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SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt — U.S. President George W. Bush said Saturday that the Saudis' modest increase in oil production is "something but it doesn't solve our problem" of soaring gas prices. Taking note of the kingdom's recent decision to raise production by 300,000 barrels a day, the president said the United States must act, too, to ease the gasoline crisis. He mentioned steps such as developing alternate fuels, improving conservation and expanding domestic exploration. "We've got to do more at home," the president said on a lawn of a resort overlooking the Red Sea. He spoke after a private meeting...

Diplomatic tensions have arised between Israel and Egypt due to a harsh statement made recently by Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. In a conference that took place in the Egyptian Parliament last week, the minister said that he “would burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries.” Israeli Ambassador to Cairo Shalom Cohen defined this statement in a classified report that he submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem as “harsh and especially blunt, in a way which makes it impossible for Israel and for the international community to continue a regular agenda with Egypt.” Yedioth Ahronoth...

(IsraelNN.com) Defense Minster Ehud Barak warned Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman Monday morning that time is running out before Israel orders a full-scale counterterrorist operation in Gaza in the wake of escalating terrorist attacks. He met with Suleiman in Tel Aviv before the Egyptian official sat down for talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. The two are meeting at this hour, and Suleiman is scheduled to talk with Foreign Minster Tzipi Livni afterwards. Defense Minister Barak has declared several times during the past year that "it is only a matter of time" before Israel conducts a large ground...

U.S. President George Bush heads to the Middle East Tuesday for a five-day trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns looks at what the president hopes to accomplish. President Bush, 29 Apr 2008 President Bush returns to the region hoping to build on the latest round of Israel-Palestinian peace efforts that he began last year with a conference outside Washington."Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is key to realizing their own aspirations.  Both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state," he said.This two-state solution is the...

Ten years ago, when Dr. David Sagiv began preparing the Arabic-Hebrew Hebrew-Arabic dictionary he recently completed, he was more optimistic than he is today. At that time, he and his wife, Marcelle, would go every year to Cairo, where he had established contact with some of the most important intellectuals in Egypt. The shelves of his bookcase in Jerusalem are filled with Arabic books, some of which contain dedications from Egyptian authors. For several years, it seemed as though cultural relations between Israel and Egypt were gradually being woven. But in the last few years, since the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Killing the golden calf The sheen is coming off perhaps America's only hope for salvation, worries Gamal Nkrumah -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is time for America to step up, at least when it comes to foreign policy. It is up to the American people to decide whether the black man, the white woman or the oldest presidential candidate in the nation's history will be elected president. Whatever the case, the world watches closely the outcome of this year's United States presidential race. Each of the candidates is a problem for some of the electorate. While being old and white has never been...

Egypt: On the Brink of Revolution?   By Jamie GlazovFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, April 30, 2008 Frontpage Interview’s guest today is John R. Bradley, a British journalist and author. His last book on the Middle East was the critically acclaimed Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (2005). He joins us to discuss his new book, Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution. He maintains a website at www.johnrbradley.com.   FP: John R. Bradley, welcome to Frontpage Interview.Bradley: Greetings, Jamie. It’s very nice to be chatting with you again.FP: What inspired you to...

Ancient writings unearthed in the last century and a half, primarily in Egypt, are lending support to doctrines and teachings of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Brigham Young University professor of antiquities said Sunday. C. Wilford Griggs, who has written extensively on Egypt and is working on excavating Christian burial grounds in Egypt, said scholars are now admitting that "Joseph Smith got into the antiquities" before experts in the field began their discoveries, but they won't accept his explanation. Smith, an uneducated farm boy, claimed he translated the Book of Mormon...

Egypt: Tomb of Cleopatra and lover to be uncovered Cairo, 24 April(AKI) - Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year. Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together. He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs. Hawass said that the remains of the legendary Egyptian queen and her Roman lover, Mark Antony, were inside a temple called Tabusiris...

Hamas will tell Egyptian mediators on Thursday that it is prepared to accept a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip with a timetable for extending it to the West Bank, a Palestinian official close to the talks said. "Hamas's position is that they agree to a calm in Gaza and the West Bank but it would begin in Gaza at this stage and then apply to the West Bank after an agreed and specified period of time," said the official, who declined to be named. Hamas, which had previously demanded that any truce apply to both Gaza and the...

It is impossible for anyone now to mistake America's international bearing. The beast has shed all remnants of sheep's clothing and run rampant, and the ravages in Iraq and Palestine, in particular, testify to a mode of ferocity next to which even the brutal ages of colonialism pale. A power that devastates a country with an ancient civilisation, such as Iraq, causing the death of more than a million of its people and the displacement of a quarter of its population; that permits a blockade intended to starve a defenceless people into submission; that commits horrifically brutal human rights violations...

