Free Republic

Three Sunni-led countries joined Saudi Arabia on Monday in severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, worsening a geopolitical conflict with sectarian dimensions in one of the world’s most volatile regions. The diplomatic protests from the three countries — Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — came as Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using an attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran two days earlier as a pretext for diverting attention from its problems. Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to the embassy on Saturday, along with the Saudi Consulate in Iran’s second-largest city, Mashhad, after the Saudis executed...

BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday and gave all Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the kingdom, as escalating tensions over the execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia marked a new low in relations between the two Middle Eastern powers. The surprise move, announced in a televised news conference by Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, followed harsh criticism by Iranian leaders of the Saudi execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran by protestors in response. Mr. Jubeir said that the kingdom would not allow...

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continued his diatribe against Saudi Arabia following the execution of of prominent Shi’ite Cleric Nimr-Al-Nimr. “The hand of God will take vengeance against Saudi leaders,” Khamenei said on Sunday morning. Khamenei told Iranian national TV that “for the unjust spilling of blood of this holy man, who suffered and was downtrodden, there will no doubt be heavenly vengeance taken upon Saudi politicians.” Khamenei also said that it was “a political mistake” taken by the Saudis, who are the greatest political and religious rival to Iran in the Persian gulf. Additionally, Khamenei’s website published an...

Gunmen kidnap 26 from Qatari hunting group in Iraq Gunmen kidnapped 26 members of a Qatari hunting party in southern Iraq, officials said on Wednesday, the second high-profile seizure of foreign nationals in the country in three months. Posted December 16, 2015 12:35 GMT "Twenty-six Qatari hunters were kidnapped at about 3:00 am (0000 GMT) by unknown gunmen," according to a police major from Muthanna province, where the kidnappings took place. A local council member from the province confirmed the number of people kidnapped but did not specify their nationality. "Unknown gunmen in dozens of pick-up trucks attacked a place...

12/02/2015 is a significant tragic day for San Bernadino, and the USA. It also happens to be a Very significant Martyrdom Anniversary for Islam... Connections? Islamic Education Center, Atlanta http://www.zainabia.com/sample-page/calendar/important-dates/ Important Islamic Dates 1437 AH (2015 – 2016): 20 Safar, 1437 = December 02, 2015 * Arbayeen (40th Day of Imam Hussain Martyrdom Anniversary)  Muslims observe Arbaeen in Iran - The Iran Project www.theiranproject.com/ blog/ 2015/ 12/ 02/ mus... Proxy Highlight 17 hours ago ... ... elegies are recited in memory of Imam Hussein and his 72 loyal companions. The Arbaeen mourning ceremony is one of the largest religious...

The laws of several western countries, besides the Islamic ones themselves, do not permit anything critical to be said of Islam. Such laws forbid what is called "hate speech." They often include other sub-groups like homosexuals, women, or race. Such laws and customs have practically reduced responsible freedom of speech to a dead letter. Fines and jail sentences are meted out if such laws are violated. Such laws are generally based on a civil peace idea rooted in Thomas Hobbes. That is, violence is caused by religious and philosophical controversy. The only way to prevent it is by a civil...

Islamic attitudes toward non-Muslims are determined by many factors of which two are most necessary to consider. The first is Jihad or Holy War. The second is the concept of Dar Al Harb (Arabic for "House of War") and Dar Al Islam ("House of Submission") in Islamic tradition. "House of War" refers to any territory or people who are not living in submission to Islam. "House of Submission," or Dar Al Islam, refers to any territory or people living in submission to the message of Muhammad. The concept of Jihad (Arabic for Struggle) has been given two interpretations, which...

According to experts, the fundamentalist jihadists who carry out murderous attacks are Muslims whose beliefs are rooted partly in longstanding Islamic teachings. ROME - President Barack Obama refrained from describing Nov. 13's Paris attacks as "Islamic terrorism" or even radical Islamic terrorism, continuing his policy of distancing such atrocities from the religion. But that nonetheless leaves open the question: How Islamic are Islamic terrorists? To equate the attacks with "views of Islam" creates "stereotypes" that are "counterproductive" and "wrong," Obama told reporters at the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, Nov. 16. "They will lead, I think, to greater recruitment into...

Najaf (Iraq) (AFP) - A top leader of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation paramilitary organisation said Monday that Baghdad had turned to Russia because the US-led coalition was not serious about fighting the Islamic State group. A spokesman for the US-led coalition retorted that it had spent $2.3 billion to train and equip Iraqi forces over the past year. "To this day, we have not seen a really serious effort to fight Daesh," Hadi al-Ameri said in the holy city of Najaf, using an Arab acronym for the jihadist organisation. "There are some who try to contain Daesh but not really eliminate...

Saturday's Washington Post had an article which quotes the usual unnamed intelligence sources saying that they are surprised to discover that al Qaeda has "reconstituted" itself. This surprise derives from, inter alia, the computer data found recently in Pakistan, intelligence sources (both ours and friends'), and simply looking at the range of activities in which the terrorists engage. This surprise is, as usual, unsettling, since it has been quite clear for some time now that al Qaeda and the other major terrorist groups — Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Jamaa, etc. — are all working together, and have been ever since...

