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NAJAF, Iraq (Agencies): Influential members within the movement loyal to Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have told him they do not want his Mehdi Army militia to extend a ceasefire when it expires this month, Sadr’s spokesman said on Monday. The US military says the Shi’ite cleric’s announcement on Aug. 29 to freeze the activities of the feared Mehdi Army for six months has been vital to cutting violence. A return to hostilities could seriously jeopardise those security gains. Sadr has been gauging the mood among senior figures and five main committees had reported back with their views on the truce,...

Group calls for end to Christmas Culture wars The outrage by some people over department stores using the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is a distraction from real moral and social issues, according to a group of concerned Catholics and evangelical Christians. The group has called for a “cease-fire in the Christmas culture wars,” and challenged conservative talk-show host Bill O’Reilly and others who have lashed out against a so-called secular “War on Christmas.” In an “Open Letter to Christmas Culture Warriors” published as an advertisement in the New York Post, Washington Times and the National Catholic Reporter,...

During World War I, in the winter of 1914,the battlefields of Flanders, one of the most unusual events in all of human history took place. The Germans had been in a fierce battle with the British and French. Both sides were dug in, safe in muddy, man-made trenches six to eight feet deep that seemed to stretch forever. All of a sudden, German troops began to put small Christmas trees, lit with candles, outside of their trenches. Then, they began to sing songs. Across the way, in the "no man's land" between them, came songs from the British and French...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — The Philippines government and separatist rebels have struck a deal on creating a Muslim homeland in the country's south which is expected to lead to a peace accord next year, officials said Thursday. The agreement on the extent of territory to be handed over had been a major stumbling block in the peace talks that opened when a ceasefire was forged with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2001. The two sides did not disclose the new borders agreed after two days of talks here, but Malaysian officials said the territory would be greater than...

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, witnesses and military officials said. According to Reuters, they said the 19-year-old member of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was shot dead in an exchange of fire with troops in Jenin refugee camp. After dark Saturday, Israeli troops entered Nablus in an arrest operation. In the center of the city, soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian in his shop and seriously wounded another Palestinian, witnesses and rescue workers said. In another incident, Israeli troops fired at rock throwers, injuring two of them in the legs, witnesses said. Meanwhile, Hamas...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese leaders vowed on Thursday to stamp out an Islamist militant group that has been fighting the army at a camp in the north of the country. Relief workers planned aid deliveries to thousands of Palestinians forced from a refugee camp by fighting between the army and militant group Fatah al-Islam as a fragile truce held. "We will not surrender to terrorism," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said in a televised speech to his nation, referring to Fatah al-Islam and three bomb attacks in Lebanon this week. "We will work on uprooting terrorism and finishing it off." Dozens...

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (Reuters) - Thousands of Palestinians fled a badly damaged refugee camp on Wednesday, reporting bodies in the streets after a fragile truce halted fighting between the Lebanese army and al Qaeda-inspired militants. Vehicles choked the main road out of the Nahr al-Bared camp, where the Lebanese army had been battling the Fatah al-Islam militant group since Sunday in Lebanon's worst internal fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war. Lebanon's defence minister warned the militants to surrender or face further military action. "There are two options to solve this matter. The option we prefer is that they surrender to...

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired two Qassam rockets at Israel on Monday, despite a day-old cease-fire that was intended to end five months of violence in the area, Palestinian witnesses and police said. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks. Israel Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld confirmed the rockets were fired at Israel, but said police were unsure where they had landed. The rescue services said there were no reports of injuries from the rockets.

US envoy attacks British truce with Taliban By Tom Coghlan in Kabul and Damien McElroy in Washington Last Updated: 2:10am BST 25/10/2006 America's ambassador to Afghanistan yesterday expres-sed deep unease over the British military's ceasefire with the Taliban and subsequent withdrawal from a flashpoint town. British troops on operations in Helmand British troops moved out of the town of Musa Qala in north Helmand last week after a truce negotiated by tribal elders acting as intermediaries with the militia. After months of heavy fighting in which eight British soldiers and hundreds of Taliban fighters died, they handed over to an...

Israel rejects UN aid truce call> Many have been forced from their homes, but others remain trapped Israel has rejected a United Nations call for a three-day truce in southern Lebanon, as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in Israel. The UN says children, the elderly and disabled people are trapped and supplies are short. But an Israeli spokesman said there was no need for a truce as a humanitarian corridor to the area had been opened. Israeli missiles landed near the main Lebanese border crossing into Syria on Saturday, witnesses and officials said. In a separate incident, two...

