Free Republic

Russia - Masque Of The Red Death Vladimir Putin has been hailed perhaps as the pivotal post cold war Russian leader. He has executed a skillful dog and pony show, convincing both the Bush and Blair administrations that the former Soviet Union was not only no longer a military threat to the West but was indeed now becoming a close ally. Obviously Russia's cooperation with the French and German UN delegation's intransigence in dealing with Iraq has done much to throw cold water on this heretofore-budding union. It's important to note that such a relationship offered hope, though ultimately unfounded,...

A Spanish judge has charged 13 members of the Basque separatist group ETA and the Colombian rebel group FARC over an alleged plot to assassinate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, judicial sources said on Monday. Judge Eloy Velasco said he believes FARC asked ETA's help with a plot to kill a number of Colombian officials in Spain, including Uribe.

A diplomatic row has erupted between Spain and Venezuela after a Spanish judge accused officials in Caracas of plotting with rebel groups to kill Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and other political officials. Spanish National Court Judge Eloy Velasco charged on Monday that the government of Hugo Chávez had been working as an intermediary between the Basque separatist group ETA and the Colombian guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The groups were allegedly plotting against prominent political figures living in or traveling through Spain. Venezuelan officials have dismissed these allegations as “biased and unfounded.”

Chaos erupted on Saturday evening after right-wing Colombian Presidential candidate Miguel Uribe was shot in the head during an event in Bogota, according to Colombian media. Uribe was rushed to a hospital after being shot in the head. According to Colombian media, Miguel Uribe is in serious condition. The 15-year-old shooter is in custody according to Bogota mayor Carlos Galan. Multiple shots rang out as Miguel Uribe delivered remarks to a crowd in the Fontibon district.

Marilou Danley, the girlfriend of Las Vegas mass shooter Stephen Paddock, worked for the FBI, according to credit application data the Australian national reported as part of a loan application. That’s the same Danley whose fingerprints were found on Paddock’s horde of ammunition packed into unused rifle magazines. Publicly available intelligence obtained from consumer credit reporting bureaus show Danley claimed the “Federal Bureau of Investigation” as her place of employment. Interesting revelation. When contacted Friday, one FBI source said the Bureau “might have made payments to Danley but it is above my level,” the source said referring to access to...

A now-deceased official with President Donald Trump’s National Security Council received a report suggesting that the 2017 Las Vegas shooting may not have been the work of a “lone gunman” with no discernible motive, but rather a terrorist attack perpetrated by at least two men with possible ties to ISIS and/or ANTIFA, according to National File. Testament to how cowed and pathetic American journalists are that no one got to the bottom of Las Vegas shooting— Darren J. Beattie (@DarrenJBeattie) January 3, 2021The “All Source Assessment,” entitled “Attack on the Route 91 Country Music Festival,” was prepared for Rich Higgins,...

Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres urged the Capitol Police to investigate alleged threats from a baby-faced anti-Israel activist who urged support for the gunman accused of killing two Israel Embassy staffers in DC. Guy Christensen, the Keffiyeh wearing 19-year-old from Pennsylvania who uses the handle “YourFavoriteGuy,” posted a three-minute video rant on X May 22 trashing Torres as a tool of the Zionist lobby who backs genocide. “Now, Ritchie, screenshots are forever, and what you’ve said and done will haunt your family for eternity, as you will eventually, if you’re still alive, end up in a Nuremberg trial,” Christiansen said in...

A federal complaint unsealed on Tuesday in Brooklyn has charged Asif Merchant, also known as “Asif Raza Merchant,” a 46-year-old Pakistani national, with murder-for-hire in connection with a foiled assassination plot targeting a politician or U.S. government officials on American soil. The plot was thwarted by law enforcement before any attack could be executed. Merchant is currently in federal custody in New York, according to the press release. FBI investigators believe that the intended targets of the plot included Trump and other current and former U.S. government officials, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter, per CNN. According...

Author Sir Salman Rushdie has said he is "pleased" the man who tried to kill him in a knife attack in 2022 has received the maximum possible prison sentence. Hadi Matar, 27, was jailed for 25 years earlier this month for attempted murder after repeatedly stabbing Sir Salman on a New York lecture stage. "I was pleased that he got the maximum available, and I hope he uses it to reflect upon his deeds," Sir Salman told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. The attack left the award-winning writer blind in one eye, with damage to his liver and a paralysed...

A crazed gunman shouted 'Free Palestine' after he shot and killed two Israeli embassy staff members outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez, was pacing back and forth before allegedly opening fire on a group of four people who were standing outside the museum. Rodriguez then entered the building, where he was taken into custody. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon described it as a 'depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.' He said: 'The shooting outside the event at the Jewish Museum in Washington – in which Israeli embassy employees were also...

