Free Republic

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Khaled Kashkush, 29, of the Israeli-Arab town of Kalansuwa, was indicted in the Petach Tikva District Court on Wednesday for contact with a foreign element connected with the Hizbullah enemy - and with Hizbullah itself. Kashkush allegedly made contact with a Lebanese Hizbullah-affiliated organization that attempts, among other goals, to transfer money to the families of dead Hizbullah terrorists. In 2002, the charge sheet states, he worked in the German headquarters of the organization, and had constant contact with the chairman, Dr. Hasham Hassan. Kashkush was arrested three weeks ago when he returned from Germany. It is not felt that...