Free Republic

Iran’s government has embarked on an armed strategy of divide, crush and conquer to end nationwide protests against clerical rule in the Islamic Republic. The primary target is the Kurdish minority population, which has been protesting for more than two months. The government, dominated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has dispatched an aggressive and ill-disciplined militia known as the Basij to assault Kurdish towns and villages in western Iran. For the past eight days, thousands of Basij, transported by armored vehicles and firing heavy automatic weapons, have moved into the western border zone largely populated by Kurds. The Kurds have...

Onion and tomato prices have skyrocketed after flash floods washed away large number of crops prompting the Pakistan government to allow imports from neighbouring countries to lower costs. In a shocking case of food wastage, protestors have been seen stopping vehicles carrying imported tomatoes coming from Iran in Kalat district of Balochistan, and destroying the produce on the streets. The bizarre reason as per social media is that the tomatoes are from a Shia country and so Sunni extremists will not allow it.

Diversity is our strength so it couldn’t have been too shocking that an Afghan Muslim refugee was responsible for America’s single worst Islamophobic killing spree. Much as another Afghan, Omar Mateen, brutally carried out the single largest massacre of gay people in America. Americans are generally fairly tolerant so liberals decided to import bigoted immigrant killers. When the migrant surge began, politicians and the media assured us that Afghans would make profound contributions to America. They have already set two particularly ugly national records. And that was bound to happen. Long after the last American soldier had left Afghanistan, the...

At least 50 killed after suicide bomber targets last Friday prayers of the month Eyewitnesses describe 'dead bodies everywhere' after 'deafening blast' in Kabul Hundreds were inside the mosque at the time of the attack, survivors claim Today's Zikr remembrance prayers seen as heretical by hardliner Sunni Muslims Whitehall adviser says death toll could be 200 as Taliban insist only ten dead A suicide bomb blast killed at least 50 worshippers during Friday prayers at a mosque in Afghanistan today. Hundreds were gathered inside the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in western Kabul when the huge explosion took place. It's thought hundreds...

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers decided against opening schools to girls above the sixth grade, reneging on a previous promise and opting to appease their hardline base at the expense of further alienating the international community. The unexpected decision, confirmed by a Taliban official Wednesday, came at the start of the new school year in Afghanistan. It is bound to disrupt Taliban efforts to win recognition from potential international donors, at a time when the country is mired in a worsening humanitarian crisis. ... women are not required to wear the all encompassing burqa. but must wear the traditional hijab, covering their...

Islamabad apparently bought peace with the TLP. As in its frequent mobilisations over the last few years, the TLP has once again forced the Pakistani state onto the backfoot and enhanced its own political clout. A relatively new phenomenon, the TLP, was founded in 2015 by Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a firebrand cleric who died in November 2020. It now has a strong following among Pakistan’s Barelvi sect. At the heart of TLP’s ideology is the protection of the Prophet’s honour and a vigorous defence of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. In Pakistan, anyone deemed to have insulted Islam or the Prophet...

A large explosion tore through a Shi'ite mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar during Friday prayers, killing at least 33 people and wounding 73, officials said, the second massive attack in a week targeting worshippers from the minority sect. A local reporter in Kandahar told Reuters that eyewitnesses had described three suicide attackers, one of whom blew himself up at the entrance to the mosque with the two others detonating their devices inside the building. ... The blast took place just days after an attack claimed by Islamic State militants, which killed scores of Shi'ite worshippers at a...

A suicide bomb attack on worshippers at a Shiite mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz killed at least 55 people on Friday (Oct 8), in the bloodiest assault since US forces left the country. Scores more victims from the minority community were wounded in the blast, which was claimed by the Islamic State group and appeared designed to further destabilise Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover. The extremist group, bitter rivals of the Taliban, has repeatedly targeted Shiites in a bid to stir up sectarian violence in Sunni-majority Afghanistan.

The Taliban leaders are desperately looking for global recognition and ties with world powers, while China under Xi aims to exploit the war-ravaged country for its economic interests. Therefore, the China-Taliban relationship seems symbiotic. However, looking at the Taliban’s past, the future of this new-found bonhomie looks bleak China is in Taliban’s Afghanistan. President Xi Jinping is all out to make a deal with the mullahs. And it seems China is rejoicing the exit of the American and its allied forces from the Afghan soil. For China, it is a new ground to advance a unique model of foreign relations...

DUESSELDORF, Germany - An Afghan mayor who fled to Germany said she would work in her host country to draw attention to the plight of those left behind who are living in fear of Taliban militants running Afghanistan. Zarifa Ghafari, who was one of the country's first female mayors in Maidan Shahr west of Kabul until the Taliban seized power last week, thanked the German government and people for "saving" her life and that of her family. "I am just here to raise the voice of those 99% of people in Afghanistan who are not able to come out of...