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader claimed in an audiotape released Friday that five years of U.S. involvement in Iraq brought only defeat, and said President Bush will be forced to pass the problem to his successor. Ayman al-Zawahri alleged that by heeding advice of his top commanders in Iraq and guaranteeing a heavy American military presence after July, Bush was "covering up for the failure" of his Iraq policies. "If the American forces leave, they will lose everything. And if they stay, they will bleed to death," he argued. The authenticity of the 16-minute recording, posted on a...

(IsraelNN.com) Former US President Jimmy Carter says Palestinian Authority Arabs living in Gaza are being “starved to death” by Israel. Carter made the claim speaking with students at the American University in Cairo on Thursday, saying that Gaza Arabs are receiving fewer calories per day than people in the poorest regions of Africa. “It’s an atrocity, what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza,” said Carter. “It is a crime… I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on.” The former president has not actually visited Gaza; Israel declined to authorize his use of...

Pharaoh Seti I's Tomb Bigger Than ThoughtAndrew Bossone in Cairo, Egypt for National Geographic NewsApril 17, 2008 Egyptian archaeologists have discovered that the tomb of the powerful pharaoh Seti I—the largest tomb in the Valley of the Kings—is bigger than originally believed. During a recent excavation, the team found that the crypt is actually 446 feet (136 meters) in length. Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who discovered the tomb in 1817, had noted the tomb at 328 feet (100 meters). "[This is] the largest tomb and this is longest tunnel that's ever found in any place in the Valley of the Kings,"...

JERUSALEM (AP) - Jimmy Carter rebuffed a call Wednesday from an Israeli lawmaker to halt his contacts with Hamas, and senior leaders of the Islamic militant group rushed to Egypt in anticipation of a meeting with the former U.S. president. Carter, who was scheduled to fly to Egypt after wrapping up the first leg of a weeklong Mideast peace mission, has drawn criticism from the U.S. and Israel for meeting Hamas officials. The group, which opposes peace negotiations and is committed to Israel's destruction, is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the U.S. All of Israel's senior political leaders...

Hamas faces unprecedented crisis, as Israel, Egypt prepare for flare-up Alex Fishman 4/16/08 Egypt asked Israel to put its forces along the Gaza Strip border on alert, while at the same time the Egyptian army is on special deployment on the Philadelphi Route and south of it. Officials in Israel and Egypt estimate that Gaza is on the brink of eruption that may be violently manifested on the Strip’s border with the two countries. Israeli security officials estimate that Hamas’ Gaza regime has reached a dead-end and is facing an unprecedented crisis not seen since it took over the Strip....

My Visit to Egypt   By Jesse PetrillaFrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 I have recently returned to the United States from Egypt where I was on a fact-finding mission to see what life is like for non-Muslims who live under Islam. What I saw was a dire situation of oppression and discrimination that many in America and the West have all but ignored. I went to Egypt because I wanted to learn what life would be like if our enemies and their allies succeeded in getting their way. What I saw was an example of the harsh life in...

HEIDELBERG, Germany — German federal police have sent out “wanted” posters for two Germans who they say are training at a Pakistan terrorist camp and planning suicide attacks such as one carried out in Afghanistan last month that killed two U.S. soldiers, according to German media. The two are members of an Islamist cell that German police busted in September when three of its other members were brewing up bombs, authorities said, to kill Americans in Germany. The two men in the posters — one a German, the other born in Lebanon but a resident of Germany — have been...

While the United Nations has disgraced itself over the years with sporadic eruptions of the first three negatives, it added another one last March 28 when its Human Rights Council passed a disturbing resolution that directs the body’s expert on free speech to report on “individuals and news media for negative comments on Islam.” In effect, the UN will now become the Islamic world’s censorship watchdog, snooping out undefined acts of Islamophobia around the globe. No other religion is covered by the Muslim-backed resolution that will most likely see the curtailing of free speech in some countries. But perhaps more...

My journey through Egypt A glimpse into the life of non-Muslims under Islamic oppressionBy Jesse Petrilla | Thursday, April 10, 2008 I have recently returned to the United States from Egypt where I was on a fact-finding mission to see what life is like for non-Muslims who live under Islam. What I saw was a dire situation of oppression and discrimination that many in America and the West have all but ignored. A place with rampant police brutality and corruption, where non-Muslims are second-class citizens at best, who are brutally victimized on a daily basis. All this in a nation...

