Free Republic

The German federal police are expanding its anti-terrorism unit GSG 9 and installing a special squad in Berlin. The move is a reaction to ongoing terrorist threats in the capital. The federal police squad that deals with terrorist attacks is to become significantly larger, and will set up a second base in Berlin. “We’re talking about around a third of the current strength of the unit,” GSG 9 commander Jérome Fuchs told Berlin state broadcaster RBB on Monday, before adding that finding the right personnel would be a “big challenge,” and that “fitness, strength of character, and teamwork” were particular...

Over a career that has taken him to Afghanistan and Iraq, Col. Patrick Duggan has seen the lethal power of drones. Now, as a base commander in the nation’s capital, he is worried that frequent illegal flights buzzing over Washington could pose a threat. In the middle of a federal no-fly zone for drones, in some of the most sensitive and restricted airspace in the United States, technicians working with Duggan recorded nearly 100 drone sightings over two months last summer. And that was just around two Army posts he oversees. Many of the operators were probably oblivious to the...

Russia is in possession of an underwater nuclear drone capable of carrying a 100-megaton nuclear warhead, a recently leaked draft of the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review confirmed. The weapon, referred to in the document as an “AUV,” or autonomous underwater vehicle, is featured in a chart that lays out Russia's multiple nuclear delivery vehicles. Pentagon officials warn in the posture review that Russia has actively diversified its nuclear capabilities, a strategic advantage it has over the United States

Crazed mobs of people belonging to a militant socialist political party called the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) spent Saturday morning vandalizing H&M stores at malls across South Africa over a monkey sweatshirt advertisement that the internet deemed to be “racist.”The EFF is currently the third-largest party in both houses of the South African parliament.A declaration from the EFF states that the party “draws inspiration from the broad Marxist–Leninist tradition and Fanonian schools of thought in their analyses of the state, imperialism, culture and class contradictions in every society.” The party has been repeatedly accused of racism against people who are...

A source involved with the film's international rollout says the Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks drama was presented to the Lebanese censorship board, which nixed it, citing a "boycott Israel" list. Lebanon has banned Steven Spielberg's newspaper drama The Post just days before the film is set to premiere in Beirut. A source involved with The Post's international rollout says the movie, which stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, was presented to the Lebanese censorship board, which nixed it, citing a "boycott Israel" list that includes Spielberg due to his Oscar-winning Holocaust film Schindler's List (the 1993 film shot some...

WASHINGTON, DC — Attendees at a protest Thursday expressed frustration over former U.S. President Barack Obama’s failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, which he promised to do on the first day of his presidency. The protesters also denounced President Donald Trump. An imam calling for Gitmo, as the facility is commonly known, to be shut down also urged authorities to detain U.S. President Donald Trump in a similar facility for refusing to give into the demonstrator’s demands. Many demonstrators placed the blame on the fairly new U.S. President Donald Trump for keeping the detention center, ignoring his predecessor’s eight...

Donald Trump has come under fire for recommending US citizens accused of terrorism be prosecuted before military tribunals. But despite the criticism, Trump's concerns are not only merited -- they are, in fact, within the bounds of the law. In November of 2010, Ahmed Ghailani, an al Qaeda terrorist who bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, received a "near-total acquittal," in the words of former Justice Department official John Yoo. Ghailani, in this case a non-citizen, was convicted of just one count of conspiracy, receiving an acquittal on 284 of 285 charges. The odd verdict was...

Erdogan said the operation against the Afrin enclave aims to “purge terror” from his country’s southern border. Afrin is controlled by a Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG. Turkey considers the YPG to be a terrorist group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has waged a bloody insurgency within its borders. A YPG spokesman in Afrin said clashes erupted after midnight between his unit and Turkish troops near the border with Turkey. Rojhat Roj said the shelling of areas in Afrin district, in Aleppo province, killed one YPG fighter and injured a couple of civilians on...

The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday said it had destroyed a border-crossing Hamas attack tunnel, the third in recent months, that penetrated hundreds of meters into both Israeli and Egyptian territory from the Gaza Strip, in an airstrike on Saturday night. “We completed the destruction of a third terror tunnel,” spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters early Sunday morning, denying claims made by Hamas that it was a smuggling tunnel. The tunnel, which was constructed differently from most tunnels in Gaza, began in the city of Rafah and crossed into Israel under the Kerem Shalom Crossing, through which hundreds...

Berlin fears the European Parliament’s planned amendment to the so-called Dublin Regulation could see many more refugees settling in Germany, news magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday. The Dublin Regulation requires people seeking asylum to register in the first EU state they enter, and for that state to assume responsibility for processing their claim. But if the proposed reform is passed, responsibility could shift from the arrival state to the EU country where any of the applicant’s relatives live. Under such a change, “Germany would have to accommodate significantly more asylum seekers,” said an Interior Ministry memo, quoted by Der Spiegel....

