Free Republic

Twice this month, the White House has publicly grappled with the politically fraught language of terrorism. In the days after a deadly terror spree in Paris, President Barack Obama was criticized for purposely avoiding calling the attacks an example of “Islamic extremism,” settling for the more generic “violent extremism.” This week, the White House struggled to explain why the administration sometimes classifies the Afghan Taliban as a terrorist organization—and sometimes does not. The rhetorical wrangling underscores the extent to which a president who pledged to end to his predecessor’s war on terror is still navigating how to explain the threats...

A US-led coalition air strike killed a chemical weapons specialist with the Islamic State group in Iraq who once worked for Saddam Hussein, US military officers said on Friday. The air raid carried out last Saturday near Mosul took out Abu Malik, whose training "provided the terrorist group with expertise to pursue a chemical weapons capability," the military said in a statement. Malik had worked at a chemical weapons production plant under Saddam's regime and later forged an affiliation with al Qaeda in Iraq in 2005, before joining the extremist IS group, according to Central Command. "His death is expected...

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher schools are teaching Louisiana kids that most slave owners were kind to their slaves, and that the KKK are civic reformers. Bobby Jindal’s usage of Louisiana as a prop for his 2016 presidential campaign is doing a lot more damage to the state than the rest of the country can ever possibly imagine. However, Jindal’s isn’t just wrecking the state for today. His “school choice” plan is being used by the far right to teach rewritten history and whitewashed racism to the state’s children. Jindal’s voucher schools will be free to teach lessons like slave owners...

Obama administration Muslim adviser Mohamed Elibiary is no stranger to regular PJ Media readers. In September, Elibiary was unceremoniously removed from his fellowship position with the Department of Homeland Security, which he tried to spin as a “resignation,” but letters sent to members of Congress by DHS officials indicated he would not be reappointed. Undoubtedly, one of the chief reasons for DHS cutting ties with Elibiary was a long string of extremist statements he had been making on Twitter, including talking about the inevitability of the return of an ISIS-style caliphate — tweets that were subsequently used by ISIS supporters...

A nuclear-capable Iran is the gravest threat facing America today. The Obama administration’s nuclear negotiations with Iran, the so-called P5+1 talks, were supposed to stop Iran’s rush to a nuclear bomb. Regrettably, what began as an unwise gamble has descended into a dangerous series of unending concessions, which is why the time has come for Congress to act. Our negotiating “partner,” Iran, is not a rational or peaceful actor; it is a radical, Islamist tyranny whose constitution explicitly calls for jihad. Iran’s ayatollahs have honored the call: Iran has been killing Americans for more than three decades. In 1983 Iran...

The Obama administration is angry with Israel. Here's the administration's house organ, the New York Times, this morning: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, after days of mounting tension, signaled on Wednesday how angry it is with Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted Republican leaders’ invitation to address Congress on Iran without consulting the White House. The outrage the episode has incited within President Obama’s inner circle became clear in unusually sharp criticism by a senior administration official who said that the Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer, who helped orchestrate the invitation, had repeatedly placed Mr. Netanyahu’s political fortunes above the...

Washington (AFP) - The US military will no longer divulge facts and figures about its costly effort to assist Afghan security forces, declaring the information top secret, officials said Thursday. The move marks an about-face for the Pentagon, which for the past six years has reported a range of data about the $65 billion program to build up the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). The information included how US taxpayers' money has been spent and the state of the troubled country's police and army. John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), voiced disappointment with the change and said...

Police armed with pistols in heavily gun-controlled European countries are realizing a hard lesson fast–jihadists with no respect for the law are side-stepping gun control and stockpiling weapons that will give them the upper hand in confrontations with officers. Europol chief of staff Brian Donald says there were two “large seizures” of firearms–particularly “assault weapons”–over the last two weeks and more seizures are expected as investigations and tracking continues.

Sweeping new anti-terrorism powers introduced by the Conservative government Friday include giving Canadian spies police-like powers to disrupt terrorist operations, allow authorities to remove terrorist propaganda from the internet and make it a crime to promote or to advocate others to engage in terrorism. Many of the measures will affect the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service. The plan to boost CSIS’s ability to counter terrorist threats flows from a federal review of fatal attacks on two Canadian soldiers last October. As expected, the bill would also make it easier for the RCMP to obtain a peace bond to restrict the...

Isreali officials told Channel 10 on Friday that they are convinced the Obama administration has already agreed to most of Iran’s demands in the P5+1 negotiations over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. According to unnamed officials, Washington “has given the Iranians 80 percent of what they want” out of the negotiations, Channel 10 is reporting.

The State of the Union address this year falls one day after the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. So it's quite fitting that Speaker John Boehner have as his honored guest a black human-rights activist. But alas, said human-rights activist is also a Cuban dissident, a former political prisoner of the Castro regime and a critic of resident Obama's push to normalize relations with Cuba without any concomitant political and economic reforms on the island to empower the impoverished, oppressed people there. We will watch to see what mention, if any, is given by network journalists tonight to Jorge...

… Recent years have seen a rise in the number of French Jews leaving for Israel, with fear of attacks being the most important reason for making the so-called “Aliyah,” as the “return” to Israel is referred. And the list of attacks is long. In 2006, young mobile-phone salesman Ilan Halimi was kidnapped by a youth gang and tortured to death. Two years ago, gunman Mohamed Merah shot and killed children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse. Just two months ago, a couple was robbed in the Créteil district on the outskirts of Paris and the woman...

WASHINGTON — When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress in March, it is unclear whether everybody invited will actually show up. Democrats have criticized House Speaker John Boehner for circumventing the administration when he invited Netanyahu to speak, and the White House has already said Obama will not meet with him when he’s here. BuzzFeed News asked several Senate Democrats whether they planned on skipping the speech or not. Most said they either hadn’t thought about it or they hadn’t decided. But there were no hard answers in the negative. Only one senator definitively said...

Canada will introduce new anti-terror laws that will make it a crime to promote terrorism against Canadians online or elsewhere, a senior government official said Friday. The laws will also allow anyone suspected of being involved in a terror plot to be detained without charge for up to seven days, and empower Canada’s spy agency to thwart attacks directly in a significant expansion of their mandate. The official provided details to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak ahead of Friday’s announcement. …

The European Union’s counterterrorism chief says member states need to have common laws against Europeans traveling to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist groups. […] Gilles de Kerchove told reporters in Riga on Friday that “it’s important to have the same definition of what is it when you go abroad for training purposes to fight.” …

When it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the German government is unyielding—particularly when it comes to finding excuses for why it should do nothing when it comes to potential German perpetrators. For more than 16 months, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has been in possession of a list containing the names of German companies thought to have helped Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his father Hafis build up Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal over the course of several decades. Ultimately, it became one of the largest such arsenals in the world. […] Berlin immediately classified the list and has...

ISLAMABAD – A bomb blast ripped through a Shiite mosque in southern Pakistan as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, killing at least 56 people and wounding dozens more, in the deadliest act of anti-Shiite violence in two years. The attack compounds Pakistan's security challenge to contain a surge in militancy following last month's killing of 150 people, mostly children, at a Peshawar school. The militant Sunni group Jundullah claimed responsibility for Friday's bombing in the city of Shikarpur in Sindh province, 310 miles north of the port city of Karachi. [...]

In a decision announced on Wednesday, a Frankfurt court upheld the dismissal of a man from his job at Frankfurt airport over his close friendship with a foreign citizen with ties to terrorist group ISIS. Judges found that the man, who was in regular contact with the terrorism suspect on a mobile number known only to his close friends, and had lent the suspect €2,000, was too much of a security risk to work in sensitive areas at the airport. The man had first come to police attention after being fined for a minor traffic offense, which was flagged up...

The Islamist terror group, Jabhat al-Nusra—the Al Qaeda affilate in Syria—executed a woman in the main square of the village of Ma'arrat Misrin after accusing her of adultery. In a video made of the execution (see below), the woman appears to be in her forties. Before being executed by a gunshot wound to the head, a man stands near the executioner reading out the sentence. He quotes the Quran (Surah 5:33) as the source for the punishment: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but...

