Free Republic

Behind the rise of ISIS, the Libyan Civil War, the unrest in Egypt, Yemen and across the region may be a single classified document.That document is Presidential Study Directive 11.You can download Presidential Study Directive 10 on “Preventing Mass Atrocities” from the White House website, but as of yet no one has been able to properly pry number 11 out of Obama Inc.Presidential Study Directive 10, in which Obama asked for non-military options for stopping genocide, proved to be a miserable failure. The Atrocities Prevention Board’s only use was as a fig leaf for a policy that had caused the...

It is hardly surprising that when Faida Hamdy wonders whether she is responsible for everything that happened after her moment of fame she is overwhelmed.

When it comes to selling copy, it’s a good bet that sex trumps multilateral finance. That’s an axiom of human nature. It would be asking too much to expect that the media, or its customers, would be as fascinated by the in-house diplomacy of the International Monetary Fund as all concerned have been by the scandal surrounding the recently handcuffed and dethroned IMF managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Most eyes are now on the prosecutor’s cratering case, the curious past of the maid who alleged the sexual assault, and the media now analyzing its own coverage of these sordid events. But...

A Tunisian pro-democracy group accepted the Nobel Peace Prize today and called for the fight against terrorism and helping Palestinians to achieve self-determination as global priorities. The National Dialogue Quartet, which won the Peace Prize for helping build democracy in the birthplace of the Arab Spring, accepted the award at a ceremony in Oslo held under tight security following the armed attacks in Paris. ...

An explosion has hit a bus carrying presidential guards in Tunisia's capital, Tunis, officials say. At least 12 people have been killed in the blast, the interior ministry said. The explosion, during rush hour in the city's main avenue, was an attack, a presidential source said. Tunisia has been targeted by the Islamic State group, including an attack by a gunman on the beach resort of Sousse in June, killing 38 people, mostly foreign tourists.

At least 12 people were killed on Tuesday when an explosion tore through a bus full of Tunisian presidential guards in an attack that one source said was probably the work of a suicide bomber. Ambulances rushed wounded from the scene and security forces closed off streets around Mohamed V Avenue, one of the main streets in the capital Tunis, where the charred wreckage of the bus lay, not far from the Interior Ministry.

"The Muslim Brotherhood youth in Egypt reject any form of violence." So said Rachid Ghannouchi, who - you'll no doubt be stunned to hear - heads up the Muslim Brotherhood's Tunisian branch, Ennahda. Naturally, Ghannouchi gave his Egyptian confederates a clean bill of health while speaking as an invited guest of the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington. He is a master of the Brotherhood game, consulted by the State Department and a bipartisan Beltway clerisy ever on the hunt for that elusive "moderate Islamist." He is an Islamic supremacist who knows he can worm his way into Washington's heart...

Bomb a factory; attract 24/7 media attention. Build a factory brick by brick? That rates a yawn, not a headline. Fortunately, careful "brick by brick" does receive occasional recognition. An exception occurred two weeks ago when the Nobel committee awarded its 2015 Peace Prize to a Tunisian civic and political coalition, the National Dialogue Quartet. The Quartet consists of four civic organizations -- a business organization, two labor unions and a lawyers association. Tunisia kicked off the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions. Violence flared. Throngs filled the streets, protesting dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's two decades of misrule. Ben Ali...

A coalition of labor unions, businesses, lawyers and human rights activists won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.” The prize to the coalition, known as the National Dialogue Quartet, comes nearly five years after an unemployed street vendor set himself on fire, touching off a political earthquake that toppled Tunisia’s longtime authoritarian president and proceeded to reverberate throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Among the disappointments of what has become known as the Arab Spring — collapsed...

<p>TORONTO (AP) -- A man accused of plotting to derail a train in Canada with support from al-Qaida is asking to be represented by a defense attorney willing to use the "holy book" as a reference in his case.</p> <p>During a hearing Thursday Chiheb Esseghaier requested a court-appointed lawyer who will use the "holy book" as a reference. The Tunisian-born Muslim was apparently referring to the Quran.</p>

Revelations from emails purloined by a Romanian hacker show that Hillary Clinton was being secretly advised about Libya -- before and after the Benghazi terrorist attack -- by an off-the-shelf private spook group associated with controversial former Clinton confidante Sydney Blumenthal that claimed to be helping the Libyan opposition and considered placing ground operatives near the border. What's this all about? It's not completely clear, but apparently the goal of the rogue group, which included a former high level CIA covert operative and a former U.S. General, was, at the very least, to gather and provide sensitive reports to the...

