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Most of us that were around in 2003 still remember the run up to the invasion of Iraq well. And, it seems the puzzle pieces are falling into place with Iran. First, there was the recent tough talk from Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen. Last week, there were Admiral Mullen’s comments: Late last week, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed to the Qods Force for its “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. Adm. Mullen added that evidence would be publicized in the coming days that newly made Iranian armaments are being smuggled into Iraq...

A prominent member of al Qaeda was killed in fighting with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist website on Sunday. Abu Suleiman al-Otaibi, formerly one of the group's leaders in Iraq, was killed in a "fierce battle with the worshipers of the cross" in Paktia, it said without giving the date of the battle. Another al Qaeda member, identified as Abu Dejana al-Qahtani, also died in the fighting, it added. Afghan officials said they had no information on the report. But the government earlier said in a statement that "five opposition" fighters...

Over the last five years, more than 4,000 brave young Americans have given their lives in the service of this country. Thousands more have been wounded, some maimed for life. More and more of their countrymen seem persuaded that they shouldn’t have been ordered into Iraq, but surely no one can deny that our troops have marched into the jaws of death believing they’re truly defending all of us, our mutual home, and its well-being. It’s tragic, of course, and we lament the deaths, the suffering, the disproportionate sacrifices our military families have made. And along with the physical costs,...

RAMADI, IRAQ (April 29, 2008) – It was a typical quiet morning on April 22, with the temperature intensifying as a bright orange sun emerged high from the horizon. Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, a rifleman with 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, and Cpl. Jonathan T. Yale, a rifleman with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, RCT-1, were standing post, just as they’ve done numerous times before. During a standard length watch in a small checkpoint protected by concrete barriers where they overlooked the small gravel road, lined with palm trees leading to their entry control point.

Zack Taylor, who is a former Border Patrol agent, says a bill being proposed by a member of the Congressional Hispanic caucus would make it very difficult for law enforcement agents to operate in areas along the U.S.-Mexico border where illegal immigration and drug smuggling is rampant. H.R. 2593 is called the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act of 2007. Sponsored by Representative Democrat Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), it would create new public lands wilderness areas along the southern border, especially in Arizona -- which is the largest point of entry for illegal immigration and drug-smuggling traffic in the United States. Zack...

Do leaders of the Democrat National Committee (DNC) actually expect the American people to believe that their party has the wherewithal to manage the most powerful nation of earth, when that same party is apparently unable to manage a simple system of pre-election primaries? After nearly two years of plotting and scheming to recapture the White House, just months before election day the Democrat Party remains bitterly divided and may have to spend an additional $30 million dollars just to rerun primary elections in Florida and Michigan. Is that any way to run a party, Howard Dean? And yet despite...

There is a working assumption among the American people that a new president enters the White House free of responsibility for the errors of the past, free to set a new course in any program or policy, and therefore free—at the very least in constitutional theory, and perhaps even really and truly free—to call off a war begun by a predecessor. No one would expect something so dramatic on the first day of a new administration but it remains a fact that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, and the power that allowed one president...

Since yesterday, the Macedonian police is in action at various locations in Skopje, due to the tip it received for suspicious money transfer. Our sources confirm, a Macedonian bank had tipped off the Authorities since January 2007 of suspicious money transfers. An Albanian, Bekir Halimi has been receiving 2,115 euros payments from Kuwaiti Organization "Revival Islamic Heritage Society". "The Revival Islamic Heritage Society has been blacklisted by the United Nations because of their close ties to terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda", said Interior Ministry's spokesperson, Ivo Kotevski. The money transfer through a swift account was done via Kuwaiti and two...

* Iraq govt agrees truce with Sadr bloc to end clashes * Iraqi military to halt activities for 4 days - Sadr aide * U.S. military makes no comment on agreement (Adds government, Sadrist comments) By Waleed Ibrahim and Khalid al-Ansary BAGHDAD, May 10 (Reuters) - Iraq's government on Saturday agreed a truce with the movement of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to halt weeks of fighting in eastern Baghdad between Shi'ite militia and security forces, officials said. The truce could end violence that has killed several hundred people, trapped the 2 million residents of Sadr City in a battle zone...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Lebanese army overturned on Saturday two government measures against Hezbollah that had triggered the group to take control of Beirut, and the military urged gunmen to withdraw from the streets. The army said in a statement it was keeping the head of the security at Beirut airport in his post and that it would handle Hezbollah's communications network in a way "that would not harm public interest and the security of the resistance." Lebanon's U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said earlier on Saturday that he was putting the two issues, which have sparked the worst fighting...

