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PRANJANI, Serbia -- The sky was black with the billowing smoke of the downed B-17 bombers and the canopies of Allied Airmen parachuting to an unknown fate behind Nazi lines in German-occupied Serbia. This is the sight the villagers of Pranjani remember from the late summer of 1944. Operation Halyard was an Office of Strategic Services mission to rescue more than 500 Allied Airmen who were scattered around a mountainous region in Serbia after their bombers were shot down by the Germans in WWII. It remains the largest rescue operation of American Airmen in history. The U.S. State Department, U.S....

An awesome CGI video about the 1456 siege of Belgrade, The Serbian Christians against the Turkish Onslaught!!

70 YEARS SINCETHE KRAGUJEVAC MASSACRE of October 1941:A Legacy of 'Never Forget'German soldiers escorting Serbian civilians from Kragujevac and its surrounding area to be executed in October 1941. Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.The policy was the Nazi response to the first successful organized uprising in occupied Europe. The Serbian resistance forces under the command of Serbia’s General Draza Mihailovich not only threatened Germany’s southern flank in Europe and her occupation of Serbia after Yugoslavia fell to Hitler in April of 1941, but critically delayed Hitler’s planned attack on the Soviet Union that summer. The Germans retaliated, but it wasn’t...

Now Serbia, which hopes to join the bloc in the future , has threatened to shut down its borders entirely - even if it means incurring the wrath of Brussels. The number of migrants in Serbia has risen to 3,000 since last July and many are unable to leave as neighbouring countries have shut the borders, leading to mounting tensions and violence in refugee camps. "If Serbia becomes a funnel from which water cannot drain because others further along have shut their own borders, Serbia must shut down its own (borders) regardless of its convictions," Tomislav Nikolic, the Serbian president,...

Hungary plans to build a second fence on its southern border with Serbia that would enable it to keep out any major new wave of migrants, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. Orban said the new barrier, to be built alongside the existing one, would strengthen defenses to respond if Turkey's policy on migration changed. If that happened, hundreds of thousands could appear at Hungary's border, he told public radio. "Technical planning is under way to erect a more massive defense system next to the existing line of defense which was built quickly (last year)," Orban said. Orban...

BIDEN GETS OFF PLANE IN SERBIA TO TRUMP RALLY! Joe Biden flew to Serbia today. He was greeted by a MASSIVE PROTEST FOR TRUMP!

Vice President Joe Biden received a cold welcome Tuesday in Belgrade, Serbia, as hundreds of ultra-nationalists marched through the city chanting "Vote for Trump!" Biden was in Serbia in a bid to encourage the country's government to normalize relations with Kosovo, which split away from Serbia in 1999 and claimed independence in 2008. However, the embittered 2016 U.S. presidential race -- and perhaps Biden's history of support for the NATO bombing of Serbia in the 1990s -- prompted self-described radicals onto the street.

Hundreds of Serbian ultra-nationalists protested on Tuesday against U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Belgrade by chanting their support for Donald Trump. "Vote for Trump! Vote for Trump!" the protesters, wearing T-shirts displaying an image of the U.S. Republican candidate, shouted as they gathered near the Serbian presidency building.

A Kosovo-born man was charged with plotting to attack Tampa-area nightclubs and a sheriff’s office with bombs and an assault rifle to avenge wrongs done to Muslims, federal authorities said Monday. According to a federal complaint, 25-year-old Sami Osmakac recorded an eight-minute video shortly before his arrest explaining why he wanted to bring terror to his “victims’ hearts” in the Tampa Bay area. Osmakac is a naturalized American citizen born in Kosovo, then part of the former Yugoslavia in eastern Europe. In the video, Osmakac is seen cross-legged on the floor with a pistol in his hand and an AK-47...

Jihadist Capital Of The Balkans The government estimates that more than 300 Kosovars have traveled to the Middle East to wage jihad, or Islamic holy war. That makes this predominately Muslim country of under 2 million people, which unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, Europe's biggest contributor per capita of IS foot soldiers. IS Recruiter One product of the radicalization in Kacanik is Lavdrim Muhaxheri, a 25-year-old IS recruiter who fights in Syria. He has been described as one of IS's top leaders. Last year, Muhaxheri sent shockwaves around Kosovo when he posted photos on Facebook of himself...

Tbilisi, June 10, Interfax - The Georgian Orthodox Church will not participate in the Pan-Orthodox Council in Crete which is slated for June 16-27. "This decision was adopted during today's session of the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church in which the Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia participated," the report of the Georgian Patriarchate said. Ilia II said in February that the Holy Synod rejected the document 'The relation of the Orthodox Church towards the rest of the Christian world' which was prepared for discussion at the Pan-Orthodox Council. The Synod also opposed a number of other documents...

