Free Republic

A friend told me to go to a certain latitude and longitude on Google Maps. When I noticed it seemed to be in the middle of an African desert, I thought he was just sending nonsense. But when I zoomed in, my mind was blown. I noticed a tiny icon that looked like an airplane. So I did some more research and discovered there’s an incredibly tragic and beautiful story behind it. Here it is, from start to finish.

Introduction and Part One Part Two Part Three PARIS, Feb. 20, 1994 -- My name is Tahar Medjadi. I was born in France. My birthday is Dec. 25, 1970. Details Ahmed Ressam had committed to memory. Details he undoubtedly reviewed as he waited nervously in line, counterfeit passport in hand, at Charles de Gaulle Airport. That first month in Marseille, September 1992, had passed all too quickly. When his visa expired, his desire to stay in France did not. Ressam became an illegal immigrant. Without proper papers, he drifted to Corsica, a French island that has long absorbed expatriate North...

The Turkish Islamic charity behind a flotilla of aid ships that was raided by Israeli forces on its way to Gaza had ties to terrorism networks, including a 1999 al-Qaida plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, France's former top anti-terrorism judge said Wednesday. The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, had "clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and Jihad," former investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

BERLIN, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Some Muslims in Europe are going to Iraq to fight U.S.-led forces because they see the situation as similar to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, a top French anti-terrorism official said on Thursday. Jean-Louis Bruguiere also said Europe ran the risk of being struck by a new wave of terrorism, urging greater cooperation by intelligence agencies to stamp out more attacks like the March 2004 Madrid bombings and the July attacks in London. The Iraqi situation had "greatly increased the influence of radical Islamist ideology", said Bruguiere, one of Europe's leading anti-terrorism...

PARIS (Reuters) - Islamic extremism is breeding "like a virus" in Europe and international cooperation is not strong enough so far to combat the threat effectively, France's top anti-terrorist judge said on Sunday. Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who started tracking terrorists two decades ago, also said he believed France was among the two or three countries most at risk of attack due to its historic links with Algeria, a Muslim-dominated former colony in North Africa. "In Europe, there's a multitude of small networks which are developing in relatively anarchic fashion, like a virus," he told state radio station France Inter in an...