Free Republic

During Wednesday afternoon’s White House press conference, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl cornered Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz over why the administration does not consider the Taliban to be a “terrorist” organization. In light of a possible Jordanian prisoner swap with ISIS forces, Karl asked Schultz how that government’s actions differ from the United States’ 2014 release of Gitmo prisoners to the Taliban in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. When the spokesman suggested the Taliban is just an “armed insurgency,” and not a “terrorist organization” like ISIS, Karl pounced: “You don’t think the Taliban’s a terrorist group?” In the clip...

AMMAN/TOKYO - An audio message purportedly from a Japanese journalist being held by Islamic State militants said a Jordanian air force pilot also captured by the group would be killed unless an Iraqi female prisoner in Jordan was released by sunset on Thursday. The message appeared to postpone a previous deadline set on Tuesday in which the journalist, Kenji Goto, said he would be killed within 24 hours if the Iraqi was not freed. The latest audio recording, which could not be verified by Reuters, was posted on YouTube early on Thursday. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a...

SYDNEY – A hostage who died during a siege in a downtown Sydney cafe was killed when she was struck by fragments of a bullet fired from a police officer's gun as authorities stormed in to end the 16-hour standoff, a lawyer told an inquest on Thursday. Katrina Dawson, a 38-year-old lawyer who was among 18 people taken hostage last month by a gunman, died after being hit by six fragments of a police bullet that had ricocheted off a hard surface, Jeremy Gormly, a lawyer assisting the coroner, told the Glebe Coroner's Court. One fragment struck a major blood...

The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission will release its long-awaited report Thursday, which will propose fundamental changes to military benefits including ending the 20-year retirement, according to the Military Times, citing sources familiar with the report. The plan calls for Congress to create a hybrid system of smaller defined-benefit pension along with more cash-based benefits and lump-sum payments. A significant portion of retirement benefits would come in the form of government contributions to 401(k)-style investment accounts, those familiar with the report told Military Times. In addition to the 401(k) for troops serving less than 20 years, the commission will...

Some cultures in the US have been allowed to remain distinct, so why the double standard? European no-go zones that non-Muslims may not enter have made headlines recently, despite the inconvenient fact that they don’t exist. Because of an overwhelming and unexpected reaction from France and England in particular, Fox News issued an apology for letting anchors and guests repeatedly discuss such zones. Yet there are those who refuse to back down. Case in point: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a potential Republican presidential candidate. In an interview with CNN, he reiterated a point that others on the right have recently...

JERUSALEM — Two Israeli soldiers were killed and seven wounded in a missile attack Wednesday as they drove in a disputed zone along the Lebanese border, Israel said, in the most serious flare-up in the area in years. Hezbollah claimed responsibility. The attack raised the risk of a further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that is one of Israel’s most tenacious enemies. The two sides lobbed rockets and artillery at each other for hours afterward. Hezbollah, which had vowed to avenge a deadly Israeli strike on its fighters earlier this month, said in a statement that...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent a warning to the government of Lebanon and to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from whose territories Wednesday's attack and Tuesday's rocket fire on the Golan Heights were launched. "The government of Lebanon and the Assad regime share responsibility for the consequences of attacks originating in their territory against the state of Israel," he said.

A video uploaded to YouTube appears to show a large Hezbollah Brigades convoy transporting weapons, troops, and armored vehicles to the front to fight the Islamic State. Several American-made military vehicles, including an M1 Abrams tank, M113 armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP), as well as Iranian-made Safir 4x4s and technicals (armed pickup trucks) are in the convoy. The Hezbollah Brigades is US-designated foreign terrorist organization that has been involved in killing American soldiers in Iraq. At one point in the video, a transport truck is shown carrying an M1 Abrams tank. The Hezbollah Brigades' flag...

Israel's military says two of its soldiers were killed and another seven were wounded in a Hezbollah strike Wednesday on an army convoy near the Lebanese border. Israel's military responded to the anti-tank missile strike on the convoy with aerial and ground attacks on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon. Lebanese security officials told the Associated Press that Israel fired 25 shells across the border. The Israeli Defense Forces said that residents of the area had been ordered to remain in their homes. The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah earlier claimed responsibility for the attack and said it destroyed a number of Israeli...

