Free Republic

A pan-Arab military coalition has begun waging war in Yemen, ostensibly on behalf of deposed Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Is this Arab League-approved "joint army" a credible combat force? That depends on who emerges as the joint army's central actor and commander. So far, Saudi Arabia has served as the coalition's most prominent public advocate and actor. The Saudis contend Iran backs the Houthi insurgents who overthrew Hadi. Strong evidence supports their contention. Yemen's war involves sectarian sympathies. Ayatollah-led Iran, the world's great Shia Muslim power, supports the Shia Houthi movement. Saudi Arabia's Wahabi-sect leaders have concluded that...

The US-led world powers and Iran Monday, March 30, entered the last tense hours for a nuclear deal as though Lausanne was on a different planet from the Middle East, where the Yemen war, in which Iran is deeply involved, abruptly scooped up a power outside the region, Pakistan. A high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad on Monday reaffirmed Pakistan’s “firm commitment to supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia.” Among those attending were Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif, Advisor on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz and Defense Minister...

On the brink of a new Middle Eastern catastrophe: Saudi Arabia sends war planes into Yemen in a terrifying clash with Iran leaving region at boiling point Religious fissure between Sunni and Shia Muslims erupted into conflict Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels 18 civilians were injured after Saudi warplanes targeted Sana’a in Yemen Britain and America supported the Saudi-led military intervention Coalition deployed 100 fighter jets and 150,000 soldiers to fight in region Truly, it is a terrifying development. The great religious fissure between Sunni and Shia Muslims that dominates the Middle East has erupted into...

Saudi Arabia accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of hypocrisy on Sunday, telling an Arab summit that he should not express support for the Middle East while fuelling instability by supporting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. In a rare move, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that a letter from Putin would be read out to the gathering in Egypt, where Arab leaders discussed an array of regional crises, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya. "We support the Arabs' aspirations for a prosperous future and for the resolution of all the problems the Arab world faces through peaceful means, without any...

The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency on Sunday described President Obama's Middle East policy as one of "willful ignorance," saying the administration needs a clearer strategy for dealing with conflicts emerging across the region. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said during an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that recent developments in the Middle East are moving in a bad direction for the United States, with Iran "clearly on the march" to influence events in a "regional sectarian war." “At the end of the day, we have just this incredible policy confusion — never mind what our strategy is to...

Foreign ministers from 22 Arab countries agreed to form a unified military force on Thursday, approving a draft resolution designed to counter growing security threats in the region. "The Arab ... ministers agreed on adopting an important principle, which is forming the unified Arab military force. The task of the force will be rapid military intervention to deal with security threats to Arab nations," Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby told reporters after the meeting, Reuters reported. The agreement, which Elaraby described as “historic,” came shortly after airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia and its Arab...

Yemen's beleaguered government said Saudi-led airstrikes against its Houthi militia opponents would not last long on the second day of a Gulf Arab-led campaign against the Iranian-allied militia that could escalate a proxy conflict spreading through the region. Warplanes targeted Houthi forces controlling Yemen's capital and their northern heartland on Friday and, in a boost for Riyadh, fellow monarchy Morocco said it would join the rapidly-assembled Sunni Muslim coalition against the Shi'ite Muslim group. Tribes in Yemen's oil producing Marib region said they supported the air campaign, but Houthi forces advanced south despite the airstrikes and Pakistan, named by Saudi...

In the latest undercover sting operation from investigative filmmaker James O’Keefe, an assistant dean at Cornell University has advised a journalist posing as a Moroccan student all about how to launch a campus club with the express intent of supporting ISIS. The Ivy League administrator, Joseph Scaffido, also provides counsel on how to fund the pro-Islamist militant club so it can send “care packages, whether it be food, water, electronics” to ISIS and Hamas — both terrorist organizations, according to the State Department. Scaffido even lays out how the club can bring an ISIS “freedom fighter to come and do...

This guy is either the dumbest Ivy League bigwig ever or politically correct to a fault — for welcoming offers to bring ISIS and Hamas to Cornell University. A video sting operation shows Cornell’s assistant dean for students, Joseph Scaffido, agreeing to everything suggested by an undercover muckraker posing as a Moroccan student. Scaffido casually endorses inviting an ISIS “freedom fighter’’ to conduct a “training camp” for students at the upstate Ithaca campus — bizarrely likening the activity to a sports camp. Is it OK to bring a humanitarian pro-“Islamic State Iraq and Syria” group on campus, the undercover for...

