Free Republic

The relations between Russia and the Shiite's religious leadership in Lebanon started to develop in the beginning of the seventies. The spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shia community, Imam Moussa Al-Sadr, visited Moscow in 1972 and asked Soviet authorities to issue humanitarian aid to his people. At the same time cooperation between the Marxist factions of the PLO that were active in Lebanon and Soviet military intelligence – GRU, intensified greatly. Several soviet officers (speaking fluent Arabic) even visited Palestinian terrorist training camps in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon between 1972-1975. Using their connections in PLO they managed to establish...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The comedian David Cross once remarked that our country must be in trouble because we have to read other countries' newspapers to find out what is going on in our own nation. Last Saturday, community activists convened at a small house on the west side of Ann Arbor, Mich., to witness video footage compiled by independent journalists of the police brutality at the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas conference in Miami last month. The footage, and the lack of media exposure of what actually happened, is living proof that our country's media is currently divorced...

Harrods owner Mohammed Fayed is preparing a bid for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers. He is assembling a team of senior newspaper executives to work on an offer. Fayed is believed to have contacted Lazards, the investment bank hired by Hollinger International - the Telegraphs' parent company - which is carrying out a strategic review that is likely to lead to a sale. Fayed has also met Richard Desmond, owner of Express Newspapers and one of the favourites to buy the Telegraphs should they be put up for sale. Desmond and Hollinger each own half of the West Ferry...

Dearborn man pleas guilty to aiding terror group 3/2/2005, 3:36 a.m. ET The Associated Press DETROIT (AP) — A Dearborn man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist group. According to federal prosecutors, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, 33, hosted meetings in his home in late 2002 where a guest speaker from Lebanon solicited donations for Hezbollah, which has been designated by the United States as a terrorist organization. The government didn't identify the speaker at the meetings. It said the money was intended for Hezbollah's orphans of martyrs program to benefit the families of those killed...

Staffer in spying case says political threats hurt prospects at firm WASHINGTON--A former top Republican Senate staff member who resigned under pressure last year for spying on his Democratic staff colleagues is now accusing them of threatening partners at a law firm that was considering hiring him--including the firm's chairman, a prominent Boston attorney--in order to scuttle his job offer. In an affidavit he submitted to federal prosecutors this week, Manuel Miranda, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, said that Democratic staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee telephoned partners at the firm of McDermott Will & Emory...

Turkey al-Qaida Leader Said Killed in Iraq Fri Sep 10, 2:52 PM ET By JAMES C. HELICKE, Associated Press Writer ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish television broadcast on Friday a video from militants saying that the suspected leader of a Turkish al-Qaida cell blamed for suicide bombings in Istanbul was killed by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq (news - web sites). The video showed a body of a bearded man with a bloody face said to be that of Habib Akdas. A man, apparently a Turkish militant, was heard in the video saying Akdas was killed in a bombing raid this week...

A Turkish suspect who allegedly ordered the start of a suicide truck bombing attack against an Istanbul synagogue has confessed to having ties with the Osama Ben Laden's Al-Qaeda network, Turkish newspapers reported Sunday. Hurriyet daily on Sunday identified as Yousuf Pollat as the man allegedly behind the November 15 bombing, one of two suicide attacks on synagogues in the city on the same day, that left 24 people dead and hundreds wounded. The suspect, whom police said was captured last week while trying to slip into Iran, has been charged with trying to overthrow Turkey's "constitutional order" - a...

CAIRO (AP)--Saudi police reportedly arrested the kingdom's most wanted terrorist on Thursday, according to pan-Arab satellite TV station Al-Arabiya. The Saudi-owned station reported late Thursday that police captured Faris Ahmed Jamaan Al Showeel al-Zahrani in Abha, a town 800 kilometers southwest of the capital, Riyadh. According to the Cable News Network, the Saudi Interior Ministry said an operation targeting the man was still going on. Saudi authorities released a list of 26 most wanted terrorists following a series of bombings in Riyadh on May 12, 2003, that killed 26 people. On Nov. 8, another suicide attack on a Riyadh...

Soros Shadow Party Stalks DeLayBy Richard PoeFrontPageMagazine.com | April 12, 2005 On the day that Terri Schiavo died — victim of a court order condemning the brain-damaged woman to death by thirst and starvation — Representative Tom DeLay of Texas did what few politicians have the courage to do these days. He spoke his mind."This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most," DeLay told Fox News on March 31. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." DeLay’s strong language worried some Republicans. They pointed...

