Free Republic

When Islamic State fighters tried to storm the Tigris River town of Dhuluiya north of Baghdad this week, they were repelled by a rare coalition of Sunni tribal fighters inside the town and Shias in its sister city Balad on the opposite bank. The assault, which began late on Tuesday and ran into Thursday, was one of several major battles in recent days in which Sunni tribes joined pro-government forces against the militants, in what Baghdad and Washington hope is a sign of increasing cooperation across sectarian lines to save the country. Further north, another powerful Sunni tribe fought alongside...

Thousands of children in swaths of war-torn Syria, now controlled by dreaded Islamic State militants, can no longer study math or social studies under new diktats issued by the jihadists. While sports is banned, the children will not be allowed to learn about elections and democracy. Instead, the children will be subjected to the teachings of the radical Islamist group. And any teacher who dares to break the rules "will be punished." ... The Sunni militant group has captured a slew of Syrian and Iraqi cities in recent months as it tries to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, spanning...

Shiite Militia groups taking up arms against IS Militants News / World Iraqi Prime Minister Disbands Seven Shiite Militia Groups 14.09.2014 Nuwar Faqie BasNews, Baghdad   Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Abadi has reversed key decisions of former PM of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki by halting the activities of several Shiite militia groups.   Abadi has pledged to stop the activities of seven Shiite militia groups in Baghdad while at the same time indicated that he cannot impose his authority on two Shiite militia groups, which report to Maliki.   He revealed that some internal decisions that were made by the...

It used to be ISIS beheading Shiites and now the Shiite “Peace Brigades” of Imam Ali cut off the heads of a few ISIS captured terrorists in Amerli, Iraq in response to the killing of their members during their battles with the terrorist organization. ... “This message is for ISIS. We will chop off your heads. We will crush your skulls. This is operation revenge for the killing of the leader Walid of the Peace Brigade”

Yazidis fleeing a jihadist onslaught in northern Iraq say neighbours took up arms alongside their attackers, informing on members of the religious minority and helping the militants take over. "The (non-Iraqi) jihadists were Afghans, Bosnians, Arabs and even Americans and British fighters," said Sabah Hajji Hassan, a 68-year-old Yazidi who managed to flee the bloody offensive by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group. "But the worst killings came from the people living among us, our (Sunni) Muslim neighbours." "The Metwet, Khawata and Kejala tribes -- they were all our neighbours. But they joined the IS, took heavy weapons from them,...

The latest victims of the Islamic State campaign of terror in Syria and Iraq have been revealed in a shocking new set of photos published online by the jihadist group's media arm. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Sunni tribesmen were from Shaitat, near Deir ez Zor, which has long been considered a key strategic target for the Islamic State owing to the eastern province’s considerable oil revenue. Rounded up and marched into the desert, they are made to kneel on the dusty grouind before being systematically shot in the head. Others aren't so lucky. One image shows...

With the Islamic warriors of ISIS having captured all the border posts between Iraq, Syria and Jordan, we may be witnessing the end of Sykes-Picot. That was the secret 1916 treaty by which the British and French carved up the Ottoman Empire, with the Brits taking Transjordan and Iraq, and the French Syria and Lebanon. Sykes-Picot stuck in the craw of Osama bin Laden. Now his most fanatical followers have given him a posthumous triumph. President Obama said over the weekend that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which seeks to create a caliphate out of the Sunni...

Baghdad: Supporters of a powerful jihadist group are waging an online propaganda war in concert with its battles on the ground in Iraq, where Sunni militants have overrun swathes of the country. For militant groups, the fight over public perception can be even more important than actual combat, turning military losses into propaganda victories and battlefield successes into powerful tools to build support for the cause. The offensive, led by jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but involving other Sunni groups as well, swept down from northern Iraq, overrunning major areas of five provinces and...

IRBIL, Iraq — A Sunni militia commander says he is ready to attack Iraq's capital and risk a sectarian war unless Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki resigns. “There are military plans to enter Baghdad and save all the people from the dictator … (that) will be implemented in the near future,” he said. Ahmed al-Dabbash is a founder and spokesman of the Islamic Army in Iraq, a Sunni militant group that fought U.S. forces after the 2003 invasion. His and other Sunni forces joined the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, to capture much of the north, including...

