Free Republic

In Lebanon, at an altitude of approximately 1,170 meters in Beqaa valley stands the famous Baalbek or known in Roman times as Heliopolis. Baalbek is an ancient site that has been used since the Bronze Age with a history of at least 9,000 years, according to evidence found during the German archaeological expedition in 1898. Baalbek was an ancient Phoenician city that was named by the name of the sky God Baal. The name ‘Baal’ in the Phoenician language meant ‘lord’ or ‘god’. Legends abound around Baalbek with some of them mentioning that Baalbek was the place where Baal first...

Events in one Syrian town cast light on the nation’s strifeIlyas was, he told me, the very last Christian to flee Qusayr. He had been one of just a handful in the town to join the revolution — an odd thing for a Christian to do because the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were and are mostly Sunnis, and the Christians mostly sided with Assad. Still, it didn’t save him. One day he heard banging on the door and saw men with Kalashnikovs standing there. There were familiar faces, some he had known for years. He said: ‘They told me: “You’re...

With conditions continuing to deteriorate in Syria, the Obama administration is making a major policy shift by agreeing for the first time to allow thousands of new Syrian refugees into the United States, The Cable has learned. The numbers are relatively small: just 2,000 refugees, compared to an estimated two million people who have fled Syria during the civil war. But it's a significant increase from the 90 or so Syrian refugees who have been permanently admitted to the U.S. in the last two years. And it's not entirely uncontroversial. The refugees, mostly women and children, will be screened for...

One of the more surprising news to hit the tape yesterday was that Saudi Arabia, exasperated and desperate by Russia's relentless support of the Syrian regime and refusal to abandon the Syrian army thus facilitating the Qatari plan to pass its natgas pipeline to Europe under Syria, had quietly approached Putin with a proposal for a huge arms deal and a pledge to boost Russian influence in the Arab world if only Putin would abandon Syria's Assad. It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone that in the aftermath of yesterday's dilettante mistake by Obama which alienated Putin from...

Since Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected two months ago, Iran has installed 7,000 centrifuges, indicating that he is nothing more than a new face to an old regime, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday. This was the fourth time since Friday that Netanyahu took aim at Rouhani, reflecting the fact that even as negotiations with the Palestinians are due to start in Jerusalem next Wednesday, Iran remains the top item on the prime minister’s agenda and is considered by him to be the most important national security challenge facing Israel. The theme of Netanyahu’s comments on Rouhani over the...

Russian supersonic missiles behave like wolves August 8, 2013 Viktor Litovkin, special to RBTH Yakhont anti-ship cruise missile at the 3rd International Airspace Show in Moscow. Source: RIA Novosti Large-scale construction of the next-generation Project 885 Yasen-class submarine armed with Onyx supersonic missiles is starting in Russia. These ships will compete with the latest American Seawolf-class nuclear submarines and will be world leaders in terms of fire power. Large-scale construction of the next-generation Project 885 Yasen-class multi-purpose nuclear attack submarine, armed with Onyx supersonic cruise missiles, is starting in Russia. The ships will compete with the latest American Seawolf-class nuclear...

President Obama on Wednesday announced the U.S. would give an additional $195 million in humanitarian aid to displaced Syrians as a gesture to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month. “Many of us have had the opportunity to break fast with our Muslim friends and colleagues — a tradition that reminds us to be grateful for our blessings and to show compassion to the less fortunate among us, including millions of Syrians who spent Ramadan displaced from their homes, their families, and their loved ones,” the president said in a statement. “To help the...

Gripped by more than a year of conflict the thriving commercial hub has been transformed into a series of battlefields and front lines, its residents struggling to live on amid the widespread disease, dirty water and crippling food shortages. The aerial pictures show the extent of the destruction of the city, one of the oldest and most historically rich in the world. The Ancient City of Aleppo is a Unesco World Heritage site, this year placed on the UN organisation's list of World Heritage in Danger. “Aleppo has been utterly devastated, its people fleeing the conflagration in huge numbers," said...

The FSA's statement said that three military officers, one of them a colonel, were killed. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) shot down a helicopter and 3 military officers in the helicopter were killed. According to a written statement by the FSA, the FSA's troops shot down a military helicopter with a missile near the International Damascus Airport. The statement said that three military officers, one of them a colonel, were killed. There was no statement or comment from the Syrian administration about the incident.

