Free Republic

Al-Qaida-linked militants in eastern Libya declared holy war — or jihad — on the local Islamic State affiliate after one of their senior leaders was killed Wednesday by masked gunmen, which set off clashes between the rival groups that left 11 people dead on both sides, including a top militant commander. The hours-long fighting in the eastern coastal city of Darna erupted after gunmen opened fire on Nasser Akr, an al-Qaida-inspired militant once held in the United Kingdom on terrorism charges. The 55-year-old veteran jihadi, who fought in Afghanistan, was killed along with his aide.

Islamic State (ISIS) has conquered large parts of Syria and Iraq and set up 'branches' as far away as Libya and the Sinai Desert - but now, it has set its sights on Algeria. Months after successfully conquering the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, Algerian authorities say that ISIS has attempted to expand westward to conquer the largely-desert border region between the two countries. On Thursday, the Algerian army raised its alert level to the highest level and has drafted some 50,000 troops to ward off ISIS ahead of an anticipated invasion...

A pair of RAF Lakenheath based USAF F-15E Strike Eagles that were bristling with live bombs and air-to-air missiles, along five KC-135R tankers, flew on a secretive and grueling 12 hour mission over the Southern Mediterranean on Monday, May 25th, Memorial Day. Multiple radio interceptors and plane spotters state that four F-15E’s, callsigns ABLE 01 through 04, took off from their home base at RAF Lakenheath laden with yellow banded (live) AIM-9M sidewinders, AIM-120 AMRAAMS and no less than seven 500lb Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs). These aircraft were accompanied by five KC-135Rs tankers, callsign QUID 91 through 95, that...

In "Quest for the Phoenicians," three renowned scientists, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and oceanographer Robert Ballard, geneticist Spencer Wells and archaeologist Paco Giles, search for clues about the Phoenicians in the sea, in the earth and in the blood of their modern-day descendents... Ballard looks at ancient shipwrecks along Skerki Bank off the island of Sicily... Paco Giles excavates a cave at the bottom of the rock of Gibraltar... Spencer Wells collects DNA from a 2,500-year-old Phoenician mummy's tooth, to extract its unique genetic code and compare it with DNA samples collected from men and women from Lebanon to Tunisia.

Jeff Gerth and Sam Biddle explore an important sidebar both to the affair of the Hillary Clinton homebrew email server and to the Benghazi scandal: “Private emails reveal ex-Clinton aide’s secret spy network.” Long story short: enter Sid Blumenthal, one of the most unsavory characters of the Clinton era. Enter Sid Blumenthal along with Tyler Drumheller and Cody Shearer, that is. Mark Hemingway reviews the triumvirate in “Meet the men behind Hillary Clinton’s private ‘spy network’” Ed Morrissey finds NBC’s Chuck Todd commenting regarding Blumenthal that “nothing regarding Blumenthal surprises me,” but Blumenthal enters the story from left field. Gerth...

When the F-15 was created, it was created to be a pure air-to-air fighter, with the philosophy of “not a pound for air-to-ground” guiding designers. So how did Israel end up turning their F-15s into deadly long-range multi-role strike aircraft well before the F-15E Strike Eagle became a reality? Here’s how. In Need Of A Game Changing Fighter Israel’s love affair with the F-15 began out of the need to procure a fighter that could trump the increasingly complex fighters that surrounding Arab states were amassing from Russian and French sources. Both the F-14 Tomcat and the F-15 Eagle were...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow on Monday where the issue of Middle East peace talks will be raised, Russian authorities announced Thursday. “The two leaders will hold talks concerning key aspects of Russian-Palestinian relations and their future, with particular attention on the trade, economy and humanitarian sectors,” the Kremlin said in a statement according to AFP. There will also be “an exchange of ideas on the process of Israeli-Palestinian talks and other problematic regional situations,” the statement continued, adding that North Africa would also be on the agenda. …

Over the protests of his family, Swiss authorities have forced the extradition to Tunisia of a 24-year-old man born in Switzerland who is a Tunisian citizen but has never been to the North African country, according to a media report. The man, identified as Medhi, was put on a plane to Tunis after his residential C permit was revoked in January because of repeated criminal convictions, 20 Minutes newspaper reported online. Mehdi, who was born and raised in the canton of Vaud has a record for theft, damaging property, fighting and driving without a permit, the daily said. But because...

Saudi Arabia accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of hypocrisy on Sunday, telling an Arab summit that he should not express support for the Middle East while fuelling instability by supporting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. In a rare move, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that a letter from Putin would be read out to the gathering in Egypt, where Arab leaders discussed an array of regional crises, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya. "We support the Arabs' aspirations for a prosperous future and for the resolution of all the problems the Arab world faces through peaceful means, without any...