The MSM will hail this as another stunning military victory for "Mookie" al-Sadr.

BAGHDAD – Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Division – BaghdadSoldiers killed eight criminals, who attacked Coalition force soldiers with rocketpropelled grenades and small-arms fire. ISF and MND-B Soldiers also seized four weapons caches during combat operations in Baghdad May 9 that continue to safeguard Iraqi citizens.At approximately 11:30 a.m., MND-B soldiers discovered an improvised explosive device and a 122 mm rocket off a tip from Iraqi National Police.At approximately 2 p.m., soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, killed three criminals who attacked their patrol with small-arms fire and RPGs.At approximately 2:20 p.m., soldiers from 1st Brigade...

BALAD, Iraq – Responding to attacks on Iraqi and Coalition forces, U.S. Special Operations Forces killed eleven Special Groups criminals in the Sadr City area of Baghdad May 9.U.S. SOF were providing security for Coalition forces who were making safety infrastructure improvements in Sadr City.During the operation, Special Groups criminals attacked Iraqi and Coalition forces with rocket propelled grenades and small-arms fire from the ground and from rooftops. U.S. SOF returned fire, killing nine. The firefight continued, and U.S. SOF authorized a Coalition aircraft to engage. The aircraft fired one Hellfire missile, killing two criminals.-30-

Riyadh: Prominent Saudi Islamic scholar and member of the Senior Scholars' Commission Shaikh Saleh Bin Fauzan Al Fauzan has warned Saudi youths against going to Iraq to fight in the war-torn country. While labelling those who go to fight in Iraq as "preachers of evil," he urged everyone to tell the authorities about such people. Shaikh Al Fauzan was speaking to members of the teaching faculty at Imam Mohammad Bin Saudi Islamic University here on Tuesday. According to the scholar it is obligatory on the part of all to admonish those youths who are eager to go to Iraq to...

When President Bush visits Israel next week, he should offer to bring that ally fully into the U.S. missile defense network - a step that might forestall an Israeli attack on Iran this year. Two of the most strategically minded Members of Congress I know - Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.) - have enlisted 63 colleagues to urge the move as Bush prepares to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding. Specifically, the bipartisan group is calling on Bush to give Israel the advanced X-band radar system that would enable Israel to knock down Iranian missiles early...

(Rochester, N.Y.) - Three convenience stores in Rochester were fronts for a money laundering operation to fund an Islamic terrorist organization according to the FBI Mohammed Muthana said federal agents are unfairly targeting the convenience store he's run for 13 years. "We are citizens almost 8 years but we don't feel it. After September 11, no, they treat me the wrong way." In carefully timed raids, FBI agents hit five locations seizing boxes of records and computer components. Experts from the U.S. Treasury Department and IRS examined financial documents. According to search warrants, they were looking for evidence of large,...

Hezbollah fighters, their guns blazing, seized control of west Beirut on Friday after three days of street battles with pro-government foes pushed Lebanon dangerously close to all-out civil war. The sectarian fighting had eased by early afternoon and the army and police moved across areas now in the hands of Iranian-backed Shiite opposition forces who routed Sunni militants loyal to the Western-backed government. "There are no clashes anymore because no one is standing in the way of the opposition forces," a security official said as convoys of gunmen firing celebratory shots into the air and flashing the victory sign took...

Hizbollah swept through major areas of Beirut in an overnight push that resulted in the deaths of 11 and forced Lebanese MPs out of the capital The Shia group seized control of large areas of Beirut’s Sunni Muslim districts, which are loyal to the US-backed government on Friday. The pro-Western leadership was effectively besieged with top leaders Saad Hariri of the Sunnis and Walid Jumblatt of the Druse sect surrounded in their compounds in Muslim western Beirut. Many MPs were forced to convene an emergency outside the capital. The fighting left the country’s army on the brink of potentially decisive...

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War On Terror: The U.S. has been releasing Gitmo terrorists only to see them rejoin the jihad and kill again. The blood of their victims is on the hands of the ACLU.Abdullah Salim Ali al-Ajmi is the latest Gitmo grad set free to murder again. The Kuwaiti man was captured fighting with the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan and sent to Cuba before being released into the custody of the Kuwaiti government. Kuwait wasted no time freeing al-Ajmi, part of the powerful al-Ajmi tribe of merchants, along with four other repatriated Gitmo detainees. Al-Ajmi, in turn, crossed the border into...

