Free Republic

'I made a mixture of drugs and injected them. They were dead in three hours' Doctor provided first aid for insurgents - and went on to kill police and soldiers brought in for treatment Michael Howard in Kirkuk Monday April 17, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Lieutenant Arjuman of the Kirkuk police lay unconscious in the recovery room after a successful operation to remove an insurgent's bullet from his chest. His weary surgeons had gone home for the night, satisfied a life had been saved. Al-Jumhuriya hospital - Kirkuk's largest and busiest - was quiet. At 10.30pm, a doctor moved along...

AYHAN SURUCU was so angry when his sister started to wear make-up and date German men that he put a gun to her head at a bus stop and killed her. The 18-year-old Turk fired three bullets into her brain and calmly walked away. Boys at a nearby school, attended mainly by the children of immigrant Muslim families, cheered and applauded when news of the murder reached them. The so-called “honour killing” of Hatun Surucu, 23, last year shocked Germany and sparked intense debate about a conservative Muslim immigrant community at odds with a secular society. That anger was rekindled...

CAIRO, Egypt - Worshippers at three Christian churches came under attack from knife-wielding assailants during Mass Friday. Police said one worshipper was killed and more than a dozen wounded in the simultaneous attacks in the northern city of Alexandria. Police were searching for three men, one in each attack. Hundreds of Christians gathered in angry protest outside the Coptic Christian churches, and witnesses said clashes erupted between Christians and Muslims. Initial police reports said a total of 17 people were injured: 10 at the Saints Church in downtown Alexandria and three at the nearby Mar Girgis Church. A third attacker...

A mob of some 200 Muslim vigilantes forced Christians in Bogor, West Java, to abandon their church service on Sunday, The Jakarta Post reported today. Police were present but failed to stop the mob, composed of residents from the Griya Bukit Jaya housing complex. The mob forced approximately 190 Christians to leave a Pentecostal church building and agree to end services. They claimed the church had violated a 1999 decree issued by the governor of West Java and a 1969 Joint Ministerial Decree (SKB) regulating places of worship. Both decrees require approval from neighbors and local authorities before a church...

For first time, Palestinians fire Katyusha rocket from Gaza For the first time, Palestinians fired a 122mm Katyusha rocket, a much longer-range projectile than the Qassam, from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the IDF confirmed Tuesday night. The Katyusha was fired Tuesday morning. It caused no injuries or damage. Israel Channel 10 Television said the rocket was apparently fired by the Islamic Jihad, which had vowed to try to disrupt the Tuesday general election. Remains of the rocket were discovered in searches of areas hit by rockets south of Ashkelon. Military sources said the potential range of the Katyusha is...

Thirteen suspected pirates involved in clashes with the US Navy off the Somali coast on Saturday have been captured, a spokesman for the men says. Saleban Aadan Barqad told the BBC that his men were protecting fishing stocks from foreign vessels when they were attacked by the Americans. The group has demanded that the United States release the men. On Saturday, the US Navy reported an exchange of fire between two of its ships and the suspected pirates. One person was killed and five wounded in the incident, which happened early on Saturday as the ships were conducting maritime security...

Evangelist Geeddi Galbe (formerly Abuukar Mohamud Hussein) escaped an attempt on his life on February 1, 2006. An organized Muslim group attacked the evangelist with machetes in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The group apparently tried to behead the evangelist but he escaped with a fractured skull and other bodily injuries. Evangelist Geeddi managed to escape the would-be assassins and ran to an open pharmacy bleeding profusely. The pharmacist warded off the Muslim attackers thus saving the life of the Somali evangelist. The evangelist had been struck several times on the head and the torso. He was admitted to a local...

Britain was at the heart of an escalation in Middle East violence last night after its monitors left a Palestinian jail and the Israelis then seized a militant leader inside.The Foreign Office said the team of three monitors was withdrawn from the jail in the Dead Sea town of Jericho early yesterday morning out of fears for their security. As they left, the Israeli army moved in, using infantry, helicopter gunships, tanks and bulldozers to seize several inmates it accuses of masterminding the 2001 assassination of an Israeli minister. The assault, which destroyed much of the jail and ended with...

