Free Republic

Fighting erupted on Sunday between rival factions of the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition in Syria’s Afrin, leaving 11 dead and 27 wounded, according to a war monitor.  The Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northwestern Syria was taken over by Turkish forces and their Syrian opposition proxies in March this year.  The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-Ankara Syrian opposition groups launched an assault on Sunday morning against the al-Sharqiya Martyrs, which had helped Turkey in the Afrin offensive.  The group, which is part of Ahrar Sharqiya brigade, is led by Abu Khula and consists of around 200 fighters. It...

The Trump administration is considering plans to designate Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime in Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism over its support for Hezbollah and Marxist guerrillas, according to a report from the Spanish newspaper ABC on Tuesday. According to U.S. officials who spoke with the Spanish newspaper, administration officials are currently deliberating whether to add Venezuela to the list of state sponsors of terrorism over its support for groups including the Basque separatist movement ETA, Iran’s Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah, and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Officials have so far refused to officially confirm whether they plan to...

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that the country will continue to export oil despite fresh U.S. sanctions, which he described as “psychological war doomed to failure.” “We will not yield to this pressure which is part of the psychological war launched against Iran,” he said on state TV. “They have failed to stop our oil exports. We will keep exporting it ... Your regional policies have failed and you blame Iran for that failure from Afghanistan to Yemen and Syria,” he added, to chants of “Death to America!”. Rouhani also said that the U.S. lacked international support for...

America First! The world is a very dangerous place! The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” Iran is considered “the world’s leading sponsor of terror.” On...

Germany’s foreign minister said Berlin has banned 18 Saudi nationals from entering Europe’s border-free Schengen zone because they are believed connected to Khashoggi’s killing. The German government says it has halted previously approved arms exports to Saudi Arabia amid the fallout from the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Germany said a month ago it wouldn’t approve any new weapons exports to Saudi Arabia, but left open what would happen with already approved contracts. Germany’s economy ministry oversees the authorization of arms exports. Ministry spokesman Philipp Jornitz said Monday that “the German government is working with those who have valid...

Mahmoud Abbas does not want his people and the rest of the world to know that his security forces are arresting women for criticizing a social security law or providing financial aid to Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip.[snip]This attitude is another example of the anti-Israel bias of the international media and community. It is yet another example of how the West gives the Palestinians a pass to violate human rights and crack down on dissent.

Jamal Khashoggi, serviced Muslim Brotherhood. Mulla / IG reps that now lamment J Cas absence. A Persian, Salman is the man.

So back to the tragic murder of Jamal Khashoggi. My intelligence sources tell me he had worked as an intelligence agent for the Saudi intelligence service, GID, for around 20 years. At one point he was sent by GID to Sudan to meet Osama bin Laden and to try to lure him away from terrorism. He failed. Khashoggi had always been close to the Muslim Brotherhood, the people who took over Egypt under Morsi following the so-called Arab Spring. The Muslim Brotherhood is a hard-line Islamist organisation dedicated to the introduction of Sharia and the creation of an Islamic caliphate....

It’s an old joke: How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving. It seems that may be the case for the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. An analyst at the Gatestone Institute presented evidence that Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan lied to voters. The charge comes from Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the institute, who who wrote that most of the media coverage since their election Nov. 6 “has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history.” “Less known is that both...

Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, is a new kind of politician. She's telegenic, ideologically progressive, widely celebrated by a media that's obsessed with identity politics. She's the kind of politician who can openly side with Hamas against Israel or spread "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"-style conspiracies on Twitter, claiming that Jews possess the supernatural ability to hypnotize the world as they unfurl their "evil." It's not surprising, then, that Omar also supports the "boycott, divestment and sanctions" movement. In a statement to the website Muslim Girl, someone on Omar's staff...

A judge in the southern California coordinated asbestos matters issued an order applying Iranian law where all of a California plaintiff’s alleged exposure to asbestos occurred in Iran. In Sabetian v. Air and Liquid Systems Corporation, Judge John Kralik applied Iranian law on (1) punitive damages, (2) strict liability, and (3) joint and several liability. However, the court declined to apply the Iranian (1) standard of negligence, (2) the cap on general damages, and (3) the formula to determine loss of consortium damages. Other judges in this court when presented with a similar issue have declined to apply Iranian law...

A 25-year-old woman has been gang raped by Africans in a playground in central Stockholm. The woman contacted the police herself on Friday, who then arrested the three men the same evening. The arrest warrants show that the men are 18, 20 and 29 years old. Two are citizens of Somalia and the third in Eritrea. One of them needs interpreting in Somali and another in Arabic. Which means that they most likely are newly arrived migrants. Two of them are previously convicted. The 18-year-old has committed assaults and drug offences. The 20-year-old is convicted of several cases of theft...

A special European Union initiative to protect trade with Iran against newly reimposed U.S. sanctions faces possible collapse with no EU country willing to host the operation for fear of provoking U.S. punishment.

It turns out that crackpot Ron Paul’s son Rand can understand why poor, innocent Iran might want nuclear weapons—they feel “threatened” by big, bad America (hat tip to Rand Paul: Too Kooky for Kentucky for the video): Watch it at NRB - sorry, can't embed videos here at FR.

BREAKING: It is 10:40am here in Israel and more than 400 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza in the last few hours — more than on any other single day in history. The IDF is retaliating. Children and their parents have had to sleep in bomb shelters all night. More rockets are coming in as I write this. High risk of even further escalation. Please pray for calm to be restored. Pray, too, for all who are being traumatized on both sides to experience the supernatural comfort of the Lord.

It seemed like things were going to quiet down in Gaza last week with the delivery of 15 million dollars in cash from Qatar in multiple suitcases. The "payoff" money was designed to pacify Gaza and help calm things down between Israel and the militant group Hamas which has maintained steady pressure on Israel with everything from occasional rocket barrages to constant incendiary kites to mass protests at the border fences forcing Israeli snipers to open fire. But suddenly on Sunday night all hell broke loose. IDF soliders were operating inside Gaza using civilian vehicles backed by air support, tanks...

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.”

On Nov. 6, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara posted a notice that “The Department [of State] has authorized rewards for information leading to the identification or location of the senior Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members: Murat Karayilan (up to USD $5 million), Cemil Bayik (up to USD $4 million), and Duran Kalkan (up to USD $3 million).” Such bounties are not uncommon when it comes to master terrorists. In years past, the U.S. government, for example, issued bounties for Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, Islamic State head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Boko Haram head Abubakar Shekau.But the three men...

The paychecks of the Hamas members, which were being paid through financial aid by Qatar, were passed on in suitcases in a heavily guarded vehicle. Palestinian protesters pelted the convoy of Qatar’s ambassador to the Palestinians, Mohammed Al-Emadi, with stones Friday as he came to observe the weekly demonstrations along Gaza’s border fence with Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv. Gazan media reported that those leading the attack against Al-Emadi were from the Palestinian faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. PFLP members had earlier refused to take part in the meeting with the...

An Arab newspaper reported on Saturday that Israel and Qatar are hammering out a deal that would allow Hamas to operate a sea crossing between Gaza and Cyprus. According to the Lebanese Al Akhbar, the prospective seaport is part of a wider Egyptian-brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. While Hamas demands that the crossing be monitored through video cameras, Israel wants both Israeli forces and international elements to monitor the seaport to prevent weapons smuggling. The report comes as a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas appears to be gaining traction. A central part of the deal has been Qatar's...