Like father, like son, assert U.S., European and Arab intelligence agencies who believe one of Osama bin Laden's youngest children is beginning to call the shots at the Iranian branch of al-Qaida. Saad bin Laden is one of an estimated 400 operatives of the terror network recruited and protected by Tehran's hard-line clerics, according to the Washington Post. Tehran's elected government, headed by the reformist President Mohammed Khatami, does not appear to have control over this group, called the Jerusalem Force. The Post reports the 24-year-old bin Laden is computer savvy and fluent in English. His father groomed him for...

A SEBEGALESE Muslim cleric deported from Italy as a danger to state security was quoted today as telling a pan-Arab newspaper that he had met three times with Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The cleric, Abdel Qadir Mamour, told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview by telephone from Dakar, Senegal, that he had the meetings with bin Laden in Sudan from 1993 to 1996. Mamour said bin Laden had provided money to finance his trading in diamonds between Africa and Belgium, but did not say how much money was involved or if bin Laden was...

KARACHI - The suicide bomb attack at the Muhaya residential compound in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on November 9 in which at least 17 people were killed - most of them foreign Arabs - was neither an episode of global jihadi terrorism nor part of a conspiracy to destabilize the House of Saud. A Pakistani undercover intelligence operator who recently returned from Riyadh told Asia Times Online that the attack was in fact the result of a deep divide within Saudi society between strict religious conservatives with little exposure to the outside world, and a more "liberal" element...

Mansoor Ijaz just reported Bin Laden is in Iran as of July.

A NEWSWEEK article by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball about the memo linking Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein dismisses a recent WEEKLY STANDARD report as "hype" and concludes, the "tangled tale of the memo suggests that the case of whether there has been Iraqi-al Qaeda complicity is far from closed." While it's refreshing to see the establishment media pick up the story, the Newsweek article is less than authoritative. The authors write: "The Pentagon memo pointedly omits any reference to the interrogations of a host of other high-level al Qaeda and Iraqi detainees--including such notables as Khalid...

<p>November 18, 2003 -- Two Iranian diplomats who arrived in New York recently to work at their country's U.N. mission are being investigated by the FBI after a transit cop caught them videotaping the subway in Queens, The Post has learned. The sharp-eyed officer spotted the suspicious pair entering the elevated station at Roosevelt Avenue and 52nd Street in Woodside at 1:30 a.m. Sunday and shooting tape in various directions as they waited for a Manhattan-bound No. 7 train.</p>

'Saddam's deputy' in anti-US call The US blames Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri for attacks on its troops A message purported to be from the fugitive deputy of executed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has called on insurgents to make a final push against US forces. The message attributed to Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri urged Iraqi fighters to "make this year... decisive for victory". The message also called on US President George W Bush to "come clean about the scale of US losses". Ibrahim is the most senior member of Saddam Hussein's regime still at large. The message, aired by Dubai-based satellite broadcaster...

Coiffed, groomed and impeccably suited, Mithal al-Alusi cuts an imposing figure at this trendy hotel. In the empty bar lounge, he makes himself at home to a breakfast of fresh fruit, strong coffee and a constant flow of cigarettes. The leader of the Democratic Party of the Iraqi Nation is in town to promote his vision for a new Iraq and accept an accolade from an unlikely sponsor – the American Jewish Committee – who honored him with a Moral Courage award at their annual dinner last week. His act of courage was an attempt to break Iraq's long-standing taboo...

WASHINGTON, March 25 - Despite recommendations by Army investigators, commanders have decided not to prosecute 17 American soldiers implicated in the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, according to a new accounting released Friday by the Army. Investigators had recommended that all 17 soldiers be charged in the cases, according to the accounting by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. The charges included murder, conspiracy and negligent homicide. While none of the 17 will face any prosecution, one received a letter of reprimand and another was discharged after the investigations. To date, the military has...

ASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — The head of American forces in the Middle East has summoned his senior commanders to a meeting in Tampa, Fla., next week to discuss strategy for combating the guerrilla fighters in Iraq and terrorists from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The officer, Gen. John P. Abizaid, is to meet with top Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps generals and admirals based in the region and the United States at the headquarters in Tampa of the Central Command, which controls American military operations from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. Pentagon officials insisted Friday that the...

Middle Eastern hatreds poison left-wing political life 18.11.2003By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent PARIS - Once they squabbled over who was pro-Soviet and who was not. Now, French leftwingers are split just as deeply by a new wedge: Islam. One of the biggest leftwing conferences in years, the European Social Forum (ESF), gathering tens of thousands of people, ended in bitter discord at the weekend over a speaking invitation to a leading Muslim intellectual accused by Jewish groups of anti-Semitism. Several political parties boycotted his appearance, which was loudly applauded by an audience of a thousand. Some political leaders attended reluctantly;...