Free Republic

President Barack Obama told Congress on Monday the United States was deploying up to 275 military personnel to provide support and security for U.S. personnel and the country's embassy in Baghdad after militants seized control of the north of the country.

State Department counterterrorism officials warned in late April that Iran had “trained, funded, and provided guidance” to ethnic Iraqi terror groups bent on destabilizing the country. The April warning appears to directly contradict and undermine comments last week by a State Department spokeswoman claiming that the United States and Iran have a “shared interest.” As Iraqi militants continue to wage attacks and seize territory, the State Department has signaled that it is willing to work with neighboring Iran to stabilize the country. They have even raised the idea of discussing Iraq on the sidelines of the ongoing nuclear discussions taking...

Men young and old piled into taxis, trucks, police vehicles and minibuses and drove noisily through the streets, honking horns and waving an assortment of weapons including rocket-propelled grenades, high-powered sniper rifles, Kalashnikov assault rifles and handguns. “Daiish we will never surrender,” chanted a group of young men piled on the back of a pick-up truck, using an acronym for the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which carried out a stunningly swift seizure of large swaths of northern Iraq last week. “We want to show the world that we can protect ourselves,” said Khodr al-Tamimi, a turbaned...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Oil industry analysts are warning a brewing civil war between Islamic militants in Iraq could potentially send gas prices soaring here in the Southland. KNX 1070′s Pete Demetriou reports the price of crude oil has shot up to $107 per barrel – the highest in 10 months – on reports that soldiers with the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria captured two towns in an ethnically mixed province northeast of Baghdad.

As America looks on in a state of paralyzed shock, Muslims are slaughtering Muslims in Iraq, with reports that the heads of those decapitated are literally piling up in the streets. A headline to an article in the Daily Mail reads, “‘They lined the streets with the decapitated heads of police and soldiers’: Iraqi refugee reveals the horrors of the jihadi takeover as Baghdad vows to fight back.” In response to this report, and with sarcastic guns ablaze, Robert Spencer quotes the Quran and then adds his comments, “‘So when you meet those who disbelieve, strike necks…’ (Qur’an 47:4) But...

Many residents of Mosul say they prefer life under ISIS to that under Iraqi army control Less than one week ago the jihadists seized control of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, where they have set to work imposing the hardline rules and summary justice of their “Islamic State”. In the Sunni dominated city, the removal of the Iraqi army by ISIS has been interpreted as a local victory; as a means of empowering Mosul residents against ...the Shia dominated national government who they feel has kept their people “oppressed”. But the crises in northern Iraq is now less one of a...

Every time I think Obama hits a new low, he seems to slink lower, even hours later. As Obama pursues “intense” diplomacy, which will probably includ at least 36 holes of golf this weekend, Iran is sending troops into Iraq to fight alongside our supposed Iraqi government allies. “In recent days,” reports CNN, “Iran has sent about 500 Revolutionary Guard troops to fight alongside Iraqi government security forces in Diyala province, a senior security official in Baghdad told CNN.” Contrast that with the administration’s actions: They evacuated three planeloads of contractors that were supposed to be supporting the Iraqi military....

Iraq's prime minister on Saturday threatened his nation’s troops with execution if they had abandoned their posts in the face of a blitz attack by Islamic militants who swept through northern provinces this week. Speaking to a group of army officers in a televised address from the central city of Samarra, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki promised accountability and punishment for any soldiers who had contributed Tuesday to the swift fall of Mosul, one of the nation’s largest cities, as well as other areas in the country.

ISTANBUL — The likely breakup of Iraq into feuding ethnic and sectarian bastions accelerated Friday as Iraq’s senior Shiite Muslim cleric broke years of support for the central government and decreed that every able-bodied Shiite man had a religious obligation to defend the sect’s holy sites from rebellious Sunni Muslims led by fighters from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. In answer to the call, thousands of Shiites many with militia experience from the sectarian war that pitted Sunnis against Shiites and killed thousands from 2006 to 2008 flooded the cities of Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala to receive...

s it possible to really win the war on terror? Are there really reasons for Jihad that can be understood and countered by the West? Is military or martial action the last-best chance for ending the threat posed by Islam? In his new and controversial book, Babylon’s Covert War, author J H White answers these and other complex questions related to the global fight against radical Jihad. Islam has a strategy that was incorporated by Muhammad in the 7th Century that has continued in various forms over a multitude of battlefields be they military, social, or political. During the emergence...

