Free Republic

Isis militants slaughter more than 300 Yazidi captives in northern Iraq after thousands were taken captive from villages Isis militants slaughter more than 300 Yazidi captives in northern Iraq after thousands were taken captive from villages Hundreds of Yazidi prisoners have been killed near Mosul in northern Iraq Yazidi Progress Party condemned the 'heinous criminal acts' by extremists More than 300 Yazidi prisoners have been slaughtered by Islamic State militants near Mosul in Iraq. According to the Yazidi Progress Party, hundreds were murdered by Isis on Friday in the Tal Afar district, although it is not known how they were...

The Islamic State in Yemen claimed credit for the brutal execution of 15 Yemeni soldiers who were captured in the city of Azzan in Shabwa province earlier this month. The treatment of the captured soldiers by the Islamic State presents a stark contrast to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) handling of captured Yemeni soldiers.The Islamic State’s “Media Office for Shabwa Province” released a short, two minute 19 second video called “Eliminating the Apostates” on Twitter today. The video was obtained and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.In the video, the Islamic State displays 15 Yemeni soldiers. Local media...

As the conflict in Yemen intensifies, fully armed Royal Saudi Air Force F-15Cs are caught on video intercepting a civilian Airbus A310. The Mahan Air jet was en route from Iran to Yemen, supposedly on a relief mission to deliver humanitarian aid. Apparently the Saudis didn’t believe that. Iranians claim that proper clearance was acquired for the flight to Yemen via Oman and pilots ignored Saudi radio communications demanding the aircraft land at an alternate airport, one that just so happens to be under Saudi control.

The skies above the U.S. military's counterterrorism hub on the Horn of Africa have become chronically dangerous, with pilots forced to rely on local air-traffic controllers who fall asleep on the job, commit errors at astronomical rates and are hostile to Americans, documents show. Conditions at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the base for U.S. pilots flying sensitive missions over Yemen and Somalia, have become so dire that American warplanes and civilian airliners alike are routinely placed in jeopardy, according to federal aviation experts and documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. Unlike other major U.S....

The Wall Street Journal, citing a State Department official, reports that any evacuation point designated in a country where an Al Qaeda affiliate is active and an unstable security picture puts Americans and any U.S. military assets involved at risk. Instead, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf has pointed to an online system where Americans stranded in Yemen can register to receive updates on opportunities to leave the country. The department has also talked to other countries about Americans joining their rescue missions, she said. The decision of saving Americans puts U.S. authorities in a tight spot. They must choose between...

Yemen remains unstable and much more work needs to be done in the region, despite a declared halt to the Saudi-led bombing campaign in the country, the White House said on Wednesday. "Obviously, the job is not done," Jen Psaki, White House communications director, said on CNN. Tuesday's announcement by Saudi Arabia that it would end its campaign of air strikes against the Iranian-allied Houthis drew positive responses from the White House and Tehran, as well as fresh calls for peace talks and for humanitarian aid. Saudi Arabia said its month-old campaign against the Houthis, who had seized large areas...

As the Obama administration claims that there is “no military solution” to militant attacks in Iraq, Ukraine, and Syria, White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice has added Yemen to the list. “As in Syria, there is no military solution to the crisis in Yemen,” Rice said during a speech at the Arab American Institute’s Kahlil Gibran Gala on Wednesday. Rice’s stark assessment of the current situation in Yemen is the latest indication that the administration is quietly backing away from touting the fight against terrorists in Yemen as a success story.

Until there came to them clear evidence

Saudi Arabia said today that it foiled a suicide bombing plot against the U.S. Embassy in the kingdom’s capital of Riyadh. In an announcement carried by the Saudi Press Agency today, Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said authorities uncovered the plot by a militant cell involving at least two Syrian citizens and a Saudi citizen to attack the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh in mid-March. The Saudi national, who had a criminal record according to the Interior Ministry, was arrested April 18 when authorities searched his car and found pipes, batteries, mobile chargers and a few electric wires, officials...

CONFIRMED: Court records show Freddie Gray was receiving a structured settlement from Allstate Insurance and attempted to convert it into one lump sum in early March ———————————————————————————————————————————– EXCLUSIVE: The Fourth Estate has learned that Freddy Gray’s life-ending injuries to his spine may have possibly been the result of spinal and neck surgery that he allegedly received a week before he was arrested, not from rough excessively rough treatment or abuse from police. The Fourth Estate has contacted sources who allege that Freddy Gray received spinal and neck surgery a week before we was arrested, and was allegedly receiving a large...

