Free Republic

In a secret project tied to the overall U.S. campaign against the Islamic State, intelligence officials have spent months mapping out known physical locations of media safe houses where the extremist group’s operatives are compiling, editing and curating raw video and print materials into finished digital propaganda products for dissemination across the Internet. Most of the locations are embedded in heavily residential areas in Syria, Iraq and Libya and are not being targeted by U.S. airstrikes because of Obama administration concerns about civilian casualties, according to sources who spoke to The Washington Times only on the condition of anonymity.

Hundreds of U.S. soldiers entered the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Sunday in the first major push into the area since an American-led security sweep began last month around Baghdad. Soldiers conducted house-to-house searches, but met no resistance in a district firmly in the hands of the Madhi Army militia led by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Lt. Col. David Oclander.

WASHINGTON - the American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will announce Friday the first details of a "diplomatic plan" international for the Middle East, indicated to AFP a high person in charge for the State Department.Mrs. Rice, who prepares to go in the area, "will have something to say this afternoon", declared the person in charge American."We are working in a diplomatic plan which would tackle the violence to which we attend and the roots of this violence", it added. "It will be an international effort".According to the American chain NBC, Mrs. Rice tries to organize a meeting of...

Michael Savage said tonight on his radio program that the Jan. 31st elections in Iraq were merely a fraud and a prop. Of all people I thought Savage would welcome democracy in the Middle East. But he seems to think that the Iraqis will install an Islamic fundamentalist state. I'd like to get some thoughts on this.