Free Republic

...The two attacks on opposite sides of Africa are among the scores of violent episodes to shake the continent in what experts are calling a breakout year for extremist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. .... The spike in terrorist attacks mirrors a steady, if less dramatic, increase in Islamist violence in parts of Syria and Iraq, driven by Islamic State fighters who slipped away after the caliphate’s defeat and have now regrouped.... The resurgence threatens to undermine one facet of President Trump’s reelection pitch to voters: his oft-repeated claim of victory over the Islamic State. ...The rise...

Col. Assimi Goita, who emerged Thursday as the head of the junta in power, worked for years with U.S. Special Operations forces focused on fighting extremism in West Africa. He spoke regularly with U.S. troops and attended U.S.-led training exercises, said officers from both countries, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Goita, who also received training from Germany and France, according to the officers, headed Mali's special forces unit in the country's restive central region, where fighters linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have established a stronghold that...

Toward the end of the century, Westerners who fled their home countries to fight in Afghanistan or Bosnia shared a common characteristic: They were practically all men. Today’s militant recruits, however, represent a dramatic demographic shift. Most are just entering adulthood. They often meet terrorists online. They’ve asked in covert chats: Do you have hair dryers, or should I bring one? One in seven are women, according to a new report. An estimated 4,500 Westerners have ditched home for the Islamic State or other Sunni jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq. Researchers at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in...

Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, is running for president on her business smarts. She led the company from 1999 to 2005, the first female head of a Fortune 50 firm — and controversies from her high-profile tenure resurfaced Wednesday at the Republican debate. "Yes, we had to make tough choices," Fiorina said on the prime-time stage, "and in doing so, we saved 80,000 jobs, went on to grow to 160,000 jobs. And now Hewlett-Packard is almost 300,000 jobs. We went from lagging behind to leading in every product category and every market segment." "The company is a...