Free Republic

Turkey has launched a third wave of raids against Islamic State jihadists in Syria, and a new campaign to bombard camps of Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said. "We have given instructions for a third series of strikes in Syria and Iraq. Air and ground operations are under way," Mr Davutoglu told reporters in the capital, Ankara. "No one should doubt out determination," he added. "We will not allow Turkey to be turned into a lawless country." The two-pronged operation against Islamic State (IS) and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants — two groups who are themselves...

Turkish fighter jets launched attacks on camps of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq overnight SNIP---- Turkey simultaneously launched ground attacks against the PKK and Islamic State in northern Syria

Top Obama bundler Jodie Evans with Marxist tyrant Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama The Obama State Department this week disavowed its promotion of a Muslim cleric after it was reported by the Washington Free Beacon that the cleric, Sheik Abdallah Bin Bayyah, endorsed a fatwa in 2004 authorizing Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. At the same time, the Obama administration continues to deal with Obama funder and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans who helped deliver cash and humanitarian aid to “the other side” in Fallujah in 2004 and made a personal statement in 2005 supporting the killing of...

Turkey's government says it has bombed Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria. A day earlier the two sides exchanged fire near the border, with one soldier killed and two more injured. Turkey is to let the US carry out air strikes against the Islamic State group from a key military base near the Syrian border, US officials have said. Turkish police also launched raids to arrest suspect IS militants on Friday morning in 140 locations in Istanbul. The raids were carried out in 26 districts of the city and involved 5,000 officers. Members of the the youth wing of the...

The White House on Thursday declined to confirm reports that the U.S. and Turkey have reached a deal allowing the Pentagon to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria from a major U.S. base inside Turkey, but did hint that those reports were accurate. Presidential press secretary Josh Earnest said President Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke Wednesday night and agreed to "deepen our cooperation in the fight" against the Islamic State. "There are a few things I can say about this," Earnest told reporters. "The president did, obviously, convene a telephone call [with Erdogan]....

President Barack Obama said at a Democratic fundraiser in New York on Tuesday evening that he had “ended two wars” during his presidency. In its recently released human rights report on Iraq, however, the State Department said that the Iraqi government had “lost effective control” over a large part of Iraqi territory to the Islamic State terrorist group. Also, according to the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2014, the group that the administration now calls ISIL was founded in the 1990s by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and fought against U.S. forces in Iraq before Obama removed U.S. troops from that...

Ted Cruz’s worst fear about the nuclear deal with Iran? That “millions of Americans will be murdered by radical theocratic zealots.” President Obama [argues] that under the deal Iran’s ability to quickly make a bomb will be hamstrung, and that doing nothing would actually accelerate Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But Cruz said if Iran were to acquire a bomb, he fears the detonation of a nuclear weapon over Tel Aviv,... that would “murder vast numbers of Palestinians” and Israeli Jews. “The odds are unacceptably high that they would view the murder of those Palestinians is perfectly acceptable collateral damage to annihilating...

A senior Iranian cleric delivered Friday prayers in Tehran while standing behind a podium that declared, “We Will Trample Upon America,” according to photos released by Iran’s state-controlled media. Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, who was handpicked by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader to deliver the prayers, delivered a message of hostility toward the United States in the first official remarks since a final nuclear deal was signed between Iran and world powers in Vienna last week. Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, said that the official remarks by Iranian officials and clerics...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday vowing to defy American policies in the region despite a deal with world powers over Tehran's nuclear program was "very disturbing".

Secretary of State John Kerry admitted to Al-Arabiya that it’s “very disturbing” how Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continues talking about destroying the U.S. and Israel after signing the P5+1 nuclear agreement.Kerry said he would be pitching Gulf partners on “all of the ways in which this agreement, in fact, makes the Gulf states and the region safer.” “I will also discuss with them at great length the things that the United States of America is going to do, working with them, in order to push back against the terror and counterterrorism efforts and other activities in the region that are very...

DUBAI, (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was very disturbed by anti-U.S. hostility voiced by Iran's top leader after a nuclear deal, as both countries' top diplomats sought to calm opposition to the accord from political hardliners at home. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday vowing to defy American policies in the region despite a deal with world powers over Tehran's nuclear programme was "very troubling". "I don't know how to interpret it at this point in time, except to take it at face value, that...

