Free Republic

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- An Iraqi government official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that preparations were under way to hang two of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants on Thursday. Al-Arabiya satellite television and Al-Furat TV, run by Iraq's major Shiite Muslim political organization, both also reported that Saddam's half brother Barzan Ibrahim, a former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, would be put to death Thursday. The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said the exact place and time of the hangings...

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) - Security forces on Sunday stormed an apartment building in southern Russia where a small group of suspected Islamic militants had barricaded themselves, killing all the rebels, police said. A heavy firefight broke out early Sunday morning and security forces then entered the apartment building, said an officer in the Interior Ministry department in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkariya, where the day-old standoff came to an end. He said it was not yet known how many militants had been in the apartment. The alleged militants had been holed up inside a second-floor apartment in the latest in...