Free Republic

The far-left extremist Antifa movement and its allies have carved a wave of violence, destruction, and even murder for decades in Europe and their history should serve as a warning to the United States of America. Antifa — despite the claims of its defenders and proponents — does not stand just for simply anti-fascism but rather for the organisation Antifaschistische Aktion, originally the paramilitary arm of the Pro-USSR German Communist Party (KPD). Its actions today are not merely against fascism, but explicitly for a mix of anarchism and communism by any means necessary. While anarcho-communist movements have existed in some...

The head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation Hakan Fidan was in the Kurdistan region of Iraq to meet with the region’s President Masoud Barzani in the city of Duhoq between 14-15 March, according to local news agency Roj News.The agency, which bases its story on ‘inside sources’, reported that Fidan met with both Masoud Barzani, who is also the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (and Deputy Leader of the KDP) Nechervan Barzani during his visit.The same sources said that the KDP’s relations with Turkey and a joint plan...

Turkish President ErdoÄŸan and Southern Kurdistan intelligence official Masrour Barzani will be visiting the US on the same date. Turkish President Tayyip ErdoÄŸan is expected to visit the US on May 16, while KDP President Masoud BarzaniÂ’s son and Southern Kurdistan intelligence official Masrour Barzani has been reported to have a visit on the same date. Barzani is going to attend a program organized by a right-wing organization called the Heritage Foundation. Barzani will also be meeting with US officials to discuss the Mosul operation and the situation in Southern Kurdistan. ErdoÄŸanÂ’s US visit will be focused around seeking support...

KDP intelligence Parastin has handed over 80 people from “Rojava Peshmergas” that refused to fight in Shengal to Turkish intelligence MIT. During the clashes that erupted after the gangs affiliated to the South Kurdistan's KDP and the Turkish state attacked Shengal Resistance Units /YBŞ in Shengal on March 3, 80 people from the armed groups, called “Rojava Peshmergas” were arrested by KDP intelligence service Parastin. These 80 people from Rojava were abducted from the area and taken to somewhere not disclosed. Hawar News Agency (ANHA) reported that KDP intelligence handed over these 80 peshmergas to Turkish intelligence MIT. According to...

The Kentucky Democratic Party has launched its first targeted digital ad against Matt Bevin piggybacking on U.S. Mitch McConnell’s 2014 GOP primary campaign’s efforts to label the Republican candidate a “pathological liar.” The KDP has strung together a video featuring news clips and interviews targeting Bevin on tax delinquencies; his attendance at a pro-cockfighting rally; claims that he attended MIT; and others. “Matt Bevin’s flagrant dishonesty, deceit and self-interested political agenda is exactly why Kentuckians cannot trust him to look out for us as governor,” said Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Patrick Hughes in a statement. “Whether Bevin is lying about...

In the safe haven of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Jews and Israel are remembered fondly,if increasingly vaguely. "THEY CALL That lack of restraint?" the former Iraqi army officer exclaimed, while watching the BBC’s coverage of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on satellite TV last winter. "If this demonstration were held in Baghdad, there’d be 10,000 bodies in the street," said the Arab from Baghdad who now teaches in Iraqi Kurdistan. Almost 4 million people live in the safe haven of northern Iraq. A de facto autonomous region, it has been administered by the Kurds since 1991 when Saddam Hussein withdrew his administration in ...

BAGHDAD, Sept. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Monday that he and the other top Kurdish leaders have agreed to changes on the draft constitution concerning the country's ties with the Arab League (AL). "We have decided to support the draft and agreed to some changes which we think necessary for the country's ties with the Arab League, as Iraq is a founding member in the AL," Talabani told reporters in a news conference. Talabani was referring to a statement issued after a meeting between the political offices of the two major Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, the...

The two main Kurdish parties in Iraq have given their conditional go-ahead for a parliamentary coalition with interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, well-placed Kurdish sources have revealed. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) asked, in swap, for Allawi’s backing for PUK leader Jalal Talabani to be elected president, the sources told Al-Quds Press Friday, February 11. During a surprise visit by Allawi to Arbil on Thursday, February 10, Kurdish officials further asked that Arabs in Kirkuk be regarded as “refugees” who must be deported gradually to allow the return of Kurds allegedly forced to...

Yemeni Arrested in Connection with Iraq Bombs, TV Reports ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish television said Iraqi police in Kirkuk had arrested a man with a Yemeni passport who they believe may be connected with twin suicide bombings that killed more than 100 people in Iraq (news - web sites)'s northern Kurdish region. Suicide bombers attacked the offices of Kurdistan's two main political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (KDP), in Arbil Sunday. Kurdistan Television said late Wednesday that a taxi driver in Kirkuk, 50 miles south of Arbil, had contacted police there after...

