Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States carried out a drone strike on Saturday against the leader of Afghan Taliban, likely killing him on the Pakistan side of the remote border region with Afghanistan in a mission authorized by U.S. President Barack Obama, officials said.

Approximately 1.6 percent of the 17 million people in Pakistan are Christians. They are treated like second class citizens and often suffer violent attacks by Muslims, but get little protection from officials, especially when crimes are committed by wealth and influential Muslims. Recently, Haji Rasheed, a wealthy Muslim landowner in Naximabad, Pakistan, hired a Christian man, Samsoon Masih, to paint his house, then refused to pay Masih for the work he had done. Masih stated he would no longer work for Rasheed without pay. In retaliation, the landowner and his son, Bahsrat, broke into Masih’s home and just started shooting...

Daesh Freeze 45 of Their Own To Death For Defection The so-called Islamic State killed 45 of their own in a warning to potential defectors. In an attempt to make the executions even more horrifying as a deterrent, they locked their defectors in a freezer for a day. According Iraqi media agency Al Sumaria News, the 45 defectors attempted to flee the battlefield during recent fights in Iraq. They accused deserters were executed by being locked in morgue freezers in Mosul for 24 hours, left for a slow, presumably agonizing death. Their bodies were reportedly then stretched out along the...

Now will we grasp that the United States is not our friend, but a foreign country whose interests are often different from ours? President Obama's blatant intervention in our internal affairs is not a sudden breach of a soppy 'special relationship'. The USA's only real special relationship is with Saudi Arabia, a 70-year old hard pact of oil, money and power, welded together with such cynicism it out to make up gasp. Barack Obama's open desire for us to stay inside the EU is by no means the first or worst example of White House meddling here in these islands....

But Donald Trump says he wants to block Muslim refugees from entering the United States, and Ali, who is Muslim, worries about the possibility if Trump is elected president. “If he wins the presidency, how are my wife and kids going to come to this country?” said Ali, who works as a machine operator at a local chocolate maker. “There’s definitely a real fear of, what is our future in this country?” said Mohammed Shariff, 20, of Clarence Center. “The stakes are high and the stakes are real.”

<p>SAN DIEGO — A handwritten note asking a nurse for help has led to labor trafficking charges against an Iraqi couple who are accused of forcing an Indonesian housekeeper to work without pay in their El Cajon apartment.</p> <p>Her rescue a few days later is the first time in more than five years the woman, referred to in court documents only as W.M., has been free of indentured servitude, authorities said Friday.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) — On the latest list of books most objected to at public schools and libraries, one title has been targeted nationwide, at times for the sex and violence it contains, but mostly for the legal issues it raises. The Bible. “You have people who feel that if a school library buys a copy of the Bible, it’s a violation of church and state,” says James LaRue, who directs the Office for Intellectual Freedom for the American Library Association, which released its annual 10 top snapshot of “challenged” books on Monday, part of the association’s “State of Libraries...

Phillips commissioned “the Runnymede report” into Britain and Islamophobia in 1997 which, according to both Phillips himself and academics across the country, popularised the phrase which has now become synonymous with any criticism – legitimate or not – of Islam or Muslims. “For a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.” Phillips comments: “Some of my journalist friends imagine that, with time, the Muslims will grow out...

Following 9/11, there was renewed interest in the Crusades as explanations were sought for the brutal attacks. As terrorist attacks have continued throughout the years, and now with the rise of the Islamic State, this interest in the Crusades has not abated. Unfortunately, increased interest has not necessarily translated into increased knowledge. Prof. Thomas F. Madden has lamented: “An interested person who simply strolls into a bookstore looking for a history of the crusades is much more likely to walk out with a book written by a novelist, journalist, or ex-nun than one written by a professional historian and based...

Friends and neighbors of a man who has been charged with killing his son because he was gay said Saturday that the young man had a troubled history and was involved in several incidents that resulted in the police being called to the house. On Friday, Shehada Khalil Issa, 69, of North Hills was charged with fatally shooting his son, Amir Issa, 29, outside the family’s home earlier this week because he was gay, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. “The murder was committed because of the victim’s sexual orientation and because of the defendant’s perception of that...

Muslim citizens are as American as apple pie, a new poll says. The survey, from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, shows that though Muslims living in America are facing more violence than ever, they are actually among America's most model citizens. What exactly does that mean? Well, in a land founded on religious freedom, Muslims are among the most religious and patriotic citizens: 42% of Muslims attend services regularly compared to 45% of Protestants. And 87% of Muslims say religion is important to their lives, compared to 94% of Protestants.

