Free Republic

Interpol (The International Criminal Police Organization) has requested the arrest of the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and global Sunni Islamist diaspora, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, whose radical past includes praising suicide bombers against innocents as martyrs and describing Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as Allah’s gift to the world. Interpol is charging the terror Sheikh with agreement, incitement, and assistance to commit premeditated murder, facilitating a prison escape, arson, vandalism, and theft. Qaradawi has been known to espouse horrifically anti-Semitic sentiments, often praising figures such as Adolf Hitler and his Holocaust of 6-million Jews. “he managed to put them [Jews]...

The number of people killed by terrorists worldwide in 2013 rose by 60 percent compared to the previous year – from 11,133 to 17,958 – with four Sunni Muslim extremist groups responsible for two-thirds of all fatalities, according to a comprehensive annual study. Eighty-two percent of fatalities occurred in just five countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria, although the number of countries that experienced more than 50 terror-related deaths also rose – to 24, compared with 15 the previous year. ... Four Sunni groups were responsible for 66 percent of all terror fatalities in 2013. In order of...

The vengeance that Iraq's Shiite militias mete out as they fight the Islamic State group can be just as brutal as that of their sworn sectarian enemies. In a grisly video recently posted online, a Shiite fighter shouts the name of a revered imam in victory as he poses beside decapitated bodies. Another militiaman sits nearby, grinning as he maims a corpse. One bearded militiaman explains the bodies are those of fighters who "killed our comrades." Another man shouts, "Our fighters were good guys. These are dogs."

Is the Middle East becoming less Arab? Hisham Melhem Saturday, 8 November 2014 President Obama’s letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he laid out the foundation of a new relationship emanating from a nuclear compromise, and stressed shared U.S.-Iranian interests in combatting the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is emblematic of a gradual and subtle shift in Washington’s attitudes towards the region in general and its Arab actors in particular. In this rapidly changing Middle East, the U.S. sees a diminishing Arab influence brought about by the erosion of the state system, lack...

Bill Maher has been banned from Berkley due to his Islamaphobic beliefs. He’s been in the hot seat for weeks now because he dared to imply there may be an innate streak of violence within Islam that has nothing to do with our foreign policy. This is blasphemy among the left; they are happy to sacrifice one of their own to the Gods of political correctness if he strays from the path. The “Why they hate us” meme is the myth that will not die. Suicidal maniacs are portrayed by both sides of the American political spectrum as rational adults...

JURF AL-SAKHAR, Iraq - After helping government forces break Islamic State's grip over a strategic town just south of Baghdad on Saturday, Shi'ite militias decided it was time for payback ... As the angry crowd of militiamen around the unarmed militants swelled, shots rang out. The three men lay soaked in blood in the dirt with gunshot wounds to the head. "Those dogs are Chechens. They don't deserve to stay alive. We took confessions from them and we don't need them anymore," said one of the Shi'ite militiamen. The victory could allow Iraqi forces to prevent the Sunni insurgents from...

The Long War Journal: Al Douri forms nationalist Sunni coalition; 1920s Revolution Brigades denounces al Qaeda Written by Bill Roggio on October 4, 2007 11:34 AM to The Long War Journal Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/10/al_douri_forms_natio.php The Sunni insurgency continues to fracture as US and Iraqi forces are on the offensive in central and northern Iraq. Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, the most wanted Baathist and leader in the Sunni insurgency, has formed a new insurgent front which is willing to negotiate, while a faction of the 1920s Revolution Brigades openly denounced al Qaeda. A grouping of 22 Sunni insurgent groups have...

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) told Fox News Sunday that she worried President Barack Obama was only confronting ISIS to help Democrats in the upcoming midterms, and that he would ease up on the Sunni militants after the election. “I think we have a problem where the president’s foreign policy is being trapped by his campaign rhetoric,” Ayotte said. “I’m very fearful as we look at the current military strategy that it is surrounding the November elections, and he won’t have the resolve to follow through with what needs to be done in a sustained effort to destroy ISIS.”

(CNSNews.com) – Vice-President Joe Biden’s stinging assessment that Sunni allies had been “our largest problem” in fueling extremism in Syria – comments for which he has now apologized – are in contrast to remarks he made two years ago when he said the U.S. was “working hand in glove” with those countries on Syria. Back then, Biden assured Americans that the administration and Sunni nations in the region were closely cooperating in their response to the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad. “We are working hand in glove with the Turks, with the Jordanians, with the Saudis and with all...

A man from Pankisi Gorge stabbed his sister in the chest with a knife for refusing to wear a hijab. The brother, 35, inflicted 7 wounds on his 33 year old sister, a former police officer. Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge is located in the northeast of the country. The majority here are Kists, a subgroup of Chechens adhering to the Sunni branch of Islam. The wounded woman underwent emergency surgery at the local hospital. His brother was arrested and is under investigation for attempted murder. The stabbed woman worked for several years as a police officer at Duisi police station, but...

