Free Republic

Shereen Sabet, a Southern California woman has designed a line of swimsuits for Muslim women, who adhere to a modest dress code.

Sami Al-Arian has been in prison, away from his digs in the Tampa, Florida suburb of Temple Terrace, for over five years, yet one of the structures that he left behind continues to propagate the same fanatical ideology that led to his punishment. Al-Arian’s mosque, the Islamic Community of Tampa (ICT), has been proudly advertising hatred and violence meant for the eyes of children. The mosque’s connection to an area youth academy should have all Americans concerned.

Sen. John McCain has pulled a nickel ahead of Sen. Barack Obama in the Reuters/Zogby poll, marking the first time the Arizona Senator has taken any lead in this monthly poll. The poll conducted last Thursday through Saturday came on the heels of the Russian invasion of Georgia -- the same time period that Obama vacationed in Hawaii, giving McCain the advantage of reinforcing his foreign policy positions.

Coca-Cola plans to celebrate Ramadan this year by decorating cans with a crescent moon and star – a widely recognized Islamic symbol. Coca-Cola has hired a company named ATTIK to handle packaging, Brand Republic reports. Its Christmas cans are usually decorated with secular-themed images of Santa Claus, but McCartney asked the company whether it planned to introduce Christian symbols as well. "When I learned the symbol of the Islamic faith will appear on Coca-Cola packaging during Ramadan 2008, I found myself wondering whether or not the Atlanta-based soft drink maker will soon include the Christian cross and Jewish star...

S erbia's government has intensified its activity in buying out the property of Albanians in northern section of Mitrovica, a city in the Republic of Kosovo, says Mitrovica Mayor Bajram Rexhepi. Rexhepi expressed his concern about the attempts of Serbia's government to buy out the properties with Albanian owners in the neighborhood Kroi i Vitakut in northern Mitrovica by offering very high prices. He said that at the Security Council meeting will be insisted for this to stop. "Although the trading of property is the right of owners, we will insist to stop this trade, because it is politically motivated...

Major Terrorist Attacks in Israel July 22, 2008: Sixteen people were wounded when a man drove a bulldozer into a bus and four other vehicles in central Jerusalem. The attack was an attempted copycat of an earlier attack on Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road on July 2, 2008. The terrorist was shot dead by police. July 2, 2008: An Arab resident of Jerusalem deliberately drove a bulldozer into pedestrians and vehicles in central Jerusalem, overturning and flattening a number of buses and cars. Three people were killed and 66 injured in the attack. April 9, 2008: Two Israeli civilians were killed...

(IsraelNN.com) In a letter appearing in the weekend edition of the respected Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed that the government of Italy agreed to allow Arab terrorist groups freedom of movement in the country in exchange for immunity from attacks in Italy. Cossiga wrote that the government of the late Prime Minister Aldo Moro reached a "secret non-belligerence pact between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance organizations, including terrorist groups," in the 1970s. According to the former president, it was Moro himself who designed the terms of the agreement with the foreign Arab terrorists....

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- "There are the bloodstains on the wall, and here it is dried on the floor," says Abu Muhanad as he walks through a torture chamber in a Baghdad mosque where more than two dozen bodies have been found. Two women clutch photographs of loved ones believed killed by the Mehdi Army. "And here, a woman's shoes. She was a victim of the militia. We found her corpse in the grave." Chunks of hair waft lazily across the floor in the hot Baghdad breeze. "This was the torture room," says Muhanad, the leader of a U.S.-backed armed...

Washington DC, Aug 19, 2008 / 05:00 am (CNA).- Next month, InsideCatholic.com will honor Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly, Archbishop of Baghdad and recognize the struggle of Iraqi Christians at its 13th Annual Partnership Dinner.According to InsideCatholic.com, each year, “the Partnership Award is presented to a distinguished Catholic leader who has shown courage and dedication to his or her life and work.”  Past recipients have included: Archbishop Charles Chaput, Fr. Benedict Groeschel, Admiral Jeremiah Denton, Tom Monaghan, Dr. Robby George, Henry Hyde, Fr. Thomas Williams, LC, and Eduardo Verastegui.This year’s ceremony, which will take place on September 19 at the...

