Free Republic

The Syrian government on Monday started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the city of Sweida, where Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters have clashed for over a week. The clashes between militias of the Druze religious minority and the Sunni Muslim clans killed hundreds and threatened to unravel Syria’s already fragile postwar transition. The clashes also led to a series of targeted sectarian attacks against the Druze community, followed by revenge attacks against the Bedouins. The U.N. International Organization for Migration said some 128,571 people were displaced in the hostilities that started with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks a...

For many Jews, the images of Druze men having their mustaches forcibly shaved conjure up memories of the Holocaust. Israel’s decision to take decisive action in Syria in an effort to deter attacks on the Druze community has shown that it is possible for countries to work to preempt massacres or genocide. In the wake of the fall of the Assad regime, Israel has been vocal about protecting the Druze in Syria. The IDF has acted several times when clashes in Syria between armed groups and Druze fighters led to the killings of Druze.

HELL'S KITCHEN, Manahttan -- New York City authorities made a disturbing discovery inside a van that had been involved in an accident Tuesday night on a busy street in Manhattan. Police were called to the scene near 42nd and 10th Avenue just after 7 p.m. The 31-year-old driver was operating a 2013 Chevrolet express van that had a food cart attached which became loose and struck a parked 2021 Kia Serrano with a 48-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy. Police say the driver, Sayed Khaled Elsayed Abdelmohsen, fled the scene, but the 48-year-old woman followed him in her vehicle. First...

Apparently, being the parent of a child murdered by a Muslim terrorist gives one moral credibility. There is no other way to explain the vast attention paid to the ideas of Michael Berg, father of Nick Berg, the American who was slaughtered by the Islamic sadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That is also the only explanation for the all the attention Cindy Sheehan has received. It is not because of the intellectual and moral depth of her worldview. But the attention paid to Michael Berg has been very helpful in enabling many more people to understand the thinking and values of...

Denne artikkelen er hentet fra www.aftenposten.no Adressen til artikkelen er http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=700469 Oppdatert: 02.01.2004, kl 14:49 Mullah Krekar arrested Mullah Krekar, the controversial former leader of the Kurdish guerilla group Ansar al-Islam based in Northern Iraq, was arrested on Friday afternoon in his apartment in Oslo's central Toeyen district. Krekar will be charged with complicity in a suicide attack according to newspaper VG's web site. Citing "centrally placed sources", VG reported that Oekokrim had expanded charges against Krekar to include a suicide attack carried out by Ansar al-Islam in Northern Iraq. Oekokrim has gathered information via electronic surveillance that they...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three undercover CIA officers arrived in Norway in the spring of 2003 as part of a possible secret operation targeting for rendition an Islamic militant living in Oslo known as Mullah Krekar, The Washington Post reported. Citing lawyers and unnamed European investigators, the newspaper said shortly after the agents arrived, Krekar received a warning from an anonymous Norwegian official that Krekar, then head of a Kurdish insurgent group, was a CIA target and should watch his back. The spies left Norway by the end of the summer, the report said. If the CIA was planning to abduct...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iraqi Kurdish imam and a Bangladeshi-American pizzeria owner on Wednesday lost an appeal of their convictions for plotting to kill a Pakistani diplomat in what turned out to be an FBI sting operation. The U.S Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of Yassin Aref, 37, and Mohammed Hossain, 53, who were sentenced last year to 15 years each in prison for their roles in a fake plot to attack the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations in New York with a missile. Both appealed their convictions of money-laundering and conspiring to provide material...

Oct. 28, 2003 Iran rejects U.S. demand to extradite al-Qaida operatives By ASSOCIATED PRESS TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran rejected a U.S. demand to hand over senior al-Qaida operatives in its custody, Tuesday, saying the terror suspects would stand trial in Iranian courts, state-run radio reported. A day earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted that senior al-Qaida operatives held by Iran should be turned over to their countries of origin or to the United States for interrogation and trial. "Al-Qaida operatives currently in (our) custody have committed crimes in Iran," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted by...

