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Their 9/11 Role: The Taliban Five are Even Worse than You’ve Heard

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard By Thomas Joscelyn.

One of the five senior Taliban leaders transferred to Qatar in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl played a key role in al Qaeda’s plans leading up to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mohammad Fazl, who served as the Taliban’s army chief of staff and deputy defense minister prior to his detention at Guantánamo, did not have a hand in planning the actual 9/11 hijackings. Along with a notorious al Qaeda leader, however, Fazl did help coordinate a military offensive against the enemies of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan the day before. And Osama bin Laden viewed that September 10 offensive as an essential part of al Qaeda’s 9/11 plot.

The 9/11 Commission found that the hijackings in the United States on September 11, 2001, were the culmination of al Qaeda’s three-step plan. First, on September 9, 2001, al Qaeda assassinated Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Massoud in a suicide bombing. Massoud’s death was a major gift to the Taliban because he was their chief rival and still controlled parts of the country. The assassination was also intended to weaken opposition to the Taliban and al Qaeda within Afghanistan before the United States could plan its retaliation for the most devastating terrorist attack in history. The Northern Alliance did, in fact, play a role in America’s response.

The following day, September 10, al Qaeda and the Taliban took their second step. A “delayed Taliban offensive against the Northern Alliance was apparently coordinated to begin as soon as [Massoud] was killed,” the 9/11 Commission found. Fazl and one of bin Laden’s chief lieutenants, Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, played key roles in this setup for 9/11. At the time, al Iraqi oversaw what al Qaeda called the Arab 55th Brigade, which was Osama bin Laden’s chief fighting force inside Afghanistan and fought side by side with Mullah Omar’s forces.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox News Daughter of first American killed in Afghanistan learns freed Taliban leader was behind it

By Hollie McKay.

Alison Spann was just 9 when she learned her father, a U.S. Marine turned CIA operative, had become the first American killed in the war in Afghanistan. Thirteen years later, she found out her country had freed the Taliban leader behind his death.

In the time between, Spann has cherished the memory of her father, Johnny Micheal “Mike” Spann, who was killed during a Nov. 25, 2001 prisoner uprising at a northern Afghanistan compound where he was interrogating Taliban fighters. The 32-year-old was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in a ceremony in which he was lauded by then-CIA Director George Tenet for trying to build a “better, safer world.” His daughter has since grown up and recently graduated from Pepperdine University, even as more than 2,300 Americans have died fighting in Afghanistan.

But nothing prepared Alison Spann for news that Mullah Mohammad Fazi, the unquestioned leader of the prisoners at the compound where her father was killed, had been traded along with four cohorts held at Guantanamo Bay for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by the Taliban for nearly five years..

“My initial reaction was shock. I was shocked that our president would release five of the most high-risk prisoners being held in Guantanamo in exchange for one American,” she told FoxNews.com. “As a whole, my family was extremely upset and saddened that our government would do something like this, especially in light of the fact that it seems that people in the intelligence community are fairly united in their belief that these terrorists are likely to seek to further harm Americans in the future.”

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Iraq Isis Crisis: Medieval Sharia Law Imposed on Millions in Nineveh Province

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Photo Credit: ReutersBy Jack Moore.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has imposed a strict set of Sharia laws on the citizens of Nineveh province just days after capturing the provincial capital of Mosul.

In a document circulating on social media attributed to the group, Isis warned tribal leaders and sheikhs not to “work with [the Iraqi] government and be traitors” while proclaiming that women should only go outside if absolutely necessary.

“For women, dress decently and wear wide clothes. Only go out if needed,” read the document as translated by Al Aan TV reporter Jenan Moussa.

Further rules included bans on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes while public gatherings, the possession of guns and the carrying of flags not of the Islamic state were outlawed.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AFP / Getty ImagesISIS Just Stole $425 Million, Iraqi Governor Says, and Became the ‘World’s Richest Terrorist Group’

By Terrence McCoy.

Of the many stunning revelations to emerge out of the wreckage of Mosul on Wednesday — 500,000 fleeing residents, thousands of freed prisoners, unconfirmed reports of “mass beheadings” — the one that may have the most lasting impact as Iraq descends into a possible civil war is that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria just got extremely rich.

