Free Republic

"Car bomb explodes in Derry" IRISH TIMES REPORTERS SNIPPET: "A car bomb has exploded outside a police station in the North. The blast occurred at about 3.20am in a taxi which had been parked outside Strand Road police station in Derry. Damage was caused to the station and the perimeter wall but no one was injured in the incident. The explosion follows a telephone warning that a device had been planted in front of the station. According to the PSNI, a taxi driver was approached by two men on Cook Street at about 3am, one of whom had a gun....

When Palestinians revealed their true colors electing Hamas to 74 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Arab world was dumb-struck. An Islamist terror group had finally snatched power from the ruling old guard and woke up the world to a new Middle East reality. But does Hamas' victory really represent the decisive shift where Palestinian politics began going down-hill? Historians and students of current affairs often compare the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to that between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), in which an organization claiming to represent Catholics took up arms against Irish Protestants and the British. For...

The director of the Centre for Public Inquiry today accused Minister for Justice Michael McDowell of joining a witch hunt against him, over claims he was connected to an IRA plot to sell information to Farc guerrillas. Frank Connolly denied he had travelled to Colombia using a false passport, and said the allegations were made to detract from the centre’s independent inquiries on Trim Castle and the Corrib Gas project. Mr McDowell last night accused Mr Connolly of being linked to the IRA scheme to provide Colombian terrorists with bomb-making information in return for cash. In a written reply to...

A man has appeared before a sitting of the Special Criminal Court in connection with the discovery of a bomb in a car at the Westlink toll bridge in Dublin. Martin O'Rourke, 22, of Sheepmore Grove, Blanchardstown has been remanded in custody. Another 56-year-old man who was arrested in connection with the bomb find is still being detained at Clondalkin garda station. The bomb was discovered in a car on the M50 in Dublin on Thursday night. It is believed it was primed for use. Detectives are working on the possibility that the find may be linked to a vigilante...