Free Republic

Once secular, Turks are now born and bred on hating infidels. Islamic terror attacks that target Christians in Turkey are not uncommon.  Around Christmas of 2011, a large-scale al-Qaeda plot to bomb “all the churches in Ankara” was exposed.Right before Christmas 2015,  ISIS issued death threats, including “upsetting videos and pictures,” to at least 20 Protestant churches, and warned that “Koranic commandments… urge us to slay the apostate like you.” More spectacularly, a gunman dressed as Santa Claus entered a nightclub in Istanbul during New Year celebrations, 2017, and massacred 39 people.  A “heroic soldier of the caliphate,” the Islamic State...

BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:40 P.M.) – Two commanders from the Hurras Al-Deen group were killed on Sunday, when a drone struck their positions in the Idlib Governorate. According to the preliminary reports, the two leaders, Bilal Al-Sanani (Yemeni national) and Qassam Al-Urdoni (Jordanian national), were killed by a U.S. Coalition drone in the Idlib city. The drone strike targeted the vehicle carrying both men and their associate, Mohammad Al-Ahmad, who was seriously wounded as a result of the U.S. Coalition attack. The attack appears to have been carried out by a U.S. ninja drone, as the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was...

The Chinese government has drawn wide international condemnation for its harsh crackdown on ethnic Muslims in its western region, including holding as many as a million of them in detention camps. Now, documents and interviews show that the authorities are also using a vast, secret system of advanced facial recognition technology to track and control the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority. It is the first known example of a government intentionally using artificial intelligence for racial profiling, experts said. The facial recognition technology, which is integrated into China’s rapidly expanding networks of surveillance cameras, looks exclusively for Uighurs based on...

Videocamera captured the moment of atrocity commuted by the Greek Couast Guard. Video cameras captured the moment, as the forces of the Hellenic coast guard in the Aegean sea dragged back the rubber boat with a group of migrants on B board. In recent days, thousands of migrants wishing to reach Europe, headed overland to the border crossing in Edirne and across the sea to the Greek coast. On the of the coast guard Forces of Greece withdraw a rubber boat with a group of illegal migrants from the territorial waters of Greece. Migrants on boat were rescued by the...

Twitter announced Thursday that it had deleted more than 170,000 accounts tied to a Chinese state-linked operation that were spreading deceptive information around the COVID-19 virus, political dynamics in Hong Kong, and other issues. Almost 25,000 of the accounts that were deleted formed what Twitter described as the “core network,” while around 150,000 accounts were amplifying messages from the core groups. Twitter noted that the accounts taken down this week were tied to a Chinese state-backed operation last year that attempted to sow political discord in Hong Kong. Those accounts were also taken down. According to an analysis of the...

June 9, 2020: Despite the financial crises, continuing anti-government protests and growing criticism from government and military leaders, the senior clerics who run Iran believe that there is a good chance the American presidential elections in November will put a more pro-Iran and anti-Israel government in power. While this is a possibility, many Iranians don’t believe the clerics can hang onto power until the end of the year. Poverty is growing in Iran and the government continues to spend lots of money on military operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Syria is the costliest foreign adventure. So far this...

The announcement Thursday that the partners of the Leviathan gas reservoir will invest $3.75 billion in its development is a devastating blow to the BDS movement, Eli Groner, director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. The development of Leviathan, which is scheduled to take about three years, constitutes both the largest energy project and financial investment in Israel in the country's history.

Putin and Netanyahu to strike deal on Leviathan gas field The Australian October 20, 2015 12:00AM Russia wants to be the major partner in Israel’s offshore ­Leviathan natural gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, a top ­Israeli foreign affairs analyst said in Sydney yesterday. Ehud Yaari, the senior Middle East commentator for ­Israel’s Channel Two news, said “everybody regrets” a deal was not done with Woodside and that until now Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ruled out a Gazprom deal. Gazprom bid for a stake in the project in 2012 but was beaten by Woodside, which pulled out of...

Israel made another discovery off its coast. The newly discovered field, Royee, may hold up to 3.2 Tcf of natural gas according to a statement made by the Israeli partners in the field Ratio and Israel Opportunity who hold respectively 70%, and 10% stakes. The remaining 20% of the field are held by Edison. Royee is located about 150 kilometers offshore Israel close to its maritime borders with Cyprus and Egypt. The field’s size is yet to be confirmed, but current estimates suggest it is the third largest field discovered to date in Israeli waters after the Leviathan discovered by...

On May 3, Moscow criticized Turkey’s plans to explore natural gas deposits around the divided island of Cyprus, under the protection of Turkish naval and air power. Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s chief spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich, cautioned Turkey that its actions “may exacerbate the situation on the territory of Cyprus” (Rossiskaya Gazeta, May 4). The Greek Cypriots and Israel are coordinating their plans to develop offshore gas deposits and export the product in partnerships with international companies. One export route under consideration would run via mainland Greece into Europe. The Republic of Cyprus, Greece and, recently, Israel are all involved in...

