The intifada continues in France
French police on Thursday arrested eight youths in a tough Paris suburb over the ambush last week of three police officers, one of whom suffered serious facial injuries.
The suspects, aged 17 to 21, identified by their fingerprints, were taken into custody and face possible charges of attempted murder with premeditation over the attack in the southern 'banlieue' of Epinay-sur-Seine, police said.
Friday's incident, in which a police patrol car was set upon by around 30 youths with stones and metal bars, was the third in as many weeks in the Paris area, prompting a chorus of alarm from police unions.
Serious clashes have also occurred at the Les Tartarets estate in Corbeil-Essonnes and at Les Mureaux, in the western Paris outskirts — sparking high profile police raids to root out the suspects.
Maybe it's France's "Tet"?
With presidential elections due in April, the resurgence of tensions in the 'banlieues' has major political implications — raising questions over the tactics of Interior Minister and presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy.
Will the violence perpetrated by Muslims result in the election of politicians that will take back France, or ones that will surrender? This is a question we in the US will answer in November.
Britain is the top target of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, which now presents a bigger threat than ever before, a newspaper reported.
Citing unnamed anti-terrorism chiefs, The Guardian newspaper said that Al-Qaeda had regrouped and recovered its organisation in Pakistan, despite a more-than-four-year campaign by a US-led coalition to wipe out the network.
Actually the reorganization in Pakistan is due entirely to the surrender of Waziristan to al Qaida by Pakistani President Musharraf. The US has never operated on the ground in Pakistan.
In that time, the newspaper reported, the terror organisation has become a more coherent network with a regular supply of volunteers.
Islamic extremists "viewed 7/7 (the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks on London's transport network) as just the beginning," an unnamed senior source said.
"Al-Qaeda sees the UK as a massive opportunity to cause loss of life and embarrassment to the authorities," the source continued.
Meanwhile, another unnamed source told the daily: "Britain is sitting at the receiving end of an Al-Qaeda campaign."
Can't happen here.
Right?
