Free Republic

The United States and Gulf countries have been secretly backing efforts by opposition rebels to destroy al-Qaeda’s most extreme wing in Syria, diplomats and rebels involved in the plan have told The Telegraph. As Western leaders publicly push the Syrian regime and the opposition to the Geneva II peace conference that begins Wednesday Washington has also been quietly supporting moves by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to give weapons and cash to rebel groups to fight al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) in Syria. One source said the US was itself handing out millions of dollars to rebel groups...

Militant Islamist rebels in Syria linked to Al-Qaeda have asked for “understanding and forgiveness” for cutting off and putting on display the wrong man’s head. In a public appearance filmed and posted online, members of Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham, one brandishing a knife, held up a bearded head before a crowd in Aleppo. They triumphantly described the execution of what they said was a member of an Iraqi Shia militia fighting for President Bashar Al-Assad. But the head was recognised from the video as belonging to a member of Ahrar Al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist rebel group that often...

An Afghan girl believed to be 10-years-old says that her brother and his friend forced her to wear a suicide vest and carry out an attack on police. The BBC reported that the girl, named Spogmai, could be as young as eight and is the sister of a prominent Taliban commander known as Zahir. According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, her brother strapped her into the explosive harness and sent her across a river to her target, a border police checkpoint in Helmand province. In an interview after the ordeal, she said that she shouted “it’s cold and I can’t cross...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden accused George W. Bush on Saturday of deceiving Americans and said the Sept. 11 attacks would not have been so severe if the U.S. president had been alert. Bin Laden, appearing in a video on Al Jazeera four days before the U.S. presidential election and gesturing at the camera with a finger to stress points, made his clearest comments yet taking responsibility for the Sept 11 attacks. "Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to...