Free Republic

A local jihadist group has claimed a Libyan city in the name of ISIS, showing how the "Islamic State" could flout traditional notions of territorial contiguity by expanding its "borders" well beyond Iraq and Syria. As the Islamic State/ISIS continues its offensives in Iraq and Syria, it is steadily gaining support from individuals and groups around the world. Most significantly, a relatively new global jihadist group in Libya -- Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam (the Islamic Youth Shura Council), or MSSI -- announced last weekend that its claimed territory in the city of Darnah was now part of the ISIS "caliphate."...

At least 43 people were killed and more than 40 injured in three car-bomb attacks in Baghdad, Iraqi medical sources said Saturday. The three attacks took place in Shia neighborhoods, the sources said.

War On Terror: The Army major on trial for murdering 13 at Ft. Hood in 2009 plans to argue that he acted in defense of the Taliban. So much for the administration calling the shootings "workplace violence." One of the great scandals of the Obama administration has been its shameful designation of the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at the Army base in Killeen, Texas, by Maj. Nidal Hasan as "workplace violence." While Hasan continues to draw his pay, this designation has denied the dead and the survivors the benefits they would have been entitled to had the attack been properly...

Convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan has written to Pope Francis espousing “jihad,” in his latest correspondence aligning himself with radical Islam. Despite efforts by the Defense Department to label the 2009 massacre as “workplace violence,” Hasan has described himself several times, and again in the new letter, using the acronym “SoA,” or “Soldier of Allah.” […] In one subsection titled “Jihad,” Hasan praises “The willingness to fight for All-Mighty Allah,” describing it as a test that elevates the “mujahadeen” who “are encouraged to inspire the believers.” He states that “fighters … have a greater rank in the eyes of...

Airstrikes that appear to be coordinated with Kurdish guerrillas have escalated dramatically, but they may not be enough to save the town. SURUC, Turkey — High in the blue sky above I think I can make out a dart of silver—or maybe it is a trick of sunlight and puffy white clouds and my imagination trying to match the sound of warplanes zooming back and forth with an actual glimpse of them. All day there has been the distant roar of U.S. fighters over the besieged Syrian border town of Kobani, and for much of Wednesday night, too. One local...

Foad, a French truck driver of Moroccan origin, traveled alone through Syria to rescue his 15-year-old sister from an Islamist group she said was holding her captive. But when they finally stood face to face, in tears, she would not leave. Foad is convinced that his sister Nora, whom he described as an impressionable teen who loved Disney movies before leaving for Syria one afternoon in January, stayed on because she was threatened with execution by the French-speaking commander, or emir, of the group she joined. The former high school student is among dozens of European girls, many of them...

As Islamic State militants closed in on the besieged Syrian city of Kobani on Saturday, Turkey lined up its soldiers near the border but continued to refuse to intervene to repel the extremist advance.On a day that should have been one of the happiest in the Muslim calendar, the festival of Eid al-Adha, hundreds of Turks and refugee Kurds spent the morning at the border with Syria, watching helplessly as shells rained down on a city many once called home.Turkish police appeared uneasy at the size of the crowd gathered near a fragile border fence and fired teargas grenades to...

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group is planning on seizing Tehran’s nuclear secrets and urging its fighters to plan for war with Iran, UK weekly newspaper The Sunday Times reported.The group urged its members to help them reach their ambitions in a manifesto which was allegedly written by Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani, a member of the group’s highly secretive six-man war cabinet.In the document, which has been examined by western security officials - who believe it to be authentic - Meshedani wrote that ISIS is aims to get hold of nuclear weapons with the help of Russia,...

The Islamic State group is reportedly in shooting distance from Baghdad, specifically the Baghdad International Airport, according to a recent report from McClatchy DC news. Militants from the Sunni extremist group are now moving freely in Abu Ghraib, only around 40 km from the Iraqi capital, forcing Iraqi forces to remain inside the 10th Division base, the report said. “Daash (Islamic State) is openly operating inside Abu Ghraib,” an Iraqi soldier told McClatchy. “I was at the 10th Division base there two days ago, and the soldiers cannot leave or patrol. “Daash controls the streets.” Militants from the group formerly...

Hundreds of friends and family members of a woman beheaded during an attack at the food processing plant where she worked gathered Friday at an Oklahoma church for a funeral service that was closed to the public. Colleen Hufford, 54, died Sept. 25. Prosecutors said she was targeted by a co-worker who had been disciplined that morning for another woman's complaint. Hufford's family walked single-file into the Southgate Baptist Church Friday afternoon after gathering in a fellowship hall with the woman's friends and co-workers. At the end of the 45-minute service, mourners wiped tears away as they exited the church;...