The leader of Pakistani politico-religious party Jamaat-e Islami is claiming that the Western "extremist standpoint" on the freedom of news organizations to publish "blasphemous caricatures" of Islam's prophet Muhammad will ultimately lead to World War III. In addressing the thousands in attendance at a Friday protest over the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which publicized cartoons portraying Muhammad, the influential chief of the Jamaat-e Islami party, Sirajul Haq, demanded that the United Nations make laws designed to prevent the media and others from mocking religious personalities. Haq explained that the West's leniency and tolerance in dealing with those who mock...

Close to 300 Muslim students armed with iron bars and sticks attacked a Christian boys' school in northern Pakistan, reportedly in retaliation to French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's controversial drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The attack left four Christians injured. "It is very sad that Islamic radicals attack Pakistani Christians because of Charlie Hebdo. Christians condemn the blasphemous cartoons. It is a shame that even after 67 years since the birth of Pakistan, Christians have not yet been considered Pakistani citizens, but are seen as 'Western allies,'" Nasir Saeed, director of the NGO Center for Legal Aid Assistance &...

The terrorist group known as Daesh, “Islamic State,” ISIS or ISIL has threatened to behead President Barack Obama and turn the United States into a Muslim province, installing sharia law and incorporating America into its fledgling caliphate. “Know, oh Obama, that we will reach America. Know also that we will cut off your head in the White House and transform America into a Muslim province,” said an ISIS fighter in a video obtained by MEMRI, before beheading a Kurdish soldier. The statement was delivered from a street in Mosul, Iraq, which ISIS fighters have taken and where U.S. Marines formerly...

You say "Jeb Bush," Thomas Roberts says "the Kouachi brothers." It's got to be one of the strangest political Rorschach test results of all time. MSNBC's Roberts believes that Jeb Bush would have a "big onus" around his neck if he runs for president "because if we hear 'Bush' we're automatically going to go to people bringing up the Kouachi brothers and their photos of Abu Ghraib that radicalized them about Iraq." View the video here.

MEMRI January 9 and 16, 2015 Clip No. 4745 Saudi Imam on Paris Attacks: This Is the Only Language Jewish and Christian Infidels Understand (and Muslims Discovered America) For video: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/4745.htm Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon given by Imam Issa Assiri of the Sa'eed bin Jubair Mosque in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, which was posted on the Internet on January 9 and 16, 2015:p> Issa Assiri: [The papers that published the cartoons] talked about freedom of speech, but after the French journalists were killed for mocking the Prophet Muhammad in their cartoons, what did the papers have to say?...

It’s not only Jews who aren’t tolerated on the Temple Mount. It’s anyone, of any faith suspected of having any ties to the Jews, as devout Muslim Mohammed Hameeduddin (pictured), the popular former mayor of Teaneck, New Jersey, discovered while visiting Jerusalem over the weekend. Hameeduddin was in the country as part of the Muslim Leadership Initiative, which in conjunction with the leftist Israeli think tank Shalom Hartman Institute invites leading American Muslim to the Holy Land to learn more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict up close and in person. The fact that Jews were somehow involved in the group’s visit...

A German carnival has dropped plans to build a "Charlie Hebdo" float with a cartoonist forcing a pencil into the barrel of a terrorist's gun, after receiving messages from locals worried about safety if the float went on show. * snip * The Charlie Hebdo-inspired float had been chosen through an Internet vote.

A long, slow procession of coffins draped in the Philippine flag poured out of military transport planes in Manila on Thursday, as the country mourned dozens of policemen killed in a botched anti-terror operation. Marching to muted drums, uniformed commandos bore the numbered coffins of comrades brought home from the southern island of Mindanao, the scene of the worst loss of life by the country's police or troops in recent memory. President Benigno Aquino has declared Friday a day of mourning for the 44 men slaughtered in a cornfield Sunday when their top-secret mission -- to catch or kill one...

Al Jazeera’s New York and Washington, D.C. journalists have reportedly received strict orders from Qatari management: please do not use the words “terrorist,” “militant,” “Islamist,” “jihad” and “extremist” in your reporting.

“The false prophet Muhammad!” the woman is heard screaming. “Islam will never dominate the United States and by the grace of God it will not dominate Texas.”

