Free Republic

MILAN (Reuters) - A group of suspected Islamic militants arrested in Italy and Belgium may have been planning an attack on NATO headquarters or the European Parliament, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said on Wednesday. Quoting Italian investigators, Corriere said a suspected planner of the Madrid bombings in March -- among those arrested on Tuesday -- had intended to travel from Italy to Belgium possibly to take part in an attack on a "symbolic" target. Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, known as "Mohamed the Egyptian," was seized on Tuesday with a fellow suspect in Milan, and Belgian police, acting on information...

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 26 — An ambitious terrorist plot to attack a host of American interests overseas was foiled by the capture of a key Osama bin Laden operative, sources tell ABCNEWS. Intelligence sources in Europe and the United States say the intended targets included the American embassy in Paris, the U.S. consulate in Marseilles, France, buildings at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium and the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France. The outlines of the plan were known to French and American authorities before Sept. 11, but the attacks were not ...

French President Emmanuel Macron wants to pull off a grand diplomatic coup on Monday by collecting several Western countries together to recognize a Palestinian state, but he’s a long way from delivering a genuine breakthrough in Gaza. The limits to what he can achieve at the United Nations General Assembly are clear. European heavyweights like Germany and Italy will not be joining his initiative and there’s little prospect his efforts can sway U.S. President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war. The big idea in New York is to trumpet the recognition of Palestinian statehood...

Back in 2014 the New York Police Department dropped a program that monitored potential suspects of Islamic extremism. Created in 2005, the program was pretty cut and dry: plain clothed detectives were sent out to mosques and gathering places for Muslims to see if anyone was pushing extremist rhetoric on the community. While it might seem a bit intrusive, this happened in a city of 8.5 million people with as many as 800,000 Muslim residents in the greater metro area, many of whom are foreign born nationals. It's also the same geographic location as the biggest Islamic terror attack in...

The municipality of Molenbeek, a town in the Brussels metropolitan area known for being a hotbed of jihadists, is once again making headlines. During a city council meeting, a veiled Socialist councillor, complaining about derogatory comments made about her online by her political opponents, suggested that Belgians unhappy with the creeping Islamisation of their city should “get out.” This blatant reversal of the usual discourse against the foreigner has sparked outrage, confirming a growing sentiment among Europeans that they are no longer welcome in their own country. The comments were made by Saliha Raïs, a Socialist politician from the Vooruit...

EXCLUSIVE: Despite the US saying we are not accepting Palestinian “refugees” into the United States under the Trump administration, I have obtained video footage of Palestinians who claim to be refugees from Gaza coming into the United States via San Francisco and Houston, Texas this month. The Palestinians traveled from Gaza to the US with the help of a group called “Heal Palestine”.

Associations lodged a complaint against the Flemish government in June after military equipment bound for Israel was discovered in the port of Antwerp. A court in Belgium has ordered the Flemish government to stop the transit of military equipment to Israel, following the discovery of hardware in the port of Antwerp earlier this year. The Court of First Instance in Brussels ordered the regional government to block the Antwerp shipment and prohibit any future transit of military equipment to Israel, which faces growing criticism in the West for its handling of the war in Gaza. The judge also imposed a...

Evidence continues to mount that Neanderthals were a much more intelligent species than scientists originally suspected. Popular Science reports that archaeologists uncovered a remarkable, multifunctional tool from Belgium's Scladina Cave. The utensil was fashioned from the tibia of an extinct cave lion 130,000 years ago and had four different functional components. Researchers believe that it may have originally been created for use in tasks such as chiseling, but as some of the points wore down, they were reshaped and repurposed for other jobs, such as sharpening and retouching flints. According to the report, the team stated that "the intentional transformation...

Less than an hour from the capital of the European Union, gangs fight gun battles in the streets or bomb each other’s outposts. Crime reporters, police and prosecutors are bought off or killed. Torture cells are set up in shipping containers and bodies can be cleanly disposed of, but when the gangs really want to send a message they set up a public execution or fire off a rocket. That’s the way things are done, not in Bogota or Beirut, but in Antwerp. Europe’s initial Islamic migration followed port cities. Among those leading port cities were Rotterdam and Antwerp which...

This was Preston Davey. A one-year-old from England. The baby boy had been placed in the care of two gay men who were in the proces of adopting him. Within months, the men raped Preston to death. The gay men, named Jamie Varley (a head teacher!) and John McGowan-Fazakerley, both worked with children and also face a list of other charges, including possession of CSAM. They will appear in court tomorrow. Rest in peace Preston. I hope one day you and the many victims of these horrific crimes will finally be enough to stop these cruel sacrifices on the altar...

