Free Republic

WATCH How This Gutsy ‘First’ Of A Kind Fighter Pilot Is Blowing Up Both ISIS Targets And Stereotypes Even as women in parts of the Arab world fight the prohibition against their driving a car on public roads... Even as women in parts of the Arab world fight the prohibition against their driving a car on public roads, one extraordinary Arab woman is driving an F-16 in the fight against Islamic State terrorism. Fox News confirms that 35-year-old Major Mariam Al Mansouri — the first female air force pilot from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — has taken part in...

She’s raining bombs on terrorist thugs. The first female pilot in the United Arab Emirates' air force is reportedly taking part in the coalition air strikes against ISIS militants hiding in Syria.

Watch this — what would draw these women to this hellhole entirely cloaked in body bags? Religious fervor. These French women stand with the beheaders of the French tourist in Algeria. Why? Because nationality is irrelevant.

The number of Europeans joining Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq has surged to about 3,000 from 2,000 only months ago, the EU counter-terrorism chief said Tuesday. (snip) The European fighters, he said, come mainly from France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark but a few come from Spain, Italy, Ireland and now Austria.

U.S. and coalition warplanes pounded ISIS positions in eastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting what a Pentagon official described as mobile oil refineries being used by the so-called Islamic State terror group.

Activists and rebel groups have concerns about civilian casualties – particularly because ISIS has entrenched itself in residential areas. Yesterday's U.S.-led airstrikes on Syria, targeting an al-Qaida command center in Idlib, resulted in the death of at least 11 civilians, according to the Center for Documentation of Violation in Syria (VDC).On Monday the U.S., along with five Arab allies, began an airstrike campaign against ISIS and al-Nusra targets across northern and eastern Syria, including the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, and parts of Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and Hasakeh provinces.As U.S. officials released photographic evidence of "significant damage" to ISIS training camps...

And that’s not a good sign, in case readers wonder. The initial air strikes in Syria ordered by Barack Obama included a number of targets near Aleppo that focused on the Khorasan group, chartered by so-called core al-Qaeda to refocus attacks on Western aviation in particular. US intelligence sources tell Eli Lake at the Daily Beast that the bombmakers of Khorasan had worked to develop non-metallic bombs, including clothing seeped in explosive compounds, that could pass through airport detection systems. In the weeks [see update] before the airstrikes, however, the terrorist group “went dark,” just as intelligence officials thought...

A French tourist captured in North Africa by a group aligned with the Islamic State is seen beheaded in a video circulated on Wednesday, according to SITE Intelligence, which tracks jihadist groups. The Frenchman — Hervé Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from Nice — was abducted in Algeria on Sunday by the terrorist group, known as Jund al-Khilafah. Mr. Gourdel had arrived only a day before on a trip to go hiking in Algeria’s northern mountains.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States believes that a U.S. strike in Syria has killed Mohsin al-Fadhli, the leader of a group of al Qaeda militants known as Khorasan, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Shortly before the United States and its Arab allies launched air strikes on Islamic State (IS) positions across Syria on Tuesday, cruise missiles launched from US warships in the Gulf and Red Sea struck two areas west of the city of Aleppo. The targets were not leaders of IS, the jihadist group that has declared the creation of a caliphate in the large swathes of Syria and Iraq under its control, but seasoned al-Qaeda operatives who the US says had established a safe haven to plot attacks on the West. The missiles targeted training camps, a bomb factory, a communication...

Why do they only go as far as girls who are nine years old? Why not eight? Because Muhammad’s child bride Aisha was nine when he consummated his “marriage” with her.

The U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria hit suspected extremist sites near the country's border with Iraq Wednesday, local residents and a monitoring group said. At least 13 air raids were carried out by non-Syrian aircraft against sites on the outskirts of the town of Albukamal, near the Syrian-Iraqi frontier, the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Purported Islamic State positions also were hit overnight near Menbej, in the northeastern province of Aleppo, the Observatory said. The airstrikes near Albukamal began at 10 a.m. local time and the buzz of reconnaissance aircraft flying overhead could...

