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ALGIERS (Reuters) - The family of a suicide bomber who killed 17 U.N. staff in Algiers this week said he joined Islamist rebels after failing to get a taxi license and was motivated by "ignorance, not poverty", a newspaper reported. "We got nothing from al Qaeda, we are still very poor," Bechla Rabah's oldest son Younes told Echorouk. "Ignorance, not poverty, this is what pushed my father to blow himself up." Al Qaeda's North African wing claimed responsibility for twin car bombs on Tuesday that killed more than 30 people at the U.N. offices and a court building, saying it...

A Sailor By Alfonso Ussía Manuel Martín-Oar, captain in the Spanish Navy, died in Iraq. One line sums up the entire tragedy. He escaped alive from the terrorist attack on the United Nations headquarters and was found dead in a dirty, run-down temporary morgue. He has gone to his rest with honor, that lofty and sacred thing no longer valued in our time. The politicians have declared their regret and respect, with the usual abstentions. The grubby minds of Llamazares and Anasagasti [Basque Marxist separatists] have tried to take advantage of the death of a Spanish sailor to stir up...

United Nations: Israel's ambassador to the United Nations said Thursday that intelligence reports show the truck used in the deadly bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad came from Syria. However, Ambassador Dan Gillerman said he had no evidence linking Syria directly to Tuesday's attack, which killed more than 20 people and injured more than 100. "All I'm saying is that intelligence reports and reports we've seen and heard in the media indicate the truck that blew up the compound in Baghdad came from Damascus," the Syrian capital, Gillerman told reporters. Syria's deputy U.N. ambassador said there was no information that...

The U.N. Gets Bombed,And The Media Suddenly See "Terrorists" (good hyperlink at site) By Lowell Phillips Weekender, August 24, 2003 http://ToogoodReports.com/ A cement truck laden with explosives plows into the Baghdad headquarters of the United Nations and, presto-chango, there are "terrorists" in Iraq. That's right, not "guerrillas," not "resistance fighters," but "terrorists." And the press is appalled at their wickedness. Suddenly journalists and pundits who could scarcely bring themselves to utter the T-word now find themselves compelled to use it. Strange how when a U.S. serviceman is killed while guarding a hospital or when Israeli women and children are obliterated...

MANILA, Philippines - A Filipino woman who was reported to have been killed in the bombing of the United Nations (news - web sites) office in Baghdad is still alive, family members and a Philippine official said. Marilyn Manuel, a U.N. staffer, was being treated at a military hospital outside Baghdad, acting Foreign Secretary Franklin Ebdalin said Friday. Ebdalin had no details on her condition but said she would be transferred to another hospital in the Iraqi capital. He said the United Nations earlier reported that Manuel and another Filipino, Ranillo Buenaventura, were killed in the bombing Tuesday. The New...

WASHINGTON -- When a truck bomb exploded Tuesday at the United Nations compound in Baghdad, Iraq, Sen. Jim Inhofe was just a few miles away, meeting with U.S. officials and doing telephone interviews with reporters back home in Oklahoma. "I'm not sure I heard it," Inhofe, R-Tulsa, said in a brief interview with The Oklahoman as he left Baghdad. "There are a lot of explosions around here." Inhofe, a member of the Armed Services Committee, was one of several U.S. lawmakers in Baghdad at the time of the bombing; none were hurt. Inhofe said they were taken by helicopter to...

The Left's new claim-- the the terrorists weren't in Iraq until we ousted Saddam-- is just plain bull. Of course, Ansar AL Islam were in the North before the war started. Also, Uday spent the decade since Gulf War 1 developing the Saddam Fedayheen--who are very similar to Hamas and other terror groups. We all know that Saddam was a major supporter of Arafat and the intifada against Israel-- it seems very likely to me that some of Arafat's people went to Iraq in the 90's to develop an elite corp of killers who would stand and fight for Saddam,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)--The FBI said on Wednesday the bomb that ripped through U.N. headquarters here was made from 1,000 pounds of old munitions including one single 500 pound bomb, all of the materials from Saddam Hussein's prewar arsenal that required no ``great degree of sophistication'' to build. A key member of the U.S.-picked interim government, meanwhile, said the death toll stood at 20 but could go much higher. ``There are 20 dead and there are many who are still trapped in there,'' said Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the Governing Council and leader of the Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi insisted...