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The Republican National Committee wants the Federal Election Commission to investigate the source of thousands of small contributions to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, a committee lawyer said yesterday. The RNC's chief counsel, Sean Cairncross, said that there is mounting evidence that the Obama campaign was so hungry for donations it "looked the other way" as contributions piled up from suspicious donors, and possibly even from overseas, which would be illegal. "We believe that the American people should know first and foremost if foreign money is pouring into a presidential election," Cairncross said. He pointed to a report...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

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...

Former US president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday he was refused permission to enter the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, despite his aim of paying a visit while on a well-publicized trip to the region. He did not say who would not allow him to enter the salient, but Israel controls the main crossing points from its territory to the enclave. Carter made the remarks to reporters in Ramallah, where he was to meet Palestinian leaders and officials, including representatives of Hamas, which the United States boycotts because of the Islamist organization's adamant refusal to change its charter to recognise Israel's right to...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri called for attacks on Israeli and Western targets to avenge Israel's raids on the Gaza Strip, in an audio tape posted on the Internet on Monday. "O Muslims. Today is your day. Hit the interest of the Jews and the Americans and all those who participated in the aggression against Muslims," said the speaker on the tape who sounded like Zawahri. "Monitor the targets, collect the money, prepare the hardware, plan accurately and then attack," he added, without specifically naming any targets. "No one can say today that we should fight the Jews in Palestine...

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,"...

Saudi bank pledges $32 million to fund Cairo plan to wean Gaza off dependence on Israeli power Egypt is working on a plan with the Palestinians to supply all the besieged Gaza Strip's electricity needs and wean off its reliance on Israel for power, an Egyptian energy official said Thursday. Under the plan, Egypt - which already supplies a small part of Gaza's electricity - would increase the number of power lines linking it to Gaza and provide Palestinians with some 250 megawatts, said Izzat Ibrahim, a senior official of Sinai's National Electricity Power Co. ''This capacity is considered as...

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

Israel has closed the Gaza border and stopped energy supplies in response to the rocket attacks coming from Palestinian terrorist groups within the Strip. Europe and other countries have begun to pressure Israel to end its blockade for humanitarian reasons, but Israel points out that it is illogical to supply an enemy with energy and food while they try to kill: Gaza hospitals will run out of drugs and fuel for generators within a few days unless Israel eases the border blockade it imposed to curb Palestinian rocket attacks, international organizations said on Monday. Residents of the Hamas-controlled territory awoke...

Five Qassam rockets were fired from northern Gaza into the western Negev Wednesday morning, just a few hours before US President George W. Bush's expected arrival in Israel. Three rockets landed around Kibbutz Zikim, while the other two hit outside Sderot. No injuries or property damage were reported. Palestinian sources later reported of a loud blast sounding in the northern Strip, the result of an IDF strike in the vicinity. Eyewitnesses said at least one person was killed and four others were injured. A short while later another Qassam fired from northern Gaza landed near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar...

Al-Qaida Finds Another Home In Gaza November 11, 2007 Target: Israel In Gaza, there is a terror group that embraces the name, Al-Qaida of Palestine. The video produced by the group, which CBN News obtained, uses as a recruiting device for the youths in Gaza. Members can be seen chanting, conducting martial arts demonstrations, engaging in tests of agility, and singing an Islamic song declaring their journey of jihad. "We are on the way to the target!" one member shouted. And just what would the group's primary target be? Israel. The video comes from Beit Hanoun, a city on the...

Hamas: We fired US weapons at Israel Terror group says it seized, utilized large stockpiles of weaponry upon takeover of Gaza Strip Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations in the Gaza Strip utilized American and international weaponry to attack the Jewish state on Sunday, top terror leaders claimed to WND. The weapons were seized in June when Hamas took control of Gaza and overran US-backed security compounds of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization, the terror leaders said. "The American weapons and western weapons that reached Fatah before Hamas took over Gaza is being used by the Palestinian resistance,...

A huge blast in northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed an 8-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister and injured five other children, Palestinian health officials said. According to the AP, eyewitnesses said a group of children stumbled upon a homemade rocket or a mortar shell and started playing with it. The device exploded, injuring all seven children, two of whom died later of their wounds. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain, a Palestinian health official, said the blast took place in the town of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, and the wounded were evacuated to hospital. The Kamal Adwan hospital identified...

