Free Republic

This doesn’t come as any surprise given the eagerness of both Facebook and Twitter to be Sharia-compliant. Facebook’s Vice President Joel Kaplan traveled to Pakistan in July 2017 to assure the Pakistani government that it would remove “anti-Islam” material. And Facebook has done so assiduously, banning numerous foes of jihad terror and twice now blocking the Jihad Watch Facebook page on spurious technical grounds. And Twitter has recently been notifying people that they’re in violation of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which violation carries a death sentence. But this shows how sick and degenerate the social media giants really are. CAIR has...

Kurdish forces in Syria said Sunday that they had captured two American citizens hiding out in the country's final Islamic State stronghold. In a statement, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, identified the detainees as Warren Christopher Clark, 34, and Zaid Abed al-Hamid, 35. It said the pair had been captured alongside three others suspected of being foreign recruits in the extremist group.

A US-backed roup says that it has captured an Irish citizen fighting for Islamic State in Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said that it had arrested five militants who had been fighting for the Islamic State. It reported that one of these was a 45-year-old man originally from Dublin, Ireland. Two of the other men are from the US, while the other two are from Pakistan. In a statement, the SDF — which mainly fights against Islamic State and other extremist groups in Syria — said that it was carrying out Operation Jazeera Storm, which has the aim of...

On Tuesday, there were a flurry of reports that China has started construction of the first of four warships for Pakistan, which state-owned media in China described as being the “most advanced”. China Daily quoted China State Shipbuilding Corporation as saying the four new frigates would be capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and air-defence roles. The ships being built at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai were described by the Pakistan Navy as belonging to the 'Type-054AP' class. The designation suggests the ships are derived from the Type-054 class of frigates, nearly 30 of which have entered service in China's People's Liberation...

China recently started construction of an export version of one of its advanced warships and will deliver it to Pakistan as part of a major arms deal, according to China State Shipbuilding Corp, a large State-owned defense contractor. It said the ship is a version of the Chinese Navy's most advanced guided missile frigate, without specifying its type. In late December it said the ship is under construction at its Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai, noting it will be equipped with modern detection and weapon systems and will be capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and air-defense operations. According to the Pakistani Navy,...

At a time when the modernisation of the Indian Army's armoured corps is moving at a "snail's pace", Pakistan has drawn up a mega plan to procure nearly 600 modern main battle tanks, including the T-90 from Russia, primarily to bolster its combat prowess along the Line of Actual Control in Jammu and Kashmir, military and intelligence sources said on Sunday. The T-90 is also operated by the Indian Army. Most of the tanks Pakistan was planning to procure were likely to have features like state-of-the-art computerised fire control system for increased accuracy, and they would be able to hit...

President Trump spoke with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday. They discussed the fight against ISIS, the issue of Syria including coordination of the US military withdrawal from the Syria and expanded trade with Turkey that has been on hold in recent years as relations were strained...... Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Turkish president Erdogan an "anti-Semitic dictator" on Sunday saying among other things about Erdogan...... Israel's Education Minister and leader of the Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett says President Trump's Middle East peace plan includes a Palestinian state in the West Bank...... President Trump has...

Old Friends Recount Memories Of The Presidential Hopeful Before His Political Success (AP) The way Sohale Siddiqi remembers it, he and his old roommate were walking his pug Charlie on Broadway when a large, scary bum approached them, stomping on the ground near the dog's head. This was in the 1980s, a time when New York was a fearful place beset by drugs and crime, when the street smart knew that the best way to handle the city's derelicts was to avoid them entirely. But Siddiqi was angry and he confronted the bum, who approached him menacingly. Until his skinny,...

In a development that is expected to cause diplomatic ripples, the New York Times reported on Wednesday China and Pakistan have a “confidential plan” to jointly build a new generation of fighter aircraft and other weapons as part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. The report by Maria Abi-Habib in the New York Times is significant as it challenges China's frequent assertions that the Belt and Road Initiative (also known as One Belt, One Road) is a purely commercial venture with peaceful purposes. Pakistan plays a key role in the Belt and Road Initiative, having received nearly $62 billion in...

The archive of Iranian nuclear documents seized by the Israeli Mossad from a Tehran warehouse in January shows that Iran’s program to build nuclear weapons “was almost certainly larger, more sophisticated and better organized” than was suspected, unnamed nuclear experts were quoted as saying in the New York Times on Sunday, after being shown selected documents from the haul by US reporters. One of the Iranian documents specifies plans to build a first “batch of five weapons” and discusses sites for possible underground nuclear tests, the Times reported, after one of its reporters was given limited access to the haul...

