Free Republic

Only one in every five migrants claiming asylum in Europe is from Syria. The EU logged 213,000 arrivals in April, May and June but only 44,000 of them were fleeing the Syrian civil war. Campaigners and left-wing MPs have suggested the vast majority of migrants are from the war-torn state, accusing the Government of doing too little to help them. 'This exposes the lie peddled in some quarters that vast numbers of those reaching Europe are from Syria,' said David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouth. 'Most people who are escaping the war will go to camps in Lebanon or Jordan....

In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s...

Bin Laden's son running al-Qaeda in Afghanistan: report - NICOSIA, July 29: Osama bin Laden's eldest son is leading al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, intensifying speculation that the world's most wanted man is dead or incapacitated, a news report said today. The London-based Arabic daily Asharq Awsat reported Saad bin Laden is now running the show in Afghanistan, according to captured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The report said Saad took charge as al-Qaeda's commander after the United States-led bombing campaign forced the group's withdrawal from bases in Afghanistan. Numerous reports have suggested Osama bin Laden was either killed or wounded in...

Letter from Bin Laden found on body of Saudi bomber By John R Bradley in Jeddah 19 August 2003 A letter from Osama bin Laden and a telephone call made from Iran by his son Saad are linked to a series of al-Qa'ida attacks on Westerners in Saudi Arabia, according to Western diplomats and Saudi intelligence officials. The letter from al-Qa'ida's leader was found on the body of Yosif Salih Fahd Alayeeri, one of 19 attackers involved in a closely co-ordinated series of bombings in Riyadh in May, who was killed in a shootout with security forces in central Saudi...

In recent days, pro-al Qaeda jihadists claimed to confirm a recent news report saying that several senior al Qaeda leaders have been released from Iranian custody. Sky News reported earlier this week that five veteran jihadists were released in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who had been kidnapped in Yemen. Several jihadists on Twitter who are connected to al Qaeda have said the report is accurate. One of them is known as “Al Siyasi al Mutaqa’id,” who has relayed accurate information on al Qaeda in the past. The five jihadists who were reportedly freed are: Saif al Adel, Abu Mohammed...

HOUSTON – Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's commanding officer said Thursday that his platoon was left "emotionally busted" by the physically and emotionally draining search for Bergdahl after he went missing from their post in Afghanistan six years ago. Testifying at the outset of an Article 32 hearing to determine if Bergdahl should face a military trial on desertion and other charges, Capt. John Billings described the weeks of searching for the Idaho native, often on little food or sleep and in temperatures in the high 90s. "Physically, mentally I was defeated," Billings said, adding that he felt like he had...

The winding road to Germany starts on the outskirts of Kabul, at the Ahmad Shah Baba bus depot. This is where some of the youngest and poorest Afghans hoping to migrate to Europe gather each day to leave. If they carry a backpack at all, it is usually slack, with little inside. Some have begun hearing that there is one country eager to have them. “I am trying to go to Germany,” Abdul Javed, 16, said after buying a bus ticket. “Hopefully I will pass this test and get there.”

A humanitarian crisis threatens the future of Western institutions. ... According to the U.N. refugee agency, 53% of the migrants are from Syria, 14% from Afghanistan, 7% from Eritrea, and 3% each from Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq and Somalia. Seventy-two percent are men, only 13% women and 15% children.

Former Navy SEAL Jimmy Hatch says Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl “needs to know how much was risked” to try to save him after he was captured by the Taliban. “I want that kid to have his day in court, because he’s an American, and he’s got that coming,” Hatch said in an interview on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” on Friday. Bergdahl, who allegedly walked off of his eastern Afghanistan base in June 2009, has been charged with one count of desertion and one count of misbehavior before the enemy. Hatch dismissed the notion that Bergdahl had “suffered enough” for...

Sep 11, 2015 | by Amir Shah KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban fired a series of missiles into a U.S. base in Afghanistan late Thursday but caused no injuries among the soldiers or personnel at the base, an Afghan official said. There was no immediate confirmation of the attack from Washington. According to Massum Farzahee, the police chief of Bagram district in Parwan province, attackers fired four missiles around 9 p.m., targeting the Bagram Air Base, located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Three rockets hit inside the base, the police chief said, but no...

"You want everybody educated to their potential. You want people to reach their potential. That still won't work for some people in a highly developed market system. I mean if this were a sports-based system, you could give me a PhD in football, and I could practice eight hours a day, and I might be able to carry the water from, not onto the field, but from the locker room to the bench. There's just some people don't fit well into a highly skilled market-based economy. They're perfectly decent citizens. We'll send them off to Afghanistan, but they are not...

