Free Republic

Arab and Western countries are converging in terms of the methods they use to deal with Islamic terrorism. For example, terror bombings in Egyptian vacation resorts earlier this year led the Egyptian police to discover that disgruntled Bedouin tribes in the Sinai area (near where the bombings took place) had provided people willing to offer shelter and support to the bombers. While the police rounded up many of those involved with the Islamic terrorists, they also sought to eliminate any support for Islamic terrorists. Egyptian officials sat down with local tribal and religious leaders and came up with a list...

Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate (GID) has surpassed Israel's Mossad as America's most effective allied counter-terrorism agency in the Middle East, the LA Times reported over the weekend. According to unnamed former CIA officials, the United States provides secret financial assistance to subsidize the GID's budget and the two intelligence agencies conduct sophisticated joint operations and routinely share information. The GID has emerged as a hub for "extraordinary renditions," the controversial, covert transfer of suspected extremists from US custody to foreign intelligence agencies, the report said. "Jordan is at the top of our list of foreign partners," Michael Scheuer, who resigned...

A Jordanian court has sentenced eight Islamic militants to death for the murder of a United States diplomat in the capital Amman 18 months ago. Jordanian authorities say the men are linked to the Al Qaeda terror network. Laurence Foley, a diplomat with the US Agency for International Development, was shot dead outside his Amman home in October of 2002. The Jordanian court also sentenced two other men to 15 years in jail in connection with the killing. Jordanian authorities say at least one of the men sentenced to die - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - has connections with Al Qaeda....

Jordan king urges calm amid wave of protests By Suleiman al-Khalidi AMMAN, March 21 (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah, a close friend of Washington, appealed to his countrymen on Friday to moderate their expressions of sympathy for Iraqis as fears grew that street protests could spill over into widespread violence. "I know what you feel in pain and anger towards what is happening to the Iraqi people in suffering and calamities..," the monarch said in a televised speech to the nation, the first since the start of the U.S. war against Iraq on Thursday. "As for the demonstration of our...