Free Republic

The Russian Defense Ministry says its troops have found mass graves in Aleppo with bodies showing signs of torture and mutilation. In Aleppo, Christians celebrated Christmas for the first time in four years with the country's largest city now under full control of government forces. Christians, one of the largest religious minorities at about 10 percent of Syria's pre-war 23 million-strong population, have tried to stay on the sidelines of the conflict. However, the opposition's increasingly outspoken Islamism has kept many leaning toward Assad's government.

The evacuation of civilians and fighters from the last rebel-held part of Aleppo concluded on Thursday after long delays because of frigid weather, putting all of Syria’s industrial capital back in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the first time since 2012. ...Tens of thousands of people have been removed from eastern Aleppo since Dec. 15. Before the last buses left on Thursday, the Red Cross said that 34,000 people had left the city, including 4,000 fighters who had left in their own vehicles the previous night. ...The seizure of all of Aleppo by Mr. Assad and his...

An al-Qaeda linked terror group has claimed responsibility for the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Turkey, it was reported. A statement released by the Syria based al-Nusra front hails the killer, off duty policeman Mevlut Altintas, as a martyr who sought 'revenge for the women, children and elderly killed in Aleppo'. Altintas recited a poem associated with al-Nusra fighters and yelled, 'Don't forget Aleppo', before gunning down Andrei Karlov at the opening of an art exhibition in Ankara.

The perverse behavior by Washington and its European satraps is simply a case of sour grapes. Very sour grapes. They have been proven spectacularly wrong about Syria. The liberation of Aleppo this week exposes the Western governments and media in their unrelenting falsehoods and systematic complicity in the Syrian war. This was never a pro-democracy uprising. It was a Western-backed criminal regime-change operation that was unleashed in March 2011, and which is now staring at ignominious defeat. The blood of up to half a million people and many more maimed is on the hands of American and European governments. It...

Hundreds of residents gathered at Al Azizieh Square in western Aleppo on Tuesday, to watch the Christmas tree lights being turned on, in an attempt to establish some sense of normality in a city that has been a focal point of the Syrian conflict.

Political leaders across the West piously lined up last week to identify the fall of Aleppo as a stain on our collective conscience. The West, they have said, should have done more to stop the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. At a purely humanitarian level, this is obviously true. States can always do more to deliver humanitarian aid to people on the ground. But in a military sense, the notion that the West should have “done more” is fantastical and learns exactly the wrong lesson from this carnival of carnage. If there is a lesson for the West from the...

Whilst MSM is busy spreading jihadist propaganda, this is what's actually happening in Aleppo

A fake video purported to show war ravaged Aleppo days after government forces retook control has led authorities to a group of filmmakers who have been arrested for the ruse in a demolition site in Port Said. Two children an eight-year-old girl, and a 12-year-old boy appeared in the footage. The group confessed to making the video with the intention of distributing it on social media. The filmmaker, his assistants and the parents of two children were detained after officers passing by the site spotted a child covered in what was later revealed to be red paint.

On December 19, Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, made a statement that 14 foreign intelligence officers were remaining inside the eastern part of Aleppo city and disclosed their alleged names and nationalities. Mutaz Oglacan Oglu – Turkey David Scott Winer – USA David Shlomo Aram – Israel Muhamad Tamimi – Qatar Muhamad Ahmad Assabian – Saudi Arabia Abd-el-Menham Fahd al Harij – Saudi Arabia Islam Salam Ezzahran Al Hajlan – Saudi Arabia Ahmed Ben Naoufel Al Darij – Saudi Arabia Muhamad Hassan Al Sabihi – Saudi Arabia Hamad Fahad Al Dousri – Saudi Arabia Amjad Qassem Al Tiraoui...

Russia's ambassador to Turkey has been assassinated allegedly in retaliation for the crisis in Aleppo. The gunman reportedly said in Turkish "We die in Aleppo, you die here" before opening fire and injuring Ambassador Andrei Karlov.

I am the opposite of a war junkie, I loathe the sound of fireworks because they remind me of a bloody night in Lithuania in January 1991, where I lay down in dirty snow to save my skin from Soviet bullets..... ...the old cliché that 'the first casualty of war is truth' is absolutely right, and should be displayed in letters of fire over every newspaper reports of conflict.... Almost nothing can be checked. You become totally reliant on the people you are with, and you identify with them..... .... we have been bombarded with colorful reports of events in...

