Free Republic

The Taliban is claiming responsibility for Monday's attack on the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan that killed at least three people. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Islamabad confirmed the attack on the consulate in the North West Frontier Province capital. It was not immediately clear if those killed were the attackers, consulate staff, or others nearby at the time of the blasts. There are no reports that any U.S. citizens were among those killed.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said Sunday that attacks in Iraq with Iranian-made bombs have fallen off in recent days after a sharp but brief increase earlier in the month, and that the overall flow of weaponry from Iran has dropped. Meanwhile, a suicide bombing killed six people in western Iraq, the second such strike in as many days in Anbar province, where U.S.-backed Sunni tribes were said to have routed al-Qaida in Iraq last year. The attack near the city of Fallujah missed its target: a local tribal leader who is organizing resistance to the terror group. The Iranian...

Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that Israel knows "how to respond" to the deadly suicide bombing in Tel Aviv earlier in the day, while his spokesman said that Israel blamed Hamas for the attack. Nine people were killed and dozens were wounded when a teenaged terrorist from Islamic Jihad blew himself up outside a falafel restaurant in the Neve Sha'anan area of southern Tel Aviv. Hamas declined to condemn the bombing, calling the attack "self-defense." The U.S. said in response Monday that countries seeking to promote Middle East peace should note the praise offered by the Hamas-led Palestinian...

FEARS of a terrorist attack in Scotland were played down yesterday after police made a second wave of raids in Edinburgh. Police and civic leaders moved to quell public fears of an al-Qaeda bomb attack, after claims that the capital’s massive Hogmanay celebrations could be hit, along with a simultaneous attack in London’s Trafalgar Square. The move came after an MI5 source claimed that terrorists had hatched plans to place Bali-style car bombs as close as possible to crowds in Princes Street in an attempt to inflict hundreds of casualties. Terrorism experts last night agreed Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations posed a...