Police at Brussels airport have claimed at least 50 Islamic State supporters are working there as baggage handlers, cleaners and catering staff. In an astonishing open letter, the officers said they have warned about the terrorist sympathisers whose security badges give them access to planes, but they remain employed. The airport police, who are threatening to go on strike because of security deficiencies, also said they have raised the issue of terrorists scouting the airport to plan possible attacks. The extraordinary claims come after the Mail reported how the family of two of the bombers involved in the attacks last...

SAUDI law makers could impose the death penalty on gay people who show their sexuality in public and on social media, according to reports. The government in the Sunni Kingdom is reportedly demanding tougher punishments on those found guilty and claimed social media has caused a boom in homosexuality. According to Okaz newspaper, the last six months has seen 35 cases of homosexuality and 50 cases of cross-dressers as well as cases of "sexual perversion” in Saudi Arabia. The judiciary reportedly also claimed there has been a large rise in "perverts" displaying "sins and obscenities" on social media in the...

Earlier this morning or very late last night (in my world) I received a strange and disturbing report that a group of Muslim men opened fire on hikers and campers in a large state Park in California. Unable to confirm the source, I waited to post. More info is coming in ….. Of course there has been no reporting from the enemedia on this. A heavily armed group of men with Middle Eastern appearance was arrested two hours ago outside Los Angeles after opening fire upon hikers and campers in a large State Park in the area. No word yet...

A British father has been banned from taking his son to a church after the boy's Muslim mother won a controversial court order preventing the boy from attending. The father – a non-practising Muslim who has forged close connections to his local Christian community and is divorced from the boy's mother – has been warned that he could be denied access to the nine-year-old if he attempts to take him to church or to a leisure centre it runs. Now the father, who was born in the UK to Pakistani parents, is challenging the ruling made by District Judge Williscroft...

In the spirit of the season, Asad Shah, a Glasgow newsagent and a "devout Muslim"*[see update at the foot of the page], decided to send out an Easter greeting on his Facebook page: GOOD FRIDAY AND VERY HAPPY EASTER, ESPECIALLY TO MY BELOVED CHRISTIAN NATION X! BISMILLAH... Let's Follow The Real Footstep Of Beloved Holy Jesus Christ (PBUH) And Get The Real Success In Both Worlds xxxx Less than four hours after this ecumenical greeting, Mr Shah was savagely murdered outside his shop by his co-religionists: The victim was found seriously injured on Minard Road, Glasgow, and was taken to...

BRUSSELS — As a dragnet aimed at Islamic State operatives spiraled across Brussels and into at least five European countries on Friday, the authorities were also focusing on a narrower but increasingly alarming threat: the vulnerability of Belgium’s nuclear installations. The investigation into this week’s deadly attacks in Brussels has prompted worries that the Islamic State is seeking to attack, infiltrate or sabotage nuclear installations or obtain nuclear or radioactive material. This is especially worrying in a country with a history of security lapses at its nuclear facilities, a weak intelligence apparatus and a deeply rooted terrorist network. On Friday,...

On Tuesday Diana West reported on the case of Ivar Mol, a Dutch-speaking Belgian man (or, more accurately, a Fleming). Not long after the massacres at the airport and the Metro in Brussels, Mr. Mol posted a tweet about Muslim children who celebrated the atrocities in school. For his temerity in discussing such provocative issues on Twitter, Mr. Mol was visited later the same day by three police officers. That evening Ivar Mol was interviewed (audio only) by Omroep Brabant, the regional broadcaster for North Brabant. Many thanks to H. Numan for the translation: With this tweet it all began:...

Text Description of the Video: "I find it very ironic when you look at these anti-Trump protests and see Muslims protesting along with the others saying how "Trump hates women etc." Especially when women lack rights/freedoms compared to men across countries in the Middle East. Some of these things include only being allowed to wear certain clothes, not being allowed to go out in public unless with a man, or not being allowed to drive vehicles."Video Link

The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) has elected the first Muslim student to serve as its president at the school which brands itself as America’s “oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning. Enushe Khan joined the board of the university Muslim Student Association (MSA) soon after arriving at Georgetown, and served as chair of Interfaith and Service for five semesters, reports The Hoya – the school’s oldest and largest student newspaper.