In the five months since Jan Morgan banned Muslims from her gun range in Hot Springs, Ark., business has boomed and predictions of a lawsuit brought by federal civil rights enforcers have so far proved inaccurate. Morgan, who claims keeping Muslims out of her Gun Cave Indoor Firing Range is a matter of public safety and not a constitutional issue, says she made the decision in September after two customers she deemed suspicious visited. She said their furtive behavior and cellphone ringtones of “Allahu Akhbar” prompted her to revise her range’s policies. “We are dealing in lethal firearms,” Morgan told...

Genny Davila says her company website, resqco.org, appears to have been hacked by sympathizers of the terror group ISIS. And experts say many small businesses are becoming prime targets. “Why would this happen to my website? I’m, like, a dog accessories company,” she said. The site recently went from an online collar and leash store to a haunting advertisement for the Islamic State, or ISIS. Davila contacted Homeland Security. They led her to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team and she filed a report this week claiming she had been hacked. “They did say, yeah, that it had been happening....

Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves. Quran 48:29 America’s greatest threat is climate change. Obama, 2015Do not let Obama or Islamists deceive you: the Qur’an is very clear about the double standards and the discriminative theology of Islam.Can we all agree on one thing: that it is never acceptable to put an individual to death over an insult? Would it be fair to say that exercising such restraint is a foundation of modernity? Among civilized societies, the answer is an unequivocal yes.However, the belief that insulting the Prophet...

An editorial in the National Review attacks Ted Cruz’s and Steve King’s Expatriate Terrorist Act to remove the citizenship of Islamic terrorists so that they can’t return to this country.First let’s discuss why this bill is necessary. “If we do not pass this legislation, the consequence will be that Americans fighting alongside ISIS today may come home tomorrow with a U.S. passport, may come home to New York or Los Angeles or Houston or Chicago and innocent Americans may be murdered if the Senate does not act today,” Ted Cruz said. We’ve already seen it happen in France just...

In the past several months, many of the Syrian rebel groups previously favored by the CIA have had their money and supplies cut off or substantially reduced, even as President Obama touted the strategic importance of American support for the rebels in his State of the Union address. The once-favored fighters are operating under a pall of confusion. In some cases, they were not even informed that money would stop flowing. In others, aid was reduced due to poor battlefield performance, compounding already miserable morale on the ground.

At least two rockets launched from Syria struck the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Tuesday and Israel responded with artillery fire, the Israeli military said. The fire comes after an airstrike last week in Syria attributed to Israel that killed six members of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and an Iranian general. Israel has braced for a response to that strike, beefing up its air defenses and increasing surveillance along its northern frontier. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the fire "appeared to be intentional." He declined to comment on whether the fire may have been connected to the...

SHEAR YASHUV, Israel (AP) — A missile fired by the Lebanese Hezbollah group struck an Israeli military convoy on Wednesday, an apparent retaliation for a deadly airstrike attributed to Israel that killed six Hezbollah fighters in Syria earlier this month.

During the Hamas attacks on Israel, in which the UNRWA whose local staff is dominated by Hamas supporters was complicit, Chris Gunness had become its public face, appearing everywhere and even breaking down during one broadcast. Now Gunness has suffered another breakdown, this time on Twitter. Gunness lost his cool over an op-ed written by a Palestinian Arab and published in the Jerusalem Post which blamed UNRWA for prolonging the suffering of his people in order to justify its existence and deepen its coffers.Bassem Eid, the author of that op-ed, is the founder and director of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human...

U.N. gives mixed signals on Tehran cooperation as nuclear talks intensifySenate Democrats on Tuesday backed away from a bipartisan push for immediate new sanctions on Iran, bowing to President Obama’s call not to undercut international talks to get Tehran to curb its nuclear programs in the coming weeks. The shift, announced Tuesday by Sen. Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat and one of the party’s outspoken hawks on Iran, came amid a series of mixed signals from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency over the question of whether Tehran was honoring promises to put its suspect nuclear programs on hold as...

Ten Senate Democrats warned the White House in a letter Tuesday that they will support legislation imposing new sanctions on Iran if a framework to roll back the country’s nuclear program isn’t reached within two months. "In acknowledgement of your concern regarding congressional action on legislation at this moment, we will not vote for this legislation on the Senate floor before March 24," said the letter, led by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is the co-author of Iran sanctions legislation. "After March 24, we will only vote for this legislation on the Senate floor if Iran fails to reach agreement...

Menendez: Obama Admin Statements on Iran 'Sound like Talking Points Straight out of Tehran'