Free Republic

The government's campaign to fight "misinformation" has expanded to adapt military-grade artificial intelligence once used to silence the Islamic State (ISIS) to quickly identify and censor American dissent on issues like vaccine safety and election integrity, according to grant documents and cyber experts.The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded several million dollars in grants recently to universities and private firms to develop tools eerily similar to those developed in 2011 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program.DARPA said those tools were used "to help identify misinformation or deception campaigns and...

Life often takes us in unexpected directions, but Maria Sue Bell’s life has been more rollicking and full of surprises than most. Back in 1984 and 1985, Bell served in the Army National Guard and was on Army Active Duty until Jan. 31, 1986. In a warning sign of what was to come, the criminal complaint against Bell says that she “received an Other Than Honorable (OTH) Discharge deemed Good for Service in lieu of a Court Martial,” although the reason for this has not been disclosed and has now been overshadowed by far more serious misconduct: Bell was sentenced...

"Israel should stop all incitement and provocation and avoid any unilateral actions that might lead to aggravation of the situation," the Chinese diplomat said at a joint press briefing on Sunday with Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry. Qin also called for "maintaining the status quo" at Jerusalem's most important holy site - after an ultranationalist Israeli cabinet minister visited the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary - or the Al-Aqsa Mosque - Islam's third holiest shrine. The visit by Itamir Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, was seen by Palestinians as a provocation...

BAGHDAD—Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani defended the presence of U.S. troops in his country and set no timetable for their withdrawal, signaling a less confrontational posture toward Washington early in his term than his Iran-backed political allies have taken. “We think that we need the foreign forces,” Mr. Sudani said in his first U.S. interview since taking office in October, referring to the American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troop contingents that train and assist Iraqi units in countering Islamic State but largely stay out of combat. “Elimination of ISIS needs some more time,” he added. Until now, Mr. Sudani...

While turning a blind eye to the starving Afghan population, on Jan. 4, a Taliban senior leader professed the group has an "obligation" to protect Chinese nationals looking to invest in the country’s mineral and oil wealth. The comment comes on the heels of a December attack that targeted Chinese investors who frequent Kabul’s Longan Hotel. The Islamic State – Khorasan Province, ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the assault. On Jan. 5, the Taliban announced it had killed eight ISIS-K members, including those responsible for the hotel attack. The following day, China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas signed a significant...

A woman who ran away from home in Alabama to join ISIS said she felt "broken" when the US revoked her citizenship for aiding the terror group. Hoda Muthana spoke in an interview with The News Movement (TNM), conducted from a prison camp in Syria where she is being held by US-allied forces. She said she wanted to return to the US, and volunteered to serve time in prison if necessary. That seems unlikely to happen — the Obama administration stripped Muthana of citizenship in 2016. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump tweeted that he had personally barred Muthana from the...

A woman who ran away from home in Alabama at the age of 20, joined the Islamic State group and had a child with one of its fighters says she still hopes to return to the United States, serve prison time if necessary, and advocate against the extremists. In a rare interview from the Roj detention camp in Syria where she is being held by US-allied Kurdish forces, Hoda Muthana said she was brainwashed by online traffickers into joining the group in 2014 and regrets everything except her young son, now of pre-school age. But four years earlier, at the...

A Sydney woman has been charged just months after being rescued from a Syrian refugee camp for reformed Islamic State fighters and eight years after she allegedly left Australia to fight for the militant group with her husband.... ...The woman was in Al Roj Internally Displaced Persons camp in Syria before being repatriated to Australia in October 2022. Ms Raad was arrested following a joint investigation by the Australian Federal Police and the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT). In a statement, the JCTT said 'newly obtained evidence' allegedly allowed them to charge the woman. ...

Shin Bet and police say Eslam Froukh committed deadly attack in November on his own, and allegedly planned further attacks before being detained . The act, the murderer. Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma'ada, 50, (right) and 16-year-old Aryeh Schupak, killed in a bombing attack at the entrance of Jerusalem, November 23, 2022. (Courtesy)

Archaeologists in northern Iraq, working on the Mashki and Adad gate sites in Mosul that were destroyed by Islamic State in 2016, recently uncovered 2,700-year-old Assyrian reliefs. Featuring war scenes and trees, these rock carvings add to the bounty of detailed stone panels excavated from the 1840s onwards, many of which are currently held in the British Museum. They stem from the ancient city of Nineveh which, for a time, was likely the most dazzling in the world. There is evidence of occupation at the site already by 3,000 BC, an era known as the late Uruk period. But it...

