Free Republic

(CNN) - Alleged Israeli airstrikes in central Syria on Sunday night struck a facility claimed by the West to have produced chemical weapons, according to a local resident. The strikes killed at least 18 people and injured 37 others, state-run Syrian news agency SANA said Monday, citing the director of Masyaf National Hospital. SANA reported that there had been several explosions in the central Tartous and Hama governorates, including in the Masyaf countryside. A Masyaf resident, who requested anonymity for security reasons, described to CNN hearing several explosions late Sunday night. “About half an hour before midnight, multiple airstrikes targeted...

A blank-check legislation signed into law in 2001 has allowed the Pentagon to launch more than 40 military interventions in at least 22 countries without congressional approval A new study from the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates that over 4.5 million people have died from wars launched by the west in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks. The study estimates that between 906,000 to 937,000 people have been killed as a direct result of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. These countries have experienced the most violent wars in...

Maaret al-Numan (Syria) (AFP) - Thin mattresses, children's toys, a gas heater: Abu Ismail packed a pick-up truck with scant belongings before fleeing a northwest Syria town nearly emptied of residents by recent regime attacks. "I don't know where I am going, if I will find a house for my family, or what will happen to us," the 42-year-old father of seven told AFP, plumes of smoke rising around him. Tens of thousands of people like Abu Ismail have fled the Maaret al-Numan region, located in jihadist-held Idlib province, since December 16, following a rise in air strikes, according to...