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On July 14, 2022, Al-Qaeda's official media outlet Al-Sahab released a video featuring an audio address by the organization's leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. The video is the sixth part in a series titled "Deal of the Century or Crusades Spanning Centuries," whose first part was released on September 11, 2020. The fifth part was released on June 14...

A mass grave uncovered in Sidon, Lebanon, has shed new light on the Crusades and on the cruelty of medieval warfare, a new study in the academic journal PLOS ONE has shown. Archaeologists unearthed a large quantity of human bones in the moat of the Saint Louis Castle in South Lebanon. The area was first conquered by the Crusaders after the First Crusade in 1110. Some 150 years later, the Christian city was attacked and largely destroyed by the Mamluks in 1253 and then destroyed even more by the Mongols in 1260. Pursuing the idea of liberating the holy sites...

Their grisly remains show the ugly brutality of the holy wars.Archaeologists digging near a Middle Eastern castle have unearthed two mass graves containing the grisly remains of Christian soldiers vanquished during the medieval Crusades — and some of them could have even been personally buried by a king. The chipped and charred bones of at least 25 young men and teenage boys were found inside the dry moat of the ruins of St. Louis Castle in Sidon, Lebanon. Radiocarbon dating suggests they were among the many Europeans who, between the 11th and the 13th centuries, were spurred by priests and...

VALPARAISO, Ind. -- Valparaiso University announced Tuesday that it has adopted the Beacons as its new team name, replacing the Crusaders, a term school officials dropped this year after saying it had been embraced by hate groups. The university's president, José D. Padilla, said the private Lutheran school's new nickname "directly connects to the University's motto, 'In Thy Light We See Light,' and represents the Valparaiso University community in many ways."

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR continue to interest experts, who claimed they had uncovered a "place of power" used by the order and a possible clue that they were on the hunt for the Ark of Covenant. The Catholic military order was active for almost 200 years until their abrupt demise. At the height of their power between the 12th and 13th century, the Templars were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusade period and managed large Christian economic organisations across Europe and the Middle East. But their sudden reduction in power inspired the rise of legends and has seen...

VALPARAISO, Ind. -- Valparaiso University announced Thursday that it is dropping the team name Crusaders, the school mascot and all logos associated with the term that it said has been embraced by hate groups. The decision comes after a decadeslong debate that had intensified recently because groups such as the Ku Klux Klan began using the symbols and words. The school's faculty and student senates each passed resolutions calling for the change and the university's alumni board of directors supported reassessing the appropriateness of the team name. The Crusades were a series of bloody religious wars starting in the 11th...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man is charged with providing material support to the Islamic State extremist group, including attempting to buy multiple weapons and scouting potential targets for an attack in the Tampa Bay area, federal prosecutors said Wednesday. A criminal complaint charges Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, with attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The charge carries a potential 20-year prison term. **SNIP** According to the affidavit, Al-Azhari scouted a number of targets in the Tampa Bay region, including beaches, parks and even the Tampa FBI field...

Today in history, May 18, 1565, one of the most symbolically important military encounters between Islam and Europe began: the Ottoman Turks besieged the tiny island of Malta, in what till then was considered the heaviest bombardment any locale had been subjected to. Around the start of the sixteenth century, Muslim pirates from Algiers began to terrorize the Christian Mediterranean. Like their terrestrial counterparts, they too were indoctrinated in and emboldened by Muhammad's promises: "A campaign by sea is like ten campaigns by land," the prophet had said, "and he who loses his bearings at sea is like one who...

Archaeological evidence suggested that 25 individuals whose remains were found in a burial pit near a Crusader castle near Sidon, Lebanon, were warriors who died in battle in the 1200s. Based on that, Tyler-Smith, Haber, and their colleagues conducted genetic analyses of the remains and were able to sequence the DNA of nine Crusaders, revealing that three were Europeans, four were Near Easterners, and two individuals had mixed genetic ancestry... ...when the researchers sequenced the DNA of people living in Lebanon 2,000 years ago during the Roman period, they found that today's Lebanese population is actually more genetically similar to...

How to Plan a Crusade: Religious War in the High Middle Ages, by Oxford professor Christopher Tyerman, demolishes the legend that Western crusaders were mere irrational rabble from Dark Age rubble.It is a mark of our hyper-political and hypocritical age that those who are most ignorant of the crusades should condemn the perceived ignorance of medieval crusaders. Sprinkle in accusations of greed, thuggery, and a moral equivalence with ISIS (see former President Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015) and it pretty much sums up what many people think they know about the crusades. But popular...

About 700 years ago, a bronze ring depicting St. Nicholas — the saint who inspired the modern-day figure of Santa Claus — slipped off the finger of its owner, likely either a crusader or a pilgrim traveling to the Holy Land. The ring lay buried in the dirt for hundreds of years, until a gardener in Israel found it last week while weeding in Lower Galilee. The gardener, Dekel Ben-Shitrit, 26, turned the unusual ring over to Israel's National Treasures Department, where archaeologists dated the metal artifact to between the 12th and 15th centuries, during the Middle Ages. [The Holy...

The issue is this: In the eyes of some, the Crusader nickname is offensive to non-Christians. Some folks see it as a symbol of slaughters during the 11th-century Holy Wars between the Christians and Muslims. Others would argue that a Crusader is simply someone who is fighting for a cause. Webster’s Dictionary uses both definitions.

For the first time in almost 750 years a Roman catholic Mass has been celebrated in the ancient fortress of the Crusaders, the Krak des Chevaliers. The Mass was celebrated using the Traditional Roman (pre-Vatican II) rite. Video at the linked website.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has warned the US of the “gravest consequences” if Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any other Muslim prisoner is executed. Tsarnaev, named in Zawahiri’s online video message, was sentenced to death by lethal injection last year for the 2013 bomb attack that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Tsarnaev committed the bombing with his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police in the manhunt that followed it. “If the US administration kills our brother the hero Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any Muslim,” Zawahri said in an online video, “[it]...

The BBC has warned English football fans not to dress as crusaders when attending the Euro 2016 tournament this summer as they might cause offence to Muslims. The advice comes via their ‘iWonder’ website, aimed at a younger audience, which asks such pressing questions as “Was Shakespeare a feminist?” and “How green is my commute?” Posing the question: “Is it wrong to dress as a crusader for an England match?” the answer appears to be a resounding “yes”. “Crusaders were the perpetrators of violent attacks across Europe and the Middle East on Muslims, Jews and pagans,” the website intones, suggesting...

For 65 years, Denver Christian Schools used the mascot “Crusaders,” but that’s all about to change. Although CEO Todd Lanting says it’s not about political correctness, the change is being made because some might find it offensive to Muslims, EAG News reported Tuesday. “In our mission, in light of the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, the crusader was an inconsistent, inappropriate symbol for that mission,” Lanting told KUSA. EAG added: After using the Crusaders mascot for 65 of the school’s 100 year history, officials in November began to solicit ideas for a new symbol, and have since narrowed...

Following a vote from the Board of Trustees, Susquehanna University is the latest institution whose mascot, the Crusaders, must go due to concern over potential offensiveness and negative connotations. Citing "growing concern and sensitivity" to ensure sure the campus remains "welcoming and inclusive..." ...Last spring, the Susquehanna University student government ran a poll among the student body with a squirrel winning by over 50 percent of the votes. "I don’t know if squirrels are exactly that presence that we needed," said Junior Paris Campbell to the student newspaper, also titled The Crusader. Despite the petition and seemingly apathetic student body,...

SIS has released chilling new footage depicting its apocalyptic vision of the end of the world. It has titled the video 'Meeting at Dabiq' which refers to the location of a final battle between the 'Crusaders' and the 'Believers'. The video also shows an ISIS 'armoured unit' advancing towards the Colosseum in reference to the 'armies of Rome'. In the footage the terrorist organisation shows a dead fighter being kissed by his comrades, a Jihadi on horseback trying to look like a honourable soldier and groups of men with the majority too scared to show their faces to the camera....

Our own heritage is considered to be “incredibly offensive” by the leftist ruling class: A religious-freedom advocacy group has filed its second grievance in as many weeks with the Army, again demanding that imagery featuring a red crucifix be removed from Army signage — and this time, insisting the aviation unit involved change its logo and its nickname. We truly are living in George Orwell World. By “religious-freedom advocacy,” they mean “devoted to the eradication of Christianity.”

Turkey's geo-political maneuvers may urge reconsideration of its NATO membership. While the threat from Daesh grows, Ankara is more focused on the continuing fight with the Kurds. The Erdoğan government is undermining the core values of what NATO stands for, and its anti-Kurdish policy spells problems for its role in the region. NATO has to make a statement and also work behind the scenes to engage Erdoğan to prioritize the war against Daesh. Under the pretext of an anti-Daesh (ISIS) campaign, Turkey's government since late July 2015 is harshly repressing the Kurds, playing the ‘anti-terrorism' card towards NATO. But the...