Free Republic

Syrian rebels have brought at least 2,000 reinforcements through Turkey in the past week to bolster the fight against Kurdish-led militias north of Aleppo, rebel sources said on Thursday. ...Turkish forces facilitated the transfer from one front to another over several nights ..."We have been allowed to move everything from light weapons to heavy equipment, mortars and missiles and our tanks," Abu Issa, a commander in the Levant Front, told Reuters ..."We are getting fresh supplies of everything from missiles to mortars to armoured vehicles. Almost everything is now being delivered to us," said the rebel source.

On Saturday, the geopolitical world was shocked when Turkey began shelling Aleppo, where the Syrian opposition has its back against the wall in the face of an aggressive advance by Hezbollah and the IRGC supported, of course, by Russian airstrikes. To be sure, everyone knew Ankara and Riyadh would have to do something quick if they wanted to preserve the rebellion. Their proxies are being rolled up rapidly by Hassan Nasrallah's army and Vladimir Putin's air force juggernaut. But few expected the escalation would come so quickly. But Recep Tayyip Erdogan is unpredictable (just ask the lone surviving pilot of...

Recent public comments by the Turkish government have hinted at a possible invasion into Syrian territory to “stabilize” the situation and secure Turkey’s national security. Significant clashes between Turkish army and security forces with elements of the YPG and PKK, which have exacted a costly toll on the Kurdish civilian population have been raging in southern Turkey and northern Syria in recent months. Russian satellite surveillance and human intelligence employed by both Russian and Syria in the region have confirmed the build-up of troops and material on the border. It is reasonable to believe that Turkey is preparing to salvage...

Parents and carers have also been advised by the safeguarding children board in the London Borough of Camden that "showing a mistrust of mainstream media reports and a belief in conspiracy theories" could be a sign that children are being groomed by extremists.

A common jargon used by military trainers is "Setting up to fail," a phrase denoting a no-win situation in which a trainee is guaranteed to fail an assigned task. Usually this happens because of the lack of training or very poor guidance. Such situations arise because leaders have no clear idea of mission objectives, harbor a hidden agenda, are ignorant or just plain stupid. Programs are deliberately set up to fail in order to pass blame to students or hide the fault of the managers who implemented the program. On May 7, 2015, the Obama Administration announced that the United...

LIMA (Reuters) - Lori Berenson, a New Yorker once jailed in Peru for helping Marxist insurgents, is returning to the United States with her six-year-old son after finishing a 20-year sentence, her lawyer said Tuesday. Berenson, 46, was making preparations to leave Peru "in coming hours," said Anibal Apari, her attorney and the father of her son. He declined to be more specific. Apari and Berenson met in prison in 1997. He was also an inmate at the time. Berenson was on parole for the past 5 years after spending 15 years in prison. In 1996, Berenson was found guilty...

By now everyone is aware of the Turkish side of the story of how a Russian Su-24 was downed by a Turkish F-16 on Tuesday morning, when it allegedly crossed into Turkish airspace for a grand total of 17 seconds, with Turkey supposedly warning the Russian bomber which had been targeting alleged jihadists in the region no less than "ten times." Turkey even produced an alleged recording of said warning, which Russia implied was faked as the surviving pilot made it very clear no actual warning had been received by the Russian warplane. So now that Russia has had three...

The Russian leader also warned it would have serious consequences for his country's relations with Turkey A Russian rescue helicopter has been shot down by Syrian rebels while searching for pilots missing after Turkey downed a Russian jet. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a government-held area in Syria's Latakia province. A Syrian insurgent group, which uses U.S. Tow missiles, said its fighters hit the helicopter with an anti-tank missile. Video footage has emerged online appearing to show the helicopter after it crashed in dense woodland. Plumes of smoke can be seen coming from the aircraft....

The Obama Regime continues to spend our money to fund what he calls the "Good Guys" of the now practically defunct 'Free Syrian Army.' Most of the $$hundreds of millions in arms Obama has already sent them have fallen into the hands of the Islamic State and/or al-Nusra…followed by the 'rebels' who then quickly join one of these terror groups.

If there's anything that should have become abundantly clear over the past several months it's that Washington's "strategy" in the Mid-East is coming apart at the seams. To be sure, there's no reason why intelligence officials in the US should have ever thought the Syria gambit was going to work. Playing on the Sunni-Shiite divide can certainly be effective when it comes to creating chaos but it's a notoriously risky way to go about things and its fraught with uncertainty. The Pentagon should know this all too well. After all, it was the very same jihadists who the US supported...

