Free Republic

Muslims, in Raqqa, Syria, all members of ISIS, have cut countless heads and have hung the heads on electric wires all throughout the city in celebration of the Islamic holiday of ‘Eid. Shoebat.com obtained a photo of the carnage:

CAIRO: Battling Palestinian militants in Gaza two years ago, Israel found itself pressed from all sides by unfriendly Arab neighbors to end the fighting. Not this time. After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. That, in turn, may have contributed to the failure of the antagonists to reach a negotiated ceasefire even after more than...

Police arrested a second suspect on Wednesday in connection with an attempted arson attack in which Molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue in western Germany. Another man who said he was Palestinian has denied involvement. Prosecutors in Wuppertal said they had arrested a 19-year-old from Syria on Wednesday in connection with the Molotov cocktail attack on the city's Bergische synagogue in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Police believe three young men threw a number of burning bottles into the synagogue entrance-way in an apparent attempt to burn it down. Officers found broken bottles on the ground at the...

During the Cold War, Israel was a pawn in a larger struggle between the US and the USSR. Now it is back to being a counter in a larger game. Israel’s function within the great halls of diplomacy was always as a lever on the Arab states. It was not an end, but a means of moving them one way or another. When the Arab states drifted into the Soviet orbit, the “Special Relationship” was born. The relationship accomplished its goal once Egypt was pried out of the Soviet orbit. It has lingered on because of the emotional and cultural...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani lashed out at Israel in vitriolic terms on Wednesday, referring to Israel as a “festering Zionist tumor.”Rouhani, who has been championed by Western media as a moderate reformer who could change Iran’s extremist ways, appears to be adopting a violent tone similar to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has advocated for the complete destruction of Israel in recent days.“Today, this festering Zionist tumor has opened once again and has turned the land of olives into destruction and blood and littered the land with the body parts of Palestinian children,” Rouhani was quoted as saying in a...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be "glad" to return an award given to him in 2004 by a prominent American Jewish group, Turkey's embassy in the US said Tuesday, amid a growing controversy over the premier's anti-Israel remarks.According to Israel National News, the American Jewish Congress had given Erdogan the Profile of Courage award in recognition of his efforts at that time to seek peace in the Middle East. But the AJC now wants the award to be returned following Erdogan’s repeated verbal assaults against Israel, most recently over the Gaza conflict.Erdogan has slammed Israel's attacks on Gaza as "genocide" of...

And why reporters won’t talk about it. The idea that one of Hamas’ main command bunkers is located beneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City is one of the worst-kept secrets of the Gaza war. So why aren’t reporters in Gaza ferreting it out? The precise location of a large underground bunker equipped with sophisticated communications equipment and housing some part of the leadership of a major terrorist organization beneath a major hospital would seem to qualify as a world-class scoop—the kind that might merit a Pulitzer, or at least a Polk. So why isn’t the fact that Hamas uses Shifa...

The Israeli government has agreed to a temporary humanitarian ceasefire starting at 15:00 today (Wednesday). "The IDF (army) has authorized a temporary window in the Gaza Strip. The window will commence today between 15:00-19:00 (1200 - 1600 GMT)," it said. But the lull would not apply in areas where ground troops were "currently operating", it said. The four-hour ceasefire was declared as the Security Cabinet meets at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss whether to expand or end Operation Protective Edge, after 23 days of fighting in Gaza. It comes as the IDF has stepped up its operations against...

Hamas has urged Hezbollah to join the fight against Israel, according to multiple sources, after Israel's self-defense operation against the terror organization in Gaza has expanded further. “We hope the Lebanese front will open and together we will fight against this formation [Israel],” deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau Mousa Abu Marzouk told Russian news agency RIA Novosti. “There’s no arguing that Lebanese resistance could mean a lot,” Abu Marzouk stressed. The remarks surface just minutes after Hamas rejected yet another humanitarian ceasefire from Israel, which had expanded its operation in Gaza earlier Wednesday. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has expressed...

Obama just released $2.8 billion to these savages. And he has sanctioned their nuclear weapons program. Mankind will always be plagued with evil annihilationists. But America funding them? And sanctioning their nuclear weapons program? That’s a whole new vicious reality for the free world to deal with. That’s new.