A year after Cpl. Gilad Schalit was abducted by Hamas terrorists, a sleeping Golani infantry soldier was left behind following an operation in the Gaza Strip last week and was only located after his unit had already returned to Israel. According to the preliminary investigation, when the soldiers counted down to ensure that they were all present, one of the soldiers accidentally called out the missing soldier's number. After realizing that the soldier had been left behind, the battalion commander immediately alerted other units deployed along the border to ensure that the soldier was not be mistakenly identified as a...

Jihad threatens of tens of suicide bombings in the event of incursion GAZA - the Palestinian radical group armed Islamic Jihad threatened Sunday to resort to “tens” of kamikazes women to make “operations commits suicide” in the event of Israeli terrestrial intervention in the Gaza Strip. “Brigades Al-Quds (the branch armed with Jihad) have tens of kamikazes women ready to devote themselves to operations commits suicide to face any incursion of terrestrial forces (Israeli) into the Gaza Strip”, prevented this radical group in an official statement.

Two Palestinians died and another 11 were injured on Monday as clashes between Fatah and Hamas gunmen flared in Gaza City in defiance of a truce agreed overnight, medical sources said. Both dead men were named as Fatah members -- Alaa Shbeir, a 24-year-old bodyguard of a spokesman for the movement, and Mohammed al-Bhasae. According to AFP, clashes erupted just hours after officials from both sides said a truce would take effect from 12:30 am following the killing of five Palestinians in the worst factional violence in weeks. Among the dead were two employees of a Hamas-affiliated newspaper who were...

A local chief in the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed faction linked to Fatah, was shot dead by masked gunmen in the Gaza Strip Sunday, medical sources said. Baha Abu Jarab, 32, who heads the Brigades in his home town of Beit Lahiya was shot on his way home in the northern Gaza Strip, said Fatah spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khossa, blaming Hamas for the attack. According to AFP, medical sources said he sustained several gunshot wounds to the body and died later. At least 10 Palestinians were injured Friday in shootouts between Fatah and Hamas. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Israeli...

Hamas militants have enlisted the iconic Mickey Mouse to broadcast their message of Islamic dominion and armed resistance to their most impressionable audience—little kids. A giant black-and-white rodent—named "Farfour," or "butterfly," but unmistakably a Mickey ripoff—does his high-pitched preaching against the U.S. and Israel on a children's show run each Friday on Al-Aqsa TV, a station run by Hamas. The militant group, sworn to Israel's destruction, shares power in the Palestinian government. "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," Farfour squeaked on a recent episode of the show, which is titled, "Tomorrow's Pioneers." "We...

SLAP! was the only sound as the bullet hit the concrete wall. A saucer-shaped indentation appeared exactly where my head should have been. Soldiers standing nearby were stung by flying bits of concrete and copper bullet-jacket. Sniper - Take Cover! was about all I was able to yell before being drowned-out by the roar of the jeep's engine as my driver peeled-out. I was in the Gaza Strip, the sweaty, crusty, crab infested crotch of the Middle East. This stretch of ocean front property is the traditional border between Egypt’s Sinai Desert and Israel. Hostile since Biblical times, it is...

JERUSALEM – A Palestinian university that receives U.S. funding counts among its students senior members of the Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror groups, WND has learned. One Brigades leader openly enrolled at the college – Al-Najah University in the northern West Bank town of Nablus – described the school as a main jihad recruiting ground. Another terror leader told WND he was studying chemistry at the university to learn how to enhance the deadly effects of suicide bomb belts. This week, Al-Najah hosted a law conference at which the trial of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Hamas gunmen stormed the home of a militant from the rival Fatah movement Friday, witnesses said, sparking a deadly gunbattle and capping a day of factional violence across the Gaza Strip that killed at least 13 people, including a 2-year-old boy. The fighting was among the deadliest in nearly two months and marred the first anniversary of Hamas' upset victory in Palestinian elections. After nightfall, the fighting showed no signs of slowing, as the sound of gunfire echoed throughout Gaza City. The heaviest shooting was concentrated around the home of Mansour Shaleil, a local Fatah...

