Free Republic

A Pakistani Christian, who has fled to the Netherlands, has made a video of life in a refugee center and uploaded it to YouTube. The video has received national attention in the Netherlands because the refugee says he’s regularly bullied and threatened by other refugees, most of whom are Muslim. VIDEO He explains: "I am a refugee and live in the refugee center at Gilze en Rijen. There are a lot of Syrian Muslims here who fled the war in their own country. These Muslims have made life impossible for us [red.: for Christian refugees]. I fled from my own...

Last week, the pro-regime forces in Hasakah city, northeastern Syria, stormed houses and arrested dozens of young men under the pretext of driving them to compulsory military service, local sources reported. This comes after the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decision demanding Syrian youth to perform military service, and allowing them to serve in their own provinces. In the pre-war phase, Syrian young men were obliged to serve in other provinces away from their hometowns. “The pro-regime militia of the National Defense Army formed a group entrusted with a mission of arresting the young people who are wanted to...

The media began its speculation as to why resident Barack Obama appeared to snub Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on a park bench at the G-7 summit. The answer to the question might have much to do with Haider al-Abadi who is running Iraq as a state of militia gangs presenting seven thousand Sunnis for mass execution on the altar of sacrifice for political gain with Iran. .... The disintegration of the Iraqi army being at least three years away from being fully retrained and reassembled, according to the Pentagon and now that Iran calls the shots on who lives...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Kurdish-led forces advanced on Monday deep into territory in Syria held by Islamic State, showing new momentum after they unexpectedly swiftly seized a border crossing from the jihadists last week. The Kurds, aided by U.S.-led air strikes and smaller Syrian rebel groups, had pushed to within 7 km (4 miles) of Ain Issa, a town 50 km (30 miles) north of Islamic State's de facto capital Raqqa city, said Redur Xelil, spokesman for the Kurdish forces. The rapid advance into Raqqa province has defied expectations of a protracted battle between the Kurdish YPG group and Islamic State...

Islamic State jihadists have planted mines around the ancient ruins in Syria's Palmyra, prompting fears for the Unesco World Heritage site. As Armenpress reports citing “Telegraph,” militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have reportedly carpeted parts of the Roman amphitheatre with bombs and explosives, according to Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's antiquities chief. It was not immediately clear whether the mines had been lain in preparation for the ruins’ destruction, or as a deterrent to forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The militants seized the strategically important nearby modern town of Tadmur from government forces last month. The British-based...

<p>With some lawmakers chanting "Death to the America," Iran's parliament voted to ban access to military sites, documents and scientists as part of a future deal with world powers over its contested nuclear program.</p> <p>The bill, if ratified, could complicate the ongoing talks in Vienna between Iran and the six-nation group — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — as they face a self-imposed June 30 deadline. The talks are focused on reaching a final accord that curbs Iran's nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.</p>

Egypt's foreign minister has rebuffed calls from Washington to speed up the pace of political reform. Rejecting a US demand to lift a state of emergency, Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Washington should not "impose" its will on "a great country".

'There is an explosion of human suffering': Angelina Jolie begs the world to do more during visit to Turkish camps filled with Syrians and Iraqis who have fled war Angelina Jolie serves as a United Nations special envoy for refugees She visited a refugee camp in southeastern Turkey on Saturday, which is home to Syrians and Iraqis displaced by war This visit is the latest in a series of trips to Turkey as part of her work to bring attention to the plight of refugees This was Jolie's third visit to Turkey since 2011, when Syria conflict began Turkey hosts...

Last week an issue that has simmered for some time in private conversations burst out into the open—in a very unpleasant way. At the Jerusalem Post conference in New York on June 7, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew offered a stirring defense of the White House’s proposed nuclear deal with Iran—and was nearly booed off the stage mid-speech. It wasn’t civil or nice of the audience to do this, as many pundits have already noted. Then again, many would say it’s not very nice of the Obama Administration to keep trying to sell the currently configured Iran deal to the pro-Israel...

