Free Republic

A POWERFUL home-made bomb was found in the main Roman Catholic cathedral of the southern city of Cotabato today but it failed to go off due to faulty wiring, police and church officials said. The bomb was found in a box of rice that was left at the church on Monday but which had been undisturbed for the entire week, Father Jun Gumban, the assistant parish priest of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, said. An unidentified woman gave the box to the security guard at the cathedral, saying the rice was for the parish priest. The guard set it aside thinking...

An international hunt is on to find a flying bomb – a stolen Boeing 727 – which led to British Airways canceling all flights to Saudi Arabia last week. The plane is a fuel tanker that MI6 and other spy agencies fear is in the hands of al-Qaeda. The search is being coordinated by Richard Dearlove, director of MI6, and George Tenet, the CIA chief. Both President Bush and Tony Blair, on holiday in Barbados, are being kept updated on the search – one of the most difficult in aviation history. Hidden somewhere in the vast Sahara desert of...