Free Republic

The Embassy of Venezuela in Mexico has been shown, by very different sectors in that country and in Mexico, to be an instrument of the ideological propaganda and political expansion of the personal interests of Hugo Chávez. Observations of interventionism include giving electoral support to the PRD [Democratic Revolutionary Party of Mexico], even "espionage," as well as a presumed importation of high caliber weapons and contacts with the FARC, ETA and Al Qaeda. Mexico City | Tuesday, 15 November 2005 | Vladimir Villegas is a person of Euro-African heritage showing a good sense of humor and charisma. Tall, robust, sporting...

Statement of Chechen commander Shamil Basayev Posted on Saturday, November 02 @ 03:44:37 ICT on Voice Of Taliban Auzu billahi mina sheytani rajim, Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim Praise to Allah, the Lord of the worlds who have created us Muslims and blessed us with His Mercy Jihad in his straight path. Peace and Blessings to Muhammad, his family, his companions and to all those who follow him in straight path until the Dooms day. Reconnaissance - diversionary detachment of shaheeds «Riyadus-Salihin» conducted a successful operation in the very den of the enemy, in its very heart, in the city of Moscow....

A fascinating piece by Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal [July 2] with the title: “How a Secret, Failed Trip to Chechnya Turned Key Plotter’s Focus to America and bin Laden.” The key plotter in this case was 9/11 mastermind and bin Laden’s Egyptian lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The article’s title suggests that Zawahiri’s failure to settle in Chechnya (due to his “detention” by the KGB/FSB in 1996-97) led him to Afghanistan and an alliance with bin Laden. But according to ranking U.S. terrorism expert, Yossef Bodansky, Egyptian Jihad leader Zawahiri was preparing a massive...

JOHN KERRY OUTS CIA AGENT Remember all of the outrage and liberal indignation awhile ago when former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA agent? Evidently it was an unnamed Bush administration official that supplied the name....and the results of that investigation have yet to be made public. Well, it's happened again. Guess who publicly outed a CIA agent this time? Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. That's right...The Poodle's faux pas came yesterday as he was slamming U.N. Ambassador-nominee John Bolton at his confirmation hearings. Here's how it went down. For the majority of the hearings, Bolton...

So Peg Lautenschlager wants to take over the Chai Vang case. We wish the Wisconsin attorney general good luck. She'll need it. We're inclined to agree with the cynics who think this is more about politics than prosecutorial discretion. After all, it's certainly no coincidence that Lautenschlager will be up for re-election in 2006. It's also important to note that Lautenschlager is trying to live down a DWI conviction. Adding insult to injury, she was in a state-owned vehicle earlier this year when she was pulled over and refused to submit to a sobriety test. Clearly, a victory in the...

Saddam's Ambassador to al-QaedaBy Jonathan SchanzerWeekly Standard | February 23, 2004 A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al-Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam/al-Qaeda nexus. What you are about to read bears directly on that debate. It is based on a recent interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in...

Michigan man pleads guilty to aiding Hizballah Yet we are not even to question the loyalties of Muslims in America -- to do so would be "Islamophobia." This story shows why such pieties must be discarded. "Dearborn resident helped terror group," from the Detroit News, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm: DEARBORN -- A Dearborn man pleaded guilty Tuesday to providing material support to Hezbollah, a foreign terrorist organization. Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, 33, admitted to hosting meetings at his Dearborn home during Ramadan in 2002 and allowing a Lebanese man to solicit donations from people there for Hezbollah. The U.S. government...

In this video, Glenn Beck discusses the recent milestone of Elon Musk becoming the world's first trillionaire, following the public listing of SpaceX (0:11-0:22). While political figures like Senator Elizabeth Warren have criticized this level of wealth as a symptom of a 'rigged economy' requiring a wealth tax, Beck offers an alternative perspective on the nature of Musk's success and the value of capitalism (0:41-1:06). Key themes discussed include: Innovation and Risk: Beck details how Musk entered an stagnant aerospace industry in 2002, defying the expectations of experts and risking his entire fortune on a company with a high probability...

<p>February 19, 2002 -- A Jordanian charged with lying to a grand jury recited to a federal judge a list of alleged law-enforcement abuses at his pre-trial evidence-suppression hearing yesterday.</p> <p>Osama Awadallah, 21, said he was physically abused by jail guards, denied access to a lawyer, forced to strip in front of women and denied food that complied with Islamic dietary laws.</p>

Friday, August 27, 2004 A captured al-Qaeda operative has told Canadian intelligence investigators that a Montreal man who trained in Afghanistan alongside the 9/11 hijackers was responsible for the crash of an American Airlines flight in New York three years ago. Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001. The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and "conducted a suicide mission" with a small bomb...