The commander of the besieged air base west of town had a message of defiance for the world. "This will be the terrorists' graveyard," vowed the Syrian army colonel at the front gate of the Thalah military airport, well within mortar range of rebels the government calls terrorists. Here, about 70 miles southeast of Damascus, the Syrian military is making a stand against an opposition onslaught along the nation's strategic southern flank. Pro-government forces have repelled several attacks — involving tanks and heavy artillery — on the sprawling air installation. The insurgents are seeking to build on advances in neighboring...

Nearly a year after a devastating war, Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appear to have formed an unspoken alliance in a common battle against the shared threat of jihadis aligned with the Islamic State group. While Israel and Hamas remain arch-enemies, both have an interest in preserving an uneasy calm that has prevailed since the fighting ended in a cease-fire last August -- a stalemate that is largely the result of a lack of options on either side.

Saudi Arabia and Russia have signed an agreement to cooperate on nuclear energy development, a Saudi government body in charge of such projects said. The government body, the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, announced the cooperation deal on its website on Thursday but gave no further details. Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV, citing unnamed sources, said the kingdom planned to build 16 nuclear reactors in which Russia would play a significant role in operating them. The Saudi atomic and renewable energy body has already signed nuclear cooperation deals with countries able to build reactors, including the United States, France,...

Recently, the Kurdish Peshmerga won a major victory against the Islamic State group in northern Syria, taking back a town known as Tal Abyad. Amazingly, the Obama administration took credit for this hard-fought victory, even though it had next to nothing to do with it. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the Kurdish victory was “actually a direct consequence of an earlier military operation that President Obama ordered” to break the siege of the Syrian city of Kobani last fall. This laughable claim was quickly shot down by the Kurds themselves, who stated that they could have taken the town back much more...

Syria is believed to be home to about half of the estimated 1.5 million Druze worldwide. Interviews with Druze civilians and fighters here confirm that many regard the rebel advance as a threat to the Druze's existence. Sunni Islamist groups like Al Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot, view the Druze as heretics. The rebels have acknowledged battlefield coordination with Nusra militants. This month, alarm spread among the Druze population when Nusra fighters killed at least 20 Druze in Qalb Lawzeh, a village in the northwestern province of Idlib. Other reports...

As ISIS, a group thought to consist of only a few thousand people led by a shadowy figurehead, defeats forces many times its size to capture a large part of Iraq, RT looks into what is ISIS, and how has it achieved its terrifying triumphs. Follow RT's LIVE UPDATES on ISIS offensive in Iraq So, what is ISIS? And is it even ISIS, or is it ISIL? The world’s most committed and fanatical radical organization has only recently gone by its current name, after the unrecognized Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) was proclaimed in April last year. Al-Sham...

Nearly fifty senior commanders of a major coalition of Islamic 'moderates' opposed to ISIS in Syria have been killed by an explosion at their secret command bunker as they met to discuss strategy against the the Islamic State. The blast in the Northwest region of Idlib, Syria on Tuesday killed senior members of rebel group the Ahrar-al-Sham brigade (AaS), including leader Hassan Abboud and 45 others including senior members from other rebel alliance groups, reports The Times. The Idlib region stands in AaS territory, but it is close to the front-line with ISIS in neighbouring Aleppo.

<p>A North Carolina mother of three young children has traveled to Iraq to join the Kurdish Peshmerga in the fight against ISIS terrorists.</p> <p>Samantha Johnston, 25, of Emerald Isle, N.C., is the only known American woman on the ground assisting in the fight against ISIS.</p>

Thirty-four Syrians were killed, including 12 children, and more than 190 were injured during an attack of over 300 shells that bombarded government held neighborhoods in Aleppo on Monday. The Syrian rebels have been battling the Assad regime for control of Aleppo since 2012. The event on Monday marks one of the largest attacks on civilians by the Syrian rebel forces according to the British-based Observatory for Human Rights, which stated, “this indiscriminate attack on civilians in the city of Aleppo took place at the very time when [the Observatory for Human Rights] was in Damascus raising with the government...

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is blocking oil sales to northern Syria, activists say, unleashing an economic weapon that could cause food shortages and hospital shutdowns, and may undermine the rebels’ fight against the jihadi force. The blockade also shows how heavily dependent even the group’s enemies are on the crude it produces, and how much influence that allows the jihadis to wield.

Aleppo suffers widespread damage as Syrian insurgents say they're stepping up a campaign to gain full control of the city.