..... ....Yes, contrary to what one might expect, the Government of Israel wanted continued U.S. payments to UNRWA, fearing that their termination might cause a new intifada, the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, or renewed warfare with Hamas. Also, Jerusalem sees UNRWA as a lesser evil than alternative recipients of the money, such as the PA. ..... And even if no one replaced U.S. donations, denying UNRWA money does not get to the heart of the problem, which lies not in its sponsored activities but in its perpetuating and expanding population of "Palestine refugees" in three unique, even bizarre ways:...

Albanian-American roofer Florin Krasniqi has been living in Brooklyn and smuggling American guns into Kosovo to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army--this time for war against its erstwhile saviors, NATO and the UN. The KLA are the bin Laden-trained, Iran-backed narco-terrorists whose 1999 jihad against the Christian Serbs we helped fight, abetting secession and creating a mono-ethnic terror haven and future Islamic republic in Europe. Krasniqi, who raised $30 million from fellow Albanian-Americans to help finance the KLA's war, is the subject of a documentary by Dutch filmmaker Klaartje Quirijns, titled "The Brooklyn Connection," which will air Tuesday night at 10...

Having survived the recent cabinet reshuffle the international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt, is confronted with the biggest headache of her short ministerial career: the fallout of the US intention to cut funding to UNRWA, which constitutes one of the most serious challenges to UK policies in the Middle East. Donald Trump’s threat to cut financial assistance to the UN agency specifically responsible for Palestinian refugees will be a disaster not only for the refugees but also for Israel and neighbouring countries. It does not advance US interests either. Provoked by the Palestinian rejection of Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as...

The Caliber 3 training facility takes down pics of the famous comedian snapped during a family visit Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is taking heat from fans after photos of him at a West Bank “anti-terrorism” course were posted online earlier this week. The Caliber 3 training facility, located near the settlement of Efrat south of Bethlehem, posted the photos of Seinfeld on its Facebook page with the message, “Finally we are allowed to tell you! Jerry Seinfeld and his family were in Caliber 3. During their visit to Israel last week, they came to us for a special and exciting activity...

A Kuwaiti paper reveals another monstrous Obama betrayal. We thought the Obama administration could stoop no lower when it was revealed that the administration transferred $1.7 billion in untraceable cash to the Islamic Republic as ransom for the release of four Americans hostages they were holding. We were wrong. In its twilight weeks, the administration gave its consent to allow the Iranians to receive 116 metric tons of natural uranium from Russia as compensation for its export of tons of reactor coolant. According to experts familiar with the transaction, the uranium could be enriched to weapons-grade sufficient for the production...

US troops and their allies will shoot Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants in the face, beat them to death with shovels or drop bombs on them if they don't surrender, the US military's most senior enlisted member has said.In an eyebrow-raising set of postings on social media on Tuesday, Command Sergeant Major John Troxell warned that ISIS members who refuse to quit will be dispatched with "extreme prejudice," including via a small shovel known as an entrenching tool."If they surrender, we will safeguard them to their detainee facility cell, provide them chow, a cot and due process,"...

Pic of Mogherini and Abbas shaking hands and smiling, uncopiable. A new report in the London-based Al Hayat newspaper says that Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas will appeal to the European Union in an attempt to sideline US President Donald Trump's role in the Israeli-Arab conflict. The report quoted a senior PA figure who said that Abbas will ask the EU to increase the funding they provide to the PA in order to make up for the budget shortfall should Trump cut American aid to the PA as he has threatened. The source also said that Abbas will "ask...

A worried dictator sings a worried song, even if he feels obliged to deliver its refrain with a fired gun in place. For even Hassan Rouhani, leader for now of Iran's theocracy, seems to have felt obliged to note publicly that the natives have grown restless. And has had to add his support of their expression, if through clenched teeth. "People want to talk about economic problems, corruption and lack of transparency in the function of some of the organs (of the state) and want the atmosphere to be more open," he has been forced to admit on Twitter. He's...

Four former senior US officials claimed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered the Obama administration a two-state solution in which Israel annexed the settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria in exchange for land in northern Sinai, next to Gaza, Haaretz reported. According to the officials, Netanyahu told then-US President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State John Kerry that he was sure Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would agree to to the plan. However, when the US looked into the idea, they received a negative response. Netanyahu's office has denied this report, claiming it "is not accurate." In November 2017, Social...

Scott Adams argues in Win Bigly that President Trump has "weapons grade" persuasion skills. In the tumble over Fire and Fury, those skills are on display, as Trump deploys political jiu-jitsu to suck up the "media energy" and turn the tables on his detractors, columns linked realclearpolitics James S. Robbins, writing at usatoday.com, says Trump has turned the tables on the "overwrought speculation about the president's mental fitness": Klavan says Fire and Fury seems like "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing": The nation's journalists cover this obvious nonsense because otherwise, they'd have to enter what to them is...