam telling a crowd of Muslim supporters in 1991 that they should aim "...a rifle at the...

Does America need a terrorist financier to secure its “freedom”? Sami al-Arian thinks so. His National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom poses as a watchdog for the Constitution, but he has focused his lobbying efforts on repealing anti-terrorist legislation. While Sami al-Arian himself has been arrested for being a prime financier for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (and likely one of its three founders), his political movement continues to threaten homeland security. Al-Arian founded the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF) in 1997 as a reaction to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996. The coalition’s stated goal “is to help change the...

Jihad threatens of tens of suicide bombings in the event of incursion GAZA - the Palestinian radical group armed Islamic Jihad threatened Sunday to resort to “tens” of kamikazes women to make “operations commits suicide” in the event of Israeli terrestrial intervention in the Gaza Strip. “Brigades Al-Quds (the branch armed with Jihad) have tens of kamikazes women ready to devote themselves to operations commits suicide to face any incursion of terrestrial forces (Israeli) into the Gaza Strip”, prevented this radical group in an official statement.

A blast ripped through the house of an Islamic Jihad member in the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing him and injuring at least nine people, hospital workers and residents said. The victim, a member of Islamic Jihad's armed wing, was identified as Ala al-Hessi. The blast was reported in the Shati refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. It was reported in a densely populated area, near the United Nation's food distribution warehouse. Israel has denied any involvement in the incident. "We are not aware of such an incident from an initial check," an Israeli army spokeswoman told Reuters. Earlier,...

JERUSALEM – A Palestinian university that receives U.S. funding counts among its students senior members of the Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror groups, WND has learned. One Brigades leader openly enrolled at the college – Al-Najah University in the northern West Bank town of Nablus – described the school as a main jihad recruiting ground. Another terror leader told WND he was studying chemistry at the university to learn how to enhance the deadly effects of suicide bomb belts. This week, Al-Najah hosted a law conference at which the trial of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was...