Free Republic

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com: Obama Likely to Order Charges Dropped Against Alleged U.S.S. Cole Bombing Mastermind [5:55 p.m. ET] For more, go to abcnews.go.com?CMP=EMC-1396

"The former commander of the USS Cole, the American war ship that was struck by a suicide boat in Yemeni waters more than eight years ago, on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama's orders to close the Guantanamo detention center and reassess the prisoners being held there." [snip] "On Thursday, Lippold called Pohl's decision "a victory for the 17 families of the sailors who lost their lives on the USS Cole over eight years ago." [snip] But Lippold also denounced suggestions that the Pentagon official who oversees the Guantanamo legal cases, Susan J. Crawford, could withdraw the charges, without prejudice, which...

The former commander of the U.S.S. Cole — which was attacked by terrorists off the coast of Yemen in 2000 — has slammed President Obama's orders to close the Guantanamo detention center and re-evaluate its prisoners. Retired Navy Commander Kirk Lippold says, "We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups. We should consider what is best for the American people, which is not to jeopardize those who are fighting the War on Terror or even more adversely impact the families who have already suffered losses as a result of the war." Lippold also reacted to...

The former commander of the USS Cole, the American war ship that was struck by a suicide boat in Yemeni waters more than eight years ago, on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama's orders to close the Guantanamo detention center and reassess the prisoners being held there.

Back to the military judge; the military instinctively loathes Democrats because of their inherent reluctance to make decisions without gauging public preference on an issue. They also distrust Dems because they'll make a decision after long contemplation and then go back on that decision leaving the military to take the bad PR. This is one judge saying to The One that he's not going to play Obama's game, especially since the main case involved deals with the man who helped kill American sailors.

A military judge has refused the Obama administration's request to delay proceeding for 120 days in the case of a detainee held at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who is accused of planning the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship, an al-Qaeda strike that killed 17 service members and injured 50 others. The decision throws into some disarray the administration's plan to buy some time as it reviews individual detainee cases as part of its plan to close the prison. The Pentagon may now be forced to withdraw the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a...

BREAKING: A military defense attorney says a Guantanamo judge has rejected an Obama administration request to suspend the war-crimes trial of the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.

Note: The following text is a quote: IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 1028-08 December 19, 2008 Charges Referred Against One Detainee, Charges Dismissed Against Another Today the Convening Authority, Office of Military Commissions, referred charges to trial by military commission against 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri of Saudi Arabia. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is charged with participating in the planning and preparation for the attack on the USS Cole in the Port of Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000. The attack killed 17 sailors, wounded 47 sailors, and severely damaged the ship. The Convening Authority directed that the charges be tried as a capital case,...

For more than six years, Jesse Nieto drove to work at Camp Lejeune, N.C., in a car that left no doubt about his views. "Islam = terrorism" asserted one sticker on the back window of his maroon Scion. Another decal showed a cartoon boy urinating on the image of a turban-wearing man. A third, paraphrased to eliminate a curse word, said, Disgrace my flag, and I will defecate on your Quran. His feelings stem from a personal tragedy: His son died in a terrorist attack on the Norfolk-based destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000. In August, base officials told Nieto,...

Ann Arbor, Nov 13, 2008 / 06:56 am (CNA).- A Marine veteran whose anti-terrorist and anti-Islam vehicle decals hindered him in visiting the grave of his fallen son at Arlington National Cemetery has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the military order which rebuked his display of the decals. Jesse Nieto, a 25-year Marine veteran, served two combat tours in Vietnam. His youngest son, Marc, was one of the seventeen sailors killed in the terrorist bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in October of 2000. Since 1994 Nieto has been a civilian employee at the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North...

A father of one of the 17 sailors killed in the 2000 USS Cole terrorism attack has been banned from visiting his son's grave at the Arlington National Cemetery.

By ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 3, 4:15 PM ET CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida confirmed Sunday the death of a top commander accused of training the suicide bombers who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole eight years ago. Abu Khabab al-Masri, who had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States, is believed to have been killed in an airstrike apparently launched by the U.S. in Pakistan last week.

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

ABU DHABI ? The United Arab Emirates has officially acknowledged that it captured a major Al Qaida leader and transferred him to U.S. custody. Al Nashiri, 36, was one of the leading fugitives in the Al Qaida network. He is believed to have directed or participated in the suicide attack on a French oil tanker off the Yemeni coast in October, the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Officials said Abu Dhabi relayed Abdul Rahim Al Nashiri to U.S. authorities last month, Middle East...

