Free Republic

The impetus underlying China’s manifold interests in the Middle East remains a topic of close scrutiny. The dramatic social and political changes that are taking root in the region portend a vastly different geopolitical cartography in contrast with previous arrangements. These circumstances yield important implications for the people of the Middle East and foreign powers, such as the United States with longstanding strategic interests in the region. Owing to its notable inroads into the Middle East in recent years, China also is watching regional events unfold with great interest. Due to its increasing demand for Middle Eastern oil and natural...

Why Israel? Why now? Though few Americans paid any attention at the time, in November of last year, Secretary of State John Kerry announced to the world that this summer would be defined by violence against the Jewish state. Almost as he had been tipped off, the Secretary of State warned Israel to make a deal with the likes of Hamas and Fatah, Palestinian parties who do not acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, Kerry said, “Does Israel want a third intifada? … “I believe that if we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis; if we do not...

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said it has brought down an Israeli stealth drone above the Natanz uranium enrichment site in the centre of the country. "A spy drone of the Zionist regime (Israel) was brought down by a missile... This stealth drone was trying to approach the Natanz nuclear zone," the corps said in a statement on its official website sepahnews.com. In 2010, the Israeli Air Force launched an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), dubbed "Eitan," "Heron TP" or "Heron 2", which can stay in the air 24 hours and can reach Iran. “The ‘Eitan’ marks a technological breakthrough and a...

All eyes have been on ISIS as the jihadist group, in a matter of days, cut Iraq in half and declared its own state in the cities it captured. With fewer than 10,000 fighters ISIS forced the retreat of the better-armed Iraqi army forces many times its size. Their incredible success on the battlefield has fed into a growing lore about the group: the small band of fanatics that can take down a country. The truth is more basic and it's something ISIS doesn't want to admit--they weren't acting alone. It wasn't having God on their side that let ISIS...

Evidence Mounting That Turkey Is Behind ISIS Recruitment to Establish an Islamic Caliphate By Shoebat Foundation onAugust 13, 2014 inFeatured, General By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Exclusive) Several Middle Eastern media broke the news that unrest has sparked in Turkey with demonstrations erupting denouncing Erdogan after Turkish citizens captured ISIS operatives in Turkey in which Turkish security forces released the terrorists and attacked the civilians who turned them in: This confirms what Shobeat.com reported as far back as March, that there are ISIS “training centers in Orfa, Ghazi Antab and Antakia (Antioch) set up by the Turkish government for more...

Delta Force-trained commander Polad Talabani has few illusions about the scale of the task facing his elite team which has been ordered to halt the march of militants aiming to seize Baghdad. Talabani, who is in charge of the Kurdish Regional Government's counter-terrorism unit, says his troops have inflicted heavy casualties on the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The biggest battles are being fought in the smallest villages in this showdown between Talabani's 160 men and a seemingly endless stream of al Qaeda-inspired insurgents. And as soon as any Sunni fighters are killed, Talabani says "dozens more will...

Egypt on Saturday called for an open-ended cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, urging Israel and Hamas to return to indirect talks after seven weeks of fighting punctuated by a number of failed truce attempts. The call from the foreign ministry came shortly after Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo. Egyptian officials did not say how they expected renewed talks to produce a different outcome after repeated failures. …

Iraq's ethnic Kurds are longtime U.S. allies and have put up the toughest resistance to the Sunni extremists in the so-called Islamic State that has captured swaths or Iraq's north and west. They're getting help from U.S. air strikes, but also need heavier weapons of their own to match the firepower of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Weapons have been promised by the U.S. and other countries, but getting them through the central government in Baghdad has hampered the mission, according to Kurdish commanders. "We have heard weapons are coming, but so far we haven't seen any. As...

Iran’s defense minister on Saturday said there was no need for U.N. nuclear inspectors to pay another visit to the Parchin military site, where the country is suspected of having tested components used in nuclear weapons. Gen. Hossein Dehghan was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying the IAEA had already been to the site southeast of Tehran and carried out tests there. “Besides, they have accepted that nothing happened in Parchin,” he said. …

By 207 B.C., Rome and its allies on the Italian peninsula had lost approximately 100,000 soldiers to the invading armies of the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal. To make matters more desperate, the Carthaginians were in the final stages of securing massive reinforcements from Phillip V of Macedon. That year the Roman Senate sent a secret group of provocateurs to Northern Greece who started violent insurrections among PhillipÂ’s disaffected subject peoples to his south. The Macedonian armies never sailed and for next 600 years the course of western civilization would be charted by Rome.Special Forces Will Again Change the WorldAs I...

