Free Republic

The Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD), a branch of Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK), recently declared that they want to form a Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria... is there any place for Assyrians? Is there room in a future ruled by Kurds, considering what happened in northern Iraq? Analysts I talked to are optimistic and see a difference from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in north Iraq. Assyrians make up about 30% of al-Jazeera's population and should have better conditions, they say. But the biggest threat to Assyrians is emigration, since many are fleeing to seek a better life in the West....

The sectarian tensions underlying the conflict in Syria have erupted in Australia, with acts of violence, harassment and threats ... Jamal Daoud, a high-profile community leader in western Sydney, says the situation is becoming "very vicious". Although he is a Sunni Muslim, because of his opposition to removing the Syrian regime by force, Mr Daoud says extremists at home view him with the same hatred they have for Shiites and Alawites. ... the source of the violence in Sydney, the Jabhat al Nusra supporters," he said. "The last two years they have flourished in western Sydney, they have flourished. We...

Sunni Muslim villagers killed four Shiite men on Sunday, accusing them of trying to spread their version of Islam, according to Egyptian security officials. ... A Salafi preacher, Mohammed Hassan, called on Morsi "not to open the doors of Egypt" to Shiites, saying that "they never entered a place without corrupting it." Salafis consider Shiite as heretics.

A group behind assaults on Shiites in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for tandem attacks on a university bus and a hospital that killed at least 24. The Sunni extremist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi announced on Sunday that it had sent a female suicide bomber to strike the bus in Quetta, capital of the restive Balochistan province, killing 14 students from a women's university near a Shiite neighborhood on Saturday. About 90 minutes later, a follow-up attack on the hospital treating survivors left at least 11 dead and led to a prolonged gun battle between security forces and militants occupying part of the...

Iran is to reportedly send 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad in the fight against opposition forces, according to the The Independent on Sunday. In what was described as an Iranian “military decision,” the British newspaper said Iran was now “fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime,” citing unnamed pro-Iranian sources. The sources “have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic’s security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new ‘Syrian’ front on the Golan Heights against Israel,” The Independent’s Robert Fisk wrote. The decision, allegedly made before this week’s presidential election, was...

The crisis in Syria ...a deadly power struggle between two bitterly opposed Muslim ideologies, Sunni and Shia. Already, the war inside Syria has resulted in 93,000 dead and 1.6 million refugees, with millions more displaced internally SNIP On one side are those who follow President Assad, who belongs to the Alawites — a splinter sect from Shia Islam. On the other are ...insurgents drawn from the majority Sunni population, some of whom have close links to the Sunni jihadists of Al Qaeda. SNIP The main pillars of the current Assad regime are the army, the intelligence services and the Ba’athists,...

Top Sunni Muslim cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, says the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization is the “Party of Satan.” In an interview with Al Arabiya aired on Sunday, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, slammed Lebanese Hezbollah group as “party of Satsan” that seeks to “sow discord” among Muslims.

In a further sign that Syria’s civil war is increasingly becoming a theater of battle between Shi’ite and Sunni extremists – under the respective flags of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda – a group of Sunni radicals in Egypt is citing the Syrian situation in its appeal to Sunnis everywhere to support a jihad against Shi’ites. Twenty Egyptian Salafists including Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, urged Sunnis to target Hezbollah and others involved in the fighting in the Syrian town of al-Qusair (al-Qusayr)... thousands of Shi’ite fighters from Hezbollah, Iran and Iraq have been involved in the fighting...

The Central Assembles of God Church (AOG), Iran's largest Persian-speaking Pentecostal church, was closed during a worship service on Monday, according to BosNewsLife. Its pastor, Robert Asserian, was detained on May 21 and moved to an unknown location.BNL said that the Islamic authorities are "eager to maintain their influence [and] wary of groups deemed dangerous to their power base, including growing Christian churches.""These incidents appear to be an attempt to stop worship services from being conducted in Farsi, the language of the majority of Iranians," said George O. Wood, general superintendent of AOG in the United States. "Services are allowed in Armenian,...

Islamist movements and Salafi parties plan to organize a demonstration in Tahrir Square on 15 March to protest what they see as normalization in relations with Iran and Shia Muslims, and to pressure the president and Muslim Brotherhood to stop exchanging visits with Iran. The Salafi Nour and Asala parties, the Jama’a al-Islamiya’s Construction and Development Party and the Muslim Rebels, Sahaba and Omatuna movements, as well as the Hazemoun — a group supporting former presidential hopeful and Salafi Sheikh Hazem Salah Abu Ismail — plan to participate. “We will escalate the matter if the Brotherhood keeps signing agreements with...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Terry Waite, back in Lebanon for the first time since he was freed from years of captivity at the hands of Islamic militants, says he would gladly meet his erstwhile kidnappers. "I wouldn't mind meeting with them at all," the former Church of England envoy said on arrival at Beirut airport. "I'm sure that they have changed, that they have grown and developed, just as much as I have." Waite, who had helped free Western hostages held by extremists in Libya, Iran and Lebanon, came to Lebanon in 1987 to negotiate more releases. Accused of being a...

