Free Republic

The upper photo had recently -incorrectly- been portrayed around the internet as a 'child bride' being forced to marry an ISIS warrior in Iraq and/or sold as a slave, when in truth the girl was crying because she botched a poem the poor thing was called upon to recite at a (clearly frightening) ISIS 'youth rally'.... But unlike most stories involving these 7th-century cretins, this one has a happy ending: the MC above that was terrorizing the little girl got just the killin' he needed when he met up with Kurdish militia group 'YPG'. (exhibit B) . Alas, apparently they're...

AKCAKALE, Turkey—A quick and successful offensive by Kurdish fighters and allied rebels in a northern Syrian town has boosted a U.S.-backed effort to choke off Islamic State’s supply routes. Emboldened by this week’s recapture of Tal Abyad on the Turkish border, Syrian Kurdish fighters and allied rebels said their next target is Raqqa, Islamic State’s main stronghold about 50 miles south of Tal Abyad. On Monday, these fighters said they had already begun to advance southward toward Raqqa, reaching the town of Ain Issa, only about 30 miles away. “Now that we have just completed clearing Tal Abyad and the...

BEIRUT — The Islamic State was routed Monday from one of its key strongholds on Syria’s border with Turkey after its defenses crumbled and its fighters either defected or fled, raising new questions about the group’s vaunted military capabilities. The fall of the town of Tal Abyad to a Kurdish-Syrian rebel force backed by U.S. airstrikes came after just two days of fighting during which the militants appeared to put up little resistance, focusing instead on escaping to their nearby self-styled capital of Raqqa or fleeing across the border to Turkey. The force — led by Kurdish units of the...

Kurdish forces battled Monday to cut a key Islamic State supply line by seizing the border town of Tal Abyad, as terrified Syrians poured into Turkey to escape the fighting. Forces from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) backed by Syrian rebels advanced on the southeastern edge of the border town overnight, backed by US-led strikes against IS fighters, a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Kurdish forces had seized the Mashur Tahtani area on the southeastern edge of Tal Abyad, with the US-led coalition carrying out at least five strikes overnight. "The strikes are paving the...

Syrian refugees today broke through a barbed wire fence in a desperate bid to flee from the ISIS-held border town of Tal Abyad and cross into Turkey. Turkish troops had watched on helplessly yesterday as heavily-armed ISIS terrorists blocked the border crossing at Tal Abyad, where some 13,000 civilians have crossed over the past ten days. The men, women and children were stopped at gunpoint almost within touching distance of the border town of Akcakale. However, today - backed by allied rebels and air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition - Kurdish forces pressed forward with their offensive on Tal Abyad...

Because they have economies with flattening income inequality. And that's bad for business. ___ he world’s local bank is about to get a little less local. HSBC is going on a cost-cutting tear, trimming branches in major markets and selling off entire operations in emerging ones. The bank’s leadership says they’re narrowing its business to improve profitability, but there’s a much bigger message — and possibly an important twist — in its new approach. To understand HSBC’s decision, it helps to think about its business model. Retail banks that serve consumers and businesses make their money primarily through loans and...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu for the first time since the ruling party's failure to hold its parliamentary majority left the country facing a coalition government or snap elections. According to custom, Davutoglu will submit his resignation and Erdogan will ask the premier to form a new government at the meeting at 1400 GMT inside Erdogan's vast new presidential palace in Ankara. But this will be no easy task after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002,...

Turkey’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Barack ObamaPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the conquest of Jerusalem again in an election appeal this week.YNet News reported: Just one week before upcoming parliamentary elections in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and officials in his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) found a unique way to try and secure a victory at the polls by calling for the “liberation” of Jerusalem.“Conquest is Mecca, conquest is Saladin, it’s to hoist the Islamic flag over Jerusalem again; conquest is the heritage of Mehmed II and conquest means forcing Turkey back on its feet,”...

VIDEO: 6 minutes After the Islamist AKP party cruised to defeat in last weekend’s parliamentary elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government announced the border would be closed to Syrians fleeing ISIS as “there is no longer a humanitarian tragedy,” in the words of Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş. Kurtulmuş further claimed Wednesday that people were “fleeing strikes by coalition forces and the progress of Kurdish fighters in the region.” He laid blame not on the Islamic State but on the anti-ISIS coalition for driving Syrian refugees into Turkey with “reasonless and meaningless” airstrikes. More than 13,000 Syrian refugees fled across...