Suicide Attack in Algeria Kills Dozens By Ricci Shryock Dakar 19 August 2008 Shryock report - Download (MP3) Shryock report - Listen (MP3) Algeria's Interior Ministry says a suicide car bombing in front of a police school near Algiers has killed more than 40 people and injured dozens more. Ricci Shryock has more from our West Africa regional bureau in Dakar. Gendarmes stand at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Issers, 60 kms east of Algiers, 19 Aug 2008 Young Algerians were waiting in line to register at the local police academy when a suicide car bomb exploded...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – A prominent Los Angeles-based Muslim activist has been jailed for four years after pleading guilty to attempting to bribe a witness, prosecutors said Tuesday. Najee Ali, who heads the community group Project Islamic HOPE (Helping Oppressed People Everywhere), was sentenced on Monday after he admitted an attempt to interfere with a witness in a court case involving his daughter. A spokeswoman for Los Angeles County District Attorney said in normal circumstances Ali would have received a two-year sentence but saw his term doubled because he had a prior conviction for armed robbery in 1992.

London, Aug.19 (ANI): A terror cell caught with details of bomb making and suicide vests may have been plotting to attack Queen Elizabeth and members of the Royal family. According to The Telegraph, the cell, which included Britain's youngest ever terrorist; was found with information about the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh along with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal. Also on the list were Princess Michael of Kent, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and The Duke and Duchess of Kent.  Aabid Hussain Khan, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, had...

May Be Medical Doc in Mich More Desperate But Not Serious America. Remember Houssein Ali Zorkot? More on him here. He's the Hezbollah fanatic and apparent terrorist arrested last year, who trained in Dearbornistan's Hemlock Park with an AK-47 and maintained a pro-Hezbollah website stating that he was going to take action on behalf of Hezbollah in the "start of my personal jihad (in the US)". He wore camouflage face paint and was a medical student at Wayne State University. Well, you may soon be saying Dr. Houssein Ali Zorkot, because Zorkot was sentenced to only two years probation. Free...

The Israeli army says Hezbollah has re-armed with 40,000 rockets — triple the number it had at the start of the Lebanon War two years ago. Therefore, many Israelis believe another war with Hezbollah is inevitable. "The war set the stage for a more comprehensive Middle East conflict," said Israeli analyst Michael Oren. "It set into motion a dynamic in the Arab world, where much of the Arab street believes that Hezbollah won that war, and there is tremendous expectation on Hezbollah to continue the struggle." Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets into Israel during the 34-day conflict. But a massive Israeli...

The cell, which included Britain's youngest ever terrorist, arrested on his way home from his GCSE chemistry exam, was found with information about the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh along with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal. Aabid Hussain Khan: gathered details of Royal residences Also on the list were Princess Michael of Kent, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and The Duke and Duchess of Kent. Aabid Hussain Khan, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, had compiled pictures, maps and details of the opening hours of official residences from information...

Islamic separatists kill 28 in Philippines rampage International Herald Tribune, France By Carlos H. Conde MANILA: Islamic separatists attacked several towns and villages Monday in the troubled southern Philippine region of Mindanao, ...http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/18/asia/phils.php

Muslim rebel attacks kill 16 in Philippines Kyrgyzstan News, Kyrgyzstan - August 18, 2008 Muslim separatist rebels went on a rampage in the southern Philippines Monday, killing at least 16 people as they seized towns, burned homes and looted ...

"....Pakistan now enters a dangerous moment of instability. It is not yet clear who will replace Musharraf, and as I’ve written before, Pakistan has long been one car bomb away from a bin Laden-ally seizing power. Should an al Qaeda-type Radical gain control of the country and its nuclear weapons, we could be facing an apocalyptic moment....." For all his many flaws, Musharraf was steadily becoming a Reformer. After 9/11, he became a key ally of the U.S., helping us in our war against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan rather than interferring. He and his security forces worked...

Farrakhan's Sudan Connection Farrakhan’s support to the Sudanese slave masters is yet another example of his utterly reactionary program and purpose.http://www.therant.us/guest/jonsson/2008/02022008.htm

Kandahar tourniquet developed to save livesMonday, August 18, 2008Project Number:08-0556Kandahar, Afghanistan – Afghan soldiers can now save lives thanks to a medical prototype developed by Coalition forces. The Kandahar tourniquet, created for the Afghan National Army (ANA), will improve the survival rate of soldiers suffering serious injuries and massive hemorrhage. Imagine a dismounted infantry company mentoring team moving through a village in the Zhari District of Afghanistan. The team is weighed down with weapons, ammunition, radios, night vision devices and personal protective equipment. Every soldier is trained to deliver tactical combat casualty care and is equipped with advanced wound dressings,...

