Free Republic

After more than 20 years in the business, and just when you think you've seen it all, there's always something that shocks you more than ever. A photo from a cellphone video of the 16-year-old victim of the Gaza lynching. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimksi The 16-year-old girl lies dead after the brutal beating. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski This time it's the brutal murder of a 16-year-old girl in the Gaza Strip. Her crime: "dishonoring" her family. Of course, there is no way to verify the allegations against her and other females who have fallen victim to "honor killings." The gruesome murder occurred...

BAGHDAD--A U.S. airstrike killed a man suspected of directing the Aug. 14 truck bombings in northern Iraq that caused the deaths of more than 400 people, the deadliest single attack since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, military officials said Sunday. The man, Abu Mohammed Afri, was a leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, U.S. officials said, and was responsible for the synchronized bombings that targeted the Yazidi religious sect, a minority that is neither Muslim nor Christian. The bombings leveled neighborhoods of crude earthen homes and shops, burying victims and overwhelming medical facilities in Nineveh province. Hundreds of...

Arbil, Aug 16, (VOI) – A 340-strong Kurdish Peshmerga force was sent to northwestern Iraq's district of Sinjar to restore security and provide protection to the afflicted community, an official Peshmerga source said on Thursday. "The force will remain in the district until the security situation is secure," Peshmerga Commander Maj. Gen. Aziz Waizy told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

Excerpt - The death toll from the co-ordinated suicide truck bombings targeting the minority Yazidi sect in Iraq could double from 250 to 500, officials have warned. With emergency services overwhelmed, some families have been digging with their bare hands in the search for bodies. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. The US military has blamed al Qaeda in Iraq for the atrocity and one commander called it an "act of ethnic cleansing." ~ snip ~

At least 175 people were killed when three suicide bombers driving fuel tankers attacked a northern Iraqi town which is home to an ancient minority sect, in one of the worst single incidents in the four-year-old war. Iraqi army Captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded in the bombings in separate Yazidi neighbourhoods in the town of Kahtaniya, west of Mosul. Police say it appeared three bombers driving separate tankers attacked Yazidi sect members in different neighbourhoods in Mosul, 390 kilometres north of Baghdad, detonating their vehicles in quick succession. Yazidis are members of a pre-Islamic...

Baghdad - Cellphone videos have appeared on the internet showing an Iraqi mob stoning and kicking to death a 17-year-old girl after she offended her community by eloping with a Muslim man. Doaa Khalil Aswad was a member of northern Iraq's Yazidi minority and, according to reports in the Kurdish media, her family murdered her last month after she fell in love with a Muslim. In the video, Aswad is shown lying on a road as men kick her and throw a large lump of rock or concrete at her head. Her face is drenched in blood. Uniformed and armed...