Free Republic

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The solar eclipse of 2024 brings with it some hidden threats that are being laid out in a new special bulletin from Illinois State Police. According to the alert, the total eclipse of the sun on Monday will draw unchecked crowds in public places that should be considered terror targets. Local authorities also need to be prepared for drug overdoses as eclipse viewers try to enhance their experience. According to the bulletin "Special Event Impact Analysis" dated next Monday and obtained by the I-Team, STIC authorities will track 21 special events considered "soft targets" for violent extremists....

In an address to the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in San Diego, California on Saturday, FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a dire warning about the rise of violent extremism, both domestic and international. The warning comes amid ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas, which has already claimed thousands of lives, including 29 Americans. “Before I get into some of the specific ways we’re doing that work together, I want to take a moment to offer my heartfelt condolences to the people of Israel, and share the outrage that I know we all feel at...

Many Americans might have felt surprised by recent news that U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona caught 11 Iranian migrants who crossed the southern border from Mexico. But this crossing is not surprising in one insular quarter: an international cadre of intelligence and law enforcement officers who work on this chronically misunderstood threat problem for the American homeland security establishment. For them, southern border crossings by Iranians, as well as by migrant travelers from other countries of terrorism concern, like Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, trigger an almost routine response the public never sees.My new book, America’s Covert Border War,...

LAKE WALES, Fla. - Lake Wales police are searching for those responsible for detonating an improvised explosive device near the entrance of the JC Penney at the Eagle Ridge Mall Sunday evening. Firefighters responded to reports of an explosion at the mall on 451 Eagle Ridge Drive around 5:20 p.m. Firefighters quickly determined an IED had been detonated in a corridor located next to the mall entrance of JC Penney, officials said. Firefighters also found a backpack in the same corridor with another possible IED inside. There were no injuries as a result of the explosion, officials said, but the...

HOUSTON - A man has been arrested on multiple charges after police located a small arsenal of guns on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency on Louisiana Street downtown, Houston police said. Police at the hotel called for backup around 1:30 a.m. Sunday after they attempted to arrest the man for being intoxicated and trespassing. When help arrived, police noticed ammunition laying around the man's hotel room, Lt. Gordon Macintosh with Houston police said. The man was arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon and trespassing. When investigators looked into his room further, they located an AR-15, a shotgun, a...

The UK terror threat level has been raised from severe to critical, the highest possible level, meaning an attack is “expected imminently”. The Prime Minister announced the threat level had been raised after the Parsons Green tube bomb attack. It means that troops will patrol the streets and security will also be stepped up at major public events and terrorist targets such as railway stations and airports.

Alerted by a detailed tip from Spanish colleagues, Dutch police arrested a 22-year-old man early Thursday and said he was suspected of preparing a “terrorist attack” on a concert by a Los Angeles rock band. The arrest in Brabant province, south of Rotterdam, came hours after police cancelled a performance Wednesday night by Los Angeles band Allah-Las at a converted grain silo in the heart of the port city. ... Police searched the man’s home after his arrest but released no details of anything they found. His identity was not released, in line with Dutch privacy guidelines. ... The 22-year-old...

The jihadis were wearing suicide vests – are authorities still unclear as to motive? Residents of the Spanish seaside resort of Cambrils fled in terror in the early hours of Friday after five terrorists wearing suicide vests launched the second ramming attack in the country in a matter of hours. (Telegraph) Spanish police say they have killed five people in the town of Cambrils to stop a second attempted van attack after an earlier one in Barcelona. The attackers were wearing explosive belts, police said. August 17, 2017: BBC: Thirteen people died and dozens were injured when a van ploughed...

Terrorists inside America plotting attacks 'each and every single day'! Federal authorities have open investigations into radical Islamic terrorists in all 50 states, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which is warning that the threat of terrorism in the United States has reached an all time high with radicalized individuals in the country plotting to strike "each and every single day." The FBI has "open terrorist investigations in all 50 states," according to DHS Secretary John Kelly, who disclosed on Tuesday that there have been at least 37 "ISIS-linked plots to attack our country" since 2013, a number that...

