Free Republic

PITTSBURGH - Pittsburgh police are investigating the beating of a Somali immigrant who was critically injured and might have been robbed. The man, believed to be about 30, was found beaten about 5 a.m. Tuesday in the city's Beltzhoover neighborhood. A city police spokeswoman said it appears that he had also been robbed. Betty Cruz, the director of Change Agency, said the victim is a member of Pittsburgh's Somali Bantu and Muslim communities. Cruz and others are calling on police to investigate whether the beating was a hate crime. Police haven't discussed any motive beyond robbery.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt stand poised to conduct a massive ground invasion of Yemen, and the western media will be full of tales about how “Operation Decisive Storm” is liberating that country from the evil Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. And without a doubt, the Houthis are bad guys and so are their Iranian benefactors. But don’t be fooled into thinking that the war in Yemen is a battle of good vs. evil. The truth is that the conflict in Yemen is actually a proxy war between two sets of bad guys that both ultimately plan for Islam to take over the...

Iran's hardline president lashed out anew at the United States and President Barack Obama on Saturday, accusing him of interference and suggesting that Washington's stance on Iran's postelection turmoil could imperil Obama's aim of improving relations. "We are surprised at Mr. Obama," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks to judiciary officials broadcast on state television. "Didn't he say that he was after change? Why did he interfere?"

U.S. special envoy to Sudan Andrew S. Natsios said yesterday that momentum is building for a political settlement to the Darfur crisis after rebel groups agreed on a common platform last week for talks with the Sudanese government. U.N. officials in New York, meanwhile, offered details on preparations for a major expansion of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur, a vast, featureless region that has been the site of a civil war between Khartoum and a number of rebel groups. Mr. Natsios, in a telephone conference with reporters, said that on a visit to Sudan last month, he sensed a war-weariness...