A prisoner in Saudi Arabia, who was sentenced to death as a child, faces "death by crucifixion" after a final appeal has been dismissed. Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested on 14 February 2012 when he was just 17, during a crackdown on anti-government protests in the Shiite province of Qatif. He was accused by the authorities of participation in illegal protests and of firearms offences, despite there being no evidence to justify the latter charge. Ali was initially held at a juvenile offenders facility, where he was denied access to lawyers. Evidence indicates that he was tortured and forced to...

After perilous sea voyages from neighboring Turkey, they have been stranded here for days, some for nearly two weeks, running out of money and desperate to get to mainland Greece and continue their route. The island of some 100,000 residents has been transformed by the sudden new population of some 20,000 refugees and migrants, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — and the strain is pushing everyone to the limit. ... "Why, man? Why?" one municipality worker, pointing to bottles in the sea, yelled at some young Iraqis sitting by the water throwing bread to fish. ... It doesn't help...

A travel warning for Iraq, updated by the State Department on Monday, continues to warn that “anti-U.S.” Shi’ite militias “may present a threat to U.S. citizens,” naming two groups that are playing a leading role in supporting the Iraqi government’s military campaign against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL). The two Iran-backed groups, Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asaib al-Haq (“League of the Righteous”), are at the heart of the Popular Mobilization Forces, set up last year to help Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government fight the Sunni jihadists of ISIS. Although those groups and U.S. armed forces are both supporting Prime Minister Haider...

The media began its speculation as to why resident Barack Obama appeared to snub Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on a park bench at the G-7 summit. The answer to the question might have much to do with Haider al-Abadi who is running Iraq as a state of militia gangs presenting seven thousand Sunnis for mass execution on the altar of sacrifice for political gain with Iran. .... The disintegration of the Iraqi army being at least three years away from being fully retrained and reassembled, according to the Pentagon and now that Iran calls the shots on who lives...

Many of his foreign fighters come from Afghanistan -- men like Murad, who is now being held in Aleppo as a prisoner-of-war... All he had wanted was an Iranian residence permit, he says... he found himself fighting as a mercenary in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Bashar Assad regime... When a violent explosion caused the house he was in to collapse, he found himself thinking about his daughters, he says. "I screamed and thought I was suffocating. And then, everything around me was quiet." Men arrived and pulled Murad, who was still screaming, out of the...

Iraqi state television is reporting the country's prime minister has ordered security forces not to abandon their positions in Anbar province to the Islamic State group. The order Sunday by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came as some Iraqi forces retreated from Ramadi, the provincial capital. It wasn't clear whether Iraq still maintained any control of the city, which the Islamic State group seized much of in recent days. Already Sunday, coordinated suicide bomb attacks targeted Iraqi forces in Ramadi. Some Iraqi forces apparently left behind their weapons and vehicles. Earlier, al-Abadi ordered Shiite militias to prepare for going into the...

On Monday, Israeli officials reported that Iran has upped its delivery of weapons to the Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah in the past few weeks. Channel 2 stated that the shipments have been made to both Lebanon and the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. In addition, the report stated that Iran was sending weapons to Hamas chiefs in Gaza and arming Hamas members in Judea and Samaria. Channel 2 asserted that the ease in sanctions on Iran from the present nuclear negotiations would allow it to spend “billions of dollars” shipping weapons to Israel’s enemies. The increase in Iranian...

NEW YORK, USA (UPI): Relatives and friends said the four men arrested in an alleged plot to bomb jet fuel tanks at Kennedy International Airport in New York were wrongly accused. "The man is no extremist," Rudy Thorne, a lifelong friend of Abdel Nur in Guyana told the Friday's Miami Herald. Another suspect, Kareem Ibrahim, told a friend in Trinidad that his Shiite branch of Islam meant peace, not overthrowing governments, Wendell Eversley, the friend, told the newspaper. The Herald said the four suspects -- Nur, Ibrahim, Abdul Kadir, and Russell Defreitas -- are black converts to Islam and three...

We talked before about whether Obama is a Sunni or Shiite Muslim. Recent revelations about Obama's father being a Shiite Muslim. Obama hired Valerie Jarrett.. an Iranian operative to run his Administration. Now he's essentially given the green light for Iran to make nuclear weapons. Obama used the Sunni group ISIS to knock out dictators. Once they are in power.. Shiite groups, which outnumber them, will wipe them out and fill the power vacuum. And today he says he would like to visit Iran before the end of his Presidency. The cat's out of the bag folks. The US has...

Airstrikes by Saudi Arabia against Iran-backed Shiite rebels in turbulent Yemen have added a regional dimension to the conflict in the Arab world’s poorest country. Five reasons why the world should care about what is happening there: Yemen is home to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, which Washington has viewed as the most lethal branch of the global network founded by Osama bin Laden. AQAP has been linked to several attempted attacks on the U.S., including the underwear bomb plot of December 2009, and it claimed the January killings at the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie...