Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has confirmed that Saudi financiers are backing the new regime with ties to Al Qaida that has taken power in Somalia. Officials said the so-called Islamic Courts Union, headed by an Al Qaida commander wanted by the United States, has garnered most of its foreign support from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. "I don't want to say the Saudi government is supporting any particular [Islamic] court," Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said. "But I do know that there is money coming in from Saudi Arabia." On June 29, Frazer told the House International Relations Committee...

Hamas to gain control of sec. forces Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 4, 2006 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has agreed that the Hamas will take control of Palestinian security forces after it assumes power, a Hamas leader said Saturday after the group's first meeting with Abbas since routing his Fatah Party in elections. Abbas met with Hamas leaders Saturday evening for the first time since their victory in the Palestinian elections in late January. "There is no truth to baseless reports that President Abbas wants to take over the security institutions," Ismail Haniyeh said after the meeting concluded....

Palestinian militant group Hamas has won a sweeping victory in municipal elections in the West Bank. The Palestinian electoral commission said that in the biggest city, Nablus, Hamas took 73% of the vote, while the mainstream Fatah organisation took 13%.

Iran has supplied Hezbullah with more than 10,000 short-range rockets and most of the weapons are deployed in southern Lebanon within reach of Israel, an Israeli diplomat said Thursday. The rockets, some of which were provided by Syria, have a range of up to 110 kilometers, said Jeremy Issacharoff, the new deputy Israeli ambassador to Washington, at a conference on Iran sponsored The Israel Project, a nongovernment advocacy group. "In Israeli terms, that range can be a heavyweight," Issacharoff said. Iran is the leading supporter of terror groups in the world, he said. Besides backing Hezbullah, a Lebanese group that...

"A lot of Pakistani families living in Britain still have roots in Pakistan, particularly in the Punjab region, and visiting relatives are seen as an important part of maintaining those family links. "When children complete their formal education in Britain there is also an inclination among Pakistani families to send them to complete their schooling at a religious institution. "They send them to the mosques, often in Britain but also sometimes away from home, and as well as receiving religious instruction they will inevitably come into contact with more hardline elements. "For quite some time, there has been a network...

VIENNA, AUSTRIA - Saudi Arabia is defying the United States, the European Union and Australia by resisting U.N. efforts to verify that it has no nuclear assets worth inspecting, according to a confidential EU document obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. There is little concern the Saudis are trying to make nuclear arms, but Riyadh’s resistance to inspections adds another worry for a top-level meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency this week that is focusing on North Korea and Iran. Those two countries are the world’s major concerns about the spread of atomic weapons. On Tuesday, the IAEA...

'No al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan' Islamabad, June 09: Pakistan today denied claims that one of two terror suspects arrested in California had received training at an al-Qaeda camp in the South Asian country. "There are no training camps in Pakistan," senior Foreign Ministry official Naeem Khan told news agencies in Islamabad when asked to comment on reports in a number of newspapers in the United States and Pakistan. "We are the frontline state in the fight against terrorism. How could we allow such camps in our country?" Khan said, adding that Islamabad had asked its embassy in Washington to get...

Excerpt - TEL AVIV, June 2 - Syria test-fired three Scud missiles last Friday, including one that broke up over Turkish territory and showered missile parts down onto unsuspecting Turkish farmers, Israeli military officials revealed Thursday. These were the first such Syrian missile tests since 2001, the Israelis said, and were part of a Syrian missile development project using North Korean technology and designed, the Israelis contend, to deliver air-burst chemical weapons. The missiles included one older Scud B, with a range of about 185 miles, and two Scud D's, the Israelis say they believe, with a range of about...

'I'm self-sufficient now. I earn enough to support my family and I'm not dependent on benefits." The pride in Sandy Mitchell's voice is unmistakable. Given what he has been through, it is also justified. Five years ago, the tough Glaswegian was earning his living working in a hospital in Saudi Arabia as an anaesthetic technician, putt-ing in canulas, checking doses and weighing patients before they had operations. He and his Thai wife had just had a baby. He was happy and prosperous. Then, on December 17 2000, he was kidnapped by Saudi Arabian police as he got out of his...

Washington is reassessing its policy towards Syria, in light of increasing evidence that President Assad has no intention of keeping his promises to the US to stop cooperating with the Iraqi Sunni insurgency. A senior intelligence source has confirmed that the administration is currently conducting discussions over Syria at senior levels. These discussions are not only limited to the policy itself, but include possible operational scenarios in the event it is decided to change US policy. The main debate is whether any US military strike should be confined to a few targets, destruction of which would inflict enough pain on...