..... At 9.44am, Johnson was made to call triple-0, telling the operator Monis was pointing a gun at him and passing on the message that “Australia is under attack by Islamic State”. There is in fact no evidence that Monis had contacted the terrorist group before carry­ing out his attack, the inquest heard. He also lied about having a bomb on him and about having planted a number of radio-controlled bombs in Martin Place and at nearby Circular Quay and on George Street. ..... Between 2.03am and 2.11am six more hostages escaped, provok­ing Monis to fire the first of five...

The United States pledged to continue military and humanitarian assistance to the Kurdish city of Kobane in Syria, after Kurdish forces defeated the Islamic State (known as ISIS or ISIL) following a four-month siege. "We congratulate its (Kobane's) brave defenders," US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a briefing to reporters, referring to the Kurdish forces that have been fighting there. "We'll continue to support them as we look to the coming weeks ahead... As there are humanitarian needs, whether it's in Kobane and other places, I expect that we will contribute -- continue to be major contributors," she...

A disgruntled, former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist promised to build 40 nuclear weapons for Venezuela in 10 years and design a bomb targeted for New York City in exchange for "money and power," according to secret FBI recordings released Wednesday. In the recordings, Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni tells an agent posing as a Venezuelan official that the bombs would prevent the United States from invading the oil-rich nation and brags to his wife that the passing of secrets would make him wealthy.

This week, multiple news outlets independently reported that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl would be charged with desertion. It was a charge that almost everyone saw coming and one that comported with what the soldier’s former colleagues had told media outlets. Within hours of this report, the Pentagon insisted that no formal decisions had been made with regards to Bergdahl’s case. It is a relatively safe bet, however, that the Pentagon will not be reiterating National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s claim that Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction” on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Bergdahl’s release from captivity was controversial. Not because,...

The American command in Afghanistan has for the first time in six years classified detailed statistics about the Afghan security forces — everything from equipment and training to attrition.Gen. John Campbell, who is leading the NATO coalition's non-combat mission in Afghanistan, said he now considers all that sensitive operational information that could help the Taliban.Campbell said he decided to classify details about the Afghan forces because they could be used by insurgent fighters to threaten both Afghan and U.S. forces.Campbell revealed his concerns in a letter to John Sopko, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, who...

At first blush, it might seem that the White House has become unhinged over an appearance by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before a joint session of Congress. After days of whining that Netanyahu’s appearance was not cleared with the White House, U.S. officials have taken to the press to anonymously screech and moan... ....... Ironically, the scuffle comes just after Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed two Israeli soldiers, reminding us that Iran is on the march throughout the region and that the Iranian government with which Obama hopes to achieve a grand reconciliation is committed to Israel’s destruction. UPDATE: In...

When the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria set terms for the release of a Jordanian fighter pilot captured when his plane was disabled over Syria, it was only marginally shocking that Jordan signaled it was willing to negotiate with ISIS fighters. That decision had some shock value not only because it is generally rare to see Western coalition partners negotiate with groups they admit to be terrorist organizations, but because the prisoner ISIS demanded in exchange was involved in one of the worst terrorist attacks in that countryÂ’s history. No sooner had bilateral negotiations between the Hashemite Kingdom...

American Sniper is tops at the box office, but don't expect to see former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura lining up at a theater for it. Ventura, a former Navy SEAL, won $1.8 million in a defamation lawsuit last year against the estate of the late Chris Kyle, the SEAL protagonist of the movie, which has sparked debate over whether snipers should be considered heroes. Ventura said Wednesday he won't see the film partly because Kyle is no hero to him.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh el Sisi has repeatedly told audiences that Islam needs a reformation and Muslims must rid their religion of violence and extremism. Today the Obama State Department held meetings with Muslim Brotherhood leaders to strategize how to rid Egpyt of Al-Sisi. One Muslim Brotherhood leader even posted a photo of himself outside the meeting. " The State Department hosted a delegation of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned leaders this week for a meeting about their ongoing efforts to oppose the current government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, who rose to power following the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, an ally...

