Free Republic

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to cut the 23-year prison term being served by an American Muslim activist who admitted participating in a Libyan plot to assassinate King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Abdurahman Alamoudi, 59, of Falls Church has been in jail since his arrest in September 2003. He pleaded guilty to illegal business dealings with Libya and admitted receiving more than $500,000 in cash from Libyan officials as part of an assassination plot. According to court records, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi wanted then-Prince Abdullah killed after a 2003 Arab League summit where Gadhafi felt...

TERRORIST CONNECTIONS Not only was Mr. Norquist entangled with the criminal dealings of Jack Abramoff, but documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel. According to Senate lobbying disclosure records of his now defunct lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, around the years 2000 and 2001 Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist plot and who is presently serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison. Court documents and a October 15, 2004,...

Biyara, controlled by militant Islamists until the US-led war, is wary of news that such groups may be returning. By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor BIYARA, IRAQ - The merchant shuddered when told that Islamic militants of Ansar Al Islam - the Al Qaeda-backed group dispersed by American bombs last March - may be returning to Iraq. "If they come to my orchard, I will shoot them myself!" vows Shaho Abdulkarim, a merchant-smuggler with a perfect moustache. Such a visceral reaction is common in this village on Iraq's northeastern border with Iran, where Ansar imposed...

JIZAN, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Blood and bullets littered the halls Wednesday of a Saudi housing complex where a shootout with security forces left three suspected militants dead, including a man wanted by the FBI for possible terrorist threats against the United States. The hours-long gunfight ended Tuesday afternoon after Saudi security forces stormed the three-story complex in Jizan, 600 miles south of the capital, Riyadh, shooting their way through the doors. At least one security officer also died and two suspected militants were arrested, the Interior Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency....

German Cardinal Says Pope 'In a Very Bad Way' Tue September 30, 2003 08:23 AM ET BERLIN (Reuters) - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the German head of the Vatican body which oversees doctrinal matters, was quoted on Tuesday as saying Pope John Paul was in very poor health and the faithful should pray for him. "He is in a very bad way," Ratzinger told Germany's Bunte magazine in an interview. "We should pray for the pope." Ratzinger, who heads the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told the magazine that the 83-year-old pope had taken on too much, but...

Was it stolen for parts or to make a flying bomb? How could a Boeing 727 just disappear without a trace? You might think in this age of satellite surveillance and sophisticated air-traffic controls, it would be near impossible for a jetliner to be stolen, flown away and not seen again for more than four months. Yet, that's just what has happened in a daring feat that has governments around the world fearing the jetliner may be in the hands of terrorists, just awaiting its final suicide mission. The story began May 25, when two men climbed aboard an idle...

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then were whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned. The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those...

WHO KILLED MUHAMMAD BAQIR AL-HAKIM? By Kathleen Ridolfo A symbolic funeral was held in the holy city of Al-Najaf in Iraq on 2 September in memory of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim. The ayatollah was killed in a car bombing on 29 August as he left the Imam Ali Mosque in Al-Najaf following a noon Friday prayers sermon. Some 80 Iraqis were killed and more than 100 injured in the incident. Al-Hakim's body has yet to be identified, and mourners carried a casket containing only his wristwatch, ring, and pieces of his turban in a three-day procession from Baghdad...

The online free encyclopedia, Wikipedia, informs that noted Philippine publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer was murdered on November 24, 2000 by members of the police force. According to Wikipedia, “Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, were abducted in Makati, the business district of Manila. They were later killed, and their vehicle dumped. In 2001, a number of arrests were made. One of the accused, police colonel Glenn Dumlao, named Cesar Mancao and Michael Ray Aquino as the organisers of the murders. Mancao and Aquino both fled the country. Dumlao later disappeared.” “The ultimate reasons for Dacer’s murder remain a...

The Tanzanian tanker, "M. T. Beacon", that disappeared from the northern Mozambican port of Nacala about a month ago, carrying 882,020 tonnes of fuel, is yet to return, reports Tuesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias". The fuel, worth about 345,000 US dollars, was to be delivered to Quelimane, the capital of Zambezia province, to supply the central region of the country, and there must now be fears that it has been stolen. The vessel, hired by the Mozambican company ADECNEL from the Tanzanian firm M.C.J. Shipping, left the port without authorisation, during the night, after it was discovered that...