An ISIS general once pictured decapitating a prisoner is back in Europe with up to 400 of his most trusted soldiers after fleeing the war zone in Syria, it has been claimed. Ex-NATO soldier Lavdrim Muhaxheri and his men are among thousands who have fled after ISIS suffered devastating losses in war-torn Syria, according to sources in the Italian intelligence services. Many of the fighters are feared to have disguised themselves as refugees in order to cross borders to get into Europe without being identified, according to information leaked from the spying agency. Muhaxheri, also known as Abu Abdullah al...

Latin America is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism where groups like ISIS and Hezbollah operate freely and raise large sums of money to finance terrorist activities in other countries, mainly the United States, according to a new report released by Spain’s Defense Ministry. “Latin America represents an important region for Islamic radicalism because conditions enable the free, almost undetectable, movement of their members throughout the region,” the defense document states. Governments in the region consider Islamic terrorism to be a foreign problem, the report says, and intelligence agencies are ill equipped to handle the threat they represent. “The ignorance involving...

A joint terrorism task force is investigating whether a 21-year-old man has connections to terrorism after he was arrested at the New Port Richey, Florida home he shares with his parents. Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said on Twitter Wednesday it would be foolish for him to say the case is "definitely not connected to terrorism." Paramedics were called to the home Wednesday morning after Sherif Elganainy's father became unresponsive. He was taken to a hospital. His mother called deputies to ask them to check out suspicious fumes she said were in her home. The sheriff's office says "suspicious materials"...

20-year-old Justin Nojan Sullivan pled guilty on Tuesday morning to a chilling terrorist plot in which he planned to use a silenced gun to murder hundreds of people in Virginia and North Carolina on behalf of the Islamic State. He has agreed to serve a life sentence in prison.

Deputy Homeland Security Secretary paints grim picture of Jewish communities' vulnerability to terrorism, says leaders not doing enough. JTA - Painting a grim picture of Jewish vulnerability in the United States, a top U.S. security official said that the vast majority of funds earmarked to secure non-profits goes to Jewish institutions because their need is most acute. Alejandro Mayorkas, the Deputy Homeland Security Secretary, speaking Wednesday to the Orthodox Union's annual leadership mission to Washington, said rising extremism in the United States and its threat to the Jewish community keeps him awake at night. He said the threat had shifted...

CNN has a detailed report on the travels of four ISIS operatives who made their way from Raqqa, Syria to Austria posing as refugees last year. Two of the four would later make their way to France and blow themselves up at the national stadium in Paris. However, two more operatives who were apparently supposed to be part of the Paris attack were delayed after their fake passports were discovered in Greece. CNN reports: Haddadi and Usman, who was identified by investigators as a suspected bombmaker for the Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, set out from the capital of the self-declared...

Father Josiah Trenham mentioned “intimidation” to the parishioners of St. Andrew Orthodox Church, and he was quite right: Islamic supremacists and jihadis routinely traffic in intimidation. That’s based on a Qur’anic command: “And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know, whom Allah knows” (Qur’an 8:60). When they practice this intimidation, they generally find Westerners — especially Christian leaders — unwilling and unable to do anything in response but submit to...

No one is saying, yet, that terrorists are ready to attack American churches the way they have in the Middle East or, more recently, against the Rev. Jacques Hamel in France. But as Fox News reports, the threats are already looming. And before you say, "What else would Fox say?", consider the examples in the article: hate speech, death threats and aborted attack plans of the type that would be familiar to Jewish leaders. This is how ominous it can get – and how some police are slow to address the situation, according to Fox: As Father Josiah Trenham prepared...

ISRAELI HACKERS break into the Islamic State on the heavily encrypted dark net, revealing past and future attack plansAn Israeli cyber intelligence company has hacked ISIS communications on the dark net and learned about the group’s plans to attack U.S. air bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. According to the latest Homeland Security report, which calls the terrorist’s success rate “alarmingly high” and “growing,” statistics claim 44% of the group’s plots have been completed so far this year Haaretz According to cyber intelligence company Intsights, ISIS uploads potential targets – the French church attack was among them –...

"A since deleted Twitter account by Islamic State sympathizer Abu al Abdel promises that the “Islamic State lions” will attack the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Yesterday, Islamic State terrorist channels on the encrypted messaging app Telegram were reminding would-be jihadists that it was the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympic games. Rita Katz, founder of Site Intel, reports that Islamic State is instructing its followers on how to attack the games. Katz further reports that ISIS is telling jihadists to become “lone wolves” and “obtain guns or cause traffic accidents” and to attack public transit, take...