Free Republic

SNIP Sissi: The dilemma between the former president and the people originated from [the Muslim Brotherhood’s] concept of the state, the ideology that they adopted for building a country which is based on restoring the Islamic religious empire. That’s what made [former president Mohamed Morsi] not a president for all Egyptians, but a president representing his followers and supporters. Weymouth: When did that become obvious to you? It was obvious on the first day – the day of his inauguration. He started with offending the judiciary and not giving them the appropriate treatment. The Brotherhood experience in ruling a country...

The Arab Spring began in Tunisia, and it’s lurching toward the brink again just weeks after the Egyptian army overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government. Last week an assassin took out left-wing opposition leader Mohammed Brahmi with a 9mm pistol. Ballistics reports indicate the killer used the exact same weapon to murder another opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, last winter. And this week Al Qaeda-linked terrorists dug in on Mount Chambi killed at least eight Tunisian soldiers. Ennahda, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is taking the heat. While they aren’t being fingered as directly responsible, they’re being blamed all the...

As dusk was falling on Sunday, the city of Benghazi was rocked by two huge explosions. Bombings have become depressingly frequent in Libya's second-largest city over the past year. But they're not the only form of violence plaguing Benghazi, either. There have been 57 assassinations since the end of the war that toppled Qaddafi's regime. The explosions come two days after the assassination of prominent lawyer and activist Abdulsalam al-Mesmari, who was shot as he left one of Benghazi's mosques after Friday prayers. Mesmari, who was credited with playing a prominent role in Libya's revolution, was also an outspoken critic...

World leaders weigh in after Egypt's army commander announces that president had been removed The Egyptian army's suspension of the constitution and removal of President Mohamed Morsi has drawn mixed responses from world leaders: European Union The EU has called for a rapid return to democracy in Egypt. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said: "I urge all sides to rapidly return to the democratic process, including the holding of free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections and the approval of a constitution, to be done in a fully inclusive manner, so as to permit the country to resume and...

BEIRUT — The ouster on Wednesday of Egypt’s elected Muslim Brotherhood government barely a year after it took office represents a significant setback for the Islamist movements that have proved the biggest beneficiaries so far of the Arab Spring revolts. From Tunisia to war-torn Syria, anti-Islamist activists have begun expressing unhappiness with the religious parties empowered by freedoms the turmoil unleashed. That the backlash has crescendoed in Egypt — the Arab world’s political and cultural trendsetter and the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood 80 years ago — is likely to resonate far beyond, perhaps most forcefully in Syria. “What happens...

During the "Arab Spring", the tiny island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily, due to its unfortunate vicinity to North Africa saw the arrival of over 60,000 migrants mostly from Tunisia and Libya in a period of a few months in the early 2011. We know that the use of words like "invasion" or "flooding" is considered racist by the liberal media, but how else is it possible to describe this situation? Lampedusa has a total population of just over 6,000 people only when you also include the inhabitants of the nearby island of Linosa, with which it forms...

Thousands of foreign terrorists traveled to Syria over the past several months to wage jihad, or holy war, in what U.S. officials say is fast becoming a new international terror training ground. Most of the foreign terrorists are fighting for the al Qaeda-linked group the al-Nusra Front and are coming from around the world, mainly from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia, by crossing the Syrian border with Turkey. The al-Nusra Front is the most well organized and ideologically motivated armed opposition group after the secular Free Syrian Army. “The Syrian opposition is benefiting from a steady flow of foreign...

A Tunisian court convicted on Thursday a rap artist for insulting police with a song calling them dogs and sentenced him to two years in prison, his lawyer said. … Yacoub’s song “Boulicia Kleb,” or “The Police Are Dogs,” was released on YouTube. He was originally tried and convicted in absentia for inciting violence against officials and insulting police back in March. He turned himself in and was retried, but given the same two-year sentence. …

<p>Three activists from the feminist group Femen have been arrested after baring their breasts in Tunis in what the group described as its “first topless protest in an Islamic state.”</p>

A curious idea of justice, have these Islamists. From The Australian: TWENTY people have received a two-year suspended prison sentence for their part in a deadly attack on the US embassy in Tunisia last year, their lawyer said. "They all got a two-year suspended sentence," said lawyer Anouar Ouled Ali. "We will see with their families if they want to appeal. If they want to, we will do it," he added. The verdict, which was not made public, came after only half a day, an unusually short trial in the north African country. Hundreds of angry Islamist protesters attacked the...

... About 11,000 police officers and soldiers blocked an annual conference at Tunisia’s main religious centre in the central city of Kairouan by a radical Islamist movement that has been implicated in attacks across the country. Security checkpoints were in place and patrols were out in the streets after authorities declared the conference by the ultraconservative Muslim group Ansar al-Shariah a threat “to security and public order.” Police clashed with tens of thousands of members of Ansar al-Sharia who had intended to go to the main rally. Protesters threw stones at police, who fired tear gas in response. Kairouan hospital...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2013/tunisian-man-charged-with-visa-fraud-related-to-terrorism-intended-to-remain-in-u.s.-to-facilitate-an-act-of-international-terrorism Tunisian Man Charged with Visa Fraud Related to Terrorism, Intended to Remain in U.S. to Facilitate an Act of International Terrorism U.S. Attorney’s Office May 09, 2013 Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; George Venizelos, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); and Raymond W. Kelly, the Police Commissioner of the city of New York (NYPD), today announced the unsealing of charges against Ahmed Abassi, a Tunisian citizen, for...

The Tunisian Embassy says one of two men accused of plotting to derail a train in Canada is a Tunisian citizen. The embassy said Thursday that 30-year-old Chiheb Esseghaier came to Quebec in August 2008 and is registered at the Consulate of Tunisia in Montreal. …

Canadian authorities announced Monday they have broken up an Al Qaeda-linked terror plot to attack a passenger train as it crossed over a bridge in the Toronto area. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Monday that two suspects have been arrested on terrorism charges. Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, who live in greater Montreal and Toronto -- were conspiring to carry out an Al Qaeda-supported attack against Via Rail, but posed no immediate threat to the public. "It was definitely in the planning stage but not imminent," RCMP chief superintendent Jennifer Strachan told reporters at a news conference. Read more:...

Deep Thoughts by Thomas Friedman But don’t worry, the term “admits” is a bit strong. It’s more like the weatherman who predicted there wouldn’t be a flood for a month straight clinging to an antenna on the roof of his house and trying to find reasons why he was right all along even while the sharks are circling his chimney. The standard fallback position for Tahrir’s international cheerleaders is to argue that we were expecting positive results too quickly. The term “Arab Spring” has to be retired. There is nothing springlike going on,” Friedman says. “It’s best we now speak...

Earlier today, members of Ukrainian feminist group Femen staged protests across Europe as they called for a "topless jihad." The demonstrations were in support of a young Tunisian activist named Amina Tyler. Last month, Tyler posted naked images of herself online, with the words "I own my body; it's not the source of anyone's honor" written on her bare chest. The head of Tunisia's "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," reportedly called for Tyler to be stoned to death for her putatively obscene actions, lest they lead to an epidemic. Tyler has since gone quiet, leading...

Air force pilots have requested guidance from the Grand Mufti, Sheikh Sadeq Al-Ghariani, about targeting smugglers on the southern Tunisian-Libyan border, according to the Libyan daily, Libya Al-Jadidah. The air force has been carrying out reconnaissance flights over southern border areas to monitor smuggling operations and have fired on smuggler groups. Interior Minister Ashour Shuwail reported to Congress yesterday Sunday, on the issue. An airman was quoted today by the newspaper saying that about 20 trucks smuggling Libyan fuel into Tunisia were crossing the border daily in the Wazen-Dhahiba area. Twenty-nine rockets had been fired at the smugglers, he said,...

Syrian rebel forces have seized a 25-kilometer (15 mile) buffer zone stretching from the Jordanian border to the Golan Heights. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog agency, “Fighters loyal to Al Nusra Front, Al Yarmuk Brigade, Al Mutaz Billah Brigade and others took control of Al Rai military checkpoint” east of Sahem al-Golan, in the Dara'a province. snip The rebel forces referred to in the statement are part of the radical jihadist group known as the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Syria, which despises what it considers the rival Western-backed Syrian National Council, the larger...

Social disruption, dramatic declines in mining and tourism and the Feb. 6 assassination of popular leftist leader Chokri Belaid, who was gunned down outside his home in the capital apparently by hard-line Islamists, known as Salafists, have all contributed to a darkened atmosphere inside the birthplace of the Arab Spring. There’s a sullen resentment at the failure of the Islamist government -- it is ruling with two secular center-left parties – to move the economy on.

TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Libyan authorities have detained a man investigators believe could be an important witness or suspect in the attacks on U.S. outposts in Benghazi, Libya last September, according to people familiar with the matter. The man, a Libyan national identified as Faraj al-Chalabi, fled to Pakistan after the attacks and only recently returned to Libya, said the sources, who include people in the United States and Libya close to the ongoing investigations. One Libyan security source said he was from Eastern Libya. The U.S. government is aware of al-Chalabi's detention and there are signs American investigators may have...