Free Republic

A Syrian Christian fighter has beheaded an Islamic State group (IS) militant to avenge people "executed" by the jihadists in northeastern Syria, a monitor said on Friday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the incident took place on Thursday in Hasakeh province, where IS holds large areas of the countryside. According to the monitor, the Christian fighter, a member of the minority Assyrian community, found the jihadist in the local village of Tal Shamiram. "He took him prisoner and when he found out he was a member of IS, the Assyrian fighter beheaded him in revenge for abuses committed...

BAGHDAD (AFP) — US security firm Blackwater ended its operations in Iraq on Thursday, closing a controversial era for the company whose guards shot dead 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. "The task order for security protection operations held by Blackwater comes to an end today in Baghdad," American embassy spokeswoman Susan Ziadeh said, adding that Triple Canopy will replace it. The US State Department on March 31 awarded Virginia-based Triple Canopy a contract reportedly worth nearly a billion dollars to take over protection of US government personnel in Iraq. Linked agreements such as that for Presidential Airways, part of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A 39-year-old Yemeni accused of being an aide to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was sentenced to life in prison Monday by a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Pentagon spokesman said. Ali Hamza Ahmad al-Bahlul, an alleged aide and media secretary to Bin Laden, was convicted Friday by a military panel of charges of conspiracy, solicitation to murder and terrorist acts, and providing material support for terrorism, said Commander Jeffrey Gordon. It was the second trial of a "war on terror" detainee at Guantanamo Bay under a specially created system of military commissions that has...

As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a point that had not emerged before the photo appeared on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.