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Police in Britain said they have detained two teenagers in relation to the hostages being taken at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville on Saturday. Greater Manchester Police tweeted the information on Sunday that two teenagers were detained in South Manchester by Counter Terrorism Policing North West. They remain in custody for questioning. No further details were released about the suspects.

PARIS - Shootings and explosions erupted in the Paris area on Friday night, and French news services said at least 39 people were dead, dozens wounded and others taken hostage in what appeared to be coordinated militant attacks. French television reported that one of at least two explosions had struck near Paris at the country's main sports stadium, forcing the hasty evacuation of President François Hollande. The explosion occurred during a France-Germany soccer match. The shooting broke out at a popular concert hall, The Bataclan, where a death metal band was playing, and the France 24 website said dozens of...

Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence directorate is using terrorist brinkmanship to threaten India and undermine Nawaz Sharif. It’s time to stop this dangerous game. Just when you thought the world was dangerous enough, another crisis between nuclear-weapons-armed India and Pakistan is brewing, and now al Qaeda is adding fuel to the fire by calling for jihad in the subcontinent. Tensions have been growing all summer long, even though, ironically, things began on a positive high note: in June, newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who swept into power on a landslide, invited his Pakistan counterpart, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to his...

Police raids target 'terror plot' The raids took place at 0400 GMT on Wednesday morning Eight people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act in Birmingham after a "significant" operation involving police and security service MI5. A number of addresses in the city have been sealed off after morning raids. Security sources have told the BBC the alleged plot would not have involved mass casualties but marked "a different approach to terrorism in the UK". The six-month operation involved the Midlands counter terrorism unit, West Midlands Police and the Met Police. At least four addresses in Birmingham were targeted as...

ON THE eve of their mission, the German soldiers were handed cigarette lighters full of potassium cyanide and told to kill themselves rather than be captured. The squad was about to embark on one of the most audacious missions of the Second World War, remarkable details of which have now been revealed by the only known survivor. Operation Griffin was nothing less than an attempt to snatch US General Dwight D Eisenhower from under the noses of thousands of Allied troops over whom he was supreme commander. The members of the 10-strong team were disguised as Americans and given lessons...

MINDANAO, PHILIPPINES - There are so many links between the Abu Sayyaf Group of the Philippines, which beheaded an American hostage a few months ago, and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network, that on paper they look like the route map for a Peshawar-based airline. The links run from that high, bleak border city in Pakistan to terrorist dens in Afghanistan and Yemen; to murders and bombings in the Philippines; to the first attack on the World Trade Center; to a foiled attempt to assassinate the pope during a 1995 visit to Manila. A captured Abu Sayyaf guerrilla, ...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi interior minister said Tuesday that authorities had foiled an al-Qaida plot that would have put hundreds of its men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government. A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr,...

One is moved by a quotation from the late Enzo Baldoni, the Italian freelance journalist and Red Cross volunteer who was murdered on video by the Jihadis in Iraq this week. "Some people think I am some sort of Rambo who loves strong emotions and watching people die. I am miles away from that. I am a convinced pacifist, and for that reason I am curious to understand what makes normal people brandish guns." Poor Baldoni, who survived previous adventures in East Timor and Colombia, had stopped appearing in the Milan weekly, Diario, and started appearing on Al Jazeera, as...

Italian journalist held hostage in Iraq Claire Cozens and agencies Tuesday August 24, 2004 Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who has been missing in Iraq since last week, has been kidnapped by militants, according to a video broadcast today on al-Jazeera television station. His driver was found dead at the weekend in Najaf and today an Islamist group said it had abducted an Italian in Iraq, giving Silvio Berlusconi 48 hours to announce it was pulling his troops out of the country.

Here are two items on different topics related by their common absurdity.Reuters is reporting that some of the ransom money paid for the German government for the release of Susan Osthoff (the archaeologist who was kidnapped by Iraqi militants and later released in exchange for Mohammad Ali Hammadi, the man who killed Navy diver Robert Stethem in a hijacked TWA flight) was found on her effects. (Hat tip: Davids Medienkritik) BERLIN (Reuters) - Part of the ransom money alleged to have been paid by the German government to win the freedom of Iraq hostage Susanne Osthoff last month was found...

NYC police on watch for Port courthouse bomber By Andy Smith and Stephanie Akin Staff writers New York City police are targeting a man who bombed Newburyport Superior Court 28 years ago, saying he poses a threat to next week's Republican National Convention. But an anti-war activist group has accused police of trying to "smear" their reputation by linking the group with the convicted radical who terrorized New England with a series of bombings in the 1970s. New York City police say Richard J. Picariello, 55, is among 50 activists whose criminal histories will earn them extra attention next week....