AL-ARISH, Egypt (AFP) — Egypt has called in extra troops to reinforce its border with Gaza, a security official said, after Hamas threatened to repeat a January breach that saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians stream across the frontier. "Hundreds of central security forces have arrived at their headquarters in Al-Arish (northern Sinai) and are ready to be deployed in (the border town of) Rafah," the official told AFP. "Reinforcements have come from Cairo and (the canal city of) Ismailiya," the official said, adding that police trucks have been stationed around the mountainous areas in Sinai. On Tuesday, Khalil al-Hayya,...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An Egyptian court convicted five men Wednesday on charges of homosexual behavior and sentenced them to three years in prison, officials said. Defense lawyer, Adel Ramadan, said the judge found the men guilty of the "habitual practice of debauchery" — a term used in the Egyptian legal system to denote consensual homosexual acts. The convictions were confirmed by a judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists. Homosexuality is not explicitly referred to in Egypt's legal code, but a wide range of laws covering obscenity, prostitution and...

Predator missile strike? Delta Force hit-and-run deep behind enemy lines? Nope. Better: The senior al Qaida operative who helped direct the 2005 London subway bombings and a plot to blow up commercial airliners over the Atlantic Ocean has died in Pakistan’s tribal region, U.S. counter terrorism officials said Tuesday.The senior militant, an Egyptian who used the nom de guerre Abu Ubaida al-Masri, recently succumbed to hepatitis, they said. Never heard of him? Most people haven’t. The Times devoted a few paragraphs to him in a story last May about the next generation of Al Qaeda leadership, but I can’t even...

Violent Riots Hit Egypt http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/violent-riots-hit-egypt/  PJM Cairo: Angry demonstrators have been clashing with police as a nationwide strike has turned into a protest against the government of President Hosni Mubarak.April 8, 2008 - by "Sandmonkey" Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers Joyous rioting in the streets. Stores destroyed. Government buildings ransacked. Pictures of the long-ruling tyrannical leader of this middle-eastern country were stepped on. The footage of what was taking place was simply exhilarating, with people expressing the hatred they felt toward their ruler for the first time in over a quarter-century. If you think I’m describing Iraq after the...

In the reign of the Black PharaohsWhich country has the largest collection of pyramids? Think again, for it is not Egypt, but Sudan. Join Mohamed El-Hebeishy as he visits north Sudan in search of answers The Northern Cemetery in Meroe, where more than 30 pyramids are in site Our great grandfathers called it Ta-Seti, Land of the Bow. They were referring to the area south of the First Cataract at Aswan, and the reason behind the name was the unparalleled skill its inhabitants demonstrated when using the bow as a method of arm. Those excellent bowmen were actually the Kushites....

The Tassili n’Ajjer of Southern Algiers is described as the “largest storehouse of rock paintings in the world”. But could it also be the origins of the ancient Egypt culture ? In January 2003, I made enquiries to visit the Hoggar Mountains and the Tassili n’Ajjer, one of the most enchanting mountain ranges on this planet. The two geographically close but nevertheless quite separate landscapes are located in the Sahara desert in southeast Algeria. I was told that if I could pack my bags immediately (literally), I could join the three weeks’ trip. Unfortunately, I could not, but planned to...

The presidents of France and Egypt will become the first leaders of the Mediterranean Union due to be launched in July 2008, the Asharq Al-Awsat daily said on Monday. EU leaders last month approved a proposal by France and Germany to establish the Mediterranean Union - a club of EU member states and other countries having access to the Mediterranean Sea, designed to streamline migration policy, and encourage trade and environmental protection. The London-based Saudi newspaper said the organization is planning to have two chairpersons - one from the EU and the other from other states. "An agreement has almost...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

CAIRO, Egypt - The Egyptian state prosecutor on Wednesday ordered 147 detained members of the Muslim Brotherhood to be investigated on rioting accusations, a judicial official said, in the latest crackdown on the country's largest opposition group. The detainees, who have not been formally charged, are also accused of holding unauthorized demonstrations after a flurry of protests in northern cities, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members demonstrated across the Nile Delta on Tuesday, accusing the government of preventing them from participating in...

The United States has announced that it is planning to help Egypt build a border fence along the Gaza-Egypt border. Washington transferred $23 million worth of special aid to the North African nation as part of its assistance in locating smuggling tunnels. ... The planned fence between Egypt and Gaza will employ technology directed at preventing the fence from being damaged. This is in response to Palestinian militants who blew a hole in the current wall between the two nations that allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flock into Egypt late January and early February. The American Army Corps...