Testimony in the trial of Chicago resident Muhammad Salah and Abdelhaleem al-Ashqar of Northern Virginia, continued yesterday. FBI Agents gave testimony focusing on items found in Ashqar's home during a search of his Oxford Mississippi residence on December 26, 1993, in addition to wiretaps of his phone and fax lines. Special Agent Bradley Benabidez testified that the FBI acquired over 2400 hours of audio during the year that they maintained a wiretap. Benabidez further described the December 1993 search of Ashqar’s home where a team of agents from the FBI photographed over 1600 documents. A few of those documents which...

GAZA (Reuters) - One of the three Palestinian factions holding an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip said on Saturday it expected a solution to the crisis within days, but Hamas and a Palestinian Authority official were less optimistic. It was the first time since Corporal Gilad Shalit was captured in a cross-border raid in June that any of the factions has said that his release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners could happen soon. The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) said in a statement that the three groups had agreed to a proposal by Egyptian mediators, though it said a deal...

An investigative report to be aired on Italian television today raises the possibility that Israel has used an experimental weapon in the Gaza Strip in recent months, causing especially serious physical injuries, such as amputated limbs and severe burns. The weapon is similar to one developed by the U.S. military called DIME, which causes a powerful and lethal blast, but only within a relatively small radius. The investigation, by Rai24news, follows reports by Gaza-based doctors of inexplicably serious injuries. The doctors reported an exceptionally large number of wounded who lost legs, of completely burned bodies and injuries unaccompanied by metal...

JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's apologies for worldwide reaction to his remarks about Islam and his invitation today for Muslim leaders to meet with him next week are "mere diplomatic acts" and prove the pontiff does not really regret his words, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WND. Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called for holy war against the pope. He said Christian leaders such as Benedict are "afraid" because they realize Islam is Allah's favorite religion and they are going to hell unless they convert....

ISRAELI tanks entered the eastern area of the Gaza Strip today and troops clashed with Palestinian fighters there, wounding at least three militants, witnesses and Palestinian sources said. The Israeli army said it was checking the report. Witnesses said several Israeli tanks, supported by unmanned drones in the sky, entered Gaza near the Karni crossing, the main terminal for goods entering and leaving the densely populated strip, but it was not clear what their objective was. Clashes ensued and three militants were wounded, Palestinian sources said. Israel has carried out repeated brief incursions into Gaza over the past six weeks,...

Egypt deploys 1300 police officers at the border with Gaza GAZA - Some 1300 Egyptian police officers were deployed in reinforcement of the 750 frontier guard already present at the border with the Gaza Strip. Cairo fears that Palestinian activists try to penetrate of force in Egypt. According to Egyptian persons in charge's, approximately 200 police officers had been deployed Saturday and the remainder Monday following a concentration of Palestinians armed inside the Gaza Strip, at the Egyptian border. Egypt fears that these men try to penetrate in Egypt to help of the Palestinians who are blocked there to...

The AP reports: "A Fox employee in Gaza, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to release information about the incident, said the two kidnapped people were reporter Steve Centanni, a U.S. citizen, and a cameraman from New Zealand." > Update: 3:41pm: The headline has been updated. Centanni is a national correspondent for FNC. He has been with the network since its launch in 1996. "Currently, Centanni is covering the crisis in Iraq and is stationed in Doha, Qatar," his bio says. Centanni reported live from Gaza during the 9am hour of Fox News Live.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli warplanes killed six people in an attack early Wednesday on a Gaza City meeting of Hamas commanders, Israelis and Palestinians said, while Israel's military expanded an offensive in the region with an incursion in the southern Gaza Strip. The military said it attacked the Gaza City residence because it was a "meeting place for terrorists." It also confirmed Israeli forces were operating in southern Gaza as part of an effort to win the release of a captured soldier. With tanks and troops on the move in the south, a huge explosion destroyed the house...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Three Palestinian militant groups that captured an Israeli soldier issued a statement Monday giving Israel less than 24 hours to start releasing 1,500 Palestinian prisoners or "bear all the consequences." ADVERTISEMENT The ultimatum came as Israel made good on its promise to continue its military offensive until the soldier was freed, firing artillery shells and missiles into the coastal strip and massing troops and tanks along the Gaza-Israel border. The militant groups, in a statement posted on the Web site of the ruling Hamas party's military wing, did not expressly say what the consequences would...

