Free Republic

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top cleric has condemned the extremist Islamic State group, describing it as a "terrorist" organization that poses a danger to Islam and Muslims. Grand Mufti Shawki Allam, Egypt's highest religious authority, said the extremist group is "violating all the Islamic principles and the intentions of the Shariah (Islamic law)." In his remarks, which were carried by Egypt's state news agency late Tuesday, Allam also said the "bloody extremist group" had tarnished the image of Islam and paved the way for the destruction of Muslim nations.

The U.S. is weighing a military mission in Iraq to rescue thousands of Yazidi refugees, a move that risks putting American forces in direct confrontation with Sunni fighters for the Islamic State. The proposal is still under development and hasn't been approved by President Barack Obama. U.S. officials said the rescue mission is one of many options the U.S. military is weighing after dropping food and water to dying refugees over the past six days. "People are looking at ways to do something more than just drop water and supplies," one senior U.S. official said. "You can only do that...

A Yazidi refugee, trapped in the mountains near the Iraqi city of Sinjar, has told a Channel 4 reporter that she got a mountain goat to suckle her two-month-old baby to ensure her newborn's survival when her own breast milk ran out. The unnamed woman was trapped by militants on the mountain in northern Iraq with tens of thousands other Yazidi refugees for as long as ten days. Channel 4 foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Rugman, speaking from the city of Dahuk last night, said: "I met a woman who had just come into Iraq from Syria, and she was caring...

'Another man was saying the children were so thirsty, their parents started cutting their own hands and giving them blood to drink.'

The Obama administration has ruled out for now a risky US military mission to rescue thousands of Iraqis stranded on a northern Iraqi mountain, declaring a siege by Islamist extremists to be over. After a small complement of special forces and US aid workers landed on Mount Sinjar to assess the situation of the Iraqi Yazidis – who for days have received air drops of food, water and medicine – the Pentagon said things were not as bad as initially feared. “An evacuation mission is far less likely,” said Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, late on Wednesday....

Intent to Support the Kurds Against ISIS Posted by Max Velocity in Uncategorized on August 13, 201431 Comments For wide distribution: To follow up on my previous posts on this subject, and the evolving thread on the MVT Forum, I will state the intent here: Max Velocity Tactical, under the DBA ‘Victrix,’ is seeking a security / military assistance contract with either: 1) Kurdish Organizations or 2) Aid / Relief Organizations in Kurdistan / Northern Iraq. To provide security / military training /military assistance in Kurdistan / Northern Iraq. In order to assist in the defeat of ISIS forces, and...

Police in Ferguson released a video tape allegedly showing slain teen Michael Brown robbing a store even though the Justice Department warned that doing so could inflame racial tensions, CNN is reporting. Snip Despite holding off Thursday, Ferguson police still decided to release the tape Friday over the Justice Department's objections, according to CNN.

Islamists from the Islamic State (IS) killed 80 members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a northern village on Friday, sources told Fox News. The Kurdish-speaking ethnic and religious group, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands in Iraq, has been persecuted in the north by IS, with at least 500 killed prior to Friday's news, according to Iraq's human rights minister. The latest killings came just a day after President Obama said U.S. air strikes and humanitarian aid drops on Sinjar mountain, where thousands of Yazidi have been stranded in an Islamic State siege had been ended. "They arrived in...

Pertinent parts of Iraqi constitution: "...2- The Council of Representatives may withdraw confidence from the Prime Minister based on the request of one-fifth (1/5) of its members. This request may be submitted only after a question has been put to the Prime Minister and after at least seven days from submitting the request. 3- The Council of Representatives shall decide to withdraw confidence from the Prime Minister by an absolute majority of its members." ---There has not been a successful "no confidence" vote against Maliki. "...Article 73: First: The President of the Republic shall name the nominee of the Council...

There is an idiom, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” or as George W. Bush said, “fool me once…you fooled me, can’t get fooled again.” However one puts it, the proverbial definition is that after being tricked once, one should be very wary so a person cannot trick one again. Republican warmongers certainly understand they fooled Americans in 2003 and lied through their teeth to take the country to war against a sovereign nation with no connection to al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or the terror attacks on 911. Now, they are back again lying,...

