Free Republic

Evidence has emerged of another Islamic State militant group (ISIS) mass execution, this time in the Syrian Christian desert town of Al-Qaryatain. The militant group killed at least 116 civilians in executions committed in the days before the Syrian regime recaptured the town, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a U.K.-based monitoring group with an extensive network of contacts in Syria. “ISIS has over a period of 20 days executed at least 116 civilians in reprisal killings, accusing them of collaboration with regime forces,” SOHR chief Rami Abdelrahman told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

The US government’s aggressive foreign policy and hostile attitude toward other nations has created an alarming number of lost allies and gained enemies in a very short amount of time. United States relations with Russia, China, Iran, and especially North Korea, are sinking to lows that could easily foster a war. If the US elites have any chance of stopping China and the rest of the east from gaining world supremacy, they need as many allies as they can get. Unfortunately for the US hegemony, another strategic ally may be ending their alliance with the US. Ever since the US...

AIN ISSA, SYRIA (Reuters) - A group of Islamic State fighters evacuated the Syrian city of Raqqa overnight, taking civilians with them as human shields, a militia spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, continued to battle Islamic State jihadists who remain in the city, SDF spokesman Mostafa Bali said.

If you were asked to rate the readiness levels of the U.S. military, what would you say? For this exercise, assume you have a scale with five choices: very weak, weak, marginal, strong and very strong. Think about each branch of the military. Where would it fall? Perhaps you're thinking, "I'm not an expert, so I can't say for sure." So let me refer you to the latest report from The Heritage Foundation's Center for National Defense. The authors are, in fact, experts -- and their conclusions are sobering. I'm referring to the 2018 Index of U.S. Military Strength. The...

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Islamic State is on the ropes in Iraq and Syria, and its defeat is just a matter of time. What is less clear is whose strategy produced the victory. This week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the group's "fraudulent caliphate in Iraq and Syria is on the brink of being completely extinguished," and credited "an aggressive new strategy led by the president." On Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi officials announced that troops had seized control of Hawija in Iraq, the last major town held by the terror group in that country. The...

As a candidate and since taking office, President Trump vowed to protect and defend Christians in the Middle East. In between talk of a Muslim ban and building a wall along the Mexico border, Trump assured besieged Christian minorities that his commitment was ironclad. Now, many Iraqi Christians living in the United States feel the president lied to them. “We voted for Trump. All the Christian people, the Chaldean people, voted for him, that was the first thing he said, that he was going to help them,” said Sumar Khalasawi, a Chaldean Christian living in Macomb County, Mich. “But he...

More than 92% of voters in Iraqi Kurdistan have opted for independence, according to election monitors, in an overwhelming endorsement of a proposed split from Baghdad that has sparked increasing threats of air and land blockades that could be imposed as early as Friday. The result came after Iraq’s parliament authorised the prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to send troops into areas disputed between Arabs and Kurds that were contentiously included in the ballot. Euphoria on the streets of Erbil in recent days has been met with sharply increasing tension in the region, which is likely to escalate in the wake...

Black Lives Matter students and staff at UVA have denounced the statue of the university founder, Thomas Jefferson, and rather unsurprisingly released a list of demands. As with all of these demands, there is a fair amount of idiocy thrown in with some of the more reasonable ones. But it seems that the entire frenzy of BLM activists, Antifa, and other associated nut jobs are missing a really key lesson – Slavery. Consider this: There are people living as slaves, right now, today, in many parts of the world. If you were really so incensed by the fact that slavery...

The Kurdish Regional Government is only weeks away from holding a referendum on whether to declare sovereignty for the Kurdish people in northern Iraq. Here’s why supporting the potential referendum on Sept. 25 should be a no-brainer for the Trump administration — and everyone else who supports the advancement of American interests abroad. 1. They are our partners in the war against global jihad snip... What’s stopping them? The referendum for independence is scheduled for Sept. 25, but it’s still unclear whether the Kurdistan Regional Government will indeed go forward with the vote, after years of setbacks and delays. Pentagon...

