Free Republic

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Wednesday that Iran and Russia are working to undermine the integrity of the 2020 election. “We would like to alert the public that we have identified that two foreign actors, Iran and Russia, have taken specific actions to influence public opinion relating to our elections,” Ratcliffe said during an evening press conference, following efforts by the intelligence and law enforcement communities to ensure the election is safe and secure. According to Ratcliffe, Iran and Russia got their hands on U.S. voter registration information, enabling the foreign adversaries to...

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday helped host an online event aimed at encouraging young people to vote that was organized by an activist who said last year that “America deserved 9/11.” The New York Democrat congresswoman, 31, spoke at the beginning of the virtual event, which was streamed on Twitch, and announced an “amazing lineup” of gamers to play “Among Us,” a newly popular video game. Hasan Piker, a vlogger who last year came under fire for saying “America deserved 9/11,” organized the event, which featured popular Twitch streamers along with Ocasio-Cortez and fellow congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who herself has...

...The two attacks on opposite sides of Africa are among the scores of violent episodes to shake the continent in what experts are calling a breakout year for extremist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. .... The spike in terrorist attacks mirrors a steady, if less dramatic, increase in Islamist violence in parts of Syria and Iraq, driven by Islamic State fighters who slipped away after the caliphate’s defeat and have now regrouped.... The resurgence threatens to undermine one facet of President Trump’s reelection pitch to voters: his oft-repeated claim of victory over the Islamic State. ...The rise...

"A reconnaissance patrol ambushed by Boko Haram in Tchoukou Maria," a group of islets on the border between Chad and Nigeria, said Chadian army spokesman General Azem Bermendoa Agouna. In fact, this attack claimed the lives of six soldiers while twelve others were wounded. The army neutralized a dozen terrorists, said the spokesman. Lake Chad, a vast expanse of water and swamps dotted with inhabited islets, serves as a hideout for the Boko Haram group from neighboring Nigeria and its dissident branch, the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) group. The Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria...

Democrat nominee Joe Biden released this ad reaching out to Muslims, featuring pictures of Ilhan Omar, ...

STEPANAKERT, Nagorno-Karabakh — On the front line, the stench is overwhelming. The remains of fighters have been lying there for weeks. In the trenches, there is fear. The Armenians are defenseless against the Azerbaijani drones that hover overhead and kill at will. At the military graveyard, bulldozers have scraped away a hillside. It is already lined with two rows of new graves, along with soon-to-be-filled, freshly dug, rectangular holes. The three-week-old conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over a disputed territory in the Caucasus Mountains, where Europe meets Asia, has settled into a brutal war of attrition, soldiers and civilians said...

French officials plan to expel 231 radicalized foreign nationals in a sweeping crackdown after the brutal slaying of a teacher Friday. Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin said he intends to move swiftly in response to the killing of Samuel Paty, a history teacher who was beheaded after showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in class. President Emmanuel Macron has called the killing an "Islamist terrorist attack."

Fourteen soldiers killed in jihadist attack (Nigeria) ISIS fighters launched an assault on a military base in the northeast of the country on Saturday. Several soldiers are also missing. Jihadists linked to the Islamic State (IS) organization killed 14 Nigerian soldiers in an attack on a military base in the northeast of the country, military sources said on Saturday. Several soldiers are missing. Two sources, who requested anonymity, told AFP that fighters from the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) group attacked the Jakana military base on Friday with machine guns and grenade launchers, a offensive followed by intense fighting....

A history teacher who had allegedly shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed in class was decapitated and his assailant shot dead by French police as they tried to arrest him on Friday, police and prosecutors said. French anti-terror prosecutors said they were investigating the assault which happened on the outskirts of Paris at around 5:00 pm local time near a school in Conflans Saint-Honorine, a western suburb of the French capital. Le Parisien and Reuters reported the teacher recently gave a class on freedom of expression and showed cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which are considered by Muslims to be...

The French president Emmanuel Macron has announced a curfew during which everyone must be at home between 9pm and 6am for the Paris region, as well as the cities of Rouen, Lille, St Etienne, Lyon, Grenoble, Montpellier, Marseille and Toulouse. The curfew will begin on Saturday and will last for four weeks, he said.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh told the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday that voting US President Donald Trump out of office is critical for the Palestinians. “The election is very important. God help us, the EU, and the whole world if there are four more years of Trump,” he said. Shtayyeh spoke out against Trump’s peace plan, presented earlier this year. “Trump has wasted four years of everyone’s time,” he said. “The ultimate deal was not delivered. [Trump’s plan] was rejected by the Palestinians, the Arabs and Europe… The US is just too biased.” Shtayyeh called for...

