Free Republic

The Perfect Storm author spent a month with anti-Taliban warrior Ahmad Shah Massoud in 2000. Now he offers his reaction to the recent murder of the Northern Alliance leader—and the subsequent attacks on the U.S. In November 2000 [National Geographic] Adventure sent contributing editor Sebastian Junger and photojournalist Reza (see photo gallery) to profile Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. The resulting article (read an excerpt) appeared in our March/April 2001 issue and has just been reprinted in Fire, a collection of Junger’s journalistic work. ________________________________________________________ On September 9, 2001, suicide bombers killed Massoud. Two days later the U.S. was...

“What I want to say is that he was never an extremist, neither in his private nor political life. He believed that a modern moderate Islam could work in Afghanistan. He said that the extreme left or right failed in Afghanistan, since both had neglected the needs of the people. Therefore, we could not govern Afghanistan like any traditional Muslim country.” -Ahmad Wali Massoud regarding Ahmed Massoud Shah of the Northern Alliance. In 1996, funded financially and backed morally by their allies in Pakistan, the Taliban (”Students of Islamic Knowledge Movement”) emerged as the prominent force in Afghanistan after the...

Massoud's Letter To The People Of America Date: 1998 A Message to the People of the United States of America I send this message to you today on behalf of the freedom and peace-loving people of Afghanistan, the Mujahedeen freedom fighters who resisted and defeated Soviet communism, the men and women who are still resisting oppression and foreign hegemony and, in the name of more than one and a half million Afghan martyrs who sacrificed their lives to uphold some of the same values and ideals shared by most Americans and Afghans alike. This is a crucial and unique moment...

Operatives linked to Iran tried to kill foreign diplomats, including Israelis and Americans, in at least seven countries over 13 months, the Washington Post reported. New evidence uncovered by investigators in four countries linked the assassination attempts to either Iran-backed Hezbollah militants or operatives based inside Iran, the Post reported Monday, citing U.S. and Middle Eastern security officials. The officials reportedly said that the assassination attempts stopped in early spring, when Iran began to take a softer tone with the West. Shortly after, Iranian officials formally accepted a proposal to resume negotiations with six world powers on proposals to limit...

Army soldiers formed a militia group in Georgia that plotted to overthrow the U.S. government — and they killed a fellow soldier and his girlfriend to keep the plot secret, prosecutors alleged Monday, according to the Associated Press. Prosecutors in the Long County, Ga., case say that the militia group planned to overtake the nearby Fort Stewart, to bomb a dam in Washington state and poison the state’s apple crop and ultimately overthrow the government and assassinate the president, according to reports.

Seekers of peace and social justice should take note of today's 100th birthday celebration of the life of German theologian and Nazi resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As much as anyone - and as early as anyone - Bonhoeffer spoke out against the wickedness of Adolf Hitler's regime and took some of the most significant actions to thwart it. It was Bonhoeffer and a small circle of Lutheran ministers who first condemned the virulent anti-Semitism and reawakened militarism in Germany. It was Bonhoeffer who most loudly denounced his country's suicidal summons for war. It was Bonhoeffer who attacked the timidity of German...

British police freed six men without charge after they were arrested over an alleged plot to launch an attack during Pope Benedict XVI's state visit, Scotland Yard said. "Six men who were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on Friday, 17 September, were all released without charge late on Saturday night and early this morning [Sunday]," it said in a statement. Counter-terrorism police raided a cleaning depot in London early on Friday to arrest five men, aged between 26 and 50, "on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism", police had said. A sixth man was...

Police have arrested five suspected Islamist terrorists, working as street cleaners in London, over an alleged plan assassinate the Pope. The men were arrested during raids at 5.45am at a rubbish depot in central London based on an intelligence tip off received overnight. The suspects, aged 26, 27, 36, 40 and 50 were arrested by officers from Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. They are said to be from a variety of nationalities including a number of Algerian origin. The depot where they worked is less than a mile...

With his twin brother Jarosław, Lech Kaczyński founded the Law and Justice Party PiS, a political party inspired by Catholic teaching which is a member of the eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament. PiS has strongly advocated criminal penalties for former communist officials after the fall of the Soviet Union. It is also often described as homophobic. While Jarosław was prime minister in 2006-2007 the Kaczyński brothers were the only twin pair to hold the highest offices in a country. At European level, Polish President Lech Kaczynski had distinguished himself with his opposition to the...