Study shows life was tough for ancient Egyptians By Alaa Shahine Fri Mar 28, 10:12 AM ETReuters Photo: The Giza pyramids in a file photo. New evidence of a sick, deprived population working... CAIRO (Reuters) - New evidence of a sick, deprived population working under harsh conditions contradicts earlier images of wealth and abundance from the art records of the ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna, a study has found. Tell el-Amarna was briefly the capital of ancient Egypt during the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who abandoned most of Egypt's old gods in favor of the Aten sun disk...

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2008 – U.S. 5th Fleet officials today expressed regret for the death of an Egyptian citizen who died the night of March 24, an apparent result of warning shots fired at a small boat approaching a ship chartered by the U.S. Navy. “We express our deepest sympathies to the family of the deceased,” Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, 5th Fleet commander. “We are greatly saddened by events that apparently resulted in this accidental death. This situation is tragic, and we will do our utmost to help take care of the family of the deceased.” The U.S. Navy’s...

Egypt to snub Syria's Arab summit Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are shunning Syria's Arab summit Egypt has said President Hosni Mubarak will not attend a summit of Arab leaders in Damascus on Saturday. A junior cabinet minister will lead the Egyptian delegation instead. Saudi Arabia had said it would only send its Arab League representative rather than King Abdullah, and Lebanon is boycotting the summit completely. The political situation in Lebanon, which has prompted disputes between Arab countries, is being blamed for the upheaval, correspondents say. Lebanon has been without a president since November because of disputes between...

A big statue of King Amenhotep III has been discovered by an Egyptian-German archeological mission in Luxor, said an Egyptian official on Friday 21/2/2008. The mission succeeded in collecting 100 pieces of another statue of Amenhotep III, Luxor Antiquities Director Mansour Borayek said. Led by Egyptologist Horig Sourouzian, the mission unearthed two heads of Sphinx in addition to seven statues of goddess Sekhmet on the western bank in Luxor, he added. In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet was originally the warrior goddess of Upper Egypt. She is depicted as a lioness. Amenhotep III was the ninth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. He...

Excerpt - The US embassy in Cairo on Tuesday denied reports that a US Navy chartered ship opened fire on Egyptians near the Suez Canal and killed one person, insisting no one was hurt. The Global Patriot "fired warning shots at a small boat approaching the ship as it was preparing to transit the Suez Canal Monday evening," an embassy statement said. "Initial reports from the Global Patriot indicate that no casualties were sustained on either vessel." US warships in the Middle East have previously been harassed or attacked by small boats. ~ snip ~

ONE Egyptian was killed and two wounded when a US military ship about to cross the Suez Canal opened fire on barges of hawkers that approached their boat today, a security source said.

One Egyptian was killed and two wounded when a US military ship about to cross the Suez Canal opened fire on barges of hawkers that approached their boat on Monday, a security source told AFP. The ship, Global Patriot, was preparing to travel from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean when a group of Egyptians seeking to sell merchandise approached the boat on small barges, the source said. Americans on board told the barges to stop and opened fire when they continued to approach.

American officials have agreed to a $23 million aid package from which most will go towards purchasing technology to prevent the fence from being perforated and for locating underground smuggling conduits, according to information received in the Israeli political circuit. From details that were made known to Ynet, the US intends to send teams from the US Army Corps of Engineers to the Egyptian side of the Gaza-Egypt border in the near future. Theses teams will assist Egyptian forces deployed along the frontier pinpoint the locations of smuggling tunnels west of the border in the Rafah area. In Jerusalem, Israel...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney, starting a visit on Saturday to try to push forward Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said Washington would never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security. Palestinians accuse Israel of undermining the U.S.-sponsored peace talks by expanding Jewish settlements, refusing to remove West Bank roadblocks and mounting offensives against militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip who fire cross-border rockets into the Jewish state. "America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is Israel's right to protect itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other attacks from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction,"...

LUXOR, Egypt (AFP) - Egyptian and European archeologists on Saturday announced they had discovered a giant statue of an ancient pharaonic queen on the spectacular south Egypt site of the Colossi of Memnon. The statue represents Queen Tiy, the wife of 18th dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and stands 3.62 metres high (almost 12 feet). It was discovered around the site of the massive Colossi of Memnon twin statues that command the road to Luxor's famed Valley of the Kings. Two sphinx representing Tiy and Amenhotep III as well as 10 statues in black granite of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, who...