KABUL (AFP) — Dozens of Taliban fighters and suicide bombers attacked a US military base in eastern Afghanistan early Tuesday and at least 13 were killed, some in their own suicide blasts, Afghan officials said. NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed that Camp Salerno in the eastern town of Khost, 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the border with Pakistan, had been attacked but could give few details. "We have heard about suicide bombers on foot. They are receiving indirect fire," an officer in the ISAF media office in Kabul told AFP, referring to rocket and artillery fire. He said he...

Pakistan’s Musharraf has resigned, and everyone seems happy. Pakistanis danced in the streets and fired guns in the air, and one retired soldier in Peshawar even declared: “The root cause of all problems has gone.” Yet Pakistan’s future doesn’t look to be problem-free. Pakistan is rapidly becoming the most dangerous nation on earth – if it isn’t that already. As one senior White House advisor recently told HUMAN EVENTS editor Jed Babbin, the “safe havens” for more than one million jihad terrorists that exist in Western Pakistan constitute the most severe terrorism-related problem the world faces today.

Hearing on Iraq detainee death case postponed By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Tuesday, August 19, 2008 The Article 32 hearing for one of two U.S. soldiers charged with killing a detainee near Beiji, Iraq, has been postponed until Sept. 5, military officials said. Staff Sgt. Hal M. Warner was originally to face the hearing last week. Warner and 1st Lt. Michael C. Behenna, both members of Company D, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, based in Fort Campbell, Ky., face charges of premeditated murder, accessory after the fact, assault, making a false official statement and obstruction of justice....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran's attempt to launch a dummy satellite into orbit was a "dramatic failure" that fell far short of the country's assertions of success, a U.S. official said on Tuesday

Poland to offer asylum, money to Iraqis August 19, 2008 - 3:27pm WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's prime minister says his country will offer asylum or a $40,000 payment to any Iraqi working for its military or police in Iraq. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government on Tuesday approved the plan. Poland has decided to withdraw its troops from Iraq this October. There is a fear that Iraqis who worked for the U.S. allies could become the target of attacks. Tusk said that the plan covers Iraqi translators and other workers. He did not say how many people the...

Palestinians reject Egyptian proposal to send 3,000 Arab troops to Gaza Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA 19 August 2008 Israel Radio Arab Affair correspondent Gal Berger reported on the noon news program that both Hamas and PA-Fatah have rejected the Egyptian proposal. According to Berger, one reason that PA-Fatah (headed by Mahmoud Abbas) rejected the proposal is that it provides for reforming the PLO. It would appear that Israel did not take a position on the proposal to send thousands of Arab troops to the gates of Ashkelon. It would also appear that the Olmert team has never actually thought...

KABUL (AFP) - Ten French soldiers were killed in battles with the Taliban near the Afghan capital, a French presidency source said Tuesday, as troops thwarted a second attack on a key US military base in as many days. Military officials in Kabul said the fierce clashes started with an attack Monday on an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrol in Sarobi district, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the capital Kabul. The French source, who requested anonymity, said the soldiers were killed following a "Taliban ambush". Most of the 3,000 French troops participating in the 40-nation ISAF are...

Ten French soldiers have been killed in fighting with the Taleban east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, Afghan and French sources say. The deaths come amid heavy fighting near Kabul after Nato said one of its patrols was ambushed.

The long-term outcomes of the current Russian-Georgian war will be felt far and wide, from Afghanistan to Iran, and from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. The war is a mid-sized earthquake which indicates that the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting, and nations in the Middle East, including Israel, need to take notice.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Suicide bombers tried unsuccessfully to storm a U.S. military base near Afghanistan-Pakistan border in a daring attack on a major American installation, officials said Tuesday. Six insurgents detonated their vests after being surrounded. The attack came a day after a suicide bomb outside the same base killed 10 civilians and wounded 13 others. The fighting was still going on early Tuesday, said U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. There have been no American deaths, he said. The militants failed to gain entry to Camp Salerno in Khost city after launching waves of attacks just before midnight...