According to Twitter and Google, an NBC journalist reported that he or she had personally witnessed an Israeli drone attack and fire on a hospital in Gaza. The eye witness report was at first included in this NBC News article, and read, "a NBC News journalist witnessed the attack on the hospital and said it had been fired by an Israeli drone." Since that report was published, though, the accusation has been scrubbed entirely from the article. The only evidence of the NBC journalist's "eyewitness" accusation is the apparent insertion of this sentence:

The Tea Party favorite loves to needle Team Obama. But in an interview, Cruz also reveals a new kind of conservative foreign policy: American exceptionalism without the nation building.One way to understand Ted Cruz’s foreign policy, particularly if you are a Democrat, is through the prism of the social media phenomenon known as trolling. The best trolls are provocateurs. Their language is meant to expose a fallacy or weakness in the opponent’s position as opposed to offering a constructive alternative. In a wide-ranging interview with the junior senator from Texas, there was a lot of trolling. Of Obama’s recent attempt...

Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Sunday criticized the United Nations for failing to end “the Zionist regime’s” crimes, AFP reported. The comments came in a conversation with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as Zarif conducted a hefty round of telephone diplomacy to rally support and humanitarian aid for Gazans. He also spoke with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and other regional leaders, stressing that the priority was to get food and medical aid into areas worst hit by Israel’s military offensive, Iran’s official IRNA news agency said. According to AFP, in his conversation with Ban Zarif said...

Pope Francis made an emotional plea for peace on Sunday in an impromptu addition to comments delivered at his weekly Angelus address in Saint Peter's Square. As the Argentinian-born pontiff wrapped up his regular address to the faithful, he spoke of the upcoming centenary of the outbreak of World War One and said his thoughts were on the Middle East, Iraq and Ukraine in particular. With his voice appearing to crack with emotion, the pope broke off from his scripted remarks to make a direct appeal for fighting to end. "Please stop!, I ask you with all my heart, it's...

There is an undefined point, when a government is so corrupt and incompetent, that citizens will no longer be willing to defend it.Iran or maybe Obama’s chief handler Valerie Jarrett, the Iranian Mole, seems to be playing our president, he who has no experience at anything, like the proverbial fish on a line, but just maybe, one of Iran’s homicidal maniacs has read the writing of old Sun Tzu. It’s a cinch, none of our president’s people have a clue on anything but ideological rhetoric, and the followers of old Karl Marx have never been good at foreign policy.The quotes have been there...

Question: When is a tech news site actually a public relations arm for a bloodthirsty terror group? Answer: when that tech news website is called Mashable. Consider a couple of their recent stories, designed to garner sympathy for actual bloodthirsty war criminals (no links for obvious reasons; simply search for the headline and you'll find it if you decide you prefer to read Hamas marketing material): • 'Am I Going to Die, Daddy?' The Child in Gaza Asked by Jon Snow • U.N. Official Warns of Gaza War Crimes; Only U.S. Votes Against Investigating by AP • 45000 Londoners Protest...

Speaking at a high-level security conference in Aspen, Colorado, outgoing US Defense Intelligence Agency head Michael Flynn warned against the dangers of toppling Hamas, saying what may replace the Islamist group could be even worse. “If Hamas were destroyed and gone, we would probably end up with something much worse. The region would end up with something much worse,” Flynn, a lieutenant general, told the conference Saturday, according to Reuters.He warned that with Hamas out of the picture, the Islamic State, or something like the brutal Islamist group ruling over parts of Syria and Iraq, could take its place.Flynn also said...

The people on the Mavi Marmara flotilla were genocidal Jew-hating jihadis, as you can see in the second video above: they were chanting a jihad war cry recalling Muhammad’s massacre of the Jews of Arabia: “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.” See the photos here of their weapons.And now Turkish troops will be accompanying a new jihad flotilla to Gaza. Will they attack Israeli troops?“Turkey to send another Freedom Flotilla to Gaza,” Middle East Monitor, July 26, 2014: The Turkish humanitarian relief organisation (IHH) is currently organising a “Freedom Flotilla II” which will carry humanitarian aid...

Israeli anger at US envoy for his attempt to forge a ceasefire with Hamas sponsors Turkey, Qatar, in Paris talks. An Israeli minister accused U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of “digging a tunnel under the the Egyptian ceasefire proposal” by accepting Hamas's conditions for a ceasefire in Paris talks Saturday, Channel 2 reported. The minister's identity was not revealed. Kerry and top diplomats from Europe and the Middle East who gathered in Paris Saturday called for an extension to a temporary truce declared Saturday between Israel and Hamas. However, neither Israel, nor Egypt, nor the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud...

