Free Republic

Multiple people have been reported injured after an explosion in a historic district of Istanbul popular with tourists, Turkish media reported Tuesday. Private NTV television said the explosion in the Sultanahmet neighborhood was close to a park that is home to a landmark obelisk. The state-run Anadolu Agency says several police and medics were sent to the area. Police sealed the area, barring people from approaching in case of a second explosion. Sultanahmet is Istanbul's main sight-seeing area and includes the Topkapi Palace and Blue Mosque.

A former member of ISIS has revealed the extent to which the cooperation of the Turkish military and border forces allows the terrorist group, who now control large parts of Iraq and Syria, to travel through Turkish territory to reinforce fighters battling Kurdish forces. A reluctant former communications technician working for Islamic State, going by the pseudonym ‘Sherko Omer’, who managed to escape the group, told Newsweek that he travelled in a convoy of trucks as part of an ISIS unit from their stronghold in Raqqa, across Turkish border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian...

Recently, the Saudi ambassador in Turkey acknowledged that before the Unite States launched its airstrikes against the so-called Islamic state in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Saudi embassy in Ankara provided the Saudi nationals who previously joined ISIL ranks and later defected and wished to return to home with passports and identification documents. The Saudi embassy also admitted that it housed many repentant former jihadists inside the Saudi compound in Istanbul or rented safe houses for them in downtown Istanbul. As a matter of fact, it seems not so much surprising to hear that a country provides consular services...

Security officials have claimed that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants rent luxurious villas in major cities of Turkey. A number of anonymous security officials have told Aydınlık Newspaper that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is able to operate easily in major Turkish cities due to the ruling AKP government’s tolerance towards the organization. “ISIS militants are so relaxed that they do not even cut their beards, change their clothes to hide their identities [in cities]. Of course, there are some who do. But organisers do not think that they need to hide themselves....

President Obama met Tuesday evening with his national security team amid reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was advancing toward toward the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani on the border between Turkey and Syria. The president and his top foreign policy aides met at the White House on Tuesday "to discuss our comprehensive strategy to counter the threat posed by [ISIS]," the administration said in a statement. The meeting came as CNN reported that Turkish soldiers and tanks were massing at the border amid concerns about a flood of refugees entering the country ahead of advancing...