Like father, like son, assert U.S., European and Arab intelligence agencies who believe one of Osama bin Laden's youngest children is beginning to call the shots at the Iranian branch of al-Qaida. Saad bin Laden is one of an estimated 400 operatives of the terror network recruited and protected by Tehran's hard-line clerics, according to the Washington Post. Tehran's elected government, headed by the reformist President Mohammed Khatami, does not appear to have control over this group, called the Jerusalem Force. The Post reports the 24-year-old bin Laden is computer savvy and fluent in English. His father groomed him for...

When Osama bin Laden was banished from Sudan in 1996, he left the country in a rented Soviet jet — an aged and antique Tupolev flown by a Russian pilot he did not trust. With him were a few bodyguards, his military commander, Saif al-Adel, and two sons named Sa’ad and Omar — both young men in their late teens. Although it was the corrupt Islamic government of Sudan that had robbed Osama bin Laden of much of his vast personal wealth, he blamed America for his misfortunes, according to Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright. “He held America responsible for the...

A 12-METRE monolith, hacked out of limestone by stone-age humans some nine thousand years ago, has been found at the bottom of the Mediterranean. The enormous stone totem, now split in two and sitting in the Sicilian Channel between Tunisia and Sicily, was hewed from a rocky outcrop some 300m away when the Mediterranean Sea was still a dry basin. It’s now under 40m of water. The new study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, says the area was submerged about 9350 years ago (give or take 200 years) when the last Ice Age retreated. Before that time the...

Tunisia has announced plans to build a wall along its border with Libya to counter the threat from jihadist militants. It would stretch 160km (100 miles) inland from the coast, and be completed by the end of 2015, Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid told state TV. The gunman who killed 38 people in an attack on a beach resort is believed to have received training in Libya. Tunisia declared a state of emergency following the attack last month. The Tunisian army would build the wall, which would have surveillance centres at certain points along it, Mr Essid said.

Muslims in Ireland will hold a demonstration in Dublin to protest the violence inspired by terror group Islamic State. Three Irish people were gunned down in Tunisia by an ISIS fanatic while they were on vacation there. The “Not in Our Name” protest will take place at O’Connell Street on Sunday, July 26, reports the Irish Examiner. However, the leader of Ireland’s biggest mosque in Clonskeagh, Dublin, has refused to take part. Dr. Ali Salem, head of the Islamic Cultural Center of Ireland, which is part of the mosque, stated the organization had never been consulted. “If the biggest Islamic...

Hani-al-Sibai, described as a 'key influencer' of Tunisian terror group, lives in a £1 million house on a leafy street in fashionable west London _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A leader of the terrorist group suspected of being behind the Tunisian beach massacre is living in benefits in Britain. Hani al-Sibai, an al-Qaeda cleric suspected of radicalising "Jihadi John", lives in a £1 million house leafy street in fashionable west London. He is said to be one of the "key influencers" of the Islamic fanatics believed to have recruited and trained gunman Seifeddine Rezgui. Egyptian-born al-Sibai, 54, reportedly lives on £50,000 a year in...

In reading about the horrific attack by the Tunisian mass shooter, on the beach on Friday, the 26th of June, 2015, it appears that he used two weapons systems.  An AKM rifle, commonly referred to as an AK47, almost certainly in 7.62x39 caliber, with several standard 30 round magazines, was used for most of the killing.  The rifle is seen above.  It has wooden furniture, the AKM muzzle brake, and a web sling.  It is missing the standard cleaning rod from under the barrel. Update: from a colleague on freerepublic: Appears to be an Egyptian Maadi [or MISR] AKM....

ISMAILIA: Egypt launched airstrikes on Islamist militant targets in the Sinai peninsula Thursday, killing 23 fighters a day after the deadliest clashes in the region in years, security sources said. The sources said those killed had taken part in Wednesday's fighting in which 100 militants and 17 soldiers, including four officers, were killed, according to the army spokesman. Sinai-based insurgents, affiliates of ISIS, have stepped up attacks on soldiers and police since then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi toppled Islamist President Mohammad Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Sisi, now Egypt's elected president, says the pro-ISIS group Sinai...

FBI agents have made at least 30 arrests on US soil this year as they try to combat the murderous reach of ISIS and its warped followers, Daily Mail Online can disclose. Officials revealed this week that the Islamic terror group has a foothold in all 50 states as it continues to target disaffected Americans through its torrent of online propaganda and slick videos of barbaric beheadings and mutilations. The stark warning comes days after ISIS-inspired gunman Saif Rezgui unleashed horror on at a Tunisian beach resort, killing 39 vacationers and wounding dozens more. The FBI has reportedly set up...