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The US troops stationed in Makhmur have also retreated after Hashd al-Shaabi took the control of the town from peshmerga forces. The US troops stationed in Makhmur town of Mosul have retreated to Hewler (Erbil) Wednesday evening after peshmerga forces withdrew and handed over the control of the town to Hashd al-Shaabi militia. The US troops reportedly blew up the base before their evacuation and withdrawal to the surroundings of Hewler next to the peshmerga forces. The US military base in Makhmur was constructed before the operation to liberate Mosul and an undisclosed number of US special forces were stationed...

Some time ago Elaine Ganley, Associated Press Writer, referred to the French politician Philippe de Villiers as “a presidential hopeful who opposes Muslim immigration” and as a “far-right politician.” She wrote, with thinly disguised contempt, that de Villiers “claimed” to “base his book, ‘The Mosques of Roissy,’ on intelligence reports,” while “many saw the book as a publicity grab.” his kind of coverage is typical. Philippe de Villiers is no more, and no less, "far right" than the late Democratic Senator Henry Jackson, or for that matter than the late Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey, or William Proxmire, or any number...

Turf-conscious bloggers in Paris' rundown, mostly Muslim, suburban immigrant housing estates rival in violent messages threatening to beat senseless and even kill any intruder caught in "our ghetto." Almost every word is misspelled, in both argot slang and pidgin French. These are not empty threats. An average of 14 policemen a day are injured in bloody clashes with jobless youths. France's Interior Ministry said 2,500 police officers had been "wounded" this year. The head of the hard-line trade union "Action Police" Michel Thooris wrote to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to describe conditions in housing developments turned slums as "intifada." Police...

This interview appears at the new Occidentalis Blog. The interview was conducted by David Reinharc for Israel Magazine. The image is from Journaux DR - We are familiar with the way Le Pen tripped himself up on the Shoah and with his complacent attitude toward holocaust deniers. What is your position with regard to these "assassins of memory" and should those self-proclaimed historians be punished?PDV - I am, as you know, the son of a man who earned the Resistance Medal, a man who was imprisoned and tortured by the Nazis at Lübeck. Holocaust denial is an abomination and of...

IN PARIS A FAR-right French politician launched his 2007 presidential campaign yesterday by declaring Islam incompatible with France's secular values. Philippe de Villiers, head of the anti-immigrant Movement for France (MPF) party, also charged that Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport was endangered by Islamist radicals, who he claimed had infiltrated the ground staff. Mr Villiers has stirred up controversy in recent weeks with increasingly tough statements about Muslims, which critics call racist and officials describe as exaggerated. France's five million Muslims make up the largest such minority in Europe. "I am the only politician who tells the French the truth...