Free Republic

A co-defendant of a former college professor accused of terrorist ties has been released from jail and deported, more than five months after his trial ended, his attorney and federal officials said Wednesday. Sameeh Hammoudeh's attorney had sued the government this year to try to expedite the deportation, and a federal judge had given immigration officials until Wednesday to deport him or explain why they continued to hold him. Federal officials Tuesday took Hammoudeh, 46, to Jordan, where he crossed into the West Bank to be reunited with his wife and six children, said his attorney, Stephen Bernstein. "He's home...

Three weeks ago, Israeli police found a mosaic floor in an Arab car. The Antiquities Authority has confirmed that the floor be belongs to a previously undiscovered synagogue in the Ramallah area. Researchers from the Israeli Antiquities Authority believe that the mosaic formed part of an ancient synagogue floor because it contained depictions of Jewish symbols, such as the base of a menorah (a seven branched candelabrum), a lulav (palm branch), and dates. Another, no less interesting feature of the mosaic, are the words “Shalom (peace) on Israel” which are inscribed on it. At first, researchers thought the thieves had...

JERUSALEM - Israel rounded up 19 Islamic militants in the West Bank on Friday and pounded the Gaza Strip with artillery fire, pressing forward with a crackdown in the wake of a suicide bombing at a shopping mall this week. In the days since Monday's suicide bombing, which killed five people in the coastal city of Netanya, Israel has killed three militants in airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and rounded up dozens of others in the West Bank. The army said it carried out an arrest sweep overnight near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank. Ten of the suspects belonged...

Six U.S. soldiers were killed on Monday in two separate roadside bomb attacks on patrols in Iraq, the military said in statements. Four were killed in the area of the town of Yusufiya, just south of Baghdad; it was one of the heaviest single U.S. losses for some time. A statement gave no further details. Two others died shortly after 9 a.m. (0600 GMT) near Balad, 60 km (40 miles) north of the capital, a second statement said. Since early this year, U.S. commanders have been concerned about the increasing use of more powerful or more sophisticated improvised bombs capable...

Keeping its promise, the security services Tuesday announced it had nabbed another Palestinian suspected of lynching two IDF reservists in Ramallah in October over four years ago. The man apprehended was identified as Mohammed Abu Eida, 29. He was nabbed at the international crossing from Sinai in to the Gaza Strip at Rafah. Security officials said he admitted in participating in the lynching of two wayward reservists, Cpl. (res.) Vadim Novesche and Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Yosef Avrahami in Ramallah in October 2000. Eida was one of the Palestinian police officers who initially arrested the Israeli reservists. He later fled to Egypt...

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is ready to meet Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, an aide to Sharon said today. The comment followed a landmark summit in Egypt on Tuesday where the two leaders agreed to a cease-fire to end more than four years of bloodshed in the Middle East. Mr Sharon's spokesman said the Prime Minister had invited Mr Abbas to his farm in Israel's southern Negev desert and held out the possibility of a meeting in Ramallah, the political capital of the Palestinian Authority.

12 wanted Palestinians arrested Maariv News Service Security forces have arrested 12 wanted men in the West Bank, suspected of terrorist activities. A large explosive device was discovered near Ramallah. Sappers neutralized it. (2004-12-10 14:52:26.0)

Palestinian leaders said they would bury Yasser Arafat at his sandbagged West Bank headquarters and turn it into a shrine, dropping a demand for a Jerusalem burial and defusing potential conflict with Israel. Egypt offered to hold a memorial service for Arafat at the Arab League in Cairo ahead of a Ramallah burial. Palestinian officials said they were considering the idea. Israel's Cabinet was to meet on Thursday to discuss funeral arrangements. Israel initially insisted on a Gaza burial, but Israeli security officials said the government apparently would not object to having Arafat buried in the West Bank. The choice...

An undercover policeman died of wounds sustained while on duty in the West Bank city of Ramallah just after 11 p.m. Monday night. He was part of a force that entered Ramallah in order to arrest senior a senior fugitive, Nadiv Sawahteh. Acting on intelligence information, the undercover Israeli force ambushed a car carrying three members of the elite Palestinian Force 17, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's personal guard. The Palestinian vehicle stopped at a supermarket in the center of Ramallah and one of the men went inside. At that stage the Israelis opened fire at the two Palestinians inside the...

The Israel Defense Forces placed the West Bank city of Ramallah under closure on Tuesday evening, Army Radio reported. Troops were reportedly carrying out searches in the city, where Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has been confined in his offices for over two years. Earlier Tuesday, police called off an alert that had been in effect along the Green Line around Rosh Ha'ayin. Forces went on alert after receiving warnings that a terrorist was planning to carry out an attack in the area. Police set up roadblocks in the Triangle area of the north, Rosh Ha'ayin, Kafr Qassam, Shoham and...

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israeli soldiers raided a Palestinian engagement party Wednesday in the West Bank city of Ramallah and arrested the prospective bridegroom, participants said. Rami Barghouti, 28, an activist in the Islamic militant group Hamas who has long been in hiding, was celebrating his engagement when Israeli forces surrounded the house. Participants said Barghouti tried to hide, but the soldiers opened fire and captured him. He was wounded, they said. His fiancee was not detained. Barghouti is a distant relative of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian uprising leader serving five life terms after being convicted in May in...

Violent protests against corruption and nepotism in Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, and the threatened resignation of his prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, have forced Mr Arafat to back off from putting a relative in charge of Gaza’s security forces... Arafat is feeling the wrath of his own people, who have become increasingly frustrated at the corruption, nepotism and sheer uselessness of his crumbling regime.... Arafat has for months been resisting pressure from America, Egypt, the United Nations and other powers to merge and revamp the PA’s 12 overlapping, ineffectual and mutually hostile security forces, and to put them under the...

<p>Sunni terrorists. Thereafter, 11 terrorists and their supporters were taken out.</p> <p>Iraqi terrorists seek out and complain to the mainstream media.</p> <p>USN F14B Tomcats over the Iraqi landscape after refueling from an Air Force KC-10.</p> <p>Marine heroes train Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in weapons handling near Anah, Iraq.</p>

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 7/6/04 - Baghdad, Fallujah, Sderot, Ramallah, Gaza , Mombasa BREAKING: Baghdad - Iraqi National Guardsmen arrested more than six Ansar al-Islam Islamic terrorists BREAKING: Baghdad - American heroes capture rocket-propelled grenades and explosives. (Wedding party?) BREAKING: Fallujah - "Safehouses" metamorphose to bomb crater BREAKING: Sderot - Qassam missile murder of a Jewish child BREAKING: Ramallah - French endorsement of rocket-murder of Jewish child BREAKING: Gaza - Mainstream media attention for terrorists BREAKING: Gaza - Bomb-making factory and Hamas Aljil office eliminated BREAKING: Mombasa - Court for Paradise Hotel Atrocity terrorists QFN ====...

IDF completes its operation around Arafat`s Muqata compound in Ramallah

About fifteen Israeli jeeps blocked in the night of Monday to Tuesday the three entries of the headquarters of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, indicated to the AFP a Palestinian person in charge. "the soldiers on board about fifteen jeeps approached the HQ the president and blocked the three entries the building", affirmed Nabil Abou Roudeina, adviser of Yasser Arafat. This person in charge expressed the fear which they can be "preparations before an attack aiming at the president", without being able to provide other details.

The president of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat drove out in the night of Wednesday to Thursday 21 persons in charge and activists of the Brigades of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs who had taken refuge in his headquarters of Ramallah, indicated one of them. "Yasser Arafat obliged us, twenty of my comrades of the Brigades of the Al-Aqsa martyrs and me, to leave Mouqataa", its HQ, indicated to the AFP Ali Barghouthi, one of the heads of this organization for the West Bank. The Brigades of the Al-Aqsa martyrs are a nebula of armed groups related to Fatah, the movement...

Police in Jerusalem reduced the severity of a terror alert on Saturday afternoon, after an Israel Defense Forces operation in the West Bank town of Ramallah foiled a suicide attack that was planned to be carried out in the capital on Saturday evening. Despite the reduction of the level of the alert, police and security forces will retain their high presence in the capital through the Purim holiday. The road between Jerusalem and Givat Ze`ev was closed to traffic, and there were heavy traffic jams on the road between the capital and Ma`aleh Adumim, the radio said. Security forces removed...

IDF troops raided the West Bank city of Ramallah Wednesday morning, seizing tens of millions of Shekels in different currencies suspected of being linked to terror organizations. The IDF has imposed a curfew on the area, closing down several banks in the city, including the Arab Bank and the Cairo Amman bank. Nineteen Palestinians were reported to have been injured in clashes with troops. Three of them are in critical condition, AP reported. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz requested from the IDF coordinator of the territories to check how all the funds confiscated in the Ramallah raid can be used as...

Israeli forces raid three banks in Ramallah February 25 2004 at 11:03AM Ramallah - Israeli troops rolled into Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's headquarters city of Ramallah on Wednesday, raiding three banks and declaring a curfew in some districts, witnesses said. Israeli security sources said there was a "very focused activity" in some parts of Ramallah, but that Arafat himself was not being targeted. Israeli troops fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators who confronted them as they entered Ramallah in the heaviest raid on the West Bank city for months. Palestinian medics took away one injured protester....