Free Republic

The three are accused of coming to Germany in mid-November at the behest of IS "in order either to carry out an assignment they had already received or to keep themselves ready for further instructions," federal prosecutors said. The three are suspected of membership in a foreign terrorist organization. Their arrests followed raids at refugee homes in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany's northernmost state. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the men had been under observation for months, and that "there are no indications of concrete attack plans" at present. "This may have been a sleeper cell," he told reporters. De Maiziere said...

She was, according to Western media, a poster-girl for her people, admired as much for her striking good looks as her military prowess. The 19-year-old, from the Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli, was killed by Islamic State (IS) militants in northern Syria last month.

For now, notice how Kerry is proposing something Trump has been advocating for more than a year. Here is what Trump told Bill O'Reilly last month: "Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing, frankly, if we actually got along with Russia and worked out some kind of a deal where we go and knock the hell out of ISIS along with NATO and along with countries that are in the area? Wouldn't that be wonderful as opposed to fighting?"

ACTRESS Brigitte Bardot has led calls for Muslims in France not to slaughter animals in public during this weekend's Eid celebrations. ... In France the government has been providing skips because many followers discard their carcasses to rot in the streets after they have killed them. ... Thousands of Muslims order sheep and then go to their local abattoirs to kill them to celebrate the feast of the slaughter, while others still carry out the acts in the street. However, Ms Bardot, 81, has called for practising Muslims to avoid making religious sacrifices in public particularly after terror attacks in...

It was not hyperbole when GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said that under resident Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. military had been "reduced to rubble" and left floundering without a coherent strategy or meaningful capability to win wars. It is a fait accompli, engineered by our commander-in-chief to reduce America's global footprint, an America he has profusely apologized for, and one he blames for all the world's ills. Almost as soon as he took office, resident Obama began a military purge not dissimilar to those routinely conducted by third-world despots, with the goal of eliminating voices...

ISIS decapitating instructor loses head to SAS sniper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtk_5atPyrg

There are now 361 children under the age of 14 living in Germany, interior ministry figures show. Most of these children are from countries in the Middle East and eastern Europe. The influx of refugees in 2015 has led to an increase in the number of child marriages, according to the figures. The data collected up to the date of July 31st 2016 shows that 1,475 minors were registered in the government migration office as married, Der Westen (WAZ) reports. […] The largest number of married minors come from Syria, at 664, with 157 coming from Afghanistan, 100 coming from...

Thursday morning a candidate for the presidency of the United States was asked “and what would you do if elected, about Aleppo?” His silence hung in the air as the questioner and the others on set waited for his answer. And then Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president and former governor of New Mexico, went deer-in-the-headlights and dropped this verbal barrel bomb, “and what is Aleppo?” An awful moment – perhaps a devastating one -- for him as a candidate. The pauses painful and potent. #AndWhatisAleppo? It’s a very good question. A question that prompts the squirming. It is...

Russia and the US have agreed to a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria from sunset on 12 September after intensive talks in Geneva. Under the plan, the Syrian government will end combat missions in specified areas held by the opposition. Russia and the US will establish a joint centre to combat so-called Islamic State and al-Nusra fighters. The plan follows a day of talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Kerry working closely with Russia to work together for a ceasefire in Syria.... Sounds like what Trump was talking about only to be attacked for his remarks about Russia and Putin.

Two women have been assaulted and their husbands severely beaten on the French Riviera, after a gang of “youths” called the women “whores” because they were wearing shorts. Attacks on women in ‘revealing clothes’ in Toulon, where the assault occurred, are becoming more common with residents fearing the emergence of a “morality police”.

A large Hezbollah force, backed by the Syrian army and pro-Iranian Shiite militias, is building up outside Quneitra, just over a mile (2km) from Israel's Golan border. The Lebanese Shiite fighters, under the command of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officers, are streaming into southern Syria, armed with tanks and artillery. Hezbollah, the "party of Allah," is the terrorist organization based in Lebanon. In a manner similar to Hamas in Gaza, it has virtually taken over the government there, especially in the south where it borders with Israel. Currently, Hezbollah, a known proxy of Iran, is engaged in fighting rebel groups...

