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The president of Turkey and king of Jordan joined the long line of world leaders, religious figures and superstars set to speak at Muhammad Ali's funeral Friday. Ali family spokesman Bob Gunnell announced funeral details at a news conference Monday. California imam and scholar Zaid Shakir will preside over the service at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. …

Columbus police say a robbery suspect was asked for identification by officers after being detained, and that's when he handed over the victim's driver's license. ... the suspect, Mohammed Abdullah Ahmed ... additional property of the victim was also found, and Ahmed was arrested and charged with robbery.

TEL AVIV – While France is facing Israeli criticism for suggesting the deployment of international observers to the Temple Mount, WND has learned the Kingdom of Jordan is floating its own plan to consolidate power at the holy site, proposing non-uniformed Jordanian soldiers patrol the sensitive complex. The Jordanian proposal was quietly made in recent days to Israeli and U.S. officials, according to diplomatic sources here. The Israeli government immediately rejected the possibility of Jordanian soldiers, uniformed or not, stationed inside the Jewish state. The diplomatic sources said that last month a Jordanian general and other Jordanian military officers held...

The Jordanian lawyers union held a rally in solidarity with the Palestinians on Tuesday in what could have easily been termed an Israel hate fest. The lawyers drew blue stars of David on the ground in the hallways and stairs of Amman's courthouse, so that all those coming and going could have there chance to sully the Jewish symbol. The lawyers were given one hour off, between 11am and 12pm, in order to take part in the show of hatred. Jordanian media outlets reported that the participants were yelling "death to Israel," and set fire to Israeli flags. The lawyers...

AMMAN, Jordan — Just after nightfall Feb. 3, a warrant arrived at the city’s main women’s prison for the execution of Sajida al-Rishawi. The instructions had come from King Abdullah II himself, then in Washington on a state visit, and were transmitted from his private plane to the royal court in Jordan’s capital. A clerk relayed the message to the Interior Ministry and then to the prisons department, where it caused a stir. State executions are complicated affairs requiring many steps, yet the king’s wishes were explicit: The woman would face the gallows before the sun rose the next day.

ISIS-killer King Abdullah II of Jordan, that's who! And as is the case with current Canadian -and Australian- leadership,  King Abdullah II of Jordan also appears to have a far better grip on dealing with challenges to US security/interests these days than clueless-and-of-dubious-agenda Obama regime ever will. Perhaps this is not a surprise: even though there's been some bumps in the relationship (i.e. backing Saddam Hussein 2x), ever since the 6-Day War Jordan has become known as one of the most stable US allies in the Middle East, running a moderate Islamic government that doesn't care much for extremists,...

The Obama administration earlier this year turned down a request from Jordan for Predator spy drones that would help it locate targets in the war against the Islamic State. The refusal, disclosed by a House Armed Services Committee, member, is gaining importance today since Jordan has emerged as a critical player in a U.S.-led coalition to destroy the terror group. On Tuesday, the Islamic State released a video of its execution by fire of a capture Jordanian pilot. Jordan retaliated on Thursdaywith F-16 air strikes on the Syrian town of Raqqa and is vowing a relentless war against the Islamic...

Jordan confirmed on Wednesday that “The Jordanian King Abdullah II will participate personally on Thursday in conducting air strikes against the shelters of the terrorist ISIL organization to revenge the execution of the Jordanian pilot Maath al-Kassasba by the ISIL.” Media outlets reported the King Abdullah II as saying “The war against ISIL will not end and we will fight them in their shelters.”

Members of the House Armed Services Committee met with Jordan's King Abdullah Tuesday not long after news broke that ISIS had burned to death a Jordanian pilot captured in the fight against the terrorist group. In a private session with lawmakers, the king showed an extraordinary measure of anger — anger which he expressed by citing American movie icon Clint Eastwood.

President Obama will forego a visit to the Taj Mahal during his visit to India in order to travel to Saudi Arabia for King Abdullah’s funeral, the White House announced early Saturday morning. Vice President Biden was initially scheduled to lead the U.S. delegation, but he will instead now remain in Washington and Obama will add the stop onto his return from India, where the president is embarking on a three-day trip to foster economic ties with the nation. “President Obama and the First Lady will travel to Riyadh on Tuesday, January 27 in order to pay respects to King...

NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said on Friday that President Barack Obama‘s statement on the passing of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud was ironic and just an attempt at being polite because in reality, the late king “could not stand” President Obama. According to Engel, Saudi Arabia was against the “democratization” that the U.S. encouraged with its support for the Arab Spring and its opposition to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “One of the big ironies here is that President Obama, in his statement, said how close he was to King Abdullah — King Abdullah did

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102292477

Afted Islamic extremism with “Zionist extremism” in remarks on Monday regarding the fight against terrorism. He made the comments during a meeting with Jordan’s president and members of the Lower House’s Democratic Gathering Bloc. While saying that there was a civil war taking place between moderate and extremist camps within Islam, the Jordanian monarch added that at the same time, “there is Zionist extremism,” and that “stakeholders should acknowledge there is extremism in all camps,” The Jordan Times reported...

SMILED as soon as he heard the most famous war cry of Islam, “bismillah al-rahman al-rahim,” Arabic for “in the name of Allah the most gracious, the most merciful.” Watch Obama smile as soon as Bergdahl gives the most famous Muslim expression, the “Bismillah” or the “Basmallah”: ... The “basmallah” is the Islamic expression for victory and only indicates that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s father is a Muslim. Think that the man is acting as “Muslim” for a stealth operation to rescue his son who is already in good hands in Germany? And what is with the long beard and trimmed...

I didn’t set out to become Twitter famous in Saudi Arabia. As a senior White House reporter for POLITICO, I’ve traveled all over the country and the world with President Barack Obama, touching down in Air Force One on one unremarkable tarmac after another to record his arrival. I seldom find them noteworthy — and, as an infrequent tweeter, rarely ever share-worthy. But Riyadh was different. A stunning display of Saudi guards awaited Obama at the airport Friday in perfect formation, swords in hand and scarves on their head. So I did something I don’t normally do: I tweeted the...

Homaidan al-Turki was convicted in 2006 on charges related to having an underage slave whom he sexually molested. Al-Turki resided in Colorado and his now serving out his prison sentence in that state. Since his conviction, there has been a very strong effort from Saudi Arabia to have him released. ... A judge has now ruled that al-Turki isn’t going anywhere (that is if you don’t count his being moved from a State Correctional facility to a federal one). ... al-Turki has never really been completely cleared in the murder of Executive Director for Colorado’s Department of Corrections. Clements was...

A 58-year-old airport worker was charged Friday with allegedly planning a suicide bombing at a passenger terminal at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in Kansas. The suspect, Terry Lee Loewen, an avionics technician who lives in Wichita, was arrested earlier in the day as he attempted to use his security pass to drive a vehicle that he thought contained explosives onto the tarmac at the airport, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Wichita. In fact, the car contained only dummy explosives. U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Loewen spent months developing a plan to drive a carload of explosives...

The office of the Colorado Governor’s office, headed by Democrat John Hickenlooper, may be on the brink of a major scandal involving attempts to release a Saudi prisoner. Homaidan al-Turki was convicted in 2006 for keeping a sex slave locked up in his residence. He repeatedly molested her over a period of years. You might remember that earlier this year, the Executive Director for Colorado’s prisons, Tom Clements, denied a request to release al-Turki and have him sent back to Saudi Arabia. Eight days later, Clements was shot dead shortly after opening his front door on March 19, 2013. ......

The strange thing about the crackup in U.S.-Saudi relations is that it has been on the way for more than two years, like a slow-motion car wreck, but nobody in Riyadh or Washington has done anything to avert it. Snip//follow on to freep Red Badger//

Full title: EXCLUSIVE: Deputy of banned suicide-bomb-endorsing cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi had White House meeting with National Security Council staff --------------------------------------- The UK and U.S. have banned Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who leads the anti-Israel International Union of Muslim Scholars. The Obama administration invited that group's VP, Abdallah bin Bayyah, to a private meeting on the day it announced support for Syria's rebelsThe organization ended its December 2012 board meeting by calling for the end of Israel and the return of its lands to the PalestiniansHours after MailOnline began inquiring with the National Security Council about its meeting with bin Bayyah, the cleric's...