Free Republic

Italy goes after its lost terrorists 26.08.2004 By PETER POPHAM in Rome Incensed by the disappearance last weekend from Paris of convicted terrorist Cesari Battisti, Italy says it will press France and Nicaragua to return 12 other convicted left-wing terrorists who have evaded justice by living in exile. They include Alessio Casimirri, the only member of the Red Brigade gang that kidnapped and killed former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro still at liberty. He is living in Nicaragua. All the others are believed to be in France. France agreed in 2002 to return Italians who are wanted for serious crimes,...

A judge has ordered 17 suspected members of Italy's Red Brigades militant group to stand trial next year, on charges including murder. Five suspects will be tried for the murder of a Labour ministry consultant shot dead in 1999. They include Nadia Lioce, already in jail for murdering a police officer. The ultra-left Red Brigades terrorised Italy during the 1970s and 80s, with a wave of attacks and bombings blamed for killing 415 people. Most of their leaders were eventually arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. Shoot-out But the group re-emerged with the murder of consultant Massimo d'Antona in...

PARIS, March 9th, 2005 (Xinhuanet) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias said in Paris Wednesday that the United States attempts to assassinate him. File photo At a news conference held here, Chavez warned that "if the United States succeeds in assassinating me, Venezuela's oil workers will not sell even a drop of oil to it, and the people's movement triggered by the assassination will make the oil price exceed 100 US dollars a barrel." He reiterated that his country had enough evidence to prove the US attempt. Chavez arrived in Paris on Wednesday for a 24-hour working visit, during which...

Police in Sweden say Iraq's former information minister could have been involved in the brutal murder of an Iraqi agent there 18 years ago. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf - "Comical Ali" - became ambassador to Sweden shortly after the killing in 1985. Officers in Stockholm have confirmed they have received a tip-off claiming he was implicated. Iraqi Majid Husain had sought asylum in Sweden and planned to tell officials about Iraq's security apparatus and agents in Europe, it is reported. But he disappeared - his body was found two months later chopped into 54 pieces and stuffed into two suitcases. Police...

On January 18 Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, told a placard-waving anti-war crowd: "The greatest patriots of this country are here today...The president said it'd be a cold day in Washington before this country turns against this war, but it is a cold day in Washington and here we are." Apart from Conyers nasty insinuation people who disagree with his leftwing views about war against the genocidal Saddam are not patriotic, what can we deduce from his presence? Well, for one, Rep. does not like America and prefers the company of totalitarians to that of genuine democrats. And how...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he had evidence that the United States was planning to assassinate him, an allegation the U.S. government earlier dismissed as "sild." "We hAve enough evidence ... If anything happens to me, the person responsible will be the president of the United States," Chavez told reporters in New Delhi. He did not elaborate. The exchange of accusations between the left-wing Chavez and U.S. officials has reached fever pitch in recent weeks, raising questions whether the multibillion-dollar energy relationship between Washington and one of its top oil suppliers is at risk....

For a free people in the age of terrorism, what is the proper balance between civil liberties and national security? This debate wracks every Western country. Looking at the United States, the “united we stand” solidarity that followed September 11, 2001, lasted just some months, after which a much deeper divide emerged as conservatives proved far more profoundly affected by the atrocities than did liberals. The result has been the growing political acrimony of the past three years. Many examples illustrate this divide. For the most recent, take the argument concerning Ahmed Omar Abu Ali between the conservative Bush administration...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A Virginia man accused of plotting with al-Qaida to assassinate President Bush (news - web sites) has admitted his guilt on numerous occasions, an FBI agent testified Tuesday. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, admitted "multiple times" that he joined al-Qaida while studying overseas in Saudi Arabia and discussed plans with the terrorist network to assassinate President Bush, FBI agent Barry Cole said. The agent also said the suspect talked about plans for a Sept. 11-type attack in which "hijackers would board planes in Great Britain and Australia ... so they did not have to have U.S. visas."...

An American citizen trained by the Saudi government in Virginia will stand trial for plotting to assassinate the president of the United States and yet the media focus on allegations of torture? For a free people in the age of terrorism, what is the proper balance between civil liberties and national security? This debate wracks every Western country. Looking at the United States, the "united we stand" solidarity that followed September 11, 2001, lasted just some months, after which a much deeper divide emerged as conservatives proved far more profoundly affected by the atrocities than did liberals. The result has...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The source of one of the most sensational accusations against an American allegedly involved in a plot to kill President Bush is dead. According to the most recent government filings in the case against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (search) that advocate his pretrial detention, the Virginia resident discussed a plot to kill the president with a member of Al Qaeda who was later killed in a shootout with Saudi law enforcement around September 2003. Abu Ali was charged Tuesday with the alleged plot, which prosecutors said was hatched while he studied in Saudi Arabia in 2002 and...