Saudi Arabia warned foreign residents Wednesday they must respect a prohibition on eating, drinking and smoking in public during daylight hours in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Violators would be dismissed from their work and deported, the Interior Ministry said. Ramadan, four weeks when Muslims fast and abstain from sex between dawn and dusk, begins about October 15, with the sighting of a new moon. Muslims believe it was during Ramadan about 1,400 years ago that the Koran, the Islamic holy book, was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed. "Resident non-Muslims must respect the feelings of Muslims and not eat,...

National Security Adviser Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland was quoted Monday by the Maariv daily as saying Iran will reach the "point of no return" in its nuclear weapons program by November, rather than next year as Israeli military officials said earlier. Concern about Tehran's nuclear development intensified last week when Iran's Vice President Reza Aghazadeh said Iran has started converting raw uranium into the gas needed for enrichment, an important step in making a nuclear bomb. The declaration came in defiance of a resolution passed three days earlier by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, demanding...

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa on Monday lambasted during a speech at a meeting of United Nations General Assembly. Al-Sharaa accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of deluding the world by trying to present his disengagement plan as a solution to the problems in the Middle East. Israel, he said, "has transformed its regular army into gangs bent on systematic killings and war crimes against Palestinian civilians..." "Israel bares an important share of the responsibility for intensifying and worsening the American predicament in Iraq by avoiding to resume the peace process despite the hand extended in peace by the Palestinians,...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Syria has shown a new readiness to work with U.S.-led forces to stop arms, militants and money from crossing into Iraq and fueling insurgency, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday. "I sensed a new attitude from the Syrians," Powell told reporters after talks with the foreign minister of Syria, a nation Washington routinely accuses of supporting terrorism, seeking weapons of mass destruction and dominating Lebanon. "But of course it all depends on actions, not just on attitudes, so we will be working closely with them," Powell added, emerging relatively upbeat from a meeting with...

TEHERAN (AP) – President Mohammad Khatami on Wednesday called on the international community to recognize Iran's right to enrich uranium, once again insisting that Iran will pursue a nuclear program some suspect is aimed at developing weapons. "We clearly demand that our right to enrichment be recognized by the international community because it is our legal right and in accordance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," Khatami told reporters after a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. "If it does so, it will open the way for greater cooperation," he said. The United States and many nonproliferation experts believe Iran is covertly developing nuclear...

Al-Qaida's cell in Saudi Arabia has recruited young men because they are easy to sway and then duped them into thinking there was no way out, two repentant terrorists said in confessions aired late Tuesday night on national television. Saudi television's Channel 1 aired what it called "Special Facts from Inside the Cell," a documentary featuring the confessions of terror suspects Khaled al-Juwaiser al-Farraj and Abdul Rahman al-Roshoud. Farraj was arrested in January after a raid on his Riyadh house that left six security agents dead. It was not immediately clear when Rashoud was arrested, but he is believed to...

North Korea said Monday that it will not give up nuclear development in light of unauthorized nuclear experiments by South Korea, where UN inspectors nuclear inspectors were conducting an investigation. Rodong Sinmun, an official North Korean newspaper, said in an editorial that the secret nuclear activities in South Korea in 1982 and 2000 were an "inevitable result of double standards" applied by the United States, the South's chief ally. The comments, which echoed other North Korean statements in recent days, were another blow to troubled efforts to hold another round of talks aimed at persuading North Korea to end its...

Security forces in Azerbaijan have arrested an Iranian citizen caught videotaping footage of the Israeli Embassy in the capital city of Baku, the Shin Bet internal security service announced Sunday. The suspect was arrested on September 1. The man was spotted by Israeli security personnel who notified local police authorities. The security establishment in Israel suspects the man was collecting information for Iranian intelligence. Security sources in Israel said Iranian intelligence is collecting information on potential Israeli terror targets overseas. The man was found with a photocopy of documentation permitting entry into a hotel located adjacent to the embassy. In...

Saturday, September 18, 2004 Text: State Department: Saudis export hate, restricts religous freedom; Secretary Powell: not showing displeasure with Saudis Text: State Department: Saudis export hate, restricts religous freedom; Secretary Powell: not showing displeasure with Saudis #1 Interview on Al Arabiya with Lukman Ahmed www.state.gov/secretary/rm/36226.htm Secretary Colin L. Powell Washington, DC September 15, 2004 (3:20 p.m. EDT) MR. AHMED: Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for this opportunity, and we will start today with the religious freedom reports that you have just issued. After the report, the State Department said that Saudi Arabia is a great ally and cooperating with the...

Libya has missed its first payment under a US$35 million ( 28.53 million) compensation deal for 168 non-US victims of a 1986 Berlin disco bombing, a German lawyer said Wednesday. Libya's ambassador in Berlin has told the German Foreign Ministry that the US$15 million ( 12.23 million) installment, scheduled for Sept. 8, was held up by banking difficulties, said Sven Leistikow, who helped negotiate the settlement. "They said that it will be here in the next few days. I gather from that it will be here by Friday," Leistikow said. The payment plan was set in a compensation agreement signed...