Sousan, a young Yazidi girl of 16, had one of the happiest days of her life when she was married to Fouzi, a Yazidi man, in the town of Sinjar, northern Kurdistan, Iraq. What she didn’t know was that five months after the wedding, in August 2014, ISIS would attack and take her town. This was after ISIS had already attacked and taken a large part of Iraq as well as Syria. The ISIS fighers swooped in with machine guns, tanks, and mortars, destroying all in front of them and targeting the Yazidi especially for brutal treatment. The Yazidis practice...

America’s Lebanese fantasy hits a road-bump Lebanon Follow Tony Badran Published: 13 December ,2022: 12:39 PM GST Updated: 13 December ,2022: 01:25 PM GST For the past two years, the Biden administration has been hell-bent on getting Saudi Arabia to underwrite the US project of administering Lebanon. And for two years running, the Kingdom has refused, having no desire to bankroll an Iranian equity run by Hezbollah. The administration, however, is demanding US allies suspend disbelief and pretend that Lebanon is in fact a real, normal state. In the latest iteration of its Lebanese project, the Biden team is trying...

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday walked back remarks questioning Pakistan’s ability to keep its nuclear weapons safe by leftist President Joe Biden, who went as far as to call the South Asian nation, a nominal ally of America’s, “one of the most dangerous nations in the world.” Biden made the offending comments at a Democrat Party event at a private home in California last week. Offering disorganized remarks commenting on nuclear weapons generally, Biden mentioned Pakistan amid boasting yet again that he has a close personal relationship with dictator Xi Jinping of China. “I’ve spent more time with Xi...

Reversing the decision of its predecessor, the Biden Administration has approved a whooping USD 450 million F-16 fighter jet fleet sustainment programme to Pakistan. As a notification to the US Congress, the State Department has made a determination approving a possible foreign military sale of F-16 case for sustainment and related equipment for an estimated cost of USD 450 million, arguing that this will sustain Islamabad's capability to meet current and future counterterrorism threats by maintaining its F-16 fleet. This is the first major security assistance to Pakistan after Trump in 2018 had announced to stop all defense and security...

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s military chief has reportedly sought help from the United Sates in securing the early disbursement of an International Monetary Fund loan as the high price of energy imports pushes the cash-strapped South Asian nation to the brink of a payment crisis. General Qamar Javed Bajwa spoke by phone to Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Wendy Sherman earlier this week and raised the issue, government sources told VOA late Friday on condition of anonymity. Pakistan last week reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF for the revival of a multibillion-dollar bailout package. However, the deal is subject to...

According To UN Report, Afghan Taliban Continues To Sponsor Al-Qaeda And Other Foreign Jihadi Organizations Such As Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), And East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM); French Justice Inbox MEMRI memri@memri.org via mta-bbcspool.convio.net 3:10 PM (13 minutes ago) to me Having trouble with this message? View it online. memri_CUBEd Arabic1.jpg The Middle East Media Research Institute Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter YouTube vimeo image.JPG vimeo image.JPG TikTok icon.png The MEMRI Daily: June 17, 2022 According To UN Report, Afghan Taliban Continues To Sponsor Al-Qaeda And Other Foreign Jihadi Organizations Such As Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan...

ISIS claims responsibility for attack on Pakistan envoy in Kabul : ISIS claimed responsibility Saturday for an attack on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul, which Islamabad decried as an “assassination attempt.” A security guard was wounded in the attack Friday in the Afghan capital. Advertisement For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. In a statement cited by terrorism monitor SITE, the ISIS’s regional chapter said it had “attacked the apostate Pakistani ambassador and his guards.” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called it “an assassination attempt” on the head of the mission, and demanded...

A Pakistani man burnt his 12-year-old son to death... Hearing her boy's manic screams, Shaheer's mother Shazia dashed into the room where both parents threw blankets and clothes on the burning child in a desperate attempt to extinguish the flames, but their efforts were not enough to save him.

Pakistani police have filed terrorism charges against former prime minister Imran Khan, authorities said, escalating political tensions in the country as the ousted premier holds mass rallies seeking to return to office. The charges come after Khan gave a speech in Islamabad on Saturday where he alleged that a close aide had been tortured after his arrest. Khan vowed to sue police officers and a female judge shortly before the terrorism charges were filed against him. The former prime minister could face several years in prison but appears to still be free and has not addressed the charges lodged against...

Two ISIS officials were killed in a US military operation in eastern Syria, US officials confirmed Sunday. The “successful helicopter raid” executed by US military forces followed “extensive planning” and resulted in no civilian deaths or injuries, according to US Central Command (CENTCOM) press release. Officials confirmed the identity of one of the two terrorists as Anas, an ISIS Syrian province official with involvement “in the group’s deadly plotting and facilitation operations in eastern Syria.” “The death of these ISIS officials will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carry out destabilizing attacks in the Middle East,” said...