As insurgents rolled past the largest city in northern Iraq, an oil hub at the vital intersection of Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and into Tikrit, several gunmen stopped at Mosul’s central bank. An incredible amount of cash was reportedly on hand, and the group made off with 500 billion Iraqi dinars — $425 million.

The provincial governor of Nineveh, Atheel al-Nujaifi, said that the radical Islamists had lifted additional millions from numerous banks across Mosul, as well as a “large quantity of gold bullion,” according to the International Business Times, which called ISIS the “World’s Richest Terror Force.”

The declaration isn’t an easy one to fact-check. Not only is the definition of “terrorist” nebulous — are murderous but wealthy Mexican cartels terrorists? — it’s also exceedingly difficult to quantify a terrorist organization’s finances. One of the closest stabs anyone has made comes from the well-versed Money Jihad.

According to its analysis, which drew on journalistic and academic accounts, the cash seizure would make ISIS the richest terrorist organization in the world — at least for the time being.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: SAFIN HAMED / AFP / Getty ImagesCongress’s Iraq Vets Helplessly Watch Their Gains Lost

By Clara Ritger.

Americans are tired of war. For the 17 members of Congress who served in Iraq, that means watching helplessly as the cities they fought for fall once more to extremists.

Militants believed to be associated with al-Qaida overtook Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on Tuesday. The group then seized Tikrit, hometown of former President Saddam Hussein, on Wednesday.

Three Republican congressmen who served in Iraq—Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Doug Collins of Georgia, and Brad Wenstrup of Ohio—said it feels like the progress they made has been thrown away.

“Going out across the desert I remember the feelings that you have, wondering if you’re going to make it out alive,” Perry said. “Right now I wonder what that was all about. What was the point of all of that?”

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Obama to Free Gitmo Terrorist ‘Because He Took Up Yoga’

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Photo Credit: ReutersIf you thought President Obama’s release of five top Taliban commanders in exchange for POW Bowe Bergdahl was bad, wait until you see what his Gitmo parole board plans.

Desperate to empty the Guantanamo Bay prison by the end of his term, Obama quietly is giving “get out of jail free” cards for the flimsiest of excuses.

One al Qaeda suspect captured in Afghanistan is considered reformed because he took up yoga and read a biography of the Dalai Lama. Another is eligible for release because of his “positive attitude.”

And one longtime detainee, a former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is now harmless because he’s going to start a “milk and honey farm.”

The Periodic Review Board already helped clear 78 of the remaining 149 prisoners for release, documents show, and has scheduled more hearings for this summer.

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Six Soldiers Who Served with Bergdahl Come to Chilling Consensus in Riveting Interview

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Megyn Kelly interview with members of Bergdahl’s platoon

By Caroline Schaeffer.

Megyn Kelly hosted 6 members of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s platoon to discuss their reactions to the Bergdahl situation, and they were unanimous in their explanations of what they saw: Bergdahl deserted, he sought out the Taliban, and he deserves a court martial.

Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: GettyFeinstein Says She’s Seen No Evidence that Taliban Would Have Killed Bergdahl

By Jonathan Topaz.

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said she has not seen any evidence that the Taliban would have killed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl if details of an agreement had leaked, contrary to what Obama administration officials have said.

When asked whether there was a “credible threat” on Bergdahl’s life if word had gotten out, the California Democrat responded: “No, I don’t think there was a credible threat, but I don’t know. I have no information that there was.”

Feinstein’s comments, part of an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Political Capital with Al Hunt airing Friday evening, put her at odds with White House officials. At a briefing Wednesday, administration officials told lawmakers that they couldn’t give Congress advance notice on the Bergdahl deal because the Taliban vowed to kill him if any details about the prisoner exchange came out.

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Photo Credit: WNDShrink questions sanity of Bergdahl AND Obama

By Drew Zahn.

A prominent psychotherapist and author has publicly questioned the mental stability of both Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. president who traded five terrorists back to the Taliban to secure Bergdahl’s release.

Dr. Gina Loudon is host of “Smart Life with Dr. Gina” on Money Biz Life Network and has appeared on or been cited by the BBC, ABC, CNN, New York Times, Fox News and more. Her columns also appear regularly on WND.

