Free Republic

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon on Friday granted James Cromitie, 58, compassionate release from prison, six months after the three other members of the "Newburgh Four" were freed. The group was arrested in 2009 on charges of conspiracy to bomb Jewish buildings in New York and shoot down National Guard planes. The group was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Last July, Judge McMahon ordered the other three conspirators released on the grounds that they had been manipulated into the plot by the FBI...

The defendant in a Jan. 6. 2021 Capitol Hill protests-related case denied a claim by federal prosecutors that a boyfriend was jailed for plotting to shoot up a synagogue. Riley Williams’ filing Thursday came in response to one last week by federal prosecutors objecting to her request to loosen restrictions pending her trial. She is wearing an ankle monitor and is under house arrest at her mother’s home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Prosecutors in that filing noted that Williams had lied last August about meeting a boyfriend; Williams was required to report all her meetings, and she had told people, including...

The Chinese coronavirus pandemic has once again delayed the long-awaited death penalty trial of the self-professed 9/11 mastermind and his four co-conspirators held at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the judge handling the cases revealed recently. Justice remains elusive nearly two decades after the jihadis executed the attack that left about 3,000 people dead and over 6,000 injured, marking the deadliest assault on U.S. soil. U.S. officials charged the late Osama bin Laden’s close ally Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) alongside his nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi, accused hijacking trainer Walid bin Attash, facilitator Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and al-Qaeda money...

Portland reporter Mike Bivins was arrested on Saturday over alleged attacks of vandalism and arson at houses of worship, according to the Portland Police Bureau. Michael E. Bivins, 34, of Portland, Oregon was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center early Saturday. Bivins was charged with multiple counts of criminal mischief in the first degree, criminal mischief in the third degree, and arson in the first degree. On April 30, Bivins allegedly broke windows to Congregation Shir Tikvah, a Jewish Synagogue, located at 2420 NE Sandy Blvd in Portland. On May 2, Bivins allegedly graffitied the Jewish Synagogue Congregation Beth...

Police in Britain said they have detained two teenagers in relation to the hostages being taken at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville on Saturday. Greater Manchester Police tweeted the information on Sunday that two teenagers were detained in South Manchester by Counter Terrorism Policing North West. They remain in custody for questioning. No further details were released about the suspects.

Authorities on Sunday identified a 44-year-old British national as the man who took four people hostage at a Texas synagogue for 10 hours before an FBI SWAT team stormed the building, ending a tense standoff that President Joe Biden called “an act of terror." Malik Faisal Akram was shot and killed after the last of the hostages got out at around 9 p.m. Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel near Fort Worth. In a statement, the FBI said there was no indication that anyone else was involved, but it didn't provide a possible motive. Akram could be heard ranting on a...

A Texas SWAT team responded Saturday afternoon to a hostage situation at a synagogue near Dallas. The Colleyville Police Department said on Twitter that they are conducting SWAT operations "around the 6100 block of Pleasant Run Rd." All residents in the immediate area of the incident are being evacuated, according to the tweet.

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...

The family of the British terrorist who was shot dead after taking four people hostage inside a Texas synagogue have tonight condemned his actions as they admitted to 'liasing' with the shooter during his 10-hour stand-off with police. Malik Faisal Akram, 44, was shot dead by the FBI after holding four hostages for more than 10 hours at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas on Saturday. His 'devastated' brother Gulbar Akram shared a message on social media in which he revealed he had been working with the FBI and 'liasing' with his sibling throughout the stand-off. He also apologised...

WASHINGTON, Aug 3: Five years after her mysterious disappearance in Karachi, the FBI has finally conceded that an MIT-trained Pakistani neuroscientist is alive and is in US custody in Afghanistan. Aafia Siddiqui, 36, disappeared with her three children while visiting her parents’ home in Karachi in March 2003, around the same time the FBI announced that it wanted to question her over her alleged links to Al Qaeda. Her family’s lawyer Elaine Whitfield Sharp said she believed recent media reports about Mrs Siddiqui’s incarceration increased pressure on the US and Pakistani authorities to divulge more information. “I don’t believe that...

Hostage-taker at Texas synagogue calls for the release of Pakistani national from US prison, authorities say By Alaa Elassar and Michelle Watson, CNN Updated 8:40 PM EST, Sat January 15, 2022 article video (CNN)The FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety are assisting a hostage situation at a synagogue in Texas, where authorities say the suspect may be motivated by the desire to free a Pakistani scientist who was convicted of attempting to kill US officers in Afghanistan. A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told CNN there were believed to be four hostages, including a rabbi, at Congregation...

