Free Republic

Lawyers on behalf of President Donald Trump sent a letter Wednesday night to former White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon demanding he refrain from making disparaging comments against the president and his family. The letter, comes after excerpts from a forthcoming book by journalist Michael Wolff were made public Wednesday, causing a stir. Trump attorney Charles Harder said in a statement, "This law firm represents President Donald J. Trump and Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. On behalf of our clients, legal notice was issued today to Stephen K. Bannon, that his actions of communicating with author Michael Wolff regarding...

U.S.-backed militias said on Monday they had pushed Islamic State fighters out of the old quarters of Tabqa, a strategically vital town controlling Syria's largest dam, hemming the militants into the remaining modern district along the shore. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance made up of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighting groups, are fighting a multi-phased campaign to drive Islamic State from its stronghold of Raqqa, 40km (25 miles) downstream and east of Tabqa. The SDF will wait to assault Raqqa until it seizes Tabqa, its military officials have previously said, but it had made slow progress since besieging...

BEIRUT — Syria’s military said Israel struck a military installation southwest of Damascus International Airport before dawn Thursday, setting off a series of explosions and raising tensions further between the two neighbors. Apparently seeking to interrupt weapons transfers to the Hezbollah group in Lebanon, Israel has struck inside Syria with increasing frequency in recent weeks, making the war-torn country a proxy theater for Israel’s wider war with Iran. The increasing tempo of attacks risks inflaming a highly combustible situation drawing in Israel, Syria and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, a staunch ally of President Bashar Assad’s government with thousands of fighters in...

Israel shot down "a target" over the Golan Heights, hours after it was accused of a missile strike at a military site near Damascus international airport. Israel deployed its Patriot missile defence system and media reported the target was a drone. The earlier strike had damaged what Syrian rebels said was an arms depot run by Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. Israel said the explosion was "consistent" with its policy. But it stopped short of confirming it was responsible

ISTANBUL — A Russian naval intelligence ship sank Thursday after colliding with a merchant freighter in the Black Sea near Istanbul, the Turkish coast guard said. All 78 crew members on the Russian vessel were rescued. The crew of the freighter, a Togo-flagged ship traveling from Romania to Jordan and carrying 8,800 sheep, was unharmed and the ship suffered slight damage to its bow, according to local media reports. In Moscow, Russia's Defense Ministry issued a statement confirming that the vessel, the Liman, went down after the collision tore a hole in the hull below the waterline.

Israel struck an arms supply hub operated by the Lebanese group Hezbollah near Damascus airport on Thursday, Syrian rebel and regional sources said, targeting weapons regularly sent from Iran via commercial and military cargo planes. Video carried on Lebanese TV and shared on social media sites showed the pre-dawn airstrikes caused a fire around the airport east of Damascus, suggesting fuel sources or weapons containing explosives were hit. Israel does not usually comment on any action it takes in Syria or the wider region. But Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, speaking to Army Radio from the United States, appeared to confirm...

The head of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan said on Monday he was "not refuting" reports that Russia was providing support, including weapons, to the Taliban. General John Nicholson was speaking in Kabul during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. For some time, American officials have complained of what Nicholson once called "malign influence" by Russia in Afghanistan, but Monday's comments are among the strongest suggestions yet that Moscow is providing arms to the Taliban. Asked about reports that Russia was providing a range of help, including weapons, to the Taliban, who control large areas of Afghanistan,...

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (5:20 P.M.) – The long-awaited battle for Raqqa may very soon begin as the US-backed ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’ (SDF) advanced several kilometers in the northern Raqqa countryside today, seizing a dozen villages and hamlets from ISIS. As part of stage four of the Euphrates Wrath offensive, units of the YPG-led SDF launched a blitz offensive that saw Kurdish troops seize a large chunk of territory along a road running horizantally north of Raqqa, threatening to cutoff an ISIS bulge in the area. Effectively, the SDF were able to impose full control over the villages of Jisr Shahin, Al-Ruhayyat,...

A prominent Russian journalist known for articles criticizing Russia’s government and President Vladimir Putin has died at a hospital in St. Petersburg after being severely beaten by unknown assailants. Nikolai Andrushchenko, a 73-year-old co-founder of the weekly newspaper Novy Petersburg, had been unconscious since he was attacked on March 9. Andrushchenko’s colleagues and his lawyer say he underwent brain surgery after the attack and initially had been connected to a ventilator, but later was able to breathe on his own. However, they said he never regained consciousness and died on April 19. His attackers have not been found. Novy Petersburg...