Tensions mount in Iraq as Mahdi Army put on show of force in Baghdad featuring missiles, bazookas and assault rifles while Isis seize key Syria border crossing. Baghdad's biggest Shia Muslim faction staged a show of force in face of the Isis threat to the Iraqi capital on Saturday, in a parade that stretched for several miles, featuring missiles, bazookas, hi-tech assault rifles and artillery. As tens of thousands of uniformed men marched through the streets, loudspeakers proclaimed how they would defend Iraq from the Sunni jihadists rampaging through the north of the country. This pageant of armed might, however,...

Militants from Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, are being lured by ISIS's hard-line Sunni extremism.Men in balaclavas are cradling Kalashnikovs as they look into a camera, somewhere in Syria. They are university students, businessmen, former soldiers and even teenagers. One by one, they urge their fellow countrymen to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the jihadist group so extreme that it has been denounced by al-Qaeda. But these aren’t Syrians, or Uzbeks, or Chechens. They are Indonesian. “Let us fight in the path of Allah because it is our duty to do jihad in the...

Iraq's Shi'ite rulers defied Western calls on Tuesday to reach out to Sunnis to defuse the uprising in the north of the country, declaring a boycott of Iraq's main Sunni political bloc and accusing Sunni power Saudi Arabia of promoting "genocide". Maliki has blamed Saudi Arabia for supporting militants in the past, but the severe language was unprecedented. On Monday Riyadh blamed sectarianism in Baghdad for fuelling the violence.

Baghdad looks like it's about to go down to Islamic Militants. Some say Baghdad is Babylon? What happens when it falls?

Sunni militants on Tuesday seized control of military bases and the provincial governor’s building in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, as police officers and army soldiers abandoned the town and left weapons, vehicles and even their uniforms to the gunmen. By midday, the militants, believed to belong to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an extremist group, were in control of much of central and southern Mosul, according to witnesses and local officials. Soldiers who fled the city said the militants had seized a jail, freeing the inmates. “They took control of everything, and they are everywhere,” said one soldier...

The ‘smoking gun’ email that reveals who instructed Susan Rice to blame the Benghazi attack on a video also exposes a recipient named Mehdi K. Alhassani. Alhassani was the leader of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), a Muslim Brotherhood front group and attended the sister mosque of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (ISBCC) mosque attended by the Boston Marathon bombers. It is a mystery how Alhassani slipped through the cracks to become a Special Assistant to the Office of the Chief of Staff, National Security Council Staff, and Executive Office of the President. It is unknown why a...

ABU DHABI — Qatar, under pressure from the Arab League, is said to have expelled the Muslim Brotherhood. Diplomatic sources said Doha deported dozens of exiled Brotherhood leaders who escaped Egypt in 2013. The sources said the Brotherhood operatives flew to Egypt’s neighbor Libya and joined Islamist militias. “The Brotherhood people were given three days to pack their bags and get on the plane to Tripoli,” a source said. The sources did not identify those deported. But they said several of them were on a list of 15 Brotherhood and Hizbullah operatives submitted by Saudi Arabia last month. In March...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Conflict in Syria kills hundreds of thousands of people and spreads unrest across the Middle East. Iranian forces battle anti-Shi'ite fighters in Damascus, and the region braces for an ultimate showdown. If the scenario sounds familiar to an anxious world watching Syria's devastating civil war, it resonates even more with Sunni and Shi'ite fighters on the frontlines - who believe it was all foretold in 7th Century prophecies. From the first outbreak of the crisis in the southern city of Deraa to apocalyptic forecasts of a Middle East soaked in blood, many combatants on both sides of...

BEIRUT - Al Qaeda fighters killed the leader of a rival Islamic brigade in a twin car bombing near Syria's northern city of Aleppo, an attack likely to further exacerbate rebel infighting in the country's brutal civil war even as government forces continued their intense shelling of opposition-held areas of the city on Sunday. The attack targeted the base of rivals, the Tawheed Brigades, and killed commander Adnan Bakkour, said Rami Abdurrahman of the Observatory. The al Qaeda linked Islamic State also killed another prominent commander of another rebel brigade, said analyst Charles Lister of the Brookings Doha Center. Lister...

WASHINGTON — A great deal of diplomatic attention over the next few months will be focused on whether the temporary nuclear deal with Iran can be transformed into a full-blown accord. President Obama has staked the success of his foreign policy on this bold gamble. But discussion about the nuclear deal has diverted attention from an even riskier bet that Obama has placed: the idea that Iran can become a cooperative partner in regional security. Although they won’t say so publicly, Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry surely dream of a “Nixon to China” masterstroke. They are quietly...

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals. It was kept secret and remains so today. President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by...