Free Republic

The suspect, a Virginia Tech graduate and one-time Vinton resident, was shot but survived at Fort Hood, Texas. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of shooting 12 people to death and wounding 31 others at Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday, was the son of Roanoke merchants and restaurateurs, lived in Vinton and graduated from Virginia Tech. Hasan was born in Arlington to Palestinian immigrants from near Jerusalem who later settled in Vinton. Neighbors on Vinton's Ramada Road remembered him as a "studious" boy who went by "Michael." While his brother Eyad -- "Eddie" -- would play football with...

Hasan is a U.S.-born Muslim of Palestinian descent whose parents came to the United States from the West Bank. He joined the military after high school and earned medical degrees as he rose through the ranks, family members said. 'snip' Hasan attended the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring and was "very devout," according to Faizul Khan, a former imam at the center. Khan said Hasan attended prayers at least once a day, seven days a week, often in his Army fatigues.

Twenty-one students and three teachers from a Silver Spring private school have been quarantined in China for possible exposure to swine flu. US consular officials told Barrie School officials and parents Tuesday that the passenger with a fever on the group's flight from the United States did not have swine flu. However, the students, all of high school age and apparently free of flu symptoms, remained confined at a hotel in the city of Kaili in the Guizhou province on Wednesday evening, according to The Washington Post. The group arrived on Friday for an "extended study week" and school officials...

BALTIMORE -- Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged a Maryland man with conspiracy to provide information to terrorists. The U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York said Thursday afternoon that Mahmud Faruq Brent, also known as Mahmud Al Mutazzim, is in federal custody in New York. He was arrested Thursday in Newark, N.J. Brent, of Baltimore, faces charges of conspiring to provide resources to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been linked to bombings in India, from 2001 through the current year. Federal authorities, along with the Baltimore Joint Terrorism Task Force, searched Brent's northwest Baltimore residence following the arrest. Federal...

Here we go again!! Kristinn and the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com invites all Freepers and lurkers in good standing to join us in defending the Armed Forces Recruiting Center, 8200 block of Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland, opposite Silver Spring Avenue. Friday, February 15, 2008 from 4 PM to 6 PMCode Pink is again targeting that recruiting center. We cannot allow them to get away with this. The anti-American left has not given up, even with the success of the surge, so we cannot let down our guard against them. As always, the D.C. Chapter's rules for protesting will be...

SILVER SPRING, Md. -- A Silver Spring woman reported to police Tuesday evening that she was raped early Monday morning. According to police, the 35-year-old woman said she was walking home from work between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Piney Branch Road near Long Branch Park when a man armed with a machete approached her. "He forced her into a wooded area of Long Branch Park and there raped her," said Montgomery County Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur.

On September 11th, 2002, suspected Sniper John Allen Muhammad walked into the Camden, New Jersey State Motor Vehicles office, to register the now-notorious "blue Caprice" he'd just purchased. Though the car had not yet converted been into a rolling sniper's nest, what happened in the next several minutes leaves little doubt that Muhammad had something sinister in mind. The registration transaction began at 8:52 am. At 8:58 am., while Muhammad was still standing at the counter, someone (now believed to be fellow suspect, Lee Malvo) phoned a bomb threat at the Motor Vehicles office on the 1st Anniversary of what...

Separate Shootings Leave 4 Dead SILVER SPRING, Md. - Four people are dead in Montgomery County in four separate shootings over a 16-hour period. The shootings prompted Montgomery County schools to cancel all outdoor activities for students Thursday. Two of the shootings occurred at gas stations, one at a grocery store, one at a post office, one at a man's home. In each of those shootings, people died. At a fifth location, a shot was fired, but no one injured. Police are searching for a white box truck, possibly an Isuzu, with damage to the rear lift door. The truck...