Migration, the mass movement of communities for natural, economic, political, religious reasons or because of oppression, dates back almost as far as the history of mankind. It is certainly a difficult thing to leave the land where one was born and is familiar with and to move somewhere entirely different. Forced relocation is the most ruthless and painful form of migration. World history is full of stories of forced migration in which millions of people were obliged to leave their homes and live in places they had never been before. The violence and troubles suffered by these people forced from...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 19 — As Iraq confronts the possibility of a new war with the United States, its leaders appear to have concluded that they have one decisive advantage that they lacked during the countdown to the Persian Gulf war 12 years ago: this time, they seem convinced, the world is on their side and against the United States. "The world has abandoned America; it has become isolated," Saddam Hussein's No. 2 man, Izzat Ibrahim, boasted as he announced the result of this week's election: Iraqis, by official reckoning, had re-elected Saddam Hussein to his position of absolute power...

Monday, February 16, 2015 A Revisionist Muslim History of America Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blogTurkish President Erdogan’s claim that Columbus encountered a mosque in Cuba (the explorer actually saw a rock whose shape he compared to the dome of a mosque) and a Saudi Imam claiming that Columbus had sailed to America to attack Muslims are typical of an emerging genre of Muslim revisionist history that lays claim to America based on an imaginary earlier Muslim presence here. While these examples may be laughable, Muslim historical revisionism has taken root in academia. It can be found...

Greek police have arrested several people over alleged links to a suspected terror plot in Belgium. One of the men is alleged to have been in contact with the cell in Verviers, Belgium, where a shootout with police left two suspects dead on Thursday. Europe is on high alert after Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in Paris. More than 20 people have been arrested in Belgium, France and Germany. SNIP Earlier on Saturday, Belgian media said authorities were seeking Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Brussels resident of Moroccan origin suspected of being the ringleader of the jihadi cell, and in hiding...

In a major positive development, Egypt's President Al Sisi has made an impassioned plea for a "religious revolution" in Islam. Speaking at Al Azhar University in Cairo, Sisi spoke directly to the religious establishment of Egypt: Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants – that is 7 billion – so that they themselves may live? Impossible! I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema – Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I'm talking about...

Speaking before Al-Azhar and the Awqaf Ministry on New Year's Day, 2015, in connection to Prophet Muhammad's upcoming birthday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a vocal supporter for a renewed vision of Islam, made what must be his most forceful and impassioned plea to date on the subject. Among other things, Sisi said that the "corpus of [Islamic] texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years" are "antagonizing the entire world"; that it is not "possible that 1.6 billion people [reference to the world's Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so...

Egypt Bans 'Zionist' Film Exodus And Cites 'Historical Inaccuracies' A day after Morocco bans film, Egypt says it’s rife with mistakes, including an apparent claim that ‘Moses and the Jews built the pyramids’ Exodus: Gods and Kings review – holy Moses, wholly acceptable for the devout 26 December 2014 Egypt has banned the Hollywood biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, citing historical inaccuracies, the culture minister said on Friday. The decision comes a day after a similar move by Morocco. The film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Christian Bale, relates how Moses helped Israelite slaves flee persecution in Egypt...

A Moroccan teen forced into marrying her alleged rapist last year has been attacked with a razor blade and beaten by him for seeking a divorce, media reported Tuesday. The 17-year-old only identified as Khaoula was attacked in Marrakech on Saturday after filing for divorce, the Tel Quel weekly said, citing the AMDH independent rights group. She suffered multiple cuts which "disfigured" parts of her body and required about 40 stitches, the French-language weekly reported. Al Aoula television quoted a doctor at Marrakech's Ibn Tofail hospital, where she was treated, as saying that the teenager had been "struck in the...

The Duke of Wellington said of his close-run victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo that the French "came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way." Something like that happened to the Democrats in Tuesday's midterm elections, as they lost the Senate, a few more seats in the House and additional governorships. They came on with the same old strategy, but this time they went down with it. Obama and the Democrats chose not to defend the administration's record of the last six years. On foreign policy, no Democratic chorus...

CAIRO — The Arab League warned Sunday that Israel has reached a “red line” after fresh clashes in Jerusalem, urging international pressure to stop what it branded “violations” in the holy city. Clashes around the flashpoint Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque compound — the third holiest site in Islam and Judaism’s holiest — prompted Israel on Thursday to close the site for a day. The Temple Mount and adjacent neighborhoods have seen months of violence, with the mosque compound a rallying point for Palestinian resistance to perceived Jewish attempts to take control of it...

It hasn't made much noise worldwide, but Iran's rapidly deteriorating relationships with several African countries is huge news across the continent. On February 16, the Nigerian Federal High Court in Lagos began the prosecution of an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Azim Aghajani, and a Nigerian associate, Usman Abbas Jega. They are accused of arms smuggling. This video link is in Arabic, but is very self-explanatory. It is of the opening day of the court proceedings.The story is a classic, just one of many on the Dark Continent nowadays: In late October 2010, Nigerian intelligence officials...