Free Republic

The alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot was killed in a US missile attack in northwest Pakistan early Saturday, after spending almost a year on the run.Rashid Rauf died when a missile hit a tribesman's house in the village of Alikhel, part of a border district that is a known stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.Also among the five killed in the early morning incident was Egyptian Abu Zubair al-Misri, another wanted Al-Qaeda operative, a senior Pakistani security official said on condition of anonymity."The transatlantic bombing plot alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf was killed along with an...

The Defense Ministry has been instructed to raise its alert level due to concerns that Hizbullah will target Israelis and Jews abroad with the aid of Iran and Syria in retaliation for the death of Hizbullah operations chief Imad Mughniyeh, Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced on Sunday. Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Barak said Mughniyeh was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians and soldiers over dozens of years in numerous countries worldwide. He estimated that it would take time for Hizbullah to replace him. Syria and Hizbullah still don't have a clear picture of who assassinated Mughniyeh,...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - A powerful blast went off in the house of a senior Islamic Jihad activist Friday, killing him, his wife, three sons and three neighbors, medics and an Islamic Jihad spokesman said. Islamic Jihad claimed Israeli warplanes struck the home of Ayman Atallah Fayed. Israel denied it had launched any airstrike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza where Fayed lived. Hamas police said the cause of the blast was not clear. Witnesses reported seeing fragments of what looked like locally produced rockets at the scene, suggesting the house may have been used to...

DAMASCUS BLAST ON TUESDAY KILLED SENIOR HEZBOLLAH MILITARY COMMANDER - LEBANESE POLITICAL SOURCE

A leading al Qaeda member in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi, has been killed, a Web site often used by the group and other Islamists said on Thursday. A banner on the Ekhlaas.org site said Libi had fallen as a martyr, without giving further details. It was not immediately clear if Libi's death was linked to a suspected U.S. missile strike that killed up to 13 foreign militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan region this week. The attack had targeted second or third tier al Qaeda leaders, according to residents in the tribal area. Tribesmen in the area had said a deputy...