Free Republic

Militant Sunni forces are taking territory with lightning speed, moving toward the ultimate goal of establishing a new Islamic Caliphate. Hardened by years of battle in neighboring Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is routing the forces of a modern nation-state and gathering land with the ultimate goal of establishing an alternate form of governance, an Islamic Caliphate. “This is not a terrorism problem anymore,” says Jessica Lewis, an expert on ISIS at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. “This is an army on the move in Iraq and Syria, and they...

Iraqi helicopters bombed the city of Samarra after insurgents overran parts of it early on Thursday, bringing them within striking distance of a Shi'ite shrine the destruction of which in a 2006 attack unleashed a bitter sectarian war. The offensive is part of an escalating conflict between Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim-led government and Sunni Islamist militants who have been regaining momentum in the past year, particularly in the west of the country bordering Syria. The Iraqi army and SWAT forces had regained control in Samarra, killing dozens of insurgents and forcing the rest to retreat from the city after they moved...

Islamist insurgents in Iraq have seized the city of Tikrit, their second major gain after capturing Mosul on Tuesday, security officials say. Tikrit, the hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein, lies just 150km (95 miles) north of the capital Baghdad. Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki vowed to fight back against the jihadists and punish those in the security forces who fled, offering little or no resistance. The insurgents are from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). ISIS, which is also known as ISIL, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda. It controls considerable territory in eastern Syria and western and...

BAGHDAD — A series of car bombs exploded across Iraq’s capital Saturday night, killing at least 52 people in a day of violence that saw militants storm a university in the country’s restive Anbar province and take dozens hostage, authorities said. The attacks in Baghdad largely focused on Shiite neighborhoods, underscoring the sectarian violence striking at Iraq years after a similar wave nearly tore the country apart after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. With U.S. troops gone, Iraq finds itself fighting on fronts across the country, as separate clashes in the northern city of Mosul left 21 police...

The Iraqi army began buttressing its defense lines on April 12 to save parts of the capital city of Baghdad from the approaching danger of falling to al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Iraqi intelligence reports that terrorist forces have broken through into the city’s western outskirts and preparing to head out to other parts of the city of more than seven million and the Green Zone government headquarters. In addition to the lethal bombings and shootings which have reduced the country to misery, Debkafile’s counter-terrorism sources describe a more insidious ISIS tactic of conquest: Armed...

BAGHDAD (AP) — An instructor teaching his militant recruits how to make car bombs accidentally set off explosives in his demonstration Monday, killing 21 of them in a huge blast that alerted authorities to the existence of the rural training camp in an orchard north of Baghdad. Nearly two dozen people were arrested, including wounded insurgents trying to hobble away from the scene. The fatal goof by the al-Qaida breakaway group that dominates the Sunni insurgency in Iraq happened on the same day that the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, a prominent Sunni whom the militants consider a traitor, escaped...

A series of car bombs near Baghdad has killed at least 21 people Monday, in the latest in a series of sectarian clashes ripping through Iraq. The attacks came just hours after the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged the Iraqi government to address the root causes behind the clashes, in light of escalating violence. Four car bombs exploded in the Shi'ite districts of the Iraqi capital, killing at least 20 people; Al-Jazeera sets the number at 21 killed, Reuters UK at 25 killed and 76 wounded. In addition, gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Southern Baghdad, killing 3 policeman...

BAGHDAD — Ten car bombs targeting Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, hit on Sunday morning. All 10 bombs went off within 40 minutes, starting from 9:30 a.m. Forty-one civilians were killed and more than 100 others were wounded, according to security and medical officials. Ambulances rushed to hospitals and security forces tightened measures around checkpoints to search each passing car, creating a traffic jam.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A wave of car bombs struck mainly in Shiite neighborhoods of Bagdad on Monday morning, killing at least 51 people and wounding dozens more, officials said, the latest in relentless violence roiling Iraq in recent months. The country's Interior Ministry blamed al-Qaida-linked insurgents, saying they are exploiting the political infighting and security shortcomings to stage attacks. The deadliest of the day's bombings was in the eastern Sadr City district, where a parked car bomb tore through a small vegetable market and its parking lot, killing seven people and wounding 16, a police officer said. That was followed...

A fresh wave of bombs has killed at least 21 people across Iraq - mostly targeting Shia areas - officials say. The deadliest was in the city of Hilla, south of the capital Baghdad, where two car bombs at a market killed at least nine civilians. Other bombs hit Baghdad itself as well as Basra, Nasiriya and Karbala in the south of the country. Sectarian violence has surged across Iraq in recent months, reaching its highest level since 2008. More than 5,000 people have been killed so far this year in Iraq, 800 of them in August alone, according to...