AP NewsAlert - KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghan governor says militants try to storm US military base in eastern Afghanistan

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it was ready to help fellow Muslim states launch satellites into orbit after it successfully put a dummy satellite into orbit -- a move that may increase Western suspicions over its atomic ambitions. ADVERTISEMENT Iran said on Sunday it had put the home-grown dummy satellite into orbit on a domestically made rocket for the first time. The long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into space can also be used for launching weapons. Iran says has no intention to do so.

The secrets of the crushing of Yugoslavia are emerging, telling us more about how the modern world is policed. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, this year published her memoir, The Hunt: Me and War Criminals. Largely ignored in Britain, the book reveals unpalatable truths about the West's intervention in Kosovo, which has echoes in the Caucasus. The tribunal was set up and bankrolled principally by the United States. Del Ponte's role was to investigate the crimes committed as Yugoslavia was dismembered in the 1990s. She insisted that this...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Pervez Musharraf stepped down from his post Monday, ending a nearly nine-year tenure that his opponents said was hindering Pakistan's shaky return to democracy. Musharraf said he wanted to spare Pakistan from a dangerous power struggle with opponents vowing to impeach him. He said he was satisfied that all he had done "was for the people and for the country."

An independent Lebanon-based monitoring group on Saturday rebuffed United Nations’ assertions that Israel is the only violator of the Security Council Resolution that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and accused international peacekeepers of cooperating with Hizballah. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has become a “hostage of Hizballah,” and is anything but fulfilling its mandate, charged Toni Nissi, general coordinator of the International-Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, during a press conference in New York.

According to the report, the Pakistani officials confirmed that Maulana Faqir Muhammad was killed during the fighting between the Taliban and the Pakistani security forces in the tribal district of Bajaur Agency.Big news if true....Muhammad is friend and protector of Ayman Zawahiri.

Khar, 18 August (AKI/DAWN) - Hundreds of tribesmen in the Mohmand area in the troubled Bajaur agency have vowed to resist the local Taliban as security forces continued their operation in the troubled region. Reports said that at least 20 militants had been killed in different areas of the agency on Saturday and Sunday. The militants, meanwhile, shot dead two tribesmen in Alizai area. Troops, backed by helicopters, have been using heavy artillery in the operation. Local people said that armed volunteers were patrolling Lar Kali and Ber Kali round the clock to stop the Taliban entering the areas. They...

TEHRAN, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- A test in Iran of a rocket able to carry a satellite into orbit was likely a failure, Pentagon officials said Monday. A senior U.S. defense official told CNN while Iranian officials claimed the launch of their country's first satellite carrier was a success this weekend, Pentagon officials opposed such a claim. "The Iranians did not successfully launch the rocket," the unidentified official said of Saturday's launch.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni came under fire on Monday after it was learned that she personally intervened to help the daughter of a top Palestinian Authority official obtain Israeli citizenship. Israel’s Channel 10 News reported on Sunday that at the request of chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia (also known as Abu Ala), Livni used her clout to push his daughter’s application through the Interior Ministry.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has a more stalwart view of Israel's security needs than his Democratic opponent and would be better able to deal with Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Monday. "McCain has a much stronger view of how Israel must protect itself," Huckabee said during a visit to Jerusalem. "There is no naivete on his part about the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program." Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and Baptist minister, said that McCain would turn out to be the preferred candidate of "traditional" American voters, including, but...

Lebanon's Hizbullah on Monday signed a new memorandum of understanding with another Lebanese group, in a bid to "preserve national unity and prevent sedition" in the country. The document was signed Monday between Hizbullah and the Salafist movement in a ceremony that was held at the Safir Metropolitan Hotel in Beirut. The Shiite movement was represented in the ceremony by the head of its political council Sayyed Ibrahim Amin As-Sayyed, while the Salafist movement was represented by Sheikh Hassan Shahhal. The new memorandum of understanding includes eight main clauses, emphasizing the need to stay united to confront sedition schemes and...

