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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...

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.

“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...

French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Turkey having a "bellicose" attitude towards its allies, as the row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad contiues unabated. In an interview broadcast on Saturday, Macron said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had displayed "belligerent behavior with Nato allies", adding that he hoped "things would calm down" and that the Turkish president "would not tell lies". France-Turkey showdown: A battle to shape the regional order Read More » His comments came as Erdogan, as well as a number of other leaders of Muslim-majority countries, continued to criticise Macron for comments he made describing...

Tensions between France and Turkey continue to escalate. After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for French President Emmanuel Macron to be sent "for a psychiatric examination following his hatred of Islam" the French president accused Turkey of "imperial aspirations", he said. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Macron attacked Turkey's behavior in the Middle East and described Turkey's intervention in Syria as "a surprise and aggressive act for its NATO allies." He added that "Ankara has not respected an arms embargo in Libya while taking a very aggressive approach" in the eastern Mediterranean. "I note that Turkey has imperial...

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...

A curfew in Philadelphia tonight from 9pm to 6am. Streets in the downtown area closed. Members of the Pennsylvania National Guard deployed... A federal judge in Portland granting a preliminary injunction saying that federal officers denied First Amendment rights to peaceful protesters... Walmart removing firearms and ammunition from display floors...Today Walmart reversing course... The country with the highest coronavirus infection rate in Europe moving to a national lockdown. Belgium shutting down... In Canada Winnipeg the largest city in Manitoba moving to a Code Red coronavirus lockdown... An earthquake measuring 7.0 struck off the coast of Turkey today... The current UK...

The beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty, which occurred two weeks after a momentous speech by President Emmanuel Macron in which he unveiled a plan to defend French secular values against “Islamist radicalism,” marked the start of what might turn out to be an all-out war between France and the Islamic world, with Turkey’s Erdoğan leading the Muslim charge. By taking a stand against Muslim extremist violence and suppression of freedom of speech, Macron might find himself facing a new wave of Islamic terror.

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Aegean Sea off Greece and Turkey on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey. At least 4 people were killed in the quake, according to Turkey’s health minister. The city of Izmir in Turkey has been particularly badly hit with reports of at least 20 building destroyed, cars being crushed and people in the streets following the quake. The earthquake has also caused damage on the Greek island of Samos in the Aegean sea.

DUBAI - Thousands of Muslims, from Pakistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories, poured out of prayer services to join anti-France protests on Friday, as the French president’s vow to protect the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad continues to roil the Muslim world. Demonstrations in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad turned violent as some 2,000 people who tried to march toward the French Embassy were pushed back by police firing tear gas and beating protesters with batons. Crowds of Islamist activists hanged an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron from a highway overpass after pounding it furiously with their shoes. Several...

A powerful earthquake has struck off Turkey's Aegean coast, north of the Greek island of Samos, officials said. The 7.0 magnitude tremor, about 17km (11 miles) off the coast of western Izmir province, was felt as far away as Athens and Istanbul, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. There was no word on casualties but images from the Turkish city of Izmir showed buildings that had collapsed. An earthquake that struck Izmir in 1999 killed about 17,000 people. Reports said Friday's quake was also felt on the Greek island of Crete. Video on social media showed people searching through the...

Boko Haram has released a new video showing Rev Polycarp Zango, a pastor with the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in Jos, Plateau State, who reportedly went missing penultimate Monday. The cleric was abducted on October 19, while travelling to Gombe State for a conference. According to an online medium, Sahara Reporters, a video from the Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP, has confirmed his abduction. In the video, Rev Zango, who spoke in eloquent Hausa, introduced himself as a cleric at COCIN LCC Wild Life Park, in the Plateau state capital. He revealed that he was in...

The police intervened Wednesday evening to prevent "several dozen" members of the Turkish community "to do battle" with Armenians in Décines-Charpieu, a bastion of this diaspora in France, announced Thursday October 29th. Prefecture. A large police force, with around a hundred men, was put in place "with the aim of restoring republican order" in this suburban town of Lyon which houses the Armenian genocide memorial. Nineteen vehicles were checked and the identity of all the protagonists was noted. Twitter: Hundreds Of Turks & Azeris Take To The Streets In Lyon, France Looking For Armenians."Calm returned at 11 p.m., two hours...

Hundreds Of Turks & Azeris Take To The Streets In Lyon, France Looking For Armenians.

5 others, including soldiers, also wounded in attack targeting district commissioner At least two people were killed and five wounded, including soldiers, Tuesday when a car bomb blast targeted an official in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials said. The bomb attack went off near the Sinka Dher intersection in Mogadishu. “The Al-Shabaab terrorist group targeted the Kahda district commissioner with a car bomb blast killing two people and wounding five others, including soldiers and the Kahda district spy chief,” Abdifatah Hassan, a police captain in Mogadishu, told Anadolu Agency. Speaking to Anadolu Agency by phone, Ismail Mukhtar Oronjo, a Somali...

Two Islamic extremist terrorists were sentenced to death Wednesday in Mali for carrying out one terror attack and planning two others, including the 2015 hostage crisis in which two gunmen killed 20 people at a hotel. Fawaz Ould Ahmed and Sadou Chaka pleaded guilty and expressed no remorse for the three attacks, French news agency AFP reported. Ould Ahmed, a Mauritian national, said he was personally responsible for a March 2015 attack where he shot five people at a restaurant in the Malian capital of Bamako, according to Reuters. Ould Ahmed and Chaka are best known, however, for planning the...

A Turkish government minister has called French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo “b*stards” and “sons of b*tches” over a new satirical cartoon showing President Erdogan in his underwear. The frontpage cartoon of the magazine, which features Erdogan in his underwear looking at the bare bottom of a woman in an Islamic veil and bears the caption “in private he is very funny”, has earned the anger of the Turkish leader, who has now threatened legal action. On Wednesday, the Turkish presidency’s communications directorate released a statement on the subject of the cartoon, according to Le Monde, saying: “The necessary legal and...

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...

ISLAMIC State is taking over swathes of Africa like it did in Syria and Iraq with "staggeringly brutal" tactics, the Pentagon has warned. According to a report from West Point, the US officer training academy, the group's expansion and regrouping on the continent shows "Islamic State is far from defeated". "By the summer of 2020, it had become resolutely clear that the Islamic State was a changed organisation, but by no means a beaten one," the report, published by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Centre, said. The Pentagon report said there has been a "marked upward curve of claimed cumulative attacks...