Free Republic

French military planes have killed a large number of Islamic State (IS) insurgents west of Mosul. An intelligence source near Mosul told Iraqi local media that on Saturday, 75 IS militants were killed in an attack by the French warplanes. The source said that French planes have been shelling IS air defense bases. According to the source, IS insurgents have started to transfer their military bases to protect themselves from US and French air strikes. On Friday, French military planes launched their first air strikes against IS militants in Mosul. This followed orders from French President Fracios Hollande’s for his...

BAGHDAD—France will join the U.S.-led airstrikes targeting extremists in Iraq as part of an expanding international effort to combat the Islamic State group, Iraq’s new prime minister said after talks with the French president on Friday. Haider al-Abadi’s remarks came after talks with Francois Hollande, who was in Baghdad to bolster Iraq’s new government as it struggles to unite the nation amid the rampage by the Islamic State group. “In order to confront Daesh, we need aerial support from our allies,” al-Abadi said, referring to the group by its Arabic acronym. “The French president promised me today that France will...

France fighter jets have flown over Iraq in a reconnaissance mission against Isis jihadists, as in Paris President Francois Hollande hosted an International summit to agree a common strategy to fight the Islamist militants. Two Rafale jets and a refuelling aircraft took off from an airbase in the United Arab Emirates to gather intelligence in support of US air strikes targeting the group now known as Islamic State (IS). "We told the Iraqis we were available and asked them for authorisation [to fly over Iraq]," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France Inter radio. "The cost of inaction would be to...

PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Friday its jets had launched strikes inside Iraq for the first time since the country promised to join military action against Islamic State insurgents who have taken over parts of the country. "This morning at 9:40 (0740 GMT) our Rafale jets launched a first strike against a logistics depot of the terrorists," said a statement from President Francois Hollande's office on Friday shortly after the raids.

Brett LoGiuratoSeptember 19, 2014France's military conducted its first airstrike in Iraq, becoming the first foreign country in addition to the US to strike the extremist group calling itself the Islamic State (also ISIS or ISIL) in the country. French President Francois Hollande said in a statement the strike, which was conducted around 9:40 a.m. local time Friday, destroyed a logistics depot held by ISIS in northeastern Iraq. He promised more operations would continue "in the coming days." Rafale fighter jets "conducted a first strike against a supply depot terrorist organization Daech in north-eastern Iraq. The goal was reached and destroyed,"...

BAGHDAD: France carried out its first air strike against the Islamic State group in Iraq on Friday, boosting US-led efforts to unite the world against the growing threat posed by the Jihadists. More than a decade after Paris famously refused to back the invasion of Iraq, France became the first nation to join the US campaign of air strikes in the war-torn country. “This morning at 9:40, our Rafale planes carried out a first strike against a logistics depot of the terrorist organisation (IS),” President Francois Hollande said. His office said the target was in northeastern Iraq, without specifying exactly...

German Islamists who join the IS have forfeited their citizenship many Union politicians say. They are planning a change of legislation. Union politicians want to avoid any german national to fight for the terrorist group Islamic State (IS). A corresponding change in the law would achieve a "huge deterrent effect," the chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Internal Affairs, Wolfgang Bosbach (CDU)told "Welt am Sonntag". Those who join this "terrorist army" ng document their departure from the values of the Federal Republic he said.

MOSCOW, September 21 (RIA Novosti) – Belgian authorities have detained two people, who planned a terrorist attack in European Commission Headquarters in Brussels, Agence France-Presse has reported citing the local media. According to Belgian daily L'Echo, the country’s authorities have been conducting a number of preventive operations in recent months against the extremism in the region and have arrested several people suspected of links with jihadists. A source told L'Echo that about 400 Belgian citizens are involved in the Syrian conflict fighting on the side of the extremists, and approximately 90 people have returned home. The Dutch NOS Media Company...

Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania have agreed to set up joint military unit of several thousand soldiers. Defence ministers from the three countries signed the deal on Friday. Poland's defence ministry said the brigade would be based in the eastern Polish city of Lublin but the soldiers would remain in their home countries. Poland and Lithuania are eager to bolster defences following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula earlier this year.

Alex Salmond this afternoon dramatically quit as Scotland's First Minister after voters rejected independence in yesterday's referendum. The First Minister said he would stand down in November to let the next generation take over the fight to lead Scotland out of the Union. Mr Salmond announced his departure at a press conference this afternoon. He said his 'party, Parliament and country' would benefit from 'new leadership'. But he fired a warning shot at David Cameron not to go back on his promise to transfer sweeping new powers to Holyrood within six months.