In the latest of a series of revelations, the Turkish authorities have allegedly been providing electricity to Tel Abyad -- a northern Syrian city just across the border from the Turkish city of Akçakale -- which is controlled by militants linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). More stunning is the not-so-secret presence of ISIL militants on the streets of Akçakale, in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, a reporter with the Birgün daily claimed in a piece published on Friday. His account echoes many other reports, revealing the risks Turkey is facing as fighting between Kurdish...

Hezbollah, a radical Islamist movement, is recruiting Druze, Christian and Sunni men to fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Lebanese daily news website the Daily Star reported Wednesday. The recruitment process, which is taking place in east Lebanon, is reportedly still ongoing. The new recruits are offered weapons and trainings to “to counter the threat of ISIS and its affiliates.” Lebanon is engaged in a battle against jihadists from ISIS and the Nusra Front along its northern and northeastern border with Syria

Another election, another surprise. Actually, two elections, in two countries last weekend, with surprisingly pleasant surprises. And in two very large countries: Turkey (population 82 million) and Mexico (119 million), both very important to the United States. In the runup to the Turkish election, speculation in English-speaking publications centered on whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party would get a large enough majority in the parliament to amend the constitution without a popular referendum. The AKP, usually described as mildly Islamist, has been in power since 2002. In some respects it has compiled a record that compares favorably with those...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan isn’t the only loser in last Sunday’s elections. President Obama had made Erdogan a focus of his policy. The voters in that troubled NATO country voted against Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and in so doing, slapped President Obama. President Obama went to Ankara in April, 2009, for an early edition of his Apology Tours. He spoke to the Turkish Parliament assuring deputies there that “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.” Every challenge that we face is more easily met if we tend to our own democratic...

Although Senator Ted Cruz is generally seen as a guy who’s mostly into domestic policies, he proved with an op-ed for Time that he’s very well aware of what’s happening in the world. In his piece, Cruz explains that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s defeat in the elections on Sunday paves the way towards a better relationship between the U.S. and Turkey — at least with regards to the war on terror: "This is good news for Turkey, and it should be good news for the United States as well. Turkey has been a long-standing friend to our nation, and...

There are growing fears that Syria's second city, Aleppo, could be taken over by Islamic State (IS) as fighting to the north between government and rebel forces intensifies. With the military being driven out of the adjacent province of Idlib by a newly-formed rebel alliance, the Army of Conquest, focus has shifted to the fate of Aleppo, an ancient trading hub near the border with Turkey that has been a battleground for the past three years.

Turkish policy in Syria, where Ankara stands accused of aiding militants like the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) group, is likely to change under a new government, the co-chair of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) said. The comments by Selahattin Demirtas follow a stunning upset in Sunday’s general elections in Turkey, where the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in 13 years and is mulling the idea of a coalition government. "Coalition governments will not be able to continue to support groups like ISIL and other extremist groups in Syria," he said in...

Following the devastating losses the Justice and Development Party (AKP) incurred in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Turkey, eyes are on the large segment of the Turkish media, which over these past few years have been co-opted by the AKP to promote its ideological agenda and bolster President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political ambitions. While there were those in the pro-government media who predicted before Sunday’s polling that there would be a relative decline in support for the AKP, few expected it to lose the parliament majority that has enabled it to rule the country without any encumbrance over the past 13...

LONDON, May 16 (IranMania) - Iran is working to obtain long-range missiles which could threaten the whole of Europe, the former head of Israel's military intelligence said, AFP reported. "Iran already has surface-to-surface missiles capable of being equipped with nuclear warheads with a 1,500 (930 miles) kilometer range but it will in the future have missiles with a range of 5,000 kilometers, which will threaten the whole of Europe," Aharon Zeevi told a conference in Tel Aviv. Iranian President Mahmoud "Ahmadinejad is promising the end of history in two or three years' time and I suggest that we believe him,"...

Turks Boast of Historic Slaughter and Rape of ChristiansPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On June 8, 2015 @ 12:06 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 21 Comments [1]Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.Earlier this week a news report [2] unwittingly demonstrated how Turkey—once deemed the most “secularized” Muslim nation—is returning to its Islamic heritage, complete with animosity for the infidel West and dreams of the glory days of jihadi conquests: A group of devout Muslims from across Turkey prayed before the city’s historic Hagia Sophia on the 562nd anniversary of the Turkish conquest of Istanbul...

One is the plight of Greece, with the nation's leftist government and its creditors engaged in the latest round of brinksmanship over its debt. Greece is running out of cash, but international creditors are refusing to release bailout money unless the government makes concessions. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, elected on a platform of fighting back against European-imposed austerity, has refused to budge. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, had expected to have a proposal from Tsipras several days ago, but he was "visibly angry," according to The Guardian... A Greek exit would pose a challenge to a beleaguered...