Free Republic

The Obama administration has faced criticism from both the left and right for its non-interventionist approach regarding the civil war in Syria. The Washington Post, which in the past editorialized that President Obama was “weak” on the issue, upped the ante Friday. From the Post: IT HAS been a month since the White House informed journalists that President Obama had decided to supply Syrian rebels with light arms. Since then, the regime has launched a bloody new offensive in the city of Homs, using heavy artillery and rockets to attack residential areas held by the rebels. …

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels said Friday they would retaliate for what they described as the assassination of one of their senior commanders by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, threatening to widen a rift between moderate and jihadist opposition forces fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The killing of Kamal Hamami, a member of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army’s top executive body, comes amid heightened tensions on the opposition side as jihadist groups extend their influence in rebel-held areas of northern Syria. Rebels said that Hamami, whose nom de guerre is Abu Bassir al-Ladkani, was shot dead Thursday in the coastal province of...

Syria's Islamist rebels say the downfall of Egypt's popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood president has proven that Western nations pushing for democracy will never accept them, and reinforced the view of radicals that a violent power grab is their only resort. Radical Islamist groups, some of them linked to al Qaeda, have lately been in the ascendancy in Syria's two-year conflict as the death toll rises above 100,000. Assad has celebrated President Mohamed Mursi's fall as a symbolic blow to the Islamist-dominated opposition, though on the battlefield, where his troops are already making gains, it is likely to have little impact...

Syrian rebels said on Friday the assassination of one of their top commanders by al Qaeda-linked militants was tantamount to a declaration of war, opening a new front for the Western-backed fighters struggling against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Good news: John McCain will finally get his wish about being able to tell the good guys from the bad guys in Syria’s civil war.  Bad news: They’ll be the guys in the crossfire.  After playing footsie with al-Qaeda affiliates for more than two years in their attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, the so-called secularists have discovered that terrorist networks tend to be unreliable partners: Syrian rebels said on Friday the assassination of one of their top commanders by al Qaeda-linked militants was tantamount to a declaration of war, opening a new front for the Western-backed fighters struggling against President...

Obama is backing these savages. Thank heaven there are still decent human beings in Congress: Intelligence panels cut off aid to Syrian rebels, Obama says he will arm them anyway "Syria: Christian Girl Falls Victim to Horrendous Crimes" Persecution. org, July 4, 2013 Rape and atrocities on a young Christian in Qusair ICC Note: Troubling news continues to pour out of Syria as the war-torn country becomes a hotbed for religious extremism. Witnesses report civilians suffer immensely at the hands of rebel-imposed Shari’ah law. One, a young Christian girl from rebel-controlled Qusair, was systematically married, raped and divorced 15 times,...

The worldwide rise in anti-Christian persecution is not often noted by the MSM, but that doesn’t make it any less deadly. This week two new stories of persecution hit the web. Christianity Today reports that Hindu extremists broke into a Christian prayer meeting in India and beat up the attendees with clubs and iron rods. The attackers accused the pastors of using force and coercion to convert Indians to Christianity, an accusation the pastors vigorously deny. And in Syria, Fr. François Murad became the latest victim of rebel militas, some of whom are systematically targeting Christians for persecution and death....

An Al-Qaeda front group operating in Syria has killed a rebel chief in a firefight in the coastal province of Latakia, a monitoring group said on Friday. The killing comes amid soaring tensions between the mainstream rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its supporters and groups affiliated to Al-Qaeda, mostly made up of non-Syrian fighters. Better known as Abu Bassir al-Jeblawi, rebel chief Kamal Hamami was shot dead Thursday by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), one of the main jihadist groups operating in Syria, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He was killed when ISIS fighters...

A senior member of the Free Syrian Army is reported to have been killed by a rival rebel group linked to al-Qaeda. Kamal Hamami, of the group's Supreme Military Council, was meeting members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant "to discuss battle plans". A Free Syrian Army spokesman said he received a call from the group saying they had killed Kamal Hamami. It is part of an escalating struggle within the armed uprising between moderates and Islamists. The BBC's Paul Wood says a civil war within a civil war is building within the opposition as the two...

As Syria’s civil war shows no signs of abating, a source within the Free Syrian Army says that Al-Qaeda-linked militants have killed one of the FSA’s senior figures. Supreme Military Council member Kamal Hamami, also known as Abu Bassel al-Ladkani, was meeting with members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Syrian port city of Latakia when he was killed, FSA spokesman Qassem Saadeddine told Reuters. "The Islamic State phoned me saying that they killed Abu Bassel and that they will kill all of the Supreme Military Council," Saadeddine said. "He met them to discuss battle...