(CNSNews.com) -- An Australian politician's comments about Muslims wanting to live under Islamic law (shari'a) has focused attention on the push by Muslim minorities in some Western countries to establish enclaves where Islamic norms and laws hold sway. In a controversial speech Thursday, Australia's federal Treasurer Peter Costello said Muslim immigrants not willing to embrace Australian values should leave, and that anyone wanting to live under shari'a might feel more comfortable living in countries where it is applied, such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, "not in Australia." Keysar Trad, president of the Sydney-based Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, accused Costello...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen shot dead 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad Thursday as militia battles and sectarian reprisals followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine. Sunni Arabs suspended their participation in talks on a new government. At least 111 people were believed killed in two days of rage unleashed by Wednesday's attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, a mostly Sunni Arab city 60 miles north of Baghdad. The hardline Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars said 168 Sunni mosques had been attacked around the country, 10 imams killed and 15 abducted since...

Three charged in conspiracy against US troops Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:09 PM ET By Deborah Charles WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal grand jury in Ohio indicted three men with plotting to kill people overseas, including U.S. troops in Iraq, and one was charged with threatening President George W. Bush, court documents showed on Tuesday. The indictment said the three men -- Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 26, Marwan Othman el-Hindi, 42, and Wassim Mazloum, 24 -- were part of a conspiracy that began in November 2004. "It was part of the conspiracy that one or more conspirators would recruit others to...

Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday, killing at least 15 people in the deadliest confrontation yet in the whirlwind of Muslim anger over the drawings.It was the first major protest to erupt over the issue in Africa's most populous nation. An Associated Press reporter saw mobs of Muslim protesters swarm through the city center with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tire around a man, poured gas on him and set him ablaze.In Libya, the parliament suspended the interior minister after at least 11 people died when his...

Libyans protesting the Prophet Muhammad cartoons set fire to the Italian consulate in Benghazi on Friday in a riot that killed at least 10 people, an Italian diplomat said. Libyan security officials said 11 people were killed or wounded during the six-hour riot when police firing bullets and tear gas tried to contain more than 1,000 demonstrators hurling rocks and bottles. The casualties included police officers, but the officials declined to say how many people had died. Italian diplomat Domenico Bellantone said between 10 and 11 people had died, and all were Libyan _ either police or protesters. He spoke...

NIGERIAN rioters killed at least 15 people today after a Muslim protest against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed descended into violence, a police spokesman said. Witnesses said that protesters turned on the Christian minority in the northern city of Maiduguri, burning shops and churches, after police dispersed a rally called to condemn European newspapers that printed the caricatures. A police spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Haz Iwendi said that army troops and police reinforcements had been deployed to the city and that a curfew had been imposed to bring about a return to order. "We've arrested 115 people. Some...

Just breaking on Sky. Norwegian TV is about to break their regular programming to follow events.

Breaking on CNN..Danish Embassy set on fire by Cartoon protesters

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) -- The United States will not engage in dialogue with Hamas but nevertheless believes that the Palestinian terrorist group should be allowed to participate in upcoming Palestinian elections, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones said on Tuesday. Israel vehemently opposed the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian elections scheduled to take place next week because it is a terrorist group that seeks to destroy the State of Israel. Any group with such an ideology is banned from participating in Palestinian elections, according to the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993. "We of course do...

Saudi Professor of Islamic Law on Saudi TV Exhorts Muslims to "Positive Hatred" of Christians By: Saudi Professor of Islamic Law on Saudi TV Exhorts Muslims to "Positive Hatred" of Christians Sheikh Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan Al-Fawzan, a professor of Islamic law at Al-ImamUniversity, who frequently appears on Saudi TV recently made anti-Christian comments on Saudi Al-Majd TV. He told his audience to hate anyone "who worships Christ, son of Mary" and added that "whoever says 'I don't hate him [i.e. a Christian]' is not a Muslim..." He went on to explain that such an attitude "is not racism" since the...

