Free Republic

Ben Rhodes: John Brennan was the point person for the Obama White House on the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. He knows a lot more about defending our nation than someone who uses security clearances to punish his political adversaries. Robert J. Oneill: Actually, 23 conservatives went after UBL. No offense, in case you were wondering.

On Sunday's episode of The $100,000 Pyramid on ABC a contestant made the mistake of mixing up former Taliban leader Osama bin Laden with Barack Obama. The game show, which pairs a contestant with a celebrity as they offer clues based on a topic for their partner to guess, saw the contestant in question, a new father named Evan Kaufman, paired with Saturday Night Live alum Tim Meadows. As Kaufman's round began, starting with the easiest topics at the bottom of the pyramid, the hint in question was "People Whose Last Name Is Obama." Instead of citing the former president...

A Jordanian immigrant facing the death penalty in Houston praised Osama bin Laden for the terror attacks on New York City on September 11, 2001, and said the violence was deserved, his daughter testified Tuesday. Nesreen Irsan, 30, told jurors that her fervently Muslim father, 60-year-old Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan, was living in Conroe when the infamous attacks occurred and was happy that Americans had died. He also told his 12 children they should become suicide bombers if asked. “He said it’s what America deserves,” the daughter said as she testified against the father who has been convicted of killing her...

On the corner couch of a spacious room, a woman wearing a brightly patterned robe sits expectantly. The red hijab that covers her hair is reflected in a glass-fronted cabinet; inside, a framed photograph of her firstborn son takes pride of place between family heirlooms and valuables. A smiling, bearded figure wearing a military jacket, he features in photographs around the room: propped against the wall at her feet, resting on a mantlepiece. A supper of Saudi meze and a lemon cheesecake has been spread out on a large wooden dining table. Alia Ghanem is Osama bin Laden’s mother, and...

MSNBC’s Steve Schmidt––who recently left the Republican party––decried the Supreme Court decision upholding President Trump‘s travel ban. Nicolle Wallace talked with her panel about the SCOTUS decision, looking back at how we got from the originally-proposed Muslim ban to here. She said, “I remember people in the intelligence community saying to me, ‘Who do you think we rely on the most in the countries that could represent the greatest geopolitical threats from us?'” Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi said that today “we became a little bit less of that shining city on a hill” into a country...

Is torture always morally wrong? Is it sometimes justified?These are questions swirling around the nomination of Gina Haspel to head the CIA. Critics (mainly Senate Democrats) claim that torture is always wrong, even though some of those senators were aware of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” for years and never once complained about it. In her defense, Karl Rove told Fox News viewers that whatever we do is legitimate if it’s for the defense of the United States.As I explain below, both sides are wrong. But first things first.Zero Dark Thirty. This is Hollywood’s version of Haspel’s backstory. She apparently supervised...

The alleged former bodyguard of 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden has been found collecting welfare checks from the government in Germany, according to local media, because he cannot be deported—even though he was refused asylum status. A report in the German tabloid Bild said the man, named only as 42-year-old Sami A to protect his privacy, cannot be deported to his native Tunisia because he is at risk of torture there. He has lived in Germany since 1997 and has a wife and three children. Sami A collects around $1,430 a month in welfare from the German government, a figure...

The third batch of documents published by the US intelligence agency Abbottabad, Wednesday, revealed more secrets of close ties between al-Qaeda and Al Jazeera Qatari network.In a letter from Haj Osman to the Media Committee of the organization, he called for coordinating with Al Jazeera correspondent to respond to “false information” about al-Qaeda, asking to clarify through Al Jazeera many accusations perpetuated.He advised that Al Jazeera correspondent in Pakistan, Ahmed Zidan, would highlight what Arab channels claim that al-Qaeda enjoy privileges in Iran and, and to refer to Iraqi documents linking the organization to Iran, as well as arrange for...

Michael Flynn, former chief of staff for President Donald Trump and ex-U.S. intelligence chief, revealed in 2016 that laptops seized from jihadists were filled with as much as 80 percent pornography, alongside videos of beheadings and other gruesome footage. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said that the “documents retrieved from the 2011 Navy Seal raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden would be released in ‘weeks’—with the exception of one particular part of the haul, his pornography stash.” The Newsweek article below indicates that “while these documents are considered operational, his porn collection is not, and will likely remain classified.”...

Al Qaeda has issued its latest edition of Inspire magazine, Inspire 17. The magazine is published by the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but it covers Al Qaeda operations worldwide. In particular, Inspire 17 features the emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Musab Abdel al-Wadoud. However, this latest issue of Inspire is noteworthy in that the most prominent personality in the magazine is Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden. Hamza bin Laden is emerging as a global leader of Al Qaeda and has specifically vowed to take revenge on the U.S....

