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At approximately 10:30 a.m. on June 1, as two young U.S. soldiers stood in front of the Army Navy Career Center in west Little Rock, Ark., a black pickup pulled in front of the office and the driver opened fire on the two, killing one and critically wounding the other. Eyewitnesses to the shooting immediately reported it to police, and authorities quickly located and arrested the suspect as he fled the scene. According to police, the suspect told the arresting officers that he had a bomb in his vehicle, but after an inspection by the police bomb squad, the only...

• –––––CONWAY — Pvt. William Andrew “Andy” Long, 23 of Conway, died Monday, June 1, 2009. Andy was born June 26, 1985, in Long Beach, Calif., to Daris and Janet (Roberson) Long. Andy recently finished Army training at Ft. Benning, Ga., and was on his way to Korea. He attended Sunny Gap Baptist Church in Conway. His family says he had an infectious smile, a great sense of humor, and a brilliant mind. He is a hero. Andy is survived by his parents, Daris and Janet Long of Conway; sister Vanessa Rice and husband Robert of Conway and brother Triston...

Jihad Returns to America By: Robert Spencer FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, June 04, 2009 Jihad came once again to American soil on Monday, when an American convert to Islam, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, began shooting at soldiers who were standing outside the Army-Navy Career Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Muhammad murdered Pvt. William Long, 23, and gravely wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18. Muhammad was charged with capital murder and – in a departure from authorities’ practically reflexive dismissal of terrorism as a factor in virtually any act of violence by a Muslim -- sixteen counts of committing a terrorist act. Rather curiously,...

Washington, DC - The White House issued a statement Wednesday by President Barack Obama regarding the fatal shooting of a U.S. soldier in Little Rock: “I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe. I would like to wish Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn the loss of their son.”

The White House released the following statement Wednesday in response to the shooting at Little Rock, Arkansas of a military recruiting center that resulted in the death of Private William Long. I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence against two brave young soldiers who were doing their part to strengthen our armed forces and keep our country safe. I would like to wish Quinton Ezeagwula a speedy recovery, and to offer my condolences and prayers to William Long’s family as they mourn the loss of their son.The statement appeared on the website of Little Rock television station...

CONWAY, Ark. — A Muslim convert accused of fatally shooting an Army private and wounding another had previously been arrested on a weapons charge in Tennessee, but that charge eventually was dropped. Police say Abdulhakim Muhammad, then known as Carlos Bledsoe, was arrested in February 2004 after a traffic stop in Nashville. He was found with an SKS rifle inside in the car, with five rounds in a clip and one round in the rifle's chamber. Officers also found a sawed-off shotgun and another shotgun inside the car, as well as an ounce of marijuana, a switchblade knife and two...

ATLANTA, June 4 (UPI) -- The FBI said it was looking at whether a Muslim convert accused of killing a soldier outside an Arkansas recruiting center also targeted an Atlanta Jewish site. The Atlanta site was potentially one of several U.S. Jewish sites Abdulhakim Muhammad targeted, said an anti-terrorism group specializing in protecting against anti-Jewish attacks. Muhammad, 24 -- who pleaded not guilty to killing Pvt. William Long, 23, and wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, outside a Little Rock, Ark., recruiting office -- also had plans for an Atlanta "Jewish entity," an FBI spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Stephen Emmett...

Nuradin Abdi was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up an Ohio shopping mall. Iyman Faris was convicted in 2003 of planning to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Christopher Paul was convicted in 2008 of conspiring to use explosives against targets in the U.S. and Europe. All three terrorists worshiped and socialized at a small mosque in Columbus, Ohio, and, according to David B. Smith, an attorney for Faris, were part of a larger group of jihadists and extremists who frequented the mosque. The FBI now is investigating reports of links to that same mosque by Muslim-convert Abdulhakim Muhammad...

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The man accused of fatally shooting a soldier outside a recruiting center begged for FBI agents to free him from a Yemeni jail where he was "radicalized" by Islamic terrorists, his lawyer told The Associated Press on Thursday. Lawyer Jim Hensley described Abdulhakim Muhammad as an impressionable youth driven to public service in an impoverished Middle Eastern country. But teachings by "hardened" terrorists in Yemen and experiences with Afghan child refugees who were missing limbs drove him to become someone his parents didn't recognize, Hensley said. "Here comes the FBI, who may be able...

