Free Republic

MURSITPINAR (Reuters) - Islamic State has raised its flag on a building on the eastern side of Kobani where IS fighters have been battling Kurdish forces for control of the Syrian border town, according to Reuters television images and a Turkish military officer. A black flag apparently belonging to the group was visible atop a four storey building close to the scene of some of the most intense clashes in recent days, television images shot from neighbouring Turkey showed. A Turkish military officer who did not give his name said that the flag was that of Islamic State, which has...

Kurds are an ethnic group who live in a sizeable area, though not a national one that borders Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It is referred to as Kurdistan As this is being written there is a battle going on between the Kurds in a Syrian town on the border with Turkey, Kobani, and the Islamic State (ISIS) militants that have seized a large area of northern Syria and Iraq. ISIS is also moving south toward Baghdad. The only area they have not been able to seize has been Iraq’s Kurdish region which has been virtually autonomous from what is...

Air Strikes Against ISIS Are Not Working, Say Syrian Kurds Isis fighters have pushed to the edge of Kobani, undeterred by western strikes, says city official Constanze Letsch in Istanbul, Paul Lewis in Washington and Nicholas Watt 5 October 2014 Air strikes against Isis targets in northern Syria have failed to stop the militants from advancing towards the centre of the city of Kobani, Kurds have said, in the latest indication that aerial power alone may not defeat the jihadists. Fighting between the Islamist militants and Syrian Kurds continued unabated despite another volley of coalition air strikes in and around...

Full title: Kurdish mother-of-two launches suicide attack to slow Islamic State advance in desperate battle for Kobane A Kurdish woman fighting Islamic State militants carried out a suicide bomb attack to slow their advance on a besieged Syrian town, it was claimed today. Deilar Kanj Khamis, known by the nom de guerre Arin Mirkan, blew herself up at an IS position east of the border town, killing ten jihadists. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2782092/Mystery-surrounds-fate-Kurdish-female-fighter-poster-girl-reports-emerge-killed-bullet-avoid-taken-hostage-ISIS.html#ixzz3FRz5HkQC

Al Gore was driven (further) insane when he lost to GWB in 2000, going from a man who attacked Bush #41 in 1992 for not removing Saddam Hussein from power, to demonizing Bush #43 for removing Saddam Hussein from power, and smearing his supporters as “digital brownshirts.” Gore, whose political career was reborn in 1989, when he made an about-face from a relatively conservative Democrat in the 1980s to comparing global warming to “An Ecological Kristallnacht” in a New York Times op-ed, sold his Current TV channel to Al Jazeera, owned by the ISIS-funding petro-state Qatar for $500 million at...

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden apologized Saturday to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was angry over comments in which Biden said Erdogan had admitted that Turkey had made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.

BEIRUT // Kurds battled ISIL fighters on Friday for a town along the border with Turkey, as the Turkish prime minister said his country will prevent the fall of Kobani. The Kurdish town and its surrounding have been under attack since mid-September, with militants capturing dozens of nearby villages. The assault, which has forced some 160,000 Syrians to flee, has left the Kurdish fighters scrambling to repel the militants’ advance into the outskirts of Kobani, also known as Ain Al Arab. Meanwhile, aircraft from Saudi Arabia and the UAE joined US warplanes in a new wave of bombing raids Friday...

My Kurdish friends tell me the situation right now is grim along the Turkish border. The Kurdish fighters have escorted their families across the border from Kobani and are being prevented from returning to continue the fight against ISIS. If Kobani falls, ISIS will be handed a huge swath of territory right on the Turkish border. They say the US air strikes are not helping the Kurds and that ISIS right now has them outgunned and out manned. I have spent a great deal of the past 18 months amongst the Kurds in Turkey. As a learned gentleman from a...

It has been reported that the fundamentalist terror organization ISIS has very recently opened a consulate in Ankara, Turkey. The terror organization the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has reportedly opened an embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara and started to issue visas to those who want to join the jihadist fight in Iraq. The Turkish ruling AKP government has apparently provided great conveniences to the terrorist organization during negotiations to secure the return of 49 Turkish diplomats who were kidnapped in the Turkish Consulate of Mosul by ISIS terrorists. The website, which appears to be belong...

Aydınlık, a Turksih Newspaper, famed to have published details of wiretapped conversations between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and North Cyprus’s Mehmet Ali Talat in 2009, has now leaked that The Turkish ruling AKP government has apparently provided great conveniences to the terrorist organization ISIS during negotiations to secure the return of 49 Turkish diplomats who were kidnapped in the Turkish Consulate of Mosul by ISIS terrorists. “The website, which appears to be belong to the consulate, indicates that visa applications can be sent to isisturkey@gmail.com and the official address is stated in Çankaya district of Ankara” Aydinlik reported. It...

