Free Republic

Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. The soldiers' mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage. But the teams had yet to do much counterterrorism work in Libya, though the White House signed off a year ago on the plan to build the new military task force in the region and the advance teams had been there for six months, according to three U.S. counterterror officials and a former...

Brief thoughts/quotes from the last 11 years. "Looking away, not caring, or hoping for the best are not viable options in fighting terrorism (in general) and the global jihad (specifically). Terrorism must be fought head on 24/7 and preventing terrorism is far better than just reacting to one terror-related event after another." -Cindy (July 1, 2011) ~ "WHAT DID I LEARN from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001? OPINION: I have learned that more Americans love America than the lame-stream media will ever let on. I have learned that America's military is the finest in the world. I have...

Syria will be suspended from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on Wednesday for its violent suppression of a 17-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, a diplomat said on Monday ahead of an emergency OIC summit in Mecca. "The resolution regarding the suspension of the Syrian membership in the OIC is not facing obstacles ... It will be approved," said the diplomat, speaking on the sidelines of a preliminary foreign ministers meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He said the decision was likely to be formally announced at the end of the second day of the summit, which was called by Saudi...

As Tuareg rebels battle radical Islamists with heavy weapons for control of the northern Mali city of Gao, Mali and the other 15 nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are planning a military offensive designed to drive both groups out of northern Mali in an effort to re-impose order in the region and prevent the six-month old conflict from destabilizing the entire region. So far, however, operational planning has not been detailed enough to gain the approval of the UN Security Council for authorization of a Chapter Seven military intervention, leaving ECOWAS and the African Union...

When Paul C. Sereno went hunting for dinosaur bones in the Sahara, his career took a sharp turn from paleontology to archaeology. The expedition found what has proved to be the largest known graveyard of Stone Age people who lived there when the desert was green. The first traces of pottery, stone tools and human skeletons were discovered eight years ago at a site in the southern Sahara, in Niger. After preliminary research, Dr. Sereno, a University of Chicago scientist who had previously uncovered remains of the dinosaur Nigersaurus there, organized an international team of archaeologists to investigate what had...

The crocodile was a silent stalker, as long as a school bus and weighing almost 18,000 pounds. It cruised the primordial rivers of what is now Saharan Africa, looking for unwary dinosaurs to eat."It was absolutely enormous, said a University of Chicago paleontologist, Paul Sereno, of the 8,165 kilogram creature. "There is nothing that would be able to handle that animal. It's like a torpedo of muscle five feet in diameter. (with body armour) The skull of the world's largest living crocdile looks like an hors d'oeuvre by comparison." In an age of giants 110 million years ago Sarcosuchus imperator ...

Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

The AU wants Africa to manufacture and export finished products to its trading partners rather than just selling them the raw materials as it does now. She cited China, India, the EU and US and other rising stars in trade with the continent, including Turkey and Latin America, and said the AU had held talks on the new breed of partnerships with some of them. The AU also wants Africa to have a veto-wielding seat on the UN Security Council, and a place at the G20 negotiating table, Ali said. The peace and security that have eluded Africa for decades...

A Gallup survey done across 20 sub-Saharan African countries on the main sources of lighting for households saw Mauritius fair best, with 100% of respondents saying this was provided by power lines. South Africa came in second at 80% in terms of households with grid supplied power for lighting, followed by Ghana (67%), Nigeria (66%) and Cameroon (65%). At the bottom of the list in this survey for electrical grid power supplying household lighting was Liberia at 4%, followed by Chad and Burkina Faso at 8%. In Chad, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Uganda and...

Niger officially became an oil producer Monday with the opening of a refinery run by the state and a Chinese company. Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou and China National Petroleum Corporation boss Jiang Jiemin cut the red ribbon at the new plant at Olelewa in the east, near the country's second city Zinder... Energy Minister Foumakoye Gado said locally produced fuel will be sold at the pump starting Thursday at a price of 570 CFA francs (0.86 euro cents) per litre of petrol -- down from the current 679 CFA francs (1.02 euros). The price of diesel will drop to 577...

SURRENDER COMPLETELY AND RECEIVE MY LOVE FOR YOU ! My surrender to you is eternal , for as My Sacrifice was a promise and a statement of My Love coming down through the Father ! It is Now time for You to SURRENDER wholeheartedly to Me . I need to see a heart opened forth right and true ; to discern My Presence ! That you make " ALL " Known to Me ~ free for release and in this surrender as you raise your hands and lower your defenses and pride I WILL COME ! And My SPIRIT ,...

