Free Republic

Five minute handycam videos show crash of apparent SU-22 amidst AAA and surface to air missile fire. Presumably taken by FSA rebels, video clip collection shows six different views of the same event. First clip is totally inconclusive, however subsequent clips in the collection suggest the most likely cause was a successful MANPADS hit. Fire is visible from the aircraft tailcone as the strike aircraft arcs through the sky and strikes the ground in a huge ball of smoke, with no pilot ejection discernible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja9divCVW94 After the success of Reagan's post-Lockerbie Libyan air raids Gaddaffi went on a years-long...

A young Christian girl beheaded in Syria. The sign of extremism and fanatics, the long beards, is present in each and everyone of these subhuman Muslims who killed this small child, in their jihad to Allah – inspired by the Quran. This is Obama, Britain, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey funded and supported handiwork. Don’t put your support behind any of these people, whether for military action in Syria, asylum, immigration, another hate preaching mosque. This is what is moving into your town, your country, your society, your neighborhood: video... This video is written with false propaganda claiming...

According to Syrian Truth’s Facebook page, the above photo is of a toddler living in the Deir ez-Zor Governate in eastern Syria, bordering Iraq. She was tied up by members of the U.S.-supported “Free Syrian Army” — which is dominated by foreign, Sunni jihadis — and made to watch as her mother and father were killed for being Shia. Here is how the Obama administration is using your tax dollars — mockingly in the name of “freedom.”

Take a good hard look at the photo. Looking away from it will not change the fact that it happened. This girl’s family had different religious views from the Syrian Rebel Army. When the “Free Syrian Army” marched into her town, they chained her to a fence and forced her to watch as her parents were tortured and killed for their religion. These are the same “Free Syrian Army” soldiers that Obama just violated international law to provide weapons to. I will not gross people out with the graphic video or the violence that happens over there daily under the...

Despite it being overwhelmingly clear that the American people want nothing to do with the civil war in Syria, the Pentagon has proposed entering the war. Under the proposal U.S. involvement will escalate from providing weapons to rebels via the CIA to direct support and training of rebel forces by the U.S. military. ...

Amidst reports of chemical weapons and atrocities committed by the warring factions, one Sierra Leonean, Sheikh Mohammed Canah Bah (photo) [at URL] has been captured and tortured to death by the Free Syrian Army... Even though no reason has been proffered by the rebel faction for the capture and execution of the Sierra Leonean, reports generally indicate that such dispositions have been usually manifested against foreigners in the country, a situation akin to what happened to blacks in Libya during the rebellion against Muhamar Al Gaddafi. A representative of the Sierra Leone Students Union in Syria, now residing in the...

The U.S-Russia plan to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons is drawing attention to Israel's own suspected chemical stockpile and could raise pressure on the Jewish state to come clean about its capabilities. Israel signed the landmark international treaty banning the production or use of chemical weapons two decades ago, but it is among a handful if nations that have never ratified the deal. ...

Half of Syrian rebels are hardline Islamists: British study AFP - Jihadists and members of hardline Islamist groups make up almost half of forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to extracts from a British defence study published in Monday's Daily Telegraph. The analysis by defence consultancy IHS Jane's, due to be published in full later this week, puts the number of rebel forces at around 100,000, the Telegraph reported. But these fighters have split into as many as 1,000 bands since violence flared two years ago, the study concluded. Of the rebel forces, IHS Jane's estimates that around...

In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24 on Friday, US Senator John McCain acknowledged François Hollande’s support on Syria and noted that US inaction had put the French president in an “unfair political position”. US Senator John McCain has said he was worried US inaction had hurt the Syrian rebels’ campaign against President Bashar al-Assad and had put Washington’s allies, such as French President François Hollande, in an “unfair political position”. In an interview with FRANCE 24 on Friday, McCain said he feared the recent international focus on chemical weapons had given Assad an advantage in his use of conventional...

Chinese diplomats in Syria as well as Beijing's embassy are under regular threat from rebel attacks, China's ambassador to Syria has confided to local media outlets. In an interview with the Global Times [ link at site], Zhang Xun, China's ambassador to Syria said that Beijing's embassy has increasingly been caught in the cross-hairs of fighting between rebel and government forces in recent months... Zhang said that in another attack last month, Syrian rebels fired mortar shells at President Bashar al-Assad's motorcade. They missed the Syrian leader but hit a building that was located just 10 meters from the Chinese...