In wake of Tuesday’s decision by police officials in charge of the Temple Mount to ban non-Muslims entrance to the holy site, some two hundred protesters stood Wednesday morning at the foot of the Mugrabi entrance seeking to reverse their exclusion. The mass protest was prearranged following an announcement by Police Commander Avi Bitton that the Temple Mount will remain closed to Jews and tourists at least until after the end of Ramadan’s closing festival of “Eid” which is to be next Sunday, the 11th of August. video .....

...Those who talk about a durable peace are by definition giving up on Palestine...

Moscow, August 7, Interfax – Delays in the process of suppressing terrorists in Syria can result in setting up an Islamic caliphate in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes. "Earlier, we saw how some members of the Security Council didn’t want to condemn terrorist acts in Syria, saying, that, no matter how cynical it may sound, those who carry out these acts struggle against the regimen, which exhausted itself. This position is absolutely unacceptable, terrorism should be treated without any double standards," he said at a press conference summing up his talks with Ghana Foreign Minister Hannah Tetteh....

#BreakingNews - Activists: #FSA downs Iranian cargo plane at #Damascus International Airport. #Syria

Arizona Senator John McCain is in Egypt with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham just weeks after the new government, run by the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the military. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was heavily protested by millions of people as he tried to turn the fragile State into a dictatorship under Sharia law. More from The Daily Beast: During their whirlwind tour of Cairo Tuesday, two top GOP senators held the most extensive meeting to date between U.S. officials and senior officials in the embattled Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters are fighting in the streets to overturn last month’s...

The Syrian Army attacked a large group of antigovernment insurgents near the capital, Damascus, on Wednesday, killing more than 60, according to monitors and state media. The rebels killed near Damascus belonged to the Nusra Front, and some were foreigners, SANA said. It published a series of photographs showing bloodstained bodies in olive drab uniforms lying on what seemed to be open sandy, desert ground. The Nusra Front is an extremist group that the United States has designated a terrorist organization. In recent months, government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been seeking to clear areas around Damascus of...

The top US military officer is scheduled to arrive in Israel and Jordan next week, in a visit which will focus in part on Iran and the war in Syria, the US military said Wednesday. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will meet in Israel with his counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, to discuss advances in Iran's nuclear program, which Israel regards as an existential threat, given the Islamic regime's declared ambition of destroying the Jewish State, and continued support for anti-Israel terrorist groups. "In Israel, the chairman expects to discuss the United States'...

The U.S. intelligence community has been leaking information on Israeli air strikes in Syria, and U.S. President Barack Obama is behind the leaks, according to a report in the World Tribune. Diplomats told the Tribune that the Obama administration has enabled the U.S. intelligence community to disclose details of Israeli military operations against the armed forces under Syrian President Bashar Assad. These leaks include reporting Israeli air and naval strikes on advanced Iranian and Russian weapons that arrived in 2013. “This is a decision that could come only from Obama,” a diplomat said. “[T]his reflects his dismay over the Israeli...

March 4, 2013 Obama Claims Al Qaeda Defeated, Al Qaeda Claims It Has Scud Missiles Daniel Greenfield Hmm this is a tough one. Whom to believe? The man who set the Muslim world on fire and unleashed the Islamist takeover of entire countries. Or Al Qaeda. In any case, Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the local Al Qaeda affiliated groups, claims to have captured a bunch of Scud missiles. They are reportedly planning to turn them into orphanages for the poor or possibly kill a lot of people. There’s just no way to know. Syrian rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda recently captured...

Since launching the surprise assault at dawn on Sunday, the mainly Islamist rebel brigades led by two al Qaeda-linked groups have captured half a dozen villages on the northern edges of the Alawite mountain range, the activists say. The rebel strike into Alawite territory and their capture of a military airport north of Aleppo mark two major gains for Assad's foes after months of setbacks during which they lost ground around the capital Damascus and the central city of Homs. Combined with a steady fightback in the southern province of Deraa, they highlight the challenge Assad faces in trying to...

When the Central Intelligence Agency's "favorite Saudi prince" - which was how the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz last week described the chief of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar bin Sultan - landed in Moscow in his private jet on Wednesday and drove straight to Novo-Ogarevo in the city suburbs to meet President Vladimir Putin at his residence, it didn't turn out to be the "hush-hush" visit that the spy chief is usually accustomed to and would have expected. The Russian news agency Itar-Tass scrambled to carry a crisp report, quoting the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that the Saudi prince and...