The owner of one of two West Oakland corner markets vandalized last week for selling alcohol to African Americans was kidnapped shortly before his store burned in an arson fire Monday, police said. The owner of New York Market, Tony Hamdan, was found safe about 12 hours after the fire gutted his store. Later Monday, Oakland police said they had identified six of the men who had destroyed liquor displays and toppled shelves at another market shortly before midnight Wednesday. Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said investigators were seeking arrest warrants for six of the 10 or 11 men wearing...

OAKLAND, Calif. — Dressed in bow ties and dark suits, nearly a dozen men carrying metal pipes entered a corner store, shattered refrigerator cases and smashed bottles of liquor, wine and beer, terrifying the clerk but stealing nothing. The just wanted to leave a message: Stop selling alcohol to fellow Muslims. In urban America, friction between poor residents and immigrant storeowners is nothing new. Nor are complaints that inner-city neighborhoods are glutted with markets that sell alcohol and contribute to violent crime, vagrancy and other social ills. But the recent attack at San Pablo Liquor — and an identical vandalism...

Just shoot the unemployed. Very creative. PA Troops Fire on Unemployed Arabs; Anarchy Spreads Sources in the Palestinian Authority report that PA troops opened fire on unemployed ex-convicts in Gaza on Sunday. The ex-convicts were armed and had attempted to break into PA offices in order to demand that the ruling authority provide them with jobs. In the ensuing scuffle, one person was killed and three others wounded. In another incident indicative of the growing anarchy in the PA, eight PA troops and two armed men were wounded in a shoot-out with criminals in Dir Al Balah, south of Gaza...

Iran to hang teenage girl attacked by rapists Sat. 7 Jan 2006 Iran Focus Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece. The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005. Nazanin, who was 17...

AL-QAEDA is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror. Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe. Under the heading "HIV/Hepatitis" the document states: "There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference." Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments...

An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece. The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005. She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said...

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - A court in the northern Nigerian city of Kano has fined 45 motorcycle taxi riders for transporting women, in violation of a new rule to comply with Islamic Sharia law, a court official said on Friday. The ban on women passengers, brought in last year to make Kano state traffic laws compatible with Sharia, has caused controversy in the city, which is predominantly Muslim but has a sizable Christian community. Hisbah committees, or volunteers who help uphold Sharia, have clashed with motorcycle taxi riders caught with women passengers. Women are supposed to ride in special motorised...

A mother described yesterday hearing her son shot dead after he refused to convert to Islam. Ruth Marriott told an inquest into her son's death that she heard gunshots on the day Adrian was shot five times in the head a few weeks before his 21st birthday. Mr Marriott, an accountancy student and gang member, was killed in a park near his home in Brixton, south London, in June 2004.

Report: Palestinians bulldoze border fence, try to kidnap Corrie parents By israelinsider staff and partners January 4, 2006 Palestinian militants, angry at the jailing of their leader by the Palestinian police for kidnapping a British aid worker and her parents, stole two bulldozers Wednesday and rammed through a wall near the border with Egypt, hours after they blocked the official border crossing at Rafah and took over government buildings. The gunmen, who belong to the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, rammed through massive wall as a show of force against the...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded area of Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan province, killing 10 Afghans and wounding 50 others, a provincial deputy governor said. Two of the dead were children, and 15 of the wounded had serious injuries, Uruzgan Deputy Governor Haji Abdul Aziz said. The Taliban has claimed responsibility and identified the attacker as Abdul Rahim. He was carrying bombs strapped to his chest, a Taliban spokesman said.

KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers killed at least 110 people and wounded more than 200 in the Iraqi cities of Kerbala and Ramadi on Thursday, the second consecutive day of concerted insurgent attacks. Another three bombs exploded in Baghdad, two of them detonated by suicide bombers, and a roadside bomb targeted a U.S convoy near the southern Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, destroying a Humvee and killing at least two civilians. Coming a day after 58 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings, the latest bloodshed appeared certain to ratchet up tension between Sunni and Shi'ite...

Taliban militants beheaded a headmaster in southern Afghanistan in the latest fatal attacks targeted at teachers and schools. The killers forced his wife and children to watch the murder. Malim Abdul Habib, 45, was killed at his home near Qalat, capital of Zabul province, on Tuesday night. He had been headmaster of the Shaikh Mata Baba High School for two months. "Four armed Taliban came to my uncle's house at 1am," said his nephew Abdullah Hakim, 25. "They told him he had to go with them. When he refused they stabbed him in the stomach in the yard and then...

