Free Republic

Maritime commerce has become increasingly more dangerous lately, with attacks on cargo ships in the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz, among others. Now, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa have returned to the list, as Somali pirates take full advantage of the instability caused by the Iran war to get back to their predatory ways. At one point last week, six captured vessels were being held off the Puntland coast as the pirates demanded hefty ransoms. Two of the vessels were released on Saturday.” The Iran conflict left...

From NBC12 News A federal appeals court in Richmond is set to hear arguments in the case of a convicted Al Qaeda supporter. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is a U.S. citizen born to a Jordanian father. He was raised in Falls Church. He was convicted in November 2005 of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack an aircraft and providing support to Al Qaeda. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

July 4 marked the 250th birthday of the United States of America, the 102nd birthday of On the Waterfront and Exodus star Eva Marie Saint, and 50 years since Israeli commandos rescued 102 hostages at Entebbe airport in Idi Amin’s Uganda. Unlike Eva and the USA, that milestone failed to get the attention it deserved, and in 2026 the reasons will prove enlightening. On June 27, 1976 in Athens, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked Air France flight 139 en route from Tel Aviv to Paris. The PFLP’s Jayel al-Arja and Fayez Abdul-Rahim al Jaber joined...

9/11 Panel Questions Two Hijackers' Help Sept. 11 Commission Wonders Why Two Hijackers Got Help From Two Muslim Men When in U.S. The Associated Press WASHINGTON June 27, 2004 — The FBI long has contended that not a single al-Qaida operative in the United States collaborated with the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet the commission investigating the attacks has identified two Muslim men who may have had advance knowledge of the plot. The commission found that two hijackers got substantial help from Mohdar Abdullah and Anwar Aulaqi after settling in California in 2000. The bipartisan panel created...

Their revolution could soon be coming to an end. January 3, 2026. Caracas. 2:47 AM. The helicopters had come in low over the Caribbean, running dark. The Delta Force operators on board were well-rehearsed. By 3:29 AM, it was over. Thirty-two Cuban bodyguards lay dead in the compound. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were in flex cuffs, hustled onto a transport aircraft bound for New York. At Mar-a-Lago, President Trump watched the operation unfold in real time with his national security team. It was January 3—exactly 36 years to the day since American forces had extracted military dictator Manuel...

With no actual proof informing the public one way or the other about D.B. Cooper's survival, we have to make arguments using circumstantial evidence. For years the biggest piece of circumstantial evidence used against his survival might turn out to be the biggest indication of his survival. Just my two cents.

Another connection that bridges this historical cooperation between the far right and far left into the modern age of terrorism is that between Carlos the Jackal and the Swiss Nazi Francois Genoud. Genoud's life, in fact, spans the history of this collaboration. Francois Genoud was an early admirer and proponent of Adolf Hitler's, and a founder of the National Front, a Swiss Nazi party. Genoud met and befriended Haj Amin al-Husseini and worked with him to recruit Arabs into the service of the Nazis. He also set up the Banque Commerciale Arabe in Geneva with Syrian money and ran the...

The Communist Roots of Palestinian Terror   By David Meir-LeviFrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, December 14, 2007 The following is chapter from David Meir-Levi's new book, History Upside Down: The Roots of Palestinian Fascism and the Myth of Israeli Aggression. The Terrorism Awareness Project previous printed his history of the "right-wing" influence on Islamic extremism, "The Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism and Islamic Jihad." Taken together (with his entire book), these chapters show that Islamofascism is a political, not merely a religious force; and the potent and deadly offspring of the totalitarian ideologies of the past. -- The Editors. Although many Nazis...

A well-funded, highly organized effort is underway to destabilize the United States and crush conservative voices. This is not the organic unrest of grassroots activism. This is a calculated, strategic assault executed by Soros-funded NGOs, their operatives working in concert to disrupt, intimidate, and silence. From violent attacks on Tesla dealerships to the swatting of conservative influencers, from the hijacking of GOP town halls to the doxxing of DOGE employees, this effort bears all the hallmarks of an orchestrated conspiracy. If these actions are coordinated and funded with the explicit goal of suppressing political opposition, they are not examples of...

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami came to New York City on Nov. 8 to attend a U.N. summit as U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies explored new information tying his regime's intelligence services to Sept. 11 and to previous anti-American terrorist attacks, Insight has learned.The information is coming from a variety of sources and shows a clear pattern of operational contacts between the Iranian government and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. These contacts include joint planning of terrorist operations, military training of bin Laden operatives inside Iran and by Iranian personnel in Syria and Lebanon, financial assistance to clandestine terrorist and surveillance ...