Kirkuk: An Iraqi lawmaker who helped bring attention to the plight of besieged members of her Yazidi community was wounded Tuesday in the crash of a helicopter delivering aid, officers said. The pilot was killed when the chopper, overloaded with rescued Yazidis, crashed during takeoff on Mount Sinjar, two senior army officers said. A New York Times journalist also sustained non-life threatening injuries in the crash, the paper said

On board Iraqi army helicopter delivering aid to the trapped Yazidis, Jonathan Krohn sees a hellish sight Mount Sinjar stinks of death. The few Yazidis who have managed to escape its clutches can tell you why. “Dogs were eating the bodies of the dead,” said Haji Khedev Haydev, 65, who ran through the lines of Islamic State jihadists surrounding it. On Sunday night, I became the first western journalist to reach the mountains where tens of thousands of Yazidis, a previously obscure Middle Eastern sect, have been taking refuge from the Islamic State forces that seized their largest town, Sinjar....

The lights of their towns, controlled by jihadists, twinkle beneath them in the moonlight. The people of the mountain can see their towns and villages, and the headlights of the jihadi patrols snaking through the streets they have abandoned, and know they cannot return. Small campfires light up the side of the mountain, stretching towards the Syrian border just visible in the distance, where the Yazidis eke out their lives in a desperate search for sleep, food and water. Round the campfires a bedraggled spectacle of humanity sit making tea in empty bean cans torn in half, one of the...

BAGHDAD — A Russian-built Iraqi military helicopter providing aid to those stranded on a mountain fleeing Sunni militants crashed Tuesday after too many tried to climb aboard, killing the pilot, said the army spokesman. Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said in a statement that Iraqi parliamentarian Vian Dakheel, of the minority Yazidi community most affected by the fighting, was aboard the Mi-17 helicopter and was injured in the crash. She and others aboard were evacuated to a hospital in the nearby Kurdish autonomous region. The New York Times reported on its website that reporter Alissa J. Rubin, riding along on the...

By Staff writer | Al Arabiya News Saturday, 16 August 2014 Kurdish troops backed by U.S. warplanes launched a bid Saturday to recapture Mosul dam, Iraq’s largest, from militants, a senior Kurdish military official said. “Kurdish peshmerga, with U.S. air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam” complex, Major General Abdelrahman Korini told AFP. “We killed several members of Daash. We are still advancing and in the coming hours should announce welcome news,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group. Witnesses said the air strikes...

France’s decision this week to arm Kurdish fighters in the battle against Islamic militants marked a turning point in Europe’s wavering stance on Iraq, with an EU emergency meeting on Friday seeking to forge a unified response to the Sunni insurgents’ advance. The 2003 U.S.-led Iraq invasion created a bitter rift across the European Union and the bloc has since been loath to get involved in the country, but the militants in Iraq and Syria who threaten to reshape the Middle East have raised the stakes by drawing more than 1,500 European radicals to their ranks. After weeks of near-silence...

The United States has asked European countries to supply arms and ammunition to Kurdish forces fighting jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, signalling a widening of the international role in the conflict. The US has requested the arms in telephone calls with several European countries, seeking help for Peshmerga fighters of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region who are outgunned by IS militants. Several European countries have announced plans to send arms or ammunition, with France saying it will supply arms in response to a request from Iraq's Kurdish leadership.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. military is turning its focus toward helping Kurdish forces launch a counteroffensive against Sunni militants now that the refugee crisis in the northern Iraqi mountains has abated, American officials said Thursday. American military planners are building a coalition of countries that have agreed to take part in the effort to fly in ammunition, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades the Kurdish fighters need to uproot extremist forces that call themselves the Islamic State, the officials said. The focus on arming Kurdish fighters represents the next stage of U.S. military operations in Iraq. Earlier, the U.S. military essentially declared victory in...

President Barack Obama on Thursday promised to expand U.S. humanitarian relief to Iraqis threatened by the advancing army of the Islamic State militants. He took credit for alleviating the genocide threat to thousands trapped on a mountaintop but said the situation “remains dire” throughout the country. Obama also said U.S. airstrikes would continue to protect Americans and U.S. facilities in Iraq, and he said Washington has increased its delivery of military assistance to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State. But he gave no indication he intends to shift from the limited, defensive military campaign he announced last week...

Although U.S. airstrikes on ISIS in Iraq have helped to slightly push back the terror army, they're still on the march with no plans of stopping. As a result, an all-female battalion has prepared themselves to take on the brutal group should they advance in Kurdistan. More from the New York Post: Hundreds of mothers, sisters and daughters have taken up arms and devoted their lives to protecting Iraq’s Kurdish population against the threat of the Islamic State. Known as the women peshmerga of the 2nd Battalion, the group is made up of 550 female fighters led by Col. Nahida...