Free Republic

The president and CEO of The Associated Press called on Monday for changes to international laws that would make it a war crime to kill journalists or take them hostage. Gary Pruitt said a new framework is needed to protect journalists as they cover conflicts in which they are increasingly seen as targets by extremist groups. […] Last year was a particularly deadly year for the AP—four of the news cooperative’s journalists were killed on assignment. Globally, 61 journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2014, bringing to more than 1,000 the number who have died since 1992,...

A new report from the United Nations human rights division claims the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) may have committed genocide and war crimes as they attempt to establish a caliphate through the Middle East. The UN sent investigators to Syria and Iraq last year after the terrorist group started to pummel through Syria. The evidence they found since last June led them to believe the abuses “may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.”

U.S.-trained and armed Iraqi military units, the key to the American strategy against ISIS, are under investigation for committing some of the same atrocities as the terror group, American and Iraqi officials told ABC News. Some Iraqi units have already been cut off from U.S. assistance over "credible" human rights violations, according to a senior military official on the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

Bangladeshis Protest After Atheist Writer Avijit Roy Hacked To Death Hundreds rally against fundamentalism in Dhaka as Islamists claim responsibility for murder of prominent US-Bangladeshi blogger Bangladeshi secular activists take part in a torch-lit protest against the murder of Avijit Roy, founder of the Mukto-Mona (Free-mind) blog site. He had received death threats from Islamists before arriving in the country. Saad Hammadi in Dakha and Mark Tran Friday 27 February 2015 Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Dhaka in protest at the murder of a prominent secular American blogger of Bangladeshi origin who was hacked to death...

What is the Islamic State? Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as...

Rev. Graham: ‘Imagine the Outcry if 21 Muslims Had Been Beheaded by Christians? … The Storm is Coming’ February 16, 2015 - 2:33 PM By Michael W. Chapman Subscribe to Michael W. Chapman RSS Follow Michael W. Chapman on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Twitter More Sharing Services 102 The Islamic State beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians over the weekend, propping the severed heads on the victims’ backs, a barbaric slaughter that led Reverend Franklin Graham to ask, “Can you imagine the outcry if 21 Muslims had been beheaded by Christians?” “Where is the universal condemnation by Muslim leaders around...

The 21 men beheaded on a Mediterranean beach in a video released by Islamist savages Sunday were killed because of their Coptic Christian faith, by men who proclaimed the reason for the murders before the whole world. And the White House won’t say the word. Christian beheading victims are marched to the beach in Libya to be murdered by Islamist militants on Sunday. (Daily Mail photo) “The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of 21 Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists,” a statement issued by the White House said.“ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds.  It is unconstrained by...

The BBC’s coverage of the bombing of Dresden in which Britain was described as ‘worse than the Nazis’ was condemned as disgraceful by RAF veterans and MPs last night. Despite dedicating more than 32 minutes of airtime to the 70th anniversary of the fire-bombing that killed tens of thousands at the end of the Second World War, there was barely a mention of British airmen who lost their lives. The BBC’s four major news shows and Radio 4 interviewed multiple German survivors of the bombings. They also showed a British prisoner of war who berated those who ordered the raids,...

Haditha: Where Are They (the Accusers) Now? Diana West January 18, 2012 Eight charged; seven cleared; one, please, let’s hope, to go.Finally, the last “Haditha” trial is in progress, and, thanks to Nat Helms at Defend Our Marines, everything you need or want to know about the proceedings, the witnesses, the facts about the case of SSGT Frank D. Wuterich, the last of the Marine Mohicans, is here. Tim McGirk, source of the Haditha myth-acre. Of course, I still have a few questions — the exact same questions I had when I first looked at the case back in late...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama had a bad day at the office this week. His top advisers were leaving him in droves. His fourth nominee to be defense secretary was taking positions that betrayed deep disagreements over national security issues. And a long line of Republican presidential contenders have begun lobbing a barrage of attacks on his policies that aren't going to end until Nov. 4, 2016. Ashton B. Carter, Obama's choice to run the Pentagon, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday that he was "very much inclined" to provide high-powered weaponry to the besieged Ukrainian government to deter Russian...

