Free Republic

BEIRUT -- Turkey captured the elder sister of the slain leader of the Islamic State group in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to a senior Turkish official, who called the arrest an intelligence "gold mine." Little is known about the sister of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Turkish official said the 65-year-old known as Rasmiya Awad is suspected of being affiliated with the extremist group. He did not elaborate. Awad was captured in a raid Monday evening on a trailer container she was living in with her family near the town of Azaz in Aleppo province. The area is part of...

"Patently in error" That's British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's view of President Trump..... Speaking to the media at the White House today the President urged Mr. Johnson to work towards an agreement with the EU that will allow large amounts of trade with the United States..... Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage will not stand as a candidate for the House of Commons in the December 12th General Election.... Tires burned and streets blocked Sunday in Baghdad.... In Lebanon on Sunday thousands rallied in support of President Michel Aoun....then anti-government forces came out onto the streets.... A very blunt message from...

Erdogan Extols Koranic Harshness Toward Non-Muslims, Seeks Their Koranic Conquest NOV 3, 2019 2:00 PM BY ANDREW BOSTOM Notwithstanding any limited “support” Turkey may (or may not) have provided the successful U.S. raid this weekend, which liquidated ISIS’s al-Baghdadi, Turkish President Erdogan made some revealing, indeed pathognomonic remarks, during last Friday’s (10/25/19) prayers in Istanbul’s Great Camlica Mosque. A Turkish writer in exile who is a very fluent, gifted Turkish-to-English translator, translated (below) the triumphal report by Yeni Akit, an outlet enamored of the Turkish President and his traditionalist Islamic political party, the AKP. On October 25, Turkey’s president Recep...

Russia’s advanced S-400 air defense batteries at the Khmeimim Air Base in Syria have been quietly “deactivated,” according to Russian military sources and publications. This has not been officially confirmed or denied. One source said that today, not a single S-400 is operational anywhere in Syria. Three months ago, DEBKAfile’s military sources cited the Syrian military as reporting that the Russian S-400s posted outside the important Syrian military compound at Masyaf in the west had been “deactivated” indicating the shutdown of their radar systems. Our sources note that, although Russian S-300 and S-400 air defense systems have been deployed in...

After eight years of war, the Syrian opposition announced that all armed groups united under the command of the Syrian Interim Government’s Defense Ministry and joined forces under the banner of the National Army. For the first time, the Syrian Interim Government formed by the Syrian National Coalition has managed take the armed opposition under its command. With this step, the political opposition for the first time may be able to proclaim itself the representative of the entire Syrian opposition.

US President Donald Trump’s many critics insist he has no idea what he is doing in Syria. The assassination of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend by US special forces showed this criticism is misplaced. Trump has a very good idea of what he is doing in Syria, not only regarding ISIS, but regarding the diverse competing actors on the ground. Regarding ISIS, the obvious lesson of the al-Baghdadi raid is that Trump’s critics’ claim that his withdrawal of US forces from Syria’s border with Turkey meant that he was going to allow ISIS to regenerate was...

The Fatah movement headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas emphasizes its continued adherence to the "national struggle" as a means to counter all the "colonialist" plans which they believe seek to undermine the existence of the "Palestinian people" and their cause. Such "colonialist" plans range from the Balfour Declaration to US President Donald Trump's peace plan. On the occasion of the approaching 102nd anniversary of the statement by former British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour in support of the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people, the Fatah movement called the Balfour Declaration a "historic crime" against humanity...

<p>TAL ABYAD, Syria — A car bomb killed at least 13 people in a Turkish-held border town in northeast Syria Saturday, as thousands of Kurds in the wider region protested against “Turkish occupation.”</p> <p>The bombing ripped through Tal Abyad, one of several once Kurdish-controlled towns seized by Turkey last month in a deadly cross-border offensive.</p>

The songs are a part of this Saturday night experience.. But first raging radicalism is not how conventional Establishment politics work and at the Obama Foundation summit this week none other than Barack Hussein Obama.... And how is the race to beat Donald Trump in 2020 going. The latest Iowa Democrat poll from the "New York Times" shows.... The Boris Johnson Con Job Election: Will Britain Be Fooled? There's "trouble" in the UK yes indeed and like the con man in "The Music Man" Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party machine are riling you up about the evil Jeremy Corbyn........

Russia acquiesced to Israeli requests and canceled certain arms sales to regimes that are antagonistic toward Israel, an adviser to the prime minister said this week, according to the Ynet news site. In return, he said, Israel canceled arms sales that irked the Russians, including to Ukraine.