“If there is anything outrageous, then it is your incredible audacity in making these claims that are known to be based on lies, racism and deep-rooted hatred,” they wrote. The legislators decried the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime accusing others of violating freedom of expression, assembly and other human rights. “In 2019 alone, you murdered 1,500 protesters in the streets of Tehran... Your country routinely hangs or throws LGBTQ+ individuals from public buildings... Let’s not forget your recent attempts to kidnap an Iranian dissident journalist in New York or your country’s flagrant involvement in a major terrorist plot on European...

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan on January 10 claimed that India is backing the Islamic State (IS) and facilitating attacks in the country. Khan’s statement came a week after 11 Shia Hazara coal miners were brutally massacred by IS affiliated militants. In the interim, the Pakistani premier labeled the mourning families as “blackmailers” for refusing to bury their dead until Khan visits them to hear their demands for justice and security. Protesting with unburied coffins has become a means of expressing outrage against the state for the Shia Hazaras, thousands of whom have been targeted and killed since the turn...

When you meet the unbelievers, strike necks.” (Qur’an 47:4).. “Islamic State claims responsibility for attack on Pakistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority that kills 11,” by Gul Yousafzai, Reuters, January 3, 2021 (thanks to Henry): QUETTA, Pakistan -Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on Sunday that killed 11 miners from Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite Hazaras in Baluchistan province. The attack took place early on Sunday morning in the Mach area of Bolan district around 100 kms southeast of Baluchistan’s capital Quetta, killing the miners who were in a shared residential room near the coal mine where they worked, officials said. “The throats...

Yemen: Shi’ite jihadists target Sunni mosque in missile attack, murder at least 73 JAN 21, 2020 3:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER “At least 73 soldiers killed in missile attack ‘on mosque’ in Yemen,” by Samuel Osborne,” Independent, January 19, 2020 (thanks to The Religion of Peace): At least 73 soldiers have been killed in a missile attack reportedly launched by Houthi rebels at a mosque in Yemen. Dozens more were left wounded in the attack, which targeted a mosque in a military training camp in the city of Marib, two medical sources told Reuters. The Iran-aligned Houthis did not immediately...

AMMAN - Security sources in the Sunni states mostly applaud the assassination of Quds Force leader Major General Qassem Soleimani of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, and his deputy in Baghdad, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the leader of Iraq's Kataeb Hezbollah. "There has long been a hostile feeling by the Arabs and [Sunni] Muslims toward Qassem Soleimani," said Nabil Al-Otoom, a Jordanian analyst focusing on Iran. "The American move drew a strong positive reaction from public opinion in the region, and a strengthened U.S. presence in Iraq is becoming more important to stop Iranian plans to build a regional...

UK: Man who used sledgehammer to smash windows of mosques turns out to be Shia targeting Sunnis DEC 1, 2019 3:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER LEAVE A COMMENT How many of these attacks on mosques were presented by the political and media elites as instances of “Islamophobia”? In any case, the Sunni-Shi’ite jihad, having been fought for fourteen centuries in Muslim countries, has now come to diverse Britain. How far gone is Britain? This far gone: the non-Muslims are aware of Sunni-Shia hostility, and fear the consequences. In 2014, an 84-year-old non-Muslim, Kenneth Peters, who lived in a Shi’ite area,...

I address some of the faulty arguments used to claim Islam isn't a false religion. I also explore how we should examine truth claims and compare Islamic growth rates with the popularity of previous heresies.

Chaos and horrors followed President Trump’s needlessly abrupt withdrawal of US forces from northern Syria, but much of the mess was baked in long before Trump ever took office. In other words, this president played the anti-ISIS hand that the last president had left him: An American exit was always in the cards, and all the players are falling into positions prompted by Obama-era US policy. Thus the Syrian Kurds have allied with bloody Bashar al-Assad in the face of the Turkish invasion. This is less strange when you realize that the Obama administration chose the Kurds as its anti-ISIS...

Full title: 20,000 Sign Petition Demanding BBC Remove ‘Pleasure Marriages’ Expose On How Iraqi Muslim Clerics Sell Little Girls for Sex“According to Sharia, there’s no problem [with child marriages for sexual pleasure],” said one cleric. Of course not, they are following Muhammad, “the perfect example” whose favorite wife Aisha was six years old when he married her, nine when he consummated the marriage. Related: Undercover with Imams: little girls sold for sex in temporary ‘pleasure marriages’ that can last as little as an hour – cleric says ‘no problem at all’ to wed a nine-year-old As Robert Spencer points out:...

Afghanistan: Bomb rips through wedding in Kabul An explosion has ripped through a wedding hall in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and many casualties are feared. Eye witnesses told the BBC a suicide bomber detonated explosives during a wedding ceremony. Witnesses said they had seen bodies. The explosion happened at around 22:40 local time (18.10 GMT) in an area mostly populated by Shia residents. No group said it carried out the attack, which happened in the west of the city. Sunni Muslim militants, including the Taliban and the Islamic State group, have repeatedly targeted Shia Hazara minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan....