Free Republic

Syrian civil war grew out of a popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, part of Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East. The brutal response of the security forces against initially peaceful protests demanding democratic reform and end of repression triggered a violent reaction. An armed rebellion to the regime soon took hold across Syria, dragging the country into a full-scale civil war. Main Issues: The Roots of the Conflict The Syrian uprising started as a reaction to the Arab Spring , a series of anti-government protests across the Arab world inspired by the...

The bloody collapse of Libya – which triggered a refugee crisis and aided the rise of Isis – is blamed today on David Cameron's blunders when he intervened to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi. A damning report by MPs condemns the 2011 military campaign for lacking both “accurate intelligence” and a coherent strategy for the aftermath of removing the dictator. The disastrous results were “political and economic collapse”, tribal warfare, the refugee crisis, widespread human rights abuses and the rise of Islamic State (IS) in North Africa, fuelled by weapons abandoned by the Gaddafi regime. The Foreign Affairs Select Committee concludes: “Through...

International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates 20,484 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea since the beginning of 2017, with numbers likely to explode as the continent heads into spring. These totals do not include 3,312 migrants picked up off Libya on the 19th of March who are currently en route to Italy, according to the text of the IOM’s report. Including these migrants puts the number of Italian arrivals well ahead of the total for the first three months of 2015 (10,165) and the first three months of 2016 (18,777) – and March 2017 has over a week

What would Open Society Foundation (OSF) president and fund manager George Soros want with the small, landlocked nation of Macedonia? As it turns out, plenty. The Daddy Warbucks of progressive causes is working overtime to weaken European borders and facilitate the flow of refugees from the Middle East by sending money to disrupt nations holding both democratic elections and cracking down on illegal immigration. But he hasn't done it alone. The U.S. State Department has been working right alongside him. The aid that the U.S. has provided to Macedonia during their long friendship has been channeled through the U.S. Agency...

Throughout the Middle East, reformers have been driven away by autocratic rulers. We Westerners are desperate to see the political systems in the Middle East evolve from authoritarian theocratic or oligarchical models to some variation of representative government. That desire suffered another setback on Saturday when former Egyptian presidential candidate Ayman Nour, 41, was sentenced to five years in prison for (what outside observers insist are trumped-up charges of) forgery. Up and down the region - Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority - the Western pluralist model of representative democracy has failed because broadminded, Western-oriented reformers have been...

After a spate of killings by suspected militants have spread fears among the Coptic community in Egypt, hundreds of Christians have decided to flee from the area for fear of being targeted next. At least six Christians have been brutally murdered in the last month and no group has claimed responsibility.EL-ARISH, Egypt - Suspected Islamic militants gunned down a Coptic Christian man and stabbed his daughter to death inside his home in northern Sinai, the sixth such killing in a month’s time in the restive region, officials and a Christian priest said Friday, prompting hundreds of Christians to flee from...

The Washington Free Beacon reports that a senior Muslim Brotherhood official who, until fairly recently, was employed by the William J. Clinton Foundation, was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday and charged with inciting violence. The official, Gehad el-Haddad, had been serving as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s top communications officials. In that capacity, while the Muslim Brotherhood controlled Egypt, he “push[ed] the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda in the foreign press, where he was often quoted defending the Brotherhood’s crackdown on civil liberties in Egypt,” according to the Free Beacon. El-Haddad served the Clinton Foundation in Cairo as “city director” from...

Gehad El-Haddad, the now-imprisoned former spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's so-called "Freedom and Justice Party," was effectively the "Baghdad Bob" of the Arab Spring. Educated in the UK and the son of a top Muslim Brotherhood leader, Gehad served as the special advisor on foreign policy to deposed Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi. Gehad incited violence, justified the torture of protesters, recycled fake news stories, and staged fake scenes of confrontation during the 2013 Rabaa protests. He was arrested in September 2013 after the fall of Morsi and the bloody confrontations during the breakup of the Muslim Brotherhood's protest...

DUBAI (Reuters) – Gulf Arab states are quietly applauding the arrival in the White House of a hawkish leader opposed to their adversary Iran, even if they suspect Donald Trump’s short temper and abrasive Tweets may at times heighten tensions in the combustible Middle East. While many countries around the world listened with concern to his protectionist inaugural address, Gulf Arab officials appear optimistic. They see in Trump a strong president who will shore up Washington’s role as their main strategic partner in a region central to U.S. security and energy interests. In Gulf Arab eyes, that involves above all...

Video: What’s really happening in Syria? Hint: Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and the Mainstream Media have been lying to us. Eva Bartlett is an independent journalist from Canada. She has traveled to Syria many times to investigate human rights violations and terrorism against Syrians. What she has found out is a truth completely opposite of what the Mainstream Media and governments claim.

