Free Republic

Billions of barrels of oil have been discovered in Israel, and this discovery could essentially make Israel energy independent for many decades to come. But there is just one problem. This discovery was made in the Golan Heights. If you are not familiar with the Golan Heights, it is an area that Israel took from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. The government of Israel considers the Golan Heights to now be part of Israeli territory, but the United Nations does not recognize Israel’s claim. Instead, the UN still recognizes Syrian sovereignty over that area. So now that massive...

The death toll in Saturday's bombing in Turkey's capital, Ankara, has risen to 97 and over 400 other people have been injured, according toTurkish Medical Association. "In total 97 people have been murdered, 68 of them died right after the blast, whereas 29 of them were severely wounded and sent to the hospitals, where they lost their lives," said Dr.Huseyin Demirdezen, a member of head council of Turkish Medical Association. Two powerful bombs exploded near the main train station in Ankara on Saturday morning, targeting a peace rally and causing carnage, killing at least 86 people and injuring 186 others...

NEW YORK—Ankara is ready to work with the international community to combat the Islamic State (ISIS), Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Rudaw on Sunday, insisting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad is the real cause of Syria’s turmoil. “We are ready to work with any country to combat ISIS because ISIS is a threat to all of us,” said Davutoglu in New York. “But we should not forget that three years ago there was no ISIS. Who created ISIS? Assad’s crimes and tyranny created ISIS.” He said that by bombing moderate Syrian opposition forces, the Assad regime had...

The United States has pulled the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier that has been central in the fight against the Islamic State, from the Persian Gulf, military officials said Thursday. NBC News reported that the U.S. Navy now, for the first time since 2007, has no aircraft carrier in the sea. The aircraft carrier was taken out late Thursday so that it can undergo maintenance, but its temporary removal is also part of budget cuts. The nuclear-powered USS Theodore Roosevelt, which houses approximately 5,000 troops and 65 combat planes, has played a large role in the Obama administration bomb...

Washington (CNN)A number of cruise missiles launched from a Russian ship and aimed at targets in Syria have crashed in Iran, two U.S. officials told CNN Thursday. Monitoring by U.S. military and intelligence assets has concluded that at least four missiles crashed as they flew over Iran. One official said there may be casualties, but another official said this is not yet known.

Russia told Assad to shoot down Turkish plane, murder captured pilots, ‘leaked Syrian documents’ show. Devastating intelligence papers purport to prove jet was downed on Moscow’s orders, pilots captured alive by intelligence unit and then killed; Damascus had claimed June incident was an accident October 1, 2012 DAMASCUS,— Contrary to previous reports, the two pilots of a Turkish F-4 Phantom which was shot down by Syria in June were not killed in the crash, but were murdered by the Assad regime on Russian orders, according to a devastating series of alleged Syrian intelligence documents leaked to and published by Al-Arabiya...

Russian jet SHOT DOWN by Turkey after it flew into their airspace, according to reports A RUSSIAN jet has been shot down by Turkish forces after it flew into the country's airspace, according to as yet unconfirmed reports circulating on social media.

Turkish forces are said to have shot down a Russian jet after it flew into the country's airspace, according to unconfirmed reports on social media. It has been claimed by eyewitnesses that there was a large explosion in Huraytan, northern Syria, while three fighter planes were seen overhead. Rumours of a jet being shot out of the sky come amid heightening tensions between Russian president Vladimir Putin and the West.

American Decline: Chinese forces head to Syria to join with Russia in filling Obama's power vacuum and purportedly fight the Islamic State. A false move involving NATO member Turkey could mean world war. Russian and Chinese military sources now confirm that Chinese warships are en route to the Middle East to get in on some of the action of humiliating the U.S. In just a week and a half, Moscow has upended the dynamics of power in the Mideast by taking on the role that President Obama relinquished: acting like a superpower in a regional conflict that has implications extending...

Just because you’ve been doing something for decades, that doesn’t mean that you need to keep doing it. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the roughly forty year old ban we have on crude oil exports, enacted back when the Middle East oil barons decided to kick off an embargo, leading to skyrocketing gas prices and long lines at service stations. Congress seems to slowly be getting the message on this subject, and yesterday the House finally passed a bill to end the ban. (Yahoo News) A bill to repeal the U.S. oil export ban passed...

