Free Republic

Jihadists are murdering, raping, torturing, kidnapping, enslaving, and, in some instances, burning people alive — across Africa, and now in Syria. Local jihadist organizations go by different names, but the ideology that drives them is the same: Every one of them deeply believes that Allah wants him to wipe the world clean of the kuffar (infidels). More than 16.2 million Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa have been driven from their homes by jihadi violence and conflict, reports the human rights organization Open Doors. Women and girls are abducted, forced into "marriage," forced to convert to Islam, raped, and subjected to forced...

Donald Trump has once again made headlines, this time for hiring Christian Craighead, a former SAS soldier celebrated for his heroism during the 2019 Nairobi DusitD2 terror attack. Known as “Obi Wan Nairobi,” Craighead earned global recognition for his decisive actions that saved lives during the al-Shabaab assault. Trump, reportedly disillusioned with the Secret Service after the Butler attack, has opted to pay out-of-pocket for a private security team, with Craighead taking a central role. The Nairobi attack, which unfolded on January 15, 2019, was a coordinated assault by al-Shabaab militants on the DusitD2 hotel complex. The siege lasted over...

President Trump has streamlined the process for the US military to carry out airstrikes and raids against terrorist targets by removing policies implemented by former President Joe Biden that limited what commanders could order without executive approval, according to a report. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a directive in Germany earlier this month that officially softened the Biden-era policy constraints and executive oversight needed for airstrikes and the deployment of commandos, CBS News reported on Thursday. The directive, centered on giving commanders more flexibility, also broadens the scope of individuals the military can target, according to the outlet, which cited...

The United States military confirmed Tuesday that it conducted airstrikes in Somalia over the weekend, resulting in the deaths of three Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabab militants. The U.S. Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, stated that the strikes were carried out at the request of Somalia's government in a remote area approximately 35 kilometres northeast of the port city of Kismayo on Sunday. The statement did not disclose the identities of the targeted individuals, and no civilian casualties were reported. Al-Shabab, the largest and most active al-Qaida network globally, has consistently posed a threat to U.S. forces and Washington's security interests. The...

The president of Egypt, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has expressed his support for Somalia in a dispute over an offer by the breakaway northern region of Somaliland to give land-locked Ethiopia access to its coast in exchange for recognition of its independence.In his strongest statement yet on the issue at a press conference in Cairo alongside the president of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Sisi said: “My message to Ethiopia is that trying to seize a piece of land to control it is something no one will agree to.”He added that his country would be ready to provide “support in case of...

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged a Kenyan man with plotting to stage an attack in the style of Sept. 11 at the direction of al-Shabaab, a terrorist group that serves as al Qaeda’s principal wing in East Africa. Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 30 years old, traveled to the Philippines in 2016 to train as a pilot and researched how to hijack an aircraft in preparation for crashing a commercial aircraft into a building in the U.S., Manhattan federal prosecutors said. They said he acted at the direction of an unidentified senior al-Shabaab commander who was also responsible for planning a 2019...

Cholo Abdi Abdullah Obtained Pilot Training and Researched How to Hijack Aircraft in Order to Conduct a 9/11-Style Attack at the Direction of al ShabaabThe Department of Justice announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Cholo Abdi Abdullah with six counts of terrorism-related offenses arising from his activities as an operative of the foreign terrorist organization al Shabaab, including conspiring to hijack aircraft in order to conduct a 9/11-style attack in the United States. Abdullah was arrested in July 2019 in the Philippines on local charges, and was subsequently transferred on Dec. 15, 2020 in connection with his deportation from...

Jihadist terrorist group Al-Shabaab on Friday launched an attack on the famous Hayat hotel in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. The devastating siege lasted for 30 hours.

President Biden has signed an order authorizing the military to once again deploy hundreds of Special Operations forces inside Somalia — largely reversing the decision by President Donald J. Trump to withdraw nearly all 700 ground troops who had been stationed there, according to four officials familiar with the matter. In addition, Mr. Biden has approved a Pentagon request for standing authority to target about a dozen suspected leaders of Al Shabab, the Somali terrorist group that is affiliated with Al Qaeda, three of the officials said. Since Mr. Biden took office, airstrikes have largely been limited to those meant...

We can guess that British Member of Parliament Sir David Amess, cruelly and painfully stabbed to death while meeting with constituents, was likely targeted for his pro-Israel and philo-Semitic views, now that the name of the suspect arrested at the scene has been released.Around 6 PM EDT Saturday, the UK Guardian first reported:Sources have confirmed to the Guardian that the suspect’s name is Ali Harbi Ali, 25.Other British media picked up the story and added details. The Sunday Times and Evening Standard both chose to emphasize the suspect’s family as victims: “Father’s shock after son held over Sir David Amess...