PARIS -- A gang of more than 20 youths -- thought to be North African immigrants -- terrorized hundreds of train passengers in a rampage of violence, robbery and sexual assault on New Year's Day, French officials said yesterday. The five-hour-long criminal frenzy was "totally unacceptable," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters. "Those guilty will be found and punished, as they deserve." The gang of between 20 and 30 youths boarded the train, heading from Nice on the French Riviera to Lyon, in eastern France, early on Jan. 1, as it carried 600 passengers home from New Year's Eve partying...

A gang of more than 20 youths -- thought to be North African immigrants -- terrorized hundreds of train passengers in a rampage of violence, robbery and sexual assault on New Year's Day, French officials said yesterday. The five-hour-long criminal frenzy was "totally unacceptable," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters. "Those guilty will be found and punished, as they deserve." The gang of between 20 and 30 youths boarded the train, heading from Nice on the French Riviera to Lyon, in eastern France, early on Jan. 1, as it carried 600 passengers home from New Year's Eve partying overnight. Once...

Palestinians Enter Egypt After Border Smash By IBRAHIM BARZAK and ASHRAF SWEILAM, Associated Press Writers 1 minute ago RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Hundreds of angry Palestinians streamed into Egypt on Wednesday after militants with stolen bulldozers broke through a border wall, and two Egyptian troops were killed and 30 were wounded by gunfire in the rampage. About 3,000 Egyptian Interior Ministry troops who initially had no orders to fire swarmed the border but were forced to withdraw about a half-mile, said security forces Lt. Sameh el-Antablyan, who announced the casualties. Gen. Essam el-Sheikh said Egyptian forces later began firing back....

Suicide Bomber Kills 32 at Iraq Funeral By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer A suicide bomber killed 32 mourners and wounded dozens at a funeral for the nephew of a Shiite politician, one of several attacks Wednesday across Iraq that killed a total of 53 people. The sudden surge in violence followed three weeks of relative calm after Iraq's landmark parliamentary elections on Dec. 15 and came as its three major political parties neared a deal on forming a coalition government that a Shiite politician said would include Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. In the worst attack of the day,...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Officials on Wednesday blamed Taliban militants for beheading a teacher in a central Afghan town, the latest in a string of attacks against educators at schools where girls study. Armed men decapitated Malim Abdul Habib in his home in the town of Qalat late Tuesday and forced his wife and children to watch, said Ali Khail, a provincial government spokesman. The assailant did not harm the other relatives, he said. The attackers then fled and the wife called the police, Khail said. Police are questioning three people who were guests in the victim's home at the time....

OAKLAND -- Two more members of a Black Muslim organization were jailed today in connection with the vandalism of two Oakland markets that sold alcohol, police said. The arrests of Dyahen Namer Williams, 19, of Berkeley and Demetrius Lamar Harvey, 19, bring to six the number of men affiliated with Your Black Muslim Bakery implicated in the Nov. 23 trashing of San Pablo Liquor and New York Market in West Oakland. Williams was being held this morning in lieu of $200,000 bail at Glenn Dyer Detention Facility in downtown Oakland. Harvey was being held in lieu of $200,000 bail at...

Random kidnappings. Daily exchanges of gunfire between police and armed militants. Different neighborhoods patrolled and controlled by competing militias. It appears as if Gaza has degenerated into anarchy. In just the past 10 days in the 146-square-mile territory (about twice the size of Washington, D.C.): Three Palestinian government offices were occupied by gunmen. Armed militants detonated explosives in a United Nations club. Three British nationals were kidnapped at gunpoint. An Italian man was abducted. Two rival families unloaded weapons at each other in a personal dispute. A Palestinian police officer was killed in a shootout between police and militants. The...

A MAN beheaded his teenage sister for marrying outside her caste while she was recovering in hospital in northern India from an earlier murder attempt by him, police said today. The victim, named only as Nargis, was sleeping in a hospital bed when her brother Naushad allegedly chopped her head off on Sunday night in the Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh state, a local report said, quoting a police official. In an earlier murder attempt, Naushad had reportedly stabbed his sister when she returned to the family home after marrying a man from outside her caste. Nargis had eloped and...

On Saturday, Palestinian Authority officials expressed deep concern over the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, warning that the PA was rapidly losing control. Some Palestinians compared the situation to what's happening in Somalia, which is divided by fiefdoms run by clan leaders and warlords. "The situation in the Palestinian territories is very dangerous because we are no longer in control," a senior PA official here admitted.

Dozens of Palestinian gunmen on Saturday stormed several government offices and briefly took the Interior Ministry to demand jobs, security officials and witnesses said. The armed men fired shots in the air, burned tires and blocked the main road of Deir el-Balah, a town in the central Gaza Strip, during the takeover. Abu Iyad, leader of the gunmen, said the takeover was a part of a protest against the employment policies of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party. He said if the party did not provide more jobs for Palestinians, "we will escalate our protests." Gaza has experienced a wave of...

With a copy of the Quran and a Palestinian flag in his trunk, a Jordanian-turned-U.S. citizen crashed his car into a Home Depot in Arizona where he formerly worked, igniting an explosive blaze in the stores' paint section and causing $1 million in damage. The Dec. 18 attack in Chandler, Ariz., by 24-year-old Ali R. Warrayat was a carefully planned "personal statement," the East Valley Tribune of Mesa, Ariz., reported. Warrayat, a student at Arizona State University in Mesa, had his car radio blasting with Arabic music to drown out the yells of employee he might encounter, the paper said....

Armed gangs turn "Palestinian Authority" into impotent oxymoron By Israel Insider staff and partners December 30, 2005 Kidnapping and kicking out foreigners, Palestinian armed gangs in Gaza and the West Bank are making a mockery of claims that leader Mahmoud Abbas is in control, raising fears of total chaos and social breakdown in the run-up to elections later this month. A British aid worker and her parents are still missing and EU monitors fled from their posts at the Rafah border crossing as rifle-toting paramilitary groups seized the station. Palestinian policemen angry over the killing of a fellow police officer...

Warning sent via text messaging announces Kupang will suffer the same fate as Bali on New Year's Eve. The area is largely Catholic and Protestant. More than 2,000 soldiers and police officers are deployed. Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Police are on a high state of alert in the predominantly Christian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (East Tenggara Timor or NTT, the eastern part of the island of Timor) after a series of threats was made against local churches to coincide with New Year celebrations.On December 28, Radio Timor Voice received an anonymous text message (SMS) via cellphone announcing imminent bombings on...

A 14-year-old Palestinian boy was killed on Friday after being shot in the head in renewed clashes outside a police station in Gaza, Palestinian police said. Fathy Mushtaha was caught in a gun battle as members of a powerful Gaza family tried to storm the police station to free an incarcerated relative. In the exchange of gunfire, the boy was mistakenly shot in the head and died instantly, the police said. An attempt by the same family to free their relative sparked a deadly exchange on Thursday that killed a police officer and a civilian.

Gaza dissolving in anarchy ‘Palestinians’ kidnap foreigners, hijack buildings, commandeer border crossing By Stan Goodenough December 30th, 2005 Four-and-a-half months after Israel abandoned the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority, the situation in the Arab-occupied stretch of land along the Mediterranean is rapidly spiraling out of control. Recent weeks have seen armed gunmen from various political, tribal and family factions taking over election offices and police stations, kidnapping more than a dozen foreigners – most recently this British aid worker Kate Burton and her parents this past Wednesday. On Friday, yet another gang of gun-waving masked men sent European Union...

HUNDREDS of security forces patrolled tense streets in the Indonesian province of central Sulawesi yesterday to prevent revenge attacks after assailants wearing black veils beheaded three Christian schoolgirls and seriously wounded a fourth. National police spokesman Major-General Aryanto Budihardjo said the murders were carried out by "terrorists" seeking to destabilise the area, which has long been plagued by violence between Muslims and Christians. He said it was no coincidence the attack occurred just days before the biggest holiday on the Islamic calendar. More than 1,500 soldiers and police armed with assault rifles patrolled the town of Poso yesterday, as Muslims...