Free Republic

The President returned from Camp David on Saturday and hosted a Tee Ball game on Sunday. The Vice President concluded his overseas trip with meetings in Italy on Saturday and Sunday and has now boarded AF2 for what I presume is the flight back to the US. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended on Sunday a three-day visit to North Africa, including Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco Pray for President Bush - Day - 2916 & McCain/Palin - Day - 10 Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

snip...A 17-year-old French Jew was attacked on Saturday night in Paris, an assault condemned by President Nicolas Sarkozy and said by Jewish organizations to be an act of anti-Semitism. snip...Police said five youths had been held for questioning, and one police source told Reuters the victim was suffering "serious neurological problems." snip..."The victim was wearing a kippa and was on his way back home when his attackers, after identifying him as Jewish, started to beat him," the union said. snip...Two police sources said the attack took place right after a skirmish between two groups of youths, one Jewish and the...

Algeria Muslim body slams Christian evangelistsSun 1 Jun 2008, 7:22 GMTALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria hit back on Saturday at foreign accusations minority Christians are harassed, saying Protestant evangelicals were secretly trying to divide Algerians to colonise the mainly Muslim north African country.http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN130142.html   The Rising Threat of Revolutionary Islam in Algeria A radical Islamic victory in Algeria would pose significant long-term threats to US interests in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Muslim world ...http://www.heritage.org/Research/Africa/BG1060.cfm   2 bombings near Algerian capital wound 6 peopleThe Associated Press - Jun 4, 2008Algeria's Islamic militants have mounted increasing attacks over the past...

No mystery as to why Christian missionaries might be having their greatest success in the Kabyle. In Algeria, that remains the Berber heartland. It is where the Berbers, that is those who were not forcibly transformed, during the centuries of Arab rule (interrupted by 132 years of French rule) into "Arabs" (how many of those "Arabs" who now persecute the Berbers realize that they themselves are a generation, or two, or five removed from their clearly Berber origins?) The cause of the Berbers is hardly known in this country. The writer Kateb Yacine, a Berber who refused to write in...

The 2008 Dakar Rally has been cancelled because of safety concerns in the African republic of Mauritania. Four French tourists were murdered in Mauritania on 24 December, which led to the French government advising against any travel to the country. Eight of the rally's 15 stages were due to pass through Mauritania. The event's organisers, the Amaury Sport Organisation, said there had been "direct threats against the race issued by terrorist groups". The annual car and motorcycle marathon had been due to start in Lisbon on 5 January with the finish coming in Dakar on 20 January. "Following several consultations...

.."surrendered after disagreements with other leaders in the organization."

ALGIERS, Algeria (Reuters) -- Algerian security forces have killed the mastermind of suicide bombings including a triple attack in Algiers in April that claimed 33 lives, a government-run newspaper reported on Thursday. Rachid Sid Ali, a military adviser to the al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, was killed on July 30 in the troubled Kabylie region east of Algiers, El Moudjahid said. He was killed along with his aide Haroun El Achaachi "thanks to the help of the local population of Iboudranene" village near Kabylie's main town of Tizi Ouzou, the daily added, citing a security source. Attacks plotted...

Ethiopia's 'secret war' forces thousands to flee By David Blair in Gode Last Updated: 2:32am BST 09/10/2007 Ethiopian troops have been deployed to crush Somali rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front Few places are more desolate than southern Ethiopia, where the barren plains suffer hunger and poverty even when the rains fall. Yet one of Britain's closest African allies is waging a brutal military campaign in this bleak region, burning villages and forcing thousands to flee their homes. Ethiopia, the recipient of £130 million of British aid this year, is fighting a virtually unknown guerilla war on the borderlands...

ALGIERS (Reuters) - The deputy chief of al Qaeda's North Africa wing, believed to be the group's operational leader, was killed along with two other rebels in a gun battle with Algerian troops, local newspapers said on Tuesday. Hareg Zoheir, also known as Sofiane Abu Fasila, was said to be the second-in-command of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and suspected of being behind planning most of the suicide bombings in Algeria in the recent months. He was shot dead on Sunday at a check point in the eastern region of Tzizi Ouzou, the country's leading dailies reported. "Sofiane is...

Mideast: President Bush warns Syria not to interfere in Lebanon's selection of a new president. Whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Lebanon, democracy will be defended against those who would extinguish it. President Bush met last Thursday with Saad Hariri, leader of the anti-Syrian majority in the Lebanese parliament, and son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. After the meeting, Bush warned Damascus against meddling in Lebanon's delayed and upcoming presidential election. He is telling Damascus that its ambitions end at the Lebanese border. "I am deeply concerned about foreign interference in your elections," Bush told Hariri, adding that many...

