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A US destroyer intercepted a hijacked Israeli-managed oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden earlier today, freed the crew, and took the Houthi pirates into custody. My colleague Jeff Charles covered the piracy in this post, High Seas Drama: Another Israeli Tanker Seized by Unidentified Attackers Near Yemen.Shortly after dawn local time, the Central Park, a small Liberian-flagged oil and chemical tanker managed by an Israeli company registered in London, sent a distress call saying it was being boarded by armed men. The USS Mason, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was operating in the area. According to reports, the Mason directed...

Al-Qaida had extensive contacts with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as with an elite military unit which helped the terrorists train and plot attacks against Americans, according to a former intelligence officer who recently fled Iran. Hamid Reza Zakeri, a former inspector and director of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence, or MOIS, member said models of the World Trade Center, the White House, Pentagon and other United States government buildings "were in our headquarters." In an explosive interview with a London-based Arabic newspaper last week, Zakeri stated that al-Qaida leader and Egyptian terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri,...

An exiled Nicaraguan journalist says she fears a growing presence of Russsian troops in her homeland as the country grows increasingly isolated on the world stage. Berta Valle — wife of imprisoned Nicaraguan opposition leader and presidential candidate Felix Maradiaga — told The Post on Monday that Nicaraguans are “terrified” of dictator Daniel Ortega’s decision to welcome Russian soldiers to the Central American country after seeing what they’ve done in Ukraine. “Ortega invited the Russian military into Nicaragua. Publicly, he says Russia is supporting the military training of the Nicaraguan military. But we are terrified, because our country is hosting...

Over the past several months, the FBI released thousands of pages of material relating to its investigation of Saudi government links to the 9/11 attacks. This wave of declassifications was pursuant to Executive Order 14040, which President Biden issued on Sept. 3 under pressure from more than 1,800 survivors, family members and first responders who threatened to protest his presence at memorial events if he didn’t make good on a 2020 campaign promise to boost 9/11 transparency. The published documents are riddled with redactions, but a Stark Realities review of the trove has uncovered two instances in which the FBI...

Hasan has remained on death row for seven years and counting. Manning said he hopes "justice gets served" but realizes Hasan may never be executed. ... When it came to Hasan, Manning said, there was a double standard. Hasan wrote emails to radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki seeking advice on reconciling his Muslim faith with serving in the Army. This fact was known to the FBI. “You could lose your security clearance in the Army for having bad credit and be kicked out of the Army. But you can't lose your security clearance for talking to a member of Al...

Press Release Source: Newsweek NEWSWEEK: Case Closed Against Syrian-Owned Business in Germany to Avoid Antagonizing Syrian Government, Officials Suggest Sunday January 18, 10:11 am ET Police Reports Show Employees Had Al Qaeda Connections; One Believed to Have Recruited Muhammad Atta in Hamburg # NEW YORK, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- After a September 2002 raid near Hamburg, Germany, of a Syrian-owned textile business called Tatex that was suspected of terrorist ties, German prosecutors began preparing their case and the U.S. considered freezing Tatex's bank accounts, as it had done in dozens of other companies suspected of financing terrorism. Then last summer,...

In fact just a little over ten years ago a couple of worshipers from Dar al-Hijrah drove up to this particular 7-11. They weren’t really interested in hiring the day laborers so much as getting someone to help them acquire forged identification. That turned out to be a fellow named Luis A. Martinez-Flores, himself an illegal immigrant, and he walked the two Arabs, Hani Hanjour and Khaled Almidhar, through the process of getting Virginia ID cards—after which they returned to this particular 7-11, withdrew $100 from the ATM, and handed it to Mr. Martinez-Flores. Around five years ago Michelle went...

Newly released police testimony of al-Qaeda member Louai Sakka found in case records has come the fore. In Sakka’s statements it is written that he is the one who provided two terrorists with a passport before they organized the September 11 attacks. Sakka's testimony also gives us some clues that Murat Yuce, the Turkish driver kidnapped in Iraq, was killed by a terrorist of Sakka's choice. There were also some Turkish people who took part in the execution of Yuce. The following was the structure of al-Qaeda, according to Sakka: Leader Osama bin Laden, His assistants: Mohammed Atef (Abu Hafs...

According to authorities, all of the hijackers who committed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were foreigners. All of them entered the country legally on a temporary visa, mostly tourist visas with entry permits for six months. Although four of them attended flight school in the United States, only one is known to have entered on an appropriate visa for such study, and one entered on an F-1 student visa. Besides the four pilots, all but one of the terrorists entered the United States only once and had been in the country for only three to five months before the...