As the popularity of alternative-lifestyle choice ‘veganism’ increases across Europe, officials in Switzerland have expressed concerns about the health implications for children who have the unusual diet forced on them by “idealistic” parents. In the statement, Swiss officials said: “Vegan food is not recommended for young children. It can cause serious harm”. The lack of vitamin B12, which is seriously deficient in Vegan diets is the main cause of the interjection by federal health officials, who have warned denying children access to animal-derived food at an early age can cause health problems.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction has exposed that Hamas is running a human trafficking network, smuggling Gaza residents to Europe for $2,000 to $3,500 per person. The charges come following reports that dozens of Palestinian Arabs drowned last week after leaving Gaza for Egypt, where they boarded an ill-fated ship bound for Europe that never reached its goal, reports Kol Yisrael (Israel Radio). Apparently Hamas used its hundreds of smuggling tunnels into the Sinai Peninsula to funnel the would-be immigrants out of Gaza and into Egypt; while an Egyptian siege limited the usage of those smuggling tunnels,...

’ve complained over and over again that America’s tax code is a nightmare that undermines competitiveness and retards growth.Our aggregate fiscal burden may not be as high as it is for many of our foreign competitors, but high tax rates and poor design mean the system is very punitive on a per-dollar-raised basis.For more information, the Tax Foundation has put together an excellent report measuring international tax competitiveness.Here’s the methodology. The Tax Foundation’s International Tax Competitiveness Index (ITCI) measures the degree to which the 34 OECD countries’ tax systems promote competitiveness through low tax burdens on business investment and neutrality through...

In a curious coincidence, 2014 Scotland and 1994 Quebec have nearly the same population: about 5–6 million. About the same as Denmark or Norway, and half-a-million more than Ireland. Even on physical area Scotland’s no slouch: about the size of Holland or Ireland, and three times the size of Jamaica. The fact that Ireland, Norway, and Jamaica are all considered sustainably-sized countries argues for the separatists here. So small is possible. But is it a good idea? The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is resoundingly “Yes!” Statistically speaking, at least. Why? Because according to numbers from the World Bank Development Indicators, among...

The increasing predilection for fragmentation across the continent will result in Teutonic political hegemony - if we're lucky ___ Europe is disintegrating. Two large and ancient kingdoms are near the point of rupture as Spain follows Britain into constitutional crisis, joined like Siamese twins. The post-Habsburg order further east is suddenly prey to a corrosive notion that settled borders are up for grabs. "Problems frozen for decades are warming up again," said Giles Merritt, from Friends of Europe in Brussels. The best we can hope for - should tribalism prevail - is German political hegemony in Europe. The German people...

Ukraine and the EU are to delay the entry into life of a strategic free trade treaty for more than one year due to Russian concerns. The trade pact was originally to enter into force on 1 November, but following meetings between European Commission trade chief Karel De Gucht, Ukraine’s foreign minister, and Russia’s economy minister in Brussels on Friday (12 September) it will now be implemented on 31 December 2015. Defending the deal, De Gucht told press it means Russia will not impose trade restrictions on Ukraine in the next 15 months. …

Today is the Scottish National Party conference in Perth. At some stage, SNP leader Alex Salmond will no doubt be crowing, as he is wont to do, about his success in transforming Scotland into the "Saudi Arabia of renewables". This is inaccurate. What he has actually done is transform Scotland into the Saudi Arabia of tourism, which is to say he has turned a once-beautiful country into a vast, inhospitable desert which no one in their right mind would want to visit. Scotland's landscape was, until recently, one of the great glories of our national heritage. What made it so...

A radical Muslim cleric alleged to have inspired the Fort Hood gunman has been praised in the past as “a preacher of peace” by a prominent SNP candidate with close links to Alex Salmond. The FBI is investigating communications between Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people at the US Army base in Texas, and Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Muslim cleric now based in Yemen. Mr Awlaki has a large following in Britain and counts prominent mainstream Muslims among his supporters. In 2006 Osama Saeed, who has been selected as the SNP candidate for Glasgow Central for the next...

Controversial far-left British MP George Galloway has declared his constituency an "Israel-free zone", in comments that are bound to invite further allegations of racism. The notoriously anti-Israel Galloway told a meeting of the Respect Party which he heads that Israelis of any persuasion were "not welcome" in Bradford, where serves as MP. "We have declared Bradford an Israel free zone," he told party activists at the meeting in Leeds. "We don’t want any Israeli goods. We don’t want any Israeli services. We don’t want any Israeli academics, coming to the university or the college. We don’t even want any Israeli...

Respect MP George Galloway has declared Bradford to be an "Israel-free zone" as a result of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.