Free Republic

Full Title: "Taliban claim captured U.S. solider has converted to Islam and is teaching its fighters bomb-making skills A captured American soldier is training Taliban fighters bomb-making and ambush skills, according to one of his captors and Afghan intelligence officials. Private Bowe Bergdahl disappeared in June 2009 while based in eastern Afghanistan and is thought to be the only U.S. serviceman in captivity. The 24-year-old has converted to Islam and now has the Muslim name Abdullah, one of his captors told The Sunday Times.

A 2010 report by the Daily Mail quoted a Taliban captor of Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier released in a deal announced this weekend in exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees, stating Bergdahl converted to Islam and was teaching Taliban fighters bomb-making skills. The report came after about one year that Bergdahl had deserted his post in June 2009 while based in eastern Afghanistan. At least six American soldiers reportedly lost their lives in attempts to return Bergdahl to his unit. The captor, who called himself Haji Nadeem, said Bergdahl taught basic ambush training as well as how to take...

Over the weekend, the Obama White House announced that it had made the worst trade since Ernie Broglio for Lou Brock: five senior Taliban commanders for apparent deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

....Obama negotiated with terrorists. He broke the laws that govern transfers at Guantánamo Bay. He has strengthened the enemies of the Afghan government that the United States has fought to establish with blood and treasure for a decade.... ... in the administration’s answers to all these criticisms, it becomes apparent that this weekend’s prisoner swap is about more than Sergeant Bergdahl. It is a statement of Obama’s deeply held views about American foreign policy,

Only hours after appearing at a press conference to give thanks for the freeing of his POW son in exchange for five top Taliban leaders, Bob Bergdahl returned to Twitter to promote a Guardian video in which family members lobby for the release of five Tunisians held at Guantanamo Bay. Earlier, Bergdahl had apparently deleted a tweet reading, “I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners.”

There’s much to celebrate as Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl goes back to his family in Idaho after nearly five years in captivity in Afghanistan. Yet pivotal questions arise this morning as details surrounding the case surface, including Bergdahl’s leave from his army base and his father’s possible ties, at least via social media, to the Taliban. It is still a mystery why Bergdahl, 28, voluntarily left his Army base five years ago, suggesting he deserted or went missing, according to a USA Today story. “It’s not the modus operandi for Islamic terrorists to detain American troops when captured,” Allen West,...

Excerpt: The Obama administration announced today that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has been held by the Taliban for several years, has been freed from his captors. Reading the stories of his newfound freedom it is impossible not to feel joy for Bergdahl and his family. NBC News reports that Bergdahl held up a sign once he was on board an American helicopter that read, “SF?” The operators quickly confirmed that they were in fact U.S. Special Forces: “Yes, we’ve been looking for you for a long time.” “On behalf of the American people, I was honored to call his parents...

Sudanese authorities are to free a woman who was sentenced to death for having abandoned the Islamic faith, a foreign ministry official says. Meriam Ibrahim, who gave birth to a daughter in custody, will be freed in a few days' time, the official said. Abdullahi Alzareg, an under-secretary at the foreign ministry, said Sudan guaranteed religious freedom and was committed to protecting the woman.

A Quincy man has been charged with obstructing the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, the U.S. Attorney's Office just announced. Khairullozhon Matanov, 23, is charged in an indictment that was unsealed today, with one count of destroying, altering, and falsifying records, documents, and tangible objects in a federal investigation, specifically information on his computer, and three counts of making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements in a federal terrorism investigation. Developing ...

The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran last week issued a joint statement in which Tehran pledged to apprise the Agency of "the initiation of high explosives, including the conduct of large scale high explosives experimentation in Iran." In a word: weaponization, the most secretive dimension of the Iranian nuclear program. Tehran's willingness to broach the topic will be hailed by supporters of the current talks as a sign that they're yielding results. Yet Iran has thus far dismissed as "fabrications" evidence of its weaponization work compiled by the IAEA. We'll believe honest disclosures of prior weaponization activity when we...