Another Irish priest allows Muslim imam to lead prayers in Catholic Church A local imam joined Fr. Fergal MacDonagh at Our Lady of Dolours Church, Dolphin’s Barn, in a prayer service to mark the commencement of the new school year. DUBLIN, Ireland, October 9, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A Catholic school in Dublin invited a Muslim leader to issue a blessing to the students, as well as to offer a prayer in which he referenced Christ as a mere “prophet.”   A local imam joined Fr. Fergal MacDonagh at Our Lady of Dolours Church, Dolphin’s Barn, in a prayer service to mark the commencement of the new school year.  The Muslim...

A 2,000-year-old mikvah (ritual bath) was recently uncovered in the Lower Galilee. Most people probably would never have heard about the discovery if not for the dramatic photos of the entire structure being carried by truck to a nearby kibbutz for preservation. The remarkable sight of a truck-borne mikvah, however, also makes one pause and reflect on the remarkable implications of the archeological find. It means that 2,000 years ago, the residents of the Lower Galilee were practicing the exact same religious rituals that Orthodox Jews throughout the world practice today. Those Galileans, in other words, were Jews. They weren't...

RIYADH/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The head of Saudi Arabia's Chambers of Commerce has called for a boycott of Turkish products amid reports from merchants that animosity between Ankara and Riyadh is hindering the flow of goods between the two regional powers. Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been at odds for some years over foreign policy and attitudes towards political Islamist groups. The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi's Istanbul consulate in 2018 escalated tensions sharply. Earlier this year the two countries blocked some of each other's news websites. "A boycott of everything Turkish, be it imports, investment or tourism,...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned the world Jerusalem “belongs” to Turkey, harking back to the Ottoman Empire’s control over the city for hundreds of years up until it was ejected in 1917. Erdogan made his public claim Thursday as he addressed Turkish lawmakers during a major policy speech in Ankara. He said: "In this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Ottoman resistance. So Jerusalem is our city, a city from us. Our first qibla [direction of prayer in Islam] al-Aqsa and...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) reacted to the news that President Donald Trump and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, have the coronavirus, by accusing him and Republicans in Minnesota of “actively spreading a deadly virus.” She said that the nation had been waiting for the president to say, “We will get through this together,” but that he is only saying that now “when it is about him – not the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their lives, and the millions whose families have been touched by it because of his malfeasance.” “As someone who lost my own...

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned Friday that the world is living “in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe,” fueled by growing distrust and tensions between the nuclear powers. […] As examples, Guterres has expressed deep concern at the escalating disputes between the Trump administration and China. Relations between the U.S. and Russia are at a low point. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan are feuding over Kashmir, and India just had a border skirmish with China. And North Korea boasts about its nuclear weapons. […] Guterres also pointed to the only treaty constraining the size of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals — the...

<p>JERUSALEM, Israel – Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested that Jerusalem belongs to his country during an address to Turkish lawmakers in Ankara on Thursday, The Times of Israel reported.</p> <p>“In this city that we had to leave in tears during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Ottoman resistance. So, Jerusalem is our city, a city from us,” he said. “Our first qibla [Islamic direction of prayer] al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem are the symbolic mosques of our faith. In addition, this city is home to the holy places of Christianity and Judaism.”</p>

Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said she resented anyone claiming President Donald Trump was not a racist on Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Live.” In a video clip from lastnight’s Minnesota rally, Trump said, “What is going on with Omar? I have been reading the reports for two years about how corrupt and crooked she is. Then she tells us how to run our country. Can you believe it? How the hell did Minnesota elect her?”

Retired four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal has endorsed Joe Biden for the White House, citing his time working with the former vice president under the Obama administration and saying the Democratic nominee is "someone that you can trust." McChrystal, speaking on MSNBC Thursday morning, said Biden “is humble enough to listen to experts, is humble enough to respect people who serve and have served.” “I think that he would surround himself with an effective team of good people, I think he would set a tone in which he would bring out the best of people. Again, not everyone will agree with...