Wolfowitz: Iraq Attacks Show U.S. Efforts Succeeding Reuters / 2-02-04 By Tabassum Zakaria KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Attacks in Iraq (news - web sites) like the Arbil suicide bombings show efforts to build a new Iraq are succeeding and that extremists are using violence to stop the process, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on Monday. "The most discouraging news in the last couple of the days is the bombing in Arbil," said Wolfowitz, who is on his third trip to Iraq since the war ended last April. "They took advantage of the Muslim holiday when people relaxed," he...

The US-led coalition in Iraq has vowed to punish those responsible for coordinated suicide bombings which have killed at least 56 people in the northern city of Arbil. The twin blasts injured more than 100 other people. In a statement, Iraq's US administrator, Paul Bremer, described the attack as cowardly and said those responsible for the acts would be brought to justice. The twin bombings took place within minutes of each other at the headquarters of rival Kurdish political parties - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The offices were crowded with people visiting the...

By Shamal Aqrawi ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers strapped with explosives blew themselves up in nearly simultaneous attacks on offices of two Kurdish parties in Iraq Sunday, killing and wounding as many as 200 people, officials said. "According to what I have been told the number of wounded and martyrs at the two headquarters may approach 200," an official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said. Among the dead were the deputy governor of Arbil province and the city's police commander, witnesses said. Party sources said at least some of those killed were senior officials. The blasts...

Iraq Blasts May Have Killed More Than 100 6 minutes ago By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer IRBIL, Iraq - Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the offices of two rival Kurdish parties in this northern Iraqi city. Kurdish officials said casualties were still being counted, but one minister said the death toll could rise above 100. The dead included the governor of the region, ministers in the local administration and several senior officials, Mohammed Ihsan, the human rights minister for the Kurdish regional government told The Associated Press. "These figures are estimates but I believe about 60 people...

ON CHRISTMAS DAY in Erbil--the semi-official capital of the semi-official entity known as Iraqi Kurdistan--over 100 delegates from across northern Iraq gathered in a meeting hall that resembled nothing so much as an inner city high school auditorium, complete with rows of battered faux-leather chairs and dim fluorescent lighting. An improbably huge Kurdish flag was draped across the rear of the stage--three stripes of red, white, and green, with a golden sun at the center. The assembly was a cross-section of Iraqi society: a bespectacled professor of law from Sulaimaniya in a prim three-piece suit; a Yezidi doctor from Sinjar;...

Better late than never. As the foreign minister Abdullah Gul revealed in this space last week, postwar public opinion has changed in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to reassert that secular Muslim nation's historic position as America's stalwart strategic ally. At the moment the coalition most needs a boost, leaders of the powerful Turkish Army are now ready to provide a division of peacekeeping troops. Yesterday, the Turkish Parliament approved — by a whopping 2-to-1 majority — the government's proposal to take an active part in stabilizing Iraq. Unlike Russia and Pakistan (our allies in name only), and...

Kurdish leaders have refused a US request to allow 12,000 Turkish troops through northern Iraq for a possible peacekeeping assignment in the city of Falluja, a Kurdish official said on Wednesday. Adel Murad, head of the political office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said the request came at the weekend from General John Abizaid, head of US central command, in a meeting in the northern city of Mosul with the leaders of PUK and its occasional rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Mr Murad said any introduction of Turkish troops into Iraq would damage Kurdish support for the...

Arbil, 2 July: Leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Mas'ud Barzani has asked Israel to allow its army officers, who arrived in the country during the US-led war on Iraq, to remain. According to a Kurdish source, Israel has accepted Barzani's request and the Israeli officers are presently positioned in an area near the city of Arbil, Barzani's stronghold. The Israeli officers are responsible for the training programme of the Barzani's Peshmerga forces. The source told MENA that the military Israeli activities in Iraq are approved by both the US and Britain. The last few months have witnessed intensified contacts...

Iraqi Kurds Make Move Toward CooperationBy SABAH JERGESASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The two main Iraqi Kurdish groups moved to unite the administration of their two competing strongholds in the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq, confirming Saturday they will present an outline by month's end on a single government. Leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK - the two armed political groups running Kurdish northern Iraq - said they've set up a six-member committee to complete the plan. "It was a sense of responsibility that persuaded us that this was...

BAGHDAD - A council of up to nine Iraqis will probably lead the country’s still unformed interim government through the coming months, the American civil administrator said on Monday.Retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner also said he expects the newly appointed L. Paul Bremer, former head of the State Department’s counter terrorism office, to take charge of the political process within the US postwar administration.“What you may see is as many as seven, eight, nine leaders working together to provide leadership,” Garner said. He added, though, that he didn’t know how the collective leadership would function specifically.The Iraqi leaders Garner referred...

MOSUL, Iraq - Kurdish paramilitary forces have been given an ultimatum: Halt armed patrols around Mosul by Monday, or the U.S. Army will stop them by force. Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 101st Airborne's 2nd Brigade, said his troops are prepared to enforce the edict against fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Militia members will be allowed to keep their weapons at their headquarters or militia compounds but will be banned from bringing them on patrol, Anderson said. Anderson said Kurdish patrols carrying weapons after 10 a.m. Monday will be forcibly disarmed. Militia...