Russian state television has no doubt who is unpredictable enough to bring the world to war in the North Korean crisis, and it's not the reclusive communist dictator Kim Jong-Un. According to Dmitry Kiselyov, the Kremlin's top TV mouthpiece, the riskiest is Donald Trump, the man Russian officials and propagandists hailed just a few weeks ago as just the kind of leader the world needed. In the latest sign of the Kremlin's abrupt about-face on its erstwhile American hero, Kiselyov pronounced Trump "more dangerous" than his North Korean counterpart. "Trump is more impulsive and unpredictable than Kim Jong Un," he...

U.S.-backed forces fighting Islamic State in Syria advanced to within 2 km (1 mile) of a key stronghold near the jihadist group's de facto capital of Raqqa on Tuesday, and a counter-attack by the militants was repulsed, officials said. The multi-phased campaign by the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by air strikes and military advisers from a U.S.-led coalition, ultimately aims to oust Islamic State from Raqqa. IS is also losing ground to U.S.-backed offensives in Iraq. Officials have given different estimates for how long the campaign will take, and the assault on Raqqa itself appears to have been delayed,...

The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) now controls less than seven percent of Iraq, down from the 40 percent it held during 2014, an Iraqi military spokesman said Tuesday. “Daesh controlled 40 percent of Iraqi land,” Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, spokesman of the Joint Operations Command that manages the campaign against ISIS, told reporters on Tuesday, AFP news agency reported.“As of March 31, they only held 6.8 percent of Iraqi territory.” The jihadi group seized the northern city of Mosul as well as Tikrit, Fallujah and Ramadi in 2014. But a coalition of forces that included the Iraqi army, Shiite...

The Trump administration broadened its assault on Russia’s military involvement in Syria on Tuesday, offering new evidence that U.S. officials said showed that Moscow’s explanation for a deadly April 4 chemical attack was false. The new details from a declassified U.S. assessment add to tensions with Russia just as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson makes his first visit to Moscow and presses the Kremlin to drop its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Appalling images of Syrian babies gasping for breath and others foaming at the mouth after the Damascus regime hit a rebel-held town with chemical weapons has stunned the world. But people were almost as stunned last week that Syria still had chemical weapons because the Kremlin in June 2014 had vouched publicly for their complete eradication. One man who certainly wasn’t stunned that Syria had such weapons and would use them was Syrian Brig. Gen. Zaher al-Sakat, once the Bashar regime’s chemical weapons chief in charge of such operations. In an interview this week with Fox News, Sakat remained steadfast...

Vladimir Putin has sensationally claimed that the US is preparing airstrikes on the Syrian capital - and will pin the blame on Bashar-al Assad's forces. The Russian leader made the astonishing claim - that the US is planning to FAKE chemicals weapons attacks - during a joint press conference with the Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Putin insisted Russia would tolerate Western criticism of its role in Syria but hoped that attitudes would eventually soften. But his claims that Russia has information strikes are being planned by the US on the southern Damascus region - the aim of which is to...

President Trump notified Senate leaders Tuesday that he approves of a move to formally add the Balkan nation of Montenegro into NATO, an expansion of the alliance that’s opposed by Russia. In a letter to the Senate, Mr. Trump certified that the inclusion of Montenegro in NATO “will not have the effect of increasing the overall percentage share of the United States in the common budgets of NATO,” and that it will not keep the U.S. from meeting its other military funding requirements. The Senate last month approved Montenegro’s bid to become a full-fledged member of NATO by a vote...

Late one night in February, villagers in the Dasht-e-Archi district of northern Afghanistan heard strange sounds from the nearby Panj river, which marks the border with Tajikistan. One farmer said he saw the bright lights of planes landing close to the riverbank, just inside Afghan territory in an area controlled by Taliban militants. Word of American airstrikes or raids against insurgents travels fast in Kunduz province, but the next morning no one had any information about such an operation. The villagers concluded that the planes belonged to another powerful country seeking to press its influence in Afghanistan. “It would have...

Trump’s tomahawk missile strike in Syria has most commentators agreeing that it’s an international game changer, sending a message to bad actors from the Middle East to North Korea: there’s “a new sheriff in town” and the American superpower is back. What is missing from these analyses is a recognition of the strike’s repercussions domestically. For the Syrian strike is also a game changer for President Trump, who until now has been the target of unprecedented and unhinged political attacks. The Syrian strike blows up the central myth of the Democrats’ resistance to the Trump presidency. This is the accusation...

ALM BEACH, Fla. — The United States is looking into whether Russia participated in the Syrian chemical weapons attack that provoked President Donald Trump's airstrikes against the Assad government, a revelation that could have dramatic implications for relations between Washington and Moscow. On Friday, senior U.S. military officials said a drone belonging to either Russia or Syria was seen hovering over the site of the chemical weapons attack after the assault earlier this week. Russia is one of Syria's most important patrons and has long resisted U.S. efforts to push President Bashar Assad from power. Even as Trump advisers insisted...

Link only: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/04/06/un-27-children-died-syrian-chemical-tragedy/100113818/