Free Republic

The latest development, in the ongoing Arab state GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) initiative to stem the destabilizing behavior of Qatar, is a list of demands presented to Qatar. If you have followed the regional issues for the past few years you’ll quickly identify how each of the demands cuts to the core of the destabilizing issues.... "Kuwait has given Qatar a list of demands from Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations that includes shutting down Al-Jazeera and cutting diplomatic ties to Iran. That’s according to a list obtained by The Associated Press from one of the countries involved in the...

The Egyptian president has called on allies in the Gulf to escalate the diplomatic row with Qatar to include Turkey, the New Arab reported. According to the news outlet, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi urged Gulf leaders to expand their boycott until Ankara gives up support for Qatar. He is reported to have said that this would maintain the pressure on Doha to respond positively and help bring a speedy end to the regional siege. The sources said that Al-Sisi raised the matter during a meeting with the King of Bahrain, Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa, last Thursday in Cairo. They added...

The Egyptian parliament approved on Wednesday the demarcation of the maritime border with Saudi Arabia, which includes handing over the islands of Tiran and Sanafir located in the Red Sea at the southern entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia. Parliament Speaker Ali Abdelaal announced the parliament's approval of the agreement after the vote. The approval of the Parliament is the last step before the final ratification of the Convention by the President of the Republic and thus its entry into force. The National Defense and Security Committee of the Egyptian parliament had agreed earlier today to unanimously...

No leader in the region holds more anti-terrorism credibility than Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. President Sisi has challenged all Muslim leaders to denounce the hate within Islamic extremism and rise up to confront evil. Al-Sisi is a Muslim leader who steadfastly supports the entire Egyptian population regardless of their religious faith. Sisi has stood firm to support Christians in Egypt. WHITE HOUSE – President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt. The two presidents agreed on the importance of all countries implementing the agreements reached in Riyadh to fight terrorism, counter extremism, and...

Egyptian Air Force first Ka-52 Aligator attack helicopter with desert camo has been spotted at the Progress factory in Arsenyev, Russia. According to Egypt’s Defence Ministry will get 46 Ka-52 Alligator combat helicopters in 2017-2019. Egypt and Russia signed a training agreement, which will see Egyptian pilots train for the Ka-52 in Russia in September 2016. Ka-52 Aligator Capabilities Ka-52 is equipped with four hardpoints under its wings Can take on laser-guided anti-tank missiles, rockets, air-to-air missiles Has laser-guided bombs capability Powered by two VK-2500 turboshaft engines Ka-52K has a cruising speed of 260 km/h and a maximum speed of...

Egypt's prestigious Al-Azhar University has accepted a Christian into its medical residency program, which some believe marks the first time the historic Muslim school has publicly accepted a Christian student. The Washington, D.C.-based Middle East news outlet Al-Monitor has reported that Abanoub Guirguis Naeem was allowed to officially enroll on May 17 by the dean of Al-Azhar's Faculty of Dentistry in Assiut, Khalid Siddiq, who confirmed his acceptance "Naeem applied to the college for a residency, and he was accepted along with other students," Siddiq told Al-Monitor. According to Al-Monitor, Naeem "is the first known case" of a Christian student...

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed their ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting terrorism and opening up the worst rift in years among some of the most powerful states in the Arab world. Iran -- long at odds with Saudi Arabia and a behind-the-scenes target of the move -- immediately blamed U.S. President Donald Trump for setting the stage during his recent trip to Riyadh. Gulf Arab states and Egypt have already long resented Qatar's support for Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood which they regard as a dangerous political enemy.

By their fruits ye shall know them is a classic truth from the Bible which speaks volumes about the Islamist slugs who committed the latest massacre of Coptic Christians , this time travelling on a bus in Egypt. It is a reminder of the continuing worldwide reach of ISIS and other radical Islamic terrorist. Egypt is  an example of how terror will always find an opening  to spread its deadly venom. A team of gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians south of Cairo Friday, killing at least 28, including children, and wounding 22 other people, Egyptian officials...

President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel as part of his first foreign trip is as historically significant as President Richard Nixon’s February 1972 visit to China and mission to Moscow two months later to sign the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. Nixon’s visit opened diplomatic doors and made the Vietnam War an anachronism in the continuing Cold War confrontation with China and Russia, facilitating a more graceful (if still shameful) U.S. exit from Vietnam. Unfortunately, many in the American media ignored or downplayed Trump’s trip as an “arms sales” expedition rather than seeing it as a bold attempt...

