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SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas - At least 27 people have been killed and 30 people have been injured in a mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A witness reported seeing the as-yet unidentified man walk into First Baptist Church and began shooting around 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Wilson County commissioner Albert Gamez Jr. told a CNN reporter that the gunman fled in a vehicle after the shooting and is now dead after a brief pursuit. Some survivors were taken to Brooke Army Medical Center via medical helicopter. Their conditions are not known.

As can be seen in the region every day, it is not realistic to expect the Assyrians to be quiet and accept their "fate" under the tender mercies of Shiite or Sunni rule. The future Assyrian regional government could be an independent state or autonomous region like the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. Even if it is city-state like Vatican City, it would be monumental in stopping the annihilation of Assyrian people and could also serve as a safe haven for other persecuted minorities. "Thank God that Jews, a historically persecuted people just like us, now have Israel......

Congressional representatives and others gather in front of the Capitol to support Kurds in Iraq. Photo: Rudaw WASHINGTON, D.C. - Several US congressmen including war veterans gathered in front of the Capitol to slam the presence of Iran-backed militias within the Iraqi Interior Ministry and call for more US State Department and White House support for Kurds. "A picture is worth 1,000 words. There's the M1 Abrams tank with a Hezbollah flag. I don't care what the State Department says, they can't argue with this. At the best, the State Department has been derelict in its duties,” US Congressman...

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s vow to turn Saudi Arabia into a moderate Islamic country may have been welcomed by the West, but it did not go down well in Turkey — especially among Islamists — and fueled long-standing suspicions about "imperial US designs against the Islamic world."Ever since former US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared Turkey to be a “moderate Islamic republic” in 2004, the concept of moderate Islam has raised the hackles of Turkish secularists and Islamists alike. Still smarting over 9/11, Washington was searching at the time for a model against radical Islam that reflected...

Turkish government, under the rule of autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has issued detention warrants for 112 people over the links to the Journalists and Writers’ Foundation (JWF), which is defunct in Turkey, on Wednesday as part of its massive post-coup witch hunt campaign targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement.İstanbul-Anadolu Chief Prosecutor’s Office has ordered warrants against those who are executives of the JWF or who have relations with the foundation. The anti-terror police teams have started İstanbul-based operations to detain the JWF’s civil society activists and intellectuals in 17 provinces including İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir and Manisa provinces on Wednesday.It was...

ANALYSIS/OPINION: By Oliver North October 16, 2017 Richard Nixon kept his promises, Ken Burns did not When Richard Nixon was in the White House, I was in Vietnam and he was my commander in chief. When I was on Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council staff, I had the opportunity to brief former President Nixon on numerous occasions and came to admire his analysis of current events, insights on world affairs and compassion for our troops. His preparation for any meeting or discussion was exhaustive. His thirst for information was unquenchable and his tolerance for fools was nonexistent. Mr. Nixon’s...

The Bunkerville Standoff Trial-Of-The-Century began with a bang this weekend, even before jury selection got underway Monday morning.A motion filed on behalf of defendant Ryan Payne this weekend addressed the prosecution’s requested extension to respond to Payne’s sealed motion.Specifically, Ryan Payne filed a motion to dismiss the case based on a report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and it’s attachments. The court had ordered the prosecution to turn over the report’s attachments to the defense. There are hundreds of pages of attachments to the report, which concerns SAC Dan Love, the incident commander of the 2014 cattle...

LAS VEGAS - The federal trial against Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy, his two sons, Ammon Bundy and Ryan Bundy, and Ryan Payne began Monday with prosecutors and defense lawyers questioning potential jurors about their beliefs on guns, protests, the government, ranching and the impact of the Oct. 1 mass shooting on the city's famous strip. Ryan Bundy, representing himself, had his leg shackles removed and then posed his own questions from a podium before a group of nearly 50 potential jurors. "I am a true Nevadan. I was born on Nevada Day," he said, referencing Halloween -- the day Nevada...

On October 22, I came across a post by one of my Facebook friends, a free thinking, well-educated, and successful woman who lives in Finland. It began by saying, “This is something very personal I want to share with my FB friends.” Having no idea what I was about to see, I was curious and continued to read. “Some of you know me in IRL [in real life] and some of you just from the internet. But I want you all to know a story about myself. “I am a 23-year-old Kurdish girl born and raised in Finland. My parents...

Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Israel and Egypt in December, relaying a message of U.S. concern over persecution of Christians in the Middle East.“One of the messages that I will bring on the president’s behalf to leaders across the region is that now is the time to bring an end to the persecution of Christians and all religious minorities,” he declared in a Wednesday night speech. The vice president also announced that the U.S. would halt its funding to United Nations’ efforts to aid persecuted peoples, instead vowing to funnel all future efforts through direct foreign aid.