After years of struggle in the courts, Aasiya Noreen "Asia" Bibi — a Catholic mother of five — was acquited of charges of blasphemy in the Pakistan Supreme Court on Oct. 31. Islamic fundamentalists all over Pakistan immediately began protesting the acquittal. Many of the protesters demanded Bibi's death for her alleged blasphemy against the prophet Mohammad. Since her acquittal, Bibi and her family have lived in fear for their lives. Many countries, such as Italy and Canada, have considered offering asylum to Bibi and her family members. Efforts to help the persecuted Catholic family have also been proposed in...

Saima - not her real name- still hasn't recovered from her four years in solitary confinement in a small Pakistani prison cell. "Even now I feel like I am in jail. You can see the scars on my legs from when I was chained." Saima was sentenced to life imprisonment for having committed blasphemy, before her conviction was eventually overturned. She says her jailers at times wouldn't give her food because she was Christian. "They would say, 'You disgraced our religion,'" she told the BBC. She was accused of defiling the Koran and using it to perform exorcisms. But Saima...

The prime minister of Pakistan, a tenuous U.S. ally, contends Jesus was not a historical figure, reports Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. The Middle East Media Research Institute reported Prime Minister Imran Kahn made the assertion in a speech on the day marked as the birthday of Muhammad. Khan also lobbied for a worldwide law that would protect Islam from any criticism. The prime minister said there is little mention of prophets of Allah other than Muhammad, and there is “no mention of Jesus in history.” “Moses is mentioned, but there is no mention of Jesus in history,” he said. “But...

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said Monday Pakistan must take on a substantive role in peace talks with the Taliban if the war in neighboring Afghanistan is to be ended. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon Monday, Mr. Mattis demanded Islamabad provide explicit support for “all those who are trying to maintain peace” in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region. “We are looking for every responsible nation to support peace in the subcontinent and across this war in Afghanistan. … It is time for everyone to get on board,” Mr. Mattis said ahead of bilateral talks with Indian Defense Minister...

Today, please join me, Ed Stetzer, and thousands of Christians in petitioning President Trump to grant asylum to Asia Bibi and her family.On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, reports surfaced that Islamic radicals in Pakistan were “hunting house to house” for Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi.Her story should be painfully familiar by now.Bibi has been in hiding since Pakistan’s supreme court acquitted her of blasphemy charges–this after a 9 year imprisonment and legal battle that left at least two of her supporters dead. She now faces a vigilante campaign for her execution, the execution of her family, and the three high...

Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, of Brentwood, New York, pleaded guilty to providing material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

NY Times Claims 'True Islam Does Not Kill Blasphemers' Yes, and the Soviet Union was a worker’s paradise.+++ In the second Islamic apologetics article that the New York Times published in as many days last week (here’s my takedown of the other one), Turkish professional moderate Mustafa Akyol (pictured above) claimed: “True Islam Does Not Kill Blasphemers.” It’s unlikely that anyone laughed, because people who know the truth and care about it are unlikely to be subscribers to the New York Times. Here is a quick test of whether what Mustafa Akyol says is true or not: let him go...

Theresa May has reportedly refused to grant a Pakistani Christian woman being hunted by lynch mobs for “blasphemy” asylum, after bureaucrats advised her it would cause upset in Britain’s Muslim community. Asia Bibi’s ordeal began when Muslim fieldworkers objected to her drinking from the same water supply as them, branding her “unclean” and telling her she should convert to Islam, which she declined to do. Days later, village imam Qari Muhammad Salaam declared she had committed blasphemy over the mosque loudspeakers. A baying mob dragged her before a makeshift sharia court with a leather noose around her neck, again demanded...

"It is an affront to the families of the victims that, after ten years, those who planned the Mumbai attack have still not been convicted for their involvement," Pompeo said. "We call upon all countries, particularly Pakistan, to uphold their UN Security Council obligations to implement sanctions against the terrorists responsible for this atrocity, including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and its affiliates." India's financial capital with a population of over 18 million, Mumbai turned into a war zone on Nov. 26, 2008, as a group of Pakistani gunmen who launched coordinated attacks on the city. They targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish center,...

If there are any free people in Britain in future generations, they will curse the name of Theresa May, whose misrule is rapidly leading the nation to ruin. She won’t let in Asia Bibi, for fear that Muslims will be angry. So it is clear who is in charge in Britain now. The British government routinely bans foes of jihad terror and critics of Islam, while letting in jihadis. The Home Office recently banned Martin Sellner, Brittany Pettibone, Lauren Southern and Lutz Bachmann from entering, all for the crime of opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression, and thereby made it...