Free Republic

The decision by three Arab states to make peace with Israel can be credited both to efforts by the Trump administration and the recognition by these Sunni states that their security would improve against the ongoing threats they face from Turkey and Iran. Iran and its proxies interfere with Arab states while promoting their Shi’ite revolutionary ideology; likewise, Turkey pushes its Sunni revolutionary ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region. Turkey and Iran look to overthrow the Sunni Arab states that do not align with them, such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The normalization deals between the...

Custody of the Franciscans in Knayeh Two Franciscan friars describe their high-risk ministry in Syria's Idlib province in one of the country’s last jihadist strongholds. They convey the daily threat that weighs on them and on the flock of some three hundred Catholic families they assist at the risk of their lives. Fr. Hanna Jallouf is sixty-seven, Fr. Luai Bsharat is forty. These two Franciscans are the last priests to minister in the province of Idlib, near the border between Turkey and western Syria. The two sons of St. Francis bring spiritual help to three hundred families who are...

The message was clearly aimed at Gulf states and others that are partnered with the US. Iran has sought to reach out to its Arab neighbors, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warning them that US President Donald Trump will be leaving in 70 days, but Iran’s regime will remain “forever.” He urged them to realize that “betting on outsiders to provide security is never a good gamble.” In Arabic and English, he called for dialogue and to work together. The message was clearly aimed at Gulf states and others that are partnered with the US. Iran was offering them...

Israeli Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi warns that a Biden presidency could ignite war in the Middle East, while Egypt fears Biden would aid the resurgence of Islamists in the region. Hanegbi pointed out that Biden has indicated he will resurrect America’s nuclear agreement with Iran which was cancelled by the Trump administration. For Israel, this would represent an existential threat to national security and drastically increase the chances of war with Tehran. “If Biden stays with that policy, there will, in the end, be a violent confrontation between Israel and Iran,” said Hanegbi. Meanwhile, other Middle Eastern countries such as...

Welcome to the weekend and here we are still doing it the way we've always done it whether the "trolls" like it or not. Wake up and smell the coffee about certain realities the coronavirus situation and restrictions related to it likely to be tightened in the face of the numbers but the election situation perhaps giving the governors being told by Washington and people like Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci a pause... Newsdump Update: US Syria Envoy Says His Mission Ending But US Policy Will Stay The Same If Biden Is President... The Establishment policy is set...

A Syrian mercenary recently captured while fighting for Azerbaijan against Armenia in its ongoing war over Nagorno-Karabakh said on Wednesday that his recruiters instructed him and fellow mercenaries to “slaughter all civilians and soldiers” of an Armenian village they attempted to capture. Armenian forces captured Syrian national Yusuf Alaabet al-Hajji in recent days and “is currently remanded into custody facing international terrorism charges, among others,” Armenian state news agency Armenpress reported on Wednesday. Hajji told Armenian investigators that Turkish forces recruited him in Syria to fight for Azerbaijan for “a 2000-dollar monthly payment.” In his testimony, Hajji detailed how Turkish...

Jihadist groups are believed to have been present in Azerbaijan since at least February, it was claimed on Oct. 27, with Turkey accused of shipping in militia, including a Uyghur Muslim terror group, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). The Islamist fighters are thought to have been mobilized from their bases in Syria to join Azeri forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where they are fighting against Armenia. Despite Turkey initially denying the presence of the jihadists, film footage and photographs have since corroborated reports which began circulating in the Syrian press in August. The mobilization of Turkish troops was reported in...

A cross has been ripped down from a Greek Orthodox Church in a part of Syria controlled by U.S.-backed militants. The St. Sergius and Bacchus Greek Orthodox Church in the city of Tabqa near Raqqa had radical Islamists remove the cross after Friday’s Islamic prayers in a local mosque. Although commentators refer to this action as part of an anti-France protest, it clearly shows that it is anti-Christian as a Greek Orthodox Church was targeted in a city controlled by the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. The Tabqa Regional government, acting independently from the legitimate government in Damascus, restored...

The United States announces that it killed seven senior leaders of Al-Qaeda in Syria in an air strike last week as they were meeting near Idlib, US Central Command announced on Monday. Central Command spokeswoman, Major Beth Riordan, said the strike was conducted on 22 October. The leaders were not identified. “The removal of these AQ-S leaders will disrupt the terrorist organization’s ability to further plot and carryout global attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians,” Riordan said. “With our allies and partners, we will continue to target al Qaida and other terrorist organisations.” she added. According to...

The photographs from the Turkish occupation zone Serêkaniyê (Arab. Ras al-Ain) in northern Syria basically confirm only once again what the autonomous administration and human rights organizations have long denounced: The terrorist militia "Islamic State" (IS) is one of the proxy troops of NATO partner Turkey acting for Ankara in Syria. The footage, which has been circulating on online networks such as Twitter and Facebook since Sunday, shows "demonstrators" in Serêkaniyê protesting against French President Emmanuel Macron. In early October Macron had presented his law against Islamist separatism and announced that his country would increasingly counteract the development of...