While the Middle East may have a reputation for instability and occasional violence, there's no denying the vast riches it has to offer patient investors. Just months after the announcement of $1 trillion worth of minerals in Afghanistan comes word of oil discoveries in Israel... Israel may finally be able to tell its Middle Eastern neighbors where they can stick their oil — something the United States has wanted to do for years. In one of the most sought-after parts of the world, 4.3 billion barrels of oil could be sitting in the Leviathan project beneath the Mediterranean, according to...

Military strongman Khalifa Haftar's reluctance to sign up to a Turkish-Russian orchestrated ceasefire accord underlines the complexity of Libya's conflict and pressures exerted by key foreign players, analysts say. He left Moscow on Tuesday without signing a permanent truce aimed at ending nine months of fighting against the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Sarraj. His abrupt departure was a setback for an international diplomatic push, after Sarraj had signed up to halting Haftar's offensive to seize Tripoli from the GNA. For Emad Badi of the Washington-based Middle East Institute, there are two plausible explanations for Haftar...

Egypt has announced an anti-Turkey alliance that includes Greece, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and France to confront Turkish moves in Libya and the Mediterranean. The announcement was made during a virtual meeting with the foreign ministers of these countries on May 11. In a joint statement issued shortly after the meeting, the five-party alliance said it will focus on confronting the Turkish moves in the territorial waters in Cyprus, where Turkey has been carrying out “illegal” excavations in the Mediterranean under Cyprus sovereignty. The alliance also condemned Turkey’s escalated violations of Greek airspace.  The European Union condemned May 16...

The warplanes, a mix of at least 14 MiG-29 fighters and Su-24 fighter-bombers, appear to have taken off from a base in Russia sometime in the middle of May and flown to Hmeimeem, Russia’s airbase on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. There they were repainted, their Russian Federation Air Force markings obscured, before flying more than 1,200 miles and landing in eastern Libya, in territories controlled by Russia’s ally, strongman-in-waiting Khalifa Haftar. The deployment, which the Pentagon revealed last week and Moscow denied, is the latest in a series of escalations that have seen all types of weapons — Turkish and Emirati...

Today in history, on May 29, 1453, the sword of Islam conquered Constantinople. Of all Islam’s conquests of Christian territory, this was by far the most symbolically significant. For not only was Constantinople a living and direct extension of the old Roman Empire and current capital of the Christian Roman Empire (or Byzantium), but its cyclopean walls had prevented Islam from entering Europe through its eastern doorway for the previous seven centuries, beginning with the First Arab Siege of Constantinople (674-678). Indeed, as Byzantine historian John Julius Norwich puts it, “Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather...

Covid-19 came late to Turkey - on 11 March - but soon singed every corner of the country. Within a month all 81 provinces had been affected. It was the one of the fastest growing outbreaks in the world - worse than China or the UK. There were fears that the death toll would soar turning Turkey into another Italy, which was then the hardest hit country. Three months on that hasn't happened, even without a total lockdown. The official death toll is 4,397. Some doctors here dispute that, claiming the real figure could be twice as high because Turkey...

Greece on Sunday dismissed reports that Turkish soldiers had occupied a strip of Greek territory in the Evros border region, where Athens is expanding a fence to keep migrants out. Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said allegations, picked up the the British press, that Turkish troops had occupied a patch of land that is normally submerged at this time of year on Greece's side of the border were "utterly false". Dendias acknowledged, in an interview with Skai TV, that "a presence of Turkish forces has been observed in a strip of land where some preparatory works had been made by the...

Hundreds of Russian military contractors in Libya were evacuated on Monday after retreating from fighting on the capital's front lines, forces backing the unity government said. The claim comes after a series of setbacks for eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar's year-long offensive to seize Tripoli from the UN-supported Government of National Accord (GNA). "An Antonov 32 military cargo plane landed at Bani Walid airport to resume the evacuation of Wagner [Group] mercenaries who had fled southern Tripoli to an as-yet unconfirmed destination," pro-GNA forces wrote on Twitter. Pro-GNA forces said Monday some "1,500 to 1,600 mercenaries" had fled from the...

U.S. Africa Command assesses that Moscow recently deployed military fighter aircraft to Libya in order to support Russian state-sponsored private military contractors (PMCs) operating on the ground there. Russian military aircraft are likely to provide close air support and offensive fires for the Wagner Group PMC that is supporting the Libyan National Army's (LNA) fight against the internationally recognized Government of National Accord. The Russian fighter aircraft arrived in Libya, from an airbase in Russia, after transiting Syria where it is assessed they were repainted to camouflage their Russian origin. "Russia is clearly trying to tip the scales in its...

The Russian Federation has sent MIG-29 and Su-35 fighters to Libya, as well as Su-24 bombers, from its Air Force (ICCCC) - US Air Force Command told the US Air Force. The planes were originally transferred from Russia to The Russian Federation has sent MIG-29 and Su-35 fighters to Libya, as well as Su-24 bombers, from its Air Force (ICCCC) - US Air Force Command told the US Air Force. The planes were originally transferred from Russia to Syria, where they were repainted to cover up their belonging to the Russian Air Force. According to US intelligence, planes will be...