Free Republic

According to York University's Farhad Rezaei, what distinguishes Iran when it comes to persecution of Christians is that it is pursuing a "strategy of eliminationism" – an organized, unrelenting, Nazi-like campaign to reduce the Christian presence in the Middle East. By David Isaac, JNS, Mar 1, 2022 The West is missing a critical component of the story when it comes to the persecution of Middle East Christians, said Farhad Rezaei, a visiting lecturer at Toronto-based York University, during a Zoom presentation on Feb. 22. And that missing element is Iran. In the presentation – sponsored by The Philos Project, a...

Moscow-Based Syrian Journalist Zain Alabiden Shiban: America Is Using Ukrainian Bio-Labs to Create a Virus that Can Exterminate the Russian Race #Russia #Ukraine #Syria #ConspiracyTheories #RussianUkrainianWar pic.twitter.com/ms6saaLpUZ— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 21, 2022

Syrian President Bashar Assad has promised to provide some 40,000 militants to the Russian Federation for the war in Ukraine, The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported on Thursday afternoon. According to Ukrainian intelligence, weapons and other equipment will be transferred to Russia and Belarus from Syria in the near future, the statement reported, in addition to as many as 40,000 militants. A report on March 13 from Ukrainian intelligence indicated that Russia had already opened 14 recruitment centers across Syria, in Damascus, Aleppo, Hamma, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, in order to strengthen its forces. Russia is reportedly paying foreign mercenaries a...

2022 Kharkiv Ukraine, 2015 The Palestinian al-Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus. Putin's tactic The same tactic - an uncompromising siege, massive destruction of cities by aerial bombardment and the evacuation of a frightened civilian population. In Syria it ended in the surrender of the armed rebels in most cities. pic.twitter.com/82MS5cnLgp— Roi Kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) March 18, 2022

According to Ukrainian intelligence, weapons and other equipment will be transferred to Russia and Belarus from Syria in the near future. Syrian President Bashar Assad has promised to provide some 40,000 militants to the Russian Federation for the war in Ukraine, The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported on Thursday afternoon.

The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday. The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said. As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the "precursor" chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded...

The international chemical weapons watchdog confirmed Friday that sarin gas was used in the deadly April attack on a Syria town that left more than 80 people dead. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it deployed a team within 24 hours to collect samples, attend autopsies and interview witnesses. Due to security risks, the team was not able to be on the ground in the Khan Shaykhun area where the attack took place, but traveled to a "neighboring country" to conduct its work.

This rebuke of Biden’s Syria policy comes as the White House continues to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran — a deal with a key Assad backer that granted Damascus new funds to wage war against Syrian civilians... “Propped up by Russia and Iran, the Assad regime continues profiting from its crimes against humanity and has diverted millions in aid to fill its own coffers. There is no solution to the crisis in Syria as long as Assad remains,” ... The administration, more than failing to embrace its Caesar sanctions authorities, has also hollowed out the...

Most of the false asylum claimants are economic migrants from North Africa and the Middle East.. Around a third of Ukrainian refugees arriving in France are actually economic migrants from other areas of the world, mostly North Africa and the Middle East, according to an investigation by newspaper Le Figaro. Over 5,000 refugees have already arrived in France from Ukraine, with some being transported by bus from Berlin and others arriving by rail and air. “However, many of those arriving through official channels and being identified by the authorities are non-Ukrainian, with Le Figaro reporting that as many as 30...

President Barack Obama lied when he said his administration would retaliate if Syria used chemical weapons and claimed he "would promise something and do the opposite", setting the Middle East back 20 years, a former top Saudi official has claimed. Bandar bin Sultan, who served as the head of Saudi intelligence and later as the Saudi ambassador to the United States, lashed out against Obama in a wide-ranging interview with the Independent Arabia, a newly launched publication in London. He said that the late Saudi King Abdullah told Obama in their last phone call that “I did not expect that...

UKRAINE-RUSSIA LATEST: https://t.co/IeMjCns7Gu🔷 Russians reportedly bringing bio-chem weapon suits into Ukraine🔷 Evidence mounting that Russia's attacks will result in war crimes🔷 U.S. says task force targeting sanctioned Russian oligarchs is 'up and running' pic.twitter.com/Ua8SWqJrhX— ABC News (@ABC) March 11, 2022

LONDON — Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the green light on Friday to bring in thousands of fighters from the Middle East to fight against Ukraine. At a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East who were ready to come to fight with Russian-backed forces in the breakaway Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

Syria under the Assads has long harbored a soft spot for Nazism. The revolution is changing that Those around me who sported some vague admiration for Hitler almost always supported the Assads, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, or Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Some of them sought to join the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), established by Antoun Saadeh, a 20th century politician who spoke of the superiority of Middle Eastern Arabs over Africans and Syrians over neighboring peoples. Unlike the Assads’ Arab Socialist Baath Party and the many other political and social movements that called for a unity of Arab nations, the...

Moscow is looking for help from foreign fighters to take cities including Kyiv WASHINGTON—Moscow is recruiting Syrians skilled in urban combat to fight in Ukraine as Russia’s invasion is poised to expand deeper into cities, according to U.S. officials. An American assessment indicates that Russia, which has been operating inside Syria since 2015, has in recent days been recruiting fighters from there, hoping their expertise in urban combat can help take Kyiv and deal a devastating blow to the Ukraine government, according to four American officials. The move points to a potential escalation of fighting...

Adel Soheil (2018). "The Iraqi Ba'th Regime's Atrocities Against the Faylee Kurds Nation-State Formation Distorted." pp. 55-56. https://books.google.com/books?id=_6tyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA55 Similar to al-Husri, 'Aflaq was an ardent proponent of pan-Arab ideology celebrating the glorious Islamic past and advocating the unity of all Arab states. However, he deviated slightly from al-Husri's though in that he endeavoured to create a synthesis between nationalism and socialism applicable to all Arab states. Apart from 'Aflaq's enthusiasm for Hitler, he also deemed his National-Socialist Germany as a model for the society he wanted to create. When the pro-German pan-Arab nationalists under al-Gilani took power with the support...

Russia, Iran and the Baath regime under their control panicked with the Raqqa operation following the Tabqa operation and resorted to slander, then to attacking the SDF. RussiaÂ’s approach changed when the YPG-led SDF launched an operation to liberate Tabqa. Russia had always played both sides in Bab and Shehba as well as Aleppo, developing relationships with SDF/YPG on one hand and Turkey on the other. When the operation to liberate Tabqa launched, RussiaÂ’s approach changed further, even as far as issuing threats for some issues. This approach by Russia was very clearly displayed in a statement a couple days...

Saddam's Ambassador to al-QaedaBy Jonathan SchanzerWeekly Standard | February 23, 2004 A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al-Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam/al-Qaeda nexus. What you are about to read bears directly on that debate. It is based on a recent interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in...

Syrian Accountability Act to Combat Terrorism By Jim Hauser Talon News December 18, 2003WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Last week, President Bush signed into law H.R. 1828, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. The legislation calls on the president to impose sanctions on Syria to discourage support for international terrorist groups and the occupation of Lebanon.The bill demands that Syria end support for terrorism; halt the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) along with medium- and long-range missiles; and withdraw the roughly 20,000 troops it has deployed in Lebanon.It also calls on Syria to "enter into...

The following are excerpts from the televised confessions of Muayed Al-Nasseri, who commanded Saddam Hussein's "Army of Muhammad" throughout 2004. The confessions were aired by an Iraqi TV channel that operates from the UAE, Al-Fayhaa TV, and were monitored and translated by the MEMRI TV Project. The following are excerpts; to view the clip, visit http://memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=492: [1] 'The Army of Muhammad was Founded by Saddam Hussein After the Fall of the Regime' Interrogator: "What is your name?" Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Colonel Muayed Yassin 'Aziz 'Abd Al-Razaq Al-Nasseri, commander of the Army of Muhammad, one of the resistance factions in Iraq. The...

Are North Koreans fighting in Syria? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. By Adam Taylor March 25 This week, representatives of Western-backed Syrian opposition delegation in Geneva told Russian state media that President Bashar al-Assad had a surprising new ally on the Syrian battlefield: militia units from North Korea. "Two North Korean units are there, which are Chalma-1 and Chalma-7," Asaad az-Zoubi, head of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to Syrian peace talks in the Swiss city, reportedly told Tass news agency on Tuesday. In any other context, the presence of soldiers from the internationally isolated and geographically distant...