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The group of 10 to 15 men who took up positions Tuesday outside the gate of a meat processing plant in Pullman see the world a little differently than the 400,000 people who marched one day earlier through the Loop. "Illegal!" they shouted at any Latino-looking person who popped into view. "Illegal!" For the handful of self-styled immigration enforcers from the Chicago Minuteman Project, this was old hat. This time, though, they had some new comrades-in-arms: a contingent of African-American men, mostly ex-offenders involved with an organization that advocates finding jobs for individuals with criminal records. Amnesty for ex-offenders? "These...

CAMP HABBINYAH, Iraq (April 30, 2006) -- Nearly 1,000 Iraqi Army soldiers graduated boot camp today, beginning the first step toward an integrated army in Al Anbar Province. “The movement of an integrated army in Al Anbar is the only future,” said Col. Larry D. Nicholson, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5, based in Fallujah. “When people look out their window and see the army, they need to be able to say, ‘It’s my army.’ Today, we took a very positive step in that direction.” A total of 973 Iraqi soldiers graduated a nearly five-week training regimen that turned civilians...

32 police recruits murdered in Baghdad By Jim Muir in Baghdad (Filed: 25/04/2006) The bodies of 32 Iraqi police and security force recruits have been discovered in two areas of Baghdad, interior ministry sources have said. All 32 were from the insurgent heartland of Anbar province, fiercely opposed to the government, the sources said. Police said the bodies of 15 men, all shot through the head, were found on Sunday in west Baghdad. Their identity papers indicated that most of them were Sunnis. Meanwhile, seven car bombs shook the Iraqi capital yesterday, leaving at least eight people dead and dozens...

His code name was Maximus, and he held secret meetings in a shabby room at the Banana City Hotel on the outskirts of Sarajevo. Bosnian police put him under surveillance, and in a raid last fall on his apartment on Poligonska Street, authorities seized explosives, a suicide bomber belt and a videotape of masked men begging Allah's forgiveness for what they were about to do. What they planned, investigators believe, was to blow up a European embassy. But compounding their concern, they say, was the ringleader's background: Maximus turned out to be Mirsad Bektasevic, a 19-year-old Swedish citizen of Serbian...

A police recruit at the Sulymania Training Center demonstrates tactics learned at the academy during his graduation ceremony. U.S. Army photo Iraqi Police Recruits Graduate Coalition Forces, Iraqis train recruits in police science, self-defense, drill and ceremony. By U.S. Army Spc. William Jones 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment SULYMANIA, Iraq, April 18, 2006 — Sixty-three Iraqi recruits graduated from the Sulymania Training Center and earned the right to be called police officers following a morning ceremony April 13, 2006. The training center, operated jointly by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and Coalition Forces, teaches the recruits police science, weapons,...

Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, believes the power of a centralized government in Baghdad should be "lessened," and that more autonomy should be given to the 18 provinces that comprise Iraq. It’s a relatively new concept, the younger Talabani told an audience at the University of South Carolina, last week. It is an idea that will put his country on a governing fast-forward, and one in which Iraq’s neighbors are watching with particular interest, perhaps even concern.

MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO (March 3, 2006) -- The sounds of their cadence roll through the halls and across the grounds of the depot. Up to 65 Marines go to Drill Instructor School each cycle. During this training period, students learn methods of training recruits to become United States Marines. The overall goal of this institution is to give these students as much knowledge from their instructors’ own experiences, as best they can, said Gunnery Sgt. Christopher L. Hambaugh, Drill Instructor School instructor. Every instructor served time in the trenches before he became an instructor at the school....

Spain has become one of the main European centers for recruitment of Iraqi suicide bombers, says Spanish daily El Pais in a story published in Monday's edition. Since US launched invasion on Iraq in 2003, about 80 Islamists from Spain with North-African origin joined the Iraqi rebels and the Al-Qaeda's branch led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says the paper, citing police sources. The recruitment is funded by illegal drug trafficking and donations provided by Muslim executives of companies based in Spain.

Virtual JihadThe Internet as the ideal terrorism recruiting toolBy Luis Miguel Ariza, Scientific American, December 26, 2005 If you read Arabic and want a degree in jihad, click on www.al-farouq.com/vb/. If you're lucky--the site disappears and reappears--you will see a post that belongs to the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF). It announces the "Al Qaeda University of Jihad Studies." According to Ahmad al-Wathiq Billah, the GIMF MADRID BOMBINGS  of March 11, 2004—here, at Atocha station—killed 192 commuters. The terrorists had downloaded jihadist documents, including one that called for attacking Spain. "Deputy General Emir," students "pass through faculties devoted to...

Al-Qaida has reportedly rejected hundreds of Arab recruits to fight the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Islamic sources said al-Qaida network chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi has rejected a large contingent of Arab nationals for recruitment in the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the Middle East News Line reported. The feeling was that these Arabs were sent by the United States or Britain to infiltrate Al Zarqawi's organization, an Islamic source said. The sources said many of the Arabs rejected by Al Zarqawi were Algerian nationals who volunteered for service in Europe. They said U.S. intelligence had penetrated Algerian factions and sent...