Nearly seven years after the feds raided his Northwest Side home, a Chicago IT specialist was convicted Friday of helping the Islamic State terrorist group through a media campaign that encouraged attacks, celebrated beheadings and other gruesome violence and taunted Western culture with memes like a headless Santa delivering a bomb. U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey issued his verdict following a rare bench trial that began last month, convicting Ashraf al Safoo on 11 counts, including providing material support to a terrorist organization, conspiracy to transmit threats in interstate commerce, and computer fraud. Al Safoo faces up to 130...

Ammaad Akhtar, 33, is accused of trying to give money, guns and ammunition to someone he thought was part of the terror group, and of making antisemitic threats. Menachem Wecker, Izzy Salant ... The LinkedIn profile of Ammaad Akhtar identifies him as a resident of Stockton, Calif., and a “mechanical engineering graduate” who is “outgoing and friendly,” a “great team player” and a “great leader.” A very different picture emerges about Akhtar, who remains listed as a hazardous substances engineer at the California Environmental Protection Agency, in the criminal complaint accusing him of trying to give money, guns and ammunition...

Hardline takeover of British mosques       Andrew Norfolk   Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found. Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to...

The Emirati newspaper the National reported on Thursday, citing anonymous sources within the terrorist organization, that Hezbollah is not planning to aid Iran in its ongoing conflict with Israel despite its deep ties and financial reliance on Tehran. Hezbollah is a Lebanon-based terrorist organization that functions as a highly influential political party in that country. It has collaborated with, and benefited financially from, the Iranian Shiite regime for decades. The State Department estimated in 2020 that Hezbollah was receiving $700 million a year in Iranian largesse to conduct terrorist activity. In addition to engaging in terrorist activity in the Middle...

Lebanese Hezbollah’s military defeat after 14 months of conflict with Israel has left it politically and militarily constrained and in no position to support its ally Iran in any future confrontation with Israel, analysts, military experts, and western diplomats told The National. Israel’s deadly overnight strike on Iran decapitated much of Tehran’s military and nuclear leadership. And a broader regional offensive by Israel over the past two years has severely weakened Iranian proxies across the region, leaving Hezbollah unable to come to its sponsor’s aid. Under normal circumstances “Hezbollah would definitely respond to the Iranian attack right away,” according to...

A Hezbollah official tells Reuters that the Iranian proxy group based in Lebanon will not unilaterally launch an attack on Israel in support of Tehran. “Hezbollah will not initiate its own attack on Israel in retaliation for Israel’s strikes,” the official says.

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A 20-year-old Blanchard man is facing up to 45 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to plotting a terrorist attack inspired by ISIS and downloading child pornography, while living a double life, his family was seemingly unaware of. Federal court documents unsealed this week, obtained by News 4, reveal disturbing details about the allegations against 20-year-old Landon Swinford, who admitted to federal authorities that he wanted to carry out an attack at the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in 2023. According to the FBI’s newly-released affidavit, when Swinford wasn’t busy telling...

Transcript linked to video. Video is great, even though it's just Mahyar talking.

A Pakistani citizen residing in Canada, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested on Sept. 4 in Canada in connection with a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York. Khan was charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). “The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible,” said Attorney...

King Abdullah II called for a global fight against terrorism yesterday as Jordan acknowledged for the first time that al Qaeda in Iraq used foreign suicide bombers to attack Amman hotels, killing 57.

Syria’s new government will relocate ISIS families from camps, with Kurdish and US support. The new Syrian transitional government is seeking to find a way to deal with thousands of ISIS families who have been housed at camps in eastern Syria since ISIS was defeated in Syria in 2019. When ISIS was defeated in several villages near the Euphrates River in 2019, some of the terrorist group chose to surrender, and thousands of families of ISIS fighters ended up in the hands of the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The thousands of families were sent to several camps and detention facilities...

Michigan Army National Guard member was inspired by Islamic State. The FBI has arrested a former member of the Michigan Army National Guard who prosecutors said was inspired by Islamic State to plan a mass shooting at a military base outside Detroit. Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19 years old, spent months plotting to attack the facility with the help of two people he believed were ISIS supporters, but who were actually undercover agents, according to a criminal complaint. Agents arrested Said just before he allegedly intended to attack on Tuesday, when he launched a drone over the base to conduct aerial...