Free Republic

A left wing expert on Salafism has suggested that Germany has no real culture and that Syrians should be allowed their own city rather than be forced to integrate into German society. Expert on Salafism and Green party member Kurt Edler is proposing a radical idea on how the German government should handle the integration of Syrians and other migrants into German society.

SARASOTA, Florida—The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) just held its winter meeting here, and the wealthy beachfront communities that dot the coast are typically considered one of the beating hearts of the Establishment GOP's donor community. Tonight, though, it's Cruz country. An event originally scheduled as a small rally for potential 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) mushroomed into a major political event after nearly 2,000 people RSVP'd online. “We are shocked at the level of interest that we’ve received for doing this rally,” Sarasota GOP chairman Joe Gruters told Breitbart News. “It’s obvious that the state is aware...

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani army entered the last of three militant strongholds targeted by a major offensive in the northwest on Friday, as gunmen wounded a senior army officer and a soldier in the capital. The operation in South Waziristan, the main Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuary in Pakistan, has sparked a wave of retaliatory attacks that have killed about 300 civilians and security forces in the past month. The shooting in Islamabad was the third such attack in about two weeks. The militants hope the attacks will weaken the army's resolve as it pushes deeper into the isolated, mountainous region...

Pakistani forces say they have seized control of the town of Kaniguram in South Waziristan, one of the Taliban's key regional strongholds. The army said it had full control of the town, the latest capture in an offensive against militants that began in South Waziristan on 17 October. The offensive has sparked a string of suicide bomb attacks. About 35 people were killed in an attack in Rawalpindi and seven were injured on the outskirts of Lahore. Rewards offered Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas, in the capital Islamabad, said that the Kaniguram area had been "completely cleared of terrorists"....

Pakistan Closes In On Taliban Leader's South Waziristan Strongholds Pakistan's armed forces are closing in on the stronghold of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, with heavy losses reported on both sides. By Saeed Shah in Lahore and Daud Khan in Peshawar 18 Oct 2009 Troops were advancing towards the towns of Makeen and Ladha in the mountainous region of South Waziristan, in a military offensive that could prove decisive in the country's struggle against Islamic extremism. On the second day of the long-awaited ground operation, soldiers on three sides approached the area held by the fearsome Mehsud tribe, which forms the...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – More than 30,000 Pakistani soldiers launched a ground offensive against al-Qaida and the Taliban's main stronghold along the Afghan border Saturday, officials said, in the country's toughest test yet against a strengthening insurgency. The United States has long pushed the government to carry out an assault in South Waziristan, and it comes after two weeks of militant attacks that have killed more than 175 people across the nuclear-armed country. That has ramped up pressure on the army to act. Pakistan has fought three unsuccessful campaigns since 2001 in the region, which is the nerve-center for...

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's army launched airstrikes and ferried in tanks and artillery as it confirmed Tuesday that it was preparing a major offensive against insurgents in al-Qaida and the Taliban's safest haven along the Afghan border. The highly anticipated military operation in South Waziristan is seen as a potential turning point in the yearslong and sometimes half-hearted fight against militancy in Pakistan. It could also help curb Taliban attacks on Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan. But the offensive in the lawless tribal region will also be the toughest yet for Pakistan's military, testing both its fighting capability and the government's...

KOTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Helicopter-borne Pakistani soldiers swooped into a Taliban stronghold in a remote corner of Swat on Tuesday, as the United Nations urged help for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting. The military's offensive in Swat, 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, is seen as a test of the government's commitment to face up to a growing Taliban insurgency and comes after the United States accused it of "abdicating" to the militants. The fighting has caused a civilian exodus from the valley, once a tourist destination, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis. A senior...

LOI SAM, Pakistan – Pakistan's army captured a key militant stronghold near the Afghan border, a breakthrough in a bloody push against the Taliban and al-Qaida that has claimed 95 civilian lives, the military said Saturday. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said troops on Saturday captured Loi Sam, a town in the Bajur region sitting on a vital intersection connecting the border to three neighboring Pakistani regions. "Now we have complete control in this area from where miscreants used to go to Afghanistan," Abbas told reporters flown into Bajur on a military helicopter Saturday. "Miscreants have been expelled or...

Allies prepare to seize Taliban stronghold By Tom Coghlan, Kabul Correspondent Last Updated: 3:01am GMT 06/12/2007 A key Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan is expected to fall to British troops and the national army within a matter of days. Troops from the Royal Irish Regiment board a Chinook helicopter taking them to the outskirts of Musa Qala Residents report that Nato aircraft have dropped leaflets warning of an imminent assault on Musa Qala in the north of Helmand province. The town is of huge symbolic value to the Taliban. It has been in its hands for 10 months and is...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2007 – About 15 al Qaeda operatives ended up dead in Adwaniyah, Iraq, on Nov. 12, as Iraqi citizens stood strong in their town’s defense, a senior military officer said today. It was 9:30 that morning when the first mortar fire hit checkpoints being manned by a concerned local citizen, or CLC, groups, U.S. Army Col. Terry Ferrell told online journalists and “bloggers” in a conference call. Ferrell commands the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team serving in Multinational Division Center, responsible for oversight in the Adwaniyah and Hawr Rajab areas. Between 30 and 40 al...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2007 – For the past four months, coalition forces have battled to take control of a former insurgent badland south of Baghdad that had no Iraq security forces, a senior commander in the area said today. For the past two years, the predominately Sunni areas around Arab Jabour and Hawr Rajab have served as a thriving haven for al Qaeda terrorists who used the Tigris River valley to funnel bombs, weapons and ammunition into Baghdad. Since June 15, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, has -- for the most part -- driven out the insurgency, and...