Documents on the upcoming Great and Holy Council 1. Communication of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia to the Clerics and Faithfulhttp://www.synod.com/synod/eng2016/Holy%20Synod%20Response%20to%20Preconciliar%20Documents%20en.pdf2. OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT PREPARED FOR THE PAN-ORTHODOX COUNCIL: “RELATIONS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH WITH THE REST OF THE CHRISTIAN WORLD” by Dr. Demetrios Tselengideshttp://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90489.htm3. A SECOND INTERVENTION-CONFESSION OF FAITH: ON THE DOCUMENT "ORGANIZATION AND WORKING PROCEDURE OF THE HOLY AND GREAT COUNCIL" by Dr. Demetrios Tselengideshttp://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90694.htm4. METROPOLITAN OF LIMASSOL: "WHAT UNITY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? THOSE WHO DEPARTED FROM THE CHURCH ARE HERETICS AND SCHISMATICS"http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90619.htm5. A WORD ABOUT THE "COMMON CUP" AND...

Nicosia, June 10, Interfax - The Orthodox Church of Cyprus opposed the idea to postpone the convocation of the Pan-Orthodox Council, which has been prepared for over half a century and has been slated to take place on Crete in late June, the message of the Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus said. "We invite all of the local Orthodox Churches to participate in the work of the Holy and Great Council with a spirit of love, humility, and common mind, so that our witness to the world may be fruitful and effective," the message said. The document said that earlier the...

"Unity is an objective, not a given," says the Rev. John Chryssavgis, an archdeacon and theological adviser to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. "It may be there spiritually and liturgically and sacramentally, but to make it visible is hard, painful, slow work, and it takes time." In a sense, the “Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church”, conceived as a gathering of all the heads of the 14 independent Orthodox churches around the world in Crete June 16-27, has been at least a millennium in the making. More proximately, planning has been underway since 1961, meaning more than a half-century....

Belgrade, June 9, Interfax - The Serbian Orthodox Church joined a number of local Churches which do not consider participation in the Pan-Orthodox Council slated for late June on Crete possible. "Our Church sees obstacles to participation in the Holy and Great Council and proposes to postpone it for the time being," the letter of the Serbian Orthodox Church Synod to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who is responsible for coordination of the preparations of the Council, said. Before holding this historical event it is necessary to resolve the differences between the local Churches, reach a consensus and revise...

Every Friday, just yards from a statue of Bill Clinton with arm aloft in a cheery wave, hundreds of young bearded men make a show of kneeling to pray on the sidewalk outside an improvised mosque in a former furniture store. The mosque is one of scores built here with Saudi government money and blamed for spreading Wahhabism — the conservative ideology dominant in Saudi Arabia — in the 17 years since an American-led intervention wrested tiny Kosovo from Serbian oppression. Since then — much of that time under the watch of American officials — Saudi money and influence have...

Six people have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling weapons to radical Islamists in Sweden, Bosnian Serb authorities said on Friday. ... Authorities further stated that another person had "previously" been arrested in Sweden, while another two remained at large. Five arrests were made by Bosnian-Serbian anti-terrorism officials on Thursday, said officials, after large quantities of military-grade weapons were found during police raids. ... According to claims in Bosnian Serb media cited by TT, police suspect that the smugglers had intended to deliver the weapons to a group in Sweden called 'Muslim Brothers'. It was not immediately known whether or...

Saudi Arabia’s [Prince] Turki al Faisal addressing Bill Clinton at Clinton Global Initiative shindig, September 25, 2012: “Muslims will never forget your deliverance of Bosnia-Herzogovenia and Kosovo, and near-deliverance, within 100 meters, of Palestine from occupation.” There by a smiling Chelsea’s side, in a room full of people who warmly approve of the term Israeli “occupation”: her sellout Jewish husband.

Over 10,000 people turned out Saturday for the reopening of a mosque in Bosnia that was blown up by Christian Orthodox Serbs during the 1992-1995 war and that became a symbol of the effort to destroy Bosnia’s centuries-long multireligious fabric. The Ferhat Pasha mosque — also called Ferhadija — was a masterpiece of 16th-century Ottoman architecture and one of the 16 mosques in Banja Luka — or one of the 534 throughout the country — that were destroyed or damaged by Bosnian Serbs in order to erase any traces of those they were expelling or killing. Their aim was to...

The historic Manhattan cathedral that was gutted in a massive fire was one of four Christian Orthodox churches to go up in flames on Orthodox Easter Sunday — sparking fears of a coordinated attack on the religion. While FDNY officials said the blaze at the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava on West 25th Street does not appear suspicious, members of the Orthodox community have doubts. They are worried that the blaze — along with church fires in Australia and Russia — were set in retaliation for the religion’s role in blocking the canonization of Croatian Nazi supporter Cardinal Aloysius...