Free Republic

Lebanon apologized Monday to Denmark after rampaging Muslim demonstrators set fire to its diplomatic mission in Beirut, while violent protests escalated throughout the Muslim world against the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in Western newspapers. [. . .] The Lebanese Cabinet apologized to Denmark following a late Sunday emergency meeting. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the government had unanimously "rejected and condemned the acts of riots ... that harmed Lebanon's reputation and its civilized image and the noble aim of the demonstration." At least one person died, 30 were injured and about 200 were detained in the violence...

Although Syrian troops have withdrawn from Lebanon, their departure is little more than a symbolic acknowledgment of Lebanese sovereignty, extracted under enormous pressure from the international community. They had not been directly involved in policing the country for nearly a decade, and their number had already dwindled in recent years from a peak of over 40,000 down to 14,000. The backbone of Syria's power in Lebanon — its intelligence apparatus — has merely gone underground. The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February and the murders of prominent dissidents Samir Kassir and George Hawi in June suggest that Syria remains as capable as ever...

By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyJerusalem, Israel — May 25, 2015 … Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the appointment foreign policy expert and former UN Ambassador Dore Gold as director-general of the Israel Foreign Ministry. Dr. Gold, who currently serves as the Director of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, will replace Nissim Ben-Sheetrit. Ben Sheetrit is a veteran ministry employee who started out in the minsitry’s administrative track and then moved over to its diplomatic side. Ben-Sheetrit, a former ambassador to Japan, was appointed by former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman in November 2013. Dr. Gold is considered...

TEHRAN, Iran — The chief of an elite unit in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has accused the U.S. of having “no will” to stop the Islamic State group after the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, an Iranian newspaper reported Monday. The comments by Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Guard’s elite Quds unit, come just after U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter accused Iraqi forces of lacking the “will to fight” in an interview aired the day before. It wasn’t clear whether Soleimani’s remarks came as a direct response to Carter’s, though tensions remain high between the two countries...

Saudi-led air strikes hit three military bases in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Saturday and the Yemeni government in exile expressed reservations about United Nations-led talks aimed at ending the eight-week war. Residents said the air raids hit a munitions store in one of the bases, setting off a large explosion which sent rockets flying into the air and crashing down on civilian areas...   Yemen's exiled government in Saudi Arabia headed by President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi expressed reluctance to attend UN-sponsored peace talks set for May 28 in Geneva. A spokesman said on Saturday the Houthis and their powerful...

Belarus's recent leaning towards pro-Western nations in the Middle East follows fast on the heels of rapprochement with the West. On 6-7 May, Joint Belarus-Saudi Committee on Cooperation will meet in Riyadh. On 15 April, Belarus opened an embassy in Qatar. Establishing closer links with the very centres of conservative Arab bloc allied with the West is a milestone in Belarusian foreign policy. In the past, Minsk enjoyed amicable relations primarily with the so-called radical republican regimes in the Middle East. Saddam's Iraq, Qadhafi's Libya, Assad's Syria, as well as Ahmadinejad's Iran figured among Belarus's main partners. The shift towards...

Weakened by years of war, Syria's government appears ready for the country's de facto partition, defending strategically important areas and leaving much of the country to rebels and jihadists, experts and diplomats say. The strategy was in evidence last week with the army's retreat from the ancient central city of Palmyra after an advance by the Islamic State group (ISIS or IS)... Syria's regime labels all those fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad "terrorists," and has pointed to the emergence of ISIS and Al-Nusra as evidence that opponents of the regime are extremists. Since the uprising against Assad began in...

A Syrian brigadier-general was killed in a blast that targeted his car in downtown Damascus on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. The Britain-based group said "a brigadier general and approximately six people with him were killed in an explosion in the Adawi neighborhood in the center of the capital." The powerful Ahrar al-Sham rebel group posted a video online claiming to show the attack on Brigadier-General Bassem Ali Muhanna's car with an improvised explosive device, in the early hours of Sunday. A security source said Muhanna was a member of the Republican Guards, an elite unit...

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently slammed those criticizing him, saying: "Anyone who says anything contrary to what is said here is a moron, is blind, and a traitor. The Shi'ites of the American embassy are traitors, agents, and morons. No one can alter our convictions. We won't be silent anymore and we will no longer humor anyone." However, this time Nasrallah's angry and threatening statements were not directed against his usual rivals. They are directed against Shi'ites in Lebanon. These statements reveal the extent of such disputes and expose the increasing criticisms against him, after a prolonged Syrian war and...