Former Ukrainian politician Andriy Portnov, a top adviser to ousted President Viktor Yanukovych (thanks, CIA!), was shot dead this morning outside the American School of Madrid shortly after student drop-off. Spanish media reports that 2-3 suspects are being hunted. Portnov faced treason charges in Ukraine and was accused of collaborating with Russia ... Former president Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014. According to the US Treasury Department, Portnov was "credibly accused of using his influence to buy access and decisions in Ukraine's courts and undermining reform effort." He was sanctioned by the US for corruption and bribery in 2021 under the...

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a former Ukrainian politician on Wednesday morning outside a school in a wealthy suburb of Madrid, Spain's Interior Ministry said. Police received a call about the shooting of a Ukrainian citizen at 9.15 a.m. (0715 GMT) local time outside the elite American School of Madrid, located in Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid police told Reuters. "Several persons shot him in the back and the head and then fled towards a forested area," an Interior Ministry source said. The victim, Andriy Portnov, 51, was a senior aide to Ukraine's pro-Russian former President Viktor Yanukovich who was ousted...

Washington, D.C. – In a bombshell report released Tuesday, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence accused the FBI of deliberately downplaying the politically motivated 2017 shooting that nearly killed House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and injured several others. The shooter, James Hodgkinson, was a far-left extremist who opened fire on Republican congressmen practicing for the annual charity baseball game—but the FBI called it “suicide by cop.” That decision, the report says, wasn’t just wrong—it was dishonest. The 27-page unclassified report, compiled from more than 3,000 pages of FBI records recently turned over by new Director Kash Patel, reveals that...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan said Tuesday that two suspected militants arrested in the past few days were related to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged brains behind al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Police arrested ten suspects in the southern port city of Karachi over the weekend, and ministers say one of them had a million dollar reward on his head. "We have arrested Mosaib al Baluchi. He is a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. There is a reward of a million dollars on him from the Americans," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told Reuters...

Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez of the governing Morena party was gunned down while she was greeting supporters in the small town of Texistepec in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz on Sunday, where she was running for election. As she walks through the smiling and chanting crowd, gunfire suddenly rings out off camera. Some 20 gunshots can be heard in the video, which was still up on Gutiérrez’s Facebook page until the following day. Gutiérrez’s daughter was also killed in the shooting along with two others, while three more were wounded, Veracruz Governor Rocío Nahle García, also from the Morena party...

Venezuela’s Tarek El-Aissami The Americas Report | Oct 03, 2008  By Nicole Ferrand [...] Mr. El - Aissami is a Venezuelan national of Syrian descent who, before becoming Minster of Interior and Justice, occupied the position of Deputy Interior Minister for Public Security. His father, Carlos Aissami, is the head of the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath political party. Before the invasion of Iraq, he held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, "the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden." Tarek's great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a prominent ideologist and...

The nephew of the interim President of Honduras Roberto Micheletti has been found dead in what the police are calling an execution style killing. Enzo Micheletti's body was discovered on Sunday in woodland near Choloma, 250 km north of the capital, Tegucigalpa. Police say his hands were tied behind his back and his body was riddled with bullets There is no indication that his death is connected to the coup that brought his uncle to power at the end of June.

What happened in Uzbekistan? The government and opposition protesters are sharply at odds in Uzbekistan days after the eastern city of Andijan exploded into violence. A May 15 AP report claimed some 500 bodies had been laid out in a school in Andijan for identification by relatives, "corroborating witness accounts of hundreds killed" when soldiers opened fire on street protests. Medical authorities also reported some 2,000 wounded in local hospitals. However, a May 18 account on Russia's MosNews.com quotes Uzbek officials denying this very death toll. “Not a single civilian was killed by government forces there,” Prosecutor General Rashid Kadyrov...

Robert Fico, the Slovak Prime Minister who was seriously injured in an attempted assassination shooting in May, has said the Trump attack was a “carbon copy” scenario and blamed hostile media and Trump’s political opponents for creating an atmosphere of hate. The populist prime minister of Slovakia, who only recently re-emerged into the public eye after he was shot multiple times in the abdomen by an activist and government critic, said the attempt on President Trump’s life was like a “carbon copy” in a statement on Sunday morning.

Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) says the Trump administration should drop nuclear negotiations with Iran and finish off the country's nuclear facilities with a military strike. "Waste that s—t," the Pennsylvania Democrat told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview on Wednesday. "You're never going to be able to negotiate with that kind of regime that has been destabilizing the region for decades already, and now we have an incredible window, I believe, to do that, to strike and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities." Fetterman dismissed the foreign policy experts who warn that striking Iran would lead to the outbreak of...