“He cannot stand people challenging him. And right now we have a council that has people who have a lot of common sense,” Mr. Chu said. “I think that really bothers him a lot.” Mr. Nenshi has been embroiled in a number of feuds and bizarre Twitter exchanges ... Muslim mayor represents about the city.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Eight million Israelis are surrounded by some 400 million Muslims in more than 20 states. Almost all of Israel's neighbors are anti-Israeli dictatorships, monarchies or theocracies-- a number of them reduced to a state of terrorist chaos. Given the rise of radical Islam, the huge petrodollar wealth of the Middle East and lopsided demography, how has Israel so far survived? The Jewish state has always depended on three unspoken assumptions for its tenuous existence. First, a democratic, nuclear Israel can deter larger enemies. In the Cold War,...

Israel and Hezbollah are at war. On top of everything else that is going on in the world, now we have a new war in the Middle East, and nobody is quite certain what is going to happen next. Israel has been preparing for this moment for more than 8 years. So has Hezbollah. According to some reports, Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of 50,000 rockets since the end of the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006. If all-out warfare does erupt, we could potentially see tens of thousands of missiles rain down into an area not too much larger than the...

JERUSALEM (AP) — When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved his unwieldy coalition and called new elections last month, he appeared almost certain to be returned once more to office. But a new center-left alliance has surged past his Likud party in the polls, turning the March 17 contest into a toss-up. After joining forces with former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to create a joint grouping they call "The Zionist Camp," Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog is looking, to increasingly many Israelis, like a viable alternative to Netanyahu. He promises to reverse the country's slide toward international isolation and corrosive social...

House Speaker John Boehner sat down with Bret Baier today for an exclusive interview, covering everything from immigration to ObamaCare to Boehner’s invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Boehner charged the administration with antipathy toward Netanyahu, and he sounded off on plans to sue President Barack Obama over his executive action on immigration. […] Baier asked whether this Congress is Boehner’s “last time around” and if he thinks he can bring all Republicans together. He responded with a laugh and said “I’ll be here for a while,” before adding that he sympathizes with the concerns of the more conservative...

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...

Worshippers have been approved to use the small house on the property to pray in, but, according to Imam Mahmoud Harmoush, it’ll eventually be torn down in hopes of building a 7,000- square-foot mosque. It would be called the Al Nur Islamic Center. “I told the man this morning, I said, ‘You’d be a welcome neighbor if you build a house there,’ ” Howard A. Forschler told KCAL9’s Crystal Cruz on Wednesday. ” ‘You build that mosque, and you’ll have hostile neighbors.’ ” Harmoush said residents should not fear the plan. “This is a house of God, and shouldn’t really...

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...

resident Obama's recent executive action on illegal immigration, deferring deportations and giving millions of individuals access to work permits, Social Security, Medicaid and other benefits, was front and center during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday where attorney general nominee and U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch testified. Under questioning from Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, Lynch argued that regardless of an individual's lawful status in the United States, they should have the right to work. ... Attorney General Eric Holder, who Lynch will replace if confirmed, has openly stated he believes amnesty for those who entered the country illegally...

Ayman Mohyeldin has suggested that Chris Kyle, the real "American Sniper," was a "racist" whose military missions were nothing less than "killing sprees." With opinions like that, you might imagine Mohyeldin to be some unhinged bloviator from the bowels of the anti-American far left. Or, an NBC foreign correspondent [who formerly worked for Al Jazeera] who regularly reports on events in the Middle East. Which is exactly what he is. Ayman vented his bile on today's Morning Joe. View the video here.

Russia has suspended work in the PACE for a year following the adoption of a resolution depriving the Russian delegation of its voting rights in the organization until the April session. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted on Wednesday a resolution depriving the Russian delegation of its voting rights in the organization until at least the April session. The resolution stresses that the revision of the decision and other sanctions against Russia could be held during opening meetings of the April session if Moscow demonstrates substantial progress in meeting the PACE demands over Russia's alleged role...

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica—Cuban President Raúl Castro demanded Wednesday that the U.S. return the base at Guantanamo Bay, lift the half-century trade embargo on Cuba and compensate his country for damages before the two nations re-establish normal relations. Mr. Castro told a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that Cuba and the U.S. are working toward full diplomatic relations but “if these problems aren’t resolved, this diplomatic rapprochement wouldn’t make any sense.” Mr. Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Dec. 17 that they would move toward renewing full diplomatic relations by reopening embassies in...