A former Iraqi intelligence officer who was said to have met with the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 attacks has told US interrogators the meeting never happened, according to US officials familiar with classified intelligence reports on the matter. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the former intelligence officer, was taken into custody by the US in July. Under questioning he has said that he did not meet with Mohamed Atta in Prague in the Czech Republic, according to the officials, who have reviewed classified debriefing reports based on the interrogations. US officials caution that Ani may have been lying...

The State Department official who issued visas to many of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists is still employed by the federal government, according to J. Michael Springmann, the author of Visas for al-Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World. Springmann, former head of the visa section at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, told PJM that Shayna Steinger approved 11 of the visas granted to the 19 9/11 hijackers. Fifteen received their visas at the Jeddah consulate. Page 7 of the 9/11 Commission report states that “one consular officer issued visas to 11 of the 19 hijackers.” Those visas...

Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Congress set up a joint committee to investigate. After nearly 6 months, the joint committee released its report - but the Bush administration redacted 28 pages of the report, citing the damage the information could do to our relationships with foreign governments. Ever since then, families of the victims of 9/11, lawmakers, and government watchdog groups have all been agitating for the declassification of those 28 pages. First the Bush administration, and then the Obama administration have refued all requests to reveal what's in those 28 pages. President Obama told the families...

Political Correctness: The only thing more revolting than building a mosque next to the World Trade Center would be honoring the mosque that helped the 9/11 hijackers. Yet that's just what Virginia has done. Outrageously, the Virginia state legislature has passed a Democrat-sponsored resolution "commending" the notorious 9/11 mosque — Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center — "as an expression of the General Assembly's admiration for the" center. The Saudi Embassy-funded, Muslim Brotherhood-owned mosque is universally known by federal and local law enforcement — and even the media — as a turnstile for terrorists. Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan once worshipped...

‘Secret Negotiation with Hijackers’ Theory Bolsters as Last Words from Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 Revealed Before the flight disappeared from radar screens, the Malaysia's civil aviation heard the words, "All right, good night", The Straits Times reported. There is however, conflicting reports on what exactly were the last words. The BBC says that the last heard reply from flight MH370 was "All right, roger that". The meeting held in a packed room with nearly 400 relatives at the Metropark Lido hotel in Beijing, non-the-less, is important as anguished family members were given the chance to ask direct questions...

A Saudi family who “fled” their Sarasota area home weeks before 9/11 had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001,” according to newly released FBI records. One partially declassified document, marked “secret,” lists three of those individuals and ties them to the Venice, Fla., flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. Accomplice Ziad Jarrah took flying lessons at another school a block away. Atta and al-Shehhi were at the controls of the jetliners that slammed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. Jarrah was the...

Sources told FOX 25 there was an American Airlines flight that was headed to Chicago. There were two men on that plane – not sitting next to each other – and speaking Arabic. There were some concerned marathoners on the flight so the plane was brought back to the gate and the two men were escorted off the plane.

An Iraqi man arrested at Stansted Airport after taking part in the hijack of an airliner has won the latest round of a 16-year fight to stay in the UK. Mustafa Abdul Hussain - one of the hijackers of a Sudan Airways Airbus which flew into Britain in August 1996 - successfully challenged the Home Office after ministers refused to grant him 'indefinite leave to remain'. A judge said Home Secretary Theresa May should reconsider Mr Hussain’s case, following a High Court hearing in London. ... Hussain was part of a group which hijacked the airliner - which had 197...

(NEWS.COM.AU) TWO men who allegedly tried to hijack a plane in China were beaten to death by passengers and crew. The Global Times newspaper reported that two of the suspects died in hospital from injuries they suffered during the ensuing fight with passengers and crew on board. The men were part of a six-strong gang involved in the foiled hijack of a Tianjin Airlines flight bound for the regional capital of Urumqi last Friday. Just minutes after the flight took off from Hetian, southwest Xinjiang, the men, all aged between 20 and 36, stood up and announced their plans to...

Authorities Conclude Switzerland Likely Used as Base for Financing, Logistical Support for 9/11 Attacks by Al-Qaida By Daniela Sigrist Associated Press Writer Published: Jun 24, 2004 BERN, Switzerland (AP) - Investigators have concluded that Switzerland was likely used as a base for financing and logistical support for the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida, the country's attorney general said Thursday. Federal Prosecutor Valentin Roschacher said authorities plan to begin court proceedings in the coming weeks in three terror cases, capping investigations started four days after the 2001 suicide hijackings in New York and Washington. A special task force initially was charged...

For years, we’ve heard how the peaceful religion of Islam has been hijacked by extremists. What if it’s the other way around? Worse, what if the peaceful hijackers are losing their bid to take over the religion? That certainly seems to be the case in Pakistan. Salman Taseer, a popular Pakistani governor, was assassinated this week because he was critical of Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Specifically, Taseer was supportive of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who has been sentenced to death for “insulting Muhammad.” Bibi had offered some fellow farm laborers some water. They refused to drink it because Christian hands...