Free Republic

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria is wagering that Islamic State's push to reshape the Middle East will eventually force a hostile West to deal with President Bashar al-Assad as the only way to tackle the threat. While Assad's forces escalate their fight with Islamic State militants in the Syrian civil war, the United States is staging air strikes on the same group across the frontier in Iraq. This, along with United Nations sanctions targeting the Sunni Muslim militants in both Syria and Iraq, has strengthened Assad's belief that the United States and Europe are coming around to his way of viewing...

There is no question that Turkey, because of its size and geo-strategic location maintains a pivotal role in NATO. Its armed forces are NATO’s second largest and its troops had acquitted themselves well during the Korean War. Turkey had also played a constructive role in bridging relations between Israel and the Muslim world acting as an effective interlocutor. But with the ascent of the Islamist Justice and Development party in 2002 and the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as party boss, things have taken a stark turn for the worse. Under the stewardship of an increasingly unbalanced Erdogan, Turkey has...

THE KELLY FILE': GENERAL JACK KEANE SAYS THERE WAS NO REASON TO RELEASE INFORMATION ON THE FAILED FOLEY RESCUE MISSION: I think it’s a matter of principle Megan, we really shouldn’t talk about these operations and certainly an operation like this, there’s no reason to disclose it, at a deference to Mr. Foley’s family I probably would have told that family what we attempted to do at least and give them some comfort that somebody did try to rescue him. But even going back to the Bin Laden raid, which was obviously successful, the amount of information that was released...

Flush with looted weapons, buoyed by sweeping gains in Syria and eager to shock, Islamic State militants have seized four more foreign hostages near Aleppo in recent days, taking to more than 20 the number of foreigners they now hold. The latest captives, two Italian women, a Dane and a Japanese national, were seized in or near Syria's largest city. All held are either reporters, photographers or aid workers taken near Aleppo or Idlib. They have been subsequently moved to Raqqa, the Isis stronghold in north Syria. The abductions have controversially proved good business for Islamic radicals. In the past...

Joe Scarborough has developed a novel defense of President Obama's decision to continue golfing while ISIS continues its murderous rampage across the Middle East, including its recent beheading of American James Foley. On today's Morning Joe Scarborough claimed that Obama's golf sends a tough, "screw you" message to the terrorists. Can anyone watch the photos of President Obama joking around with his buddies on the course and think this reflects anything other than a checked-out Commander-in-Chief? Does Scarborough really think that watching Obama hack his way around the links sends a shiver down the spine of ISIS terrorists as they...

"if you watch terrorism, you're also a terrorist'.

President Obama put his own spin on the oft-quoted advice of predecessor Teddy Roosevelt: speak strongly and carry a nine iron. The vacationing commander-in-chief returned to the golf course Wednesday after calling for justice in the brutal killing of an American journalist by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) terrorists. Obama also detailed his conversation with the parents of slain hostage James Foley, 40, whose beheading was videotaped and posted on the Internet by his killers. The president zipped quickly from a local school to a Martha’s Vineyard golf course after his 12:45 p.m. media session. Obama delivered a...

A 33-year-old man has been wounded by rocket shrapnel in the Eshkol Regional Council, after Gaza terrorists pounded the southern area with rockets Thursday morning. The victim's wounds were at first considered to be minor but are currently classified as moderate to severe. Hamas launched a large rocket salvo at the south on Thursday morning. Many of the rockets struck down in open fields in the Eshkol Regional Council. Among the buildings hit was a kindergarten...

Before Islamic extremists brutally beheaded an American journalist on camera, they demanded $132 million in ransom from his family and his employer. Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists began sending messages to James Foley's family and the GlobalPost last fall, Philip Balboni, the news agency's head, told CNN. At first the messages made political and financial demands. "The captors never messaged a lot. There was a very limited number with a very specific purpose," he said. Then, last week, the fighters sent an email saying Foley would be killed. "The message was vitriolic and filled with rage against the United States. It...

Hamas said that an Israel airstrike in Gaza killed three of its senior military leaders early Thursday. The Palestinian militant group claimed that the men -- identified as Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar -- were killed along with three other people in a strike on a four-story building near Rafah, a town in the southern part of the coastal territory. The trio had played a key role in expanding Hamas' military capabilities in recent years, including digging attack tunnels leading to Israel, training of fighters and smuggling of weapons to Gaza, Israel said. Hamza Khalifa, an area...