BAGHDAD – Alert Iraqi Army soldiers and Iraqi Policemen prevented potential improvised explosive device attacks in the East Mansour district of Baghdad when they stopped a vehicle that was being used by criminal forces to transport IEDs in the area at approximately 1 p.m. May 7.Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 54th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, along with Jamia Iraqi Policemen, conducted a traffic stop after noticing a suspicious individual driving down a road.After stopping the vehicle, the alert soldiers and policemen discovered the deadly weapons in the vehicle. The forces fired at the man and wounded him.Inside the vehicle, the...

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Kaplan, in a recent publication, the US National Defense University described the Iraq War as a "major debacle." According to the latest statistics, 500 insurgent attacks are still taking place each week. Still, you are convinced that there is a "learning curve" for the US Army in Iraq. What exactly has been learned? Kaplan: One attack is one too many. But a while ago there were 500 attacks a day. So empirically, the situation has improved -- whether measured in terms of Iraqi cilivans killed or American soldiers attacked, insurgents captured or the number of intelligence tip-offs....

HOUSTON -- An illegal immigrant accused of murdering a Houston police officer two years ago now faces the death penalty after a jury convicts him of capital murder. Jurors convicted Juan Leonardo Quintero-Perez  of capital murder shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday.  The jury began deliberating the illegal immigrant's fate shortly after noon. The sentencing phase of the trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday at 10 a.m. Quintero faces the death penalty. Quintero, 34, faced the capital murder charge in the 2006 death of  Houston Police Department Officer Rodney Johnson. Investigators said Perez shot Johnson four times in the head during...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Between 5 and 10 percent of inmates freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay have returned to terrorism since their release, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday. Gates was briefed on the statistics after a Kuwaiti man released in 2005 from the U.S. prison on Cuba carried out a suicide bomb attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. "I was told today that the recidivism rate ... those who return to the battlefield, is probably somewhere between 5 and 10 percent -- maybe 6, 7 percent, something like that," Gates said. "We...

TIKRIT, Iraq – After receiving small arms fire, Sons of Iraq repelled an enemy attack, killing four insurgents and discovering a large cache in the Salah ad Din province, May 7. Several suicide vests were discovered along with 800 lbs of homemade explosives and other IED making materials. An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team dismantled the munitions on site for disposal. “Any effort in which forces can eliminate excessive amounts of explosives, places Iraq one step closer toward a state of overall security,” said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, spokesperson for Multi-National Division–North.

Why are the presidential candidates—and so many counterterrorism experts—afraid to say that the Al Qaeda threat is overrated? Michael Sheehan is on a one-man mission to put terrorist threats into perspective, which is a place they've rarely or ever been before. Already you can see it's going to be a hard slog. Fighting the inflated menace of Osama bin Laden has become big business, generating hundreds of billions of dollars for government agencies and contractors in what one friend of mine in the Washington policy-making stratosphere calls "the counterterrorist-industrial complex." But Sheehan's got the kind of credentials that ought to...

DUBAI, March 9 (Reuters) - The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, has been arrested in Iraq, the Arabic television station al-Arabiya reported on Friday, quoting the Iraqi Defence Ministry. Arabiya said Muhajir, successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been detained in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in Mosul in northern Iraq.

The potentially transforming events in the 2008 campaign are matters of war and peace. Both may be in play between now and November, in ways that add extra volatility to the presidential race. Let's start with war: The United States is already fighting two of them, in Iraq and Afghanistan. But judging from recent statements by administration officials, there is also a small, but growing, chance of conflict with Iran. The administration is signaling the Iranians that they need to stop supplying and training Shiite militias in Iraq -- or run the risk of U.S. retaliation. The Maliki government in...

It's official: We're fighting . . . terrorists. You can also call them violent extremists if you like, but never use jihadist or mujahedeen or Islamo-fascist to describe our enemy. These words are deemed pejorative and offensive, according to a recent Bush administration memorandum to federal employees whose jobs involve explaining our ongoing war to the public. I didn't get the memo, but the headline on the Associated Press story caught my eye. Two years ago at the National Press Club I challenged the president to go on a communications offensive here at home to redefine the war. I argued...