After the ISIS defeated the Raqqa base manned by Division 17 of the Syrian army, the countless POWs were then beheaded and their heads were displayed for public view in the city square. Shoebat.com was the first to obtain this extremely gory footage: Shoebat.com also translated what the ISIS spokesperson said during the filming: In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful He had fulfilled his promise and defeated the enemy by himself. Your brothers here, the soldiers of the Islamic Caliphate, Allah had blessed us a great blessing from him. He had allowed us to defeat Division 17....

An Al Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria has released video of the first American to carry out a suicide attack in the country's civil war, showing him smiling and saying he looked forward to going to heaven. The Nusra Front released the new video late Friday showing American citizen Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, 22, with other fighters before the May 25 attack that targeted several army positions at the same time. Abu-Salha appears smiling in the video and speaks in broken Arabic. "I want to rest in the afterlife, in heaven. There is nothing here and the heart is not resting,"...

Unguarded Comments Suggest Kerry Frustration At Civilian Toll In Gaza • 'It's a hell of a pinpoint operation' captured on open microphone Dominic Rushe in New York 20 July 2014 The secretary of state, John Kerry, on Sunday appeared to criticise Israel’s claims about the targeted scope of its attacks on Gaza, as a open microphone caught him talking to an aide ahead of a TV interview. “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” Kerry, who was appearing on Fox News Sunday as part of a tour of all five main US talkshows,...

The parents of "the Florida boy" own a grocery store, with his father from Jordan and mother a convert to Islam, US newspapers reported.

The head of the independent U.N. commission on Syrian war crimes said Friday that commanders of the Islamic State extremist group are “good candidates" to be put on a confidential list of alleged perpetrators. Brazilian diplomat and scholar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said the al-Qaida breakaway group, which now controls a swath of north and eastern Syria, has carried out public executions, crucifixions and other “gross human rights violations.” […] He said the list includes people who are “criminally responsible for hostage-taking, torture and executions;” heads of Syrian intelligence branches and detention facilities where detainees are tortured; military commanders who target...

Events in Iraq and Syria have alarmed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Extremists from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria control vast swaths of Iraq and Syria. Its members may be mingling with Yemeni bomb makers who have a track record of getting devices on Western planes. And thousands of Europeans have gone to Syria ready to give up their lives. Holder has voiced "extreme concern" that the volatile mix could spread to Western shores.

Israeli forces shelled a U.N.-run school sheltering Palestinians in the northern Gaza strip, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and raising the conflict's death toll to nearly 750. Israel Radio said, without citing a source, that most of those killed at the United Nations school were children. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the incident reported as a truce between the Jewish state and Hamas-led Islamist guerrillas remained elusive, despite intensive attempts at mediation.

Syria has risen as a top threat to the U.S. homeland that rivals Yemen's al Qaeda affiliate known for its innovative bombs successfully smuggled aboard airplanes, a top Pentagon official said on Thursday. "Syria is probably the number one threat -- or, with... threats out of Yemen -- to the American homeland right now and elsewhere in the west," said Michael Vickers, the Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Defense Intelligence. In answer to a question by moderator Brian Ross of ABC News at a panel at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual gathering of national security veterans, Vickers, himself a former...

What follows is testimony delivered on Wednesday by UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, at the UN Human Rights Council Emergency Session on Gaza, in Geneva. The Palestinian ambassador to the UNHRC, together with Iran, Syria, Egypt, Cuba and Venezuela had tried but failed to silence Mr. Neuer. As expected, the council voted 29 to 1 (USA), with 17 abstaining (EU & others), to condemn Israel for “gross violations of international human rights,” and it created a new commission of inquiry. ... An entire nation—towns, villages and cities, from the Negev Desert up to the Galilee, from the Judean hills...

Day by day, we hear new horrors about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. Now, believers living under ISIS control in northern Iraq must choose between conversion to Islam, payment of protection money, or death. Ancient churches and shrines are already in flames. I want to concentrate on a unexamined aspect of this problem, one that has done much to shape what we know about the history and nature of early Christianity. In one particular historical era, anti-Christian violence did irreparable damage to our historical sources.   The story goes back to the dual origins of monasticism,...

OSLO - An Islamist militant group with ties to Syria may be planning an attack in Norway, possibly within the coming days, Benedicte Bjoernland, the head of the Police Security Service, PST, said on Thursday. "The PST has received information that persons related to an extreme (Islamist) group in Syria may be planning to carry out a terrorist act in Norway," Bjoernland told a news conference.

