Free Republic

One key alley in the western world’s fight against the Islamic State is Turkey. Having a border with Iraq and Syria, Turkey would be the best place for a land and air war against the Islamic terror state. This week the Turkish parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a measure authorizing military action against the Islamic State militants and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The vote would permit foreign troops to launch air and ground attacks from its territory. Previously the Turkish officials only allowed humanitarian efforts to aid Syrians fighting the Syrian Government. In a tough Spot Ankara is well...

Kurdistan region’s Human Rights Independent Committee has revealed currently more than two thousand Yazidi and Christian women are in held by of the Islamic State (IS) militants and they are sold in Mosul. “According to the statistics that we have obtained from those women that have been freed by the IS insurgents, currently more than 2000 Yazidi and Christian women have been held by the IS militants,” said Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Human Rights Committee Director Tavga Omar. Omar further stated that IS militants trade these women and treat them as the spoil of war to their militants. “IS militants...

Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Rabia on Tuesday morning News / Kurdistan Peshmerga Forces Free Rabia and Head Towards Sinjar 30.09.2014 BasNews, Erbil   Early Tuesday morning, Kurdish Peshmerga forces attacked Islamic State (IS) militants in Rabia and Zumar in Northern Iraq and were able to take control of Rabia, a strategically vital town on the Iraq - Syria border.   According to Peshmerga in the area, Kurdish forces have begun an operation to re-take the areas surrounding Sinjar. They plan to open a route that will facilitate the liberation of the majority-Yazidi town in northern Iraq.   BasNews has...

The infiltration of Syrian militants into Lebanon threatens Hezbollah’s presence in the strategic Golan Heights. First, Jabhat al-Nusra has taken control of the Syrian side of the border facing the Lebanese area of Shebaa, which is occupied by Israel, isolating Hezbollah from the Syrian extension in the Golan Heights. Hezbollah considers the area a strategic position in its conflict with Israel... Jabhat al-Nusra’s control of the Syrian-Lebanese-Israeli triangle has put an end to this and prevented it from being used as a multidisciplinary card in the hands of Hezbollah. Second... It isolates Hezbollah and its supporting forces in Lebanon and...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s attempt to blame western states for the rise of radical Islam in his speech to the UN General Assembly nearly backfired awkwardly when he used a racist Farsi expression—but was saved by a quick-thinking translator. During the speech on Friday, Rouhani claimed that “certain Intelligence agencies have put the blade in the hand of the drunken Zangi”—a phrase referring to irresponsible and dangerous jihadi groups, which was translated simply as “madmen” by the translator. But according to Iranian opposition blog azarmehr, the word “Zangi” is actually a derogatory term for black slaves from Zanzibar in Farsi....

US-led airstrikes against the Islamic State terrorist group (IS or ISIS) in Syria continue Saturday night, but are failing to slow the jihadis’ advance on the Kurdish border town of Kobane. […] But though US airstrikes—which President Barack Obama pledged would “degrade and destroy” ISIS—have extended from Iraq to Syria to aid the defense of Kobane, local sources say the strikes have been largely ineffective. “They struck empty buildings,” YPG’s chief of defense for Kobane, Ismat Sheikh Hassan, told The Independent. “ISIS fighters used to be there, but they left; so they haven’t helped us. If anything, they are now...

The number of Europeans joining Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq has surged to about 3,000 from 2,000 only months ago, the EU counter-terrorism chief said Tuesday. (snip) The European fighters, he said, come mainly from France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark but a few come from Spain, Italy, Ireland and now Austria.

The U.S. military and two Arab allies on Wednesday bombarded a dozen small-scale oil refineries in eastern Syria as part of an expanding campaign to cut off key sources of financing and fuel for the Islamic State, according to the Pentagon. ... The Islamic State is estimated to produce between 25,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil a day, earning as much as $1 million a day, according to industry experts. The attacks on the refineries came on a day when U.S. military forces reported hitting an Islamic State convoy in Syria near the Iraqi border and Syrian opposition groups reported...

US-led air strikes on Islamic State (IS) militants have destroyed four tanks and damaged another during a fourth night of bombardments in Syria. ... The Danish government says it is sending seven F-16 fighter jets to join anti-IS operations - but only in Iraq.

Thomas EscrittSeptember 24, 2014  THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Dutch government said on Wednesday it would deploy six F-16 fighter jets, which could be operational in a week, to support the U.S.-led strikes against Islamic State insurgents in Iraq. The Netherlands, a member of NATO and a close U.S. ally, will target the ultra-radical Islamist militants in Iraq and provide training and advice to Iraqi and Kurdish regional military forces for a period of up to one year, Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asschertold journalists. "We regard IS as a grave threat, not just for the region it is destabilising,...