INTERNAL SECURITY In desperation INHABITANTS OF LESVOS shouting: "What do you want us to die?" The "illegal" is now armed: They smashed windows and grabbed from butcher store cleavers, knives and Hajar! The situation in Mytilini mostly shows beyond any limit with illegal immigrants they even threaten the very life of the people that they themselves describe as helping them. Angry residents reveal that illegal immigrants are now armed with knives, Hajar, axes as yesterday broke into big butcher in the region of Moria and took only the tools of the work of butchers. At the same time as themselves...

Fall of strategic province could be 'death blow' to Afghan government WASHINGTON – A U.S. general has quietly returned to Washington to brief the White House about a Taliban surge threatening the survival of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan as a result of the withdrawal of U.S. troops, especially from strategic Helmand province, a U.S. military intelligence source in Afghanistan told Joseph Farah’s G2Bulletin. Army Gen. John F. Campbell rushed back to Washington this week without publicity to warn the White House that the Taliban is on the verge of taking over the entire Helmand province, the source said. “I...

Not to be outdone by his partner Charlie Munger (who offended many with his comments that "gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939,"), Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett - having already taken on Europe, comparing Greece to a "dog peeing on the carpet" of Europe, suggesting Germany stop "rewarding behavior you want to get rid of" - takes aim at the military. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, the octagenerian oracle of offense just unfriended every American veteran... "You want everybody educated to their potential. You want people to reach their...

The Greek island of Lesbos has been turned into a war zone by rioting migrants, leaving the island’s 85,000 residents in despair. Around 25,000 migrants are currently camped out on the island with hundreds more arriving daily, leading to frequent violent clashes and rioting despite their claim to be fleeing violence. Located just 6 miles from the Turkish shore, the migrants come over in inflatable boats which they cut up on arrival to prevent being turned back, expecting to be able to quickly travel on by ferry to mainland Europe, German station RTL has reported. Instead, they are being held...

After perilous sea voyages from neighboring Turkey, they have been stranded here for days, some for nearly two weeks, running out of money and desperate to get to mainland Greece and continue their route. The island of some 100,000 residents has been transformed by the sudden new population of some 20,000 refugees and migrants, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — and the strain is pushing everyone to the limit. ... "Why, man? Why?" one municipality worker, pointing to bottles in the sea, yelled at some young Iraqis sitting by the water throwing bread to fish. ... It doesn't help...

full title...Former Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl hit with charge that has rarely been used since WWII and could mean life behind barsMilitary prosecutors have reached into a section of military law seldom used since World War II in the politically fraught case against Army Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier held prisoner for years by the Taliban after leaving his post in Afghanistan. Earlier this year Bergdahl was charged with desertion after the deal brokered by the United States to bring him home. And now he has also been charged with misbehavior before the enemy, a much rarer offense that carries...

Heidelberg - As German makes provisions to accept 800,000 refugees this year, the nation is split vertically on the crisis with refugee shelters attacked with Molotov cocktails and swastika signs painted outside many refugee homes. Rashme Sehgal reports for Rediff.com from Heidelberg on how Europe's refugee crisis is playing out in Germany. As Germans get ready to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the unification of East and Eest Germany in October, the refugee influx into the country could well see its social fabric being ripped apart with Germans living in the east and west taking opposing views on this controversial...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that the European refugee crisis is “a direct consequence” of President Obama’s failed foreign policy and that he does not support the Iran nuclear deal. Cheney, who was vice president in the George W. Bush administration, said Obama has helped to “create a huge vacuum” in Iraq for terror groups like the Islamic State to flourish and kill by failing to secure an agreement with Iraqi leaders to keep U.S. troops in the country after the war. “That contributed directly to the refugee crisis,” Cheney told “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s a crisis of...

Scotland Yard on Wednesday reversed a coroner's finding of foul play in the 2010 death of British spy Gareth Williams, concluding that an accident was likely responsible for the death of the code-breaker whose naked, decomposing body was found stuffed inside a zipped and padlocked gym bag. London Metropolitan Police investigators had undertaken a review of evidence in the case 16 months ago, after initial restrictions on homicide detectives' access to details of Williams' intelligence work were lifted by the British secret service, MI6. Deputy Asst. Commissioner Martin Hewitt told journalists in London that investigators only had access to Williams'...