Washington DC thinks we are stupid, they really do. The professional political class has yet to grasp the understanding that “WWW” as a prefix in the internet stands for “World Wide Web”. We are quite capable of connecting, collecting and digesting information directly from the heart of the issues being debated. Despite all the DC pontifications, obfuscations, and professional talking points to the contrary, we know in Syria there are two options, support Bashir Assad or support radical Islamists, that’s it. There is no mysterious “moderate” third option; the “rebels” are radical islamists. President Obama and Republican Senator John McCain...

Thousands of children in swaths of war-torn Syria, now controlled by dreaded Islamic State militants, can no longer study math or social studies under new diktats issued by the jihadists. While sports is banned, the children will not be allowed to learn about elections and democracy. Instead, the children will be subjected to the teachings of the radical Islamist group. And any teacher who dares to break the rules "will be punished." ... The Sunni militant group has captured a slew of Syrian and Iraqi cities in recent months as it tries to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, spanning...

The Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) is being touted as the newest “threat” to the American homeland: hysterics have pointed to Chicago as the locus of their interest, and we are told by everyone from the President on down that if we don’t attack them – i.e. go back into Iraq (and even venture into Syria) to root them out – they’ll soon show up on American shores.How is this supposed to work? Well, you see, that monster who beheaded James Foley had a British accent, and there are reports of more than a few Brits (and Americans) traveling to...

Siege of Mecca, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria: US and Gulf Destabilization PoliciesMurad Makhmudov and Lee Jay WalkerModern Tokyo Times In the 1980s the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and some other nations began to fund Sunni Islamic terrorism in Afghanistan. This meddling came hot on the heels of the Siege of Mecca in Saudi Arabia in 1979. Therefore, funding radical Sunni Islamism in Afghanistan came at a very opportunistic time for the rulers based in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan became the central base in training international jihadists and spreading Islamism in Afghanistan. Irrespective of the motives in...

Sunni politicians in Iraq have suspended talks to form a new government, in protest of a mass killing inside a mosque in the northeastern province of Diyala. In a statement on Saturday, Salim al-Jabouri, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, denounced as "terrorists" the Shia armed group suspected of killing at least 73 people inside a Sunni mosque.... Jabouri and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak are demanding that outgoing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the main Shia parliamentary bloc hand over the perpetrators within 48 hours and compensate the families of victims, the AP news agency reported. [....] The attack on...

ISIS is an expression of the murderous hate within Islam. We are not only at war with an acronym, but with the dark hatred in the hearts of men, some of whom are in Iraq, Pakistan, and some of whom live next door Know your enemy. To know what ISIS is, we have to clear away the media myths about ISIS. ISIS is not a new phenomenon. Wahhabi armies have been attacking Iraq in order to wipe out Shiites for over two hundred years. One of the more notably brutal attacks took place during the administration of President Thomas Jefferson....

The battle of our centuryFATHER RAYMOND J. DE SOUZAIt is not a war between religions. It is a war within Islam that has lethal consequences for all those it touches. It began dramatically on Sept. 11, 2001. Our century is characterized by a lethal theological war in the house of Islam, with brutal consequences for the whole world, whether it be lower Manhattan or northern Iraq. Centuries are not exactly 100 years long. The late British historian Eric Hobsbawm proposed a more persuasive division of history with his "long 19th century," which began with the French Revolution in 1789 and...

US drones fired on an Islamic extremist mortar position in northern Iraq on Tuesday to protect Kurdish forces battling to rescue a group of Yazidi civilian refugees, the military said. The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the region's most powerful Sunni jihadist group, has driven thousands of members of the Yazidi minority from their homes and is besieging the refugees on an exposed mountain. Last week, the United States launched an air campaign to break the siege of Mount Sinjar, bring humanitarian relief to the Yazidis and support Kurdish troops protecting their capital Arbil. "US military...

Yazidis fleeing a jihadist onslaught in northern Iraq say neighbours took up arms alongside their attackers, informing on members of the religious minority and helping the militants take over. "The (non-Iraqi) jihadists were Afghans, Bosnians, Arabs and even Americans and British fighters," said Sabah Hajji Hassan, a 68-year-old Yazidi who managed to flee the bloody offensive by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group. "But the worst killings came from the people living among us, our (Sunni) Muslim neighbours." "The Metwet, Khawata and Kejala tribes -- they were all our neighbours. But they joined the IS, took heavy weapons from them,...

I must offer this premise. There is no easy way out nor an easy path to follow. But we are indeed down a path, one that attacks the Sunni backed ISIS. We now have picked sides in a religious war. What must be realized in this region of the world, the Mideast, is that borders drawn by westerners are of little matter to they who live in the region. And that is precisely what the national delineations are, lines drawn by westerners. From the Sykes–Picot Agreement which in a fatigued fog resulting from WW I drew up the borders of...