Earlier this week, Loudon told Lou Dobbs on Fox Business Network’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that Bergdahl’s anti-American rhetoric doesn’t suggest someone suffering from torture or even “Stockholm Syndrome,” but rather the mind of a man whose thinking had been twisted long before his capture by the Taliban.

She also suggested President Obama may relate to Bergdahl’s “anti-colonialist” rantings, and his recent “erratic” behavior may not be what we “deem sane.”

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Photo Credit: APIt worked: White House Bowe Bergdahl story took attention off Veterans Affairs scandal, deaths

By Paul Bedard.

It probably didn’t work out exactly as hoped, but the White House’s controversial trade of five hardened Taliban for a U.S. POW diverted the mainstream media’s attention away from the escalating Veterans Affairs Department scandal that threatened President Obama’s reputation with veterans.

According to a new report from the Center for Media Research, the VA story that dominated the news prior to the prisoner swap for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was reduced to a mere 2 minutes and 16 seconds over all three networks over the last week, said the conservative media watchdog.

Read more from this story HERE.
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Photo Credit: IJ Review Just What We Feared: Freed Taliban Leader Vows To Return To His Reign Of Terror

By Caroline Schaeffer.

One of the five freed Taliban members has vowed to return to Afghanistan so that he can fight Americans, according to a fellow militant and family member. For the next 12 months, Noorullah Noori will be monitored by the Qatari government, but after that time he plans to return to Afghanistan.

NBC News reports a family member has been in touch with the network to share Noori’s threats.

“After arriving in Qatar, Noorullah Noori kept insisting he would go to Afghanistan and fight American forces there,” a Taliban commander told NBC News via telephone from Afghanistan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Treason Trifecta: Bergdahl is a Deserter, Defector, and Collaborator

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Photo Credit: Fox News ‘Lopsided’ Deal with Enemy for Bergdahl in Sharp Contrast to Inaction on Tahmooressi

By Joseph J. Kolb.

The Obama administration’s extraordinary effort to free Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has some wondering why the president can’t make a simple phone call on behalf of a former Marine being held in a Mexican prison after mistakenly driving across the border with registered guns.

Obama announced Saturday in a dramatic Rose Garden news conference that five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay would be exchanged for Bergdahl, a 28-year-old infantryman held captive for five years by the terrorist group. The swap angered many in the military and on Capitol Hill, because it went against long-standing policy of not bargaining with terrorists.

“He wasn’t forgotten by his country, because the United States of America does not ever leave our men and women in uniform behind,” Obama said.

Although Tahmooressi is not a prisoner of war, he served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and now suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, according to his mother, Jennifer Tahmooressi. Friends who have visited him in prison say he has been tortured and threatened with rape and death, and they question whether the administration is doing enough to help him.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox News Bergdahl wrote of being ‘ashamed’ to be an American in emails

By Fox News.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl left a letter the night he disappeared from his base in Afghanistan saying he wanted to renounce his citizenship, according to sources, and previously expressed his disillusionment with the Army, telling his father in an e-mail he was “ashamed” to be an American.

That account, though, is being called into question amid conflicting claims over whether Bergdahl left a note behind. U.S Army officials who have read the investigation document said there was no reference in that report to a letter.

While Bergdahl remained at a U.S. military hospital in Germany following a swap for five high-level Taliban members — dubbed a jihadist “Dream Team” — two of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers told Fox News Channel that the 28-year-old Idaho native willingly walked away from his post in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. Their claims that Bergdahl’s departure from the base was premeditated jibes with emails published in 2012, in which he told his father of his growing disenchantment with the Army’s mission in Afghanistan.

“The future is too good to waste on lies,” Bergdahl wrote his parents. “And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Joe Raedl – Getty Images
White House Overrode Internal Objections to Taliban Prisoner Release

By Massimo Calabresi.

To pull off the prisoner swap of five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the White House overrode an existing interagency process charged with debating the transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners and dismissed long-standing Pentagon and intelligence community concerns based on Top Secret intelligence about the dangers of releasing the five men, sources familiar with the debate tell TIME.

