Free Republic

The woman’s secret flight from the caliphate took place more than six months ago, aided by a smuggler who helped her sneak across the Syria-Turkey border one spring night. But in spirit, this red-haired exile from the Islamic State never truly left. [snip] “We will bring up strong sons and daughters and tell them about the life in the caliphate,” she said, fingering her teacup through black gloves. “Even if we hadn’t been able to keep it, our children will one day get it back.” Zarah’s blunt-spoken fealty to the Islamic State was remarkable, given the physical and legal perils...

Pastor J.D. talks about the prophetic significance of Putin’s meeting with Erdogan and Rouhani

This morning, a bizarre video went viral on Twitter: it showed over a dozen turkeys endlessly circling a dead cat in the middle of the road. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” says the guy who posted the video, @TheReal_JDavis, who’s from Boston. Why in the world are the birds doing this? They might be performing what’s called a “predator inspection,” says Alan Krakauer, a biologist at the University of California, Davis, who studies the behavioral ecology of birds, in an email to The Verge. Sometimes, animals lower down in the food chain approach predators — a behavior...

Ok, what's everyone making today? Besides Turkey, I'm making: Spiral Cut Smoked Ham Sweet Potato Casserole Real Mashed Potato's Meat Stuffing in the Turkey Apple Pie (baked yesterday) Pumpkin Pie (baked yesterday) Green Beans Almondine Crescent Rolls Salad Cranberry Sauce

The first daughter attended the White House pardoning ceremony for the National Thanksgiving Turkey yesterday in a short leg-baring outfit, stealing the spotlight from the two turkeys being granted a second chance — Wishbone and Drumstick. For the occasion, Tiffany wore a short red tweed peacoat with hints of pink. She must have been wearing an even shorter dress or skirt underneath, as her legs were bare and accentuated by black pumps. The public was in large part shocked; multiple news outlets have reported not on the event, but on Tiffany’s outfit. Hollywood Life called her jacket “very short” and...

Thanksgiving is the time for family and friends to sit around a table and enjoy some really good food. But everything doesn't always go plan, as these photos show.

Sometimes legends are true. Sunken cities are typically the stuff of legend, but now archaeologists have found the real thing hiding deep within Lake Van in Turkey. After a decade of searching the Middle East's second largest lake, the home of a lost kingdom has been found hundreds of metres beneath the surface. Archaeologists from the Van Yüzüncü Yıl University announced the incredible discovery - a vast 3,000-year-old castle preserved deep within the lake in amazing condition. The researchers worked closely with an independent team of divers to find their prize. Lost underwater cities and castles are a popular motif...

The Thanksgiving marathon is starting early for team MOTUS as we’re heading out today for the first of several stops between now and next weekend. So that means it’s officially recipe day!I’ll be making these little gems for the pre-Thanksgiving dinner hour. We’ll be with Raj’s clan for Thanksgiving where the phrase “if everyone’s in charge nobody’s in charge” may have been invented. Dinner is always “planned” for 2:00 pm but never really hits the runway until 6:00 pm or so – and that’s in a good year when whoever signed up for the main event remembers to put the...

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia issued a ruling forbidding war against the Jews and proclaiming that Hamas is a terror group. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Al Sheikh, issued a surprising religious ruling, saying that fighting against Israel was inappropriate and that Hamas is a “terror organization.” The Muslim cleric issued the ruling while answering a question on a television program regarding the Palestinian riots surrounding the Temple Mount in July, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported. Israel’s Communications Minister Ayoub Kara welcomed the unexpected decision and invited the Mufti to visit Israel.

Russian Federation Veterinary and Plant Health Inspection Service (Rosselhoznadzor) of The Bryansk and Smolensk Oblasts Administration reported that the first truck carrying 20 tons of Turkish tomatoes arrived in Russia after about two years. In the statement made to a Russian news agency Ria Novosti, "The first truck carrying 20 tons of tomatoes from the company officially sanctioned for import this year from Turkey came to Russia today, and the standard customs and phytosanitary controls are being carried out." Bandita-type tomatoes were produced and exported by Agrobay company. Russia will collect 50 kilotons of tomatoes from four Turkish companies this...

And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.(Revelation 9:13-16)The command comes from Heaven, to “Loose the four Angels bound at the River Euphrates”. It is important to note this, that everything done in the Revelation, which...

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag says Washington has told Ankara that jailed Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab -- a gold trader who is awaiting trial in the United States on charges of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran -- is in good medical condition. Bozdag made the remarks on November 16, a day after Turkey announced it had sent a diplomatic note to U.S. authorities inquiring about Zarrab. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons website last week listed Zarrab, 34, as having been released from prison on November 8. But U.S. prosecutors said that posting was an error and he remained...

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling...

Turkey’s misguided foreign policy has increasingly become apparent in three main spheres: Syria, Iraq and the Gulf region. During an hourlong, live TV interview on Nov. 7 at Medyascope.tv — an independent, web-based, Turkish news platform — on the latest developments in the Middle East, I was asked what their impact could be on Turkish foreign policy in the region. The question referred to the recent dramatic steps taken by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the unexpected resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. In my response, I characterized Turkey’s recent political moves in the region as a...

On July 15, 2016, an American college professor named Henri Barkey convened an academic workshop about Iran at a hotel on an island near Istanbul. That night, elements of the Turkish military attempted a coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that quickly failed but triggered a massive campaign of repression which continues to this day. Barkey went through with his conference, spent a couple of days in Istanbul and flew home. To Barkey’s astonishment, he soon became a target of the world’s newest political weapon: fake news, in the form of a feverish, government-sponsored campaign. Pro-Erdogan media claimed that Barkey...

Lt. Col. Levent Türkkan, aide to Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, is seen after his interrogation following the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Lt. Col. Levent Türkkan, aide-de-camp of Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, on Monday recanted his previous testimony during a hearing at the Ankara 17th High Criminal Court, where 221 suspects are standing trial for a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, saying he was probably drugged before his testimony, CNN Türk reported.“It was like we were all living in a dream. I think I was given something [a drug],” said...

Every time jihadi terrorists murder innocent people, political commentators and analysts rightfully start trying to find answers to questions such as: “What made the terrorists do that?” “How were they radicalized?” “Where were they brainwashed?” A look at Turkey -- whose constitution states it is a secular republic, but whose educational system functions otherwise -- may yield some eye-opening answers.

QAMISHLO– The deputy of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Russian Senate Ziyad Sabsabi said that Russia will abide by neutrality in the fighting between the regime Force and the Syrian Democratic Forces, indicating that Russia insists permanently on the Kurds participation in conferences and meetings related to the Syrian crisis.The General Command of the People’s Protection Units held a press conference yesterday, in which a number of IS mercenary families were handed over to the Russian Federation during a joint press conference between the People’s Protection Units and Russian military leadership.The families, which were handed over by the...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in what started as a probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and any potential collusion with the Trump campaign, is reportedly investigating former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn for an alleged plan to “forcibly remove” a Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania and send him back to Turkey.

How the grandparents of today’s Christian victims of ISIS were Editor’s Note: The following review was written by Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. The book reviewed is Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide, a History (published by the Oxford University Press, 2016), by Joseph Yacoub, an Honorary Professor of Political Science at Catholic University of Lyon. A significantly shorter version of this review first appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2017. This important contribution to genocide studies documents how the world’s oldest Christian communities—variously referred to as Chaldeans, Syriacs, and Arameans,...