Germany’s top human rights official has urged Israel to cooperate with the International Criminal Court probe into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories. After the investigation was announced last week, Israel’s government immediately said it would not work with The Hague-based court and called for its funding to be cut. The government’s human rights commissioner, Christoph Strässer, said in an interview published Tuesday that Israel’s reaction was counterproductive. …

The Islamic State militant group has released an online video saying it will kill 2 detained Japanese nationals unless Japan pays ransom within 72 hours.

More than 40 European leaders and almost every French official turned out for the massive unity rally in Paris Sunday — but there was no sign of the U.S. Neither President Obama or Vice President Biden made the trip to Paris, although dozens of other world leaders and officials put ceremony aside and jostled for space amid the crowds in a stirring show of support against terrorism. The U.S. did send Attorney General Eric Holder to attend a pre-march terrorism summit convened by French President Francois Hollande. Holder, 63, joined with Hollande in condemning the recent Paris attacks in the...

Palestinian source says Hamas, Islamic Jihad willing to risk counter-suit should Israel be investigated Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for war crimes allegedly committed during the 50-day war with Hamas and other Gaza terror groups last summer. In the request filed with the Dutch Embassy Thursday morning, Abbas asked the court in The Hague to investigate Israel retroactively for alleged war crimes starting from June 13, 2014 — a day after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered by a Hamas cell in the West Bank, an unnamed NGO worker told...

Islamic State militants are boasting that they have developed a dirty bomb — a crude nuclear weapon using materials seized from Mosul University, Iraq. [A] letter written by the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.N. to the body’s Secretary-General confirm[ed] that some 88 pounds of uranium that could be adapted for a dirty bomb was seized by militants.

A Cairo judge capped a months long retrial by dismissing the death charges -- reversing the former strongman's convictions in 2012 -- and finding Mubarak not guilty of corruption.

Islamic State commanders are liable for war crimes on a “massive scale” in northeast Syria, where they spread terror by beheading, stoning and shooting civilians and captured fighters, U.N. investigators said on Friday. Their report, based on over 300 interviews with witnesses and victims, called on world powers to bring the commanders before the International Criminal Court for both war crimes and crimes against humanity. “In carrying out mass killings of captured fighters and civilians following military assaults, ISIS (Islamic State) members have perpetrated egregious violations of binding international humanitarian law and the war crime of murder on a massive...

How Obama’s Arab Spring Created the Islamic StatePosted By Raymond Ibrahim On October 6, 2014 @ 12:20 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments Over a decade ago, the U.S. conquered Iraq; its military and intelligence were on the ground for years with autonomy.   In other words, U.S. influence and authority was more pronounced in Iraq than probably any other Muslim country in the world.And yet it is in this one Muslim nation, where the U.S. had most authority, where U.S. blood and treasure were spent, that the absolute worst Islamic terrorist group—the Islamic State—was born.Coincidence?Or is this too related...

It’s been 48 hours since Jah’Keem Yisrael — AKA Alton Noel — perpetrated a horrific terrorist attack on 54 year old co-worker Colleen Hufford, stabbing her repeatedly and then sawing her head off with a knife, and we have yet to hear any acknowledgment from President Obama of this worrisome incident. Why not? All the elements of an Islamic act of terror are present: the savagery,the shouting of Islamic verses during the act, the stated determination to carry out jihad, and a fanatical belief in Islam that, in his mind, justified everything. From a political standpoint, it’s a bad idea...

Just days prior to the ruthless beheading of an innocent woman at the hands of Oklahoma jihadist Alton Nolen, his Imam, Imad Enchassi, garnered international attention after claiming that Muslims--even Muslim children--who resided in Oklahoma were under constant threat of literally having their heads chopped off. Imam Enchassi said in an interview about the threats he allegedly received: “We’re going to chop your head off. We’re going to burn your mosque. We got specific threats of beheading Muslims in the state. Beheading children.” The Imam said of his fellow Muslims’ children: “Yesterday, our children did not go play outside in...