Free Republic

Tyler S. Drumheller, a high-level CIA officer who publicly battled agency leaders over one of the most outlandish claims in the U.S. case for war with Iraq, died Aug. 2 at a hospital in Fairfax County. He was 63. The cause was complications from pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Linda Drumheller. Mr. Drumheller held posts in Africa and Europe over a 26-year career during which the CIA’s focus shifted from the Cold War to terrorist threats. He rose to prominent positions at CIA headquarters, serving as chief of the European division at a time when the agency was abducting al-Qaeda...

Two Ukrainian military aircraft IL-76TD destroyed on the territory of Al Jafra airbase in Libya. This is reported by Avia.pro. The aircraft were destroyed by rocket attacks. Soon information was published that one of the planes suffered as a result of a strike of Bayraktar TB2 Turkish drone, but the army representatives did not confirm this information and added that this drone was shot down from the missile system. Information agency reports that these planes were transporting prohibited weapons from Turkey to Libya. As a result of the explosion, one of the pilots died.

An airstrike on a migrant detention center in the Tajoura suburb of Libya's capital killed at least 44 people early Wednesday morning, according to the United Nations. More than 100 people were injured. The strike hit a hangar within the Tajoura Detention Center, obliterating what had been a shelter that was housing roughly 120 people. The death toll has grown as local health authorities report casualties. The U.N.-recognized government in the capital, Tripoli, has accused strongman Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army of carrying out the attack. As NPR's Jane Arraf reports, the migrants' hangar is next to a...

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi collapsed and died following a court session Monday. He was 67. Morsi, a senior figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected as Egypt's president in June, 2012 in the wake of the Arab Spring, which compelled Hosni Mubarak to resign after decades as president. He was deposed in a military coup in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule. Following his ousted, Morsi stood trial for the shooting of protesters, espionage for foreign military organizations including Hamas and Hezbollah, and for breaking out of prison in 2011 prior to his election. He was convicted...

Reports say clashes between Gen Khalifa Haftar's rebels and pro-government groups are taking place in three suburbs to the south of the city. Tripoli is the base of the UN-backed, internationally recognised government. The UN's Libya envoy has insisted that a planned conference on possible new elections will still go ahead. In a televised address the head of the UN-backed government, Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, accused Gen Haftar of launching a coup. Mr al-Sarraj said his government had "extended our hands towards peace", but said Gen Haftar will now be met with "nothing but strength and firmness". Tripoli residents have...

Iran looking to exploit the crisis in Algeria, in another threat to the EU A crisis in Algeria caused by a leadership vacuum with no prospects in sight is feared to be creating an opportunity for Iranian elements to hijack the country and “pose a dangerous strategic threat to Europe.” “ Tens of thousands took to the streets, chanting “No to a fifth Bouteflika term” and “No to the mafia regime,” in the largest mass protests in Algeria since the 2011 Arab Spring…..on Monday, Algerian strongman and national hero President Abdelaziz Bouteflika dropped his bid to run for a fifth...

Obama Scandal: Former President Obama and his political supporters have repeatedly stated that his administration was scandal-free, unlike administrations before and after. "We're probably the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House," Obama himself said. A new book puts the lie to that statement. Never mind that the left-leaning big media basically ignored major scandals during the Obama years, ranging from the IRS targeting scandal and the VA's deadly waiting lists for veterans to Hillary Clinton's illegal use of an unsecured, hackable home-brew server for her official duties as secretary of state...

Television journalist Lara Logan poked the mainstream media beehive last week in a no-holds-barred interview where she bluntly accused many reporters of becoming “political activists” and even “propagandists” for the Left and said journalism has descended into “absolute horses**t.” The response has been furious, personal, and devoid of the respect normally demanded for rape survivors.Lara Logan is a rape survivor in the most literal no-horsesh**t sense of the term. She was assaulted by a mob in Cairo while covering the Arab Spring uprising in February 2011 for CBS News and could easily have been killed. She has made it clear...

Former US president Barack Obama lied to Saudi Arabia when violating the redlines he famously declared regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons and then not acting when they were used, a former senior Saudi official said in an interview with Independent Arabia. Bandar bin Sultan served for years as head of Saudi intelligence as well as the Saudi ambassador to the United States. In the interview, he recalled a last phone call between the late Saudi King Abdullah and Obama, during which the Saudi leader told the US president: “I did not expect that [after] this long life, I would...

DOHUK, Iraq (Reuters) - One protester was killed and at least 10 others wounded when they stormed a Turkish military camp near Dohuk in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Saturday, burning two tanks and other vehicles, residents and Kurdish officials said. Najib Saeed, the chief health official in the area, said it was not yet clear what caused the death. He said Turkish soldiers had shot at protesters and that the burning of vehicles and equipment had caused several explosions. Baghdad's foreign ministry criticized the Turkish troops for opening fire and said it would summon Turkey's ambassador over the incident.

MISRATA, Libya - A mass grave of 34 Ethiopian Christians executed by the so-called Islamic State group in 2015 has reportedly been unearthed in Libya. The bodies have been exhumed and will be eventually repatriated to Ethiopia, the Libyan interior ministry says. Libyan government authorities found the mass grave Dec. 23 after obtaining information from arrested Islamic State members. The grave appears to be located on a farm near the coastal city of Sirte, 170 miles southeast of Misrata. Islamic State gained control of Sirte in 2015, but United Nations-backed forces regained control of the city in December 2016 after...

Misrata, Libya, Dec 28, 2018 / 01:48 pm (CNA).- A mass grave of 34 Ethiopian Christians executed by the so-called Islamic State group in 2015 has reportedly been unearthed in Libya. The bodies have been exhumed and will be eventually repatriated to Ethiopia, the Libyan interior ministry says. Libyan government authorities found the mass grave Dec. 23 after obtaining information from arrested Islamic State members. The grave appears to be located on a farm near the coastal city of Sirte, 170 miles southeast of Misrata. Islamic State gained control of Sirte in 2015, but United Nations-backed forces regained control of...

On December 19, 2018, President Trump declared correctly that “we have won against ISIS,” and announced that the remaining 2,000 American troops in Syria would be withdrawn. The president has made the right decision. Having won the war against ISIS, he does not want to lose the peace by getting into a military conflict with the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces, or with the Iranians or the Russians, or even with the Turks for that matter. As the father of an Army officer who is in theater right now, I think I have a right to an opinion. And in...

Two Vietnamese tourists were killed and 10 injured on Friday evening when an improvised explosive device detonated as a bus carrying 14 Vietnamese tourists traveled on El-Maryoutiya Street in Haram district in Giza, a statement by Egypt's Interior Ministry said... The explosion also injured the bus driver and representative of the tourism company, both Egyptians. The security services immediately moved to the site of the explosion to carry out investigations. More to follow

One hope for Yemenis is that the international fallout from the death of the Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, which has damaged Prince Mohammed’s international standing, might force him to relent in his unyielding prosecution of the war. Peter Salisbury, a Yemen specialist at Chatham House, said that was unlikely. “I think the Saudis have learned what they can get away with in Yemen — that western tolerance for pretty bad behavior is quite high,” he said. “If the Khashoggi murder tells us anything, it’s just how reluctant people are to rein the Saudis in.”

During the Obama presidency, the U.S. administration was wary of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had come to power in Egypt after the country’s first-ever free elections. Despite his declared support for democracy and change in the Arab world in the wake of the Arab Spring, then-President Barack Obama did not take a strong position and reject the coup against President-elect Mohamed Morsi. The coup, as we know, led to the military’s return to power in the largest Arab country — along with tyranny, repression, corruption and mismanagement. That is the conclusion that David D. Kirkpatrick arrives at in his excellent...

Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, said Tuesday that in recent weeks it thwarted a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Benghazi: Hillary Clinton Adviser Sidney Blumenthal Had Financial Stake In US Libya Policy, Says GOP Lawmaker [ full title ] . Sidney Blumenthal was a principal character in Hillary Clinton's Libyan policy discussions, even though he was neither an official adviser nor an impartial party, according to the Republican chairman of the House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack. In a letter, Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina claims there was a financial stake for Blumenthal in Libya as he pressed for Clinton to intervene. "Blumenthal was not merely acting as a steward of information to Secretary Clinton but...

The dominant narrative of modern Middle East history emphasizes European colonization and accepts as a truism that the former colonial powers prioritized the protection of their material interests—in oil, above all—above the dignity and self-determination of the region’s inhabitants. --Thus did botched decolonization result in endless instability...Thus did the region become a breeding ground for radicalism, intensified by Cold War rivalry between the superpowers, who replaced the European colonizers as the region’s meddling overlords...Then came Mikhail Gorbachev—a Westernizing reformer. At last, the Cold War was over. A new world order was at hand. What if this conventional wisdom is nonsense?...

Humanitarian agencies are struggling to meet the health and aid needs of the civilian population of Afrin as the number of people recently displaced due to Turkey’s offensive climbs to an estimated 167,000. Concerns have also been raised for the security of the thousands who remain in the canton.“Children, women, and men have undertaken harrowing journeys to flee Afrin and need urgent health assistance. Our staff have met civilians who reported walking for 36 hours to reach safer areas,” said Elizabeth Hoff, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Syria.People arriving at shelters have described “running in the face...