The world watches the war of words between Israel and Iran. President Ahmadinejad’s call for the annihilation of the Zionist regime has lost its edge because of overuse. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reply that Israel has the right to defend itself is as expected as the sun rising in the morning. However, tensions rose to a new high last week with the comment by Iran’s Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi that “of course this confrontation has always continued; however, since we are in the era of The Coming, this war will be a significant war” (Mashregh news). He was referring to Imam...

The Bashar al-Assad rule in Syria has come under heavy fire from people who believe that the regime must quit over its atrocities. But any attempt by the US-led West to impose a replacement will backfire soon India’s oil-rich western neighbourhood, extending from the Arabian Sea to the Bosporus, is engulfed in conflicts arising from sectarian and civilisational rivalries, aggravated by the meddling of external powers. With an arsenal of over 100 nuclear weapons, Pakistan is today witnessing a period of internal strife, largely arising from the pernicious role of its military establishment and tensions across its disputed borders with...

It’s not often during a papal trip that a Catholic bishop and one of the pope’s official hosts actually corrects the boss, or at least strikes a slightly different note, but it happened Saturday night to Benedict XVI in Lebanon vis-à-vis the most important movement in this part of the world, the “Arab Spring.” Last night, Benedict visited the headquarters of the Maronite church, by far the largest of the seven Catholic churches in the country, to celebrate a youth rally that drew an estimated 20,000 young Lebanese, mostly Catholics but with some Muslims in the crowd as well. Prior...

A Bahraini court has sentenced a man to two years in prison for making insulting comments about one of the Prophet Mohammad's wives... Aisha, a revered figure for Sunni Muslims, in comments online. "The accused entered a website and made comments that were so morally filthy and depraved that the tongue could not pronounce them, and they slandered Aisha ... Underlying tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Muslim countries are often ignited by such issues concerning figures from early Islam and the different interpretations of Sunnis and Shi'ites over the historical events of that period. Such slander cases have become...

In the 1980s, it was Afghanistan to which international Islamic fighters came, helping the mujahedeen successfully take on the Soviet army and its puppet regime in Kabul. Then came Bosnia in the 1990s and Iraq in the 2000s, in both of which veteran jihadists fought a sectarian war on behalf of outgunned Sunni minorities.In 2012, they’re flocking to Syria With funding from private organizations in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait, they are making their way across the frontiers from Iraq and Jordan, hooking up with opposition elements in Syria and taking the battle to Damascus and the heart of the...

A PUBLIC relations stumble between Tehran and Baghdad has intensified speculation that one of Iran’s most senior clerics is about to extend his power—and Iran’s theocratic system—into Iraq.On his return from a visit to Tehran, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office released statements on his meetings with several senior Iranian officials—but it was silent on Mr. Maliki’s encounter with 63-year-old Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. Despite a Baghdad blackout on what is understood to have been their third meeting in recent months, Iran’s government-run news agency IRNA released a photograph of Mr. Maliki and Ayatollah Shahroudi—who is Iraqi by birth—greeting each...

Face of evil: MOHSEN RABBANI The Islamic Shiite cleric active in Latin America since the early 1990s. Responsible for the 1992 and 1994 anti-Jewish massacres in Argentina. Wanted in that country and by the Interpol for the crimes. Called for Israel to be "wiped off," in 1994. 'Chief' Islamic operator of Hezbollah - Quds activities of: Islamizaton --including 'recruting converts for Islam'-- and terror networks in Latin America, resides in Brazil. Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil - Pages 122-3Tom Diaz, Barbara Newman - Random House Digital, Inc., 2006 - History - 272 pagesThe man directly responsible for this cell-building...

At least 14 youths have been stoned to death in Baghdad in the past three weeks in what appears to be a campaign by Shi'ite militants against youths wearing Western-style "emo" clothes and haircuts, security and hospital sources say. Militants in Shi'ite neighborhoods where the stonings have taken place circulated lists on Saturday naming more youths targeted to be killed if they do not change the way they dress. The killings have taken place since Iraq's interior ministry drew attention to the "emo" subculture last month, labeling it "Satanism" and ordering a community police force to stamp it out. "Emo"...

Sean Stone, the son of award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, converted to Islam on Tuesday during a ceremony in the Iranian city of Isfahan. Taking the name “Ali,” Iranian news agencies report that the 27-year-old has converted to Shia Islam, which is practiced by the majority of Iranians. The son of a half-Jewish father and Christian mother, Stone told AFP today that his conversion “is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with,” but shows “I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets.” He has not, however, explained his reason for converting. Reuters reports that Stone is in Iran working...