Free Republic

The Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian has been imprisoned in Iran since being arrested nine months ago, and Iran announced his charges will include espionage.

A far-left Turkish group took an Istanbul prosecutor hostage on Tuesday and threatened to kill him, prompting special forces to enter the courthouse and police to evacuate the building. The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) published a picture of the prosecutor with a gun to his head and said it would kill him at 1236 GMT, three hours after gunmen stormed his office, unless its demands were met.

... Two years ago, Colonel John Steed, a former military attache to the British embassy in neighbouring Kenya, began his own personal mission to save those who were dubbed the “forgotten hostages” - the 100-plus sailors who still languished in pirate custody as of 2013. Drawn exclusively from poorer nations, their stories are a dark mirror image of that of Captain Phillips, the hijacked American whose rescue by US Navy seals became a blockbuster movie. Most have spent years in captivity, left to their fate not just by their employers but by their governments, who lack either the will or...

It's strange how you can interact with someone every day and not know anything about them at all. I work in Lebanon much of the year. When I'm there, I stay in the residential Christian neighborhood of Fanar, about 20 minutes outside of Beirut. I see the natour — the superintendent of my building — when I enter or exit. He's a handsome man in his 30s with a quick, easy smile. I knew he was Syrian, but that was the extent of my knowledge about his life. About a month ago, we were talking and it came out that...

At least 19 people have been killed in Tunisia after two gunmen stormed the Bardo national museum – one of the country’s leading tourist attractions in the capital, Tunis – sparking a three-hour hostage siege. Tunisia’s prime minister, Habib Essid, said on Wednesday afternoon that 17 of the dead were foreigners – from Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland – calling the attack a cowardly assault targeting the economy. Three hours after the attack started at about midday local time (11am GMT), an interior ministry spokesman said two gunmen had been killed, as well as one security officer, and that all...

Militants shot and killed at least eight people at a leading museum in Tunisia Wednesday and have taken several more hostage, the county’s interior ministry said. Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said on Radio Mosaique that only one of the dead in Wednesday's attack was a Tunisian. He did not provide nationalities for the others. Poland's Foreign Ministry announced that three Poles were among the wounded. Security forces filled the area around the National Bardo Museum in Tunis after the attack. Tunisia's parliament building, near the museum, was being evacuated, according to a tweet by parliament member Sayida Ounissi....

Eight years ago today Robert Levinson disappeared in Iran, while on a mission for the CIA. Tuesday will be his 67th birthday. Levinson's family said in a statement to ABC News, "Every year on this date, we remind the world that Bob's case is still not resolved and that this husband, father than grandfather is still not home where he belongs."

Two of the Assyrian Christian hostages released by ISIS have spoken to the mediaTwo of the Assyrian Christian hostages released by ISIS have spoken to the media about their ordeal. Some 200 Christians were taken by the Islamist group on February 23 after they stormed a number of villages in the north-east of the country. One of the hostages, going by the name ‘Peter’, told the Times: “They entered our village at five in the morning, while everyone was sleeping. Some of them were Syrians, some were Chinese, some Russian – people who didn’t speak Arabic. They took 17 men,...

They dealt with the Iranian regime first-hand more than three decades ago, when it was founded in an act of war against the U.S., and several survivors of the hostage crisis say the idea of the U.S. negotiating with an unrepentant Tehran makes their blood boil. For 444 days, the 52 Americans were held prisoner in the U.S. Embassy by the student revolutionaries that would help usher in the hard-line Islamic theocracy that remains in place today. Many of the hostage takers and guards held key roles in the Iranian government then and continue in important positions today. “I think...

Aleteia partner Aid to the Church in Need is reporting that some of the Assyrian Christians taken hostage by the Islamic State group last week have been released but that the fate of hundreds of others may depend on a Sharia court. Quoting the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ACN said 19 captives have been released—18 were from the village of Tel Goran, one of the Assyrian Christian villages in Hassake governorate taken over by the Islamist group February 23. The Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) has photos of the released captives after they arrived at St. Mary’s Church in the...

