Free Republic

SNIPPET: "ZAMBOANGA CITY (2nd update, 1:56 p.m.) -- A powerful blast killed at least 3 people and wounded 27 others in a budget hotel packed with wedding guests in the southern Philippines, officials said Monday. The explosion, suspected to have been caused by a bomb, ignited a fire that gutted the two-story Atilano Pension House in downtown Zamboanga city late Sunday." SNIPPET: "Zamboanga city, a predominantly Christian trading hub 540 miles (860 kilometers) south of Manila, is located in a volatile region long troubled by a decades-long Muslim insurgency, extortion gangs and kidnap for ransom syndicates."

Islamic militants today shot dead four Buddhists in two separate attacks in Thailand's mainly Muslim south, where an insurgency has raged for more than two years... In one attack, two teenagers in Islamic students' dress and riding a motorcycle, shot and killed three Buddhists in Yala... “The militants exploited the fact that the men were shopping at a grocery store and could not defend themselves, even though they had a gun,” police Colonel Somsak Wannawak said. Earlier a militant shot dead a Buddhist man in Pattani province while he was riding a bus... More than 1400 people have died in...

"When you pull the trigger, you've got to keep steady," the instructor sternly told the elementary school teachers. "If your hand is shaking you can't shoot." Teachers have one of the deadliest jobs in southern Thailand, with 44 killed by the bombs and bullets of an Islamic insurgency since 2004. So the teachers are learning how to shoot back. The Chulabhorn naval base... opened its heavily guarded gates on a recent Sunday to a training course for 100 public school teachers, mostly Buddhist men and women who say bringing a gun to school has become essential. "You'd never see a...

In the jihad in South Thailand, almost totally unreported by media, at least 1,730 people have been killed since January 2004... with 2,510 people injured, an academic monitoring the conflict said today.

Muslim militants launched 23 coordinated time bomb attacks at commercial banks in this southern province Thursday, killing at least one man and severely injuring at least four bank customers... The bombs, mostly left on bank counters and some in ATM booths at the banks, were detonated mostly by clocks between 11:30 to 11:35 am. Police said militants dressed in student uniformed carried bombs hidden in folders, books and plastic banks and left them on counters where customers wrote bank slips. The attacks prompted all banks in the province to close its business for a day and at least five schools...

The return of politics to Iraq has had many blissful secondary consequences, one of them apparently minor but nonetheless, I think, important. When was the last time you heard some glib pundit employing the phrase "The Arab Street"? I haven't actually done a Nexis search on this, but my strong impression is that the term has been, without any formal interment, laid to rest. And not a minute too soon, either. In retrospect, it's difficult to decide precisely when this annoying expression began to expire, if only from diminishing returns. There was, first, the complete failure of the said "street"...