During Friday’s Democratic Weekly Address, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel (D-NY) stated that President Trump’s actions in Syria have shown that “there’s no longer real leadership coming from the Oval Office. Now, it’s on Congress to step in.” Transcript as Follows:

Syria is not exactly a great prize to call the country a bloody mess would be a massive understatement. Entire cities have been destroyed. Syrian economy lost $300 billion in gdp,a decrease so steep it could take over a generation to recover to prewar levels. The cost of reconstruction could be as high as $400 billion, requiring Russia and Iran to spend considerable capital if they have the slightest chance of digging the country out. Russians and Iranians are not gaining newfound control. They’ve had control for some time. Moscow's influence stretches back before Bashar Assad was even born. Syrian...

Following Turkey and America’s agreement on a “permanent ceasefire” in Syria, President Trump lifted the sanctions placed on Turkish officials. The sanctions were put in place when Turkish forces were plunging into Syrian territory held by the Kurds, who were U.S. partners in the fight against ISIS. The new ceasefire agreement would set up a buffer zone on the Syria-Turkey border that Kurdish forces couldn’t occupy.The ceasefire marks a stark turn of events from where things stood earlier this month, when the entire Washington political and media establishment was lambasting Trump for daring to pull troops out of northern Syria.Yet at...

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has suspended security assistance to Lebanon, congressional officials said Friday, including more than $100 million for the Lebanese Armed Forces. Congressional aides were told by State Department officials in a conference call Thursday that the aid to Lebanon was being held up by the White House Office of Management and Budget at the direction of the National Security Council, a department within the White House.

Tens of thousands protesting in Baghdad's Tahrir Square Friday with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas.... In Santiago, Chile Friday police using tear gas and water cannon when they came under attack from rock throwing protesters..... The protests continue in Algeria on Fridays.... President Trump now considers himself a resident of Florida...... Chad Wolf is to be the new Acting Secretary of Homeland Security..... The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson disagreeing with the view of President Trump regarding Johnson's "Great New Deal" on Brexit.... In his exclusive interview with Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage Thursday, President Trump expressed his...

The Syrian politician opposed to the Assad regime, George Sabra, responded to statements by Russian President, Vladimir Putin about the Christians in the Middle East and the persecution and murder they are subjected to. "Christians in the Middle East are in a disastrous situation, this has been stated by Putin," Sabra wrote in a series of tweets via his official Twitter account. "We say to him: leave the Middle East to be all right, all the people both Muslims and Christians, so there is no need to hear such a broken record and false sympathy. " He pointed out that...

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday that his government’s ultimate goal was to restore state authority over Kurdish controlled areas in northeast Syria after an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal but he expected it to happen gradually. In a state television interview Assad also said that a deal between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin to drive out the Kurdish-led YPG militia from a 30 km (19 mile) “safe zone” along the border was a “positive” step that would help Damascus achieve its goal. “It might not achieve everything ... it paves the road...

In Iraq, demonstrators are being shot dead in the streets. In Lebanon, protesters have paralysed the country and seem set to bring down the government of Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. In recent weeks the Egyptian security forces crushed attempts to protest against the police state of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi... A rough approximation is that 60% of the region's population is under the age of 30. A young population can be a great asset to a country. But only if the economy, the educational system and the institutions of the state are functioning well enough to accommodate their needs, and...

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., faced criticism Wednesday after voting "present" on a House resolution to formally recognize the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide. The measure, H.Res.296, passed the chamber by an overwhelming 405-to-11 margin, representing a forceful rebuke to Turkey following the NATO ally's recent incursion against the Kurds along the Turkish-Syrian border. Two other House members also voted "present" with Omar: fellow Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, and one Republican, Paul Gosar of Arizona. But it was Omar's vote that drew the dismay of Armenian advocacy groups and political organizations. Omar's "votes and...

..... ...1630’s Dutch Tulip Mania is a good place to start a serious discussion about what one could call "The 2019 North Syria/Save the Kurds/Trump is a Monster" mania, or put more simply, President Trump’s northern Syria retreat in the face of Turkish belligerence. It seems that Trump has learned some of the lessons of the past. Before World War I, the Chief of the German High Command, Field Marshall Alfred von Schlieffen, saw the looming French/English/Russian Military Alliance as the setting for a disastrous two-front war with 1) France/Great Britain to the West and 2) Tsarist Russia to the...