On 19 July 2013, Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an unclassified letter to Senator Carl Levin concerning the risks of US military intervention in Syria. While the letter is was ostensibly delivered to the Senate, it actually delivered the equivalent to ten American thermonuclear bombs hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously. While the letter was supposedly written by Dempsey, it was surely approved and intensely vetted by President Obama himself. So while the letter had Dempsey’s signature, it was Obama’s policy. The Dempsey/Obama letter outlined all the catastrophic effects which would...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday evening with a delegation of 36 American congressmen headed by Congressman Steny Hoyer. During the meeting Netanyahu claimed that though Iran's president said pressure wouldn't help, in the last two decades pressure was the only thing that helped. snip

Maulana Asim Umar, from a video by As Sahab. His face is intentionally blotted. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda arm, has released a video featuring Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Maulana Asim Umar, who calls on Indian Muslims to participate in the "global jihad to give a final push to the collapsing edifice of America." The video, titled "Why is There No Storm in Your Ocean?," was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group. It was produced in May, but posted on jihadist forums on July 23. Asim Umar tells the Muslims of India that...

BEIRUT (AFP) –  Rebels battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime captured an arms and ammunition dump in the Qalamun area near Damascus early on Saturday, a watchdog said.In the north, fighting between Kurds and jihadists raged as the main opposition National Coalition called on armed groups there to "exercise restraint".The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several groups, including the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, were behind the capture of the depot of anti-tank weapons and rockets."Liwa al-Islam, Al-Nusra Front, Al-Tawhid battalion, the Maghaweer (rebel commando force) and the Qalamun Martyrs' battalion... captured an ammunitions depot near the village of Qaldun in...

Beirut (CNN) -- Syria carried out an airstrike on a refugee camp in northern Lebanon Saturday, killing nine Syrians and wounding nine more, a Lebanese state-run news agency reported. The strike centered on a Syrian refugee camp located near the Syrian border between the towns of Baalbeck and Arsal in the Bekaa Valley, the National News Agency said.The Red Cross took the casualties to Universal Hospital in Baalbek.Saturday's strike was not the first by the Syrian government, which has accused rebels of smuggling arms and supplies across the border.

On the same day that the U.S. Department of State issued a global terrorism warning, a message suspected to be from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was posted on multiple jihadist web forums on Friday. In the 14-minute audio message, the 62-year-old al-Zawahiri criticizes the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood-backed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, blaming the military coup that resulted in his removal on Americans and 'Zionists.' The crusaders, the seculars, the Americanized army, (former Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak's thugs and some members of Islamic parties with the support of Gulf money and American plotting, all agreed to topple Mohamed...

Iran’s outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said 5,000 new centrifuges are ready to start operating at the country’s nuclear facilities. These are in addition to the 12,000 centrifuges already in operation. “12,000 centrifuge machines are now running in our nuclear sites and 5,000 new centrifuges are ready to start operation,” the hardline president told the country’s IRIB1 TV. … The West fears Iran is making steady progress towards nuclear weapons while the country insists its uranium enrichment was only for peaceful purposes. Meanwhile, a US think tank has noted that Iran may be able to achieve weapons-grade uranium by mid-2014....

Olmert: Syrian peace overtures not genuine PM Olmert says Israel is for making peace with all its neighbors, describes Assad's peace overtures as false pretenses Ronny Sofer Latest Update: 12.20.06, 15:16 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert renewed his opposition to peace talks with Syria , describing recent peace overtures by Syrian President Bashar Assad as false pretenses. "Syria continues to support terror in Iraq, is collaborating with the Iranian President and is sparing no effort to topple the government of (Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad) Siniora," Olmert said during a joint press conference with his Norwegian counterpart Jens Stoltenberg in Jerusalem. "We...

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah emerged from hiding on Friday to deliver his first major speech in years, addressing a rally in his southern Beirut stronghold in support of the Palestinian conflict against Israel. "Israel poses a danger on all people of this region...including Lebanon, and removing it is a Lebanese national interest," Nasrallah told hundreds of supporters in his half-hour speech. The charismatic Shi'ite cleric has lived mainly in the shadows, fearing assassination, since Hezbollah fought an inconclusive month-long war with Israel in 2006... Hezbollah emerged in the 1980s as the most prominent Lebanese faction fighting Israel's occupation of...

Iran's new president says 'Zionist regime' is a 'wound that should be removed' as millions mark al-Quds Day. Netanyahu: Rohani's true face exposed sooner than expected Ahmadinajed: A devastating storm will uproot basis of Zionism Iran's new president has called Israel an "old wound" that should be removed in comments published just two days ahead of his inauguration and as millions of Iranians took to the streets to mark al-Quds Day. Hassan Rohani's remarks about Israel - his country's archenemy - echo those of other Iranian leaders. Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency says Rohani spoke after taking part in an...

