Free Republic

BANGKOK, Monday, Feb. 19 — At least 28 bombs exploded in the largely Muslim south of Thailand on Sunday in escalating violence that has included bombings, shootings, beheadings and arson attacks in recent months. Officials said eight people were killed and more than 50 wounded in the bombings, which seemed intended to cause death and injury, and disruption of government services. Hotels, karaoke parlors, commercial areas and power grids were bombed and two schools were burned, apparently as part of a Muslim insurgency that has taken more than 2,000 lives since the violence erupted in early 2004. School arson and...

Bangkok, 2 Jan. (AKI) - The military-backed government in Thailand has hinted that supporters loyal to the ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra could have been behind Sunday's deadly bomb blasts in the Thai capital Bangkok which killed three people and injured more than 30 others. No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts but, according to The Nation newspaper, Thai prime minister Surayud Chulanont and military junta chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin said on Monday that the people who lost power when Thaksin was removed were behind the string of bombs and not the insurgents from the south of the country. Reports...

IsraelNN.com) Multiple bombing attacks in Bangkok have left Israelis unscathed, according to a report several minutes ago by Chabad representatives in the Thailand capital. The Foreign Ministry has advised Israelis in the area not to venture outside. Five bombs killed at least two people, and other bombs, placed in an area where Israelis are touring, did not explode, Chabad said on the Mabat television program.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia overturned a terror conviction Thursday against the militant Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who served 2 1/2 years for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed more than 200 people. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he was upset for the families of the 88 Australian victims but was powerless to help. Australia, along with the United States, publicly accused the aging cleric of being a top leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror group. "Of course it is the court system of another country and we can't change that," Howard told...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2006 -- A coalition air strike killed a terrorist near Khanaqin, Iraq, and Iraqi soldiers responded to two bombings in Baghdad today, military officials reported. The coalition aircraft was leaving a raid that targeted foreign fighter facilitators when it received small-arms fire from a vehicle, official said. Coalition forces returned fire, destroying the vehicle and killing the armed terrorist. Ground forces detained a suspected terrorist during the raid. Iraqi soldiers responded to two bombings in Baghdad today. Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, who work with the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry...

Madrid, 13 Nov. (AKI) - Spanish police say they have identified a Moroccan man who first claimed responsibility for the deadly 11 March 2004 bomb attacks on commuter trains in Spain's capital, Madrid, which killed 191 people and injured over 1,000, Spanish daily El Pais reported. The paper named the man as Mohammed Oulad Akcha. But judge Juan Del Olmo, who is has led the investigation into the bombings, has so far ruled as inadmissible the evidence against Oulad Akcha - supplied by a single female witness under police protection. Oulad Akcha read a message on video claiming responsibility for...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi insurgents are no longer using just volunteers as suicide car bombers but are instead kidnapping drivers, rigging their vehicles with explosives and blowing them up, the Defense Ministry said Thursday. In what appears to be a new tactic for the insurgency, the ministry said the kidnap victims do not know their cars have been loaded with explosives when they are released. The ministry issued a statement saying that first "a motorist is kidnapped with his car. They then booby trap the car without the driver knowing. Then the kidnapped driver is released and threatened to take...

RAMALLAH – A group claiming to be al-Qaida yesterday announced it was behind the assassination last week of a senior Palestinian security official, accusing the officer of "collaborating" with the "Zionists" and the United States. The group, calling itself Al-Qaida in Palestine, warned of more killings. It said its next attack in the region would be "more destructive" and would use "trucks full of explosives." Last Friday, Jad Tayeh, director of foreign relations for the Palestinian Authority's General Security Services, was assassinated in the Gaza Strip along with four of his assistants. The G.S.S. is controlled by PA President Mahmoud...

Report of the Accountability Review Boards Bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998 NAIROBI: DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS [* Note: Passages here and elsewhere in this document marked with an asterisk (*) indicate more details can be found in the classified version of the report.] Discussion On August 7, 1998, at approximately 10:30 a.m. local time, terrorists driving in a truck detonated a large bomb in the rear parking area, near the ramp to the basement garage, of the American Embassy in Nairobi. A total of 213 people were killed, of...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Sep. 3, 2006 – Civilians make up more than 84 percent of the people killed by suicide bombers throughout Afghanistan this year, military officials here reported today. As of Aug. 12, officials at Combined Forces Command Afghanistan said, 105 out of the 124 people killed by suicide bombers were civilians. During that period, five coalition servicemembers were killed, while 14 Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police were killed. The other 105 suicide-bombing fatalities were innocent civilians, officials said. “This is what the Taliban extremists offer the people of Afghanistan – death and destruction,” said Army Col. Thomas...

