Free Republic

Some Christian families from Mosul have sought refuge in St Matthew’s Monastery, writes Richard Spencer. Others vow to take a stand against the Islamists - whatever the cost.Captain Firaz Jacob knows he may well be mounting a last stand at the frontiers of the Christian settlement of Bartella on the outskirts of Mosul. Less than a mile down the road are the jihadists of Isis, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, and the portly, middle-aged Mr Jacob is aware that his home-grown militia are outnumbered. “I stand here waiting for my destiny,” he said, as he stood this week...

ISIS marching through Iraq has smashed the media’s taboo against criticizing Obama’s foreign policy. Substantive discussions are taking place about why his foreign policy is such a miserable failure. And they mostly miss the point. Liberal journalists still proceed from the fallacy that there was a foreign policy debate between neo-conservative interventionists and liberal non-interventionists. These are a series of digested Bush era talking points that have no relationship to reality since Bush’s foreign policy on Iraq carried over from Bill Clinton. It’s why Hillary gets so uncomfortable when she has to discuss her vote on Iraq. The liberals weren’t...

<p>"The crisis now gripping Iraq and the Middle East was not only predictable but predicted — and preventable. By looking the other way and unconditionally supporting and arming Maliki, President Obama has only lengthened and expanded the conflict that President Bush unwisely initiated. Iraq is now a failed state, and as countries across the Middle East fracture along ethno-sectarian lines, America is likely to emerge as one of the biggest losers of the new Sunni-Shiite holy war, with allies collapsing and radicals plotting another 9/11."</p>

Iraqi insurgents are preparing for an assault on Baghdad, with sleeper cells planted inside the capital to rise up at "Zero Hour" and aid fighters pushing in from the outskirts, according to senior Iraqi and U.S. security officials. Iraqis speak of a "Zero Hour" as the moment a previously-prepared attack plan would start to unfold. A high-level Iraqi security official estimated there were 1,500 sleeper cell members hibernating in western Baghdad and a further 1,000 in areas on the outskirts of the capital. He said their goal was to penetrate the U.S.-made "Green Zone" - a fortified enclave of government...

Walid Shoebat says that quagmire that is going on in Iraq is just going to increase and there isn’t much America can do about it at this point. But when it comes to what started this quagmire in Iraq, Walid blames the US for ‘aiding and abetting’ the Free Syrian Army in Syria, which we all know is a terrorist group: We’re indirectly aiding and abetting an Al-Qaeda like operation, when it comes to Syria, and that’s what started the quagmire. Our aiding and abetting the Free Syrian Army — which is a terrorist group and we’ve been showing this...

Iran reportedly has sent military advisers into Iraq and dispatched the head of its infamous Quds Force to help Baghdad strategize in its fight against Sunni militants, as the United States takes similar steps despite concern about Tehran's involvement.... Fox News confirms that Iran is flying surveillance drones over Iraq, something the U.S. also is doing. The New York Times reported that Iran, in addition, is sending tons of military equipment to the fellow Shiite-led government in Iraq and is dispatching military advisers. According to the Times, about a dozen officers from Iran's Quds Force have been sent into the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has armed drones flying over Baghdad to protect U.S. troops that recently arrived to assess Iraq's deteriorating security, the Pentagon said Friday. The military for more than a week has been flying manned and unmanned aircraft over Iraq, averaging a few dozen sorties daily for reconnaissance.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah ordered all necessary measures to protect the Kingdom against potential "terrorist threats," a Royal Court statement said Thursday. The king gave the order after chairing a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss fallout from developments in neighboring Iraq. “Concerned for the Kingdom’s national security against any measures that terrorist organizations or any other groups might resort to, that could destabilize security of the homeland, he (the king) has ordered all necessary measures to protect the gains of the homeland and its stability, and the security of the Saudi people," the...

Yesterday the Iraqi military launched an air assault into the insurgent-held town of Tikrit. At least three helicopters landed at a stadium in Tikrit University, which is about six miles north of the city. According to Reuters, "the helicopters were shot at as they flew low over the city and landed in a stadium at the city's university." One of the helicopters was said to have been shot down. "One helicopter crash-landed in the stadium. Another left after dropping off troops and a third remained on the ground. Army snipers were positioning themselves on tall buildings in the university complex,"...

It's a fact of human nature that it's easier to talk about who's to blame for a problem than it is to figure out what to do about the problem. Case in point: There's a near-riot in liberal circles over the very idea that supporters of the Iraq War should even be allowed to criticize the president's handling of the current Middle East crisis, never mind offer advice on how to proceed. The Atlantic's James Fallows says Dick Cheney and company "have earned the right not to be listened to." Slate magazine's Jamelle Bouie says that prominent public intellectuals...

