Free Republic

Syria’s new government will relocate ISIS families from camps, with Kurdish and US support. The new Syrian transitional government is seeking to find a way to deal with thousands of ISIS families who have been housed at camps in eastern Syria since ISIS was defeated in Syria in 2019. When ISIS was defeated in several villages near the Euphrates River in 2019, some of the terrorist group chose to surrender, and thousands of families of ISIS fighters ended up in the hands of the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The thousands of families were sent to several camps and detention facilities...

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has formalized two major energy agreements with U.S. firms HKN Energy and WesternZagros in Washington, D.C., Kurdish media reported on Monday, in deals valued at a combined $110 billion, despite a legal showdown with the federal government of Iraq over control of the country’s oil exports... ...The deals were formalized during KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani's official visit to the United States this week... ...Washington has been advocating for the resumption of Kurdish oil exports, which have been stalled since March 2023 due to legal disputes and pipeline shutdowns. Washington's push aims...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the Syrian transitional authority may be weeks away from potential collapse and full-scale civil war, defending US President Donald Trump's decision to lift Syria sanctions and to engage with the Damascus government. "It is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up," Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Donald Trump has said his administration is now exploring the possibility of normalising relations with Syria - his comments coming shortly after he met Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family. The extraordinary encounter, unthinkable just months ago, was short but significant. "I think he has got the potential," Trump remarked after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian fighter formerly linked to Al-Qaeda. The $10m US bounty on his head was only lifted in December. Video footage of their conversation in a lavish Saudi royal palace showed...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump urged Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords in a previously unplanned meeting on Wednesday, one day after lifting all sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Gulf Cooperation Council gathering in Riyadh, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoning into the conversation. Syria currently doesn’t recognize Israel’s statehood, and the Abraham Accords were just one of Trump’s requests to Syria in an effort to normalize relations. Trump also told the Syrian leader to make all foreign terrorists leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help...

...The Turkish foreign ministry called on both parties to "exercise common sense and refrain from unilateral actions."They added, "We expect that measures will be taken to reduce tensions in the region as soon as possible and that the necessary mechanisms, including in the field of counter-terrorism, will be put in place to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. We also support Pakistan's call for an investigation into the 22 April terrorist attack."...Azerbaijan also issued a statement soon after the attack, condemning violence against Pakistan.In their statement they said, "The Republic of Azerbaijan expresses its concern over the further escalation of...

Transcript linked to video, chock full of on-scene video footage.

A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court. Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed. “We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding...

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding...

On March 25, 1821, fueled by the rallying cry, “Freedom or Death,” Greek revolutionaries began a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. The hard-fought victory established a sovereign Greek state and a national homeland for Greece. On the 204th anniversary of Greek Independence Day, we honor this heroic fight for freedom, and the enduring democratic ideals that continue to inspire the world. America is inextricably tied to both ancient and modern Greece. We are tethered by history and tradition, the struggle for self-governance, emancipation, and rebirth. Our Founding Fathers drew inspiration from Greek philosophers and statesmen to form the...

The man who took Turkey from a secular nation to an Islamist one may finally have driven his people to take extreme measures against him. Last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s Islamist president, arrested a political rival. That sparked several days of protest, and, today, it’s seemingly culminated with protestors invading the presidential palace. The big question is whether this ends with a brutal response or the end of Erdoğan’s reign. Obviously, I have no answer to that question, but I can provide a little, very superficial background to help make some sense of what’s happening in Turkey today. Today’s...

Protests have erupted across Turkey against Erdogan’s oppressive Islamist government. Footage of massive protests, after Erdogan imprisoned his opposition candidate. EU is actually stepping in. Transcript linked below video.

Imamoglu, the popular 53-year-old mayor, was seen as the next opposition party candidate for the Turkish presidency and was expected to be nominated on Sunday. Charges for the arrest, which Imamoglu and his party reject, include terrorism and organized crime. In a statement, Imamoglu's Republican People's Party flatly rejected the charges against the Istanbul mayor, calling the move a coup. The Turkish lira fell to a record low against the dollar and the country's benchmark stock index dropped by as much as 7% following the surprise arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — a rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and a popular figure, had basked in the glow of what he often jokingly dubbed his political miracle — the only person to have beaten Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party in not one, but three local elections. On Wednesday, dozens of police officers raided his residence around dawn and detained him for questioning as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. Many see the arrest as part of a broader campaign to undermine the mayor and eliminate a key challenger to Erdogan before the next presidential elections. The...

In 2018, a female Neanderthal was discovered in the Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. Now, archaeologists from The University of Cambridge have unveiled the reconstructed face of the 75,000-year-old woman, based on the assembly of hundreds of individual bone fragments recovered during excavations. “Neanderthals have had a bad press ever since the first ones were found over 150 years ago,” said Professor Graeme Barker from Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, who led the excavation at the cave where the woman’s remains were discovered. Neanderthals are believed to have become extinct around 40,000 years ago, and discoveries of their remains...

Residents of the Greek island of Samos strongly opposed a proposition by the Greek Migration ministry to build a new refugee camp on their island. The residents gave a thundering “no” to the proposal. The heads of the local community in Mitilinious called an open community on the village square to discuss building a new refugee camp on the grounds of a local army camp. The local Syriza MP was invited to the gathering but he never appeared. Mr Michalis Aggelopoulos, declared their opposition on behalf of the local community, and their heads, including the mayor. Their opinion was cheered...

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the closure of the U.S. military base in Alexandroupoli, Greece, according to the Greek newspaper Dimokratia. However, the reports remain unconfirmed by Greek defense officials. The reported decision from Trump may indicate a shift in U.S. military strategy in the region against Russia and has reportedly raised concerns among Greek officials. US military base in Alexandroupoli and Türkiye’s concerns. The U.S. base in the region was a major source of tension between the U.S. and Türkiye. However, U.S. officials repeatedly reassured Türkiye that the U.S. forces’ deployment in the area was not against the...

Netanyahu: ‘Hamas are the new Nazis’. "The core of new antisemitism is the attempt to ... undermine [Israel's] right to self-defense," Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said. JNS Staff. (Jan. 27, 2025 / JNS). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called on the “civilized” world to up its effort to combat Jew-hatred, while labeling the Hamas terror group the “new Nazis.” “On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I call on all civilized nations to confront antisemitism wherever it appears—on college campuses, city streets or international forums like the [International Criminal Court],” Netanyahu tweeted. “Founded in the shadow of the Holocaust, the...

Excavations at an ancient Iraqi site called Shakhi Kora have revealed new clues about the origins of the world's earliest governing institutions, according to research led by the University of Glasgow.The research published in the journal Antiquity today (Wednesday 4 December 2024) suggests these early governing institutions emerged partly from their ability to provide large-scale meals, potentially as payment for labour. However, the later abandonment of these centralised structures, without signs of violent overthrow or environmental stress, points to a deliberate rejection of centralised forms of organisation that likely involved increasing top-down control...Shakhi Kora is a Late Chalcolithic site in...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israel must withdraw its forces from Syria or it will cause “unfavorable outcomes for everyone.” “The aggressive actions of the forces attacking Syrian territory, Israel, in particular, must come to an end as soon as possible,” he said during a meeting of his party in Ankara. “Everyone should take their hands off Syria and we, along with our Syrian brothers, will crush the heads of Islamic State, the YPG and other terrorist organizations in a short time.”