Free Republic

An anti-militant activist group in Syria says it has seen the Islamic State group film a beheading video in the militant group's stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. A spokesman from Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently spoke to International Business Times just hours after the Sept. 20 beheading. An Islamic State miliant dressed in black and holding a knife took a man wearing an orange jumpsuit to the place “where they beheaded James Foley,” the first U.S. journalist to appear in the militants’ brutal beheading videos, the spokesman for the anti-militant group said. At the time he spoke to IBTimes, the spokesman...

A convert to Islam who named himself Jah’Keem Yisrael (formerly Alton Alexander Nolen) beheaded one of his coworkers and was shot while trying to behead another on September 26 at his place of work, Vaughan Foods in Moore, Oklahoma. Despite the numerous indications that Yisrael was inspired to choose his manner of murder and to carry it out by his immersion in Islam, authorities profess to be puzzled as to why he did it, or at least certain that his actions had nothing to do with that most misunderstood of religions, Islam.The UK Daily Mail reported Tuesday that “while the...

A new Islamic State video released titled "Message of the Mujahid" Friday calls on Western jihadists unable to travel to territory controlled by the terrorist group to conduct attacks at home. The message also offers a pointed rebuke of British Prime Minister David Cameron and the U.S.-led bombing campaign."A message to all of the brothers who cannot do Hijrah, I advise you to respond to the call of the sheik, the mujahid (Holy Warrior) Mohammed al-Adnani, to cause terror in the hearts of the kuffar (unbelievers)," the unidentified Islamic State spokesman said. "You are living in the West, you can...

New evidence pried from the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proves the point I have posited here at Ordered Liberty: The federal government willfully intervened on behalf of al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki on October 10, 2002, undoing his arrest on felony fraud charges when he was detained at JFK International Airport in New York, and allowing him to walk away with a Saudi handler. As I argued over two years ago, the government’s story to the contrary – viz., that it was moved by sheer coincidence on the eve of Awlaki’s arrival to pull the plug...

The Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council has taken responsibility for a series of suicide bombings in and around the restive city of Benghazi yesterday that targeted forces loyal to former Libyan general Khalifa Hiftar. The attacks killed dozens of Libyan soldiers at the Benina International Airport and four more in a separate attack on a checkpoint in Qubah, east of Benghazi. Al Arabiya reported that "two cars loaded with explosives targeted a military checkpoint near Benina International Airport in Benghazi." According to Al Jazeera, the airport houses "heavy weaponry" which the militants are fighting to obtain. Al Jazeera also claims that...

Since the ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi from power last year, the Egyptian government has been battling a growing insurgency. Militant groups with affiliations to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State have sprung up all over the country, with a high concentration in the Sinai Peninsula where they have carried out attacks on security forces. In one recent attack, a bomb killed two policemen in downtown Cairo. For Egyptians living in the densely populated area where the bombings took place, the attack has inspired a renewed confidence in the current government. “I'm calling on the President to tell him we put...

The Islamic State continues its offensive to consolidate control of Iraq's Anbar province. Today, the jihadist group is reported to have taken control of the town of Hit and has launched assaults on the Anbar Operations Command north of Ramadi and the 7th Division headquarters at Al Asad Airbase in Al Baghdadi. Iraqi officials confirmed that much of Hit, a town just 20 miles west of the provincial capital of Ramadi, is under the control of the Islamic State. "Ninety percent of Hit has been overrun by militants," a member of the Anbar provincial council told Reuters. Witnesses stated that...

Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate the Nusra Front on Thursday denied that it pledged to stop executing Lebanese hostages being held near the northeast border town of Arsal and said it was not engaged in negotiations for their release. In a statement posted to Twitter, the jihadi group also said it had nothing to do with last month's kidnapping of Lebanese soldier Kamal Hujeiri, who was released earlier this week. “What was recently mentioned by Lebanese media channels about our pledge to not kill any abducted soldier is untrue,” the extremist group wrote in their statement. Lebanese officials on Wednesday said that...

Along with the military campaign against ISIS, a social media movement is garnering support for the idea that the group isnÂ’t Muslim. That however shouldnÂ’t be the point. ISIS members were brought up among us. News of ISIS's brutal advance in Iraq and Syria shook the Arab world hard. The Middle East is now witnessing a militancy that outdoes even Al Qaeda in the scale of its terror, proudly showcasing images and videos of its members shooting, torturing and beheading "infidels." In the face of such sudden violence, Muslims all over the Middle East rushed to absolve their belief system...

America loves good guys vs. bad guys…we have since our inception. So it goes to follow that we love crime dramas…the good guys search out the bad guys through witnesses, clues and evidence. The American public loves this, but not Progressives (the great equalizers and cowards of society), who now control the government. These individuals live in a quixotic world where they actually live out their fantasies…and the rest of us live with the tragic consequences. Enter Islam…the 1,400 year old ideology that remains the bully in the schoolyard… The Islam I’m speaking about here is the one Muhammed practiced...