The Tunisian desert region used as a location for the original "Star Wars" and as a tourist destination for fans of the film franchise is now reportedly crawling with a threat more insidious than marauding Sand People — ISIS terrorists. Particularly hard hit has been Tataouine, the Tunisian town that inspired George Lucas to name Luke Skywalker's home planet, Tatooine, and now a pit stop for wannabe jihadists headed to join ISIS in nearby Libya, CNN reported. Three men were arrested nearby the town that's just 60 miles from the Libyan border and arms caches were confiscated nearby, one of...

The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency on Sunday described President Obama's Middle East policy as one of "willful ignorance," saying the administration needs a clearer strategy for dealing with conflicts emerging across the region. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said during an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that recent developments in the Middle East are moving in a bad direction for the United States, with Iran "clearly on the march" to influence events in a "regional sectarian war." “At the end of the day, we have just this incredible policy confusion — never mind what our strategy is to...

Updated March 27 to include responses from the FBI and the State Department. Emails disclosed by a hacker show a close family friend was funneling intelligence about the crisis in Libya directly to the Secretary of State’s private account starting before the Benghazi attack. Starting weeks before Islamic militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, longtime Clinton family confidante Sidney Blumenthal supplied intelligence to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine service officer, according to hacked emails from Blumenthal’s account. The emails, which were posted on the internet...

"They left the country illegally last December for Libya, and they were able to train with weapons there," he told private broadcaster AlHiwar Ettounsi TV. Like Tunisia, Libya saw its longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi ousted during the regional wave of revolutions known as the Arab Spring. But unlike its neighbor to the west, Libya has been fraught with more instability and violence -- much of it perpetrated by Islamist militants, like those behind the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Once again an illusion of a moderate Islam is unmosqued. And it is ugly. Why do civilized men tolerate this barbarity? Why do civilized men walk on eggshells for fear of insulting savages, as if they had human sensibilities? They don't, and we'd be wise to buck up and fight this gruesome fight. We will have to. Instead, the media quislings allow Islamic supremacists and stealth jihadists to smear, defame and libel those who challlenge jihad and dare to speak the truth about the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth. To what end? Tunisians greet...

Tunisia blast was attack, says Germany The blast blackened the white walls of the synagogue Germany has said it believes a lorry explosion at a synagogue in Tunisia that killed 13 people, including eight Germans, was a deliberate attack and not an accident as first reports suggested. Taking into account the latest developments in the inquiry it was probably an attack Otto Schily Interior Minister Otto Schily said the latest information obtained by the German and Tunisian governments indicated that the blast on the resort island of Djerba had been planned. He said the explosion appeared to be a...

The German government said yesterday it was certain that terrorists were responsible for the blast in Tunisia earlier this month that killed 17 people, most of them German tourists. There is persuasive evidence that the explosion, originally described as an accident, was al-Qaida's first operation after the September 11 jetliner attacks on New York and Washington. Links between the key suspect in the Tunisia attack and an alleged member of the Hamburg cell at the heart of the September 11 conspiracy have been traced. Speaking after talks in Tunis with President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the German interior minister, Otto...

TUNIS, April 14 (Reuters) - The Tunisian government said on Sunday it had no new information suggesting a truck explosion that killed at least 17 people outside a synagogue on the southern resort isle of Djerba was a deliberate suicide attack. The government was reacting to remarks made by German Interior Minister Otto Schily on Saturday. He said that based on the latest information both German and Tunisian governments had obtained, it appeared that Thursday's blast had been planned. A total of three Germans died overnight of their injuries, raising the death toll from the explosion of a tanker filled...

In Tunisian Island of Djerba, Five Killed, 20 Injured When Truck Blows up Near Ancient Synagogue Suspected Terrorist Attack on Jewish Shrine.

TUNIS, April 12 (Reuters) - Tunisia sought on Friday to deflect suspicions that a blast which killed at least seven people outside North Africa's oldest synagogue site might have been a suicide attack. The country's eight daily newspapers all reinforced the official line that the blast was an accident and not linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Tunisian tour guide died overnight of injuries sustained in the blast, a tourism official said, taking the confirmed death toll to seven. Four German tourists, a policeman and the driver of the tanker, which was filled with cooking gas, died when the truck...

MADRID: A Pakistani is among five men arrested in Spain on suspicion of involvement in the suicide attack on a synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba in which 21 people died, investigators said today. The other four being held were described as Spanish nationals. Reports immediately after their arrest in Valencia, in southwest of the country, on Friday had described them as of Tunisian origin, while the nationality of the other suspect, detained in the northern town of Logrono, had not been given. All five were due to be transferred to Madrid to appear before the Audiencia National,...