Microwaving Saddam: New weapons likely to see combat Prototypes could paralyze Iraqi militarySpace-age warfare may be used in attack against Baghdad regimeEd Blanche Special to The Daily StarSaddam Hussein may be in for a shock - literally - after telling US President George W. Bush to do his worst in the looming war against Iraq. It seems possible that his command network will become the first target of high-power microwave (HPM) weapons, probably carried by cruise missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These squirt pulses of high-frequency energy that can knock out electronic and communications systems in milliseconds, scrambling computer...

One of France's most distinguished diplomats has confessed to an investigating judge that he accepted oil allocations from Saddam Hussein, it emerged yesterday. Jean-Bernard Mérimée is thought to be the first senior figure to admit his role in the oil-for-food scandal, a United Nations humanitarian aid scheme hijacked by Saddam to buy influence. The Frenchman, who holds the title "ambassador for life", told authorities that he regretted taking payments amounting to $156,000 (then worth about £108,000) in 2002. The money was used to renovate a holiday home he owned in southern Morocco. At the time, Mr Mérimée was a special...

By opening up to Western audiences and calling for a reconsideration of Islamic rhetoric and principles, Hizbullah is attempting to reintroduce itself as a representative of a moderate Islam of the future, distant from the atavism and political agendas of other fundamentalist groups. In a recent speech he gave in the Bekaa last week, the party’s secretary-general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said that it was unacceptable to make “generalizations and categorizations that would involve millions of Europeans who preceded the Islamic world in rejecting a war waged against it.” He said that opening up to millions in Europe and America should...

May 15, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: United States Transfers Lakhdar Boumediene to France Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since 2002, has been transferred to France. As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009, Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of Boumediene’s case. As a result of that review, Boumediene was approved for transfer to France, which was carried out today pursuant to an arrangement between the United States and France. Boumediene was involved in the Supreme Court case, Boumediene v....

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday that the world's Muslims had only themselves to blame for the poverty, misery and violence afflicting much of the Islamic world. The veteran leader made his comments in a speech to religious affairs ministers meeting for the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Last month he sparked a row at the outset of an OIC foreign ministers meeting by suggesting Palestinian suicide bombers should be considered terrorists for deliberately attacking civilians. This time he also laid into the OIC itself, saying its inaction and disunity had damaged its reputation. "I am ashamed to say...

The guise of modern-day terrorism is no longer limited to Palestinian suicide-bombers or the visceral images of the tragedy of 9/11. In a world of ever-increasing ideological disharmony, a new, equally violent terrorist has emerged – the eco-terrorist. Like the purveyors of radical Islamic terrorism, the eco-terrorist uses fear, intimidation, and violence in attainment of its goal, which for the eco-terrorist is simply the reclamation of the Earth to its pre-humanity condition, no matter what the cost. Heading-up this domestic terrorist offensive of radical animal-rights and extreme environmentalism is Paul Watson, who, even amidst the nation’s grief over 9/11, made...

Oh the shame of it all. Last month, 1,300 pro-Palestinian activists from the US and Europe came to the region in the name of peace and social justice to demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. Led by the self-declared feminist, antiwar group Code Pink, the demonstrators' plan was to enter Gaza from the Egyptian border at Rafah and deliver "humanitarian aid" to the Hamas terrorist organization. But it was not to be. Led by Code Pink founder and California Democratic fund-raiser Jodie Evans, the demonstrators were not welcomed by Egyptian authorities. Many were surrounded by riot police and...

<p>Iran is secretly training Islamic terrorists from Uzbekistan for future operations in Central Asia, according to U.S. intelligence officials.</p> <p>Military officials from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran's radical Islamic military units, have been training and supporting militants from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, known as IMU.</p>

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has tapped a controversial lawyer who defended an al Qaeda terrorist and a radical anti-Israel campus leader at Columbia for a “high-ranking” position at City Hall, The Post has learned. Ramzi Kassem, who is also a law professor at City University of New York and a member of Mamdani’s transition team for legal affairs, is the top candidate for Chief Counsel, the most important advisory role in the mayor’s office, according to a source close to the transition team. Kassem, 47, was one of the attorneys who defended Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born leader of the pro-Palestinian encampment...

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...