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2008 – A Saudi Arabian national being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been charged with planning and preparing for the attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded 47 others, the Defense Department announced today. Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartman, legal advisor to the convening authority for the Office of Military Commissions, announces at a June 30, 2008, Pentagon press conference, that charges have been sworn against 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent. It is alleged that Al-Nashiri, an al-Qa'ida operative, participated in the planning and preparation...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military prosecutors have requested the death penalty for the alleged mastermind behind the bombing of the USS Cole warship that killed 17 U.S. sailors in 2000, the Pentagon said on Monday. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian national of Yemeni descent being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, faces eight charges, including murder and terrorism, for the attack in the Yemeni port of Aden on October 12, 2000, that wounded 47 sailors. Prosecutors have also charged al-Nashiri over a failed attack on another U.S. warship, the USS The Sullivans, in Aden in January 2000 and an attack...

A Saudi national suspected of leading Al-Qaeda in the Gulf was Monday charged by the Pentagon with organizing some 40 attacks including the October 2000 attack on the US navy destroyer USS Cole. Abdel Rahim al-Nashiri, currently a prisoner at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is suspected of being behind the attacks in the 1990s. Arrested in October 2002 in the United Arab Emirates, he spent several years in secret CIA prisons.

We Swedes wish to honor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_S._Cole True Swedes - like I - love America. Yes, we are Europeans and you are Americans. Often, we insult each other, by employing various methods. Yet, you are our sisters'N'brothers and nothing will ever change tHAT. I would give my life up for America. The US is a nation which believes in true freedom. This idea will conquer the world.

Crush the Cell by: Ben Giles, May 23, 2008 Michael Sheehan served tours of duty in Panama and El Salvador. He worked in the U.S. government and the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Throughout his career, he fought on the frontlines of the war on terror. Just don’t tell him that’s what it is. “I don’t consider it a war,” said Sheehan. “It’s counter-terrorism.” Sheehan, former NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Counter-Terrorism, argues that a war isn’t going to suppress terrorist cells linked to al Qaeda. The strategic intelligence and counter-terrorism efforts can accomplish U.S. goals. Sheehan is the author...

A Hardball epic . . . Message to Chris Matthews: when ripping a guest for his lack of historical knowledge, try to avoid making a history mistake of your own in the same segment. It happened on this afternoon's Hardball. After lambasting a guest for not knowing his Neville Chamberlain history, Matthews surmised that the attack on the USS Cole in October, 2000 happened under . . . President Bush. View video here.

A US warship, which was deployed off Lebanon in February amid concern over Beirut's political crisis, crossed Egypt's Suez Canal on Sunday on its way to the Mediterranean, an official with the canal authority told AFP. “The USS Cole has crossed the Suez Canal and is headed to the Mediterranean,” the official said, adding he did not know its exact destination. The United States sent the guided-missile destroyer to waters off the coast of Lebanon on February 28, in what US officials said was “a show of support for regional stability” amid concerns over Lebanon's protracted political crisis. US Secretary...

U.S. Frustrated By Elusive Justice Served to USS Cole Plotters May 04, 2008 It's been called "the forgotten attack" but it's one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. Eight years after the USS Cole was attacked by a motorboat packed with explosives, all of the six men convicted of the strike have escaped from prison, or been freed by Yemeni officials. Seventeen sailors were killed and 40 more wounded in the strike, blamed on Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the Cole plot, has reportedly escaped from Yemeni prisons twice. He is supposedly...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials. Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

An American warship attacked by suspected suicide terrorists in the Gulf is embedded in a British flotilla that begins exercises with the Indian Navy off Goa from Monday. The 12-day exercise is the third in the series of the Konkan drills between the Royal Navy and its Indian counterpart. A French ship, the Surcouf, will also participate in the war game that involves the Royal Navy carrier strike group led by the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. The attack on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, at the Yemen port of Aden by suspected al Qaida suicide bombers blew a...

Ex-Sailor Found Guilty of Leaking Ship Movements FEATURE STORY   by IPT IPT News March 3, 2008*Updated NEW HAVEN - Months after the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors docked in Yemen, a battle group led by the USS Constellation prepared to sail for the Persian Gulf. The U.S. was saber rattling. Retaliation against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda for the Cole attack was anticipated. Unbeknownst to Navy leadership, a signalman on the destroyer Benfold was in direct communication at the time with a British-based publishing house openly supporting the Taliban and...

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has replaced two ships it sent off the coast of Lebanon last week amid political deadlock there to send a signal to Syria, officials said on Tuesday. The cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the destroyer USS Ross replaced the destroyer USS Cole and a refueling ship over the past day, U.S. Navy officials said. Another refueling ship remained in place, meaning the United States continued to have three warships in the area, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. The ships are not visible from the Lebanese coast but their presence...