A human tide of more than 300,000 civilians has fled the al-Qa'ida badlands, amid indications that the fighting there has reached unprecedented levels, with the Pakistani army using massive firepower to attack jihadi militant strongholds. Helicopter gunships, fixed-wing strike aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery have been used in the onslaught that followed the visit last month by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to Washington, where he was berated for Pakistan's failure to wipe out the militants. The offensive runs counter to perceptions that Pakistan's new civilian Government is "soft" on Islamic extremism. This will reassure Washington, whose ally in the...

Peace activists planning to land two boats on Gaza's shores are no better than "pirates" and will be turned back by the Israeli navy, officials have warned. The SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, which are sailing from Crete to Cyprus and then on to Gaza after being delayed by a storm, will carry about 40 protesters campaigning against Israel's economic sanctions on the Palestinian territory, including an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor and Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Tony Blair, who is the international special envoy to the Middle East. The boats, which will also carry a cargo of balloons, musical...

AUSTRALIAN special forces soldiers have killed a senior Taliban commander responsible for co-ordinating attacks on government facilities in Afghanistan's Oruzgan province. Australian troops spotted Mullah Akhtar Mohammed and his armed protection party in a remote area of Oruzgan last week, Defence said today. The special operations task group (SOTG) patrol kept watch and, after confirming there were no non-combatants in the area, called in an airstrike, defence spokesman Brigadier Brian Dawson said.

In the first trial of its kind, a civilian jury will decide if a former Camp Pendleton Marine is guilty of leading the slayings of four unarmed captives during a battle for the city of Fallujah nearly four years ago. Military law experts say the manslaughter trial of former Sgt. Jose L. Nazario Jr. establishes a precedent by asking jurors who may have no military background to decide the legitimacy of a battlefield action. The trial starts Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Riverside, A conviction, according to his attorneys, would send a message to troops that what they do...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2008 – Coalition and Afghan forces killed an unknown number of armed militants and seized a suspect in Afghanistan yesterday, military officials said. Enemy fighters attacked a coalition base in the Bermel Valley of Paktika province with small-arms, machine-gun and rocket fire. Combined forces retaliated with machine-gun and mortar fire, killing several militants, military officials said. No Afghan, coalition forces or civilian casualties were reported. Meanwhile, as troops searched for a Taliban leader in a compound in the Tag Ab district of Kapisa province, they came under fire from multiple enemy fighters. Coalition forces responded with air...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2008 – Coalition and Iraqi forces captured 14 suspects and seized scores of weapons and munitions in Iraq over the past three days, military officials said. In Iraq today: -- Troops in Baghdad detained seven suspected terrorists, including a man wanted by coalition forces. Military officials said the wanted man allegedly conspires with al-Qaida in Iraq leaders in the southern belt of the Iraqi capital. -- Elsewhere in Baghdad, coalition forces launched a precision operation and caught a suspect who military officials believe is a liaison between extremist groups aligned with al-Qaida in Iraq and terrorist cells...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2008 – From Mosul in the north to Basra in the south, insurgent-committed violence in Iraq continues to decrease as stability visibly increases, a senior U.S. military officer posted in Iraq said today. Video “For 10 of the last 11 weeks, we’ve sustained less than 200 attacks per week nationwide,” Army Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, told Pentagon reporters during a satellite-carried news conference from his Baghdad headquarters. Attacks in Iraq had once reached more than 1,500 a week a few years ago during the zenith of insurgent-committed violence. “It...

Islamabad, 18 August (AKI) - US President George W. Bush will continue to work with Pakistan in the fight against terrorism following the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, the White House said on Monday. In a statement, Bush acknowledged Musharraf for his efforts to strengthen democracy and fight terrorism and pledged to continue its commitment in the future. "President Bush is committed to a strong Pakistan that continues its efforts to strengthen democracy and fight terror," US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. Musharraf resigned in a televised address to the nation on Monday to avoid facing impeachment moves...

Most Arab news outlets killed the latest Israeli peace offer, when they added the word “only”. Arab media conveyed the news, posted by Israeli daily Haaretz, in an incomplete manner and in a resentful way, citing Israel’s offer to return “only” 93% of occupied lands to the Palestinian Authority. The word “only” triggered a flood of opinion pieces attacking and dismissing the offer. Palestinian negotiators were intimidated, as a result, and disclaimed the offer as “false piece of news”, describing it as a test balloon by the enemy. [.....] The offer does not end here, as Israel is to compensate...