Free Republic

SNIPPET: "ROME (Reuters) - Two Moroccan students deported from Italy last month were suspected of plotting to assassinate Pope Benedict, an Interior Ministry source said on Friday. Mohamed Hlal, 26, and Ahmed Errahmouni, 22, students at the University for Foreigners in the central Italian city of Perugia, had been under surveillance by anti-terrorist police for months before they were expelled on April 29." SNIPPET: "Six other foreign students, suspected of contacts with militant Islamic groups, are still under investigation." SNIPPET: "The magazine said police discovered a map of Turin at Errahmouni's house annotated with numbers and circles, ahead of a...

JAILS are spending thousands on colour-coded kitchen tools for Muslims, it was revealed last night. They are getting special red handled equipment to prepare Halal meals. The move comes after an MPs’ committee recommended more should be done to meet the needs of Muslim prisoners. So far 900 kits — costing £500 to £800 — have gone to jails across the UK. The Koran prohibits eating pig meat, which is considered unclean. So the serving spoons, ice cream scoops and ladles are kept in special locked chests to prevent contamination by those used for other inmates. A Muslim in Wakefield...

BALOCHISTAN PROVINCE, PAKISTAN – The 22-year-old doesn't look like the traditional turbaned Taliban commander. His black hair shoots out at all angles from beneath a red cap. He smiles easily and has a neatly trimmed beard. But Hilal says he is the co-leader of 200 Taliban fighters who operate across the border in Afghanistan. "Two years ago, we only attacked Afghan officials, but now we have so many Talibs that we can attack Americans," he boasts. In a rare interview with a Western reporter, Hilal and three other Afghan Taliban fighters describe how they slip into Afghanistan, attack NATO and...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The FBI has launched an inquiry into the activities of a grocery store owner who is allegedly the U.S. leader of a radical Islamic group banned in parts of Europe and the Middle East, authorities said. Iyad Hilal, an Islamic author and philosopher who owns an Orange County market, hasn't drawn much attention to his writings or his role in the group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which means Party of Liberation. But since the July 7 bombings in London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has suggested banning the group there. Hilal is apparently not suspected of any terrorist...