Free Republic

Josh Rogin gets this bombshell from two of the Senators in the closed-door meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry, who briefed them and thirteen other members of Congress on progress in Syria. In short, it doesn’t exist. The chemical-weapons inspection regime set up by Russia to protect Bashar al-Assad is nothing short of a joke, and the peace talks are going exactly where everyone else knew they would … nowhere. Kerry told his former colleagues that he has lost faith in Obama’s policies, and now the US must intervene to stop Syria from being taken over by radical Sunni...

The diplomatic solution to the ongoing Syrian civil war made baby steps last week while the government and opposition have at least managed to hold face-to-face talks last week and agreed to discuss the so-called Geneva Communique - a blueprint for a transition period and eventually for peace in the country. While the Syrian government’s acknowledgement of the U.N.-backed Geneva Communique would count as “success” for a negotiated solution, hopes are slim that the two sides would make significant progress in the second round of talks. Even if they would, its effect on the ground is highly doubtful, since the...

For months, anti-regime activist claims that the Syrian government has cultivated a beneficial relationship with al-Qaeda groups in order to undermine the opposition have fallen on deaf ears. After all, the idea that Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has staked his leadership platform on a campaign against “terrorists”—his term for all anti-government fighters and supporters—would engage with the most radical of all rebel groups, reeks of conspiracy theories. Yet an emerging consensus among analysts and Western diplomats reveals that there might be some truth to the accusations after all. The opposition is now hoping that a shift in the current...

English Translation of @Wikibaghdady Collected by Yousef Bin Tashfin @abounour2006 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a real person who has a fake nickname and title. This is also the case with everyone around him and there isn’t a member of Al-Baghdadi’s inner circle with a real name. Every person in Al-Baghdadi’s inner circle is 100% Iraqi and he doesn’t accept any other nationality because he does not trust anyone. The number of members in the Al-Baghdadi’s military council is about 8 to 13 people. The Military Council is headed by three people from Saddam's army who also belonged to the former...

Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to "moderate" Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and U.S. funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according U.S. and European security officials. The weapons, most of which are moving to non-Islamist Syrian rebels via Jordan, include a variety of small arms, as well as some more powerful weapons, such as anti-tank rockets. The deliveries do not include weapons such as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADs, which could shoot down military or civilian aircraft, the officials said. (Snip)

As has become standard in this Twilight-Zone-episode-of-a-presidency, you've got to look to the foreign press -UK, Australia, Canada, or Germany (ironically)- to get the full story these days... same as volk seeking the truth were forced to in Nazi Germany... This is due of course to the de facto takeover of the American MSM we've been forced to witness over the last five years. Most of these hacks have bet the farm on this administration and are still showing no signs of shame- so expect them to protect him to the bitter end.  And it's not just petty scandals or bizarre nominees/appointees they're hiding anymore- since...

LONDON (Reuters) - In recent weeks Russia has stepped up supplies of military gear to Syria, including armored vehicles, drones and guided bombs, boosting President Bashar al-Assad just as rebel infighting has weakened the insurgency against him, sources with knowledge of the deliveries say. Moscow, which is trying to raise its diplomatic and economic influence in the Middle East, has been a major provider of conventional weapons to Syria, giving Assad crucial support during the three-year civil war and blocking wider Western attempts to punish him with sanctions for the use of force against civilians. The new Russian supplies come...

 Hmmm.... What will happen if the Arabs start thinking for themselves? Labels: Arab backwardness, Arab world, flotilla, Gaza, Syria

Islamist rebels have captured the headquarters of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in the Syrian city of Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not clear what had happened to the jihadists who had been at the hospital in the Qadi Askar district. Inside, the rebels found dozens of prisoners and the bodies of several men who appeared to have been executed. Recent days have seen fierce fighting between ISIS and other rebel groups.

BEIRUT — On Dec. 20, 2013, Molhem Barakat took his last picture of the Syrian war. He had been photographing a battle for control of Aleppo's al-Kindi Hospital when he was killed along with his older brother Mustafa, a fighter in a local rebel brigade. Barakat's cameras, apparently provided to him by the news agency Reuters, were photographed covered in blood in the aftermath of the attack. Barakat was just 18 when he died, but his images -- transmitted through the Reuters photo service -- gave people across the globe a glimpse into his world, and his country's war. But...

