Free Republic

April 20 — At least three senior United Nations officials are suspected of taking multi-million dollar bribes from the Saddam Hussein regime, U.S. and European intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS. One year after his fall, U.S. officials say they have evidence, some in cash, that Saddam diverted to his personal bank accounts approximately $5 billion from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. In what has been described as the largest humanitarian aid effort ever undertaken, the U.N. Oil-for-Food program began in 1996 to help Iraqis who were suffering under sanctions imposed following the first Gulf War. The program allowed Iraq to sell...

Neo-Nazi Links with Arab Palestinian Extremist OrganizationsFrançois Genoud: Financier Linking Nazi and Palestinian Militant NetworksFrançois Genoud (1915–1996) was a Swiss Nazi sympathizer, financier, and political activist who served as an important intermediary between former Nazis, European far-right networks, and Palestinian militant organizations during the Cold War. Rather than acting as a militant himself, Genoud used financial, legal, and political connections to support causes he viewed as aligned with his anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli worldview (Aarons & Loftus, 1991; Lee, 1998). Early Connections to Arab Nationalist and Pro-Nazi Networks Genoud's involvement with Arab nationalist causes predated the emergence of modern Palestinian militant...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called out “incompetent communists” who are in charge of the Cuban government, as the United States is eyeing possible intervention regarding the island nation just off the coast of Florida. The country is facing nearly all-day electricity blackouts, as CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba earlier this month to meet with officials. There are also concerns about Cuba possibly wanting to act against the U.S. with military drones, according to Axios. “Cuba’s in a lot of trouble because, unfortunately for them, it’s run by a bunch of incompetent communists,” Rubio said. “Being a communist...

Former Cuban President Raúl Castro has been indicted in connection to his alleged role in the 1996 downing of two planes operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The indictment was unsealed on Wednesday. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and other officials are expected to make the announcement in Miami.

Five high-ranking military leaders died in the span of just 10 days, according to the Cuban government — though it’s remained mum on the causes. Brigadier General Armando Choy Rodriguez, 87, was the latest aging revolutionary to die, with Marta Abreu Central University announcing on Twitter that he passed away Monday. Rodriguez was the founder of the “July 26 Movement” in Las Villas, and an author and historian, WPLG-TV in Miami said. Also on Monday, Manuel Eduardo Lastres Pacheco, a former general who served under Argentine Ernesto “Che” Guevara during the revolution in the late 1950s, passed away, Cuban television...

The U.S. is taking steps to indict Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba and brother of Fidel, in connection with the downing of planes 30 years ago, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The potential indictment — which would need to be approved by a grand jury — is expected to focus on Cuba's deadly 1996 shootdown of planes operated by humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. The plan comes as the U.S. heaps pressure on the Cuban government. The Trump administration has threatened heavy tariffs on any country...

SINN Fein/IRA, their apologists, the gullible, the wishful thinkers and the pig ignorant may have left some people with the impression that last Tuesday, August 31, was the 10th anniversary of the day - as we are forever being poetically told - when "the IRA guns fell silent". Quite apart from this being a pathetic fallacy (it wasn't that the guns decided to stop shooting; the IRA leadership finally grasped that murdering unionists was counterproductive), this assertion is simply untrue. In fairness to Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and their dreadful colleagues, they made it perfectly clear what they were offering...

While keeping her eyes on the aircraft," the FBI report continued, "she observed a 'red streak' moving up from the ground toward the aircraft at an approximately 45 degree angle. The 'red streak' was leaving a light gray colored smoke trail. The 'red streak' went passed [sic] the right side and above the aircraft before arcing back toward the aircraft's right wing." "She never took her eyes off the aircraft during this time," the 302 continued. "At the instant the smoke trail ended at the aircraft's right wing, she heard a loud sharp noise which sounded like a firecracker had...

DAKAR, Oct 25 (AFP) - Senegal said it would restore diplomatic ties with China, becoming the latest west African country to ditch relations with Taiwan in favor of mighty Beijing. A government statement, released after a Beijing trip by Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, hailed the "important decision to renew diplomatic relations with China" and said both countries would soon exchange ambassadors. A joint statement published in the Chinese capital and reported by the state news agency Xinhua said the re-establishment of ties after the hiatus "conformed to the interests and aspirations of the two countries." China had severed its...

•“Sheikh Abdul Qader Fadlallah Mamour, 39 years of age, who was expelled last November by Italy back to his native country, Senegal, declared what he described as Jihad against Europeans in Africa.” •“Mamour stated, in a phone call with As-Sharq Al-Awsat, that he has under his command 9,000 Africans from Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco and neighboring African countries, who are prepared to what he described as carrying out Jihad operations against the Europeans, who he accused for stealing the resources of his country.” •In a former interview, Mamour revealed to A-Sharq Al-Awsat that he had met with Osama bin Laden three...