These are the first pictures of a new pre-fab migrant camp that has been built in the heart of an Italian tourist hotspot that is popular with the rich and famous including Hollywood star George Clooney. And officials in the town have admitted that the camp could remain there for years. Tucked away on a side street and sandwiched between an empty factory and cemetery in Como, the site is where up to 300 migrants will now call home until they can leave Italy.

Gary Johnson: 'What Is Aleppo?' Gary Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate, does not know what Aleppo is. Asked on Wednesday's "Morning Joe" what he would do if elected president about the city in Syria at the center of the refugee crisis, Johnson earnestly asked what Aleppo is even. "And what is Aleppo?" Johnson said. "You're kidding me," Mike Barnicle responded, who asked the question. Barnicle then began to explain what Aleppo is to the candidate. "OK, got it, got it," Johnson cut him off, and then added, "With regard to Syria I do think it's a mess. I think that...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a Soviet spy in Damascus in the 1980s, Israel’s Channel 1 television reported Wednesday, citing information it said was included in an archive smuggled out of the USSR. According to Channel 1’s foreign news editor Oren Nahari, the famed Mitrokhin archive, kept by KGB defector Vasily Mitrokhin, revealed that Abbas was a Soviet mole in Damascus in 1983. The documents — obtained by Israeli researchers Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez — purportedly show that Abbas, code-named Krotov (mole), was involved with the Soviets while Mikhail Bogdanov, today Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Middle East....

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, other military equipment and training, the most of any U.S. administration in the 71-year U.S.-Saudi alliance, a report seen by Reuters has found. The report, authored by William Hartung of the U.S.-based Center for International Policy, said the offers were made in 42 separate deals, and the majority of the equipment has yet to be delivered. Hartung told Reuters the report would be made available publicly on Sept. 8. The report said U.S. arms offers to Saudi Arabia since Obama took office in January 2009...

Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her refugee policy on Wednesday, saying that the situation had improved drastically — for Germans as well as refugees. “We have just been through a year that demanded a lot from us, but the situation now is so much better than it was a year ago,” the Chancellor told the Bundestag in a discussion which was actually on the federal budget. Merkel mentioned reinforcement of the Frontex EU border defense agency, a new NATO mission in the Mediterranean and a refugee deal signed with Turkey in March as evidence of progress in coping with an influx...

(Reuters) - A suspected chlorine gas attack on an opposition-held neighborhood in the Syrian city of Aleppo caused dozens of cases of suffocation on Tuesday, rescue workers and a monitoring group said. The Syrian Civil Defence, a rescue workers' organization that operates in rebel-held areas, said government helicopters had dropped barrel bombs containing chlorine on the Sukari neighborhood in eastern Aleppo. The Syrian government has denied previous accusations it used chemical weapons during the five-year-old civil war. The Syrian army could not be immediately reached for comment on the latest allegations. The Civil Defence said on its Facebook page that...

One of Germany’s best-known Islamist preachers went on trial in the western city of Düsseldorf on Tuesday on charges of backing “a terrorist group” fighting in Syria. Sven Lau, 35, stands accused of supporting and recruiting fighters for the Syria-based Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (JMA), or Army of Emigrants and Supporters, which Germany lists as a terrorist organization. A convert to the ultra-conservative Salafist branch of Islam, Lau gained notoriety in 2014 when he organized a vigilante “Sharia Police” group that patrolled German streets seeking to enforce Islamic law. …

Just days after the news hit that ISIS' main propaganda officer, Mohammad al-Adnani, one of the Islamic State's most prominent leaders, the second in command of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as the unofficial spokesman of the terrorist organization, was killed (with a scandal promptly erupting between the US and Russia over who had taken him out), the power vacuum that formed at the top of the Islamic State has been promptly filled, after former Tajik Special Forces colonel Gulmurod Khalimov became the top ISIS battlefield commander in Iraq, after defecting last year and swearing jihad against the West. Khalimov...