Up to 600,000 of Syria’s 2.2 million Christians have fled their homes and are now either refugees or internally displaced persons, according to Aid to the Church in Need. In all, 1.8 million Syrians have left their homes, the charity reported. “The number of Christians killed because they are targeted for their faith is growing,” said Father Andrzej Halemba, the charity’s Middle East projects coordinator. Referring to an October massacre, the priest said that “Sadad is a very clear case. They were slaughtered like animals.”

The Lebanese army fired anti-aircraft missiles at two Syrian warplanes that bombed a border area close to the Lebanese town of Arsal, officials said. It is the first time since the Syrian conflict began that Lebanon has moved to prevent Syrian planes from violating its airspace.

Talk to any Syrian you meet on the Syrian-Turkish border these days, and in less than five minutes the conversation is likely to turn to Da’ash—the Arabic acronym for the rebel organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, or ISIS. Linked to al-Qaeda, the fearsome group has swept across northern Syria, imposing sharia law, detaining and even beheading Syrians who don’t conform to its purist vision of Islam, and waging war on rival militias. In early December, the group killed a foreign journalist, Iraqi cameraman Yasser Faisal al-Joumali, who was reporting in northern Syria. Even using...

The world media is increasingly losing interest in the foreign-fueled war still raging in Syria between the Assad regime and an assortment of Islamist rebel groups backed by the Obama administration, Sunni Arab dictators, and European powers. For embattled Syrian Christians, though — most of whom tried to stay out of the conflict — reports suggest the situation is deteriorating quickly, with over 1,200 documented murders so far, and almost 500,000 forced to flee their homes to escape the escalating violence and ruthless persecution. The real numbers are probably even worse. Experts say the end goal of many jihadist rebel...

In October Christians erected a towering Christ statue at the Cherubim Monastery in the community of Saidnaya, Syria. The statue is taller than the Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.The statue can be seen from Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. The height of the bronze statue is 39 m together with the plinth, which is taller than the statue of the Christ in Rio de Janeiro (38 m). One can see the sculpture from Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. (Public Radio of Armenia)This past week Islamists attacked the monastery and fired on the towering statue.Islamists Attack Ancient Convent in Saidnaya...

Islamist rebels killed at least 15 civilians from the minority Alawite and Druze sects in the central Syrian city of Adra on Wednesday and Thursday, the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Recent videos posted on the internet show Palestinian militants doing target practice with rifles and training to storm buildings while Islamic music plays. They come from the Gaza Strip, where Islamist groups are committed to armed struggle with Israel. But the fighters in this footage are different. They joined rebel forces in Syria's civil war. Earlier this year, Fahd al-Habash from Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp recorded a message asking his family not to mourn him if he died. "If you hear that I have been killed and left this world, rejoice for me because I got what I wished for,"...

BEIRUT — The U.S. government has suspended deliveries of aid to Syrian rebels after an Islamist group overran the main warehouses where the supplies were stored, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday. The cluster of warehouses in the northern Syrian town of Atmeh served as the chief conduit for supplies into Syria for the Supreme Military Council, the Western-backed body that oversees moderate rebel factions fighting in Syria. At the time of the takeover, the warehouses contained U.S.-supplied food, medical kits, some communications equipment and several pick-up trucks, typical of the items the United States is sending under a $16.9...

DAMASCUS, Syria — In a terrace cafe within earshot of army artillery, a 28-year-old graduate student wept as she confessed that she had stopped planning antigovernment protests and delivering medical supplies to rebel-held towns. Khaled, 33, a former protester who fled Damascus after being tortured and fired from his bank post, quit his job in Turkey with the exile opposition, disillusioned and saying that he wished the uprising “had never happened.” In the Syrian city of Homs, a rebel fighter, Abu Firas, 30, recently put down the gun his wife had sold her jewelry to buy, disgusted with his commanders,...

You’ve heard of Mad Cow Disease, the scientific name of which is bovine spongiform encephalopathy — a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). TSE is an incurable fatal disease that affects the brain and nervous system of many animals, including humans. Autopsies of infected brain tissue show a myriad of tiny holes in the cortex, giving it a sponge-like appearance — hence spongiform. (See below) spongy TSE-infected brain tissueThe disorder causes impairment of brain and bodily functions, including memory changes, personality changes, and problems with movement (shaking, trembling) that worsen over time. Like all TSEs, the bovine variant is...