Personal letters seized in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden reveal the al Qaeda leader's son to be a young man who adores his father and wants to carry on his murderous ideology. That son today is poised to lead a stronger, larger al Qaeda and is bent on avenging his dad's death, says an ex-FBI agent familiar with those documents. Holly Williams interviews Ali Soufan, the former FBI agent who was the bureau's lead investigator of al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, on the next edition of 60 Minutes Sunday, May 14 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

"I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early spring allergic coughs" Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s coughing fits are at least five years old. Clinton’s video-taped coughing fits are not exclusive to the 2016 Election Campaign. Clinton had the same coughing fits when she was Secretary of State back in 2011. In fact, in her own words, then Secretary of State Clinton, who had been depicted with her hand covering her mouth in the iconic White House photograph of President Barack Obama and his top advisers watching live footage of the raid on Osama...

Does it matter what our kids learn about Islam in public schools? Jenny McKeigue of Olmsted Falls, Ohio thinks so. This small town mother has battled her local school board for about four years to get them to remove parts of the curriculum that seem to promote Islam. In 2012, McKeigue learned that her son had been shown a video in his seventh grade social studies class that she considered to be blatant Muslim propaganda. The video, an episode of the discontinued "30 Days" reality TV series, featured a "regular American" (the host's terminology, not mine) spending thirty days immersing...

With friends like Saudi Arabia, who needs enemies? Last week we learned that the Saudi government almost certainly played a role in the 9/11 terrorist attack and that our government kept that secret from the public for about fourteen years. A brief history of the coverup is in order here. In 2002, a joint congressional committee investigated the intelligence failures that led to the attack. That committee found suspicious clues that pointed toward Saudi Arabia--an official "ally" of the United States known for exporting radical Wahhabi Islam across the world. In a 28-page summary, the committee detailed the connections between...

The House of Representatives passed a defense budget that would make $450 million in aid to Pakistan contingent on the nation doing more to stop a militant terror network and calls for the freeing of an imprisoned doctor who helped the CIA find Usama bin Laden. The $602 billion National Defense Authorization Act passed by the House late Wednesday calls on the Muslim-majority nation to crack down on the infamous Haqqani Network or lose aid. It also included a “sense of Congress” that Dr. Shakil Afridi is an international hero and calls for his immediate release from prison. Afridi is...

US House blocks aid to duplicitous Pakistan The US House of Representatives' decision to incorporate stringent requirements for the release of American aid to Pakistan, even in the face of opposition from the White House, is indicative of a gradual change of heart in Washington, DC, towards what was once its frontline ally in the war on terror. It comes days after the US Congress objected to the sale of American F-16s, which have little value in fighting insurgents but help Pakistan build parity with India. This is not to suggest that the US is anywhere close to changing its...

Four years after U.S. forces shot dead Osama bin Laden at a house half a mile from Pakistan’s top military academy, the Pakistani doctor who allegedly ran a fake vaccination program for the CIA to find the al Qaida chief – but didn’t find him – is serving a long prison term on questionable charges of aiding an insurgent Pakistani militant group, his attorney said. Suspected CIA operative Shakil Afridi has paid a heavy price for the huge embarrassment caused to Pakistan’s powerful military and its security services by the discovery of bin Laden: In addition to his 23-year term,...

Peshawar, The lawyer of the Dr Shakeel Afridi escaped from the Pakistan and run in Dubai on Wednesday. Unknown people threaten him because of the counseling of Dr Shakeel Afridi. Who’s behind the prison in the linked with Lashker Islam (Banned organization) in Khyber agency (tribal area of Pakistan). The lawyer for a Pakistani doctor – Shekel Afridi – who helped the US to track down Osama bin Laden has fled the country after receiving threats from militants, relatives said. Lawyer Sami Ullah Afridi went abroad after militants threatened to blow up his car and kill his family, a relative...

The 33-year prison sentence of a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA locate Usama bin Laden has been overturned and a retrial has been ordered. Government administrator Feroz Shah said a senior judicial official, Sahibzada Mohammad Anis, issued the ruling Thursday because the person who originally sentenced doctor Shakil Afridi was not authorized to hear the case. Afridi, who was convicted in May 2012 of conspiring with Islamic militants in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal area for giving them money and medical treatment, will reportedly remain imprisoned at Peshawar Central jail until the retrial is concluded. No date has been set, BBC...

No one will receive the $25 million reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden, say U.S. officials, because the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader in Pakistan on May 2 was the result of electronic intelligence, not human informants. "We do not expect a reward to be paid," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the bin Laden hunt, meaning that the $25 million bounty offered by the U.S. under the Rewards for Justice program after the 9/11 terror attacks will probably remain uncollected.