Free Republic

Sep. 26, 2004 20:58 | Updated Sep. 26, 2004 21:08 Analysis: Striking outside the ball park By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN The assassination of a key Hamas operative in a foreign capital will likely lead to Hamas carrying through with its threat to change its policy and strike at Israeli and Jewish targets around the world. Until now, the staunchly disciplined Hamas organization, while responsible for scores of suicide bombings and attacks, has limited its strikes to Israel and the territories. Analysts believe that the Hamas Pandora's box is not empty and they do have the network and capability of launching deadly...

Sep. 26, 2004 12:01 | Updated Sep. 26, 2004 20:45 Damascus: Car bombing is 'Israeli state terrorism' By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN Hamas leader Izz El-Deen Al-Sheikh Khalil, in 1994 Photo: AP (file) Car bomb in Damascus Nine hours after a car bomb exploded in the Syrian capital on Sunday killing top Hamas terrorist Izz El-Deen Al-Sheikh Khalil, the Syrian government called the assassination "an Israeli act of state terrorism in the heart of Damascus", a statement by the Syrian government said. The Syrian Interior Ministry said in a terse statement carried by the official news agency, SANA, that Khalil had not...

Israeli security sources confirmed on Sunday that Tel Aviv was behind a car bombing in Damascus that killed a senior Hamas official. Earlier, the Palestinian Resistance Movement confirmed the death of Ezzeddin Subhi Sheikh Khalil. It vowed to strike back with attacks inside Israel. "There will be a response that would be decided by the movement's leaders inside the occupied territories," a Hamas spokesman in Damascus said. The explosion took place in the Al Zahera neighborhood in Damascus, a Hamas spokesman confirmed. An official source at the Syrian Ministry of Interior told SANA that three other people who happened to...

KARACHI - The recent arrest of two top Pakistani jihadis, Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Akhtar, marks the beginning of the end of an era that started in the mid-1980s when the dream of an International Muslim Brigade was first conceived by a group of top Pakistan leaders. The dream subsequently materialized in the shape of the International Islamic Front, an umbrella organization for militant groups formed by Osama bin Laden in 1998 and loosely coordinated by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan. The arrests in Pakistan, made under relentless pressure from the United States, are aimed at tracing...

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — A barrage of U.S. cruise missiles several years ago didn't sap Fazlur Rehman Khalil's devotion to holy war, and two subsequent bans issued by Pakistan's government haven't silenced his invective against Jews and Americans. But Khalil, who co-signed Osama bin Laden's 1998 edict that declared it a Muslim's duty to kill Americans and Jews, is not leading his holy warriors from inside a secret mountain cave. He lives comfortably with his family in this city adjacent to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, next to his Koranic girls' school and bookshop, just down the street from a police checkpoint. And...

PRESIDENT ASSAD of Syria, under increasing pressure from Washington to end his country’s links with terrorism, will be powerless to do so, intelligence sources said. He remains a prisoner of his own intelligence barons and the rest of the “old guard” in Damascus. These shadowy figures and the other power- brokers who owed allegiance to President Assad’s late father will dictate how Syria responds to US demands to sever all links with the terrorist group Hezbollah and to refuse sanctuary to members of Saddam Hussein’s deposed regime. One intelligence source said: “President Assad has reforming instincts, but his hands are...

Israel pushed America to wage war on Iraq and provided equipment and training to US soldiers, Iraq's ambassador to the Arab League said Monday. "Iraq will not be defeated" in the war, Ambassador Mohsen Khalil told a news conference in Egypt. "Iraq has now already achieved victory -- apart from some technicalities." Khalil said Israel forced America to attack Iraq because the Jewish state "regards Iraq as a major power in the Arab world." Khalil accused Israel of manufacturing some rockets used by US troops in southern Iraq and providing satellite cameras and night-vision goggles. "Israeli units trained American soldiers...

<p>February 7, 2003 -- A Brooklyn greeting-card salesman - who worships Osama bin Laden and hopes for another Sept. 11 - masterminded a Muslim immigration ring in which more than 200 people obtained green cards by pretending to be religious workers teaching the Koran, the feds charged yesterday.</p>