Free Republic

WASHINGTON, U.S.A (AFP): The White House on Thursday announced the capture of a top ally of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Asia, Riduan bin Isomuddin, also known as Hambali. The 36-year-old Islamic scholar, a chief of the radical group Jamaah Islamiyah, is wanted in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines in connection with a series of bomb attacks. "His capture is another important victory in the global war on terrorism and a significant blow to the enemy," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters from the presidential plane, Air Force One. A senior administration official called Hambali "one of...

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood planned a series of bombings at Egyptian churches, according to a report in the Kuwaiti paper Al-Watan, according to Channel 10 news. According to the report, the attacks were to take place on Christmas. Terrorists in Sinai had succeeded in gathering explosives for the planned attack. Egyptian intelligence reportedly foiled the plot after discovering communications between the two groups. Intelligence agents also listened in on calls between the Muslim Brotherhood and other Gaza-based terrorist groups. …

A car bomb targeted a church in the Iraqi capital Wednesday as worshippers left after a Christmas service, killing at least 35 people, most of them Christians, security officials said. The blast in the Dura area of south Baghdad also wounded dozens of others. "The attack targeted the church, and most of the martyrs are Christians," a police colonel told AFP. "The attack happened when worshippers were leaving the church" after a service. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. "Attacks distort the image of Islam and religion, if they are carrying them out in the name...

SNIPPET: "A day after a suicide bomb attack wounded 28 at a church in Indonesia..." SNIPPET: "While a suicide bomber struck Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (translated as "Bethel Full Gospel Church") in Solo City in Central Java province Sunday morning, police found another bomb in front of Maranatha church in Ambon Island, the capital of Maluku province, Monday. "This is in a series of bombs that we found there [in Ambon]," the Jakarta Globe newspaper quoted National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam as saying. "All are homemade bombs, they are all similar. So the maker is the same.""

KUALA LUMPUR, November 10 (IslamOnline) - The Muslim leader accused of terror links with the al-Qaeda and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) Abu Bakar Bashir risks deportation to Malaysia, Singapore or the U.S. if he is stripped of his Indonesian nationality, sources said Sunday, November 10. Singapore and Malaysia have in the past urged Indonesia to arrest Bashir for his alleged role in terror activities on their soil. Basyir is accused by Singapore of being the spiritual leader of the JI while Malaysia has him high on the terror list allegedly for connections with the Malaysian Mujahidin Movement (KMM). The U.S....

By Matthew Green BAGHDAD, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Priests thundered defiance on Sunday at attackers who bombed Iraqi churches a week ago, but fears of more strikes ensured they were preaching to half-empty pews. Blasts at five churches in Iraq killed 11 people during evening prayers last Sunday - inspiring dread among some of Iraq's 800,000 Christians and invigorating the faith of others. "We have paid the price of love in Iraq with our blood," Catholic Archbishop Antoine Atamian said at Baghdad's Armenian church, where the scorched wreckage of a car tipped on its side by one of the blasts...

-- Less than one week after the deadly Assyrian Church bombings in Baghdad and Mosul [1], Iraq, Assyrians once again will gather to commemorate Assyrian Martyr's Day. August 7 marks the memorial day for legions of Assyrian (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs) victims of massacres, pogroms, and genocide in general, but in particular commemorates the fateful day in 1933 when the newly established Iraqi army massacred upwards of 3000 Assyrian civilians in and around Simmele, Northern Iraq (account of the massacre). This year's Church bombings coinciding with the 71st anniversary of the massacre have rekindled the same Assyrian concerns...

It's an occupational hazard for journalists -- one we share with academics, policy wonks and others who make their living analyzing things -- to try to understand even the incomprehensible. We thereby run the risk of imparting logic even to acts of pure madness. That said, the bombing of five Christian churches in Iraq Aug. 1, which resulted in at least 11 deaths and scores of injuries, nevertheless beckons reflection. This was the first coordinated assault on Iraq's Christian minority, which ranges from 750,000 to one million in a population of 23 million, depending upon whose count one accepts. The...

Attacks defy the Prophet's wish for the area's millennia-old Christian community, which is now on the edge of oblivion. The lethal attacks on five churches in Iraq violated the stated will of the prophet Muhammad, who in the 7th century issued a Firman —or letter of protection — for Assyrian Christians. Assyrians make up the majority of the 700,000 Christians in present-day Iraq. Muhammad was so impressed with their ancestors' knowledge of medicine and the sciences that he decreed for them to be left in peace, according to Albert Yelda, formerly the Christian representative in the leadership of the London-based...

This week's attacks on churches in Iraq are a reminder of a small community that has lived for years with the term "beleaguered", but has the potential to re-establish a more tolerant way of life in the Middle East. It might easily be assumed that Iraqi Christians are a colonial implant that any self-respecting nationalist would view with suspicion. But in fact they are among the oldest religious communities in the world. Protected for most of their long history by Islam's tradition of tolerance, they are honoured for their own great gift to mutual understanding: Syriac, a version of Jesus's...