On April 9, 1945, 65 years ago today, just a few weeks before an allied offensive brought Germany to its knees and ended World War II in Europe, a young, mild-mannered Lutheran theologian was hanged by the Nazis in Flossenburg Concentration Camp. His crime ... conspiring to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theological genius of the 20th century, is now emerging as a war hero, martyr and spy. "What is so amazing about the story of Bonhoeffer is that he puts a completely different spin for us as Americans on World War II," says Eric Metaxas, author of "Bonhoeffer:...

In 2002, ABC decided not to renew Bill Maher's contract apparently due to some disgraceful comments he made on his program "Politically Incorrect" following the 9/11 attacks. After what transpired on "Real Time" Friday, the heads of HBO should be equally outraged, if not more. As the discussion moved to the attempted assassination of Vice President Cheney last week, Maher asked his panel why it was necessary for the Huffington Post to remove comments by readers concerning their disappointment that the attempt failed. As the conversation ensued, Maher said one of the most disgraceful and irresponsible things uttered on a...

On this day, March 30, 1981, President Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr., outside the Washington Hilton Hotel north of Dupont Circle. Hinckley was obsessed with actress Jodie Foster and hoped to prove his worth by becoming famous. Reagan was shot in the chest. Secret Service agents rushed him to George Washington University Hospital because its emergency room was expert at treating gunshot wounds. When first lady Nancy Reagan arrived, the president said, "Honey, I forgot to duck." There was a great confusion about who was in control of the government at the time. Secretary of State Alexander Haig...

Britain's wartime flying chief Arthur "Bomber" Harris chalked out a "brilliant" plan to assassinate Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini during World War II, but the then PM Winston Churchill rejected it, de-classified documents have revealed. According to the documents, Harris, the then head of Royal Air Force bomber command, wanted to use the famous Dam Busters to assassinate Mussolini and sought Churchill 's permission to plan the precision strike in 1943. In fact, the British flying chief wanted the crack 617 Squadron to swoop low over Rome and bomb Mussolini's office and home simultaneously in an attempt to kill "Il...

Fox News: The Chicago Sun-Times reports the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan says the "white right" is conspiring to make Barack Obama a one-term president, adding that they're "trying to set Barack up to be assassinated." Farrakhan addressed about 20,000 followers Sunday in Chicago.

The scientist who is accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama had been a key suspect in an attempted bomb plot at Harvard in 1993, police officials told The Boston Globe on Sunday.

The professor who is accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama on Friday was a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993, a law enforcement official said today. Bishop surfaced as a suspect because she was allegedly concerned that she was going to receive a negative evaluation from Rosenberg on her doctorate work, the official said. The official said investigators believed she had a motive to target Rosenberg and were concerned that she had a history of violence, given that she had shot her brother to death in 1986.

The Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 was released from prison today after more than 29 years behind bars Mehmet Ali Agca said in a statement issued by a lawyer that he was a messenger of God and that the world will end in this century. The 52-year-old waved to journalists as he left the prison in a convoy of several vehicles.

JACKSON, Miss. -- If Ronnie Lee Owen is telling the truth, he can save President Barack Obama from a racist plot and stop an armed revolution by Mormon extremists, if police would just let him out of jail. Authorities haven't let him out of jail. Instead, he goes on trial next week in Gulfport, Miss., on federal fraud charges for having three fake driver's licenses and issuing phony checks. Owen, a 41-year-old fugitive wanted in eight states, is accused of writing fake checks across the country for thousands of dollars in goods, according to court records. When he was arrested...

A man charged with attempting to kill a Danish cartoonist over his Muslim prophet Mohammed caricatures was also involved in an alleged plot against US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Danish newspaper reported Sunday. But one Danish diplomat played down the report. The online edition of Politiken newpaper said that the 28-year-old man charged with having tried to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard late Friday had also been involved in a plot against Clinton in Kenya. Clinton visited Kenya last August. Their report said Kenyan police had arrested the suspect in 2009 and had held him for seven weeks. The...

Former President Bill Clinton came within minutes of being assassinated in the Philippines by terrorists controlled by Osama bin Laden, a new book has revealed. ...Marisa Porges, a former government counter-terrorism advisor and an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, said the assassination plot, if true, would suggest al Qaeda was more developed than some thought it was prior to 9/11”.