Free Republic

EVER since Russia entered the Syrian civil war on the side of the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad, rebel groups in Aleppo have been progressively isolated and besieged. In February they lost their main access route to Turkey; and two weeks ago the fighters in the east of the city, with a population of perhaps 250,000, were cut off entirely. It threatened to become the biggest and nastiest siege in the five-year-long war. Despair, it seems, forced a show of unity by the disparate rebel groups, with striking effect. On the weekend of August 6th-7th, mainstream and jihadist groups...

Girl is dressed in full Burkha.

White racism, not a June 2 videotaped rape by refugees from strife-torn tribal cultures, is causing the growing civic protest in Twin Falls, Idaho, according to KMVT, the main local TV station. The pitch was delivered with the help of Nancy Taylor, who is a local advocate for greater immigration. I believe that there is a very small group in Twin Falls, very small and vocal, who, for lack of a better word, are racist … A little girl was assaulted, and just because people of color are involved, it becomes an issue. Unfortunately, children in this community are victims...

A Syrian opposition group whose members beheaded a child captive near Aleppo on Tuesday had been part of a US-vetted alliance and been supplied with anti-tank missiles until a year ago. Images of the killing are widely seen as among the most shocking of the war and continued to receive condemnation, with Amnesty International describing the killing as having “truly plumbed the depths of depravity”. A US State Department spokesman described reports of the killing as “appalling” and said proof that the killers were linked to the group, known as Nour al-din al-Zenki, would lead to any further backing being...

A senior Syrian priest accused Western countries of abandoning their principles and allowing Islamist extremists to massacre Christians in the Middle East because they are blinded by their lust for oil, according to the Christian media outlet Crossmap. Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan of the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch made the remarks to a meeting of the Knights of Columbus in Toronto. "We have to understand that totalitarianism based on Islamic creed is the worst among all systems of government. Yes, my friends, the very survival of Christians in the cradle of Christianity is quite in danger," the patriarch...

I just listened to Obama give Washington’s account of the situation with ISIL in Iraq and Syria. In Obama’s account, Washington is defeating ISIL in Iraq, but Russia and Assad are defeating the Syrian people in Syria. Obama denounced Russia and the Syrian government—but not ISIL—as barbaric. The message was clear: Washington still intends to overthrow Assad and turn Syria into another Libya and another Iraq, formerly stable and prosperous countries where war now rages continually. It sickens me to hear the President of the United States lie and construct a false reality, so I turned off the broadcast. I...

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton basked in a diplomatic “Moscow Spring,” seizing on Vladimir Putin’s break from the presidency to help seal a nuclear arms-control treaty and secure Russia’s acquiescence to a NATO-led military intervention in Libya. But when Putin returned to the top job, things changed. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has vowed to stand up to Putin if elected, drawing on her four years of ups and downs as the public face of President Barack Obama’s first-term “reset” with Russia. By comparison, her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has rung alarm bells in Washington and Europe with his...

Russia's foreign ministry sharply criticized U.S. behavior in Syria on Thursday, accusing Washington of backing rebels who use poison gas against civilians and of killing hundreds in air strikes. The ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, referred to rebels supported by Washington as "animals" and said Washington and its allies were recklessly carrying out air attacks leading to numerous civilian deaths. Zakharova's strong comments, in a statement posted to social media, underscored the serious divisions between Moscow and Washington over Syria where they are united in their opposition to Islamic State but so far little else. Moscow backs President Bashar al-Assad and...

Syrian rebels stormed a major army artillery base in the northern city of Aleppo on Friday to try an end the siege of opposition-held areas but the Syrian army said it had repelled the attack and killed hundreds of insurgents. A quarter of a million civilians still live 7in Aleppo's opposition-controlled eastern neighborhoods, effectively under siege since the army, aided by Iranian-backed militias, cut off the last road into rebel districts in early July. Fighters from a coalition of Islamist rebel groups called "Jaish al Fateh" that includes Jabhat Fateh al Sham, the former al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, Ahrar al...

A US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters has seized most of a key Syrian city from so-called Islamic State (IS), activists and commanders say. Small numbers of IS militants are still resisting, using civilians as human shields, the alliance says.

Syria's war: Swap offer for bodies of Russian air crew Group says it has bodies of five people shot down in helicopter, demands release of prisoners in exchange for corpses. A group in Syria has reportedly demanded the release of prisoners held in Syrian and Lebanese jails in exchange for the bodies of five people who were shot down in a Russian military helicopter last week. The Russian helicopter was downed in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province on Sunday, killing all five people on board in the biggest officially acknowledged loss of life for Russian forces since they started operations in...