ANKARA, Turkey – Two bomb explosions targeting a peace rally in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday killed at least 30 people and injured 126 others, Turkey's Interior Ministry said. The explosions occurred minutes apart near Ankara's main train station as people were gathering for the rally, organized by the country's public sector workers' trade union and other civic society groups. The rally aimed to call for an end to the renewed violence between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces. ·

Steven Seagal Thinks Many Mass Shootings Are “Engineered” by the Government There are few issues right now more contentious than gun control. One of these issues happens to be “false flag” operations. Actor Steven Seagal has previously sounded off on both. In an interview with RT, the action star-turned second amendment fundamentalist claimed “a lot” of domestic shootings in America were “engineered” in order to drum up support for gun control legislation.

he German state of Bavaria plans "emergency measures" of its own - including sending refugees back to Austria - to stem the flow of migrants, state premier Horst Seehofer told Bild daily, raising pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over the crisis. With about 10,000 refugees arriving in Germany every day, Bavaria is the main entry point for those fleeing war or poverty in the Middle East and beyond. Seehofer says more than 225,000 refugees have arrived in his southern state in less than five weeks and that authorities are stretched beyond the limit to house and care for them all....

Aleppo archbishop says Christians in the country feel hope thanks to Putin's involvementOne of Syria’s leading churchmen has welcomed Russia’s intervention. Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart of Aleppo told Swiss television that Vladimir Putin’s intervention was a source of “hope” for the country’s Christians. The Russian president, Archbishop Jeanbart told Télévision Suisse Romande, “serves the Christians’ cause”, even if Moscow was only serving its own interests. Archbishop Jeanbart spoke of a “renewal of confidence” among Christians in Syria, adding that President Putin “is solving a problem”.

When Barack Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, he predicted that the occasion would be remembered as "the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth." Some seven years later, America is weaker, and the world is a far more dangerous place. President Obama did not end the war in Iraq. His precipitous withdrawal of American troops allowed the Islamic State group to take control of major cities and Iran to become the puppet master in Iraq. His decision to announce when the U.S. would...

Israel's Hushed Military Ties With Russia Now Paying Off While U.S. gives Russia the cold shoulder in Syria, Kremlin's ties with Israel grow warm. Anshel Pfeffer Oct 09, 2015 1:43 AM The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that it was refusing to hold “de-confliction” talks with the Russian Defense Ministry to coordinate the two nations’ air-operations over Syria and would make do with just “technical details.” At the same time, de-confliction talks, of the kind the Americans rejected, between the Israel Defense Forces and their Russian counterparts, led by the deputy chiefs of staff of both militaries, were already wrapping up...

Boone Pickens: Russia 'new sheriff' in Mideast Matthew J. Belvedere | @Matt_Belvedere Thursday, 8 Oct 2015 | 11:23 AM ET The new military involvement by Russia in Syria could force OPEC's largest oil member to finally capitulate on production cuts, energy entrepreneur Boone Pickens said Thursday. Such a move could rescue battered crude prices, which have lost half their value in the past year. The Mideast has a "new sheriff in town," Pickens told CNBC's "Squawk Box," with Russia making its most significant move back into the region since being kicked out in 1973, when then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat broke...

All the Palestinian terrorist attacks that have been carried out in recent weeks share one common feature. All the terrorists believe that by attacking Jews they are protecting the Temple Mount from destruction. And why shouldn’t they believe this obscenity? Everywhere they go, every time they turn on their televisions, read the paper, go to school or the mosque they are told that the Jews are destroying al-Aksa Mosque. Al-Aksa, they are told, is in danger. They must take up arms to defend it from the Jews, whatever the cost. One man stands at the center of this blood libel....

Streets are scattered with stones and shell casings. Winter fog mixes with the last wisps of tear gas. The wounded and the dead have been carried away, and those who are left hunker at the barricades. Police advance. Snipers take to rooftops. Bodies fall and the Ukrainian revolution, as brutal as it is cinematic, enters a new day in the battered capital of Kiev. Evgeny Afineevsky's "Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom" is a documentary from the front lines, a visceral portrait of a nation's battle for its identity. The film tracks the 93 days — between November 2013...

The Islamic State has issued a statement claiming that its fighters have seized key several towns north of the city of Aleppo. In addition, the group’s propaganda arm has released a series of photos documenting its newly-gained territory. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s organization made few gains in the Aleppo province over the preceding months, as a complex multi-sided fight had prevented the “caliphate” from claiming any definitive victories. But Russia’s intervention has changed the balance of power, even if only temporarily. It remains to be seen if the Islamic State’s surge in the province results in long-lasting territorial gains. However,...