Security officials have claimed that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants rent luxurious villas in major cities of Turkey. A number of anonymous security officials have told Aydınlık Newspaper that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is able to operate easily in major Turkish cities due to the ruling AKP government’s tolerance towards the organization. “ISIS militants are so relaxed that they do not even cut their beards, change their clothes to hide their identities [in cities]. Of course, there are some who do. But organisers do not think that they need to hide themselves....

The Islamic State continues its advance towards the Kurdish of city Kobane in northern Syria. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the Islamic State has gained control of "325 villages and towns" in the vicinity of Ayn al Arab (the Arabic name for Kobane). As the group moves closer to Kobane, more Kurdish citizens are fleeing for the Turkish border. Around 150,000 Kurdish refugees are reported to have fled to Turkey since this assault began two weeks ago. Refugees spoken to by NBC talk of food being scarce, electricity being cut, and little outside support for Syrian...

The Obama administration does not share Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s view that the forces of militant Islam, whether Sunni or Shi’ite, have in common an ultimate goal “to dominate the world,” a State Department spokeswoman said Monday. In a hard-hitting speech at the United Nations, the Israeli leader said that entities such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), Hamas, the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram share that eventual goal. Jen Psaki was asked at the State Department daily briefing later whether the administration agreed with Netanyahu’s argument that those various groups “are all part...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday used his annual message to Hajj pilgrims heading to Mecca to insult Israel and call for its "annihilation." The speech comes ahead of Eid al-Adha on Friday, the Muslim holiday celebrating Abraham's "sacrifice of Ishmael" in an appropriation of the original Torah story, and like his speech for Eid al-Fitr in July was replete with unfounded barbs hurled against the Jewish state. "The conspiring enemy is aiming to stoke the fire of a civil strife among Muslims, to misdirect the motivation for resistance and jihad and to secure the Zionist regime and...

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted mistakes that paved the way for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). "President Erdogan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border," Biden said during a speech on foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School on Oct. 2. While speaking to the students for nearly an hour and a half, Biden defended the U.S. foreign policy, stressing that the White House was not late...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded an apology from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, if his reported comments about Turkey's "mistakes that paved the way for the rise of the jihadists" were true. "If Biden told these words, then he will be history for me. I never uttered such remarks," Erdogan said after the morning prayer for Eid al-Adha--the festival of sacrifice observed by Muslims all over the world--in Istanbul on early Oct. 4. "President Erdogan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal...

Canon Andrew White, pastor of Baghdad's St. George (Anglican) Church, the "Vicar of Baghdad." (Courtesy) Last week I got to visit the chic headquarters of Estee Lauder, and savor its privileged view of New York’s Central Park, where ornate pre-war towers flank the green, rolling hillets of America’s Versailles gardens. But perfume and real estate were starkly beside the point. I was there to meet an eyewitness to ongoing genocide, and his report from the front reminded me once again why pacifism is deadly, and why the Nazis loved gun control. Some background first. I just published a book...

Kobani has become the Kurds’ Alamo as they fight ISIS in Syria. Nobody’s coming to help them, and if and when they fall, the repercussions will be felt for years to come. ATMANEK, Turkey — At dusk on Friday evening the crackle of automatic gunfire, the whoosh of rockets and the sickening roar of tank shells echoed from the fighting in Kobani, Syria, less than a mile away. We stood on the rooftop of a derelict farmhouse meters away from a Turkish tank and a razor wire fence marking the end of Turkey. Nearby a family of Turkish Kurds busied...

Gaziantep, Turkey (CNN) -- [Breaking news update, published at 1:14 p.m. ET] The Turkish parliament on Thursday voted 298-98 to authorize military force against ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq. [Original story, published at 9:50 a.m. ET] Could an ancient tomb's future decide whether Turkey will fight ISIS? (CNN) -- Is a possible threat to an ancient tomb at the heart of Turkey's debate on whether to step up its role in the fight against ISIS? The Turkish Parliament is debating and will vote later Thursday on whether to authorize the use of military force against ISIS fighters in Syria...

Turkey has joined the US-led coalition of nations fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Turkey previously rejected action against ISIS as the group was holding 46 hostages, including several diplomats, who were released last month. The Turkish parliament has been under pressure from the international community to play a more active role in the US-led fight against the militant organisation. The government finally relented, backing a motion allowing its military to join the campaign against Islamic State. In Ankara, the vote was 298-98 in favour of the motion that also allows foreign troops to use its territory for operations against...