PORTLAND — A former Washington state Transportation Department engineer yesterday has found himself, his imam and his mosque swept into an unfolding investigation by Portland's joint terrorism force led by the FBI. Farid Adlouni, a civil engineer and U.S. citizen who once worked out of the Vancouver office, was profiled in The Oregonian newspaper yesterday as a man with business ties to a top Osama bin Laden aide and who has attracted FBI scrutiny. Adlouni, 38, yesterday said he had "done nothing wrong." The imam, Mohammad Abdirahman Kariye, also a U.S. citizen, was recently charged with two felony counts of...

Two weeks ago, a group of senior intelligence officials in the Defense Department sat for an hour listening to a briefing by a writer who claims — I am not making this up — that messages encoded in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament provide clues to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. One of the officials told me that they had agreed to meet the writer, Michael Drosnin, author of a Nostradamus-style best seller, without understanding that he was promoting Biblical prophecy. Still, rather than shoo him away, they listened politely as he consumed several man-hours of valuable...

DETROIT -- Two men pleaded guilty Friday to charges of conspiracy to violate the "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act" (RICO), U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy announced today. Imad Majed Hamadeh, 51, of Dearborn Heights, and Theodore Schenk, 73, of Miami Beach, Fla., pleaded guilty here before U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen to the following charges: operating a criminal enterprise to traffic in contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig Zag rolling papers and counterfeit Viagra; producing counterfeit cigarette tax stamps; transporting stolen property; and money laundering. Sixteen other defendants faced the same charges. Some of the profits derived from the illegal...

At 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 14, Ana Belen Montes, a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), walked into a public telephone booth outside Washington's National Zoo and made two calls to pager numbers later traced by federal agents to Cuba's Directorate of General Intelligence (DGI). She already had compromised the identities of CIA agents, revealed U.S. military secrets and exposed the contents of classified files. But, as Montes sent repeated signals to her DGI handlers during the days immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the ...

CHICAGO (AP) — Lawyers for the family of an American teenager gunned down in Israel's West Bank urged a jury Wednesday to make U.S.-based Islamic groups pay millions of dollars in damages for allegedly helping finance terrorism. "The international terrorist group Hamas has some of its biggest supporters right here in the United States," Richard M. Hoffman, attorney for the family of the slain teen, said in the penalty phase of a civil trial against several Islamic groups and an alleged Hamas fund-raiser. U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys ruled earlier this month that Hamas was responsible for the shooting of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department inspector general is investigating whether FBI agents involved in espionage and terrorism cases improperly used informants and subjects of investigation to benefit private businesses they were running on the side, according to officials and documents. The allegations, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press, include that agents' and intelligence assets' private companies were involved in business deals in China and the Middle East about the same time the FBI was investigating Chinese efforts to acquire sensitive technology. The FBI says it is cooperating with the investigation. "Any time there is a request...

Was the 9/11 Commission Report a cover up? Were we lied to when we were told that 9/11 was the first time that Al-Qaeda hijacked and destroyed an American jetliner? Five time Emmy® award-winning investigative journalist Journalist Peter Lance and bestselling author Peter Lance asserts just that in his blockbuster new book Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (HarperCollins). In his 2003 bestselling nonfiction work, 1000 Years for Revenge (HarperCollins), Lance laid bare the plotting and events that led to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. After reading 1000 Years for Revenge, Governor...

The U.S. government's detaining of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo naval base in Cuba is supremely ironic given Fidel Castro's long-standing support for global terrorism. As we continue our worldwide battle against terrorists, this sly but significant terror monger on our very own doorstep should not be overlooked. Castro is a bankrupt dictator with a decades-long history of support for violent, anti-American terror groups, obsessive hatred of the U.S., sophisticated spy rings operating on our soil and a potentially deadly biowarfare capability. While he has not been directly linked to the attacks of Sept. 11, considerable circumstantial evidence ties...

Here is the campaign video of Ubax Gardheere, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 15 around 1996, which makes her something like 40 now. She represents herself as a "proud single mother" of three children, an immigrant, a Muslim, and a person of color. Here is a transcript of the video, which is pretty much a word salad that might have been written by an algorithm. Hi! I'm Ubax Gardheere. I'm a single black immigrant mother and homeowner in the unincorporated area of Renton, and I'm running for King County council in district 9. I came...