Free Republic

World leaders, media blame Israel for fleeing Christians BETHLEHEM - With Christmas services here drawing far fewer tourists than in the 1990s and the town's Christian population now at an all-time low, many world leaders and hundreds of major media outlets this week blamed Israel for Bethlehem's decline - often citing false information - while a simple talk with the town's residents reveals a drastically different picture. They say Muslim persecution has been keeping Christians away. "All this talk about Israel driving Christians out and causing pain is nonsense," a Bethlehem Christian community leader told WND. "You want to know what is at...

THE lawyer for an Indian migrant worker sentenced to have his eye gouged out as punishment by a Saudi Arabian court said he has launched a new appeal against the verdict. The original sentence, handed down in August, "is not definitive, the Riyadh court of appeal having not yet confirmed it", Nawaf al-Mutawa said, adding that "any recourse to (calls for) clemency" is premature. New Delhi announced on Friday it had sent a "mercy petition" calling on Riyadh to pardon the worker, Puthen Veetil Abdul Latheef Noushad, sentenced for blinding a Saudi national in 2003. Human Rights Watch earlier this...

An extended audio statement from Ayman al-Zawahiri, believed to have been made in mid-September, was posted on December 9 on the al-Safinat jihadi forum (http://202.71.102.108/~alsafnat/vb). Under the rubric "Four years on since the attacks on New York and Washington," and dated Sha'ban 1426 (September 2005), the 48-minute tape was produced by al-Sahab Media Productions, an organization that has come to be known as al-Qaeda's video production company. The statement is worth examining in detail since, amid the rhetoric of denunciation and challenge, it reveals much about the present state of morale within the al-Qaeda organization. The presentation, entitled Mu'awwiqat al-Jihad ("Obstacles to Jihad"),...

Top News Story Americans demand the US Senate schedule hearings on Iran. DoctorZin: So after receiving yesterday'’s report on the situation, several Iranian satellite broadcasters (NITV and SOS Iran) asked their listeners, which include millions of Iranians, to call Chairman Lugar'’s office and their own Senator'’s office demanding hearings on the Iran Freedom and Support Act. Blog Update:The Corner warned that Senate democrats were playing politics with the future of the people of Iran.Dean'’s World called "“deplorable"” the US Senate's "“betraying democratic values." Ed Driscoll appeared shocked, saying: Regime Change Iran? I'm In Favor.Atlas Shrugs asked her readers to...

Top News Story MEMRI The following are excerpts from a TV discussion with Iranian political analysts Dr. Hasan Hanizadeh(1) and Dr. Ali-Reza Akbari, which aired on Jaam-e Jam 2 TV on December 20, 2005. The discussion began with the subject of the denial of the existence of crematoria at Auschwitz, and went on to explain in detail how Jewish rabbis in Europe used to kill children and take their blood for use during the Passover holiday. TO VIEW CLIP, VISIT: Ali-Reza Akbari: "Historians and eye-witnesses, some of whom are still alive... There are still many people who saw with...

The leader of Egypt's main Islamic opposition group said Thursday the Holocaust was a "myth," and he slammed Western governments for criticizing disclaimers of the Jewish genocide. The comments by Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Mahdi Akef — made on the heels of his group's strong showing in Egyptian parliamentary elections — echoed remarks made recently by Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which sparked international outrage. "Western democracies have slammed all those who don't see eye to eye with the Zionists regarding the myth of the Holocaust," Akef wrote in a weekly article meant as a directive to the group's followers...

A FORMER Australian-based leader of Jemaah Islamiah has been discovered on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where the feared terrorist group runs military training camps for terror recruits. Abdul Rahman Ayub - named as one of the JI chiefs who set up a chapter known as Mantiqi4 in Sydney before moving to Perth - is believed to have been training JI operatives on the island for at least the past year. Terror expert Zachary Abuza said Ayub was one of 20 suspected JI members - included infamous bombmaker Dulmatin, who has a $US10 million ($13.5 million) bounty on his...

Top News Story Underreported US Senate Resolution on Iran reveals a lack of conviction DoctorZin:Last Friday, the day after millions of Iraqi's voted in an historic election, the US Senate passed a resolution condemning the recent alarming statements by Iran's President. Surprisingly, the mainstream media ignored the resolution while the international press has been avidly covering similar resolutions adopted by countries around the world. Unfortunately, the story behind the resolution revealed a disturbing lack of conviction by some in the US Senate. The resolution, authored by US Rick Santorum, was in his words "a mild condemnation" version of the...

ReutersUpdated: 7:28 a.m. ET Dec. 20, 2005 BETHLEHEM, West Bank - Palestinian gunmen briefly seized Bethlehem city hall, overlooking the Church of the Nativity, on Tuesday in a jarring interruption to Christmas preparations in the traditional birthplace of Jesus.The incident, five days before Christmas, was another sign of growing lawlessness in Palestinian territories and the turmoil within Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction ahead of a January parliamentary election.About 20 gunmen from Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fanned out on rooftops and in the offices of city hall, firing several shots in the air and forcing workers out. They demanded money...

