Free Republic

Christianity has ceased to be a religion but has become a culture of its own, Turkish Environment and Urbanism Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar said at a recent conference hosted by the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) Women's Group. "The biggest three countries in the world are not Muslim countries. China, India – only the U.S. believes in a single God. Spirituality and religious feelings are weakening," Bayraktar said.

The parents and children of this Syrian family sleep on the streets of Istanbul in Turkey. They are among the 3 million refugees from Syria, many of whom live in desperate conditions. Photo: UNHCR/S. Baldwin 29 August 2014 – Three million Syrians will have registered as refugees outside of their country today, the UN refugee agency reported, amid accounts of increasingly horrifying conditions inside their homeland – cities where populations are surrounded, people are going hungry and civilians are being targeted or indiscriminately killed. A news release issued by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that a further...

JNS.org - Several prominent Turkish Jews have written an open letter reprimanding their government for publicly asking the Jewish community to denounce Israel’s operation Protective Edge in Gaza.

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced today his intent to file the Expatriate Terrorist Act (E.T.A.) of 2014 as soon as the Senate is called back into session on Monday, September 8th. “Americans who choose to go to Syria or Iraq to fight with vicious ISIS terrorists are party to a terrorist organization committing horrific acts of violence, including beheading innocent American journalists who they have captured,” said Sen. Cruz. “There can be no clearer renunciation of their citizenship in the United States, and we need to do everything we can to preempt any attempt on their part to...

“There are 2.5 billion Christians in the world,” Bayraktar said. “Christianity is no longer a religion. It’s a culture now. But that is not what a religion is like. A religion teaches; it is a form of life that gives one peace and happiness. That is what they want to turn [Islam] into as well.” In other words, he is telling his audience to be on guard against those who try to water down, or should we say moderate, the teachings of Islam.

Obama is sending Defense Secretary Hagel to Turkey to ratchet its efforts to tame ISIS while knowingly is aware that Turkey is a supporter of ISIS! The efforts as they claim is to build what the administration termed Coalition of the Willing.As has been predicted by Shoebat.com, The United States will plead to Turkey to end ISIS.Now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is being sent by Obama preparing to visit Turkey to intensify the push for an international campaign against ISIS.In his remarks during a briefing on Friday, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said that Hagel will start...

US President Barack Obama’s authorization of airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq serves as an opportunity to remind ourselves which countries are bankrolling the deadly terror group. The answer: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar – three of the United States’ biggest allies in the region. Last night Obama announced limited airstrikes to slow the advance of ISIS fighters and help members of the Yazidi religious minority group who were forced to flee into a mountainous region in the north of Iraq to avoid slaughter. However, the administration has failed to put pressure on several (Persian) Gulf states that are...

(Reuters) - The United States carried out air strikes on Saturday against Islamic State fighters near the besieged Shi'ite town of Amerli in northern Iraq and airdropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped there, the Pentagon said. President Barack Obama authorized the new military action, broadening U.S. operations in Iraq amid an international outcry over the threat to Amerli's mostly ethnic Turkmen population. U.S. aircraft delivered over a hundred bundles of emergency supplies and more aid was dropped from British, French and Australian planes, officials said, signaling headway in Obama’s efforts to draw allies into the fight against Islamic State. Iraqi...

They DO have a strategy, but they prefer to appear indecisive. That’s because the strategy would likely provoke even greater criticism than the false confession of endless dithering. The actual strategy is detente first, and then a full alliance with Iran throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It has been on display since before the beginning of the Obama administration. During his first presidential campaign in 2008, Mr. Obama used a secret back channel to Tehran to assure the mullahs that he was a friend of the Islamic Republic, and that they would be very happy with his policies....

George Galloway has been taken to hospital with a suspected broken jaw after he was attacked on a London street, his spokesman has said.

Earlier this week, the Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had harsh words for the countries of Turkey and Qatar. The Egyptian president told a group of newspaper editors that “Qatar, Turkey and the international organization of the Brotherhood are currently establishing many companies, newspapers and websites. They allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to spread chaos among the Arab nation, destabilizing Egypt and destroying the Egyptians.” Turkey and Qatar supported the rule of al-Sisi’s predecessor, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi, who is currently on trial for a number of offenses including conspiring to kill political opponents....

Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraq was massing forces Wednesday for an operation to break a two-month jihadist siege of the Shiite Turkmen town of Amerli, amid growing fears for residents short of food and water. The imminent counter-offensive comes amid reports that US President Barack Obama is weighing a decision to authorise air strikes and aid drops in the area to assist around 12,000 residents trapped in the northern town. According to a civilian volunteer commander, thousands of Shiite militiamen from groups including Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organisation are gathering in the Tuz Khurmatu area of Salaheddin province,...

District Judge Ed McLean has denied a motion to change the trial venue for Markus Kaarma, the Missoula man accused of fatally shooting a German exchange student in his garage last April. In a 208-page motion to move the trial, Kaarma’s attorneys argued that local media reports have tainted Missoula’s jury pool by painting Kaarma as a “cold-blooded killer.” Katie Lacny, who filed the motion, argued her 30-year-old client has been held captive in his Grant Creek home and received death threats as the media “aroused sympathies and created a community outcry against” him. “The pretrial publicity has stirred up...

Islamic State extremists are pushing to secure the border between Turkey and north-western Syria as the main gateway for recruits to join the caliphate they have imposed across much of eastern Syria and western Iraq. Large numbers of jihadists from Islamic State (formerly Isis) are moving this weekend towards the Turkish border area, about 60 miles north of Aleppo, in columns of armoured trucks that they looted from abandoned Iraqi military bases. The area is now one of the most active front lines in the group's attempt to redraw the borders of the Levant, a campaign that will have huge...

Kurdistan’s long-smoldering dream of a free and independent homeland might soon become a reality, thanks in part to a weakened Iraq brought on by the stunning success of a radical Islamic army known as ISIS. Kurdish forces took over parts of the largest dam in Iraq less than two weeks after it was captured by the Islamic State extremist group, Kurdish security officials said, as U.S. and Iraqi planes aided their advance. For decades, the people of this semi-autonomous region bordering the wild and rugged Zagros Mountains have sought to create their own independent state, linking portions of northern Iraq,...

Regardless of whether you are enthusiastic about conspiracy theories or not, Global Research's claim that 'former National Security Agency (NSA) systems analyst Edward Snowden recently revealed that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was trained by the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence and spy agency' is a topic worthy of debate.

The United States was said to be considering air strikes aimed at eliminating individual leaders of Islamic State as Turkey came under mounting pressure to stem the flow of jihadists across its border into Syria. As Washington debated extending air strikes into Syria on Saturday, senior British politicians urged Ankara to act to block recruits from the UK and other countries from entering Syria via Turkey, en route to joining Islamic State (formerly Isis). This weekend large numbers of Isis jihadists were trying to secure greater control of the border area, pushing northwards in armoured trucks looted from abandoned Iraqi...

Iran has sent 2,000 advance troops to Iraq in the past 48 hours to help tackle a jihadist insurgency, a senior Iraqi official has told the Guardian. The confirmation comes as the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said Iran was ready to support Iraq from the mortal threat fast spreading through the country, while the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, called on citizens to take up arms in their country's defence. Addressing the country on Saturday, Maliki said rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) had given "an incentive to the army and to Iraqis to act...

The threat of Sunni extremists eclipsing the power of its Shiite-dominated Arab ally presents Iran with the biggest security and strategic challenge it has faced since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. With the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an offshoot of al Qaeda, rapidly gaining territory, Iran deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security officials. Iran has invested considerable financial, political and military resources over the past decade to ensure Iraq emerged from U.S. war as a strategic partner for the Islamic Republic and a strong Shiite-led state. The so-called Shiite crescent—stretching from Iran...

Qatar's new Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is set to announce a cabinet reshuffle, a day after taking over from his father Sheikh Hamad, officials say. ... Sheikh Hamad seized power from his father Sheikh Khalifa in a bloodless coup in 1995, with the support of the armed forces and cabinet, and also neighbouring states. ... In 2003, he named Sheikh Tamim - his second son by his second wife Sheikha Moza bint Nasser - as his heir apparent. ... In foreign policy, the emirate is expected to maintain its alliance with the West while at the same...