CBlasts rocks 5 Catholic churches in Baghdad and Mosul / Photo: AFP Orthodox Church Condemns Iraqi Church Bombings Created: 02.08.2004 10:19 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:38 MSK MosNews The Moscow Patriarchate has condemned terror attacks at six Christian churches in Iraq on Sunday, calling them a provocation aimed at stirring up an international religious conflict, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. A series of coordinated blasts rocked four churches in Baghdad and two in Mosul on Sunday, injuring about 60 people in the first attacks targeting the country’s Christian minority there. “An outrage was committed, in which people were killed and...

This is an Iraqi who normally bloggs about soccer and other sports in Iraq, but the church bombing forced him to comment.

Iraqi Christians pray for their attackers (Filed: 03/08/2004) Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad finds the newly targeted minority community defiant yet calling for forgiveness With a tear rolling down his cheek, Fr Faris Toma stood amid the wreckage outside his Baghdad church yesterday, and prayed for the bombers who killed 10 of his congregation. An Iraqi woman passes a church bombed yesterday "We cannot understand why or how they could do something like this," he said. "All we can do is ask God to give them forgiveness and grant us peace." As American soldiers picked through the blackened remains of 19...

Iraqis Condemn Attacks on Christian ChurchesBy IAN FISHERPublished: August 2, 2004   Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesAn Iraqi Christian woman in her Baghdad home, which was badly damaged when a church nearby was bombed on Sunday.     Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesMembers of a church that was bombed in Doura, a neighborhood in southern Baghdad, came out to view the damage on Monday. AGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 2 — Top Muslim clerics and political leaders united today behind Iraq's Christian community, condemning the coordinated attacks on five churches the day before as a dangerous escalation of the war and an...

Classic al-Qaida Aug. 2, 2004 THREATENED BY FREEDOM M. Zuhdi Jasser American Islamic Forum for Democracy The Chaldean Patriarchate Church of Baghdad had served as a bomb shelter during the bombardment of Baghdad during the American invasion in March 2003. It was protected by Muslims, Christians and all from looting during the war. Sunday, that church and three other minority churches were bombed within an hour in Baghdad killing 11 and injuring 52 parishioners. The insurgents, leaving the fingerprints of al-Qaida in their methods, struck again this time right before mass in multiple churches invoking their same old barbaric and...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Deadly weekend attacks targeting Christian worshippers in Iraq bear all the footprints of insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his operatives, Iraq's National Security Adviser said Monday. According to Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the anti-Christian nature of the attacks and their apparent coordination point to al-Zarqawi, who has taken responsibility for numerous attacks against Iraqis, Americans, and other foreigners. Car bombings Sunday evening, near four churches in Baghdad and one in the northern city of Mosul, killed at least 7 people. In figures released Monday, the Iraqi Health Ministry said the Baghdad attacks killed five and wounded 46...

BAGHDAD — Assailants triggered a coordinated series of explosions outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul during yesterday's evening services, killing 11 people and wounding more than 50 in the first major assault on Iraq's Christian minority. Iraq's security adviser blamed al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "There is no shadow of a doubt that this bears the blueprint of Zarqawi," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said. In separate violence, a suicide car bombing outside a police station in Mosul killed at least five people and injured 53, and three roadside bombs in Iraq killed four, including a U.S. soldier, police said.

Bystanders flee moments after one of suicide blasts outside a church in central Baghdad Picture: Atef Hassan/Reuters Key points At least 12 dead in car bomb attacks on 5 churches in Baghdad and Mosul Blasts timed to coincide with evening prayers Attacks intent to cause sectarian tension within Iraq Key quote "It is terrible and worrying because it is the first time that Christian churches are being targeted in Iraq. There seems to be an attempt to heighten tensions by trying to affect all social groups, including churches" - Father Ciro Benedettini, Vatican deputy spokesman. Story in full CAR...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric today condemned as "hideous crimes" the coordinated bomb attacks on five churches in Baghdad and Mosul that killed 11 people and marked the first major attacks Iraq's minority Christians since the insurgency began. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani said in a statement that the Sunday assaults on Christian churches "targeted Iraq's unity, stability and independence." The unprecedented attacks against Iraq's 750,000-member Christian -- hitting four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul -- appeared to confirm community members' fears they might be targeted as suspected collaborators with American forces amid a rising...

Christians Flee "Liberated" Iraq Understandably concerned over the fact that the new Iraqi constitution designates Islam the "official religion of the state," Iraqi Christians are "voting with their feet" by preparing to leave their native country, reported Insight on May 28. Tragically, this validates a prediction made in these pages more than a year ago (see "What Did We Win?" in our May 19, 2003 issue). "Most of the Christians in Iraq are Assyrians — people who claim to be the original inhabitants of Iraq," reported Insight. "Because they are Christians and seen as allies of the West, the Assyrians...