As part of the Obama administration’s repeated insistence – though without offering proof – that the recent sarin gas attack near Damascus was the work of the Assad regime, the administration has downplayed or denied the possibility that al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels could produce deadly chemical weapons. However, in a classified document just obtained by WND, the U.S. military confirms that sarin was confiscated earlier this year from members of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the most influential of the rebel Islamists fighting in Syria. The document says sarin from al-Qaida in Iraq made its way into Turkey and that while some...

The head of the opposition Free Syria Army, General Salim Idriss, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that he has intelligence that the Assad regime is moving its chemical weapons out of the country. “Today we have information that the regime began to move chemical materials and chemical weapons to Lebanon and to Iraq,” General Idriss told Amanpour from inside Syria. It’s a huge claim that would fundamentally shift everything U.S. intelligence officials have in the past said they believe about the situation in Syria, CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr reports.

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war. The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened...

A chemical attack may be launched on Israel by Syrian rebels from government-controlled territories as a "major provocation," multiple sources told RT. The report comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed that Syria puts its chemical weapons arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction in order to prevent a possible military strike against the war-torn country. Moscow also urged Syrian authorities to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The offer has already been passed over to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who met Lavrov in Moscow for talks on Monday. “We don’t know if Syria will...

A series of fresh revelations about atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by Western-backed Syrian "rebels" had sparked alarm among analysts, further complicating Obama's already tough-push for support to launch military strikes against the Assad regime. ... the latest atrocities are being cited by critics of the warmongering as more reasons not to join the civil war on behalf of ruthless jihadists... Christian villagers quoted in new reports [URL at link] said the rebels had, among other atrocities, forced them to convert to Islam or be murdered while shouting the now-infamous "Allahu Akbar" war cry. Christian homes and churches were reportedly...

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a high profile article from one Elizabeth O’Bagy arguing that the majority of the Syrian rebels were actually moderates. Senator McCain mentioned Elizabeth O’Bagy’s op-ed during the Senate hearings, when he wasn’t playing poker, and tweeted it. That should come as no surprise, considering that O’Bagy is credited with arranging McCain’s infamous photo op with the Syrian rebel leadership. The Wall Street Journal lists O’Bagy’s role as the Institute for the Study of War. It leaves out the fact that she is the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force...

The Syrian Emergency Task Force the pro-rebel lobbying outfit that employs widely quoted intervention advocate Elizabeth O’Bagy as its political director, receives funding from the U.S. Department of State and related government contractors. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller earlier last week, O’Bagy explained how she got paid. O’Bagy has been roundly condemned for working for a pro-Syrian lobbying group at the same time she was casting the Syrian rebels in a positive light. She works as an analyst at the neoconservative think tank, the Institute for the Study of War. “Most of the contracts that I’ve been...

The deputy to General Salim Idriss — the Free Syrian Army commander Senator McCain would have us back — has announced that the mujahideen rebels’ supreme council will disband unless the West drops its demands to steer clear of violent jihadists and refrain from attempting to take over the Assad regime’s chemical weapons stocks. The Foreign Policy report is excerpted by Weasel Zippers, including this:

Syrians inside the country say the revolution began with peaceful protests from the poor seeking reforms. The movement now brims with violent terrorist operatives aligned with Al Qaeda and Al-Nasra, including extremist fighters from Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. The mainstream media portrays a false picture of the now-compromised Free Syrian Army. The extremist elements within are not just minority-affiliates. They win the battles, they have the ammunition and the food. They have slowly filled the power vaccuum and they do not fight for a freed Syria, but to establish an ultra-fundamentalist state. American taxpayers have fueled the Syrian Civil War...

Throughout the summer, Americans for Tax Reform will be highlighting the most outrageous new powers that the IRS will have under the Obamacare law. According to a report from GAO, the IRS is tasked with nearly four dozen new powers under that law. Each day, one will be selected for a brief review. Thanks to Obamacare, you can no longer buy non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines with your health savings account (HSA) or workplace flex account (FSA).