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), issued a rare audio message back on January 21 in which he flatly stated his group’s intention to march on Baghdad and move into “direct confrontation” with the United States. “Our last message is to the Americans. Soon we will be in direct confrontation, and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day,” When the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on February 5 on al Qaida’s resurgence in Iraq, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran and Iraq Brett McGurk presented written...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Friday he is weighing a range of options for countering the violent Islamic insurgency in Iraq, but he warned government leaders in Baghdad the U.S. will not take military action unless they move to address deep political troubles. "We're not going to allow ourselves to be dragged back into a situation in which, while we're there we're keeping a lid on things, and after enormous sacrifices by us, after we're not there, people start acting in ways that are not conducive to the long-term stability and prosperity of the country," Obama said from the...

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, has long been hard for the central government to control because of its combustible mix of Arabs and Kurds. The first time I visited Mosul was in August 2003 when a tenuous calm was maintained by the 101st Airborne Division. Its commander, a then-obscure two-star general named David Petraeus, had on his own initiative opened the Syrian border to trade, struck deals with Syria and Turkey to provide badly needed electricity, restored telephone service, and held elections to elect local leaders. Along the way he also managed to kill Saddam Hussein’s poisonous offspring Uday and Qusay.

The Washington Post inexplicably buried the lede in Thursday night’s story on U.S. contractors starting evacuations from Iraq. One has to read to the ninth paragraph (out of eleven) to read of the report that U.S. security contractors traversing embattled areas are engaging in gun battles as they try to evacuate other civilian contractors: “Contractor evacuations began Wednesday, if not earlier, said Ginger Cruz, CEO of Mantid International LLC, a consulting firm that works with numerous companies in Iraq… “On Thursday, the electronics giant Siemens was working to get about 50 employees out of Baiji, Cruz said. It was not...

The recent victories in Iraq and Syria by the terrorists of ISIS -- said to be an offshoot of al-Qaeda -- have emboldened the group and its followers throughout the Middle East. Now the terrorists are planning to move their jihad not only to Jordan, but also to the Gaza Strip, Sinai and Lebanon. Failure to act will result in the establishment in the Middle East of a dangerous extremist Islamic empire that will pose a threat to American and Western interests. "The danger is getting closer to our bedrooms." — Oraib al-Rantawi, Jordanian political analyst

Sunni militants spilling over the border from Syria seized control Tuesday of the northern city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest, in the most stunning success yet in a rapidly widening insurgency that threatens to drag the country and the region into war. Having consolidated control over Sunni-dominated Nineveh Province, armed gunmen were heading on the main road to Baghdad, Iraqi officials said, and had already taken over parts of Salahuddin Province. Thousands of civilians were fleeing south toward Baghdad and east toward the autonomous region of Kurdistan, where security is maintained by a fiercely loyal army, the peshmerga. The Iraqi...

The United Nations has tapped as its next High Commissioner for Human Rights a Jordanian prince who has said that Palestinian suicide bombings are “no less horrific” than Israel’s efforts to prevent civilians from terror attacks. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon announced over the weekend that he has nominated Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, a member of Jordan’s royal family and its current UN ambassador, as the next high commissioner, a senior official who monitors human rights across the globe. The post has been used in the past as a bully pulpit to target Israel for criticism over its...

The 89-year-old D-Day veteran who sneaked out of his care home to Normandy has returned to a hero's welcome and declared: 'I would do it again tomorrow.' Hiding his war medals under a raincoat, Bernard Jordan told carers he was going for a walk before boarding a coach to France for the 70th anniversary - sparking a frantic missing person search. The former Royal Navy officer arrived into Portsmouth on a cross-channel ferry this morning, where he said: 'I expect I will be in some trouble with the care home, but it was worth it.'

A Jordanian woman murdered her husband by stabbing him 25 times while he was asleep in his bed room in the Arab country, Jordan’s press reported on Friday. The woman, in her 20s, told police unknown attackers stormed the house and killed her husband but police suspected her statement, the papers said. Forensic examination showed the man died of his injuries after receiving 25 stab wounds while the wife later confessed she murdered her husband following persistent rifts, they added.

US Ambassador Robert Ford resigned from his State Department post a month ago, after a long and difficult time as the envoy to Syria. Ford showed great personal courage in his service while Bashar al-Assad instigated attacks on Western embassies and eventually provoked a massive civil war which has turned into a regional threat, thanks to the collapse of his power in large regions of Syria. The collapse of American policy in Syria over the past year was presumed to have prompted Ford’s departure, which he confirms with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview today.This is interesting for more...