Via Mediaite, indeed they have — and this isn’t the first time that point has been made by a reporter to a State Department mouthpiece. Shep is correct in the precision of his terms, too. Although lazy people like me refer to the Bush/Cheney approach as “preemptive” war, preemption really describes a case where you have reason to believe your enemy’s about to land a punch on you. You’re preempting the blow by hitting him first; the imminence of his attack is key. The Bush/Cheney approach vis-a-vis Saddam was really one of preventive war. It wasn’t a matter of Saddam...

This is what an ISIS rout looks like in Iraq: Up to 300 troops killed. Others missing, possibly dead or having fled. Dozens of military vehicles, from tanks to ambulances, destroyed or seized. And the Iraqi military in disarray, so much so the country’s Prime Minister has sent “anti-terrorism forces … to hold the negligent (military) leaders responsible.” What happened Sunday east of Falluja, around military encampments in Saqlawiyah and Sejar, is bad enough for the Iraqi government. Yet what makes it worse is that it’s happened before. This latest incident was particularly galling because, according to surviving Iraqi soldiers,...

This is what an ISIS rout looks like in Iraq: Up to 300 troops killed. Others missing, possibly dead or having fled. Dozens of military vehicles, from tanks to ambulances, destroyed or seized. And the Iraqi military in disarray, so much so the country's Prime Minister has sent "anti-terrorism forces ... to hold the negligent (military) leaders responsible." What happened Sunday east of Falluja, around military encampments in Saqlawiyah and Sejar, is bad enough for the Iraqi government. Yet what makes it worse is that it has happened before. This latest incident was particularly galling because, according to surviving Iraqi...

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and President Massoud Barzani. ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A cargo plane carrying the first delivery of high-tech German weapons arrived in Erbil today, ready to boost Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the fight against Islamic State militants. "We assure you that we are beside you to tackle this crisis," German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani at a press conference.  “It is clear that a lot of support has arrived but more is needed,” she added. The minister landed in Erbil shortly after a plane...

Kurdish Peshmerga forces guarding Mosul dam News / Kurdistan Peshmerga Bring Mosul Dam Back Online 22.09.2014 Hoshmand SadiqBasNews, Erbil After retaking control of it in the middle of August, Kurdish Peshmerga forces, have re-activated Mosul Dam. “On Monday Peshmerga forces re-activated Mosul Dam and brought all  employees, engineers and experts back to work,” the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) official in Mosul Saed Mamuzini told BasNews. “The dam now provides water and electricity to local residents. A large number of villagers, refugees and as some other towns around will be benefit,” he added. Mosul Dam is one of the biggest...

Islam has no central or definitive body or figure authorized to define what exactly it is. Opinions about its essence and scope vary widely according to the political or philosophic background of its own interpreters. The current effort to establish an Islamic State, with a designated Caliph, again to take up the mission assigned to Islam, brings to our attention the question: “What is Islam?”The issue of “terror” is a further aspect of this same understanding. Many outside Islam seek to separate “terror” and “Islam” as if they were, in their usage, independent or even opposed ideas. This latter...

John Kerry once referred to the nations who George Bush built into Coalition partners for Operation Iraqi Freedom as the "Coalition of the coerced and the bribed" and "window dressing". Marc Thiessen in yesterday's WaPo on "I was against it before I was for it" John "Global Test" Kerry: When John Kerry ran for president in 2004, he dismissed the allies fighting alongside the United States in Iraq as a “trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted.” Now, as secretary of state, Kerry is going hat-in-hand to many of the same nations he insulted,...

BRITAIN WILL go to war again after politicians today voted overwhelmingly to join airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State terrorist group. RAF jets could now fly bombing missions over Iraq within hours after all three major parties backed action against the brutal regime, which David Cameron called a "clear" threat to Britain. The vote comes amid warnings that the action to defeat the Islamic terrorists could take years. Initially British airstrikes will only take place over Iraq, despite the IS group controlling areas of Syria in its bid to establish an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East. The vote comes...

As President Barack Obama launches air strikes in Syria, anti-war activists are frustrated that he is getting a pass from groups traditionally opposed to military intervention. According to the Washington Post, only 22 anti-war activists protested near the White House this week, and "it was the latest display of how Obama has neutralized the left." Left-wing activist David Swanson, "who voted for Obama in 2008 before switching to the Green Party," told the Post that "if George W. Bush were launching wars with Congress out of town, oh, it would be flooded." But he said liberals give Obama a pass...

The U.S. Embassy in Turkey has issued a security warning, urging U.S. citizens to be vigilant against possible terrorist attacks in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State group.