Why Did FDR Invade North Africa?By James Lewis   One of the clichéd questions of the Left is "Why did Bush invade Iraq? We were attacked by Saudi Arabians on 9/1 !" Or so goes the customary narrative.   This mantra is supposed to expose President Bush's stupidity. But in fact The Question reveals the asker's own clueless blunder about war and strategy. The proper answer is to point to other presidents and other wars. Like FDR after Pearl Harbor.    After the "day that will live in infamy" FDR's first land attack took place in Morocco and Algeria, then...

ALGIERS, (Reuters) - The Algerian army, stepping up a counter-offensive after attacks by al Qaeda's north Africa wing, has killed around 16 of the group's fighters in the past three days, newspapers reported on Saturday. At least 13 members of the al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb were killed near borders with Tunisia in Tebessa province, some 634 km (396 miles) east of the capital Algiers, independent dailies Liberte and El Khabar said. The army was acting on information provided by a captured rebel, the papers cited security sources as saying. In a separate operation, the military killed three...

A suicide bomber blew up a refrigerated truck allegedly packed with upto a ton of explosives inside a military encampment southeast of the Algerian capital, killing 10 soldiers and wounding up to 35. Al-Qaida’s North African affiliate claimed responsibility for the truck attack on Wednesday, the Al-Jazeera TV network reported. The TV network quoted a recorded message from an alleged spokesman for the extremist group. The truck drove into the small post on the edge of Lakhdaria, some 80 kilometers from Algiers, as the doors opened in the morning for arriving personnel. Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni, speaking at the...

Moroccan police detained 15 suspected members of the al Qaeda Organization for the Countries of the Arab Maghreb, daily newspaper Al Massa reported July 10. News of their detention came after Morocco increased its security alert level to "maximum" and the European Union and Israel warned of the increased possibility of militant attacks within the country. Security at diplomatic and tourist sites in Morocco has been tightened in light of the warnings in order to prevent any attacks from occurring; however, such a change in security posture could deflect any attack toward softer targets. Analysis Fifteen suspected members of the...

Algerian security forces have arrested 13 minors and dismantled a suspected training camp used by an al-Qaeda linked group east of the capital Algiers, security sources said Sunday. After a two month investigation the minors, aged 12 to 17, 10 of them junior high school students, were arrested at the camp in the Boumerdes region 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the capital, which the security forces suspect was being used by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. The outlawed Islamic group has recently rebranded itself as the North African branch of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. Local chiefs...

Algiers, 8 June (AKI) - Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - the new name for the old Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) - has launched its first website since the new terror alliance was formed several months ago. The organisation, which claimed responsibility for the 11 April bomb attacks that killed 30 people in Algiers, is taking an increasingly high profile both in its jihadi activities and in its use of the internet for propaganda. Much prominence is given to photos of mujahadeen on what the site says is a Mediterranean beach, giving the impression that the terror...

SALE, Morocco (AP) - A long-stalled trial for more than 50 alleged terrorists accused of plotting attacks on military and tourist sites in Morocco got under way Friday, with new purported links to foreign extremists emerging. Moroccan authorities introduced at least four more suspects Friday to the original 58, after recent arrests following up on the initial police investigation last summer. Of the four confirmed new suspects, one was arrested in Libya, where he is alleged to have links to terrorists networks. Another, arrested in Morocco, is accused of ties to a hard-line Islamic militia in Somalia. Previously, Moroccan authorities...

ALGIERS, May 20 (Reuters) - Algerian security forces have arrested 12 suspected Islamic militants accused of links to triple suicide bombings last month and other attacks claimed by al Qaeda's north African wing, official media said on Sunday. The arrests followed information given by a suspect captured some two weeks after the April 11 bombings in Algiers that killed 33 people, state radio quoted a security source as saying. The suspects were also involved in truck bomb attacks on Oct. 30 on two police stations that killed six people, it said. Police also seized large quantities of explosives and bomb-making...

Algeria: Security forces dismantle group allegedly linked to deadly April terror bombings ALGIERS, Algeria: Algerian security forces have dismantled a suspected support network linked to twin terror bombings last month in the capital that killed 30 people and were claimed by an alleged al-Qaida affiliate, the official news agency reported Saturday. Authorities arrested one member of the alleged logistical cell within two weeks of the April 11 bombings in Algiers, and by following the suspect's testimony rounded up 11 others, the APS news agency said, citing unidentified security officials. It did not indicate when the 11 others were detained. A...

Algiers, 15 May (AKI) - Twenty seven people were killed since Sunday in clashes between Algerian police and alleged militants with the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, Arabic weekly al-Quds al-Arabi reported Tuesday. In a major security operation Sunday in the village of Ait Mousa in the region of Kabylie, about 100 kilometres east of the capital Algiers, security officials killed 17 terror suspects. Among them was allegedly one of the leaders of the terror group, Tawat Uthman, also known as Abu al-Abbas. One of the suspects subsequently handed himself over to police revealing where 25 militants were hiding...