Reform UK’s newest MP called for the burqa to be banned in Britain during Prime Minister's Questions. Sarah Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, used her first question at the weekly Commons session to ask Sir Keir Starmer if he would follow other European countries that have made it illegal for people to cover their faces in public places. She said: “Given the Prime Minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interests of public safety, follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burqa?” Her question prompted an...

Standing in a town square, quietly holding a sign, two people were arrested by police Thursday in Brussels, Belgium. The offending message? “Children are never born in the wrong body.” Lois McLatchie Miller, a senior legal communications officer for Alliance Defending Freedom International, and Chris Elston, a Canadian advocate for children who goes by the nickname “Billboard Chris,” said they were in police custody for several hours before having their signs confiscated. According to Elston, they were initially told they were being charged with disturbing the peace, but were eventually let go. The arrest is just the latest instance of...

The bad news is that Brussels is no longer Brussels. Over the last month, we've seen an attack on Governor Josh Shapiro's home, the killing of a young couple in D.C., and now a Molotov cocktail thrown at people peacefully protesting. By the way, what do these incidents have in common? The targets are all Jewish and the guy in Boulder, Colorado somehow managed to get a work permit after his visa expired. Where else is stuff like this happening? Let's check out Brussels, once a very traditional European city that tourists loved to visit. Well, check again because Brussels...

A statement released by KU Leuven revealed that Belgian geneticists and their international colleagues conducted the largest-ever DNA study of remains from a medieval cemetery.In 2019, excavations beneath the main square in Sint-Truiden uncovered 3,000 skeletons buried in a former parish graveyard between the eighth and the eighteenth century. The researchers analyzed the remains of 400 of those individuals, which has provided unprecedented new information about the genetic history of the Low Countries.One of the most surprising results was that in the early Middle Ages, the population of Sint-Truiden was far more genetically diverse than in later periods. The scientists...

The democratic will of the Hungarian people to clamp down on the proliferation of LGBTQ+ ideology should be punished by the European Commission, a group of 16 EU countries demanded on Wednesday. In response to recent legislation passed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s conservative government to ban Pride parades in Hungary, over half of fellow European Union member states signed an open letter demanding that Budapest reverse course or face punishment from Brussels. The “declaration” was signed by the countries of Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Sweden. […]...

Belga News Agency reports that modern construction work beneath the Brusselsestraat in Leuven unearthed a rare and remarkably well-preserved Roman wooden water pipe, which the city council has described as a "unique and exceptional find." The conduit was located about 13 feet beneath the level of the modern city street. Extending between 65 and 100 feet long, the pipeline was constructed from hollow tree trunks measuring around six feet each. While similar features have been found in other Belgian cities such as Tienen and Tongeren, they have typically been very badly decayed. Archaeologists believe that the pipe was installed sometime...

Nine EU states are targeting the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights in a wider bid to deport unwanted migrants. A letter spearheaded by Denmark, which is set to take over the rotating EU presidency from July, is demanding more leeway on deporting people who have committed crimes. Published on Thursday (22 May), the letter was signed by leaders of Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, and Poland. It faults the court for placing rights restrictions on deportations of "criminal foreign nationals". They are also unhappy on how the court interprets the European Convention on Human Rights,...

In a massive sting operation straight out of a crime thriller, Spanish police have smashed one of Europe’s most powerful underworld banks – a slick, secretive syndicate laundering millions using the ancient and shadowy “hawala” method. Cash, crypto and contraband – the works. In unbelievable scenes, Spain’s National Police, backed by EUROPOL and EUROJUST, swooped on a web of luxury and illegality. The secret January raids – now revealed – saw over 250 officers hit 13 locations across Spain and Belgium in a coordinated blitz, nabbing 17 suspects, seizing mountains of loot and blowing apart a money-moving machine that had...

A casual hike on the slopes of Zvičina Hill in the Czech Republic led to a remarkable discovery when two hikers stumbled upon a lost gold treasure worth more than $340,000. The find, made in early February but only recently announced, includes 598 gold coins, jewelry, and other artifacts. The entire collection weighs about seven kilograms, with gold coins accounting for nearly 3.7 kilograms. While exploring the landscape near the Polish border, the hikers uncovered a tin container packed with nearly 600 gold coins. The coins were carefully stacked in eleven piles and wrapped in black cloth. Not far from...

An earthenware dish designed and signed by Pablo Picasso in 1953, depicting a bullfight, was discovered by an employee of a second-hand shop in Antwerp, according to a local news outlet. “It’s a beautiful work. It required knowledge and training to spot it, though,” Davy van Basteleare, the Kringwinkel Antwerpen’s auction manager, told VRT News. The dish is in excellent condition, according to Lander Janssens, Head of Sales and Marketing at Kringwinkel. It is made of white earthenware with brown-green decoration in engobe (clay or clay powder), enamel, and oxidised paraffin. On the back of the dish are two stamps:...