A senior Lebanese Shia cleric has said that the new US move to deploy a US warship off the Lebanese coast amounts to a declaration of war. Seyyed Mohammed Hossein Fadlallah said, “The deployment of the USS Cole to the area is no less than a declaration of war and a new attempt to break the resistance and anti-American groups in the region.” No doubt, Democrats will claim that Bush is sabre rattling, and that if he had just left the USS Cole farther out in the Med, then anti-American Islamic groups wouldn’t be anti-American (ignoring that fact that they...

Hezbollah says US ship is threat The USS Cole was attacked by al-Qaeda in 2000 A Hezbollah MP has condemned the deployment of the USS Cole warship off the coast of Lebanon as a threat to Lebanese sovereignty and independence.The US is sending one warship and a support ship to the eastern Mediterranean as a show of support for "regional stability". The deployment is seen as a warning to Syria, which backs the opposition, of which Hezbollah is part. But MP Hassan Fadlallah said the movement would not give in to threats. He told reporters: "It is clear this...

The US Navy is sending at least three ships, including at least one amphibious assault ship, to the eastern Mediterranean Sea in a show of strength during a period of tensions with Syria and political uncertainty in Lebanon. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday the deployment should not be viewed as threatening or in response to events in any single country in the volatile region. "This is an area that is important to us, the eastern Med," he said when asked about news reports of the ship movements. "It's a group of...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah on Friday rejected the deployment of U.S. warships off Lebanon, calling it a threat to the country that will not affect the militant group. "We are facing an American threat against Lebanon," Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah said. "It is clear this threat and intimidation will not affect us."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Navy has moved the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole and other ships to the eastern Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon, Pentagon officials said Thursday. (snip) The destroyer and two support ships are close to Lebanon but out of visual range of the coast, Pentagon officials said. Another six vessels, led by the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau, are close to Italy and steaming toward the other three, the officials said.

The US Navy is sending three warships to the eastern Mediterranean Sea in a show of strength during a period of tensions with Syria and political uncertainty in Lebanon...... Another military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because full details about the ship movements are not yet public, said the USS Cole is headed for patrol in the eastern Mediterranean and that the USS Nassau, an amphibious warship, would be joining it shortly. The officer said a third ship would go later, but he did not identify it by name.

The United States has sent the USS Cole warship to the coast of Lebanon in a "show of support" for regional stability, US officials said today. A senior Bush administration official said the US was concerned about the political deadlock in Lebanon, which Washington blames on Syrian interference. "The United States believes a show of support is important for regional stability. We are very concerned about the situation in Lebanon. It has dragged on very long," said the senior official, who spoke on condition anonymity. Lebanon's western-backed governing coalition and its Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition have failed to reach a...

Signaling impatience with Syria, the United States has sent its USS Cole warship off the coast of Lebanon in a "show of support" for regional stability, a senior US official said on Thursday. The senior official told Reuters the United States was very concerned about the political deadlock in Lebanon, which Washington blames on Syrian meddling. A US defense official said the Cole left Malta on Tuesday and was headed towards Lebanon, adding it would not be within visible range of Lebanon but "well over the horizon." (Reuters)

SAN`A, Yemen - A Yemeni-American who is among the FBI's most wanted terrorism suspects appeared in a Yemeni court Saturday and then walked free, an eyewitness said. Jaber Elbaneh, 41, attended a session of the trial for him and 22 others charged in connection with a series of attacks on oil facilities. "He entered the courtroom surrounded by four bodyguards, introduced himself to the judge then he left," an eyewitness said speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. Footage of Elbaneh entering and leaving the court unimpeded also appeared on the Dubai-based pan-Arab satellite channel, al-Arabiya. Security authorities...

NORFOLK, Va. - Family members of the 17 sailors killed in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen want to use a new federal law to reopen their lawsuit seeking more than $100 million in damages from Sudan. A federal judge found last July that Sudan provided training and logistics that allowed al-Qaida terrorists to bomb the Norfolk-based Navy destroyer on Oct. 12, 2000.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Wednesday called video and audio released by the Pentagon showing Iranian Revolutionary Guards boats confronting U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz "fabricated," a state-run television station reported. "The footage released by the U.S. Navy was compiled using file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," the English-language channel Press TV quoted an official in the Revolutionary Guards as saying. The report did not give the name of the Revolutionary Guard figure and did not offer more details about how the official knew the footage was "fabricated."

Obscure al-Qaida Chemist Worries Experts By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent 7 minutes ago He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror. Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in Afghanistan. Van Duyn's FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough...