2 hours ago GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli aircraft sent missiles tearing through the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday in an unmistakable message to his ruling Hamas group to free an Israeli soldier. Defense Minister Amir Peretz told a Cabinet meeting that Israel would go after "higher-caliber targets" in the future _ a reference to senior Hamas officials inside and outside the Palestinian territories, a high-ranking political official said. Israeli aircraft, tanks and naval gunboats have been pounding Gaza for the past week in an effort to win the freedom of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The soldier whose abduction sparked Israel's invasion of Gaza is alive and in stable condition, a Palestinian official said Saturday, and President Mahmoud Abbas warned that the coming hours were "critical, sensitive and serious" for resolving the crisis. Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants exchanged fire for several hours Saturday afternoon when Israeli tanks and bulldozers crossed the border with Gaza and began razing farmland east of the town of Khan Younis. Militants shot an anti-tank rocket at one of the vehicles. The army responded with gunfire and a missile launched from an unmanned plane. No...

Israel turned up the pressure on Palestinian militants to release a captive soldier Wednesday, sending its warplanes to bomb a Hamas training camp after knocking out electricity and water supplies for most of the 1.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip. The Hamas-led Palestinian government called for a prisoner swap with Israel, saying the Gaza offensive would not secure the soldier's release. Hamas-affiliated militants holding the hostage previously made that demand, but this was the first time the government did. Tensions escalated Wednesday evening as the military fired artillery near Gaza City - the first time Israel has targeted that...

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces pushed into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after threatening a major offensive to try to bring home a soldier captured by Palestinian militants, the army said. Tanks and armored vehicles entered the territory near the southern town of Rafah less than a year after Israel pulled thousands of soldiers and settlers from the territory following 38 years of occupation. An army spokeswoman confirmed the troops had moved into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Meanwhile, aircraft struck at three bridges on key roads in what the army said was an attempt to stop militants moving...

JERUSALEM - In a growing barrage of Israeli pressure against Hamas, a senior military commander said Israel is actively preparing to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and a powerful lawmaker said the entire Palestinian Cabinet could be targeted for assassination after the appointment of a wanted militant to head a new security force. Officials said there were no immediate plans to strike at the Hamas-led government. But the comments reflected rising Israeli impatience with the Islamic militant group, which has refused to renounce violence, defended a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv this week and failed to halt militant rocket fire from...

While settler leaders were busy calling disengagement from the Gaza Strip the catalyst behind the latest series of fatal terror attacks, defense officials warned Wednesday of signs representing the initial stages of a new intifada. The officials were careful not to declare that Israel was in the midst of a new terror wave, but did warn that while the number of attacks had decreased over the past month in comparison to January, the number of terror alerts was slowly rising on an almost daily basis. If the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) noted 55 alerts at the beginning of February,...

WASHINGTON Feb 27, 2006 (AP)-- Eleven cities have shown interest in playing host to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, twice the number of cities that applied to get the 2004 gathering. The DNC initially sent out letters to more than 30 cities, giving them an overview and finding out their level of interest. The 11 cities that said they were interested: Anaheim, Calif.; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Las Vegas; Minneapolis; New Orleans; New York; Orlando, Fla.; Phoenix and San Antonio. Some of the cities are in critical swing states like Florida and Arizona, while others are in population centers like New...

The U.S. Department of Justice raided and the Treasury Department froze the assets Sunday of an Ohio-based Muslim charity whose founder was once an official with a defunct Muslim charity in Bridgeview, the department said. No charges were filed Sunday against Khaled Smaili, the founder of KindHearts of Toledo, but the charity's assets were frozen pending further investigation into claims that the group gave money to Hamas, an Islamic organization that the U.S. considers a terrorist group, the department said. In January, Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. "KindHearts is the progeny of Holy Land...

The local San Diego FOX-6 Channel has just broken the story tonight that the San Diego Chapter of "Kind Hearts" Charity has also had it's finances frozen for having links to terrorist organizations. Two of the 9/11 hijackers were living and taking flying lessons here in San Diego.

GAZA, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Israel carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip early on Saturday morning, hitting fields and roads believed to be used by militants for rocket attacks on Israel, Israeli and Palestinian security sources said. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Palestinian security sources said Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at a road in central Gaza, missing a car carrying militants. The missiles left large holes in the road, witnesses said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the airstrike in central Gaza targeted rocket-launching sites used by militants. Palestinian security sources said Israeli missiles also struck two...