But in one sense, it doesn’t matter. Any complaint he has about the U.S. government, the case in question or even Israel doesn’t involve the individuals whose lives he has violated. Throughout the tense hours, the priority was the safe rescue of the hostages. Officers heroically stormed in and rescued them late Saturday, for which we should all be grateful. Now, it’s important to reflect with righteous anger, to acknowledge the evil done, name it and identify where it comes from. The innocent Colleyville congregants have nothing to do with the case of Aafia Siddiqui, whom the hostage-taker reportedly mentioned....

If you disagree with the Democrats, you’re a “domestic terrorist.”As the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaches, Joe Biden has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to fight Al Qaeda. Instead he’s going to fight other Americans. The Biden administration’s newly released National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism mentions Al Qaeda only once in its 30 pages. Even though the FBI continues to break up Islamic terrorist plots against America, the document only defines Muslims as victims. Just last month a Seattle Muslim convert was arrested. The convert had discussed driving a "semi-truck" through "the gay pride...

BuzzFeed News drew criticism Sunday for publishing an article claiming conservative political pundit Ben Shapiro radicalized a white nationalist who pleaded guilty to defacing a synagogue with Nazi symbolism. “Yes, if there’s one thing I’m known for — as one of the most prominent Orthodox Jews, targets of the alt-right, and critics of the alt-right in America — it’s directing Nazis to attack synagogues,” Shapiro responded to BuzzFeed News. “What garbage.” Nolan Brewer, 21, was sentenced to three years in prison on May 22 for conspiring to violate the civil rights of a synagogue in Indiana, according to the U.S....

Today Hasher Jallal Taheb, 23, of Cumming, Georgia, has pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to destroy, by fire or an explosive, a building owned by or leased to the United States. Taleb had planned an attack on the White House using weapons and explosives.  As part of the plea agreement, the defendant and the government agreed that the defendant should receive a 15-year sentence of imprisonment.“Taheb planned to conduct a terrorist attack on the White House as part of what he claimed was his obligation to engage in jihad,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John...

Federal authorities arrested a 27-year-old accused white supremacist who allegedly planned to bomb a synagogue in Colorado over the weekend. Richard Holzer had brought a knife and a mask to a motel room and was examining inert pipe bombs prepared by undercover agents moments before he was arrested late Friday night, according to a criminal complaint. He also said he paid a "witch doctor" $70 to put arsenic in the water pipes of the synagogue and "hex" the place last year, according to the complaint.

... The attack took place on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur when there were about 80 people in the synagogue. German media named the killer as 27-year-old far-right activist Stephan Balliet and online streaming site Twitch said it was ‘working urgently’ to remove video of the rampage which he broadcast live on its platform. It showed him taking a bomb from his car and trying to blow up a gate at the side of the building. When a woman confronts him, asking if his behaviour was ‘really necessary’, he shoots her dead.

The accused gunman in the deadly shooting at a San Diego-area synagogue pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder. In addition to entering pleas on Thursday in a San Diego court for firing an assault rifle inside the Chabad of Poway synagogue, John Earnest, 20, also pleaded not guilty to arson charges for a fire a month earlier at a nearby mosque, the ABC affiliate in San Diego, 10 News reported. One woman, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, was killed and three people were wounded, including an 8-year-old girl and the synagogue’s rabbi, who lost a finger, in the...

<p>DAYTON, Ohio (KDKA/AP) – An ex-girlfriend of the Ohio gunman who killed nine people says he showed her a video of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on their first date.</p> <p>Adelia Johnson says in an emailed statement to The Associated Press that Connor Betts often joked about having dark thoughts. She says he told her that he had bipolar disorder and that his talk didn’t scare her because she thought it was a symptom of his mental illness.</p>

Harrowing reports of a shooter at a synagogue emerged as victims called 911 in Poway, California at roughly 11:30 am local time this morning. San Diego Police quickly responded to the scene where at least four injured were transported to local hospital. ABC10 reports that, "The incident was reported at the Congregation Chabad located at 16934 Chabad Way sometime before 11:30 a.m., the San Diego County Sheriff's Office twitter account reported. "Deputies investigate reports of a man with a gun. Please stay clear of the area and allow deputies to safely do their job. Thank you for your patience and cooperation,"...