Weapons smuggled from Libya after the collapse of Muammar Qaddafi's government are flowing through the surrounding region, the president of neighboring Niger said, a development that threatens to destabilize a swath of the continent already struggling against ethnic unrest and a regional branch of Al Qaeda. "Arms were stolen in Libya and are being disseminated all over the region," Niger's president Mahamadou Issoufou said following a meeting with South African president Jacob Zuma. "Saharan countries are facing terrorist threats, arms and criminal trafficking. The Libya crisis is amplifying those crises." Issoufou's remarks came days after Niger's military clashed with arms...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) said it had held talks - through intermediaries - with Saif al-Islam about his possible surrender. Prosecutors stressed that Gaddafi's son, who is wanted for crimes against humanity, would get a fair trial. Saif al-Islam, who was once the presumed successor to his father, has been in hiding for months. Recent reports claimed he was in a convoy heading toward Libya's desert border with Niger, where other Gaddafi allies have fled. But those reports have not been confirmed, and the ICC said it did not know where he was. Zimbabwe-bound? ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo...

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son and heir apparent, Saif al-Islam, and ex-intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi have reportedly suggested turning themselves in to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. ­The news comes from NTC senior Libyan military official Abdel Majid Mlegta, as quoted by Reuters. Since NTC forces took control of Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, the colonel’s son has remained in hiding. He is believed to be somewhere near Libya's southern border with Niger. According to the NTC official, Saif al-Islam and Senussi are trying to broker a deal to surrender to the court through a neighboring country. Which country...

No fewer than 8,000 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have defected to the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Niger State ahead of the local government election scheduled for next month in the state. The leader of the defectors, Mohammed Sanusi Salihu, who spoke weekend in Suleja at the flagging off campaign for the local government election next month and reception for the defectors, took the CPC members by surprise as he revealed the alleged strategy they (PDP) used to rig election when they were in the PDP... He said that even when sometimes the PDP would not...

The violent conflict in Libya has turned the neighbouring Sahel desert into a powder keg, regional powers said yesterday in Algiers, as former leader Muammar Gaddafi's arsenal risks being snapped up by al- Qaeda's local franchise... Algeria and other Libyan neighbours have expressed fears that the ousted Libyan leader's arsenal and remaining loyalists would be scattered across the Sahel, an 8- million-square-kilometre desert area south of the Sahara. Mr Bazoum said half a ton of Semtex explosive was seized in Niger in June, and warned that there might have been more, as well as surface- to-air missiles... French, American and...

AGADEZ, Niger — A large military convoy from Libya arrived in the northern Niger city of Agadez late Monday, a military source told AFP. "I saw an exceptionally large and rare convoy of several dozen vehicles enter Agadez from Arlit... and go towards Niamey," the source said, amid speculation that toppled leader Moamer Kadhafi may be in it. "There are persistent rumours that Kadhafi or one of his sons are travelling in the convoy," the source said. A journalist from a private radio station in Agadez said he saw "a convoy of several dozen vehicles crossing the city and heading...

... "Hundreds of Malian and Nigerian Tuaregs are coming home from the Libyan front. Among them are former Malian and Nigerien rebels, but also Tuaregs of Malian origin who were in the Libyan army," said a security source at Gao in the north of Mali. The Tuaregs from the army obtained Libyan nationality in the 1990s and mostly fought alongside Kadhafi's other troops. Some of them were integrated into an elite military unit, the same source said. ... "We need to fear a destabilisation of the whole Sahel with this new development. States like Mali and Niger are not prepared...

NIAMEY (Reuters) - Niger fears that Islamic militants could seize power in Libya as a result of the civil war in its northern neighbour, President Mahamadou Issoufou said late on Saturday. Speaking on state television, Issoufou said Niger would not take sides in the conflict, unlike several other African nations which back the rebels, and insisted the only solution to the violence was through a negotiated political accord. "Niger's interest is that this crisis does not result in fundamentalists taking power, that's our concern," said Issoufou, who won March elections which returned Niger to civilian rule after a year of...

Algeria on Wednesday called for an inclusive dialogue in Libya with the participation of all Libyan parties to reach a peaceful settlement of the crisis. Speaking at a press conference in the capital Algiers, Abdelkader Messahel, Algerian Delegate Minister for Maghreb and African Affairs, said his country is in contact with all concerned parties in Libya, and aims to help end the crisis in the neighboring country in a peaceful way. Messahel said Algeria supports the African Union (AU) roadmap for solving the conflict, which calls for political dialogue between different parties in Libya, necessary political reforms, and more effective...