As more and more details emerge concerning Friday’s Ramadan attack on a busload of Christians on pilgrimage, the more it becomes evident that these 29 martyrs died solely because they were Christians. Survivors of the attack said that the ten masked Islamic State militants did not merely open fire on the bus full of Christian pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confesor, but that the victims were made to descend from the bus and asked one by one whether they were Christians before being shot by the assailants. According to one of the chaplains of...

The first ever full-genome analysis of Ancient Egyptians shows they were more Turkish and European than African. Scientists analysed ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies dating from 1400 BC to 400 AD and discovered they shared genes with people from the Mediterranean. They found that ancient Egyptians were closely related to ancient populations in the Levant - now modern day Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon. They were also genetically similar to Neolithic populations from the Anatolian Peninsula and Europe. The groundbreaking study used recent advances in DNA sequencing techniques to undertake a closer examination of mummy genetics than ever before.

As more and more details emerge concerning Friday’s Ramadan attack on a busload of Christians on pilgrimage, the more it becomes evident that these 29 martyrs died solely because they were Christians. Survivors of the attack said that the ten masked Islamic State militants did not merely open fire on the bus full of Christian pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confesor, but that the victims were made to descend from the bus and asked one by one whether they were Christians before being shot by the assailants. According to one of the chaplains of...

Egyptian fighter jets have struck militant camps following the deadly attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians, President Abdel Fattah Sisi has announced. The strikes were carried out in eastern Libya, state television said.Egypt’s president also vowed to continue striking bases used to train militants and who carry out terrorist attacks in his country, regardless of the camps' location.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV4jfKiaSsk  

Egyptian air force planes on Friday carried out strikes directed at camps in Libya where Cairo believes militants responsible for a deadly attack on Christians earlier in the day were trained, Egyptian military sources said. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he had ordered strikes against what he called terrorist camps, declaring in a televised address that states that sponsored terrorism would be punished.

Ten masked gunmen, who used machine guns, opened fire at two buses carrying Egyptian Coptic Christians to a monastery south of Cairo on Friday, killing 26 including children and injuring 26 others, Al Arabiya News Channel reported. The Christian group was travelling in two buses and a truck through the province, which is home to a sizeable Christian minority, the governor of Egypt’s Minya province, Essam al-Bedaiwy, said. The health ministry said there were between eight and 10 attackers dressed in military uniforms, according to witnesses. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the eve of...

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi invited President Trump to Egypt while commenting on his "unique" personality. "You are a unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible," el-Sissi told Trump during the conversation on Sunday. "I agree!" Trump responded as everyone laughed. According to CNN, Trump then complimented el-Sissi's shoes. "Love your shoes. Boy, those shoes," Trump said. The two met during Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia — his first trip abroad as president.

May 13, 2017: Fifty years ago today, a false Soviet warning of large-scale Israeli troop concentrations along the border with Syria touched off a chain of events leading to the 1967 Six-Day War. However, as Middle East Quarterly editor Efraim Karsh explains in this advance-release article from the Summer 2017 issue of Middle East Quarterly, another all-out Arab-Israeli war was already "a foregone conclusion." It has long been conventional wisdom to view the June 1967 war as an accidental conflagration that neither Arabs nor Israelis desired, yet none were able to prevent. Had Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser not fallen...

As the Palm Sunday bombing of two Coptic churches in Egypt demonstrated, even in the least oppressive Muslim nations, native Christian populations are under a great deal of pressure. It is a difficult problem as the Papacy is terrified of angering Muslim governments by criticizing the discrimination against and abuse of Middle Eastern Christian communities thereby making the situation worse, and Western governments have little to no interest in intervening in domestic pogroms when they perceive they have bigger fish to fry.While relations between the Copts and Mubarak were never really great, they cratered when the Muslim Brotherhood gained control...

Today the hot topic in the conservative blogsphere is the apparent return of Robert Malley. He was Obama’s senior foreign-policy adviser who had been caught meeting regularly with Hamas which Obama had pledged never to do and was subsequently thrown under the bus back in May of this year. Two days after the election he was dispatched by Obama to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Other reports have him leaving for the Middle East just hours after the election results. There is no confirmation from the Obama campaign on Malley but many sources are...

Candidate Donald Trump said of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, “This corruption and collusion is just one more reason why I will ask my attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor.” He later upped the ante with the declaration, “She has to go to jail.” Now, it appears that the Trump State Department is working to keep the e-mails secret. On May 5, Judicial Watch issued a press release announcing that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the U.S. Department of State to turn over to the watchdog organization "eight identical paragraphs" of previously redact material in two September 13,...