There were two parts to the live Facebook presentation that Amir gave on August 26: Current Events, and then a Q and A session. This is the current events part. I'll give the link to the Q and A below. It deals with interpretations of certain specific verses in the Bible and is interesting and may clear up some confusions but probably is of less concern to Free Republic readers and watchers than the current events part. Things are moving along rapidly, with Kushner going to the Middle East, Iran moving into Syria in a more serious way, and Netanyahu...

He said Syria will look east when it comes to political, economic and cultural relations. "The direct support of our friends, politically, economically and militarily, made our advance on the ground greater and the losses of war less. Therefore, they are our partners in these achievements on the road to crush terrorism," Assad said. "Let's be clear. There will be no security cooperation nor opening of embassies or even a role for some countries that say that they want to play a role in ending the crisis in Syria before they clearly and frankly cut their relations with terrorism," Assad...

Yousef Otaiba ridicules Gulf ally in email exchange, betraying years of frustration at Riyadh old guard that coalesced into efforts to change it The UAE's ambassador to Washington described Saudi Arabia's leadership as "f***in' coo coo!", in one of a series of leaked emails that suggest years of Emirati frustration with Riyadh's old regime that has coalesced into a clear strategy to usurp it by bolstering the rise of the young Mohammed bin Salman. The messages, obtained by Middle East Eye through the GlobalLeaks hacking group, show Otaiba mocking Saudi Arabia to his Egyptian wife, Abeer Shoukry, over the Saudi...

Appearing as a guest on Monday's New Day, liberal CNN political commentator Symone Sanders not only repeatedly smeared White House advisors Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka as "white supremacist sympathizers," but she even deceptively claimed that Gorka had characterized "brown people" as a problem. At 7:53 a.m. ET, as she debated former Virginia Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli over the issue of why President Donald Trump had not more explicitly condemned white supremacy ideology, Sanders took aim at Bannon for associating himself and Breitbart News in the past with the "Alt-right" movement: CNN's Sanders Falsely Claims Gorka Called 'Brown People'...

Amir discusses the situation in the Middle East, North Korea, and some interesting finds in Israel. He explains why he is not caught up in the current hysteria about eclipses and Virgo signs and the rest. He believes in signs, but balances that against the Gospel, which is full of messages that are more important, and are the true things that Jesus wanted us to know. Signs are for the unbeliever, so that maybe they will believe. We who believe should be more focused on the Gospel. A very important message that he has given before and emphasizes now that...

During the eight years of the Obama administration, half a million Christians, Yazidis and Muslims were slaughtered in the Middle East by ISIS and other Islamic jihadists, in a genocidal campaign waged in the name of Islam and its God. Twenty million others were driven into exile by these same jihadist forces. Libya and Yemen became terrorist states. America - once the dominant foreign power and anti-jihadist presence in the region – was replaced by Russia, an ally of the monster regimes in Syria and Iran, and their terrorist proxies. Under the patronage of the Obama administration, Iran - the...

Pastor J.D. shares about the Lord ministering in a powerful and profound way concerning a heaviness of heart on his part.

Pastor J.D. talks about two specific prophecies in the Bible that point to the events surrounding the Temple Mount, and how it may spark the setting off of the perfect prophetic firestorm in the days and weeks ahead.

Pastor J.D. addresses the prophetic significance of the terror attack on the Temple Mount by looking at three aspects of it, chief of which is what an attack of this nature may in fact lead to.

President Donald Trump continued his non-interventionist rhetoric from the campaign trail in an interview that aired Thursday on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “We have to rebuild our country. Our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our schools,” Trump told Pat Robertson. “We will have in another few months, have spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. Seven Trillion.” This number President Trump is using falls in line with the high end of expenditure studies. A Brown University study said: “By 2053, interest costs will be at least $7.9 trillion unless the U.S. changes the way it pays for the wars.” Trump...

Pastor J.D. talks about the unrighteous deception and strong delusion already at work today specifically focusing on three of the many lies concerning Israel, Trump’s travel ban, and Islam.