Free Republic

ANKARA, Turkey--Fourteen Turkish soldiers were killed, and 33 others were wounded as the Turkish army and the so-called Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) continue to push deeper into the ISIS-held Syrian city of al-Bab, northwestern Syria, the Turkish military said in a statement Wednesday night. It also claimed that138 ISIS militants were killed in the clashes. The military said earlier in the day that it took control of the road between the two northwestern cities of Aleppo and al-Bab, according to the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News. The Turkish President said on Wednesday that he received the news from the military...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) issued a report on Monday responding to allegations by the US State Department that ranged from press violations to torture in the Kurdistan Region. The report by the KRG’s High Committee to Evaluate and Respond to International Reports comes after nearly a year of investigations that examined various points addressed in the 2015 US Department of State’s annual report on Human Rights Practices in Iraq, which also examined the rights situation in Kurdistan. Among other things, the US report contained allegations that the Peshmerga were systematically destroying Arab homes in towns...

Nothing special. A YouTube video of Boney-M and one of their popular songs "Rasputin". It is funny in today's social & political context. Check out the Italian presenter with his bouffant hairdo.. if you speak Italian it'd be a bonus.

There has been a recent surge in conversions to Zoroastrianism among Kurds at home and abroad. Andaz Hawezi, chief of the Zoroastrian Temple in Sweden says thousands have joined the faith. In 2011 he was elected to lead the temple. Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest religions to which most Kurds trace their ancestral faith. Hawezi says not all the new converts or followers are Kurds. There are Arabs, Turks, Persian, Swedish, Polish, British and other nationalities. “We hope to come back to Kurdistan. That’s why we named the Temple Kurdish Zoroastrian.” Hawezi says. The Temple in Sweden is...

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — “We Muslims have a lot of problems with our religion, for a lot of reasons,” the words of Sanger Najim, a young man living in Erbil, echo the sentiments of a growing population in the Kurdistan Region who struggle with questions about their faith. Many Muslims are confronted by the violent extremism of the Islamic State (ISIS) and wonder how to reconcile their personal beliefs with the actions of the extremist group. The Kurdish population is approximately 94% nominally Muslim. Recently, however, there have been many reports of Kurds leaving Islam or converting to other religions....

Members of the Parsi Zoroastrian community in Calcutta have filed a petition in a local high court against the music video for the song “King” by Amitis featuring Snoop Dogg, calling it blasphemous and disrespectful toward their faith, the Times of India reports. Zoroastrianism is a millennia-old faith with roots in ancient Persia and a flourishing community in India; its scripture emphasizes the sanctity of nature and the duality of existence. Amitis is an Iranian-born singer who now lives in Atlanta; “King” appears to be her entrance into the realm of Western pop. Snoop Dogg is Snoop Dogg — in...

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region — After over a millennium, the Zoroastrian faith is returning to its original habitat. The Ministry of Religion in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital Erbil has registered the religion, locally known as Zardashti, and suggested to the Kurdish government the ancient faith should be given its own directorate general and its believers be allowed to build new temples. “Now it’s time,” says Nouri Sharif, one of the initiators of the movement that established a Zoroastrian organization in Europe in 2006 and in March announced in Erbil its official return to Kurdistan. In April, a Supreme Council of Zoroastrians...

On 11 August, the Iranian daily Kayhan was forced to quote only two sources supporting the “Imam” title for Khamenei. One is the Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. He is quoted as saying “I kiss the hand of Imam Khamenei”. The other is an unnamed “leader of the Muslim Brotherhood” who told Kayhan “Imam Khamenei is a source of inspiration for our movement.” In any case, among Arabs, the title of Imam does not have the same meaning and resonance as in Iran. According to Iranian researcher Babak Zamani, more than 600 foreign-born militants occupy key positions at all levels...

Iran's opposition has called for renewed street protests next week on the back of the wave of demonstrations that have swept across the Middle East. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the leaders of the green movement in Iran, have issued a call for what they have described as "a solidarity move to support the protests in two Muslim countries of Egypt and Tunisia" on Monday. The green movement staged a series of mass demonstrations for several weeks in 2009, following a disputed presidential election that gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in office. Tehran and other major cities saw...