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Saturday criticized Israel's rejection of a 72-hour halt to fighting to evacuate the injured, children and elderly from southern Lebanon. "I actively regret" the refusal, Douste-Blazy told a news conference in Paris. He said he would immediately renew France's appeal for such a temporary truce through the United Nations. (AP) (07.29.06, 13:56)

July 23, 2006 -- GAZA CITY - Senior Palestinian officials said terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip agreed to stop firing missiles at Israel at midnight last night, if Israel launches no new raids into Gaza. But two main terror groups denied that any agreement had been reached. The Palestinian officials said the unilateral cease-fire was aimed at ending an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that began June 28, three days after kidnappers raided an Israeli army post, killing two soldiers and capturing 19-year-old Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday dismissed growing pressure for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon, calling it a "false promise" if the root causes of the conflict are not addressed. "An immediate cease-fire without political conditions does not make sense," she told reporters at the State Department. Rice will arrive for a brief visit to Israel on Monday, during which she is expected to receive an updated synopsis of the Israel Defense Forces' offensive in Lebanon. "Syria knows what it needs to do and Hezbollah is the source of the problem," Rice said...

The Hamas-led government offered Thursday to restore a cease-fire with Israel, several days after calling off the truce to protest a deadly explosion on a Gaza beach, but said the calm would depend on Israel's response. ADVERTISEMENT Hamas said it is ready to put pressure on other militant groups to halt rocket fire against Israel. The rocket attacks have drawn tough Israeli reprisals and raised the possibility of a broader conflict. "This is very clear for us. We are interested to keep the situation and quiet, especially in the Gaza Strip," said government spokesman Ghazi Hamad. "We have contacts with...

Islamic Jihad, a virulently anti-Israel group backed by Iran and Syria, claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv, the deadliest Palestinian attack in 20 months. The group has been behind most of the Palestinian attacks against Israel since the sides declared a truce in February 2005. It says the violence is a legitimate response to an Israeli crackdown on its members. Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for eight of nine suicide attacks in Israel and the West Bank since the cease-fire declaration, and its militants in Gaza continue to fire homemade rockets at Israel on a daily basis....

Would anyone living outside America’s coastal enclaves of leftism actually believe that any major American newspaper would run an editorial arguing that we ought to be accepting Osama bin Laden’s recent truce offer? Remarkable, isn’t it? But we can top that. Would you also believe that the editorialist, one John Arquilla (a man with these kinds of views) is employed by the Defense Department as a professor of Defense Analysis, no less (in his case, clearly: Surrender Analysis), at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Arquilla is additionally a senior consultant for the RAND Corporation, and an advisor to...

Osama bin Laden's offer of a truce has sunk from sight without leaving a ripple, but it should have made waves. When the audiotaped proposal was made 10 days ago, the White House dismissed it out of hand. That was a politically logical move, given the need to appear tough on terror at all times. An image of strength and determination may be particularly important in the months ahead because Republican Party leaders have put security issues at the heart of their 2006 congressional election campaign strategy. But there are reasons why bin Laden's overture should be carefully weighed and...

Hurting from the attrition in al-Qaeda’s ranks, Osama bin Laden is proposing a truce, according to a tape aired by al-Jazeera. “Many of my friends and closest collaborators have been killed by the infidel crusaders,” said bin Laden. “We haven’t been able to plan anything big. We need time to regroup. That is why I am asking Mr. Bush for a truce.” The recent death of key al-Qaeda operatives, including Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, an al-Qaida explosives expert, in an air strike by the U.S. is believed to be the proximate cause of bin Laden’s desire for a ceasefire. Bin...

Al Qaeda's Big Boast By DANIEL BENJAMIN and STEVEN SIMON IF Osama bin Laden's aim in releasing an audiotape was to gauge his enemies' reaction, he must have been gratified to find that America's leaders and opinion-makers understand him little better than they did on 9/11. The proof is in how his offer of a "long-term truce" was treated. The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, declared: "We do not negotiate with terrorists." Vice President Dick Cheney saw Mr. bin Laden's offer as "some kind of ploy." SNIP Yet, while Osama bin Laden has seldom used the word "truce," the vision...

See this thread first. Osama has offered a truce Afghanistan is his excuse He wants to rebuild? Justice goes unfulfilled 'Till we've put his damn head in a noose!