Free Republic

Al-Golani’s ties to al-Qaida stretch back to 2003 when he joined extremists battling U.S. troops in Iraq. The native of Syria was detained several times by the U.S. military, but remained in Iraq. During that time, al-Qaida usurped likeminded groups and formed the extremist Islamic State of Iraq, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In 2011, a popular uprising against Syria's Assad triggered a brutal government crackdown and led to all-out war. Al-Golani's prominence grew when al-Baghdadi sent him to Syria to establish a branch of al-Qaida called the Nusra Front. The United States labeled the new group as a terrorist...

Soldiers from the IDF's Golani Brigade were ordered not to visit the families of their two friends who fell in battle in their free time. The soldiers were told that whoever visited would be dismissed from the unit. According to a report by Asaf Pozailov on Kan News, the platoon commander, who decided to visit the families with several soldiers anyway when they left Gaza on leave, was dismissed by the Company Commander. One of the parents reported that the soldiers had already notified the bereaved families that they were coming, and the order was given after the fact. "It...

The corridors of Beersheba's Soroka Hospital were bustling on Sunday as dozens of soldiers wounded in the Gaza fighting began arriving for treatment and their families, friends and brothers-in-arms poured in to offer support. Two of the most seriously wounded - an infantryman and an officer - were being treated in the same ward on an upper floor of the sprawling complex.

Powdered milk and a Golani Brigade private. Those were two things that helped me see the real Israel, the Israel beyond the heavy screen of leftist, rightist, and Islamist propaganda that is the staple of the public discourse in most Third World (and many First World) countries. Especially so in the world’s second biggest Muslim country, Bangladesh, which I called home. In 1989, right after high school, my buddies and I went through a male-bonding kind of a vacation that took us overland from Bangladesh into the vast expanses of India and then Pakistan. The first stop was that great...