Free Republic

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Somalia government soldiers, joined by troops from neighboring Ethiopia, advanced toward Somalia's capital Tuesday as Islamic fighters dug in and promised a "new phase" in the war - a chilling pronouncement from a movement that has threatened suicide attacks. Somalia called on the Council of Islamic Courts militias, bloodied by a week of artillery and mortar attacks, to surrender and promised amnesty if they lay down their weapons, government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. As many as 1,000 people may have been killed and 3,000 wounded in the fighting, many of them foreign radicals, Ethiopian Prime Minister...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli-made bullets bought by the U.S. Army to plug a shortfall should be used for training only, not to fight Muslim guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. lawmakers told Army generals on Thursday.Since the Army has other stockpiled ammunition, "by no means, under any circumstances should a round (from Israel) be utilized," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, the top Democrat on a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee with jurisdiction over land forces.The Army contracted with Israel Military Industries Ltd. in December for $70 million in small-caliber ammunition.The Israeli firm was one of only two worldwide...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Islamic leaders and peace groups are criticizing the California National Guard (search) for a flier posted in its headquarters suggesting the United States execute Islamic terrorists with bullets dipped in pig's blood to deny them entry to heaven.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison told U.S. interrogators as early as April 2002, just four months after the first detainees arrived, that military guards abused them and desecrated the Quran, declassified FBI records say. "Their behavior is bad," one detainee is quoted as saying of his guards during an interrogation by an FBI special agent in July 2002. "About five months ago the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Quran in the toilet." The statements about guards disrespecting the Quran echo public allegations made many months later by some detainees and their lawyers after...