Free Republic

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history. The focus of al Qaeda's leaders has always been regime change in the Arab world in order to install Taliban-style regimes. Al Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledged as much in his 2001 autobiography

Obama Donor Helped Free Terrorist Behind Benghazi Attack January 8, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield The left is rushing to blame Bush for the Benghazi attack, now that the State Department is moving to name a former Gitmo detainee released by Bush as a key figure in the attack. But Gitmo detainees were released as part of a pressure and lawfare campaign by the radical pro-terrorist left. Including Obama’s backers. The left-wing organization that helped spring Qumu was the Center for Constitutional Rights. Last April, the group issued an indignant press release painting Qumu as a harmless victim and blasting those...

By Sharyl Attkisson CBS NewsJanuary 8, 2014, 5: 45 PM U.S. Benghazi compound lease renewed without security Updated 7:25 p.m. ETThe State Department renewed the lease for the U.S. compound in Benghazi two months before the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks without requiring the facility to meet normal security standards. That news comes from an interview Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., conducted with a survivor of the attacks.   The survivor, a State Department diplomatic security agent whose name isn't being disclosed, spoke behind closed doors in late November to Senators Graham, Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Robert Menendez, D-N.J. The previously-undisclosed existence...

Almost sixteen months after the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, we still have held no one accountable — but the roster of terrorists is expanding in familiar directions. The Washington Post reported overnight that Obama administration officials now suspect a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay as being one of the leaders. Abu Sufian bin Qumu has connections to al-Qaeda as well, despite a recent report from the New York Times asserting that AQ had no involvement in the attack: U.S. officials suspect that a former Guantanamo Bay detainee played a role in the attack on the American diplomatic compound...

In November, the Obama Justice Department dropped a lawsuit aimed at stopping a school voucher program in Louisiana. The Louisiana Scholarship Program is intended to give students in failing public schools a chance to attend better schools, including private ones. Justice tried to block the program on the basis that it may have violated a 1975 federal desegregation order. The case began to heat up when Republican governor Bobby Jindal, joined by some parents of students (chiefly minorities) who had benefited from the voucher program, began a defense in the courts. Justice then filed a motion contesting the parents' standing...

In 1982, former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal never denied the killing during his trial. He, and his supporters, are still unapologetic for Faulkner's death. More on this from Matthew Vadum: “The question of Abu-Jamal’s guilt is not a close call,” according to John Fund. “Two hospital workers testified that Abu-Jamal confessed to them: ‘I shot the motherf***er, and I hope the motherf***er dies.’ His brother, William, has never testified to his brother’s innocence even though he was at the scene of the crime. Abu-Jamal himself chose not to testify...

A man stopped for speeding in central Ohio was charged with illegally making or possessing an explosive device after nearly 50 bombs and four guns were discovered in his vehicle. Andrew Scott Boguslawski, 43, was arrested late New Year's Day on Interstate 70 west of Columbus. Investigators found two pistols, two rifles, 48 explosive devices and tools and materials to make additional explosives. Also inside was a remote detonating device, Assistant Madison County Prosecutor Nick Adkins said. Officials are trying to determine why the man had the cache of weapons and bombs. He is being held on $1million bond pending...

AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Afghan girl wearing a suicide vest... as she tried to carry out an attack against border police... Police believe she was encouraged to carry out the attack by her brother. She is believed to be the sister of a prominent Taliban leader....

One hundred and fifty Americans died fighting for this city, and hundreds more were wounded. And now it has been retaken by the enemy. Commander-in-chief Obama's response: another round of golf.

The U.S. government is trying to apprehend an al Qaeda terrorist wanted for his role in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans. The suspect, Muhammad Jamal, was imprisoned in Egypt last fall and in September was being held by the Egyptian government. His current whereabouts could not be confirmed, said U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. One official said Jamal remains in Egyptian custody, contrary to reports that he was in Yemen.

The alleged leader of an al Qaeda-linked group that carried out attacks across the Middle East before shifting its focus to Syria's civil war died on Saturday while in custody in Lebanon, the army said. In a short statement, the Lebanese army said Majid al-Majid “died this morning while undergoing treatment at the central military hospital after his health deteriorated.” It did not elaborate. Official Lebanese sources, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said al-Majid died after kidney failure. The state-run National News Agency said al-Majid died “after his health conditions deteriorated.” Al-Majid, a Saudi citizen had...