Behind the headlines, Israel is quietly concerned about protecting its citizens from an attack just across its northern border with Lebanon. Hezbollah, the so-called "Party of Allah" is known to have at least 150 thousand missiles in its armory. They are all earmarked for the Jewish State. Under Iran's control, it is virtually certain that the only reason Hezbollah has not yet attacked Israel is because of Syria. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, that country's President Assad is also a vassal of the Islamic Republic. Almost all of Tehran's immediate efforts are focused on keeping Assad in power. Accordingly, Hezbollah has...

Administration officials said Friday that the 10,000 Syrian refugees President Obama wants to welcome this fiscal year is a floor, not a ceiling, and they can go even higher than that total. “We can now say that we’ve welcomed 8,000 Syrian refugees so far this year and we are very confident we will welcome at least 10,000,” Assistant Secretary of State Anne C. Richard told reporters in updating the flow. At today’s pace, more than 12,000 refugees could be admitted by the end of September, which marks the end of the fiscal year. Those are part of the 85,000 total...

A Syrian professor has asserted that Arab migrants see “slut” German women as fair game for assault and warned that the country is set to see “big social conflicts” as a result of Angela Merkel and EU open border policies. Prof. Bassam Tibi said that the mass sex attacks in Cologne were a result of the migrants’ “value system”: furious at not being given a luxury lifestyle, they intended to “humiliate” Germans. Interviewed by Basler Zeitung, Professor Tibi said that migrants were expecting to be given a luxury lifestyle, one comparable to portrayals of rich Europeans shown in the Arab...

Islamic State fighters may have captured up to 3,000 fleeing Iraqi villagers on Thursday and subsequently executed 12 of them, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a daily report on events in Iraq. The report followed a statement on Thursday from the Iraqi Observatory for Human rights, which said about 1,900 civilians had been captured by an estimated 100-120 Islamic State fighters, who were using people as shields against attacks by Iraqi Security Forces. Tens of civilians had been executed, and six burnt. "UNHCR has received reports that ISIL captured on 4 August up to 3,000 IDPs (internally displaced...

The perpetrators of two attacks in Germany claimed by the ISIS terror group were given advice on the separate assaults by members of the jihadist organization, German media reports. Without citing its sources, German weekly Der Spiegel said the two men exchanged messages with individuals using different phone numbers, including some that were registered in Saudi Arabia. The Afghan teenager who in July went on an axe rampage on a train, wounding four tourists from Hong Kong and a German passer-by, had reportedly discussed how he would carry out the attack with his ISIS contacts. […] In a separate attack...

Trinidad Guardian:-Trinidadian Abu Sa’d at Trinidadi is among Isis spokesmen from several countries who have urged sympathisers, including among T&T Muslims, to launch home turf attacks against Christians. at-Trinidadi ’s story is featured in the July edition of Dabiq, Isis’ online magazine being published since 2014. It is aimed at recruitment, unitarianism, truth-seeking, migration and holy war among matters. The July edition, issued last weekend and obtained by T&T Guardian last Sunday, is based on the theme “Break the Cross.” It features Christian converts, including at-Trinidadi , from the US, Canada, Finland and Jamaica who have called for supporters to...

Funding Iran directly funds terrorism because the Iranian regime is effectively a terror state. Back in the Senate, Obama fought against the classification of the Revolutionary Guard, a key Iranian political-military institution, as terrorists. He's remained consistent since then. 3. This is simply treason. Obama is aiding and abetting the murder of Americans. He's funding terrorism. He's funding Iran's wars in the region, which aside from Israel, include campaigns in Iraq and Syria that have dragged the United States in. The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January...

After a sluggish start, the United States has ramped up its number of Syrian refugee admissions, putting it within reach of meeting President Barack Obama’s goal of taking in 10,000 Syrians by the end of the federal fiscal year. The surge has included resettling 21 Syrian refugees in the Roanoke region over the past three months, a significant uptick from last year’s total of just two admissions. Roanoke has long been a hub for arriving refugees, with more than 800 accepted in the past five years, according to U.S. State Department data. The acceleration of Syrian refugee admissions nationwide...

Get Ready for Obama’s ‘October Surprise’ in Iraq If Iraqi and Kurdish troops—with stepped-up U.S. support—retake Mosul as planned, it could be a big boost for Hillary. By Mark Perry August 01, 2016 The American public could be treated to a major U.S.-led military victory in Iraq this fall, just as voters are deciding who will be the nation’s next president—but U.S. military officials insist the timing of the operation has nothing to do with politics. Iraqi and Kurdish military and paramilitary units are preparing for a push on Mosul, the Islamic State-held city that is now in the cross...