Free Republic

Homegrown terrorist Jeffrey Leon Battle considered America the “land of the kaffirs,” or unbelievers, and the American people “pigs.” He once lamented to an acquaintance—who happened to be a government informant—that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks did not sufficiently damage the U.S. economy. “This is the land of the enemy,” he said of his own country in a May 8, 2002, conversation secretly recorded by the government. He explained to a friend how his “burning desire” to become an Islamic martyr had inspired his aborted quest to join forces with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, where he could kill American...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S.-led forces fought militants near Afghanistan's unstable border, the military said Friday, just across from a Pakistani region where suspected al-Qaida fighters are believed to have found refuge. The skirmish occurred Thursday near Shkin, a border town in Paktika province 140 miles south of the capital, Kabul, U.S. military spokeswoman Master Sgt. Cindy Beam said. The U.S.-led troops were backed by warplanes in the fighting that was near a remote American base. "Coalition forces reported troops in contact with anti-coalition militia near Shkin," Beam said in an e-mail. "Air support with precision ordnance was called in...