Free Republic

Iran initiated 9/11 attacks’ 22 January 2004 HAMBURG – The Iranian intelligence service was the initiator of the 11 September 2001 suicide-jet attacks on New York and Washington, according to a defector quoted Thursday by German police at the Hamburg terrorist trial.One Federal Crime Office interrogator said he had taken down a statement in Berlin on Monday from a former Iranian agent who insisted that Iran had employed Saudi radical Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network to carry out the attacks. The defector could not appear himself in court because he had been promised anonymity, two police officers told the trial...

(AFP) He is the brother of jihadist Mohamed Merah, who four years ago killed three soldiers and four Jews, but in his extremist, anti-Semitic family it is Abdelghani who is seen as the black sheep. Abdelghani Merah has light brown eyes, a shaven head and a surname immediately associated with terror in France, but after losing everything because of his brother's acts he has found a calling: de-radicalizing youngsters drawn to jihad. In an interview with AFP, he says he will never forget the morning in March 2012 when he turned on the television and recognized the street where his...

BERLIN - Two suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks will be deported to their native Morocco, authorities said Tuesday, including one who is awaiting a new trial after being sentenced to 15 years for helping the al-Qaida suicide pilots. Both Abdelghani Mzoudi and Mounir el Motassadeq were served with the notice Monday, said ministry spokesman Marco Haase, the first step in what is expected to be a lengthy process that will take place only after all the appeals in their cases go through. Mzoudi, 31, was acquitted in February on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership...

MILWAUKEE (AP) Federal authorities have found seven people in Wisconsin suspected of bribing U.S. embassy officials in the Persian Gulf to obtain illegal visas. Six of the seven don't appear to have terrorist ties, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis D. Schmitz. He said little is known about the seventh person, Ahmad Abed Atia, 23, who had been living in Milwaukee. Atia was uncooperative with investigators and has been transferred to Chicago on a federal visa fraud charge, Schmitz said. The seven are part of a larger group of foreigners from Jordan, Pakistan, Syria and Bangladesh suspected to have paid at...