France Arrests More Islamists in Aftermath of Jewish School Shooting and Murder of Partroopers

French counterterrorism police launched a series of predawn raids throughout the country on Friday, taking into custody 19 suspected Islamists who reportedly had training in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

President Sarkozy had promised a crackdown and he explained today the raids were 'in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism.

'There will be other operations that will continue and that will allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people who have no reason to be here.'

A police investigator said that the anti-terrorist unit of the Criminal Brigade detained five men before dawn in Paris who had suspected links to an Islamist movement. Weapons were also seized, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the department's rules.

The other arrests took place in Toulouse, Marseilles, Nantes and Lyon, the official said.

In Nantes, Mohammed Achamlane, the head of Forsane Alizza (Knights Of Pride), a radical Muslim group that formed two years ago, was among the detained. French officials had banned the group in February. President Sarkozy had promised a crackdown and he explained today the raids were 'in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism.

In addition to the raids, French officials barred radical Islamic clerics from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Territories from entering the country for an Islamic group's conference.

On Monday, French officials announced that some of the detained Islamists were suspected of planning to carry out the kidnapping a Jewish magistrate in Lyon.

Last week, Al-Jazeera's Paris bureau received a USB drive from Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah showing footage of him carrying out the murders in front of the Ozar Hetorah school.

The Qatar-based network declined to air it or share with other networks, but investigators were reviewing the footage to see if Merah had any accomplices that are shown in the video. It was initially thought that Merah might've sent the video to Al Jazeera, but French investigators believe that Merah didn't mail the video himself, raising the likelihood of an accomplice.

After the school shootings, police were led to Merah's brother due to an bogus internet ad about a scooter for sale meant to lure one of the earlier known victims into an ambush being traced back to his computer. He was taken into custody around the same time as the standoff at Mohammed's apartment began.

Libya's Interim Prime Minister: Ghdaffi is Dead

The Prime minister for Libya's interim government announced today that Libyan strongman Mummar Ghdaffi has been killed by rebel fighters in his hometown of Sirte on Thursday.

Qaddafi died of wounds suffered during his capture near his hometown of Sirte on Thursday, according to a spokesman for Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC).

"Qaddafi is dead. He is absolutely dead ... he was shot in both legs and in the head. The body will be arriving in Misrata soon," media spokesman Abdullah Berrassali told Sky News.

Earlier, a man who claimed to have witnessed the attack told the Associated Press Television News that he struck Qaddafi with his shoes after he was shot.

Footage aired on Arabian TV showed a captured and wounded Ghdaffi bleeding as he was pinned against a truck's hood before being jostled and shoved by rebel fighters who were firing into the air and shouting "Allahu Akhbar! [God is Great]".

Now, before we get all warm and fuzzy [dare I say hopey-changey? NANESB!] lets not forget that an exiled Libyan Jew who was working to restore a Tripoli synagogue was threatened by masked men brandishing rifles earlier this month. There is also the matter of Libyan rebels arbitrarily rounding up and detaining black men and as many as 20,000 Russian-made shoulder-launched missiles in Ghdaffi's military arsenal that are now unaccounted for.

Still, the Libyan dictator's demise comes as not only good news to a number of Libyans, but also the family members of those killed in Lockerbie, Scotland when Libyan agents blew up Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988. Five Bulgarian nurses who were working in Libya before being detained by the Ghdaffy regime in 1999 and accused of deliberately infecting children with HIV in a show trial also welcomed the news of Ghdaffi's demise. In 2007 Mummar Ghdaffi's son admitted that the nurses were tortured in order to obtain a confession.


Exit question- what exactly is the status of Ghdaffi's all 'Grrrl' bodyguard squad? Were they captured or die with their leader in Sirte? I get the feeling the smarter of the Ghdaffi 'Grrl Power' squad are currently referred to as 'Rebel/Interim Government spokeswoman'.

UPDATE: This slideshow from Al-Bawaba offers some insight into the women of Ghdaffi's inner circle- both Arab and European- leading up to the civil war, including the bodyguard squad.

Egypt Unrest Continues- Natural Gas Pipeline Attacked; Egyptian VP's Bodyguards Killed in Assassination Attempt? Foreign Reporters Attacked in Cairo

Egyptian state TV is reporting that saboteurs taking advantage of near lawlessness in some parts of the country have attacked a natural gas pipeline that runs between Egypt and Israel.

Residents of the El Arish area in the North Sinai region of Egypt reported a loud explosion on Saturday. It's not clear the immediate impact the blast had on supplies to Israel, but a state TV correspondent blamed the act on terrorists.

Earlier in the week, President Hosni Mubarak had promised to step down after the September 2011 elections, but that was not enough to assuage most of the demonstrators.

The protests in and around Tahrir Square in Cairo escalated on Thursday when Mubarak supporters approached the square and occupied rooftops above, clashing with the anti-Mubarak demonstrators and pelting them with rocks and chunks of pavement from above.

By Friday morning,the scene had become even more surreal when more pro-Mubarak demonstrators mobilized by horse and camelback [way to live up to the stereotype, gentelmen- NANESB!] and charged into the assembled crowds, whipping and beating some of the anti-Mubarak demonstrators. Some in the crowd had managed to pull the riders off of their mounts and said that their would-be assailants were carrying Police ID. By nightfall, each side was hurling Molotov cocktails at each other and Egyptian soldiers were attempting to disperse crowds by firing warning shots into the air.

There were also incidents of Western journalists being attacked and some news agencies offices being torched. FOX News' Greg Palkot and Olaf Wiig and CNN's Anderson Cooper and his camera crew were repeatedly punched and kicked by pro-Mubarak crowds that had descended on them in separate incidents in the capital [Just putting this out here, CNN- How about sending Joy Behar to Cairo??- NANESB!]. The Cairo offices of al Jazeera were torched and it's website was hacked on Friday as well while a Swedish TV reporter was recovering from stab wounds in a Cairo hospital.

Reports are also circulating that there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt this week against Egypt's newly-appointed Vice President, Omar Suleiman. The office of Vice President was vacant when Mubarak appointed him to the position on January 29- Suleiman is also chief of Egypt's intelligence services and would likely be the head of an interim govern. It wasn't immediately clear who was behind the attempt, but Egyptian officials said that two of Suleiman's bodyguards were killed and that his motorcade was the target of the would-be assassins.