Scores of masked gunmen went on an audacious daylight rampage through the flashpoint Iraqi town of Fallujah yesterday morning, launching twin attacks on a police station and civil defence compound that left at least 23 people dead and 35 wounded. At least 14 of the dead were lightly-armed police officers, recently recruited to the force, who could offer little resistance to the heavily-armed gunmen, suspected of being foreign fighters. About 70 raiders shouting "God is great" fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machineguns at policemen, throwing grenades as they cleared the police station room by room and released at least 20...

WASHINGTON -- The health of terrorist cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik, is deteriorating _ renewing fears that his death in prison could trigger an attack on the United States, officials said Thursday. There is no credible indication that an attack on the U.S. is imminent, said several law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation. In a two-page bulletin, dated Dec. 8, the FBI reported to federal intelligence officials that Rahman was rushed from prison to a Missouri hospital two days earlier for a blood transfusion. There, doctors discovered...

The Associated Press MADRID, Spain Sept. 18 — Police have arrested several suspects on orders of a Spanish judge who is investigating al-Qaida links, the government said Thursday, a day after he issued the first known indictment against Osama bin Laden in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Interior Ministry said the arrests were made in the southern region of Andalusia and elsewhere in Spain, but it gave no details. News agencies and the Web site of the El Pais newspaper said three men were detained and that they are linked to Tayssir Alouni, a journalist for the Arabic-language TV station...

The investigation into the shooting death of Spc. Alyssa Peterson found her suicide came soon after she was reassigned for objecting to prisoner interrogation techniques but did not specifically give a reason for her action. A Flagstaff soldier who died in Iraq committed suicide after she refused to participate in interrogation techniques being practiced by her U.S. Army intelligence unit, according to a report about an Army investigation aired by a Flagstaff radio station. U.S. Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson, 27, died Sept. 15, 2003, in Tel Afar, an Iraqi city of about 350,000 residents in the northern part of...

Prisoner Abuse: Self-flagellation over alleged human rights violations is not a foreign policy, but a recipe for long-term disaster. Some who now complain about Guantanamo had a key hand in making it necessary. Newsweek's retraction of its story on the alleged flushing of pages from the Quran down a Guantanamo commode has not dissuaded critics convinced that Guantanamo is, as Amnesty International put it, a modern-day "gulag." One of those who believe the human rights of prisoners at Guantanamo are being violated is former President Carter. Speaking in September 2003, two short years after 9-11, he opined as to how...

Dr. Howard Dean’s fans come out for the big Democratic summer shindig As Tom Andrews, the director of the leading national antiwar coalition, began his speech at the Maine Democrats’ big outdoor summer shindig in Falmouth, John Baldacci signaled his bodyguard/driver to move the large, dark SUV up the driveway. The vehicle soon hid in the trees, its engine quietly humming. At first, the governor seemed to be paying attention as Andrews, the former First District congressman, launched into rousing tales of how the country, under President George W. Bush, had gone "from peace and prosperity to war and recession."...

Posted on Tue, Aug. 05, 2003 Macon mayor defends trip to Africa Ellis says Ghana could process city's parking tickets By Mike Donila Telegraph Staff Writer Macon Mayor Jack Ellis on Monday defended his plans to visit Africa, saying that his mission, in part, is to encourage Ghanian officials to import more goods from Middle Georgia. Ellis also said that during his weeklong trip he will lay the groundwork to possibly enable Macon's Ghanian sister city of Elmina to process local parking tickets. "Ghana is very important to the city, the state - even the region where we live. They...

George Bush told Tony Blair shortly before the invasion of Iraq that he intended to target other countries, including Saudi Arabia, which, he implied, planned to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Mr Bush said he "wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD proliferation, mentioning in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan," according to a note of a telephone conversation between the two men on January 30 2003. The note is quoted in the US edition, published next week, of Lawless World, America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules, by the British international lawyer Philippe...

BOSTON -- The FBI has issued an alert, asking the public to be on the lookout for four Middle Eastern men the agency wants for questioning on terrorist matters and they may be in New England. The FBI in Portland, Maine has alerted State Police that a witness may have seen two men who resembled the wanted men in that area. The witness spotted them in Naples, Maine, just northwest of Portland, last Sunday around 4 p.m. They were heading south on Route 302. The witness told police the two men were driving a late-model, slate-gray BMW with Massachusetts plates....

<p>''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''</p>