Free Republic

An investigation into an Oklahoma City home invasion robbery has led to the arrest of two admitted Iraqi street gang members, authorities said Thursday. Members of a state anti- terrorism task force raided a south Oklahoma City motel room early Thursday and arrested two men, police Inspector Jerry Flowers said. Flowers is a member of the joint terrorism task force consisting of a number of state law agencies. Shortly after midnight Thursday, officers went to the Travelodge, 820 S MacArthur Blvd., and surrounded room 147. Two men, Ihsan Sala Jabbar, 28, and El Alami "Al" El Mansouri, 30, were arrested. ...

Ahmed Resain has his back to the door, so he does not see the gunman alight from a car outside his rudimentary Al Pasha hairdressing salon, in Baghdad's dusty Al-Salam quarter. The assailant strides deliberately into the shop and coldly turns to face Ahmed. He presses a pistol to the stunned barber's lower lip, carefully angling the weapon to ensure that the bullet exits through his left jaw. Ahmed, 37, is still standing - but three shots to his legs as the gunman makes his getaway drop him to the floor in a pool of his own blood. His survival...

MP's wife introduced him to Saddam sympathiser, writes CAMERON SIMPSON and AARON HICKLIN GEORGE Galloway first met the shadowy figure of Fawaz Zureikat through his Palestinian wife. The fateful meeting was to propel the man who goes under the soubriquets of "Gorgeous George" and the "MP for Baghdad Central" into one of the biggest crises of his colourful career. Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad, 36, a Jerusalem-born scientist who married Mr Galloway in a secret ceremony in London in February 2000, had gone to the same university in Jordan as Mr Zureikat. Mr Zureikat's name first surfaced in a letter from Mr...

The insurgency in Iraq is encountering a major obstacle, but not due to Saddam's capture, or the prospect of an upcoming trial; these will not significantly alter the course of an insurgency that already suffers from a number of congenital weaknesses. Insurgencies require a few key elements for survival: popular support, money, weapons, and a safe haven for planning activity. In Iraq, money is perhaps the most important tangible element — it's required for the purchase of weapons, supplies, and the payment of men willing to carry out attacks on Coalition forces. Today the old Iraqi form of currency —...