Just over two years since American troops entirely withdrew from Iraq, the black flag of Al Qaeda flies over the city of Fallujah’s government buildings in Iraq’s western Anbar Province. It was there that several American contractors were killed and strung up over a bridge in 2004 and American Marines fought the biggest battle of the Iraq War. “The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, the Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war,” reads...

The New York Times just delivered a mortal blow to the Obama administration and its Middle East policy. Call it fratricide. It was clearly unintentional. Indeed, is far from clear that the paper even realizes what it has done. Last Saturday the Times published an 8,000 word account by David Kirkpatrick detailing the terrorist strike against the US consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. In it, Kirkpatrick tore to shreds the foundations of President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy and his overall policy in the Middle East. Obama first enunciated those foundations in his June...

**SNIP** 3) Iranian-born Huma Abedin, who is a close friend of Hillary Rodham Clinton and her former Chief of Staff, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Saleha Abedin, Huma’s mother, has been identified as one of the leaders of the Muslim Sisterhood. Huma Abedin is also the wife of former Democratic Congressman and failed New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. Muhammad Morsi is set to go trial in January, along with a number of other Brotherhood leaders, and the talk of possible criminal charges being brought against Hillary Clinton stem largely from her long-time friendship and co-operation with Naglaa Mahmoud....

Over the past several days, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq, has taken control of large sections of two western Iraqi cities that were once bastions for the terror group. ISIS fighters entered the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, after the Iraqi military withdrew from them following clashes with tribes over a political standoff that resulted in the arrest of a Sunni member of parliament. The ISIS has posted videos of its fighters entering the cities in force after clashing with Iraqi police and overrunning several checkpoints. In...

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces and allied tribesmen battled on Thursday to put down al-Qaida-linked gunmen who, in a coordinated surge, ran rampant in two of the country’s main Sunni cities, overrunning police stations and sweeping through the streets, emboldened by mounting sectarian tensions between minority Sunnis and the Shiite-led government. Troops hammered the militants with Hellfire rockets recently sent by the United States to help the government’s fight against al-Qaida’s Iraq branch, which also operates with increasing strength in Syria’s civil war across the border. The militants’ swift uprising a day earlier overwhelmed police forces in Ramadi and Fallujah,...

Page 1 below; 2 more pages at link. During an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick was asked about the connections between Muhammad Jamal’s network and the Benghazi attack.Jamal, as I documented in a response to Kirkpatrick’s em>Times piece, was clearly operating as part of al Qaeda’s international network. And according to multiple reports, including in the New York Times itself, Jamal’s network is suspected of taking part in the Benghazi attack. This reporting contradicts Kirkpatrick’s thesis that only “local” Libyan actors were involved and that neither al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, nor any other internationally connected...

One shouldn’t question the good faith of a news report merely because one disagrees with the report’s conclusions. But David Kirkpatrick’s revisionist Benghazi account in the New York Times invites doubt about his commitment to unbiased reporting about that tragic affair. My doubts stem both from the reporting itself and from what a person whom Kirkpatrick interviewed told me. [....] Kirkpatrick’s heavy reliance on self-serving comments by Libyans that also serve the purposes of Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, etc, suggests that he had a story he wanted to write and was looking for confirmation of that story. This suspicion was...

WASHINGTON—The mother of a victim in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack blasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with WORLD, saying a recent article in The New York Times is only trying to protect Clinton’s 2016 presidential aspirations. “They’re just covering up for Hillary,” Pat Smith, mother of slain foreign-service officer Sean Smith, told me by phone. “Hillary killed my son. … As far as I can tell from all my sources, she was responsible—directly.” Lawmakers, media outlets, and analysts have all criticized a front-page story in Saturday’s edition of The New York Times, in which...

Benghazi: The attempt to rehabilitate Hillary Clinton begins as the New York Times revives the long-ago debunked "video clip" excuse for the well-planned Benghazi massacre while denying documented al-Qaida involvement. These days it's all the news that is fit to be made up that graces the pages of the once-proud Gray Lady that has morphed from a self-proclaimed "newspaper of record" to the house organ for the Obama administration. The latest example is a piece on the Benghazi terrorist attack of Sept. 10, 2010, titled, "A Deadly Mix in Benghazi." It resembles the infamous White House talking points — on...