A large amount of weapons and ammunition were seized in the northern border near Syria, the Jordanian Armed Forces said in an official statement aired on the country’s official TV Thursday. “Border guards on the northern frontier – near border city of Al-Ramtha – confiscated large quantities of weapons, ammunition and drugs,” the statement said. The Jordanian Armed Forces, meanwhile, didn’t give further details on the type of weapons that were confiscated. The people attempting to smuggle these weapons were also arrested but their identities were kept anonymous as well. In July, Jordan’s King Abdullah said the kingdom was ready...

At least two rockets slammed into an area south of Beirut that houses the Defense Ministry and presidential palace on Thursday night, Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported. There were no casualties, according to the report. It was not immediately clear who fired the rockets or from where. Eyewitnesses said one rocket fell only a few meters from an entrance to the presidential palace, according to the Associated Press. Though nothing is yet confirmed, the incident may have something to do with the ongoing civil war in neighboring Syria which has spilled into Lebanon on more than one occasion. Since the...

If a light bulb goes out somewhere in the Middle East, someone will come forward to blame a Jewish conspiracy. So when the Muslim Brotherhood's man is forced from office in the wake of massive Egyptian opposition rallies, it can't be due to his failings in office. Rather, Mohammed Morsi is the victim of a "Zio-American" scheme, senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil told Jordan's al-Sabeel newspaper earlier this week. The goal is not only to wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood, Bardawil said, but to destroy Egypt "in service of the Zionist project in the region," al-Sabeel wrote. The newspaper is...

Islamic messiah Mahdi expected to return with Jesus, kill infidels Iran is again asserting that Armageddon is at hand and that the Islamic regime’s followers, indeed all of Islam, must prepare for a monumental change in the world. Officials of the Islamic regime last month held their annual conference on the Mahdism Doctrine to prepare for the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam, Mahdi. Shiites, whose clerics rule Iran with an iron fist, believe that at the end of times, Mahdi, a 9th century prophet, will reappear with Jesus Christ at his side, kill all the...

Israeli navy seeks to counter Russian ship-killer Israel's navy is installing the Barak-8 air-defense missile system aboard its combat vessels to protect them against Syria's new supersonic Russian-built Yakhont anti-ship missiles which the Jewish state views as a potent threat to its long-held naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean. HAIFA, Israel, July 30 (UPI) -- Israel's navy is installing the Barak-8 air-defense missile system aboard its combat vessels to protect against Syria's new supersonic Russian-built Yakhont anti-ship missiles, which the Jewish state views as a potent threat to its long-held naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean. The medium-range Barak-8 was...

Israeli intelligence satellites have spied the loading of rockets and other material in Iran believed to be destined for the Gaza Strip, the UK-based Sunday Times reported, citing Israeli officials. According to the report, Iran began preparing the weapons shipment around the same time Israel and Hamas negotiated a cease-fire late last week. The shipment is said to include Iranianmade Fajr-5 medium-range rockets, the same model that was fired toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during Operation Pillar of Defense, the Sunday Times reported.

Those who get their news from the mainstream media (or the Guardian) could be forgiven for believing that there are nearly 5 million Palestinian refugees from the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War. So often is that figure bandied around that most don’t understand that it only reflects the number of Palestinians qualifying for “refugee” benefits under the bizarre formula of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency by which the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (ad infinitum) of actual refugees continue to inherit this status. This designation is even bestowed upon those Palestinians who are already citizens of other countries. (Using such demographic...

Israeli air force jets bombed trucks carrying Syrian missiles bound for Hizbullah's warehouses in Lebanon, according to Syrian opposition sources. The sources, were cited Sunday by Voice of Israel radio's Arabic-language service, which was quoted by i24 News. The Friday night bombing reportedly targeted a Syrian military base near the town of Quneitra, not far from the Golan Heights cease-fire line. This was the fifth known Israeli attack this year on Syrian weapons bound for Hizbullah. Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad reportedly wants to send the weapons to Hizbullah for safekeeping, out of fears they will fall into the hands of...

The Kurdish militia captured the border town of Ras al Ayn on Sunday, which had been under rebel control since last November. A day later, the United States said it was "very concerned" at reports that the militia was about to declare self-rule in northern Syria. "Such a declaration is highly provocative, as it will certainly exacerbate tensions between Arabs and Kurds," Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Monday. Turkey, which embarked on a broad peace process in March with Kurdish militants at home, has warned that it won't tolerate an autonomous Kurdish province across the Syrian border. This...

