Free Republic

Just last month, CAIR’s Dallas-Fort-Worth chapter held an event called "In Pursuit of Freedom" at the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas, calling for Siddiqui’s release, claiming she had been "kidnapped, ripped apart from her children, shot at, renditioned to the U.S., and is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence for a crime she did not commit." On Nov. 18, the CAIR chapter held an online fundraiser for Siddiqui’s defense team. Days earlier, multiple Muslim advocacy groups, including CAIR, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the Islamic Circle of North America Council for Social Justice (ICNA-CSJ), and the Muslim American...

“We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.”-John Kirakou I would take anything John Kirakou says with a grain from the salt pit.  I question his credibility. What does anyone really know about Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to be the next director of the CIA? Not a heck of a lot. So far what we have is media and ideology-driven hysteria:...

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald...

A federal judge was aghast over the Trump administration’s assertion it could indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant without providing access to a lawyer, saying the Justice Department’s defense of the practice amounted to “an end run” around the man’s Constitutional rights. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is weighing a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to allow the group access to the man in order to provide him legal representation. “He wants counsel, which is an assertion and a request that I don’t think I can ignore,” Judge Chutkan said Monday, adding that she plans...

Police in Hamburg shut down the notorious al-Quds mosque, renamed the Taiba mosque in 2008, led by German-Syrian national and voluntary imam Mamoun Darkazanli. Darkazanli (a.k.a. Abu Ilyas al-Suri) has been a suspected al-Qaeda operative, primarily as a financier and logistician, in the European Union for close to two decades. Long active in al-Qaeda circles, Darkazanli first surfaced on the radar of Western intelligence agencies when he purportedly helped procure a cargo ship named “Jennifer” for Osama bin Laden as early as 1993 (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 16, 2004). Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA- Federal Criminal Police Office) admitted that it had been...

"9/11 plotter released in Syria prisoner exchange" SNIPPET: "The al-Qaeda recruiter reputed to have assembled the so-called Hamburg Cell, which planned and largely carried out the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, has been set free in a prisoner exchange between rebel and regime forces in Syria. Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham has secured the release of 9/11 plotter and alleged al-Qaeda core member Mohammed Haydar Zammar, adding to concerns about the composition of the Islamic Front. A naturalized German citizen of Syrian origin, Mohammed Haydar Zammar left Germany shortly after the attacks and traveled to Morocco, where he was reportedly...

Tyler S. Drumheller, a high-level CIA officer who publicly battled agency leaders over one of the most outlandish claims in the U.S. case for war with Iraq, died Aug. 2 at a hospital in Fairfax County. He was 63. The cause was complications from pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Linda Drumheller. Mr. Drumheller held posts in Africa and Europe over a 26-year career during which the CIA’s focus shifted from the Cold War to terrorist threats. He rose to prominent positions at CIA headquarters, serving as chief of the European division at a time when the agency was abducting al-Qaeda...

Amnesty International is calling on senators to to halt the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over his "possible involvement" in human rights violations after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The human rights organization wrote in a Monday letter that Kavanaugh might have been involved "in issues related to torture and rendition after 9/11." "More information must be made public to determine Kavanaugh’s role in relation to such practices," the organization wrote.

Shipp was a CIA Anti Terrorism expert and was assigned as a protective agent for the Director of Central Intelligence. He is the recipient of a Medallion for overseas covert operations, two CIA Meritorious Unit Citations and three Exceptional Performance Awards. Zerohedge published a partial transcript of Ship's comments made to USAWatchdog.com's Greg Hunter: "They are terrified, they are terrified right now. They did not expect Trump to do what he is doing now. The reason they tried to get him even before he was elected is they knew he was uncontrollable, and they knew if he got in there,...

Kerry on Gitmo Detainee Who Returned to Terrorism: ‘He’s Not Supposed to Be Doing That’ BY: Aaron Kliegman February 24, 2016 5:45 pm Secretary of State John Kerry lamented Wednesday that a terrorist who the Obama administration released from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay subsequently returned to fight for al Qaeda, telling lawmakers “he’s not supposed to be doing that.” Appearing before the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Kerry made the statement while testifying about the State Department’s budget request for the fiscal year 2017. During the hearing, Sen. Mark Kirk (R.,...