Nine-day operation nets weapons cache and suspected insurgents with ties to Al Qaeda. By Sgt. Armando Monroig 5th Mobile Public Affairs BALAD RUZ, Iraq, Jan. 31, 2007 — The U.S. Army concluded a massive, nine-day assault Jan. 13, centered on a series of small villages in the Diyala province that for the past 18 months had been used as a safe haven for insurgents. During the operation, soldiers from the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment Reconnaissance, 82nd Airborne Division, killed more than 100 insurgents and detained 54 suspected of involvement with terrorism activities in the area, which is located just...

UK troops take Taleban strongholdSaturday, 15 July 2006, 16:52 GMT 17:52 UK British forces were backed by US and Canadian troops British troops in Afghanistan have undertaken their biggest operation since the fall of the Taleban in 2001. Three hundred soldiers - backed by hundreds of American and Canadian troops - have taken control of Sangin in the southern province of Helmand. Six British troops have been killed in or near the town in recent weeks. Military chiefs earlier defended their decision to call in US planes to drop 500lb bombs on Taleban fighters in the nearby town of Nawzad....

Iraqis in former rebel stronghold now cheer American soldiers By Oliver Poole in Tal Afar (Filed: 19/12/2005) In the low-slung concrete buildings of Tal Afar, a city built on dirty sand and mud, George W Bush sees the potential for military success in Iraq. In recent weeks it has been one case study the American president has consistently cited in order to buttress the rhetoric that the insurgency, and the killing, can be ended. Tal Afar was the site of the largest military operation of 2005, when 8,000 US and Iraqi troops reclaimed it from armed groups. It has since...

US hits al-Qaeda village stronghold By Adam Lusher (Filed: 02/10/2005) About 1,000 US troops, backed by attack helicopters and fighter jets swept into Sadah, a village near the Syrian border, yesterday in an offensive to root out al-Qaeda militants and stem the violence that has shaken Iraq before this month's referendum on the new constitution. Air-to-ground missiles struck houses and cars as the force moved into the village of about 2,000 people on the banks of the Euphrates, eight miles from the border. The US military said that the offensive, named Operation Iron Fist, was mounted because al-Qaeda had taken...

American air strike kills 40 Sunni rebels in Iraqi border stronghold By Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad (Filed: 13/06/2005) American forces launched a rare series of air strikes against rebel Iraqi positions close to Syria during a bloody weekend in which more than 80 people were killed. Marine aircraft fired seven missiles as units on the ground fought insurgents controlling a road leading to the frontier city of Qaim. A military spokesman said 40 insurgents had been killed but reported no American casualties. "The deaths of another 25 people were reported elsewhere in the country over the weekend," he said. British...

MOSUL is the good girl who went bad. Quiet in the early days of the occupation, the violence-ravaged Iraqi city has become a must-win battlefield for our enemies. The terrorists and insurgents will throw all they have left into the fight. There's no mystery involved: Mosul's the decisive point in northern Iraq. Over the long term, the city's vastly more valuable than Fallujah. Insurgent attacks, terrorist bombings and assassinations erupted last autumn and continue on a regular basis. They're not going to stop soon. After Baghdad, Mosul will remain the most bitterly contested Iraqi city in the months ahead. Every...

A series of truces agreed on last month, encompassing Mr Sadr's stronghold in al-Thoura, Baghdad's eastern slum, as well as the Shia holy cities and other towns further south, are still holding. His own home turf in the capital has been more peaceful than it has been for months. Former fighters are now being paid to collect rubbish, plant trees, direct traffic and help the Iraqi police. The new government has promised to pay for a new sewage system so that the slum detritus will no longer flow past Baghdad's grimmest tenements. Outside the city, the clergy behind Mr...

America's 'digital division' heads for Saddam's stronghold By Donald Macintyre in Qatar 07 April 2003 Units from the hi-tech US 4th Infantry Division, which was blocked by a decision of the Ankara parliament from entering Iraq from Turkey, have begun a 350-mile dash north from Kuwait towards Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home stronghold some 100 miles north of Baghdad. Deployed in combat for the first time since the Vietnam War, the 4th Infantry is seen as a counterweight to Iraqi forces to the north of the capital and could be used if pro-Saddam forces tried to stage a last stand in...