Wednesday brought a veritable smorgasbord of "new" information about the Russian passenger jet which fell out of the sky above the Sinai Peninsula last weekend. First there was an audio recording from ISIS' Egyptian affiliate reiterating that they did indeed “down” the plane. Next, the ISIS home office in Raqqa (or Langley or Hollywood) released a video of five guys sitting in the front yard congratulating their Egyptian “brothers” on the accomplishment. Then the UK grounded air traffic from Sharm el-Sheikh noting that the plane "may well" have had an "explosive device" on board. Finally, US media lit up with...

BEIRUT (AFP) - A major Syrian rebel group is using dozens of captives in metal cages as "human shields" in the largest opposition stronghold on the outskirts of Damascus, a monitor said Sunday. Jaish al-Islam, regarded as the most powerful rebel group near the capital, has put regime soldiers and Alawite civilians it was holding in metal cages, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. The group then placed these cages in public squares in the Eastern Ghouta region in an attempt to "prevent regime bombardment", Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. Video Link

In order to deter the Syrian and Russian Air Forces inside the East Ghouta (collection of farms) region of rural Damascus, the U.S. backed moderate rebels from “Jaysh Al-Islam” (Army of Islam) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have placed kidnapped Alawite women in cages to protect themselves from airstrikes. The U.S. backed Syrian Opposition’s social media activists posted the photos of the six kidnapped Alawite women on Twitter, adding their extra commentary that included sectarian insults to degrade the helpless women and taunt the Syrian President Dr. Bashar Al-Assad. This is not the first time that the U.S. backed...

Russia says it is ready to help US-backed rebels in Syria in their battle against militant organisations like the Islamic State group. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Russian air force could support the Free Syrian Army provided the US shares information about rebel positions. The FSA has so far been among the rebel groups targeted by Russian strikes which have drawn Western criticism. Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It has been bombing targets in Syria since last month and says it is primarily hitting IS positions. But Western powers say most of the air...

Just to add some levity about all of Us here in America.. Yup, my family took off from Europe and other places and came here... never left! So all of these "political" types are mere baggage we need to drop off and get some new ones... That will listen and not go turn coat on us... Sic Semper Tyrranis!

Russia is ‘deliberately targeting’ U.S.-backed forces in Syria in an air campaign that has killed up to 150 CIA-trained rebels, according to an official. It comes as the two countries are set to hold talks in a bid to avoid clashes in the skies after it emerged that opposing jets have been conducting raids so close together that pilots have been able to see each other. Since Moscow began carrying out air strikes in Syria, there has been mounting evidence that the target is not solely Islamic State militants. A U.S. official, who believes up to 150 U.S. trained rebels...

Russia is deliberately targeting US-backed rebel forces in Syria. 150 CIA-backed Syrian rebels have been killed by Russian airstrikes. FOX News reported: Moscow is “deliberately targeting” U.S.-backed forces in Syria as part of a military campaign that has killed up to 150 U.S.-trained rebels, a U.S. official told Fox News. The claim comes as the U.S. and Russian militaries try to reach an agreement about flight safety in the skies over Syria. Officials from both countries are holding their third videoconference on the issue Wednesday, as U.S.-led coalition and Russian aircraft look to avoid collisions as they launch airstrikes into...

<p>The U.S. military airdropped 50 tons of ammunition to Syrian rebels fighting ISIS on Sunday — the latest maneuver in the United States' attempt to help turn the tide of a chaotic civil war.</p> <p>The airdrop, consisting of AK-47 rounds, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds, targeted rebels in ISIS-held territory in northern Syria, senior defense and military officials told NBC News.</p>

The Obama administration has ended the Pentagon’s $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels, administration officials said on Friday, in an acknowledgment that the beleaguered program had failed to produce any kind of ground combat forces capable of taking on the Islamic State in Syria. [...] [The Defense Secretary] Mr. Carter added, “I think you’ll be hearing from President Obama very shortly” on the program." [...] A senior Defense Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that a much smaller training center would be set up in Turkey instead, where a small group of “enablers”...

LONDON — The Obama administration has ended the Pentagon’s $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels, administration officials said on Friday, in an acknowledgment that the beleaguered program had failed to produce any kind of ground combat forces capable of taking on the Islamic State in Syria. Pentagon officials were expected to officially announce the end of the program on Friday, as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter leaves London after meetings with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, about the continuing wars in Syria and Iraq. “I wasn’t happy with the early efforts” of the program, Mr. Carter said...