SAUDI 'SOLDIER' BY STEPHEN SCHWARTZ IN Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday, a 23-year-old Northern Virginia man of Saudi Arabian background named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was charged with conspiring to assassinate President Bush. Abu Ali and his accomplices are accused of plotting to kill the president by gunfire or a car bomb. The indictment also spells out such criminal activities as assisting and receiving support from Osama bin Laden's band of murderers. Abu Ali was extradited to Virginia after many months in a Saudi jail. What's most remarkable about this case is the degree to which this would-be assassin is a...

Apt Pupil By Ben JohnsonFrontPageMagazine.com | February 24, 2005This week, the Justice Department accused 23-year-old Virginia native Ahmed Omar Abu Ali of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush. Media coverage has predictably centered on Abu Ali’s claims of torture while he was held in a Saudi Arabian prison and on the fact that the accused was “his high school’s valedictorian.” Largely omitted from this coverage is the fact that his high school operates under the authority of the Saudi Arabian government, teaches an extremist form of Wahhabi Islam, and has direct ties to at least three other terrorists...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - An American student who was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for the last 20 months was returned to the United States and accused by the Justice Department on Tuesday of plotting with members of Al Qaeda in 2003 to assassinate President Bush. In an indictment unsealed in federal court in Alexandria, Va., the student, a 23-year-old American citizen named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, is charged with providing material support for terrorism. Mr. Abu Ali is accused of training with Al Qaeda overseas and wanting to "become a planner of terrorist operations" like Mohammed Atta or Khalid Shaikh...

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. citizen Ahmed Omar Abu-Ali was charged in federal court Tuesday with plotting to assassinate President Bush with either a gun or a car bomb. Abu-Ali was named in a six-count terrorism indictment in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., upon his return from Saudi Arabia, where he had been held for nearly two years, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. He was ordered held without bond and a detention hearing was scheduled for Thursday.

Virginia man charged in alleged plot to assassinate Bush By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A former high school valedictorian in Virginia was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and conspiracy to support the al-Qaida terrorist network. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, made an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court. He claimed that he was tortured while detained in Saudi Arabia since June of 2003 and offered through his lawyer to show the judge his scars. The indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified coconspirator...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Kim Jong-il Was Shot At By Jang's Son It is alleged that, last November, during a shooting incident by a son of Jang Sung-taek, who is Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law, Kim knocked unconscious. A source who used to be in N. Korean intelligence said on Feb. 14 that this story is making a round among high-level N. Korean security officials. According to this intelligence, between the night of Nov. 28 and the early morning of Nov. 29, there was a family gathering including Kim Jong-il, his second son Kim Jong-chol, Jang Sung-taek's son(Jang is Kim's brother-in-law),...

Chavez says US plans to kill him Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he believes the US government is planning to assassinate him. "If they kill me, the name of the person responsible is [President] George Bush," Mr Chavez said. Mr Chavez - who offered no evidence to back his claim - said any attempt on his life would backfire and threatened to cut off oil supplies to America. He was apparently reacting to growing criticism by top US officials of his left-wing government. If, by the hand of the devil, those perverse plans succeed... forget about Venezuelan oil, Mr...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to suspend oil exports to the United States if someone tries to assassinate him, adding that US President George W. Bush would be to blame. "If they kill me, there will be a really guilty party on this planet whose name is the president of the United States, George Bush," Chavez said on his weekly radio program, "Hello, Mr. President." "If, by the hand of the devil, those perverse plans succeed ... forget about Venezuelan oil, Mr. Bush," he said. Chavez said he...

Hugo Chavez shows the United States to want to assassinate it CARACAS - the president vénézuélien Hugo Chavez showed Sunday the president George W Bush to prepare an attack against him, affirming "to be condemned to died" and threatening the United States to suspend oil exports if it were assassinated. "If me am assassinated, there is a large culprit on this planet which is called the president of the United States, George (W.) Bush ", declared the president populist of left in his radio-televised program "Hello, president". "If by the hand of the devil, these perverse plans were crowned...

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...