NORTH CANTON, Ohio (Army News Service, Nov. 29, 2005) — More than 50 new recruits gathered at the North Canton Armory Nov. 20 for their one-weekend-a-month drill assembly. But instead of reporting to their new units, they reported to their recruiters. The troops are participating in the restructured Recruit Sustainment Program, a new take on an old idea. Cpt. Robert H. Paley administers the program, which helps integrate recruits into their new role as Soldiers and prepare them for Army basic combat training. His enthusiasm for the program is evident in the smile he wears as he passionately talks about...

[Blowing up for sex] MEMRI: Reformist Saudi Author: Religious Cassettes Advocate Jihad by Emphasizing Martyr's Sexual Rewards Special Dispatch - Saudi Arabia/Jihad & Terrorism Studies Project November 23, 2005 No. 1032 Reformist Saudi Author: Religious Cassettes Advocate Jihad by Emphasizing Martyr's Sexual Rewards In a November 15, 2005 article in the Saudi daily Al-Iqtisadiyya, Sa'ad Al-Sowayan, a reformist Saudi researcher and columnist, argued that religious cassettes, which are widely available in Saudi Arabia, advocate Jihad by emphasizing the sexual reward awaiting the martyr in Paradise. This is aimed at tempting teenagers who can find no sexual release in conservative Arab...

AS MY FELLOW MINNESOTAN Garrison Keillor likes to say, I am a tax-and-spend liberal. I have always been one and I suppose I always will be. I'm also a first lieutenant in the United States Army, attending Harvard Law School in preparation for active duty as a Judge Advocate General's Corps officer. Some assume that the military is only a province of political conservatives and I suppose that the stereotype has some truth in it. But that doesn't mean that only conservatives are welcome in the military and it certainly does mean that its ranks are filled with only Republicans.But...

Conclusion (SNIP) (SNIP) Put simply, the current makeup of the all-vol­untary military looks like America. Where they are different, the data show that the average sol­dier is slightly better educated and comes from a slightly wealthier, more rural area. We found that the military (and Army specifically) included a higher proportion of blacks and lower propor­tions of other minorities but a proportionate num­ber of whites. More important, we found that recruiting was not drawing disproportionately from racially concentrated areas. Perhaps more could be done to dismantle the claim that an all-volunteer military relies dispro­portionately on ignorant, black, poor, urban young...

AN Al-Qaeda website containing detailed instructions in Arabic on how to make nuclear, “dirty” and biological bombs has attracted more than 57,000 hits and hundreds of readers’ inquiries. Terrorism experts are warning that the site could be boosting the organisation’s appeal to would-be assassins in Britain and abroad. The manual, posted on October 6 on a forum titled Al-Firdaws, or Paradise, contains 80 pages of instructions and pictures of kitchen bomb-making techniques. It is divided into nine lessons under the overall heading The Nuclear Bomb of Jihad and the Way to Enrich Uranium, and is dedicated as a “gift to...

The wrong kind of Prison Fellowship Wahhabism on the Inside Oct 18, 2005by Chuck Colson In August, law enforcement officials foiled a Jihadist plot to attack a synagogue and military recruitment center in Los Angeles.What made the plot especially disturbing wasn’t only the nationality of the organizers—they were native-born Americans of non Middle-Eastern descent—but where the plot was hatched: inside Folsom prison. As the Weekly Standard rightly points out, it’s a perverse take on the idea of “Prison Fellowship.”The organizers were two inmates who converted to Islam while in prison. They recruited thirteen other prison converts into their “holy...

PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) - What prompts someone to convert to Islam and to sign up for global "holy war" in the name of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda? Security agencies are asking that question with increasing urgency as they confront a growing catalog of actual or attempted attacks in which Muslim converts are suspected of playing prominent roles. Richard Reid, the convicted British "shoe bomber" who tried to set off explosives in his footwear on a 2001 transatlantic flight, was a petty criminal who first turned to Islam during a spell in prison. Christian Ganczarski, a German suspected of involvement in...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has put job advertisements on the Internet asking for supporters to help put together its Web statements and video montages, an Arabic newspaper reported. The London-based Asharq al-Awsat said on its Web site this week that al Qaeda had "vacant positions" for video production and editing statements, footage and international media coverage about militants in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and other conflict zones where militants are active. The paper said the Global Islamic Media Front, an al Qaeda-linked Web-based organization, would "follow up with members interested in joining and contact them via email." The...

Report: Al-Qaida placing job advertisements on Internet By Reuters DUBAI - Al-Qaida has put job advertisements on the Internet asking for supporters to help put together its Web statements and video montages, an Arabic newspaper reported. The London-based Asharq al-Awsat said on its Web site this week that Al-Qaida had "vacant positions" for video production and editing statements, footage and international media coverage about militants in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Chechnya and other conflict zones where militants are active. The paper said the Global Islamic Media Front, an Al-Qaida-linked Web-based organization, would "follow up with members interested in joining and...

Filed: 08/10/2005) Al-Qa'eda is advertising on the internet for recruits to boost its "virtual jihad", where the terrorist group recruits fighters, shares tactics and spreads its extremist message. Its propaganda arm, the Global Islamic Media Front, says it has "vacant positions" for those wanting to help with producing videos and assembling footage of militants in war zones, including Iraq. A website showing attacks on US troops with jokey sound effects It also seeks candidates with "excellent" language skills in English and Arabic, the London-based Arabic daily, Asharq Al Awsat, reports. The al-Qa'eda job adverts contain the warning: "Every Muslim should...