If he had a choice today, Sun King Louis XIV might actually prefer to be the Turkish rather than the French head of state. Only a few buildings since Versailles have offered as salient an expression of a sitting leader's claims to power as the new official residence of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Though there was also the "People's House" of erstwhile Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the villainous leader was executed before the colossal construction was finished. By comparison to "Genius of the Carpathians" Ceausescu, who laid claim to 3,000 rooms in Bucharest, the ruler of the "new Turkey"...

After Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) said Israel is like the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group, and Palestinian Authority (PA) chief negotiator Saeb Erekat likened the Jewish state and “Islamic state,” Arab MK Ibrahim Sarsour (Ra’am-Ta’al) has now raised the bar. Sarsour, who heads his Arab Islamist party, was asked what its position is on ISIS by Prof. Marwan Dwairy of the Oranim Academic College located near Haifa. According to the Arab member of Israel’s Knesset, Israel is “crueler” than the brutal jihadist regime. […] “We support one united state in the Arab world as preparation for one united state...

MOORE, Oklahoma - The Cleveland County District Attorney has filed formal notification to seek death penalty for a man who is accused of beheading a woman and stabbing another one at Vaughan Foods in Moore. DA Mashburn said he is seeking death penalty for Nolen because, 1. The murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. 2. The defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person. 3. There exists a probability that the defendant will commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. 4. The defendant was previously convicted of a...

MECCA, Saudi Arabia: As they gather in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca for the annual hajj, some pilgrims have denounced atrocities by ISIS jihadists as "a virus" threatening the world. But many also expressed concerns about the US-led air war against them. "Islam is innocent from actions of the Islamic State (ISIS)," Kurdish Iraqi pilgrim Alan Abdullah told AFP, describing ISIS as "a virus threatening the whole world". ISIS has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria, declaring a Muslim "caliphate" and imposing its own harsh interpretation of Islamic law. The jihadists have executed captured Iraqi soldiers, crucified people,...

Top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett was given a cameo role in the latest episode of CBS's The Good Wife. The airing of the episode comes after a busy week for President Obama -- which included bombing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a series of meetings at the United Nations, and various international crises. Jarrett appears to play herself: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO The scene features Jarrett on the phone with Julianna Margulies (who is the star of The Good Wife and who plays Alicia Florrick), being coached by Alan Cumming (who is playing a political...

The U.S. had expected the Iraqi army to do more against extremists, president says in acknowledgment of intelligence shortcomingsresident Obama acknowledged that the U.S. underestimated the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also called ISIL) and overestimated the ability of the Iraqi military to fend off the militant group in an interview that will air Sunday on 60 Minutes.

President Obama largely blamed the United States’ intelligence community in an interview broadcast Sunday for giving an incorrect assessment of the capabilities of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” Obama said on CBS’s ""60 Minutes." Obama said ISIS, also known as ISIL, went “underground” when United States forces fought al Qaeda in Iraq in the last decade. That, along with Syria’s civil war, allowed ISIS to regroup and recruit fighters from all over the world, including...

There are many Islamic fundamentalist militant movements around the globe, some of which are outright hostile towards one another. That is changing. As the Islamic State grows in power becomes the near central focus of Western counterterrorism officials and war planners, Islamist radical groups are uniting behind ISIS. In Algeria, a group linking itself to ISIS recently beheaded a French tourist in response to coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. The al-Nusra Front, a militant group allied with al-Qaeda and once opposed to ISIS, has reportedly decided to work with them rather than against them. The Filipino Islamist militia Abu...

Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria is facing mounting pressure from its members to form an ultra-alliance with the rival Islamic State to confront a common enemy after U.S.-led air strikes hit both groups this week. Al Nusra, long one of the most effective forces fighting Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, was weakened this year by battles with Islamic State, an Al Qaeda splinter group that routinely employs ruthless methods such as beheadings and mass executions. U.S.-led air and missile strikes, which have hit Al Nusra as well as Islamic State bases in Syria, have angered many Al Nusra members who...

Radical Feminists have stripped off and taken to Paris's streets in protest against radical Islamists. Urging "infidels" to "speak out" and "rise up", the women wore scarves to cover their faces as they marched through the streets sporting plastic flowery rifles and shouting into megaphones. They launched their protest at the top of the Champs-Elysées whilst bemused tourists and shoppers looked on. The ten women involved in the protest were all part of the feminist group ‘Femen’. The women involved in this latest protest stood in front of a pink banner and waved pink flags emblazoned with the words “Infidels’...