Popular Party senator Luz Elena Sanín told journalists that Spain’s ruling conservative party had increased its public spending due to "the debts" caused by “subsidies for NGOs and homosexuals”. Sanín, who represents Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta in the Senate, said former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero with the country's opposition Socialists had forced the country’s debt to surpass a record €1 trillion with "his favours". The Colombian-born politician, now a Spanish national, added that her party had been forced to further aggravate the country’s economic crisis when coming to power in order to pay back the debt...

46 years ago, the SOVIET UNION and its allies have troops on the territory of Czechoslovakia. This marked the end of the reform, which received the name "Prague Spring". Before the invasion held large-scale military exercises in the USSR, Poland, GDR. In General, participating in sting operation "Danube", which became the largest in the USSR after World War II, took half a million military personnel, 5 thousand units of armored vehicles, and aircraft. Victims of aggression were 108 persons, another 500 were injured. Today in his Twitter Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Lìnas Lìnkavìcus posted by: "46 years ago,...

On Tuesday, August 19, 2014, the Islamic State posted a video on YouTube showing the decapitation of American journalist James Foley. A second American, Steven Joel Sotloff, was paraded in front of the camera. Foley’s executioner, totally clad in black and speaking with an English accent, stated “the life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision.” It remains to be seen how the administration will respond to this cowardly war crime. Up to this point, their approach has been weak-kneed and contradictory. While the administration reluctantly authorized “limited airstrikes,” it stressed that the United States “will not...

Lugansk Oblast residents staged a patriotic flashmob and encouraged terrorists to get out of town Lugansk Oblast residents write about how they want to go home (vk.com/lugansk_city) People write as they want to return to the besieged city and see the family. Residents Lugansk, who had to leave town because of terrorist attacks, staged a flashmob in social networks with passports. People published photos from your documents, some of which leave a note with unique wishes. Read more: The network appeared flashmob video "Live map of Ukraine" http://tsn.ua/kyiv/u-merezhi-z-yavilos-video-fleshmobu-zhiva-karta-ukrayini-356898.html On his epistles Lugansk Oblast residents asked the terrorists to get out...

The Ukrainian government needs "Russian influence" to deal with the problems within its borders, one of its most senior members said ahead of a key summit between the two sparring countries. "(It is) only with Russian influence we can sort the problem out," Pavlo Klimkin, foreign minister of Ukraine, told CNBC ahead of the talks in Minsk on Tuesday, which will see Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko meet at a summit of leaders in the region. The conflict in Ukraine shows little signs of abating. On Thursday, dozens of people died as fighting in Donetsk,...

Russia will hold a training scenario of nuclear war During training exercises will test the system for the evaluation of the effects of a nuclear attack and will conduct 300 thousand virtual nuclear missile launches. Nuclear explosion gradremstroy.ru SMF conducts training throughout Russia RUSSIAN Army conducts training in strategic missile troops, during which will test the efficiency of the system for the evaluation of the effects of weapons of mass destruction on the territory of Russia, as well as teach operators launchers intercontinental ballistic missiles. Check for system evaluation the effects of a nuclear attack involved all units of radiation,...

If you study the history of Islam. Our ship captains were getting murdered. The French had to tip us off. I mean these were the days of Thomas Jefferson. They've been doing the same thing. This isn't a surprise. You can't solve it with a dialogue. You can't solve it with a summit. You solve it with a bullet to the head. Its the only thing these people understand. And all we've heard from this president is a case to heap praise on this religion, as if to appease them.

The imam Obama has spoken: “ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.”

German chancellor Angela Merkel has said NATO will defend Baltic states if need be, but will not build permanent military bases in the region. She spoke on Monday (18 August) on a visit to Riga in which she also laid a wreath at the Freedom Monument, a memorial to the Latvian War of Independence against Russia in 1918. “I want to stress that … Article V of the NATO contract—the duty to provide mutual support—is not something which just exists on paper, but is also something which must be filled with life”, she told press after meeting Latvian prime minister...

The vicious Islamic State group now is vowing to broaden its war campaign to include killing Americans wherever and whenever it can.