Exclusive Interview By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org 12/19/2005 The Rev. Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo is the international director of the Barnabas Fund based in England. The Fund is a ministry which assists Christian minorities in the Islamic world and in other areas where Christians undergo persecution. Dr. Sookhdeo was recently in the United States where he spoke with David W. Virtue of VirtueOnline. Dr. Sookhdeo is a leading world authority on Islam, author of several books on Islam including "Understanding Islamic Terrorism" and "A Christian's Pocket Guide to Islam". Born in Pakistan of Islamic parentage he converted to Christianity while a...

The news from Iraq at this writing features a video of a terrorist murdering a man believed to be a kidnapped American civilian. The victim was trying to help rebuild that country. His cold-blooded execution is a reminder of what our Islamo-fascist enemies have in mind for all of us, non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Perhaps the murder was committed by putting a bullet in our countryman's head, rather than removing it, in deference to the recently disclosed injunction from an al-Qaida leader to one of his franchisees in Iraq that beheadings have proven counterproductive to the cause.

An Algerian with suspected links to al-Qaida was today jailed for six years for downloading instructions on how to blow up an aircraft with a bomb. The 27-year-old man, sentenced at Belfast crown court, was found guilty of possessing and collecting information connected with terrorism. Authorities have admitted they are unsure exactly who he is. During his six-week trial, he appeared in court under the name Abbas Boutrab. He has used at least seven aliases since his first known arrest for stealing a bag in Paris 13 years ago. Detectives in Northern Ireland, the British security services and the FBI...

A lawyer defending al Qaida-linked suspects standing trial for the 2003 suicide bombings in Istanbul told a court that jihad, or holy war, was an obligation for Muslims and his clients should not be prosecuted. "If you punish them for this, tomorrow, will you punish them for fasting or for praying?" Osman Karahan -- a lawyer representing 14 of the 72 suspects -- asked during a nearly four-hour speech in which he read religious texts from an encyclopedia of Islam. The November 2003 blasts targeted two synagogues, the British Consulate and the local headquarters of the London-based HSBC bank, killing...

2 Pipe Bombs Explode near Mosque in Cincinnati but it's not clear to Police if the Mosque was the target ! Just got this off the nightly news it's not on the Website yet not enough information is known.

INDONESIA has warned foreigners that militants in the country could be about to embark on a series of Iraq-style kidnappings over the holiday season. Indonesia's National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Syamsir Siregar issued the alert after news emerged last month that a website, purportedly set up under militant orders, gave instructions on how to shoot foreigners in the streets of Jakarta and throw grenades at motorists. Mr Siregar warned another militant tactic could be kidnapping, possibly during the Christmas and New Year period. "They have plans to change targets, like to kidnap people from a certain group," he said, adding...

Top News Story New Limits on Travel Abroad Adnkronos International:Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued a circular warning all ministers and state bodies that "no official may go abroad, on a mission or for personal reasons, without prior authorisation and without coordinating with the foreign ministry". In the circular, signed by the deputy president Parwiz Davoodi, no reason is given for the decision. "The aim is to avoid misunderstandings," a presidential source told the Iranian news agency Fars. Since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last July, there has been an increasing flow of financial and human capital to neighbouring...

Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden may have visited the United States as a young man, long before declaring jihad against America and its allies, the New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday. The weekly, in its December 13 edition set to hit US newsstands on Monday, reported that according a longtime acquaintance from his native Saudi Arabia, bin Laden made at least one trip to the United States, in about 1978, with his wife and oldest son, who needed medical treatment. The friend Khaled Batarfi, a Saudi journalist who lived down the street from bin Laden in the 1970's, told the...

ARIEL, West Bank, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Every day, Nida Hussein takes a trip that for most Palestinians would be unthinkable -- a two-hour bus ride from Jerusalem to a Jewish settler college in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hussein, an 18-year-old from Arab East Jerusalem, is one of more than 300 Arab students, many of them Israeli citizens, enrolled at the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel, a large settlement cutting deep into land Palestinians want for a state. "It was a little difficult at the beginning, but the most important thing is learning," she said. "Some friends asked...

It's Easy to Forget Just How Close Saddam Came to Having a Nuclear Weapon in 1991, Despite Regular Inspections by the IAEA & the Eyes of US Intelligence It's easy to forget that Senator Ted Kennedy & Company tried their best to defeat the resolution authorizing force to kick Saddam out of Kuwait. It's easy to forget that Iraq had passed frequent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections designed to ensure its compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or that its Manhattan Project-sized nuclear program went undetected by US intelligence. It's also easy to forget just how skilled Saddam...

Under the watchful eye of Mark Atwood, a Department of State trainer, Gen. Siafullah Hakem, the local immigration chief, and his Afghan Border Police colleagues, reviews the monitor of the Rapidscan x-ray machine at Kandahar International Airport. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Stephen Lum Afghan Border Police Prepare Airport for Hajj Afghan Border Police are receiving important airport screening training as the Kandahar International Airport prepares to open to Afghan nationals before the Hajj. By Sgt. 1st Class Stephen Lum 117th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Nov. 29, 2005 — Afghan Border Police are receiving...