All hands on board the project for proving that Iran is amenable to dialogue and concessions on its nuclear program worked overtime this week to mask the truth, which is that negotiations were going nowhere. On May 21, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, for instance, said “The nuclear negotiation is progressing and is on the threshold of reaching a conclusion." On May 23, the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported that the nuclear stockpile left to Iran after most of its enriched material, 80 percent, had been either converted or diluted “was far below the 250 kg which...

Iran has thrown up new roadblocks to reaching a deal with the P5+1 world powers over its illicit nuclear program. Three days of negotiations in the fourth round of Geneva discussions ended Friday in arguments and confrontations when the Iranian team presented their country’s new “red lines,” diminishing any hope by the Obama administration to claim victory in its approach to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, according to reports from Iran. Hossein Shariatmadari, a former torturer and now managing editor of the conservative newspaper Keyhan, the mouthpiece of the country’s supreme leader, in an Op-Ed published Saturday revealed details of the Geneva...

"America is at war; and has been since at least September 11, 2001, but no one is really sure who with," Robert Spencer writes in his recently released Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth about the War We're In. Thankfully, Spencer's important book makes a significant contribution in clarifying this catastrophic confusion.

The clown who wants to capitulate to Islam is rambling on, pretending he cares... No sign of the great leader who stood up in the crisis. History is being re-written by Bush's exclusion. Crap.

Senior defence officials say that Cameroon has been infiltrated by Nigeria's Islamist extremist group Boko Haram and there are fears that this central African nation, known for its stability, is drifting into chaos. "Right now, we are being infiltrated by Boko Haram. The military has decided to strengthen the intelligence system to effectively counter this threat, which seems to be gaining local support," says Colonel Didier Badjeck, spokesperson for the Cameroon Ministry of Defence.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretly assembled a terrorist “hands off” list that permitted individuals with terrorist ties unfettered entrance into the United States, according to document released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa). The existence of a “hands off” list that permitted easy entrance for suspect individuals into the United States has drawn concern from Grassley, who released a cache of internal DHS emails detailing the list’s existence and discussion about permitting an alleged member of the Muslim Brotherhood to enter the United States. The emails—sent between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border...

With anti-government sentiments roiling in the aftermath of Cliven Bundy’s Nevada standoff, government workers in western Utah are stripping BLM logos from their vehicles after two motorists brandished a gun and displayed a threatening sign at a federal wrangler who was driving Tuesday in Juab County. The wrangler was driving a load of horses and burros north on Interstate 15 about 11 a.m. near Mills when a dark blue Dodge 1500 extended-cab pickup pulled up alongside the wrangler. The two occupants "told him he was No. 1 with that certain gesture," said Eric Reid, the wrangler’s supervisor at the U.S....

A recent Hamas-backed children's television show featured a child vowing to become a police officer so she could "shoot the Jews," revealing anew the depraved indoctrination forced upon kids of Gaza, even as the terror group that leads it has joined forces with the Palestinian Authority. “You want to be like him?” the presenter asks the girl, who appears to be no older than three or four. “I will shoot the Jews” the little girl replies.

Fiends have mocked over lifeless body. Police Department in Mariupol Mariupol zhorilo_1 Twitter In two hours completely burned building local police today in Mariupol, Donetsk oblast during the antiterrorist operation pro snipers killed the commander of the Territorial Defence Brigade Dnipropetrovsk Sergei Demidenko. And then mocked over his body . "Accommodation ATC Mariupol completely burned. Snipers killed our commander Dnipropetrovsk territorial defense brigades Sergei Demidenko. According to eyewitnesses , the terrorists bullied out of the body of the deceased Demidenko. Him - already dead - cut off the ears and eyes gouged out. Fiends ! Seriously wounded commander of the...

President Goodluck Jonathan has admitted that Nigerian security forces still do not know where more than 200 abducted girls are being held. They were taken three weeks ago from their school in Borno state by suspected Islamist militants.