At least 14 US-led coalition military advisers have been captured by the Syrian Special Forces in a bunker in the city of Aleppo, according to media reports... Mutaz Kanoğlu – Turkey David Scott Winer – USA David Shlomo Aram – Israel Muhamad Tamimi – Qatar Muhamad Ahmad Assabian – Saudi Abd-el-Menham Fahd al Harij – Saudi Islam Salam Ezzahran Al Hajlan – Saudi Ahmed Ben Naoufel Al Darij – Saudi Muhamad Hassan Al Sabihi – Saudi Hamad Fahad Al Dousri – Saudi Amjad Qassem Al Tiraoui – Jordan Qassem Saad Al Shamry – Saudi Ayman Qassem Al Thahalbi – Saudi...

Video: What’s really happening in Syria? Hint: Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and the Mainstream Media have been lying to us. Eva Bartlett is an independent journalist from Canada. She has traveled to Syria many times to investigate human rights violations and terrorism against Syrians. What she has found out is a truth completely opposite of what the Mainstream Media and governments claim.

How did this debacle come about? First, in calling for the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who had not attacked or threatened us, we acted not in our national interests, but out of democratist ideology. Assad is a dictator. Dictators are bad. So Assad must go. Yet we had no idea who would replace him. It soon became clear that Assad’s most formidable enemies, and probable successors, would be the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, or ISIS, then carrying out grisly executions in their base camp in Raqqa. U.S. policy became to back the “good” rebels in Aleppo, bomb...

Leading the charge to tie Trump to Assad’s atrocities in Syria, Spotlight actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted a Huffington Post article: “As He Slaughters Civilians In Aleppo, Bashar Assad Prepares To Make Nice With Donald Trump.” Actress Laura Benanti bashed Trump for tweeting “while we watch a genocide unfold before our eyes.” Earlier this week, actor and comedian Michael Ian Black said it was Trump’s “buddies” who were behind the violence in Syria. Pop singer James McVey ignored Obama’s role in the Syrian calamity and instead ripped Trump: "This is a tragedy for humanity. Instead we report Kanye West meeting Trump....

First Deputy Head of the Main Operations Department at the Russian General Staff Lieutenant General Viktor Poznikhir said on Thursday: The militants have been driven out of 105 city quarters with a total area of 78.5 square kilometers during the whole operation. Over 900 terrorists have been killed, dozens pieces of heavy weapons and other military equipment have been destroyed. More than 3,000 militants have left Aleppo of their own free will, and more than half of them have been pardoned and released. A total of 108,076 civilians, including 47,183 children, were evacuated via humanitarian corridors to the city’s safe...

Syrian state TV showed footage of ambulances and a long line of green buses leaving eastern Aleppo. BBC producer Riam Dalati says the first convoy has now arrived at a "handover point" in rebel-held areas to the west. Russia's defence ministry has said buses are taking the injured, civilians and rebel fighters to the neighbouring province of Idlib, most of which is controlled by a powerful rebel alliance that includes the jihadist group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. The chief of the Russian military's General Staff, Gen Valery Gerasimov, told a news briefing: "A humanitarian corridor has been created for the evacuation...

Rebel resistance in the Syrian city of Aleppo has ended, Russia says, after years of fighting and months of bitter siege and bombardment that culminated in a bloody retreat, as insurgents agreed to withdraw in a ceasefire. The battle of Aleppo, one of the worst of a civil war that has drawn in global and regional powers, has ended with victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his military coalition of Russia, Iran and regional Shi'ite militias. For rebels, their expected departure with light weapons starting on Wednesday morning for opposition-held regions west of the city is a crushing blow...

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham issued a blistering statement Tuesday condemning the US' failure to act to prevent the "slaughter" of hundreds of thousands of people in Syria. "The words 'never again' ring hollow today with reports that Aleppo is falling to Assad regime forces," the senators wrote, amid reports that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were on the brink of fully recapturing the besieged city of Aleppo from opposition forces. "For four long years, Aleppo has been at the center of the Assad regime's war on the Syrian people," the statement continued. "Together with its...

WARNING: One video clip shows drone footage of ISIS suicide attacks. Viewer Discretion is Advised. While the "Ring of Fire" is causing rumblings around the world, there are geopolitical earthquakes occurring at critical hotspots that are being overlooked by most. John explains the relevance and the potential fulfillment of the Damascus Prophecy.