United States officials are not entirely confident they know who is behind the airstrikes being reported against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria forces in western Iraq. From ABC News: According to the U.S. official, the United States has “pretty good information that the Syrians are behind the fighter aircraft bombing in western Al Anbar,” a province in Iraq that includes the Syrian border. The official said the United States is still trying to gather more information that Syria was behind the strikes...A U.S. official also said it was not clear whether the Iraqi government requested or authorized Syrian air...

Three things have happened in the past weeks that are making it obvious that the nation that has been Iraq since 1919 will soon cease to exist. First, the Turks have spoken in an approving way of the idea of an independent Kurdistan inside of what is now Iraq and has moved to address the issues that have fueled a long running Kurdish insurgency in Turkey. Second, Iraqi Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki has cast his lot firmly and unambiguously with Iran. In his weekly televised address, Mr Maliki called on “all political forces to reconcile” in the face of a...

George Bush had much bigger plans for Iraq than simply killing Saddam Hussein, securing his WMDs and handing over control of the oil rich nation to whatever remained of the Ba’ath Party once hostilities ended. Some might consider him naive, but Bush believed that a modern Iraq, one that respected minority and woman’s rights, one ruled by the rule of law rather than the rule of the mullahs, could act as a catalyst in the Muslim world bringing Judeo-Christian values and justice to hundreds of millions who lived their lives in Islamist chains. It was an audacious goal, one that...

Original Title:ISIS Holds Military Parade In Mosul -- Threat Matrix Update: ISIS Holds Parade With Captured US Military Vehicles -- Zero Hedge The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham's Ninewa Division continues to crank out images of its conquest of Mosul and the surrounding province. Earlier today, the Ninewa Division released photographs of its forces seizing control of several bases, displaying captured military hardware, and executing Iraqi soldiers. Then, the Ninewa Division published a set of photographs of a military parade in the city of Mosul. The photographs provide a glimpse of the ISIS' military strength in Mosul. Scores...

The situation on the ground: Iraq in flames. The black flag of al Qaeda over Sunni-majority cities, Shiite militias cleansing Baghdad neighborhoods of other sects and ethnicities, car and suicide bombs exploding daily, the government of Nouri al-Maliki looking insolent and ineffective, the Kurds hinting at independence. Civil war. Iranian meddling. American defeat.I’m not talking about today. I’m talking about 2006. Then, too, liberal internationalists had the following prescription: America can’t solve Iraq’s problems. A major diplomatic initiative, involving the entire region, might persuade Maliki to be inclusive. There is no military solution in Iraq—just a political one.“We cannot save...

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani said June 27 there was no going back on autonomous Kurdish rule in oil city Kirkuk and other towns now defended against Sunni militants by Kurdish fighters. "Now, this (issue) ... is achieved," he said, referring to a constitutional article meant to address the Kurds' decades-old ambition to incorporate the territory in their autonomous region in the north over the objections of successive governments in Baghdad. Kurdish forces stepped in when federal government forces withdrew in the face of a jihadist-led offensive earlier this month. Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting British Foreign...

Thursday, June 26, the day before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due in Riyadh, King Abdullah summoned a National Security Council meeting “upon the current security events in the region, especially in Iraq,” and ordered “all necessary measures to protect the kingdom against terrorist threats.” This meant a general call-up of military units for a high level of preparedness. DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that Egypt is assembling an expeditionary commando force to fly to Saudi Arabia and bolster its border defenses. This flurry of Saudi-Egyptian military steps comes in the wake of intelligence gathered by Saudi reconnaissance planes...

...Ankara may deny helping ISIS, but the evidence for this is overwhelming. “As we have the longest border with Syria,” writes Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a Turkish newspaper columnist, “Turkey’s support was vital for the jihadists in getting in and out of the country.” Indeed, the ISIS strongholds not coincidentally cluster close to Turkey’s frontiers. Kurds, academic experts and the Syrian opposition agree that Syrians, Turks (estimated to number 3,000), and foreign fighters (especially Saudis, but also a fair number of Westerners) have crossed the Turkish-Syrian border at will, often to join ISIS. What Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel calls a “two-way...

When the first of the 300 military advisers US President Barack Obama promised the Iraqi government arrived in Baghdad Wednesday, June 25, Iranian and Saudi Arabian arms shipments were already in full flow to opposing sides in embattled Iraq, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. At least two cargo planes from bases in Iran were landing daily at Baghdad’s military airport, carrying 150 tons of military equipment. More than 1,000 tons were flown in this past week alone. Tehran has replicated for the Iraqi army the routine it established for Bashar Assad’s army, furnishing its needs on a daily basis as per...