It was particularly memorable, Craig Williams said, the night he almost died.Williams, 44, is a Concord resident, and, among many other accomplishments, is a former federal prosecutor and the endorsed Republican candidate for the 7th Congressional seat, U.S. Congress, House of Representatives. The year of his near death was 1991, it was the dead of winter and he was flying across the icy North Atlantic with his squadron, the VMFA(AW)-121 Green Knights. He was a first lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, flying as a Weapons and Sensor Officer in the back seat of a two-seater F/A-18D Hornet, on...

DISSIDENTS everywhere pay a price for their courage. Many have paid the ultimate price. No one can better understand what such courage entails - what it means to resist repression and state terror, notwithstanding the risk of persecution or prison or worse - than a fellow dissident. Which is why Ida Nudel has taken up the cause of Imad Sa'ad. more stories like this White House: Time not right for three-way Mideast meeting Palestinian police clash with militants in West Bank; 3 hurt Rice embraces Mideast errands Prodded by U.S., Olmert and Abbas meet privately Probe of Israeli leader drags...

Our enemy says he is fighting jihad warfare to extend the Islamic faith; the basis of that claim rests on his exegesis of Quranic and Islamic Law injunctions. Irrespective of whether we or other Muslims accept or deny the legitimacy of his claim, if that is his stated doctrine, then that is the doctrine we must study and comprehend. That is the doctrine that will provide the indicators and warnings of future threats, that is the basis of our threat model. That fact that other Muslims do not engage in violent jihad bears no relevance to our problem set or...

This a 2'30 video to celebrate Israel, the Land of God and His people, for now and ever.

U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedeen, which "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism. "There' s a growing consensus [in the Bush administration] that we need to move away from that language," said a former senior administration official who was involved until recently in policy debates on the issue. Instead, in two documents circulated last month by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the multiagency center charged with strategic coordination of the U.S. war on terror, officials are...

Legislation that would restrict the sale of certain men's magazines on U.S. military bases around the world would be bad for morale, according to soldiers at Grafenwöhr. U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., has introduced legislation that would close a loophole in the current law that allows the sale of some sexually explicit material on military bases by lowering the threshold required to deem material "sexually explicit." A Department of Defense committee that reviews materials sold on bases ruled last year that magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse are not pornographic. But Broun's Military Honor and Decency Act includes language that...

Driving across town the other day I saw a bumper sticker bearing what’s become a common refrain: “Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism!” I sped up to catch a glimpse of this patriot - a twenty-something dude in jeans and a black t-shirt sporting the obligatory goatee and super-sized sideburns. Given the choice between him and his Prius or Paul Revere thundering through the New England countryside - I prefer the guy on the horse. It’s an interesting phenomenon, this redefinition of patriotism. Employing a term that’s perpetually misused by the left - it’s Orwellian the way they’ve turned...

by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted: 05/06/2008 Is war with Iran inevitable, even imminent? Or is peace at hand? "West Offers Iran 'Refreshed' Deal," ran the headline in the May 3 Washington Times. The story described an offer to Iran, agreed to by all five members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- of a sweetened grand bargain, if Tehran will suspend its enrichment of uranium. Blessing the offering in London was Condi Rice. Details will not be made public, but the offer is said to include Western aid to Iran for a civilian...

I met John McCain for the first time on Wednesday at a luncheon here in the Lehigh Valley. To test his sense of humor, I wore a black baseball cap from West Point with gold letters: U.S.M.A. 1958. As I shook his hand, I said, ''John, we were the same class, but you went to the wrong academy!'' He laughed and said, ''Nice cap!'' We were that same 1958 class, he at Annapolis, and I at West Point. And, we are the same age, but all similarities end there. McCain is eminently qualified to be president for a host of...

TAMPA – The explosives trial of a former University of South Florida student will likely be put on hold after prosecutors appealed a judge's evidence ruling this afternoon. A judge ruled today that prosecutors may not use certain evidence in the trial, which had been scheduled to start Monday, of a former University of South Florida student accused of transporting explosives. Ruling in the case of Youssef Megahed, Judge Steven D. Merryday said prosecutors had missed a court deadline for sharing evidence with the defense and barred the government from using files taken from the Megahed family home computer. Late...

I wrote recently about the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical Islam, eliciting a number of responses. Let me try and put this conflict in proper perspective. Understand, the current battle we are engaged in is much bigger that just Iraq. What happens in the next year will affect this country and how our kids and grandkids live throughout their lifetime, and beyond. Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the seventh century. They have been defeated in the past and decimated to the point of taking hundreds of years to recover. But they can never...

He rose through the ranks and paid his dues. He beat the odds to become not only the top Canadian military man, but a key cog for NATO in Bosnia-Herzegovina and subsequently became the point-man in the Free World’s War on Terror with his successful tenure as Commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Not only did he work tirelessly to rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces to a level of respectability, he instilled a long-lost pride in our military by spearheading the change from ‘peacekeeping force’ to actual ‘military’. In some nations, they would give him...

Mr Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian response harming American’s overseas interests existed, he said the damage inflicted by Tehran would be “far higher” if Washington took no action. “This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do,” he said. “Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.” Mr...

May 5, 2008 -- WANT to know a key reason why you're being robbed at the gas pump? Well, my fellow Americans, you're being punished - for giving Iraqis a chance at democracy. The Saudis ordered President Bush not to remove Saddam. The last thing that the despotic bigots in Riyadh wanted was change in the Middle East - especially change that empowered common men and women, Shia Arabs and Kurds. But our president believed that the Saudis were not only America's friends, but his personal pals. He defied our Saudi masters. Silly him. These past several years, the furious...

I came back to Baghdad last week. First, it is important to mention the main cause that made me leave everything behind and go to Syria. By the end of 2006 my neighborhood had become an unbearable place. No one could continue there. It was without any simple services, from bakery shops to the hospital and physicians. They all closed their doors and left. But the real cause is something hidden inside me that affected me more. One day while driving my car to work I saw a corpse thrown alongside the road, and for next three days no one...

Skip the intro video, go below, where articles stand.

Iraqi MP Iyad Jamal Al-Din: We Are Like a Bird Born in a Cage - America Broke the Cage Open, but the Bird Does Not Know How to Fly Following are excerpts from a TV debate with Iraqi MP Iyad Jamal Al-Din, which aired on LBC TV on September 10, 2006. Iyad Jamal Al-Din: Blessed be America for giving Saddam a good kick, sending him straight into the abyss of jail. Blessed be America for giving Mula Omar a good slap, sending him straight into the garbage bin of history and into the dunghills of oblivion. These people were...

I invite the reader to a thought experiment. Imagine that it is the late 1930s, and "conservative" intellectuals in Western Europe and the United States formulate an ideology which says that their countries should be open without discrimination to all people of all political persuasions. Then imagine that large numbers of immigrants of all political persuasions begin entering and settling in those countries, including many Nazi immigrants from Germany and Austria. Then imagine that the Nazi immigrants, following the Nazi ideology as laid out in Hitler's Mein Kampf, begin promoting the spread and institutionalization Nazism in their new countries, while...

Here is a partial transcript of the interview Matthew Rothschild conducted with Scott Ritter on April 18 for Progressive Radio. To listen to the entire interview, click here. Q: For several years now, you’ve been warning of the possibility that the Bush Administration will attack Iran. What do you think the likelihood is now in the waning months of the Bush Administration? Scott Ritter: I think we’ve never been at a greater risk of American military action against Iran. Q: Really? Why do you say that? Scott Ritter: Because the Bush Administration has made it clear that they seek to...

In the 1990s, it was often noted that a great many of Bill Clinton's friends were either dead or in jail. Similarly, Barack Obama seems to curry favor with some very questionable characters ... Granted, in some cases Obama disavows them (he sort of did this with Rev. Wright's comments). In other cases, he has not sought their endorsement (such as anti-semite Louis Farrakhan) -- but ultimately, people have to wonder what it is about Obama that attracts the support of Hamas, Communists, and domestic terrorists to him .... This subject came up in last night's debate when a question...

Last week I was in London attending a Global Leadership Forum, sponsored by the Royal United Services Institute, the Princeton Project on National Security, Newsweek International, and Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP. The attendees–from both the United States and Europe–included academics, scholars, journalists, diplomatic advisers and others who inhabit the foreign policy world. The event was well-organized, the conversations wide-ranging, and there was a genuine effort to hear from a diversity of voices (hence my invitation). But there is no question that the dominant outlook of most of those in attendance was left-leaning, which itself made the trip illuminating. I came...