A violent mid-air incident aboard a domestic flight in Belize ended in the fatal shooting of an American man who attempted to seize control of the aircraft on Thursday morning, The New York Post reported. According to Belizean authorities, Akinyela Sawa Taylor, 49, brandished a knife and began attacking fellow passengers aboard Tropic Air flight V3HIG en route to San Pedro. The altercation began around 8:30 a.m. while the plane was still airborne. During the chaos, Taylor managed to injure several individuals. However, another passenger on board intervened and fatally shot the attacker in the chest. The suspect later succumbed...

A pilot retrieved a gun from his truck and stopped an armed teen who was demanding an airplane at Texarkana Regional Airport in Arkansas on Tuesday. The New York Post reported the teen was armed with an AR-style rifle and had a handgun as well. CNN noted that the teen “demanded a plane at the front counter while brandishing the guns.” The teen then chambered a round and chaos ensued. A pilot who saw what was happening ran to his truck and retrieved a gun and pursued the teen, who had “breached security onto the airfield.” The pilot ordered the...

Captured American fugitive George Wright will claim a new identity to prevent the U.S. from extraditing him, his lawyer said Saturday. Wright, 68, became a Portuguese citizen, called Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos, in 1991 after marrying a Portuguese woman, lawyer Manuel Luis Ferreira told The Associated Press. Ferreira said in an interview that Wright's new identity was given to him by West African country Guinea-Bissau when it granted him political asylum in the 1980s and was accepted by Portugal. The U.S. is trying to extradite Wright to serve the remainder of his 15- to 30-year sentence for a 1962...

A Portuguese court has denied a U.S. request for the extradition of captured American fugitive who spent 41 years on the run in a journey that took him across three continents, and included the brazen 1972 hijacking of a jet from America to Algeria.

This is the first of a two-part series. Part two is located here.More than five decades ago, a mild-mannered passenger in a business suit boarded a Seattle-bound flight in Oregon under the name Dan Cooper on Nov. 24, 1971. He ordered a bourbon and soda, and once in the air, handed a stewardess a handwritten note demanding $200,000 in cash and four parachutes under the threat of what appeared to be a bomb in his ratty briefcase. The plane landed in Seattle, and authorities complied with the hijacker’s demand. After refueling, the airliner took off again. Somewhere between takeoff and...

A groundbreaking new clue might finally unlock the long-standing mystery of the DB Cooper case, which has puzzled investigators for over 53 years.On November 24, 1971, a man using the alias Dan "DB" Cooper hijacked Northwestern Flight 305 over Portland, demanding a ransom of $200,000. After receiving the money, he parachuted out of the aircraft and vanished without a trace. Recently, on the 53rd anniversary of the hijacking, a parachute believed to belong to Cooper may have been discovered.The children of Richard Floyd McCoy II, a suspect in the case, have stepped forward with intriguing information. Chante and Richard III...

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — One person is dead after police said a gunman hijacked a bus from downtown Atlanta with 17 people on board while holding a gun to the bus driver’s head. The incident started at 45 Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard around 4:30 p.m. Atlanta police said they responded to initial reports of a gunman on the bus that was holding hostages and that there had possibly been a discharge of a weapon. The call then immediately dropped. Atlanta Police Chief Darin Scheirbaum said that 911 then got a second call from a family member of a person on...

On Sunday, a group of keffiyeh-clad individuals huddled around a computer to discuss the "Palestinian resistance." Charlotte Kates, a member of the Israeli-designated terror group Samidoun, praised Hamas's Oct. 7 terror attack for showing "the potential of a future for Palestine liberated from Zionism." Khaled Barakat, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine activist, lauded airplane hijackings as "one of the most important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in." While those speakers and other attendees were explicit in their support for terrorism against Jews, the event did not take place in Gaza, Doha, or Tehran. It took...

U.S. — An attack by a cell belonging to a violent extremist group was averted last week, as terrorists decided against hijacking a plane after finding out it was made by Boeing. The hijacking, which was allegedly planned to be carried out over the weekend, was called off at the last minute after the group of terrorists behind the plot discovered the flight they were targeting was a Boeing 737, which meant everyone on board — including the terrorists — would be in serious danger. "We're not going anywhere near that deathtrap," said terrorist Abu Musab Alwani, who masterminded the...

…. “ A passenger, @DonnieDoesWorld, posted a picture saying a man tried to aggressively open the airplane door so he and five other people wrestled him down in the aisle until they landed back in Albuquerque safely. Another picture shows the man being led off the jet bridge.” … “ The FBI issued the following statement, but did not provide any additional information: “The Albuquerque Division of the FBI is aware of the incident and we are currently investigating.”