Free Republic

CAIRO (REUTERS) - ARAB League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday led Arab foreign ministers in lambasting Turkey's military operation in northeast Syria as an "invasion of an Arab state's land and an aggression on its sovereignty". Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Alhakim, president of the current Arab League session, also condemned Turkey's offensive into Syria during an emergency meeting of the body, called by Egypt. The offensive "will exacerbate humanitarian crises, increase the suffering of the Syrian people, and strengthen the ability of terrorists to reorganize their remnants," Alhakim said. Alhakim and Lebanon's Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil called...

Iran reports unusually: Two Revolutionary Guards fighters killed in Israeli attack yesterday morning in Damascus pic.twitter.com/to3EEmKeGp— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) March 8, 2022

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad tells his Russian ally Putin the assault on Ukraine is justified and aimed at ‘restoring’ post-Cold-War balance.

U.S. special operations forces conducted a large-scale counterterrorism raid in northwestern Syria overnight Thursday, in what the Pentagon said was a “successful mission.” Residents and activists reported multiple deaths — including civilians — from the attack. Residents and activists in the area described witnessing a large ground assault, with U.S. forces using loudspeakers asking women and children to leave the area. They described the raid as the biggest operation since the October 2019 killing of Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. There was at least one major explosion. A U.S. official said that one of the helicopters in the...

Biden admin silent as lawmakers worry it seeks to normalize relations with Assad The Biden administration’s decision to grant the cousin of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad a U.S. visa is drawing outrage on Capitol Hill and generating concerns the United States seeks to normalize relations with Assad and unwind sanctions on his embattled government. Ali Makhlouf, the son of U.S.-sanctioned Syrian business tycoon Rami Makhlouf and Assad’s cousin, was seen in Los Angeles earlier this month driving a $300,000 Ferrari. His appearance raised questions about how he was able to obtain a U.S. visa, given his father’s presence on the...

The Trump administration's ambassadorial nominees to Afghanistan and Germany will not be approved by Senate Republicans, according to three congressional aides who cite the nominees’ isolationist and anti-Israel views. The senior Republican congressional aides said that the nomination of retired U.S Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor is almost certain to fail if it comes to a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The nomination of William Ruger, a U.S. Navy reserve officer and key figure in Charles Koch's philanthropic empire, to be ambassador to Afghanistan, is unlikely to get a vote from the committee before the November election. The Fox...

CAIRO: An explosion on the Arab gas pipeline has caused a total blackout in Syria, the state news agency (SANA) reported on Monday, quoting the nation's electricity minister. The minister said the explosion occurred between the Ad Dumayr and Adra areas in Syria. Syria's oil minister said the explosion could be a terrorist act.

U.S. troops last weekend reportedly found themselves in a standoff with Russian forces trying to gain access to key oil fields in northeastern Syria. The Saturday standoff — first reported by Turkish media outlets, citing unnamed local officials in the Turkey-Syria border region — seems to have ended without any shots being fired or any real risk of violence between the two sides. American military personnel reportedly stopped a Russian convoy near the town of Rmelan, and the Russian forces then apparently turned back and returned to their home base. Still, the near-clash serves as a reminder of the high...

That President Trump had to make this call, how, and the mortal danger to American assets it presents, illustrate exactly why U.S. forces should not spend a day longer in Iraq. President Donald Trump’s order to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad was the right call. At the same time, that he had to make this call, how he had to make it, and the mortal danger to American assets it presents, illustrate exactly why U.S. forces should not spend a day longer in Iraq than necessary to end our long-dwindling interests.Iran needed to learn a hard, swift lesson....

Three years gone, thousands of lives lost, tens of billions in debt-funded spending, and we’re right back where we started, with a permanent entanglement in the longest war in U.S. history. President Trump plans to pull about 4,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan early in 2020, officials in his administration reported in mid-December, a partial withdrawal that would put American force levels in our longest war exactly where they were when Trump entered office. Three years gone, thousands of American and Afghan lives lost, tens of billions in debt-funded spending, and we’re right back where we started, with an apparently permanent...

235,000 people who have fled air strikes and shelling elsewhere in Idlib province in recent weeks. The exodus was triggered by ramped-up Syrian and Russian attacks on some of the most densely populated areas of the country’s last-remaining rebel bastion... Earlier this month, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, told the EU to prepare for a “new wave” of Syrian refugees, saying his country “will not carry the migration burden alone.” Civilians in Idlib say they feel abandoned by Turkey, which has been the opposition’s main backer during the uprising against the government. Turkey has been strengthening its alliance with Russia,...

This area is the location for hospitals and schools that serve tens of thousands of people, and despite it being illegal, the war wages on. The attacks are happening so often that the do-nothing U.N. was forced to launch an inquiry to find out who is at fault. Hey, y'all, you'll never guess who it is: Russian-backed Syrian Military According to the NY Times: *https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/31/world/middleeast/syria-united-nations-investigation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share* "The Times obtained the list of attacks under examination from four officials briefed on the inquiry and investigated those incidents in an attempt to determine culpability. Our reporting suggests that the Syrian military was most...

Media figures are lying about Tuesday's attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Why? You can tell that the Obama administration’s legacy in the Middle East is in danger because the media, as the self-appointed janitors of that legacy, have gone into overdrive obfuscating the timing, context, and significance of this week’s attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad. Although President Donald Trump has gone a long way to dismantling Obama’s legacy in the region, much more remains to be done, including a halt to American taxpayer money that has been flowing into Iranian-controlled governments in Iraq and Lebanon.Earlier...

Top Republicans in Congress -- including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- criticized President Donald Trump over his decision to remove US troops from northern Syria as Turkey plans a military offensive there. McConnell urged Trump to reverse his move, saying "a precipitous withdrawal of US forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime."

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...

American forces will remain in Syria even after the last remnants of the Islamic State militant group are eradicated, signaling a shift in U.S. policy that further complicates the political climate in Syria amid its seven-year civil war Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday that U.S. forces will stay in Syria to provide training to local forces in an effort to ensure stability within the region, a decision that seems to run counter to past statements from President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to withdraw American forces from the region. The news out of...