Russian air strikes in northern Syria have killed more than 50 Turkish-backed militia fighters in the mainly rebel-held province of Idlib, reports say. Many others were wounded in the attack, which marks an escalation of violence in the region. A training base for an Islamist group called Faylaq al-Sham was hit. The assault puts at risk a ceasefire in Idlib, brokered and monitored by Russia and Turkey, which back opposite sides in the war. UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number of dead at 78.

Two ‘Beatles’ charged with hostage-taking of American citizens in Syria and other terrorism offenses that resulted in the deaths of James Wright Foley, Steven Joel Sotloff, Peter Edward Kassig, and Kayla Jean Mueller Two militant fighters for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a foreign terrorist organization, are expected to arrive in the United States today in FBI custody on charges related to their participation in a brutal hostage-taking scheme that resulted in the deaths of four American citizens, as well as the deaths of British and Japanese nationals, in Syria.Former British citizens Alexanda Amon Kotey, 36,...

Syrian ISIS terrorist was under observation by authorities on the day he stabbed a tourist to death in Germany. Abdullah AHH, 20, expressed the desire to “slaughter Christians and cut out their tongues” upon arrest on October 21. AHH had only just been released from jail five days prior to attacking his victim, Thomas L, 55, on Wednesday, October 4. Unfortunately, the stab wounds that resulted from the attack were fatal ... In the altercation, another man, 53, was also seriously injured in Dresden, Germany. The terrorist had served a prison term of two years and nine months in 2018...

“We have nothing left in Idlib, no properties, houses, or rents. The Sharia Committee seized everything.”With these words, Issa (a pseudonym) from Idlib city described to Enab Baladi what happened to his family’s property years after the Islamic factions took control over the city. Issa added, “We had a house, an agricultural land, and a number of stores, all of which, were rented through my father’s agent, who used to transfer the rents to us on a regular base.”He continued saying, in 2019, the Sharia Committee issued a decision providing for the confiscation of any property that was not managed...

Russia on Saturday pledged to "necessary" help for Yerevan in the conflict with Azerbaijan if fighting reached Armenian territory, after its ally requested security assistance. Armenia's request for assistance from Moscow further raised fears of Russia and Azerbaijan's ally Turkey getting sucked into a decades-old conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan formally asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin "urgent" consultations on security assistance as Azerbaijani forces make gains against Armenian separatists who control Karabakh. The request also came after Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to agree a fresh ceasefire during talks in Geneva on...

Welcome to the weekend the new lockdowns announced in places like France and Germany in recent days keep Big Business open with big factories and Big Government open with schools while many suffer from it... In this Corporatist world Stalinist purging of the "undesirable" elements and the challenge to remember Pastor Niemoller's words: "first they came for" And they're going after all kinds of people like Piers Corbyn brother of Jeremy Corbyn arrested for organizing a rally opposing the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK and now of course the former Labor Party leader getting suspended from his party for saying...

A Swiss court handed suspended jail terms on Tuesday to two senior officials from a Swiss Islamic group for spreading propaganda supporting al Qaeda, in a retrial which followed their earlier acquittal. Nicolas Blancho, president of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS), and media spokesman Abdel Azziz Qaasim Illi were sentenced by the Federal Criminal Court to 15 months and 18 months in prison respectively, both suspended for three years. Prosecutors originally charged the two men and one other ICCS official in 2017 over videos posted online two years earlier that included interviews with leaders of Jabhat al-Nusra, at...

Lebanese president's daughter 'doesn't mind' conditional peace with Israel "I defend the interests of my country Lebanon first. Are we required to remain in a state of war?" • Maronite leader: "Lebanon should be the last Arab country to normalize its relations with Israel." Claudine and Mireille Aoun, daughters of Lebanon's President Aoun arrive for a state dinner given at the Elysee palace in Paris (photo credit: STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS) Claudine Aoun Roukoz, daughter of Lebanese President Michel Aoun and head of the National Commission for Lebanese Women, stressed that she would "not mind" if Lebanon makes peace with...

Paris (AFP) — France’s largest employers’ federation on Monday urged companies to “resist the blackmail” over a product boycott by Arab countries as a backlash widens over Paris’s hardened stance against radical Islam. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to take the fight to Islamic radicals after the October 16 beheading of a history teacher who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed to pupils in a class discussion on free speech. But his comments triggered protests in Muslim-majority countries at the weekend, with people burning pictures of Macron in Syria and setting fire to French flags in the Libyan...

The United States believes it killed seven senior leaders of al-Qaeda in Syria in an airstrike last week as they were meeting near the Turkish border, US Central Command said Monday. A Central Command spokeswoman, Major Beth Riordan, said the strike was conducted in Idlib, in northwest Syria, on October 22. She did not identify the seven leaders by name. ‘The removal of these AQ-S leaders will disrupt the terrorist organization's ability to further plot and carryout global attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians,’ she said.