As if foreign policy couldn’t get any worse. The President Piece of Crap Maduro announced that they have captured an American pilot that was trying to topple his regime. Watch below:

"Islamic State murders 15 Christian hostages, beheads woman; 35 Christian villages now entirely uninhabited" The Islamic State (ISIS) has killed 15 of the Christians it took hostage in northeastern Syria earlier this week. The news was given by Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana to the Catholic organization Aid to the Church in Need on Thursday. ”Many of them,” he said, ”were defending their villages and their families.” One woman was beheaded in the village Tel Hormidz and two men were shot to death. There is no information at the moment on how the other 12 were killed. Youkhana added that the number...

Activists monitoring the conflict in Syria said Thursday that the number of Christians kidnapped by ISIS terrorists in their most recent offensive has risen to at least 220. ... SIS began abducting the Assyrians on Monday, when militants attacked a cluster of villages along the Khabur River, sending thousands of people fleeing to safer areas. The Syriac National Council, a Syrian Christian group, told Reuters that hundreds of Christians have fled to the province's two main cities, Al-Hassakeh and Al-Qamishli, which are held by the Kurds. Younan Talia, a senior official with the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said IS had raided...

ISIS militant ‘Jihadi John’ unmasked as middle-class Brit By Yaron Steinbuch February 26, 2015 | 7:16am The infamous masked ISIS madman seen in gruesome videos beheading Western hostages was identified by media outlets Thursday as Mohammed Emwazi — a middle-class Briton with a degree in computer programming. The BBC reported that the Kuwaiti-born Emwazi is in his mid-20s and from West London. British authorities chose not to identify him earlier for operational reasons. “I have no doubt that Mohammed is Jihadi John,” one of Emwazi’s close friends told the Washington Post. “He was like a brother to me. . . . I...

(CNN)ISIS is holding many more Assyrian Christians hostage than previously thought -- and it is reportedly planning to release a message Wednesday threatening to kill them. Osama Edward, founder of the Assyrian Human Rights Network, told CNN that the extremist group is now believed to have 150 hostages, citing the latest information from the network's team on the ground. Initial estimates put the number seized at between 70 and 100 people, among them women, children and the elderly. The video message will be directed to President Barack Obama and other members of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, Edward said from...

#ISIS vid shows bodies in the sea: "The sea you threw in Sh. Osama Bin Laden’s body…we'll mix it with your blood" pic.twitter.com/kuA4iLVI2e — Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) February 15, 2015 CAIRO – Islamic State released a video on Sunday purporting to show the beheading of a group of Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya, violence likely to deepen Cairo’s concerns over security threats from militants thriving in the neighboring country’s chaos. Egypt’s state news agency MENA quoted the spokesman for the Coptic Church as confirming that 21 Egyptian Christians believed to be held by Islamic State were dead. In the video,...

The horror show into which the Middle East has transformed over the last four years continues — and expands. ISIS released a videotape today showing not one beheading of a hostage, but the simultaneous beheadings of 21 Christian hostages. The beheadings took place not in Syria or Iraq, but in Libya: The terrorists known as ISIS released a video on Sunday that seems to show the militant group beheading 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya.The Egyptians, dressed in orange jump suits, were beheaded after being forced down on the ground on a beach. An early caption in the video says...

Heads bowed in terror the orange-clad Kurdish fighters are paraded through streets filled with jeering militants in the latest horrifying video release from Islamic State. In a grim echo of the terrible fate which befell Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muath al-Kaseasbeh the captives, reportedly Peshmerga fighters, are dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackled in cages. Just as Lt. al-Kaseasbeh was burned alive on camera, IS are planning to do the same with their latest prisoners, according to posts on social media.

Fox News' Chief Intelligence Correspondent Fox News, Catherine Herridge, reported earlier in the week that Obama administration officials were in possession of "very specific intelligence" pertaining to the precise location where ISIS terrorists were holding a group of Western hostages, including since-murdered Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Kayla Mueller. Herridge's sources said the eventual rescue mission was launched seven weeks after the hostages' location was identified, significantly longer than the 30-day delay reported last summer by Tony Harnden. The intelligence gathered had reportedly nailed down the exact building where the kidnapped parties were being held: By the spring of 2014, the...

The parents of a 26-year-old American who has been held hostage for more than a year by Islamic State extremists were clinging to hope Sunday that their daughter is alive, having yet to receive information confirming otherwise.