Free Republic

WASHINGTON - At midday on Fridays, Muslims gather to pray in a basement room of the U.S. Capitol. Kneeling on sheets they've spread over the floor and facing east toward Mecca, they are members of the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, about two dozen congressional aides who are part of a small but growing minority in America and in the halls of government. At first just a prayer group, later a Muslim support group, the association is now looking outward to change what many see as woeful ignorance about Islam on Capitol Hill and beyond, said Jameel Aalim-Johnson, a black Muslim...

KABUL (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai reminded Afghanistan of the sacrifice of countless countrymen on Friday as he and other leaders marked the fourth anniversary of the assassination of mujahideen guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Masood. Masood was killed by al Qaeda suicide bombers two days before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. His troops, among the mujahideen, or holy warrior, forces who ousted the Soviets, helped the United States rout the Taliban two months later. "We didn't achieve this huge victory for free," Karzai said in a speech at a ceremony at Kabul's sports stadium. Untold thousands of...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Opposition leader and former defense chief Ahmed Shah Massood was injured and his close aide was killed Sunday in an explosion in northern Afghanistan, said Hajji Kahar, an opposition spokesman. Two men from Algeria posing as journalists apparently hid the explosive device in their camera, Kahar told The Associated Press in a satellite telephone interview from Khodja Bahauddin in northern Takhar province, where the explosion occurred. It's not clear whether the two men with the camera were killed. It's believed they were suicide bombers. "There was a lot of noise and smoke," said Kahar. Massood ...

A court in Paris has found four men guilty of offering logistical support to the killers of Afghan resistance leader Ahmed Shah Masood. *snip* Mr Masood, a leading anti-Taleban fighter, was blown up in 2001, two days before the 9/11 terror attacks, by two Tunisian men posing as journalists.

KABUL (Reuters) - More than 20,000 Afghans gathered in Kabul on Wednesday to remember Northern Alliance military commander Ahmad Shah Masood, slain by al Qaeda operatives two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The ceremony at Kabul's National Stadium commemorated the third anniversary of Masood's assassination, and was held a day after campaigning began for Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s first ever presidential election on October 9. Masood, known as "the Lion of the Panjsher," was the military and political leader of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of factions that helped U.S.-led forces overthrow the...

SUSPECTED French terrorist Willie Brigitte tried to get information from his wife, former soldier Melanie Brown about the top-secret spy facility at Pine Gap, French police sources say. During her four days of interrogation by French officials in Paris last month, police said Ms Brown recalled incidents with Brigitte in Sydney that, on reflection, seemed suspicious to her. In particular, Ms Brown is understood to have told French interrogators that Brigitte questioned her at length about the US-Australian electronic intelligence station at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs. He asked her if she had ever been inside the base when...

The suicide bomb attack on Ahmed Shah Masood, the leader of the Afghan opposition, has dealt a deadly blow to world attempts to hold the Taleban in check. The “Lion of Panjshir”, feared dead by Washington and Islamabad, may yet be clinging to life; but the attackers, by reaching his stronghold, have shredded his mantle of invincibility. He has been the last of the commanders still holding out against the Islamic extremists. From his stronghold in the Panjshir Valley, where he once fought off more than a dozen Soviet offensives, he has kept alive the resistance to a regime ...

The Perfect Storm author spent a month with anti-Taliban warrior Ahmad Shah Massoud in 2000. Now he offers his reaction to the recent murder of the Northern Alliance leader—and the subsequent attacks on the U.S. In November 2000 [National Geographic] Adventure sent contributing editor Sebastian Junger and photojournalist Reza (see photo gallery) to profile Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. The resulting article (read an excerpt) appeared in our March/April 2001 issue and has just been reprinted in Fire, a collection of Junger’s journalistic work. ________________________________________________________ On September 9, 2001, suicide bombers killed Massoud. Two days later the U.S. was...

<p>LONDON (AP) -- An Egyptian man accused of conspiring to assassinate an Afghan northern alliance leader was freed Thursday after a terrorist charge against him was dismissed -- but was immediately re-arrested on an extradition warrant from the United States.</p>

BRUSSELS -- A Belgian court extended Tuesday the detention of a 35-year-old Moroccan accused in connection with the killing last year of the Afghan anti-Taleban commander Ahmad Shah Masood, officials said. The suspect, whose identity has not been officially revealed, was arrested on October 8 in Antwerp and has been charged with complicity in the September 2001 killing of the Afghan opposition leader, a spokesman as said. The Brussels court extended his detention warrant by a month pending an investigation into an operation to provide false passports, AFP quoted prosecution spokesman Jos Colpin as saying. Belgian press reports have named...

KABUL (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit the grave of the late Northern Alliance military leader Ahmad Shah Masood, just two days after surviving an attempt on his own life. Karzai was scheduled to deliver a speech about the life of Afghanistan's official national hero at the tomb in Masood's Panjshir valley stronghold on Saturday in the lead-up to the anniversary of his killing on September 9 last year. It was still not known for sure if Karzai would make the trip north from Kabul for the event amid fears for his safety after a would-be assassin...