Hamas continues to be uncompromising in its position regarding an international cease-fire, AFP reports Wednesday. "We reject today and will reject in the future," Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal insisted, in a public speech in Qatar. Meshaal insisted that Israel must accept his list of unprecedented conditions for a cease-fire - which included lifting several security measures, such as the naval blockade and border control, designed to prevent terrorists entering into Israel, as well as re-releasing terrorists arrested earlier this month - and only then will Hamas deliberate with Israel on a date for a cease-fire. Meshaal claimed that the terms...

FULL TITLE: Ted Cruz: The facts suggest President Obama has just used the FAA to launch an ECONOMIC BOYCOTT on Israel…//// Sen. Ted Cruz ripped the president today for using a federal agency, the FAA, to launch an economic boycott on Israel in order to force them to comply with his demands. He pointed out that this economic boycott aids Hamas while simultaneously hurting Israel. What Cruz is calling for is the Obama administration to answer the following questions: Was this decision a political decision driven by the White House? If the FAA’s decision was based on airline safety, why...

Qatar hosts three major US military bases on its territory. And it is becoming one of the most important clients for US military contractors. Earlier this year Qatar signed an $11.4 billion dollar arms agreement with the US. At the same time, according to the Calacalist report, Qatar is the major bankroller of ISIS and al Nusra in Syria and Iraq. It gives $50 million a month to jihadists in Libya. It gives Hamas $100m. in annual aid. And in the past two years Doha has provided Hamas with an additional $620m. dollars, including $250m. it transferred to Hamas leader...

The undeclared truce between the regime and the Islamic State group seems to have run its course after both sides achieved all they could in their marriage of convenience. Nothing better illustrates this than the devastating assault launched by the Islamic State group on the al-Shaer gas field in Homs on July 16 that may have left up to 300 regime troops and civilian employees dead. Meanwhile, the regime continues to launch airstrikes on the Islamic State group headquarters and training camps in Raqqa, an indication that the gloves are now definitely off.

Here we go again with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry leveraging a tragedy to make another "strong case" based on limited evidence. We have already seen this in the case of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and chemical weapons. Now it's Russian President Vladimir Putin's turn for the global smear treatment. Presumably we're supposed to rush to adopt the notion that Russia's fingerprints are all over last week's downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine -- just as we were supposed to buy into Kerry's story last year about the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons against his own...

As of Tuesday night, despite the efforts of international intermediaries here in the region, there was no sign of an Israel-Hamas ceasefire. Visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had failed to achieve the long-term humanitarian truce he planned. This despite signs Monday that Hamas might want to halt the fighting. The Al-Mayadeen satellite station, which has good contacts in the office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, claimed late Monday that Abbas and Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal had reached a ceasefire deal, based on Egypt’s proposal for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Abbas’s intelligence chief Majid Faraj set...

The European Union on Tuesday called upon terrorist groups in Gaza to disarm, and to end and renounce violence. The official statement read: "The EU strongly condemns the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel by Hamas and militant groups in the Gaza Strip, directly harming civilians. These are criminal and unjustifiable acts. The EU calls on Hamas to immediately put an end to these acts and to renounce violence. All terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm. The EU strongly condemns calls on the civilian population of Gaza to provide themselves as human shields."

The Islamic State-- formerly Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)-- has previously used water as a destructive tool to destroy crops and dams in Shi'ite territory. Now, ISIS is attempting to deprive major Christian strongholds of water through their control of pipe systems. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the city most affected by ISIS's new campaign to deny water to as many Christians and Shi'ites in Iraq as possible is the city of Qaraqosh, currently under control of Kurdish Peshmerga forces and, thus, impenetrable to the terrorist jihadist group. Their only current connection to Qaraqosh is a water pipeline from...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has called for an end to the fighting and bombing in Gaza. “Both sides must distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, and Israel must ensure that its use of force is proportionate in accordance with international humanitarian law. More immediately, all combat operations must stop, and Israeli troops should withdraw from Gaza,” Carter said in a statement released Tuesday. So far, more than 600 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the fighting, according to reports. The Israeli death toll is estimated at 29, including two civilians. Humantarian groups have also called for an end to...

EU countries have defended Israel’s use of force in Gaza, but blamed it for harming peace prospects in the longer term. Foreign ministers in a joint statement on Tuesday (22 July) said they are “appalled by the human cost” of some parts of “the Israeli military operation”, which has killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. But they “recognized Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself”, while blaming Hamas, the militant group which rules Gaza, for “indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel”, in what they described as “criminal and unjustifiable acts”. They also gave credence to Israeli claims that Hamas is urging civilians...