National Security Council officials at the White House decline to describe the work of the ad hoc process they established to trade the prisoners, or to detail the measures they have taken to limit the threat the Taliban officials may pose. They say consensus on the plan was reached by the top officials of Obama’s national security team, including representatives from the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence community and Joint Chiefs of Staff. “These releases were worked extensively through deputies and principals,” says National Security Counsel Deputy for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes. “There was not a dissent on moving forward with this plan.”

But officials in the Pentagon and intelligence communities had successfully fought off release of the five men in the past, officials tell TIME. “This was out of the norm,” says one official familiar with the debate over the dangers of releasing the five Taliban officials. “There was never the conversation.” Obama’s move was an ultimate victory for those at the White House and the State Department who had previously argued the military should “suck it up and salute,” says the official familiar with the debate.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Treason Trifecta: Bergdahl is a Deserter, Defector, and Collaborator

By Russ Vaughn.

Forgive the cynicism of this old infantry sergeant when it comes to media depictions of anyone and anything associated with the military. But they inevitably get it wrong: ranks, unit designations, and terminology. And most of all, what they never seem capable of comprehending is the military mindset regarding loyalty to your brothers in arms and the importance of successfully completing the mission. Except for the minuscule few veterans among them, journalists just don’t get it.

Let us hope that in the case of this recently apprehended deserter, Bowe Bergdahl, they will resist their natural compulsion to brand another American traitor a hero. Several liberal media outlets appear to be taking a balanced position rather than swallowing whole the Obama administration’s propaganda.

Notice that I do not use the term “POW” for the simple reason Bergdahl disgraces that description of his captivity. He is a wartime collaborator, or more precisely, a collaborationist, the term applied to treasonous soldiers who defected to the enemy in earlier wars. And apprehended is the correct term to apply to a deserter/defector now back under U.S. Army control in Germany.

Bergdahl deserted his platoon to fulfill what may turn out to be a family-concocted book-deal plan to undermine the mission of American troops in Afghanistan. His recorded words and those of his father indicate their sympathies to those Islamists we are fighting. PFC Bergdahl’s fuzzy, feel-good airs and mysterious conversations may well have been contrived to justify and camouflage his true intent to desert his post and go over to the enemy.

Read more from this story HERE.

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U.S. concluded in 2010 that Bergdahl walked away

By Ken Dilanian and Deb Riechmann.

A Pentagon investigation concluded in 2010 that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl walked away from his unit, and after an initial flurry of searching the military decided not to exert extraordinary efforts to rescue him, according to a former senior defense official who was involved in the matter.

Instead, the U.S. government pursued negotiations to get him back over the following five years of his captivity — a track that led to his release over the weekend.

Bergdahl was being checked and treated Monday at a U.S. military hospital in Germany as questions mounted at home over the swap that resulted in his freedom in exchange for the release of five detainees who were sent to Qatar from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo, Cuba.

Even in the first hours of Bergdahl’s handoff to U.S. special forces in eastern Afghanistan, it was clear this would not be an uncomplicated yellow-ribbon celebration. Five terrorist suspects also walked free, stirring a debate over whether the exchange would heighten the risk of other Americans being snatched as bargaining chips and whether the released detainees — several senior Taliban figures among them — would find their way back to the fight.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sarah Palin on Bowe Bergdahl: President Obama ‘Blew It’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Politico By Jonathan Topaz / Politico.

President Barack Obama “blew it again” on foreign policy, Sarah Palin said Monday, slamming the president for the deal that released Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

She cited National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s comments one day earlier that Bergdahl served “with honor and distinction.”

“No, Mr. President, a soldier expressing horrid anti-American beliefs — even boldly putting them in writing and unabashedly firing off his messages while in uniform, just three days before he left his unit on foot — is not ‘honorable service,’” the former Alaska governor wrote in a Facebook post. The New York Post has reported that Bergdahl once emailed his parents from Afghanistan, saying he was “ashamed to be an American.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Parents of fallen soldier: Our son died looking for Bergdahl and the military lied to us about it

By Allahpundit / Hot Air.

Their son, Second Lieutenant Darryn Andrews, was also named in Nathan Bradley Bethea’s Daily Beast piece today as one of the men from his battalion killed in action during the search.