WASHINGTON — The vast majority of airstrikes launched against Sunni militant targets in Syria have been carried out by American war planes and ship-based Tomahawk cruise missiles, military officials said Tuesday, in what they described as the successful beginning of a long campaign to degrade and destroy the Islamic State. In disclosing the identities of the five Sunni Arab nations that joined or supported the attacks in Syria — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar — the Obama administration sought to paint a picture of an international coalition resolute in its determination to take on the...

The US launched another round of airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, but the diplomatic action may shift to the UN, where Barack Obama is looking to add to his coalition of the willing. The Pentagon announced the new strikes by proclaiming that the US and its current partners are on offense — and like ISIS, aren’t paying much attention to the border between Iraq and Syria: “It’s an offensive campaign now,” Rear Admiral John Kirby said Wednesday morning on CNN. “We’re not going to be constrained by that border between Iraq and Syria.”Two strikes targeted an ISIS staging area...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)A documentary filmmaker who spent time with the Free Syrian Army said that moderate rebels are “laughing” at President Obama’s plan to arm them against the Islamic State, claiming they simply “don’t take this seriously.” Matthew VanDyke, an American filmmaker and a friend of executed journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, spoke with Fox News’s Shepard Smith about the White House’s plan to arm and train thousands of rebels affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, a more moderate rebel group that’s friendly with the West, in order to encourage them to fight the Islamic State. VanDyke warned that removing the...

The inter-relational dynamics between separate Sunni Muslim groups is very difficult for westerners to understand. Consider the relationship between ISIS and Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi. When ISIS front man Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared himself Caliph of an Islamic State, al-Qaradawi denounced him; ISIS then denounced the Muslim Brotherhood, as Shoebat.com reported.Yet, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria is reportedly standing by ISIS: A Syrian Muslim Brotherhood spokesman says attacks on the Islamic State by the United States and its allies are not the answer.“Our battle with ISIS is an intellectual battle,” Omar Mushaweh said in a statement published Sept....

Asiya Ummi Abdullah doesn't share the view that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group rules over a terrorist dystopia and she isn't scared by the American bombs falling on Raqqa, its power center in Syria. As far as she's concerned, it's the ideal place to raise a family. In interviews with The Associated Press, the 24-year-old Muslim convert explained her decision to move with her toddler to the territory controlled by the militant group, saying it offers them protection from the sex, crime, drugs and alcohol that she sees as rampant in largely secular Turkey. “The children...

It's great that President Obama "put together this miniature coalition of Sunni Arab States" to fight terrorists in Syria, but the analysts are missing something important: The measure of success should be "acres and acres of dead terrorists," not "knocking out windows," Retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters told Fox News's Sean Hannity Tuesday night: "These strikes (Monday) night were designed to limit terrorist casualties. These were not serious, meaningful strikes! "And I'll give you the evidence. Why did we go in at night? There was no air defense threat...If you wanted to kill terrorists, you would have hit those...

The U.S. told Iran of its plans to strike ISIS militants inside Syria in order to reassure them that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would not be targetted, a senior Iranian official has claimed. The communication, confirmed in part by a senior U.S. State Department official, appears to signal a cooling in hostilities between the U.S. and Iran for the first time since a 1979 hostage crisis prompted Washington to sever ties with Tehran. Iran is said to have voiced concerns for the safety of Assad, who remains the Shia Islam-dominated nation's closest regional ally and the recipient of Iranian military...

Geneva, Switzerland – In a speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council today, September 23, Father Gabriel Naddaf, an Israeli Arab Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth, called attention to the plight of Christian minorities suffering under Muslim extremists in the Arab world. Speaking immediately after a panel discussion on the “Human Rights Situation in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories,” during a special debate on racism at the Council’s 27th Regular Session, Father Naddaf discussed the violent oppression facing Middle Eastern Christians and their widespread flight from the region in recent years.