Iran plans to send aid to Gaza after Egypt said it would allow the shipment to enter the territory, an Iranian diplomatic source said on Friday, according to AFP. The official IRNA news agency said Cairo had agreed to transfer humanitarian aid bound for the coastal enclave, citing a foreign ministry source in Tehran. The source said a first Iranian Red Crescent shipment of 100 tons of medicine and food would be flown "soon" to Cairo. "The package weighs 100 tons and consists of food and medication," IRNA quoted the source as saying. Tehran said at the end of July...

James Foley was one of a new breed of activists calling themselves journalists. He didn’t travel to report on a story, but to promote an agenda. And the agenda was obvious from his Twitter feed.Any human life lost is tragic, but a moral individual would have much more empathy for the Syrian Christians who suffered at the hands of Foley’s favorite Jihadists than one of their pet propagandists. Foley came to Syria to support the Sunni Islamist rebels against the Syrian government.He cheered on the Sunni Muslim terrorists fighting to ethnically cleanse the Christians of Aleppo. In the conflict...

As American forces continue to mount airstrikes on Islamic State positions around the key Mosul dam in support of Kurdish forces, it appears that Iran is prepared to increase its military support for Iraq’s Shia in the south and east. An unconfirmed report in Iraqi News indicates that Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces are preparing to insert heavy armor into Iraq. According to an informed source, tanks and armored vehicles belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are mobilizing to enter the Khanaqin district with the aim of the concentration in areas with Shiite majority north of the capital Baghdad and hit...

Reverend Al Sharpton, host of PoliticsNation on MSNBC and former presidential candidate, will be the keynote speaker at the annual fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity with an extremist history. CAIR’s 20th Annual Banquet will be held on September 27 in Arlington, Virginia and also features Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). According to the U.S. Justice Department, CAIR is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. More specifically, CAIR is part of the Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, a secret body that was established to push the agenda of Hamas and...

FAA says too risky to fly over Syria. Banned US carriers from flying.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the visiting head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Sunday that Tehran will not discuss its long-range missile program as part of talks aimed at resolving a decade-long nuclear dispute, official media reported. “Iran’s missile power is not negotiable at any level under any pretext,” Rouhani told Yukiya Amano, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the official IRNA news service reported. The president added, however, that Iran is prepared to cooperate with the IAEA’s probe into whether its civilian nuclear program has a military component, “since there is no room for using a...

The White House is obviously not listening to the congressional uproar over Dubai Ports World. Lawmakers want to know why a federal panel allowed a state-owned United Arab Emirates shipping firm to pay $6.8 billion to acquire six major American ports -- including critical ones in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia -- despite its home country's glaring ties to international terrorism. But the White House is yawning.

Two U.S. Democratic senators said on Friday they would introduce legislation aimed at blocking Dubai Ports World from buying a company that operates several U.S. shipping ports because of security concerns. ADVERTISEMENT Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Hillary Clinton of New York said they would offer a measure to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations. "We wouldn't turn the border patrol or the customs service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either," Menendez said in a statement. P&O, the company Dubai Ports...

Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist called Tuesday for the Bush administration to stop a deal permitting a United Arab Emirates company to take over six major U.S. seaports, upping the ante on a fight that several congressmen, governors and mayors are waging with the White House. "The decision to finalize this deal should be put on hold until the administration conducts a more extensive review of this matter," said Frist. "If the administration cannot delay this process, I plan on introducing legislation to ensure that the deal is placed on hold until this decision gets a more thorough review." In...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - British firm P&O (PO.L: Quote, Profile, Research) may have to retain management of six major ports in the United States even though it is on the verge of being taken over by Dubai Ports World, a U.S. congressman said on Tuesday. Republican Rep. Peter King is one of a growing number of American legislators who oppose allowing state-controlled Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates to manage American ports, citing security concerns. He plans to introduce legislation halting the deal next week. "I think for the short-term the British company would probably have to stay...