How did this debacle come about? First, in calling for the overthrow of Bashar Assad, who had not attacked or threatened us, we acted not in our national interests, but out of democratist ideology. Assad is a dictator. Dictators are bad. So Assad must go. Yet we had no idea who would replace him. It soon became clear that Assad’s most formidable enemies, and probable successors, would be the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, or ISIS, then carrying out grisly executions in their base camp in Raqqa. U.S. policy became to back the “good” rebels in Aleppo, bomb...

WASHINGTON — The United States was said to have planned to destabilize at least two Arab countries over the last two years. A former leading U.S. military commander asserted that the administration of President Barack Obama worked to destabilize the regimes of Bahrain and Egypt. Ret.] Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the administration’s drive against Bahrain, wracked by a Shi’ite revolt, was led by the intelligence community.

Given American policymakers' ignorance of Islam, "I am just worried about people like me running around with big theories trying to set foreign policy," stated famed intellectual historian Francis Fukuyama in Washington, D.C. His confession occurred at "Democracy in the Arab World: The Obama Legacy and Beyond," a recent conference that did little to alleviate the knowledge deficit among hackneyed Islamism apologists. Fukuyama's luncheon address at the downtown JW Marriot luxury hotel focused on the cultural factors that aided the development of modern societies. While China benefited from the appearance 2,300 years ago of the "first modern, relatively impersonal state,"...

It is unclear if NATO aircraft were involved in helping secure Gaddafi's capture by Libyan forces on the ground. A group of rebels approached the pipe where Gaddafi was hiding and ordered him to come out, which he did, albeit slowly. He was then dragged up to his feet as rebels shouted "Muammar, Muammar!" Gaddafi was killed shortly afterwards. There are conflicting reports; according to one report, Gaddafi said "Please don't shoot!" prior to being shot, and when questioned by Misratan rebel fighters about the damage done to Misrata by his forces, denied any involvement, and begged his captors not...

U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki was seemingly caught on a hot mic calling one of her prepared statements on one of America’s policies on Egypt “ridiculous” following a press conference. When reporters, including the Associated Press’ Matt Lee, pressed her to comment on the acquittal of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, she provided a pre-written response. “Generally, we continue to believe that upholding impartial standards of accountability will advance the political consensus on which Egypt’s long-term stability and economic growth depends,” she said. “But beyond that, I would refer you to the Egyptian government.” She refused to say anything...

Among those convicted and sentenced to death on Monday was Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood's spiritual guide. If his sentence is confirmed, it would make him the most senior Brotherhood figure sentenced to death since one of the group's leading ideologues, Sayed Qutb, was sentenced and executed in 1966. In announcing the 683 death sentences for violence and the killing of policemen, Judge Said Youssef on Monday also said he was referring his ruling to the Grand Mufti, the nation's top Islamic official — a requirement under Egyptian law, but one that is considered a formality. It does, however, give a...

The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic militants, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats. No evidence has emerged linking the weapons provided by the Qataris during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to the attack that killed four Americans at the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in September. But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand...

WikiLeaks: Hillary Sponsored Arab Spring To Destabilise Middle East September 26, 2016Nwo ReportLeave a commentGo to comments WikiLeaks has released a memo proving that Hillary Clinton sponsored the Arab Spring whilst serving as Secretary of State in order to destabilize the Middle East. Hillary secretly pursued a controversial program that encouraged activists to violently protest for regime change in various countries across the Middle East, according to a memo that Clinton aide Huma Abedin sent to her boss. “I’m giving you credit for inspiring the ‘peaceful’ protests,” Abedin told Hillary via email. Breitbart.com reports: The United States government is believed...

Everyone is waiting for a way out of Aleppo, says 28-year-old Monther Etaky, a graphic designer who lives there. "The city is now a ghost city," the father of a two-month-old boy tells CNN. "There are only ambulances and fire trucks around and over the past three days the shelling has been horrible. "Usually I get used to the barrel bombs and I could sleep normally -- but now I can't -- the new missiles are so loud and horrifying."

Obama bundler Jodie Evans, far left, protests in Yemen with al Qaeda tied group al Karama, June 17, 2013. Photo via al Karama. Obama bundler Jodie Evans and Code Pink, the leftist group she co-leads, have been found to be working with a group whose leaders have recently been declared terrorists and al Qaeda supporters by the Treasury Department. This is not the first time the Democratic Party allied group has been caught in bed with terrorists. As this writer has reported over the years, Code Pink works with terrorists, state sponsors of terrorists, the Democratic Party and President Barack...