If President Barack Obama and other world leaders hoped the nuclear agreement with Iran would lead to normalized relations down the road, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has nipped that prospect in the bud. Speaking Saturday about the deal, the Islamic holy leader denied a wider shift in foreign policy. “We have repeatedly said we don’t negotiate with the U.S. on regional or international affairs; not even on bilateral issues. There are some exceptions like the nuclear program that we negotiated with the Americans to serve our interests,” Khamenei said. Iranians are excited about the ramifications of the deal,...

White House condemns suicide bombing in Turkey that killed at least 30 people and was blamed on ISIS. Video The White House on Monday condemned an apparent suicide bombing in Turkey that killed at least 30 people and was blamed on the Islamic State (ISIS) group, AFP reported. Spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House "strongly condemns the heinous terrorist attack that occurred in southern Turkey," which Ankara said appeared to be the work of ISIS. "We have started to see some extremist activity in other countries that does seem to be related to ISIL," Earnest said, using another acronym...

ISTANBUL (AP) -- Authorities suspected the Islamic State group was behind an apparent suicide bombing Monday in southeastern Turkey that killed 31 people and wounded nearly 100 - a development that could represent a major expansion by the extremists at a time when the government is stepping up efforts against them. Turkish officials vowed to strike back at those behind the attack in the city of Suruc targeting a group of political activists who wanted to help the shattered Syrian city of Kobani, a bombing that turned a moment of hope into a scene of horror. "We are face to...

WESTMINSTER, United Kingdom – The former head of the British Military has called for the UK and her allies to invade the Islamic State. Lord Richards told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme the current allied strategy of air strikes and support for Kurdish fighters was “woefully insufficient.” He said the strategy was “firing up” the Islamic State because it was “dribbling” rather than “clouting” the terrorist nation. Richards went on to say: “Sooner or later tanks are going to have to roll, there is going to have to be troops on the ground…. The current strategy won't work in the...

Irish police arrested a man in Dublin earlier this week who they suspected of being an ISIS extremist and who had been under surveillance since he was deported from Turkey. Last Thursday the suspect attempted to fly from Dublin to Istanbul, but he was sent back to Ireland as authorities in the Turkish city felt that there were “irregularities” with the Eastern European passport he was using. On his return to Dublin, Irish police (Gardaí) made the decision not to arrest him but placed the man in his 30s under surveillance as he left Dublin airport. Earlier this week, however,...

Two Chechens who were accused of beheading three priests in Syria avoided sentencing on murder charges, though they were sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for being a member of a terror organization by an Istanbul court. Magomet Abdurakmanov and Ahmad Ramzanov, two Chechens who were captured in Istanbul’s Bağcılar district on July 4, 2013, along with three Turkish nationals, were accused of murdering three priests in Syria two years ago. However, the court did not hand down a murder sentence on the ground that “the crime was not committed against Turkey and the lack of an agreement on extraditions.”...

I have enormous respect for Victor Davis Hanson and read with great interest his account this week that people are fed up with liberal elites. Amid all this leftish high-fiving about court decisions and executive orders, we forget political and electoral reality. Barack Obama has done more to destroy liberal political power in the Congress and in the statehouses than any Democratic politician since the 1920s. His executive orders and neglect of enforcing existing law have green-lighted the executive power of the next Republican president in a way that Richard Nixon could hardly imagine. He has discredited the idea of...

Uighurs from China's Xinjiang are being given Turkish identity papers in Southeast Asia by Turkish diplomats and then taken to Turkey where some are sold to fight for groups like Islamic State as "cannon fodder", a senior Chinese official said. Beijing says the Turkic language-speaking Uighur minority are firstly Chinese nationals, and those who flee China should be returned to their home region in the far west of the country bordering central Asia. "Turkish embassies in Southeast Asia will give them proof of identity," Tong Bishan, division chief of the Ministry of Public Security's Criminal Investigation Department, told a small...

Turkey would rather have an Islamic State on its southern borders than a Kurdish state loyal to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an international security and intelligence services group argued Thursday. The New York-based Soufan group said that recent gains made against the Islamic State (ISIS) by the PKK-affiliated Democratic Union Party (YPG) in Syria has given the Kurdish group control of areas extending more than 400 kilometers along Turkish borders. There is speculation in Turkey that Ankara is considering sending forces into Syria to create a buffer zone along its southern borders, as authorities bolster troops and security along...