Mona El-Fiqi stands in line Bread queues have become a common scene The government has started applying new measures to regulate the sale of subsidised bread, including raising flour quotas in high population governorates, separating the processes of bread production and distribution, and enforcing strict penalties on the sale of subsidised flour on the black market. But bread queues continue to grow longer and people still cannot readily find this staple food. For many years, different types of bread at various prices have been available on the market. One could buy a loaf of subsidised baladi (traditional) bread at PT5,...

Dozens of Hamas members who were arrested in Egypt after breaching Gaza's border with Sinai in January are being tortured and held in harsh conditions, a senior Hamas leader said Wednesday. Under the watchful eye of Egyptian forces, Palestinians cross the breached border crossing between Egypt and Gaza Strip in January. Photo: AP Said Siam, former interior minister in the Hamas-led government, strongly condemned Egyptian authorities for the continued detention of the Hamas men. He did not say how many Hamas members were being detained. Siam said Egyptians authorities were ignoring criminal activities along the border, focusing instead on pursuing...

Egyptian mummy exhibit is son of Ramesses II By Lucy Cockcroft Last Updated: 2:48am GMT 15/03/2008 An Egyptian mummy kept on display in a provincial museum for nearly 80 years has been identified as a son of the powerful pharaoh Ramesses II. The 3,000-year-old relic was thought to have been a female temple dancer, but a hospital CT scan showed features so reminiscent of the Egyptian royal family that experts are 90 per cent sure it is one of the 110 children Ramesses is thought to have fathered. The Bolton Museum mummy was thought for many years to have been...

As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Egyptian-Syrian union -- the merger took place on 22 February 1958 -- many must wonder why unity remains such a distant dream in the region. How has Europe, with a past replete with conflict, achieved unity while we have stumbled? Arab countries have more in common with one another than European states. We have stronger historical and cultural bonds than anything the Europeans have. So what has gone wrong? Europe has unified its markets, established a single currency and is moving steadily towards political union. Meanwhile, the Arab world is divided, with...

PARIS (AFP) - "The sea was driven back, and its waters flowed away to such an extent that the deep sea bed was laid bare and many kinds of sea creatures could be seen," wrote Roman historian Ammianus Marcellus, awed at a tsunami that struck the then-thriving port of Alexandria in 365 AD. "Huge masses of water flowed back when least expected, and now overwhelmed and killed many thousands of people... Some great ships were hurled by the fury of the waves onto the rooftops, and others were thrown up to two miles (three kilometres) from the shore." Ancient documents...

Cairo - Three Islamic leaders in Egypt have called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution banning all expressions that insult or offend religions. The appeal comes in response to the planned anti-Qur'an film by the Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders. The appeal has been issued by Egypt's mufti, the minister for religious affairs and the sheik of Cairo's al-Azhar university, one Sunni Islam's most important institutions. The three leaders say the Dutch government should be careful not to confuse freedom of expression with insulting Islam. They point out that the populist Mr Wilders equates Islam with terrorism. They...

RAFAH, Egypt (AP) - Egypt is building a 13-foot high concrete and rock wall interspersed with watch towers along its narrow boundary with the Gaza Strip to prevent Hamas militants from breaching the border, an official said Thursday. The wall, set back nearly 35 feet from an existing metal barrier, has guard towers every 100 yards. With it, Egypt hopes to prevent any future breaches like one in January when Palestinians broke through to escape an Israeli blockade, a security official said on customary condition of anonymity. On Jan. 23, Hamas broke through the metal wall to let hundreds of...

Egypt walls up Gaza border By ASHRAF SWEILAM ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER RAFAH, Egypt -- Egypt is building a 13-foot high concrete and rock wall interspersed with watch towers along its narrow boundary with the Gaza Strip to prevent Hamas militants from breaching the border, an official said Thursday. The wall, set back nearly 35 feet from an existing metal barrier, has guard towers every 100 yards. With it, Egypt hopes to prevent any future breaches like one in January when Palestinians broke through to escape an Israeli blockade, a security official said on customary condition of anonymity. On Jan. 23,...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, March 6, 2008 – Deployed American forces go out of their way to interact with local citizens, hoping to gain their confidence by helping them get a better understanding of the U.S. mission and culture. Army Spc. Emadeldeen Elboctorcy (right), talks about aircraft maintenance with Army Sgt. Brett Knerr. Elboctorcy, who hails from Citrus Heights, Calif., was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and is one of only a few soldiers in Multinational Division Baghdad’s Task Force 12 who practice Islam. He serves as a UH-60 Black Hawk maintainer in Company D, 3rd Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment. Photo...