HOSNI Mubarak should be given credit for at least one achievement in his three decades in power: his deft exploitation of Washington's fears about the Muslim Brotherhood. There is, in fact, no evidence the brotherhood has been able to count on the support of more than a small minority. For its part, the brotherhood has used Mubarak's persecution of its rank-and-file membership with equal cleverness to elevate its status within Egypt and, more importantly, among the champions of moderate Islam in the West. The brotherhood was formed as a fundamentalist group in 1928 with the aim of Islamising Egyptian society...

WASHINGTON — The United States urged Iran Monday to accept an asylum offer from Brazil for a Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. "If Brazil is willing to accept... this woman, we would hope that Iran would consider that as a humanitarian gesture," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. "And the fact that Brazil has stepped up and indicated a willingness to resolve it, we hope Iran will listen." The comments came after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday offered asylum to Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian mother of two.

Iran is closely watching the unfolding crisis between Israel and the United States over Israeli settlements – and Jerusalem clashes with Palestinians that injured more than 100 today – for ways to rejuvenate its diminished influence in the Middle East. Iran has seen its reputation tarnished across much of the Middle East by weeks of violent street clashes after the June 2009 presidential election, which many Iranians believe was rigged. “The Iranians are going to see an opportunity to improve their position in the region, to capitalize on Israel’s reduced standing vis-à-vis the US, to reduce the chances of an...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell has stopped gasoline sales to Iran, oil traders said on Wednesday, the latest addition to a growing list of firms that have halted supplies under threat of future U.S. sanctions. The Anglo-Dutch oil firm will join the likes of BP, Reliance Industries, and independent Swiss trader Glencore, among suppliers that have either stopped fuel sales to Iran or have made a decision not to enter into new trading agreements with the world's fifth largest oil exporter. "Shell has stopped selling gasoline to Iran, we have not seen them there for a while...

Rooz Online spoke with Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush about the issues facing the Iranian nation today, the 5-person statement and the mixing of religion and politics. Emphasizing that if a referendum is to be held in the country, “The supreme leader’s position and responsibilities must be revisited,” he contends, adding, “In order to save religion and ensure piety out of choice, not compulsion, secularism is the appropriate solution in my opinion.” Here are excerpts of the interview. Rooz: The words “republic” and “democracy” are used to describe the rule of people over people in a political system. Doesn’t mixing religion with...

Where can you spend almost $US150,000 per square metre on a piece of land? Not the Champs-Elysees in Paris, or Broadway or New York. But Mecca! This film shows the transformation of the holiest place in the Islamic world into a real estate business for religious tourism … More than 3-million Muslims from around the world now attend the world’s largest pilgrimage, the Hajj. Following the pilgrims’ journey, this film features a rare interview with the Bin Laden Group behind much of the monumental development of Mecca, potentially Saudi Arabia’s new ‘gold’.

Australia strongly condemned North Korea's provocative test launch of seven missiles today and would support UN action over the move, the Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has said. Mr Downer said he had "expressed deep disappointment" to the North Korean ambassador over the launch of the missiles. Japanese officials said the first two missiles landed in the Sea of Japan, about 600km off the coast, early this morning. The third was reportedly a long-range weapon capable of reaching US soil, which broke up shortly after it launched. Mr Downer said North Korea's long-range capability posed a serious threat to the...

Poland's Roman Catholics have expressed outrage after a magazine published a picture of the much revered icon of the Black Madonna with pop singer Madonna's face transposed onto it. "We are shocked to see, yet again, the miraculous icon of the mother of God used in a profanatory way for advertising and business purposes," Paulinian monks at Jasna Gora monastery in the southern city of Czestochowa.

PREMIER Peter Beattie has strongly supported freedom of speech after a second Queensland newspaper published a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin today joined Brisbane's Courier-Mail in publishing one of 12 cartoons first printed in Denmark and which have sparked a violent backlash across the Muslim world. Any depiction of Mohammed is considered blasphemous and banned in Arab countries, although not in some non-Arab Islamic countries. But Mr Beattie said he felt strongly about freedom of the press in Australia. "I strongly support their right to publish these cartoons," Mr Beattie said.

Attitudes towards Muslims are hardening even in Europe's most liberal, multicultural societies, writes James Button. WE ALL know September 11, 2001, transformed the US. But will historians say that in the long run it transformed Europe just as much, even more? It is a question worth asking as the fire lit by the publication of 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad continues to burn. Because a straight line runs from September 11 to here. September 11 enraged Pim Fortuyn and drove him into politics. Fortuyn was the maverick Dutch politician who called Islam a "backward" religion. He might have rocketed...