Many of his foreign fighters come from Afghanistan -- men like Murad, who is now being held in Aleppo as a prisoner-of-war... All he had wanted was an Iranian residence permit, he says... he found himself fighting as a mercenary in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Bashar Assad regime... When a violent explosion caused the house he was in to collapse, he found himself thinking about his daughters, he says. "I screamed and thought I was suffocating. And then, everything around me was quiet." Men arrived and pulled Murad, who was still screaming, out of the...

According to first unconfirmed reports, central Tehran was hit Sunday night with massive blasts leaving many hundreds of people dead. Witnesses report heavy Revolutionary Guards and Basij forces speeding to the area. Thee are also reports of explosions in the southern Iranian town of Isfahan - also unconfirmed.

Iranian army's ground force will hold a military drill to test its missile power capacities, Commander of the Army's Ground Force Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan said. The military exercise dubbed "Beit ol-Moqaddas 27" will take place in Iran's central province of Esfahan on May 23-24, Pourdastan said, IRNA news agency reported. “Rocket and missile capabilities of the army's ground force are improved, the commander said, adding the capabilities will be evaluated in the two-day exercise. Tehran held a similar drill last May and tested a series of its newest domestically-made missiles. Iranian media outlets report that Iran has made...

Those attempting to conquer Syria and turn it into a jihadist, Shariah-compliant hellhole are all Sunni. So, first I have to ask myself why 93 percent of the “refugees” Democratic politicians in America are recruiting to the U.S. are Sunnis. It would be like recruiting Nazi “refugees” from Germany during World War II instead of Jews. The numbers of these so-called “refugees” from Syria are disproportionately Sunnis, even when considering the heavy percentage of the Sunni population there. What’s behind this madness? If we want to be a land of compassion to real refugees, I’m all for it. But that’s...

Jeffrey Sterling learned the hard way that the feds will throw the book at anyone who embarrasses them.By John Kiriakou Jeffrey Sterling recently stood before a judge as his sentence was read. The former CIA officer, the judge declared, would spend 42 months — that’s three and half years — behind bars. The feds had convicted Sterling on nine felony charges, including seven counts of espionage.He didn’t sell secrets to the Russians. He didn’t trade intelligence for personal gain. He made no attempt to disrupt the American way of life.What did he do, then?He reported to the Senate Intelligence Committee...

Cheryl Mills, who was the State Department’s counselor and chief of staff during the entirety of Hillary Clinton’s tenure, said in an email on November 13, 2012, that her colleagues were “on board” after a “come to” (Jesus?) meeting, in reference to classified congressional hearings that would be taking place later that week. Her correspondent was Philippe Reines, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton who had asked how the “hearings”were going (perhaps meaning “briefings”?) The classified hearings were on the 15th and 16th. Of the newly released batch of Hillary Clinton emails, this one seems to be the most significant.

In April and May 2004, the 4th Marines—the very same units that stormed the beach at Iwo Jima—took heavy losses while engaging insurgents loyal to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party in heavy fighting for the city of Ramadi. USA Today posted this report, On April 6, Lance Cpl. Deshon Otey, 24, of Hardin, Ky., was the sole survivor of an attack on his Humvee that killed seven of his comrades in Echo Company. His only wounds were nightmares, Otey said later. "I always see these guys with turbans. They come up and just start slaughtering all of us," he said. A...

First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet. He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast. Now he’s coming for Israel. Barack Obama’s promise to transform America was too modest....

First he comes for the banks and health care, uses the IRS to go after critics, politicizes the Justice Department, spies on journalists, tries to curb religious freedom, slashes the military, throws open the borders, doubles the debt and nationalizes the Internet. He lies to the public, ignores the Constitution, inflames race relations and urges Latinos to punish Republican “enemies.” He abandons our ­allies, appeases tyrants, coddles ­adversaries and uses the Crusades as an excuse for inaction as Islamist terrorists slaughter their way across the Mideast. Now he's coming for Israel. {snip} Whatever form the punishment takes, it will aim...

WASHINGTON — They use words like “historic” and “charismatic,” phrases like “great potential” and “million-dollar smile.” They notice audience members moved to tears by an American-dream-come-true success story. When they look at the cold, hard political math, they get uneasy. An incipient sense of anxiety is tugging at some Democrats — a feeling tersely captured in four words from a blog post written recently by a seasoned party strategist in Florida: “Marco Rubio scares me.”

Potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his daughter have donated “at least $105,000 to the Clinton Foundation,” The Hill reported Thursday. Contributions, per the Foundation website, “advance the work of any part of the Clinton Foundation, including the Clinton Global Initiative.”That would be the same group behind the Clinton Global Citizen Award, presented to anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg by Vice President Joe Biden for being the “most fierce and most effective advocate that we have on the matter of gun sanity.” And it’s hardly the first time Trump has come across as effectively bipolar on guns.“I love the NRA,...