Free Republic

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the French embassy in Mauritania's capital, wounding two members of staff. Mauritanian police say the suicide bomber was a wanted "member of the jihadist movement". AFP - A suicide bomber died Saturday after staging an explosion near the French embassy in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, as two members of staff were jogging nearby, police and embassy staff said. Two French nationals, security employees at the French embassy, were near the man at the moment of the blast," embassy official Marc Flattot told AFP. "They are in hospital, they are unharmed, but in shock,"...

THEY were doing laps together in a pool at the palace, Saddam Hussein and Ibrahim al-Basri, his doctor. Bodyguards paced at the water’s edge, intently following the leader’s progress. Pausing for breath at the end of a lap, al-Basri told Saddam the guards looked a bit podgy. The leader looked at his physician with interest. “I told him military officers in Europe had better posture,” the doctor recalled in his garden last week. “These fellows had paunches.” Saddam climbed out of the pool and began haranguing the men. “Later that day he issued a decree that members of his entourage...