GAZA Virtually sealed off from the outside world, residents of this strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea liken it to a giant, deteriorating prison, and at its worst it feels like the film "Escape From New York," where inmates ran the show. The economy beats feebly, filling the streets with armed men and markets and chaotic traffic during the day and emptying them but for scattered police patrols and idle young men at night. The Palestinian Authority, charged with governing the territory together with the West Bank, maintains tenuous control.

No words A Palestinian boy takes part in a celebration after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's sudden collapse, in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip January 5, 2006. (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters) A Palestinian boy distributes sweets to a Palestinian woman during a celebration in Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza Strip, after the sudden collapse of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's health, January 5, 2006. Sharon clung to life on Thursday after a massive stroke that is likely to create a huge vacuum in Israeli politics and the Middle East peace process. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa Palestinian boy members of...

After an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber killed at least five people outside a shopping mall in Netanya, the Israel Defense Forces was preparing Monday evening for a wide-spread retaliatory operation in the northern West Bank and strikes in the Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Army Radio on Monday afternoon the IDF is preparing for imminent operations. "Operational activities are starting in the coming hours. Some of them will continue through the night and into the coming weeks. The security establishment has received explicit directives on how to operate," Mofaz said. Military sources said the operations were liable to...

+++HAARETZ MAGAZINE 29 Sept. '05 :"The Burrowers" By Shlomi Eldar [IMRA Note, By Dr. Joseph Lerner: Shlomi Eldar omits one support of the tunnel builders -- volunteers who oppose bulldozing of dwellings crucial to tunnel excavation and operation. These "morality"- oriented individuals and organizations pointedly denounced the bulldozing of such structures as a high level of evil, but are silent regarding all that goes on in the tunnels and their wealthy entrepeneurs.] QUOTES FROM TEXT: "with the Palestinian Authority in charge of one side of Philadelphia... suspicion will lead at most to a few days' interrogation and detention" "When ......

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responded strongly to the firing of 40 Kassam rockets at Sderot and other Israeli communities in the western Negev over the weekend. Sharon told ministers at the start of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting that Israel would do everything in its power to prevent the firing of Kassam rockets at southern Israel. "The IDF is free to respond by any means necessary to reach the terrorists wherever they are," he said. For background information, check out our SPECIAL REPORT: GAZA UPHEAVAL. Early Sunday, the IDF conducted sweeping arrests of wanted Palestinian men in the West Bank, military...

The Israeli army deployed an artillery unit along the northern Gaza border on Saturday after a barrage of Palestinian rockets were fired into Israel, a spokeswoman told AFP. "As a result of the Qassam rocket fire towards Israeli targets, the IDF (army) has deployed an artillery unit east of the northern Gaza Strip," she said shortly after troops pounded the Gaza Strip with air strikes, the first such raids since Israel's withdrawal from the territory last week.

The Israeli military Saturday ordered troops to move towards the sector north of the Gaza Strip, after a launching air strikes on the territory following militant rocket attacks, public radio said. A possible Israeli ground operation in the Palestinian territory, however complex in the wake of the army's historic pullout from the Gaza Strip on September 12, is being discussed by Israeli defence officials, the radio said. Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz was convening an emergency meeting of his top officials in Tel Aviv to evaluate the situation, the radio said. Palestinian militants have fired 30 makeshift rockets into Israel...

JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Gaza withdrawal is earning Israel rare accolades - with several Muslim countries opening a line to the Jewish state - and a renewed peace process looks more likely now than at any time in the past five years. But chaos after the Israeli military pullout this week is raising serious questions about the Palestinian Authority's ability to assert control. If Gaza remains lawless, the potential payoffs - renewed peace talks, economic reconstruction, revived hopes for statehood - will be threatened. Palestinian officials chalk up the mayhem at the Egyptian border, the looting of prized...

US President George W Bush said overnight Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was "a courageous and painful step" that may help revive the so-called roadmap to Middle East peace. "Both Israelis and Palestinians have elected governments committed to peace and progress, and the way forward is clear: We're working for a return to the road map," he said in a speech to about 15,000 veterans. "Palestinian President (Mahmoud) Abbas has rejected violence and taken steps toward democratic reform. This past week, Prime Minister Sharon and the Israeli people took a courageous and painful step by beginning to remove settlements...