State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki issued a press release denouncing the "enemies of Islam " following car bombings in Baghdad that appear to have been timed to target Shi'ite "festivities marking the end of Ramadan." Reuters reported that the bombings consisted of "twelve separate blasts targeting markets, busy shopping streets, and parks." The explosions killed almost 80 people. The August 10 press release on the State Department website reads: The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the cowardly attacks... in Baghdad. These attacks were aimed at families celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the...

Violence has been on the rise across Iraq since a deadly crackdown by government forces on a Sunni protest camp in April, and attacks against civilians and security forces notably spiked during Ramadan. The surge of attacks has sparked fears that the country could spiral into a new round of widespread sectarian bloodshed similar to that which brought the country to the edge of civil war in 2006 and 2007. In the holy Shiite city of Karbala, police said four people were killed in a car bomb attack near a cafe at night. Karbala is 80 kilometres (50 miles) south...

Saddam Hussein’s half brother, facing the gallows for his role as chief of the regime's security service, has died of cancer in a Baghdad hospital. Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who had received several death sentences, was transferred to the hospital from prison as his health deteriorated. His body will be handed over to his family. Al-Hassan, a maternal half brother of Hussein, had lived in exile for a period after the 2003 invasion. He was suspected of directing and financing insurgency operations from Syria carried out by Saddam loyalists in Iraq since the fall of the regime. …

(Reuters) - More than 70 people were killed in a wave of bombings in markets in Shi'ite neighborhoods across Baghdad on Monday in worsening sectarian violence in Iraq. No group claimed responsibility for the blasts. But Sunni Muslim Islamist insurgents and al-Qaeda' s Iraqi wing have increased attacks since the beginning of the year and often target Shi'ite districts. ... More than 700 people were killed in attacks in April, according to a U.N. count, the highest monthly toll in almost five years. So far in May more than 300 have died. Thousands of Sunnis began staging street protests last...

At least 10 people have been killed in a series of explosions in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, reports say. Several more were wounded in the suspected bomb attacks, targeting mainly Shia districts of the capital, police told Reuters news agency. The violence comes amid a marked rise attacks linked to growing political and sectarian tension recently. The bloodshed has raised fears of a re-emergence of the levels of sectarian violence seen in 2006 and 2007. In one of the deadliest days recently, more than 70 people were killed and many others injured in a series of bomb attacks across Iraq...

I was watching TV this evening and started to flip cable channels when I saw a streaming on MSNBC on our forces finding castor beans. The following is a part of what their website said about it. NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski that within just the past week, U.S. investigators had found two shipping containers filled with millions of much more recent documents relating to chemical and biological weapons. One of the documents, from 2001, was titled “Document burial and U.N. activities in Iraq,” the sources said. It gave detailed instructions on how to hide materials and deceive U.N. weapons inspectors,...

Image that accompanied Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's audiotape announcing the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The flag was originally al Qaeda in Iraq's banner, but has been adopted by other al Qaeda affiliated and associated groups. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. The emir of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (also known as Abu Dua), has announced a new brand for his organization's efforts: the "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant." The new name replaces all previous brands used by al Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq and Syria, including the...

Car bombs tore through shopping areas within minutes of each other in mainly Shiite neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital on Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 100. The attacks come amid rising sectarian discord in Iraq and appear aimed at shaking Iraqis’ confidence in the Shiite-led government. The explosions struck at the start of the local work week and primarily targeted outdoor markets. Violence in Iraq has fallen since the height of sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, but insurgents still frequently launch lethal attacks against security forces and civilians. It was the third time this...

It feels strange visiting a country like Morocco and listening to people extol the virtues of a political system my country waged a revolution against. Morocco has a king, and he’s a real one too, not some kind of a figurehead. But I went there, I listened, and after almost ten years of visiting Middle Eastern countries wracked by tyranny, terrorism, botched revolutions, and wars, I was perhaps a bit more willing to hear what they had to say than I might have been a decade ago. A monarchy is a tough sell for Americans. The founders of our country...

1,000-Year-Old Muslim Joke Book Found An 11th-century book by a revered Baghdad Muslim scholar turns out to be a tongue-in-cheek guide for party crashers, according to the researcher who translated the book into English. The tome was originally authored by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, a well known scholar of the Prophet Mohammed's teachings. According to Emily Selove of the University of Manchester, who did the translation, he wrote the book to remind readers "that every serious minded person needs to take a break." She continued, "This book, which contains flirtation, profanity, and even a little drunkenness, is a lot of fun and...