The U.S. State Department consists of the most entrenched group of life-long professional political bureaucrats in any sector of the government.  The scope of the mindset really comes to the surface within leaks from inside the Deep State machine that became the basis for a Politico article today.   You really have to read it to fathom the scope of elitism.The article, and the sentiment carried from within the bureaucracy which frames the construct, highlights the level of indignation within the agency toward President Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as they carry out foreign policy objectives. The article contains...

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual center of Orthodox Christianity which is based in Turkey, is unable to train clergy and potential successors for the position of patriarch. The reason is that the Halki Seminary, the only school for training the leadership of Orthodox Christianity, was forcibly closed down by the Turkish government in 1971. It has been waiting to re-open its doors ever since.The closing of the Halki seminary, which was founded in 1844 on the island of Halki (Heybeliada), has made it very difficult for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to survive. The Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights...

The veil of secrecy shrouding the detention of Osman Kavala, a tireless and generous supporter of civil society in Turkey, has yet to be lifted since his detention at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport on Oct. 18. But the slander campaign against the prominent businessman and philanthropist is continuing full blast. Aydin Unal, a columnist for the pro-government Yeni Safak, likened Kavala to Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based imam who is accused of seeking to violently overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It is quite clear that Kavala, just like Fethullah Gulen, is one of the baby-faced, masked as peace-loving, humanitarian-seeming tools collected...

U.S. prosecutors last month charged a former Turkish economy minister and the ex-head of a state-owned bank with conspiring to violate Iran sanctions by illegally moving hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. financial system on Tehran’s behalf.

Kurds say that the Iraqi forces include not only elite Counter-Terrorism fighters but also Iranian-backed Shia militias often called Hashd al-Shaabi. Iraqis tend to stress that this is an Iraqi army operation, whereas Kurds emphasize the Iranian role. There are also divisions within the Kurdish side with some Kurdish leaders associated with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan supporting the Iraqi army against Kurdish forces associated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

The United States is concerned by reports of violent clashes around the town of Altun Kupri in northern Iraq. We are monitoring the situation closely, and call on all parties to cease all violence and provocative movements, and to coordinate their activities to restore calm. In order to avoid any misunderstandings or further clashes, we urge the central government to calm the situation by limiting federal forces’ movements in disputed areas to only those coordinated with the Kurdistan Regional Government. We are encouraged by Prime Minister Abadi’s instructions to federal forces to protect Iraqi Kurdish citizens and to not provoke...

We congratulate the Syrian people and the Syrian Democratic Forces, including the Syrian Arab Coalition, on the liberation of Raqqa. The United States is proud to lead the 73-member Global Coalition that supported this effort, which has seen ISIS’s so-called caliphate crumble across Iraq and Syria. Our work is far from over but the liberation of Raqqa is a critical milestone in the global fight against ISIS, and underscores the success of the ongoing international and Syrian effort to defeat these terrorists. In January, ISIS was actively plotting terrorist attacks against our allies and our homeland in Raqqa. Nine short...

Michael Rubin stated that the arrest warrant issued for former minister Zafer Çağlayan could be a sign that Zarrab is talking to prosecutors and giving evidence. Michael Rubin, academic and former staff advisor for Iran and Iraq at the Pentagon, spoke to ANF English service on the inclusion of one of Erdoğan’s former ministers, Zafer Çağlayan, in the case file of Reza Zarrab, its influence on Zarrab’s case and Washington-Ankara relations, and Erdoğan’s planned visit to the U.S. in mid-September. Rubin remarked that the arrest warrant issued for Zafer Çağlayan could be a sign that Zarrab is talking to prosecutors...

Hakan Fidan, Undersecretary of Turkey’s secret intelligence MIT, and Qasem Soleimani, Commander of the Iranian Qods Forces, took part in the operation of the Iraqi army and the Hashd al-Shaabi forces against Kirkuk, PUK Spokesperson Sadi Ehmed Pire said. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Spokesperson Sadi Ehmed Pire organized a press conference in Hewler and answered the questions of journalists concerning the operations against Kirkuk by the Iraqi army and Hashd al-Shaabi forces on October 16. The PUK Spokesperson stated that the attacks against Kirkuk were promoted by both Major-General Qasem Soleimani, Commander of the Qods Forces of the Islamic...

The US troops stationed in Makhmur have also retreated after Hashd al-Shaabi took the control of the town from peshmerga forces. The US troops stationed in Makhmur town of Mosul have retreated to Hewler (Erbil) Wednesday evening after peshmerga forces withdrew and handed over the control of the town to Hashd al-Shaabi militia. The US troops reportedly blew up the base before their evacuation and withdrawal to the surroundings of Hewler next to the peshmerga forces. The US military base in Makhmur was constructed before the operation to liberate Mosul and an undisclosed number of US special forces were stationed...