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif calls it “laughable” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has become everybody’s nonproliferation guru.” “He’s sitting on 400 warheads, nuclear warheads, acquired in violation of the NPT (non-proliferation treaty),” to which Israel isn’t a party, he tells an audience at New York University. Zarif says that the greatest threat to global security is nuclear weapons possessed by the P5+1 world powers, and next is Israel’s nuclear weapons. He says that he would welcome Saudi Arabia having the same arrangements and enrichment program as Iran under the NPT. “It’s their right.”

audi King Salman bin Abdulaziz has sacked his younger half-brother as crown prince and appointed his nephew, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, as the new heir apparent, state television said. Al Jazeera's Mohamed Vall, reporting from Jizan in the country's south, said the reshuffle was announced by royal decree via state television early on Wednesday. SNIP-- Political earthquake' Khalil Jahshan, the executive director for the Arab Centre of Washington from Fairfax, Virginia, said that the reshuffle constitutes a "political earthquake of the greatest magnitude". "The Saudi Arabia we knew a few hours ago is no longer," Jahshan told Al...

Specific proposals to end the appalling violence in Syria, Yemen, and territories controlled by the Islamic State group are scarce in the nascent presidential campaign. That is about to change. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who tells Yahoo Finance he’s “92-and-a-half percent sure” he’s running for president -- wants to send U.S. troops back to the world’s most volatile region to stamp out vicious terrorism and remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “Assad has to go,” he says in the video above. “We’re going to have to send some of our soldiers back into the Middle East.”

American officials have denied media reports that a US cargo ship had been seized by the Iranian navy. The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV network had reported that a US vessel had been seized and taken to an Iranian port.

Netanyahu has achieved close coordination with the most important Arab leaders that include Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates The Israelis will destroy several Iranian nuclear facilities and my educated guess is that they will do so before the end of this year. Israel has no margin of error when it comes to nuclear reactors in nations that threaten its existence. While President Obama does everything in his power to enable Iran to create its own nuclear weapons, it is a good idea to recall that in June 1981 the Israelis destroyed a reactor in Iraq. It...

Mohammad Ali Jafari lashes out at Saudis for continued military campaign against Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is a betrayer who is “following in the footsteps of Israel and the Zionists,” the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Monday. Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari’s comments came amid the Saudi-led coalition’s military campaign against Iranian- backed Shi’ite Houthi rebels who are trying to take over Yemen. “Today, Saudi Arabia is brazenly and obnoxiously bombarding and massacring a nation, which is seeking the denial of the hegemonic system,” Press TV quoted Jafari as saying. Air raids, naval shelling and ground fighting shook...

A senior Iranian general said on Monday that the leadership of Saudi Arabia, a regional rival, was on the edge of collapse and would be toppled soon, “God willing.” Saudi-led bombardments on Yemen are “shameless and rude and an affront to all Islamic values,” the head of the 150,000-strong Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, said during a speech in Tehran.

Iraq and Syria, Libya, Yemen, Nigeria, the Philippines — but nothing to be concerned about: Obama and John Kerry and David Cameron and every other Western leader assures us that it has nothing to do with Islam. “ISIS Says It’s Established A Caliphate In Yemen,” by Jamie Tarabay, Vocativ, April 24, 2015: Supporters of the Islamic State say they’ve declared a caliphate in the deserts of Yemen, where government forces are battling Shiite Houthi rebels, and Al Qaeda fighters are gaining ground amid the chaos.In a nine minute video published online, the group calls itself Soldiers of the Caliphate in...

Amid reports of a renewed Saudi offensive against Iranian-allied rebels in Yemen, Iran's news agency reported on Friday that Saudi Arabia had stopped Iranian aid planes from landing in Yemen. Not unexpectedly, a top Iranian official responded with threats directed at Saudi Arabia. Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian warned on Sunday that the Saudi behavior and its siege of Yemen and preventing the dispatch of humanitarian aids "will not remain unanswered." "Saudi Arabia is not entitled to decide for others in the region," Abdollahian added. Iran's FARS News Agency stated that Saudi fighter jets...

US Secretary of State John Kerry urged the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen to participate in UN-brokered negotiations to end violence ravaging the country. “This has to be a two-way street,” Kerry told reporters in Canada after taking part in a summit of Arctic nations. “We need the Houthi and we need those that can influence them to make sure that they are prepared to try to move… to the negotiating table,” Kerry said. Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh had called on Friday for all Yemenis to enter a political dialogue to end the conflict. …