Free Republic

01/30/2015 Michael Ramirez Cartoon

Problematic, in a very big way even if the offer was made.Qatar’s ties to Al Qaeda and ISIS aren’t news. They’ve effectively served as intermediaries in everything from ransom exchanges for hostages to Taliban negotiations. But actually trying to secure terrorist swaps for prisoners on their own behalf would have been a new frontier. Before he was released from a U.S. maximum-security prison last week, a confessed al Qaeda sleeper agent was offered up in a potential prisoner swap that would have freed two Americans held abroad.According to two individuals with direct knowledge of the case, the proposition was...

Today the Obama White House insisted the Taliban was not a terrorist group. This comes after the Taliban slaughtered 132 children at a school in Pakistan in December. Charles Krauthammer responded to this latest idiocy: It slits throats. It attacks buses. It drives car bombs into markets and it’s not a terrorist group. Look you can’t parody this administration… And also the idea that the war is winding down is preposterous. Tell that to anybody that lives in Afghanistan. This is a fantasy. Obama is pretending that the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq is...

It’s been formally acknowledged that U.S. NATO ‘ally’ Turkey is providing safe haven to leaders of Hamas, a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) so designated by the U.S. State Department. By its very definition, an FTO should be considered declared enemy of the U.S. Despite this, Turkey doesn’t appear to be paying any price. Another player in all this is the small nation of Qatar. It is desperately trying to play both sides of a political fence as leaders of Hamas – to include the terrorist organization’s political leader Khaled Meshaal – has been forcibly relocated to Turkey. The reason these...

What is the New York Times’ first response after Muslims massacred secular cartoonists and Jews? Start immediately collecting Muslim whining to bolster claims of Islamophobia. (via Israel Matzav) In the aftermath of the Paris attacks last week, the New York Times is understandably interested in hearing about the experiences of minorities in Europe these days. That is commendable. It’s just the kind of journalism that sheds light on everyday life of people facing adversity the world over. It’s important and informative and insightful, and we applaud it, and look forward to reading it.Scratch that. Actually, the Times is obsessively...

It's getting hard to keep up with all these Koran inspired atrocities that have nothing to do with Islam. We know they have nothing to do with Islam because our politicians keep telling us that and they are all Islamic scholars. (They are, aren't they?) Yes, the violence is coming exclusively from Muslims but only because their religion, the one that has nothing to do with Islam, tells them to kill unbelievers -- meaning the people who don't follow the religion with a knife to our throat that has nothing to do with Islam. It's true that the more Muslims...

From the murder of the Israeli athletes in the Munich Olympics in 1972, through the murder of 5 rabbis at prayer in 2014, the Palestinian cause has been driven by TERROR. In his latest Firewall Bill Whittle discusses their domestic front -- Students for Justice in Palestine. TRANSCRIPT: Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall. I remember the first time I heard the world “Palestinian.” I was thirteen years old. The 1972 Munich Olympics were coming to an end, and I had been fascinated by American swimmer Mark Spitz and his seven gold medals, and had a...

Do you know what an “extremist” is? In the wake of the horrible terror attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France, Barack Obama is speaking very boldly about the need to win the war against “extremists”, and he has announced plans to host a major global summit on “extremism” next month. And on the surface that sounds great. But precisely how are we supposed to determine whether someone is an “extremist” or not? What criteria should we use? As you will see below, your definition of an “extremist” may be far, far different from the definition that Barack...

VideoPeters: 'President Obama chose the side of the terrorists'

Hamyd Mourad describes himself as a normal 18-year-old who lives with his parents, but on the day France was gripped by the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he became known as "the third suspect" - even though he was in class at the time of the shooting. The brother-in-law of one of the two gunmen turned himself in to police on Wednesday, horrified and baffled to hear his name circulating in the news and on social media, and he was released without charge on Friday evening, relieved but badly shaken. ...

This is a conversation between Amedy Coulibaly and one of the hostages inside the Paris kosher market. CNN's Jim Sciutto has more.

<p>Jordan's king and queen will attend a mass national rally in Paris on Sunday, in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day Islamist killing spree, the French presidency said.</p> <p>Some 45 foreign leaders and officials will be present at the historic march in the French capital, which is expected to attract around a million people under high security.</p>

At 0:30 the terrorist runs toward the special forces and goes down in a hail of bullets. No hostage died during the raid , they were killed when the terrorist entered the building and took it over. Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=869_1420833044#dLuHU0V85Ss7Ovcc.99

Watch the video at link, starting at 52 secs. The female shown bent down next to the motorcycle (center screen) had exited the Kosher market along with the other hostages (there is another CNN video which shows her exiting the market along with other hostages). Note that all hostages were immediately collected at the black police van, except for the woman next to the motorcycle, dressed in beige top with black skirt and stockings with white/black shoes who fled the scene, exiting out the top right hand corner of the video. I believe the other woman next to the motorcycle...

The whole world is in complete shock after the terrorist attack that struck Paris on Wednesday, but this former minister from Lucknow, Haji Yakub Quereshi, stirred a controversy by saying that he will reward the attackers by giving them Rs 51 cores (~$8,000,000,000). According to reports published in a Hindi newspaper, Yakub said, "I will reward the attackers who killed Charlie Hebdo Editor, cartoonist of the infamous Prophet poster, with Rs 51 crores (8 Million Dollars)."...

During the January 7 terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters, several Paris police officers fled, unable to disarm the threat, because they themselves were unarmed and outgunned. Breitbart News previously reported that “black-hooded-men” with Kalashnikovs entered the Charlie Hedbo headquarters and opened fire, killing 12 people–including those who were killed outside the building as the gunmen headed back to their car. CBS News relayed reports from Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that the first two officers to arrive “were apparently unarmed” and “fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher.” The UK’s Independent reported that “three...

Howard Dean—that celebrated scholar of Islam—has weighed in on today's murderous rampage in Paris and declared that he refuses to call the shooters in this and similar cases "Muslim terrorists." According to Dean, the disregard for the lives of others that these terrorists display "is not what the Koran says." Dean's denial of the obvious puts him in the company of many liberals, most notably including President Obama, who after the beheading of James Foley declared that ISIS "speaks for no religion." View the video here.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made an extraordinary speech on New Year’s Day to Cairo’s Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry calling for a long overdue virtual ecclesiastical revolution in Islam. This is something no Western leader has the had the courage to do, certainly not Barack Obama, despite his Muslim education. Accusing the umma (world Islamic population) of encouraging the hostility of the entire world, al-Sisi’s speech is so dramatic and essentially revolutionary it brings to mind Khrushchev’s famous speech exposing Stalin. Many have called for a reformation of Islam, but for the leader of the largest Arab nation to...

Before we even got out of the gate, the Cubans were saying that giving up convicted terrorist and cop killer Joanne Chesimard was a non-starter because they have the right to protect persecuted fugitives who seek asylum. (And here I was worried that this might not work out…) But even if the Castros won’t surrender her peacefully, is it possible that we might just be able to grab her once we have more of an official presence in Havana? If so, some of the regular citizens might be willing to pitch in and help, particularly if there’s a couple...

This is a horrifying development. There are at least 22 active terror cells INSIDE the United States. This is according to an actual FBI map, not just some lunatic fringe, conspiracy theorist. Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which runs the camps, is an Islamic fundamentalist organization related to Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organizations. To make matters worse, the “FBI states that their hands are tied in monitoring their activities despite a training video that is years old, possible murders, and proof of illegal activities.” These are not brand-new camps either. Homeland Security has known about them for years.