Free Republic

The Zambian student was serving a jail sentence at a medium security prison on the outskirts of Moscow after being convicted of contravening Russian law, Kakubo said, without specifying the offense that occurred in April 2020. “The Zambian government has requested the Russian authorities to urgently provide information on the circumstances under which a Zambian citizen, serving a prison sentence in Moscow, could have been recruited to fight in Ukraine,” Kakubo said. It was not clear how the prisoner was recruited and by whom.... ussia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the circumstances of...

Bin Laden Plotted New Attack By SIOBHAN GORMAN Osama bin Laden was working to assemble a team of militants to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, according to communications Navy SEALs seized from his Pakistani hideout when they killed the al Qaeda leader this spring. Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound. The plans were only in the discussion phase, U.S. officials...

Apparently, the key to the whole operation was finding and tracking Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, a process that took years — and involved info given by Guantanamo detainees: Sunday afternoon’s raid by U.S. forces that killed Osama bin Laden was the “culmination of years of careful and highly advanced intelligence work,” senior administration officials said in a conference call, describing the genesis of an operation that sounded like it was right out of a “Mission Impossible” movie. Some time after Sept. 11, detainees held by the U.S. told interrogators about a man believed to work as a courier for...

At least six Arabs believed to have links to al Qaeda and carrying what some intelligence reports estimated was $23.5 million were seized by Syria last week, according to administration officials. It is believed to be the first time in the global war on terrorism that couriers have been apprehended with such a large amount of money, said the counterterrorism officials, some of whom monitor terrorist financing.

NEW YORK MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO FEDERAL SOFTWARE PIRACY CHARGE NEW HAVEN, CT-Kevin J. O'Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and Matthew J. Etre, acting special agent-in-charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), announced that Hunter Pine, 27, of 33 Gold Street, New York, New York waived indictment and pleaded guilty today before Senior United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. According to documents filed with the court and statements made in court, Pine was a participant in the "warez scene" - an...

Turkmenistan has closed down all its international courier companies, the main postal link between the country and the outside world. The Ministry of Communications said couriers' licences would not be extended, without explaining why. Turkmenistan is already an extremely isolated country and the move will hit hard, especially businesses and the foreign community. Big couriers like Federal Express and DHL are lifelines to the outside world. Many embassies and most businesses send all their documents and other post through them. The DHL office in the capital, Ashgabat, confirmed that it was no longer operating and was unable to deliver a...