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.. but ISIS is 'No. 1 priority'         

BREAKING: At least 28 people were killed and dozens of others were injured after coordinated explosions rocked the Brussels airport and subway system Tuesday morning. The attacks came four days after the main suspect in the November Paris attacks was arrested in Brussels. After his arrest, Salah Abdeslam told authorities he had created a new network and was planning new attacks. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Tuesday's attacks.

SNIPPET: "The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) name has come up before in connection with terrorism plots, including the October 2002 Portland Seven and the September 2002 Lackawanna Six cases in the United States, as well as the August 2006 plot to bomb airliners en route from London to the United States, the July 7, 2005, London Underground bombings and the July 2007 attempted bombings in London and Glasgow, Scotland. Over the past several years we also have received several queries about TJ from U.S. law enforcement officials who are concerned about the group’s presence and activities in the United States. U.S....

1. They are a minuscule portion of the U.S. population. 2. They're better educated than most Americans. 3. They have more gender equality. 4. They've been here since the birth of the nation. 5. They're not just clustered in big cities. 6. They're as religious as Christians. 7. They're not as dogmatic as they are portrayed. 8. There have been Muslims involved in terrorism. 9. But they've also spoken out against it.

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Three girls staged suicide bombings in the Nigerian city of Damaturu, killing at least 13 people as residents prepared for the Eid festival at the end of Ramadan, police said. The attacks, in a northeastern area hard hit by the Boko Haram insurgency, came just days before Nigeria's new President Muhammadu Buhari travels to Washington for talks with US counterpart Barack Obama.

The United Nations said Tuesday that Boko Haram is responsible for an “alarming spike” of suicide bombings in Nigeria that have been carried about by women and children. Girls between the ages of 7 and 17 years have been used for three-quarters of all such attacks in the region since 2014, the U.N. children’s agency reported. There have been 27 suicide bombings in the region over five months, compared to 26 in all of 2014. “Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way.

Trinidadian authorities have detained an Israeli national found living in a remote mountainous area east of the capital, police said, declining to state if he was being questioned in connection with a recent spate of bombings in the Caribbean island nation. A string of bombings, the latest one occuring last Thursday, have rocked the capital of Port-of-Spain. The bombings have injured 28 people. Authorities identified the detained man as Dahtang Mik Agarunov, 26. They said he was found living in a wooden shack in Arouca, about 10 miles east of Port-of-Spain. Agarunov was detained on Friday and questioned by Interpol,...

Gerardo Hernandez, a spy for Communist Cuba and the man responsible for the murder of four humanitarian workers (three of whom were American citizens) over international waters, was freed from prison last year by the Obama administration, due in part to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). This was revealed at a February 6, 2015, celebration of Hernandez’s release, along with two of his fellow Cuban agents (collectively known as the “Cuban 5.. At the beginning of the event, an IPS official thanked all who who took part in the 17-year campaign and singled out a number of organizations that...

Nelson Mandela at the Communist Party’s first public meeting in post-apartheid South Africa, 1990. You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, so I figured I'd get a head start.One of the landmark events of my Gen X youth was the 11-hour, internationally televised “Free Nelson Mandela” concert in 1988. Because, come on: how could you not be anti-apartheid? It was a no-brainer, risk-free cause, the type you could support without having to think about it too much or inviting unpopularity or controversy, right? Actually, no. Lots of big-name musicians who now boast of being on that concert roster...

SNIPPET: "Harun, described as “a prototype al Qaeda operative,” was “arrested by Italian authorities on board a refugee ship and was indicted by the United States in February 2012. Italy extradited him to the United States on Oct. 4, 2012,” the Hill reported. Harun could face life in prison if convicted."

Five-and-a-half years after being convicted of providing material support for terrorism, terror lawyer Lynne Stewart finally received a sentence commensurate with her crime. She was resentenced last week to 10 years. But if George Soros had his way, she would be free today. Stewart made a career out of defending street criminals and terrorists, including Sammy "The Bull" Gravano (pleaded guilty), Weather Underground terrorist David J. Gilbert (convicted), and Larry Davis (acquitted of wounding six policemen and killing several others in 1986, only to be convicted of a later murder and killed in prison). It should have come as...

He's been called an education visionary, a confidante of the future president and a terrorist, but he's never had to answer questions like these. William Ayers, who went from leading the Weather Underground in the 1960s and early 1970s to becoming a celebrated academic at University of Illinois, sat down for a no-holds barred interview with Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly, which will air Monday night.

A great diva could sing the names in the phone book and it would come out like Puccini. A talented writer like Bill Bryson could take any year in American history and make it fascinating. Doing the usual round of interviews after his latest book came out, "One Summer: America, 1927," he was asked why he would choose to write about so ordinary a year, one without a great war or depression or discovery or… Ordinary? 1927? It was anything but. If any year was grand and glorious in modern American history, and yet a portent of the tragedies and...

Vladimir Putin has vowed to pursue terrorists to “total annihilation”, in his first public comments since the Volgograd suicide bombings. In his traditional New Year's Eve address, which was broadcast at midnight from the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, (5pm in Moscow), he praised Russia’s unity in the face of both terrorism and natural disasters and promised to continue an unrelenting fight against the bombers. “In the past year we have faced problems and serious challenges including the inhuman terror attacks in Volgograd and unprecedented disasters in the Far East,” he said. “Dear friends, we bow our heads in memory...

Sgt. Sean Murphy Retires from Massachusetts State Police Murphy, the tactical photographer who released dramatic photos of the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev manhunt, retires after 25 years with the force. By John Wolfson Three and a half months after releasing the dramatic behind-the-scenes photos he took during the manhunt for suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Sgt. Sean Murphy has retired from the Massachusetts State Police. As part of a negotiated agreement, Murphy has also signed off on five disciplinary charges that were brought against him for the unauthorized release of the photos: violation of rules; unbecoming conduct; unsatisfactory performance; insubordination; and...

A wave of bomb attacks hit Iraq over the weekend, as people celebrated the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan, with more than 60 reported dead. The BBC reported that 11 bombs targeted both Shiite and Sunni areas of the capital, Baghdad, hitting cafes, markets and restaurants in at least nine different districts. A bomb also killed at least 10 people in Tuz Khurmato, north of the capital. This Ramadan in Iraq is thought to have been one of the deadliest in years, with more than 670 people killed. Most of the violence in the past six months...

from the whoa dept Okay, here's one that's just crazy. A few weeks ago, lots of folks, including us, covered the story of how the Justice Department claimed to a court that reporter James Rosen was "an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator" in a leak of some State Department info concerning North Korea. He was none of the above. He was a reporter, but the DOJ was abusing its power in order to spy on his email and phone records, to try to find the source of the leak. Soon after that, it came out that the DOJ had been...

More glorious fruit of the Arab Spring. "3 Arrested in Plot to Bomb Egyptian Cities and Embassy," by Ben Hubbard in the New York Times, May 11 (thanks to Kenneth): CAIRO — Egyptian security forces have arrested three militants with ties to Al Qaeda who were planning terrorist attacks in Egyptian cities and against a foreign embassy, the interior minister said Saturday. A Western official said the Egyptians had privately identified the embassy as the United States Embassy in Cairo. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said at a news conference that the suspects had been arrested with 22 pounds of explosive...

Two suspects who have been taken into custody in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings drove a car with “Terrorista #1″ license plates. Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev were reportedly arrested, along with one other person, for allegedly making false statements and obstructing justice during the federal investigation into Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, officials said Wednesday.

BOSTON (AP) -- The angry and grieving mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects insists that her sons are innocent and that she's no terrorist.