If the accusation is true, it wouldn’t be the first time higher-ups tweaked the narrative about how an American soldier died to make it less problematic for the military.

At the time his family say they were told that his men were hunting a Taliban commander and that the truck at the front of their group ended in a hole after being hit by an Improvised Explosive Device.

As the men got out to try and move the truck, a Taliban fighter with a rocket propelled grenade emerged and fired at them.

Read more from this story HERE.

Palin: If I Were President, ‘Waterboarding is How We’d Baptize Terrorists’

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Sarah Palin would like all terrorists to know that if she were in charge, waterboarding is how the United States would baptize them.

At least that’s what the former Alaskan governor and ex-vice presidential nominee told thousands of attendees this weekend at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Indianapolis.

“If I were in charge,” Palin said Saturday during a Stand And Fight rally at Lucas Oil Stadium, “[our enemies] would know that waterboarding is how we’d baptize terrorists.”

Palin mocked what she called the Obama administration’s coddling of suspected terrorists.

“Enemies, who would utterly annihilate America, they who’d obviously have information on plots, to carry out jihad,” Palin said. “Oh, but you can’t offend them, can’t make them feel uncomfortable, not even a smidgen.” The White House, she said, has failed to put “the fear of God in our enemies.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Harry Reid’s View on Terrorists Explained in One Cartoon

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TP-terrorist-590-CI
Photo Credit: Political cartoonist A.F. Branco

As an American who believes vehemently in our Constitution, free speech and free political discourse I find Reid’s comments both ridiculous and hurtful.

Read more from this story HERE.

How To Kill Six Terrorists With One Shot

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Photo Credit: Western Journalism

Photo Credit: Western Journalism

By B. Christopher Agee.

With the price of ammunition skyrocketing, it has become necessary for marksmen to conserve bullets. Apparently, this idea has also infiltrated the British military.

One 20-year-old soldier stationed in Afghanistan defined such conservation when he successfully rid the world of six Taliban insurgents with just one bullet. From nearly 1,000 yards away, the unidentified lance corporal fired the fateful shot, hitting a suicide bomber’s device and causing an explosion that killed him and five others in the vicinity.

The effective sniper also reportedly killed a Taliban terrorist with the very first shot on his initial tour – from a distance of nearly 1,500 yards.

According to commanding officer Lt. Col. Richard Slack, the sniper’s recent success on the battlefield neutralized a significant threat. The bomb detonated by his shot was just one of two at the location, he explained, noting a 44 pound vest filled with explosives was found in the vicinity.

Though this attack happened late last year, news of the incident is just being released as the U.K. continues to withdraw troops from the region. Slack offered some intriguing details surrounding the case of the exploding jihadists.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit; Heathcliff

Photo Credit; Heathcliff

British sniper in Afghanistan kills six Taliban with one bullet

By Holly Watt.

A British sniper in Afghanistan killed six insurgents with a single bullet after hitting the trigger switch of a suicide bomber whose device then exploded, The Telegraph has learnt.

The 20-year-old marksman, a Lance Corporal in the Coldstream Guards, hit his target from 930 yards (850 metres) away, killing the suicide bomber and five others around him caught in the blast.

The incident in Kakaran in southern Afghanistan happened in December but has only now been disclosed as Britain moves towards the withdrawal of all combat soldiers by the end of the year.

Lt Col Richard Slack, commanding officer of 9/12 Royal Lancers, said the unnamed sharpshooter prevented a major attack by the Taliban, as a second suicide vest packed with 20kg (44lbs) of explosives was found nearby.

The same sniper, with his first shot on the tour of duty, killed a Taliban machine-gunner from 1,465 yards (1,340m).

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: After DHS Denial, Local Reporter Finds Evidence Terrorists Crossed the Border

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Photo Credit: YouTube As we reported last week, a local news station found Border Patrol documents that indicated that thousands of OTMs — “Other Than Mexicans” — have been caught crossing the Mexican border into the U.S., including some known terrorists.

But since that report, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has DENIED that there is any “credible evidence” that any terrorists have crossed over.

Read more this story HERE.