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warned Lebanese officials last week that al Qaida-linked groups are planning a campaign of bombings that will target Beirut's Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs as well as other political targets associated with the group or its allies in Syria, Lebanese officials said Monday. The unusual warning -- U.S. government officials are barred from directly contacting Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated an international terrorist organization -- was passed from the CIA's Beirut station chief to several Lebanese security and intelligence officials in a meeting late last week with the understanding that it would be passed to Hezbollah,...

Egypt’s deeply troubled president, Mohamed Morsi, proved to be too uncreative compared to his Turkish brothers in arms when he blamed the mass protests against his Muslim Brotherhood regime on foreign countries only. He could have been better inspired by his Turkish comrades. Even Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay was able to add some (well, the usual) sauce on his "evil foreign powers recipe": The Turkish unrest had been sparked by the Jewish diaspora. So, where, President Morsi, in your assessment of "Tahrir Square – Revisited," are the Jewish conspirators, Western capitals, financial lobbyists, global capitalists, BBC, CNN International,...

July 27, 2013 Worries Mount as Syria Lures West’s Muslims By ERIC SCHMITT WASHINGTON — A rising number of radicalized young Muslims with Western passports are traveling to Syria to fight with the rebels against the government of Bashar al-Assad, raising fears among American and European intelligence officials of a new terrorist threat when the fighters return home.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken supporter of Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Mursi, lashed out at the European Union and others for failing to condemn strongly enough the killing of dozens in Cairo earlier on Saturday. Security forces shot dead dozens of Mursi supporters on Saturday, days after the army called for a popular mandate to wipe out "violence and terrorism" following its removal of Egypt's first democratically government on July 3. The EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said she "deeply deplores" the deaths and called for a halt in violence. But Erdogan, who has recently faced large...

Two spectacular al Qaeda prison breaks in Iraq, freeing over 500 of its members in two separate prisons simultaneously this week, demonstrate the group is back with a vengeance. Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch is also the moving force behind the jihadist success in Syria. The resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq has sobering implications for what is likely to follow the drawdown of NATO forces in Afghanistan for the al Qaeda mother ship in Pakistan. The double jailbreaks at Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons were massive attacks. Suicide bombers, teams of attackers using mortars and small arms, and two dozen...

The Muslim terrorist group Qa’adat el-Jihad claimed responsibility Saturday for a terrorist bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. The bombing in Bulgaria last week killed five Israelis, one a pregnant woman. The Lebanese paper El-Nashra reported that the group, which has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in an email to the Arab press.

Sen. Lindsey Graham told a "cheering" audience Tuesday that if the relationship between the U.S. and Iran doesn't improve by the end of summer, he will ask Congress to authorize going to war."If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a resolution that will authorize the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb," the South Carolina Republican said, according to a post on CQ Roll Call, at a conference for members of Christians United for Israel today. "The only way to convince Iran to halt their nuclear program is to make it...

In an almost palpable irony, Russian and U.S. officials simultaneously announced their intent to move forward with controversial arms transfers to opposing sides in the Syrian civil war Monday.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned on Monday that U.S. troops are “close to the breaking point,” after many deployments — and Congress risks worsening the situation if it doesn’t help the Pentagon with its budget. “Our people are strong and resilient after 12 years of war, but they are under stress — and so are the institutions that support them,” Hagel told the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the group’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky. “Last week at Fort Bragg’s Soldier and Family Assistance Center, I met a first sergeant who told me that in Afghanistan, he froze up and...

A day ago, Senator John McCain told Newsmax that the US needs to impose a no-fly zone in Syria to “negate Bashar Assad’s power” and force the regime to the negotiating table. Hours later, after McCain and Carl Levin demanded answers from the Joint Chiefs on why the military has not recommended this option, Joint Chiefs chair Martin Dempsey responded that a no-fly zone would cost between $500 million and $1 billion a month — and would largely be a non-sequitur anyway: "The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that establishing a...

The nation's top military officer has laid out five options the Obama administration is considering on Syria, including "limited" strikes against the Assad regime and an all-out campaign to secure chemical weapons that includes "thousands" of U.S. forces. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed the options in a letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich. The letter was sent Monday as, on the other side of the Hill, the House Intelligence Committee signed off on the administration's call to arm the Syria opposition -- though the committee, which held that up for...