Early this morning,an Aer Lingus plane from NYC to Shannon, was isolated at Shannon because of a bomb threat.All passengers were evacuated and re-screened, and the aircraft was searched for bombs. It proved a false alarm-like yesterday's escorted return of a US flight to Amsterdam because of suspicious passenger activity. What is going on here ?

How many Americans have been killed in Iraq? The media is quick to provide a number, currently at just over 2,500, and, for what it’s worth, some 500 of those have been “non-combat” fatalities (i.e., accidents). Left-wing web sites, such as the “Iraq Body Count,” (www.iraqbodycount.net), claim absurd numbers of up to 44,000 civilians killed in Iraq. One number is never reported. No one even raises it in a question: how many of the enemy have been killed since the Iraq conflict began? One might find the complete absence of this number in any discussion of the war a tad...

Britain-with a bit of US and Pakistani assistance-had just foiled mass murder in the skies;but with al-Qaeda,there is often a "Plan B". This one could be just as deadly !

ALMOST a quarter of British Muslims say the 7/7 bombings can be justified because of the Government's support for the war on terror, according to an opinion poll. And nearly half of those polled, or 45 per cent, believe the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy between the United States and Israel. The survey, for a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary to be screened tonight, found Muslims under 24 were twice as likely to justify the 7/7 attacks as those aged over 45. It found 24 per cent either agreed or tended to agree that the 7/7 bombings were...

The awful rush-hour bombings of trains in Mumbai raise an important and ominous question: How far can India be pushed? This question was asked by a former director for South Asia at the US National Security Council, Xenia Dormandy, Wednesday as the United States - from President George Bush to the mainstream American media - joined the rest of the world in condemning the terror attacks in India. Pakistan needs to respond to militants, she herself answered in an article in the Washington Post, noting that in December 2001 India and Pakistan almost went to war when a group of...

India today slammed Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri for reportedly linking Mumbai bomb blasts with resolution of bilateral disputes and asked Islamabad to instead act against terrorists, dismantle terrorist infrastructure and stand by the January 6, 2004, Joint Statement. External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said at a press conference here that it was ''apalling'' that Foreign Minister Kasuri should seek to link the ''blatant and inhuman'' terrorist incidents against innocent men, women and children to the so-called lack of resolution of disputes between India and Pakistan. ''His remarks appeared to suggest that Pakistan will cooperate with India against...

Maharashtra tops jihadi target Pioneer News Service | Mumbai 148 killed 8 blasts in 11 minutes ---- It was like a chronicle of a tragedy foretold. Mumbai was always a soft target. The heart of the Indian economy, the tinsel metropolis, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wanted to turn into Shanghai has had several close shaves with terror in the last few months. The signals should have been enough to keep intelligence agencies on high alert, round-the-year, round-the-clock. Not just Mumbai. Indeed, the whole of Maharashtra was perched on a tinderbox with reports of explosives seizure pouring in on a...

BOMBAY, India (AP) -- Indian stocks rose a surprising 3 percent Wednesday, despite predictions of a sell-off following a series of train bombings the previous day that rocked the country's financial capital. Upbeat earnings from software company Infosys Technologies Ltd. helped lift the market, boosting investor confidence in the country's technology and outsourcing industries. The benchmark index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, the 30-share Sensex, rose 314 points, or 3 percent, to finish at 10,928. The index initially dipped 0.3 percent as trading opened, but soon recovered and continued to climb throughout the day. The market's performance surprised analysts who...

Everyone has heard of the “killings at Haditha,” even though the military investigation of what happened there is still underway. Has anyone heard of the “killings at St. Lo” in July, 1944? A comparison of the New York Times coverage of those two events is instructive. A Google News search of Haditha + killings + New York Times yields 891 hits as of Sunday noon. The articles on this subject in the Times are driving the national and international news in all media on this subject. The Times and its reporters are cited in most of these articles. But what...

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2006 – Though suicide bombings continue to take innocent lives in Iraq, the country's political progress is a truer measure of success in U.S. efforts there, President Bush said here yesterday. Bush met with reporters at the White House along with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Asked why the world's most powerful military force has been unable to quell the violence in some Iraqi provinces, Bush pointed out that suicide bombings are difficult to prevent and said the tactic has become the "main weapon of the enemy." "If one were to measure progress on the number...