Free Republic

As Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born American, grabbed international headlines last week for an alleged terrorism attempt in New York's Times Square, other suspected terrorists received much less media coverage as they appeared before a judge in Detroit. The judge ruled that all nine white, American-born members of the Hutaree Christian militia group, charged with conspiracy to commit sedition and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, should be released on bail while awaiting trial. Federal authorities charged that the militia intended to kill a police officer and then detonate improvised explosive devices at the officer's funeral in the hope of...

Iraq's Christians have taken up arms and formed new militias in a desperate effort to defend their beleaguered communities from an onslaught by Islamic extremists. In the five years since the Anglo-American invasion of 2003, murders and abductions have driven about half of the 800,000 Christians who once lived in Iraq to flee the country. Checkpoints manned by civilians armed with heavy machine guns and assault rifles have received official backing in Christian villages on the Ninevah plain in northern Iraq, where their presence dates back to the missions of St Thomas the apostle. Father Yusuf Yohannes combines the duties...