Bucharest and Brussels, 16 Nov. (AKI) - Romania, one two countries accused by Europe's top human rights watchdog of hosting secret CIA jails used to interrogate Islamist terrorism suspects, says it has written to the European Union executive denying the charges. The letter to the European Commission is a response to a request from EU justice and security commissioner Franco Frattini asking Romania and Poland - the other country implicated by the Council of Europe - for an explanation. A Romanian spokeswoman in Brussels, Doris Mircea, said that a committee of inquiry set up by the government concluded that the...

U.S. Embassy officials in Yemen visited a Yemeni man convicted in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in his prison cell yesterday, three days after he was seen greeting relatives in his house. U.S. and Yemeni officials confirmed the visit but declined to discuss details about its length or substance."We were able to physically confirm the presence of Jamal Badawi at a prison in Aden," a State Department official said. It was not clear whether it satisfied U.S. concerns about the status of the man, Jamal Badawi, who escaped from prison along with 22 other convicts last year and...

U.S. angered by release of mastermind behind attack on USS Cole WASHINGTON — The United States is dismayed over what officials said was Yemen's failure to cooperate in the war against Al Qaida. The Bush administration expressed disappointment with Yemen's decision to release the man regarded as the mastermind of the Al Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Aden in 2000. "The United States is dismayed and deeply disappointed in the government of Yemen's decision not to imprison [Al] Badawi," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "This action is inconsistent with a deepening of our bilateral counterterrorism cooperation."...

Yemen grants house arrest to Cole attack planner Reuters Yemen has commuted to house arrest the prison term of a mastermind of al Qaeda's 2000 bombing of a U.S. Navy vessel after he surrendered to Yemeni authorities, his relatives said on Friday. Relatives told Reuters they were allowed to visit Jamal Badawi at his home in the southern port city of Aden while under police surveillance. Details of the decision to release Badawi from prison were not known. But a Yemeni government official who asked not to be identified said the militant remained "under close scrutiny and control of the...

SAN'A, Yemen - Yemen has set free one of the al-Qaida masterminds of the USS Cole bombing in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors, a senior security official said Thursday. Jamal al-Badawi, who is wanted by the FBI, was convicted in 2004 of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the USS Cole bombing and received a death sentence that was commuted to 15 years in prison. He and 22 others, mostly al-Qaida fighters, escaped from prison in 2004. But al-Badawi was granted his freedom after turning himself in 15 days ago and pledging loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh,...

Yemeni al Qaeda leader Jamal Badawi has surrendered to police in Yemen. Badawi was the leader of the al Qaeda cell that responsible for the December 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. Al Qaeda carried out the bombing using suicide attackers in explosive-laden inflatable boats. Seventeen 17 US sailors were killed in the strike. The FBI placed a $5 million reward for Badawi's capture. Badawi is believed to have surrendered to authorities after negotiations with the government to halt attacks in exchange for a reduced sentence or freedom if he promises to eschew violence....

HISTORY - Time line [some] Important dates in radical ISLAM VS WORLD 1263 - 1328 The 'Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism' Who is the True Godfather of Islamic Fundamentalism? His name is Ibn Taymiyyah, or Taq ad-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyyah, and he lived from 1263 to 1328. His name by birth was Ahmad ibn Abdul-Halim ibn Abdas-Salaam. This individual could be considered as the real godfather of fundamentalism. Maududi borrowed extensively from Taymiyyah's writings. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/index.php? id=1194248__________________1347 [The Bahmani sultans & genocide on Indians]The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death....

Judge: Sudan Owes USS Cole Families $8MJul 25, 12:38 PM (ET) By KRISTEN GELINEAU RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Sudan to pay nearly $8 million to the families of 17 sailors killed in the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole. The families had sought $105 million, but U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar in Norfolk ordered Sudan to pay $7.96 million. Doumar applied the Death on the High Seas Act, which permits compensation for economic losses but not for pain and suffering. "It is depressing to realize that a country organized on a religious...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - An American wanted for allegedly training with the "Lackawanna Six" at an al-Qaida camp was among the 23 men who tunneled out of a Yemeni prison last week, the FBI confirmed Friday. Authorities earlier said they believed Jaber Elbaneh, 39, was probably among the escapees, but were not certain because of conflicting information, including a posting by the international police organization Interpol that pictured Elbaneh but described someone else. Elbaneh is charged in Buffalo with providing material support to al-Qaida by attending the al-Farooq training camp run by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan months before the Sept....

A Saudi man held in US custody for five years has told a military hearing he was tortured into confessing a role in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 41, said he had faced years of torture after his arrest in 2002, a Pentagon transcript from the closed-door hearing said.