It could be anywhere in Arkansas, anywhere in America. It's the kind of place that William Longs come from — young people drawn to defend the rest of us. We may scarcely think about them until we see those uniforms at an airport. Or until something like this happens, and it dawns on us that it is from such places that we get the best of our best, those who seem to have duty in their very bones.

Call it a tale of two murders: one involving an abortion doctor that captured days of media attention and another involving an Army recruiter that has barely registered a blip on most news radar screens. The killing of abortion doctor George Tiller, who was fatally shot in his Kansas church Sunday morning, drew a flood of denunciations from President Obama along with liberal and conservative lawmakers and abortion rights groups and abortion foes. The murder occupied front pages and led news broadcasts for nearly three days. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered the U.S. Marshals' service to "increase security for a...

CONWAY, Ark. (AP) — The father of a soldier slain outside a recruiting center sought a quiet life for his family in rural Arkansas after years of military service, but the battlefield came home to find them. Daris Long's son, Army Pvt. William Andrew Long, was shot Monday in suburban Little Rock while he stood and smoked a cigarette, far from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Long, 23, died in an attack that also wounded Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula, 18. The alleged gunman, Abdulhakim Muhammad, also 23, told investigators he wanted to kill as many Army personnel as he...

youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouVJUeI7Msw&feature=player_embedded Father describes the events of the day.

Several readers in the past few days have been upset that the print edition of The Star hasn't run much about Abdulhakim Muhammad, who pleaded not guilty Tuesday in the fatal shooting of Pvt. William Long outside an Army-Navy Career Center in Little Rock, Ark. It was No. 3 in Tuesday's "Today's Top 5" on Page A-2, but that's been it so far. "You've given all this space to Scott Roeder and (the killing of) George Tiller," said one, "but nothing about this shooting in Arkansas, which is terrorism." I understand the reasoning here, and it's perfectly fair to say...

Little Rock Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Browne issued the following statement: “There is an active investigation by the FBI and local authorities following the shooting at the military recruiting center in Little Rock. Given than the charged subject in this case, Carlos Bledsoe, aka Abdulhakim Muhammed, conducted Internet searches related to different locations in several U.S. cities, the FBI and DHS provided an advisory message to our law enforcement partners on the situation. Out of an abundance of caution, the FBI contacted the appropriate individuals at those locations researched by Bledsoe. This message was intended for law enforcement,...

The eight a.m. NPR news update today included word of the fatal shooting of one soldier and the wounding of another outside an army recruiting station in Arkansas. The news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have "religious motivations." She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian. Why the shyness? Why not tell people what is actually happening in the world? We...

It's a sad day in America when the shooting of an abortion doctor stops the presses but no one notices two soldiers gunned down by an Islamist.

James Kirchick, Assistant Editor of the "New Republic," argues that "in the coming days, we will hear more about how mainstream conservative organizations and media personalities created an 'environment' in which the murder of an abortion doctor became an inevitability. Just as talk radio was blamed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an attempt will be made to extend the guilt for this crime from the individual who pulled the trigger to the conservative movement writ large. But the Christian right's responsible reaction to the death of George Tiller should put to rest the lie that Judeo-Christian extremists are anywhere...

A senior U.S. official tells FOX News that more targets were found on computer of a man charged in the fatal shooting Monday at a military recruiting center in Arkansas — suggesting that the shooter may have been part of a larger plot to attack military targets and may not have been acting alone. It wasn't immediately clear, however, how extensive that plot was or what evidence authorities have that suggests that more suspects were involved. The U.S. official's information contradicted a local police official's denial earlier Tuesday that the shooting was part of a larger conspiracy. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad,...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A 23-year-old man upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened fire from his truck at two soldiers standing outside a military recruiting station here on Monday morning, killing one private and wounding another, the police said. The gunman, identified by the police as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad of Little Rock, fled the scene and was arrested minutes later a short distance from the recruiting station, in a bustling suburban shopping center. The police confiscated a Russian-made SKS semiautomatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun from his black pickup truck. The two privates, who were...