The strange and fascinating world of the British spy known as ‘Chris Whatsit’ was unravelling yesterday. Christopher Steele was once MI6’s top spy on Russian affairs and lived in the shadows until being unmasked as the alleged author of the ‘dirty dossier’ on Donald Trump. He was dubbed ‘Chris Whatsit’ by his late wife on their first date because she could not remember his name – but he revelled in being a man of mystery. Now the 52-year-old is hoping to return to anonymity after fleeing his £1.5million home in Surrey, telling his neighbour to look after his three cats....

When you read this, sip slowly, dust off the way-back machine, and think about those who have surfaced visibly to support Hillary Clinton. Including “retired” U.S. General John Allen (retired in 2012), who was previously brought out of retirement to lead President Obama’s fight against ISIS in 2014. In order to understand the scope of the relationships it takes understanding the full back story. Stay with it…. general john allen The question posed to the Tree House back in 2014 was: Why is the White House selecting a retired General John Allen, instead of a current commanding officer to lead...

What happened in Uzbekistan? The government and opposition protesters are sharply at odds in Uzbekistan days after the eastern city of Andijan exploded into violence. A May 15 AP report claimed some 500 bodies had been laid out in a school in Andijan for identification by relatives, "corroborating witness accounts of hundreds killed" when soldiers opened fire on street protests. Medical authorities also reported some 2,000 wounded in local hospitals. However, a May 18 account on Russia's MosNews.com quotes Uzbek officials denying this very death toll. “Not a single civilian was killed by government forces there,” Prosecutor General Rashid Kadyrov...

At exactly 5 p.m. on March 13, 2007, just as I was preparing to leave my cubicle in Washington for the day, I got a phone call from the journalist Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers. To this day, I remember his exact words. 'One of your congressman’s constituents is being held in an Ethiopian intelligence service prison, and I think your former employer is neck-deep in this.' The congressman was Rush Holt, then a Democratic representative from New Jersey, for whom I worked for 10 years starting in 2004. The constituent was Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J., who...

ABC News' Rachel Martin reports: The US intelligence gathering program known as “extraordinary rendition” was essentially put on trial for the first time - in Italy - and this week the court rendered a guilty verdict. Italian Judge Oscar Magi convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric on a street in Milan, Italy. The cleric, known as Abu Omar, alleged that he was abducted by CIA operatives who then shuttled him between US bases in Europe and then moved him to Egypt where Omar says he was tortured. The Italian judge tried the Americans, all but...

A former CIA counterterrorism officer who is set to be extradited to Italy where she faces a four-year prison sentence in connection with the rendition of a suspected terrorist that took place in Milan in 2003 said Hillary Clinton is partially to blame for her ordeal. Sabrina De Sousa, two-dozen other CIA officers, and an Air Force colonel were convicted in absentia in 2009 in Italy on kidnapping and other charges in connection with the abduction of Osama Mustapha Hassan Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, a radical Egyptian cleric whose fiery anti-American speeches in the immediate aftermath of 9/11...

February 1, 2013 State Dept. Publicized Names, Photos of Stevens' Benghazi Security Detail Before 9/11/12; Suppressed Their Identities Afterward Terence P. Jeffrey State Department Special Agent Mario Montoya instructs Libyan local guards in marksmanship in Benghazi in 2011 in a photo published in the December 2011 issue of the State Department's State Magazine. (State Dept. photo) (CNSNews.com) - The State Department took two dramatically different approaches to dealing with the identities of the Diplomatic Security (DS) agents it sent to Benghazi, Libya, to protect Amb. Chris Stevens and the small number of other temporary U.S. diplomatic personnel the department rotated...

ROME (AP) - An Italian prosecutor is investigating whether U.S. agents played a role in the alleged abduction from Milan of a suspected Islamic militant, according to news reports. The 41-year-old imam, identified as Abu Omar, disappeared in the northern Italian city in February 2003. Milan Prosecutor Armando Spataro is looking at whether he was seized in a CIA operation and flown to Egypt for interrogation, the Corriere della Sera and other newspapers have reported. Last week, the prosecutor visited a joint U.S.-Italian air base in Aviano to find documents on air and vehicle traffic that might shed light on...

Italy orders arrest of CIA agents over Imams abduction 6/24/2005 10:45:00 PM GMT Italian authorities ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents accused of kidnapping a Muslim leader Italian authorities ordered the arrest of 13 agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) accused of kidnapping a Muslim leader in northern Italy, an Italian newspaper reported on Friday. The arrest warrants were issued by Italian Judge Chiara Nobili at the request of the anti-terrorist division of the state prosecutor's office, the Corriere della Sera said. The 13 agents are suspected of kidnapping Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar,...

SNIPPET: "The detentions would be temporary."