Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon says more of the terror suspects released from the Guantanamo Bay prison are returning to the fight. Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell says a new report shows the recidivism rate among former suspects released from the prison in Cuba continues its upward trend. He did not release the figures, but said officials are working to declassify the latest report so the rate can be made public.

The U.S. Marshals Service is hunting for three men who escaped from a detention center in Ullin, Illinois. The Marshals provided no details on how the men were able to escape today from the Tri-County Detention Center. Click to learn more... The men -- all considered armed and dangerous -- were being held on federal charges. They are:

Here’s my usual disclaimer: I would love to be able to stop criticizing the Obama Administration but it keeps saying and doing things that shock and surprise me or—if you want to put it this way—live up to my worst expectations. I’m sitting on a U.S. army base briefing officers along with a high-ranking State Department official who works on the Middle East. At one point, he gets a quaver in his voice and starts talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict making quite clear which side he’s on. Sounding scared he says: “While a lot of problems in the world can...

My own view is that 2009 has been an extraordinarily successful year for Obama. Since this is currently a minority view and will prompt a chorus of "In The Tank!", allow me to explain. The substantive record is clear enough. Torture is ended, if Gitmo remains enormously difficult to close and rendition extremely hard to police. The unitary executive, claiming vast, dictatorial powers over American citizens, has been unwound. The legal inquiries that may well convict former Bush officials for war crimes are underway, and the trial of KSM will reveal the lawless sadism of the Cheney regime that did...

President Barack Obama on Tuesday reaffirmed his intention to close the prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba even though he also acknowledged it would need to remain open for the time being because of his administration's decision to suspend the transfer of Yemeni nationals to their homeland following the Christmas Day airline bomb plot. "In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."

Let's make sure everyone's up to speed. On Christmas day a terrorist with a bomb just like the one a terrorist tried to use 8 years ago nearly creates an explosion that would have murdered 290 passengers, plus whoever happened to be in the jumbo jet's path as it crashed into the airport. The only thing that saved us from mass death and unmitigated disaster was pure dumb luck and the heroism of a passenger - who dragged the terrorist down and separated him from the device he was still attempting to detonate. Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security trotted out...

"Make no mistake, we will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda," he said. "In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."

US President Barack Obama has said a Yemen-linked plot to bomb an airliner will not prevent the closure of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay. The US has suspended the repatriation of Yemeni prisoners held there in the wake of the plot, claimed by a Yemen-based al-Qaeda offshoot. Nearly half of those remaining at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are from Yemen. Mr Obama originally set a January 22 deadline to close the prison camp. But he admitted last November that that deadline had slipped to later in 2010. Officials fear that Yemenis released from Guantanamo and sent...

President Obama to speak about national security: Watch live

The U.S. will not transfer any detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Yemen right now, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. Ninety detainees in Gitmo are from Yemen, which is combating a resurgent Al Qaeda. Alleged Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is also said to have gotten training in Yemen before carrying explosives on a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. His attempt to detonate the bomb was foiled when his device malfunctioned and he was tackled by a passenger. "One of the very first things Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula used as a tool was...

A left wing narrative has for some time been developing centered on abuse of Iran's democratic demonstrators at the hands of Iranian officials. You may have seen the shocking news about forced rapes and torture of Iranians imprisoned by the Mullahs in Iran but it is how the story is being sold to the west that is of note here. The prison story is being called "Iran's Guantanamo" and it is being sold as if it is explicitly true that Iran has acted in the same way as U.S. officials have acted at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detainee facility. Conflating...

At least a dozen former Guantánamo Bay inmates have rejoined al-Qaeda to fight in Yemen, The Times has learnt, amid growing concern over the ability of the country’s Government to accept almost 100 more former inmates from the detention centre. More Here

It's beginning to look like Yemen is the new Afghanistan - a failed Muslim state turned into an al Qaeda safe haven. The Christmas Day bombing plot was hatched there. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared yesterday that instability in Yemen poses a "global threat." The United States is conducting air strikes against jihadist militants. In a recent Fox News online poll, 60 percent of respondents agreed that this country should "organize an offensive in Yemen in response to Al Qaeda threats." Help is on the way from America, but unfortunately they are terrorist reinforcements.

At least a dozen former Guantánamo Bay inmates have rejoined al-Qaeda to fight in Yemen, The Times has learnt, amid growing concern over the ability of the country’s Government to accept almost 100 more former inmates from the detention centre. The Obama Administration promised to close the Guantánamo facility by January 22, a deadline that it will be unable to meet. The 91 Yemeni prisoners in Guantánamo make up the largest national contingent among the 198 being held. Six prisoners were returned to Yemen last month. After the Christmas Day bomb plot in Detroit, US officials are increasingly concerned that...

Victoria's Secret televises a show each year of attractive, scantily clad females whom Usama bin Laden and his merry band of Neanderthals find scandalous and hold out as an example of American evil. Should we close Victoria's secret?

Obama puts politics above national security!Time Magazine ran a story on December 23rd reporting a record record number of terrorism incidents occurring in the U.S. since Obama was inaugurated. That story ran two days before the Nigerian underwear bomber tried to take down a plane as it approached Detroit. So much for all that "hope and change," so much for all those apologies to the Muslim world and promises to close Gitmo which were supposed to make us safer. As I wrote a few days ago, Obama's weak approach to this problem actually invites terrorism. But there's another dimension to...

A cushy Saudi Arabian "rehab" center where terrorists are encouraged to express themselves through crayon drawings, water sports and video games is under scrutiny after one of its graduates re-emerged as a leader in the al Qaeda branch claiming responsibility for trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas. Said Ali al Shihri -- a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who now heads the terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- obviously didn't get to the bottom of his America-hating issues while undergoing the controversial rehab for jihadists. Inmates like Shihri are supposed to while away the days playing...

On January 14, 2009 Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called for a holy war against Israel in which he urged the "Muslim Nation" to defeat the "Zionist entity" and assured Palestinians that Al Qaeda's "…fate is tied to yours in fighting the crusader-Zionist coalition, in fighting until victory or martyrdom", and further stated that "…the duty is to urge people to jihad (holy war) and to enlist the youth into jihad brigades".

As Susan notes below, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is urging the Obama White House not to go forward with plans to send a number of Yemeni terrorists now being held in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility back to their home country. But the Obama White House insists it will continue to send those Gitmo inmates to Yemen -- a country now recognized as a hotbed of terrorism so dangerous that the U.S. has decided to close its embassy there. On Fox News Sunday, top White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said the administration "absolutely" intends to keep sending Guantanamo...

PhotoChop at its finest: Is Barack's election really a return to Camelot? ... As Gitmo turns: Enhanced interrogation techniques out, finger painting in. ... And Erroll Southers, yet another awful appointment by The One.