Two videos related to ISIS were released on Monday. A Twitter account for the Islamic State posted pictures and a video of a training camp in Ninevah and Al-Arabiya released a video with the real wife of ISIS's leader.

Asserting that India's policy on Palestine issue remains unchanged, government on Monday refused to take sides over the Gaza conflict as it said Israel and Palestine should have peace talks and forestalled a resolution in Rajya Sabha which was demanded by the opposition. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said the House should not be divided but send out a joint message that wherever there is violence, it is condemnable and both Israel and Palestine should accept Egypt's offer of peace talks. She was replying to a short-duration debate on Gaza situation during which opposition condemned the violence in Gaza, pressed...

Chris Boudreau has been reeling for months after learning her son died fighting with a terrorist group overseas. Now, a self-proclaimed jihadist is urging the Calgary mother to embrace an extremist ideology she suspects was used to brainwash her son. On his blog, Abu Dujana al-Muhajir claims he was among a group of young men who left Calgary to join “various fronts of Jihad” after forming a study group at a downtown mosque. Damian Clairmont, Boudreau’s son who was also part of the group, was later killed during rebel infighting in Syria. Clairmont’s death devastated and confounded his mother, who...

More than 700 people were killed in Syria over the course of Thursday and Friday, in what activists say were the bloodiest 48 hours of fighting in the conflict to date. ... Abdul Rahman said the death toll of Thursday’s clashes was 396 people, while Friday’s total reached 314, adding that 90 more people were still unaccounted for, although they were also expected to have been killed.

Now that the U.S.-Russia relationship has broken down, Moscow could throw a wrench into the teetering nuclear negotiations with Iran. The escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow, brought to fever by the MH17 airliner disaster, are finally to the point where they threaten to spoil the number one item on President Obama’s foreign policy agenda: the nuclear talks with Iran. The man doing the threatening is Russian President Vladimir Putin. Earlier this week, Putin promised to retaliate against the United States for new sanctions targeting his friends and business associates, as well as large Russian defense, energy, and financial firms....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Shortly after the Sunni militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) retook control of Raqqa earlier this year, it created the al-Khansaa' Brigade, an all-female unit operating in the city. Its purpose is to apprehend civilian women in Raqqa who do not follow the organization's strict brand of Sharia law, including a mandate that all women be fully covered in public and that they be accompanied by a male chaperone. "We have established the brigade to raise awareness of our religion among women, and to punish women who do not abide by the law," says Abu Ahmad,...

Imagine being killed because of your religion. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a radical Islamic group, says this will start happening in Iraq by Saturday and the threat is sending shockwaves through the community of more than 50,000 Chaldeans in the San Diego area. At St. Michael Chaldean Church in El Cajon, locals are hoping for peace. Chaldeans visit the church in east San Diego by the thousands to pray for the thousands of victims killed in Iraq and people being persecuted because of their religion. One of the women praying there is Sister Francois. Though she’s...

Israel on Friday ordered some of its diplomatic staff in Turkey to leave the country for security reasons, after protesters angered by its assault on Gaza sought to storm Israeli embassy buildings. Turkish protesters overnight tried to break into the ambassador's residence in Ankara as well as the consulate in Istanbul, with the diplomatic controversy over the Gaza assault risking a new crisis in relations between Turkey and the Jewish state. "Foreign Minister (Avigdor) Lieberman issued a statement... following the demonstrations and instructed the Israeli consulate and embassy to reduce their diplomatic staff in Turkey," an Israeli embassy spokesman told...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed that Qatar – the chief financier of Hamas – could play a key role in mediating peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Clinton, during an interview with Charlie Rose, touted Qatar as a country that could play a constructive role in arbitrating peace between Hamas and Israel, which recently launched a full-scale ground incursion into Gaza in an attempt to cut off the terror group’s access to sophisticated weaponry. Qatar, which has served as Hamas’ chief financial lifeline, keeping the group afloat and facilitating its arms buildup, could convince Hamas to stop trying...

Why should people who take a bus or Tube train in London be in fear for their lives from a bomb attack? Is it right that air passengers should be afraid of terror threats when they board a plane and also be subjected to continuous disruptions for the same reason? Every day we hear news of more young Muslims – often born and bread in the UK but not “British” in any true sense of the word – travelling to Iraq and Syria to join groups fighting in a jihad (Islamic holy war) to establish an Islamic state over...