Free Republic

A notice calls the people the U.S. military recently killed on suspicion of drug smuggling in the Caribbean Sea “unlawful combatants.”President Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels his team has labeled terrorist organizations and that suspected smugglers for such groups are “unlawful combatants,” the administration said in a confidential notice to Congress this week. The notice was sent to several congressional committees and obtained by The New York Times. It adds new detail to the administration’s thinly articulated legal rationale for why three U.S. military strikes the president ordered...

Alexander Paffendorf, 20, of Carlsbad, was detained by FBI agents on suspicion of 'plotting' to coordinate a mass shooting at government buildings in conjunction with Rupnow, according to an emergency gun violence restraining order reviewed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It notes that FBI agents 'saw the messages from Paffendorf to Rupnow.' It was not immediately clear how Paffendorf knew Rupnow, and Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Journal Sentinel he did not have any information about the arrest in California, and referred questions to the FBI.

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

What could be the first public appearance of the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq has been posted on the Internet, showing him executing a Turkish hostage. Abu Ayyoub al-Masri succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was slain in a US airstrike June Seventh. The new leader is also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer. The video shows three men in masks standing behind a blindfolded hostage. The militant in the middle, identified as al-Masri, reads a statement criticizing companies and people that cooperate with the US military. Then he shoots the hostage three times in the head.

CAIRO (AP)--Al-Arabiya TV chief Abdulrahman al-Rashed knows Iraqi militants use his station to get their message to the masses and understands that each time he airs a video of a kidnapped foreigner, terrorists are encouraged to grab others. At rival station Al-Jazeera, chief editor Ahmed al-Sheikh says he faces the same agonizing dilemma every time militants deliver yet another tape bearing a shivering hostage or a deadly threat. But both men, like those at many news organizations, say that though it is becoming increasingly difficult to decide whether to report developments like videotapes of hooded gunmen surrounding captive truck...

...We need to understand the reality of that gore, and we need to understand it again and again. That's why I differ from my colleagues in the media, even the fine organization with whom I'm associated, FOX News, when I say, show me those beheadings of innocents like Paul Johnson and 33-year-old South Korean humanitarian worker Kim Sun-il. Show me the senselessness of their killings. Show me the evil behind their killings. Show me it. Show me all of it. And don't sanitize it. Don't blur it, mask it, color it or frame it. Don't gloss over it and try...