A disturbing report by the Justice Department Inspector General has revealed that incarcerated terrorists associated with international jihadist groups like al-Qaida, ISIS, and al-Shabaab have been allowed to lead religious services in Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) chapels. "We found that some institutions permitted inmates with a known nexus to international or domestic terrorism to lead religious services," said the report, which was issued earlier this month. The Inspector General investigated the BOP's overall Chaplaincy Services Program (CSP), and how it balances inmates' rights to faith-based activity with security risks. Not only did prison administrators allow terrorists to run religious services,...

The past year was very good security-wise. The low number of attacks and victims gave Israelis a relatively high feeling of security, and the intensive focus on coronavirus (and elections) pushed aside other issues that in normal times would have made headlines. But the security challenges are here to stay. The new government, when it is formed, will not be able to avoid them, and top of the list is Iran. Behind the scenes, preparations are already underway for these marathon discussions, which take place mainly within the IDF, and specifically in the new unit formed last year to deal...

Biden administration would order U.S. to lower its shields. On December 16, 2020 the Justice Department issued a press release about the arrest of alleged terrorist, Cholo Abdi Abdullah, who was conspiring with other terrorists from an al Qaeda-affiliated terror organization to carry out a 9/11-style terror attack inside the United States. This substantiates a point I have made on numerous occasions, where the threats posed to America and Americans by foreign radical Islamic Terrorist organizations are concerned, the “All Clear” has most certainly not been sounded. However apparently Joe Biden and Kamal Harris never got or, more likely, never...

Al-Shabaab does not pose a threat to America that cannot be handled more effectively by our global intelligence networks and ability to strike direct threats to our country.On Dec. 4, President Trump ordered most of the approximately 700 U.S. troops out of Somalia. The move wasn’t a full withdrawal, however, as the White House specified the forces will be moved to neighboring countries to continue targeting the al-Shabaab terror group. While addressing the tactical actions our troops would continue to perform in Africa, there was no mention of the strategic justification for our presence—because there is none. Al-Shabaab is unquestionably...

Cholo Abdi Abdullah is expected in federal court in New York later Wednesday A Kenyan man spent years training in the Philippines to conduct a 9/11-style attack against the United States, going through flight school and researching methods to get into the country and hijack a plane, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. Cholo Abdi Abdullah was allegedly part of an al-Shabaab unit and taking orders directly from a commander in the African terror group -- one who was responsible for previously directing a deadly 2019 hotel attack in Nairobi, prosecutors said. "This chilling callback to the horrific attacks of September 11,...

Relocation of 700 troops from Somalia reverses administration course; move follows troop cuts in Iraq, Afghanistan President Trump ordered the Pentagon to pull nearly all U.S. troops out of Somalia, where for 13 years they have been fighting a low-intensity battle against the local al Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabaab, U.S. officials said. The roughly 700 troops stationed in Somalia would move to bases in Kenya and Djibouti and enter Somalia to conduct shorter counterterrorism missions against al-Shabaab, as well as a smaller force of Islamic State militants. The American troops are expected to leave the country by early next year, the...

5 others, including soldiers, also wounded in attack targeting district commissioner At least two people were killed and five wounded, including soldiers, Tuesday when a car bomb blast targeted an official in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials said. The bomb attack went off near the Sinka Dher intersection in Mogadishu. “The Al-Shabaab terrorist group targeted the Kahda district commissioner with a car bomb blast killing two people and wounding five others, including soldiers and the Kahda district spy chief,” Abdifatah Hassan, a police captain in Mogadishu, told Anadolu Agency. Speaking to Anadolu Agency by phone, Ismail Mukhtar Oronjo, a Somali...

The ritual decapitation of 800 Christians who refused Islam 539 years ago—and whose commemoration was last Friday, August 14—sheds much light on contemporary questions concerning the ongoing conflict between Islam and the West. Background: When he sacked Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II was only 21-years-old—meaning he still had many good decades of jihading before him. He continued expanding into the Balkans, and, in his bid to feed his horses on the altar of Saint Peter’s basilica—Muslim prophecies held that “we will conquer Constantinople before we conquer Rome”—he invaded Italy and captured Otranto in 1480. More than half...

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has taken out a high-value member of the Al Shabaab terror group in Somalia on Thursday. AFRICOM confirmed the successful airstrike in an emailed statement to American Military News. The Al Shabaab member, who was not named, had a history of making explosives and was reportedly working to place Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) on a public road at the time of the strike near the vicinity of Kurtun Warey, Somalia.

A former Department of Homeland Security agent says that an investigation he was conducting into a fundamentalist Islamic group operating in the U.S. may have helped stop San Bernardino jihadi Syed Farook had the government not shut down his probe. During an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly on Thursday, Philip Haney said that in 2012 as an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center, he opened an investigation into a Sunni Islamic group called, Tablighi Jamaat, a subset of the fundamentalist Deobandi movement. But Haney said that just a year into the investigation it was shut...