For Salah Paulis, it came down to a choice between his faith and his crop. A wheat farmer from outside Mosul, Paulis and his family fled the militant group Islamic State early last month. The group overran the family farm as part of its offensive that captured vast swathes of territory in northern Iraq. Two weeks later, Paulis, who is a Christian, received a phone call from a man who said he was an Islamic State fighter. “We are in your warehouse. Why are you not here working and taking care of your business?” the man asked in formal Arabic....

Every evening after work, Abdirizak Bihi strolls through neighborhood parks where young Somalis shoot hoops and play soccer. He tells jokes, urges them to clean up their trash and even grabs the basketball to take a few shots. It may seem like fun, but Bihi's eyes are scanning the playgrounds and ball courts of Minneapolis for something sinister - anyone who might try to recruit these kids to join a jihad overseas. If Bihi doesn't show up for his personal patrol for five, six or seven days, "somehow the word gets out, and they're back," he said. Community members and...

The vaunted “moderate” Webb, a darling of the Boston media, has dismissed secularism as a “radical lunatic ideology,” which means the dismissal of the idea that the government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and the embracing of the idea that the law of Allah constitutes the only legitimate constitution and government. He has also appeared at events hosted by Hamas-linked CAIR, a group that Webb openly lauds.“Former Imam Of Oklahoma Beheader’s Mosque Apologizes To ISIS Day After Beheading,” by Patrick Howley, Daily Caller, September 29, 2014: The former imam of the Oklahoma City mosque attended...

The Islamic State continues its advance towards the Kurdish of city Kobane in northern Syria. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the Islamic State has gained control of "325 villages and towns" in the vicinity of Ayn al Arab (the Arabic name for Kobane). As the group moves closer to Kobane, more Kurdish citizens are fleeing for the Turkish border. Around 150,000 Kurdish refugees are reported to have fled to Turkey since this assault began two weeks ago. Refugees spoken to by NBC talk of food being scarce, electricity being cut, and little outside support for Syrian...

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....

At the Long War Journal, Tom Joscelyn and Oren Adaki report that a high-ranking member of al Qaeda’s Arabian Peninsula franchise has called on rival jihadist factions in Iraq and Syria to unite for the greater good of confronting the United States and the West. The AQAP leader, Sheikh Nasser bin Ali al Ansi, also calls for Sunni jihadist unity against the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies – meaning Syria and Hezbollah, among others. Tom and Oren relate that, in a just-released video, al Ansi states: What the Islamic ummah [worldwide community of Muslims] is witnessing today...

Today we received more confirmation that we are locked in a war of ideas with Muslim Brotherhood organizations when CAIR launched a broadside at Frank Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy, one of the leaders in the counterjihad and counter shariah movement. CAIR published the names of top defense contractors who donate to CSP, including Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and others, criticizing them for supporting an “Islamophobic” organization. In a perfect world, Boeing et al would react to this the same way they would have to the German Bund issuing a similar release in 1939. But in today’s PC...

-SNIP- Holder appears undeterred in his quest to ban federal agents from trying to prevent domestic Islamist terrorism by investigating hubs of suspected jihadist activities. If the ban on ‘religious profiling’ is enforced, federal agents will no longer be able to conduct surveillance inside even the most radical of US mosques, where nearly all recent US based jihadists have been recruited, trained and dispatched. SNIP- Had such prohibitions against even considering the religious beliefs or associations of suspected jihadist elements been in effect, many recent Federal indictments of terrorists could never have been obtained, since nearly ever single one of...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Alton Nolen, the Muslim convert who recently beheaded an innocent coworker at a Vaughan's Food factory, was charged with three felony counts this morning at a Cleveland County Courthouse in Norman, Oklahoma. Nolen faces one count of first degree murder, one count of assault and battery with a deadly weapon, and a final count of assault with a deadly weapon. At a press conference this morning, Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn said that the gruesome attack was race-related and not a religious act, but he did admit that Nolen was infatuated with beheadings, which was evident from his facebook...

At approximately 1600 hrs. on September 24, 2014 30-year-old Alton Nolen was fired at Vaughan Foods in Moore, Oklahoma. He immediately drove to the front of the business, struck a vehicle and walked into the front office area. He attacked 54-year-old Colleen Hufford with a knife until he severed her head. Then he began attacking 43-year-old Traci Johnson with the same knife. He would have severed Ms. Johnson’s head if Mark Vaughan, an Oklahoma County reserve deputy and a former CEO of the business, hadn’t taken him down with three gunshots. Both Hufford, who was pronounced dead at the scene,...