Free Republic

A leading Syrian Kurdish politician said on Thursday the United States will stay on in Syria to destroy Islamic State, build infrastructure and remain a player in the search for a political settlement after more than 10 years of civil war. The Kurds, who live in the mountainous region straddling the borders of Syria, Armenia, Iraq, Iran and Turkey, carved out self-rule across northeast Syria during the civil war that began in 2011. President Bashar al-Assad was supported by Russia and Iran while the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia was backed by the United States. But in 2019 then-President Donald Trump...

Leading German politicians are planning to attend a demonstration against antisemitism and in solidarity with Israel on Thursday evening, the organizers announced earlier in the day. The event — starting at 7 p.m. (17:00 UTC) in front of the Brandenburg Gate — is being organized by an array of different groups, including the Jewish Community of Berlin, the Kurdish Community in Germany, and the German Trade Union Confederation. The list of speakers included Germany's Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the socialist party (SPD), the leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) Christian Lindner, General Secretary of Angela Merkel's Christian...

Federal agents arrested a self-admitted anarchist and “hardcore leftist” on Friday on suspicion of plotting to violently disrupt planned election-related protests at the Florida state Capitol. Prosecutors said they “averted a crisis” at the Capitol by arresting 33-year-old Daniel Baker, taking him into custody on a charge involving making a threat to kidnap or injure, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida announced in a news release. “Baker issued a call to arms for like-minded individuals to violently confront protestors gathered at the Florida Capitol this Sunday,” prosecutors said. “He specifically called for others to join him...

The Supreme Court rejects the Texas election lawsuit but first... The Christmas Coronavirus Crackdown picking up steam with indoor dining banned in New York City... A 10 pm curfew for restaurants and bars in Delaware... Here in Pennsylvania restaurants and gyms in the Harrisburg area vowing to stay open in defiance... In Boise, Idaho Central District Health is set to vote on a Christmas Coronavirus Crackdown... You will still have to wear a muzzle (mask) after you get the coronavirus vaccine. That is what an immunologist at Stanford University is saying... US Attorney General William Barr was aware of federal...

As Turkey touts its humanitarian aid deliveries to Syria's Idlib, critics weigh the six truckloads of supplies against its thousands of tons of allegedly looted Syrian grain. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported that on Monday, two Turkish charities had sent six trucks carrying humanitarian aid to the rebel-held province of Idlib in northwest Syria. “Truckloads of supplies including flour, clothing and dry food [donated] by the Adana Dosteller and Eskisehir Gunisigi charities entered Idlib through the Yayladagi border crossing in Turkey’s southern Hatay province. The aid will be distributed among families living in tents in Idlib,” Anadolu reported. Turkey’s...

The co-chair of the occupied GIRÊ SPî/ Tel-Abyed Canton Council, Hevin Ismail has considered Turkey's exploitation of the world’s preoccupation with Corona pandemic, and launched simultaneous attacks with Başûr (south Kurdistan) and north and east Syria, with the continued isolation on the leader Abdullah Ocalan, a new conspiracy against the people. "The partnership between Turkey and the Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP is a shame," Hevin Ismail, said "This partnership is pushing Turkey to continue its dirty plans in Başûr, north and east Syria." Attempts to transport infected people with Covid19 to north and east Syria saying: "With the occupation of...

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is an ex-Iranian diplomat whose tenure in Germany coincided with the regime’s assassination of four dissidents on German soil. Yet he currently lives in comfort in the United States. Does he belong here? That’s the question raised by a number of prominent Iranian-Americans in a recent letter to Attorney General Bill Barr. The details are grim. Late evening on Sept. 17, 1992, four men were dining together in the backroom of the Mykonos restaurant, a Greek eatery in central Berlin. They were Iranian exiles who had gathered to meet a prominent Kurdish opponent of the Tehran regime....

A U.S. Senate committee backed legislation on Wednesday to impose sanctions on Turkey after its offensive in Syria and purchase of a Russian S-400 missile system... The Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted by 18-4 to send the “Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act of 2019” for a vote in the full Senate. “Now’s the time for the Senate to come together and take this opportunity to change Turkey’s behaviour,” said Senator Jim Risch, the panel’s Republican chairman, a lead sponsor of the bill with Senator Bob Menendez, the panel’s top Democrat.... “This is not...

United States troops have resumed large-scale counterterrorism missions against the Islamic State in northern Syria, military officials say... On Friday, American soldiers and hundreds of Syrian Kurdish fighters... reunited to conduct what the Pentagon said was a large-scale mission to kill and capture ISIS fighters in Deir al-Zour province, about 120 miles south of the Turkish border. “Over the next days and weeks, the pace will pick back up against remnants of ISIS,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, the commander of the military’s Central Command, told reporters... When the dust settles on all of the troop movements, General McKenzie said he...

A German woman suspected of being an “Islamic State” member has been repatriated along with her three children, according to German media and a Kurdish official. A child from the US has gone through the same process. Syria’s Kurds completed the handover of three German children and their mother, as well as a toddler from the US, to their respective ministries, a Kurdish official confirmed on Saturday. Abdelkarim Omar, a senior official with the Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria, said the transfer of the individuals had taken place on Friday. […] German authorities had previously ordered for the mother, who...

The third-ranking House Republican is calling for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's security men to be denied entry to the United States — or expelled — for beating U.S. citizens after his last visit to the White House. Fifteen of Erdoğan's guards were criminally charged for attacking Americans in Washington in May 2017. The guards were allowed to flee, but two Turkish-American collaborators were sentenced to one year in prison. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, chairwoman of the House Republican Caucus, wrote Monday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that those involved in 2017 attacks should be barred from returning this...

President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria last month kicked up a hornet’s nest, resulting in bitter backlash from members of both parties in Congress, the media, and the American public. The president’s decision was quickly cast as a simplistic, binary decision – in which the removal of American troops all but guaranteed genocide for the abandoned Kurds who have fought valiantly in the battle against ISIS. But the true geopolitical situation is much more nuanced. Protecting Kurdish lives and preserving American troops and assets are not mutually exclusive. It is important to remember the initial motivation for the...

In a ceremony at an ancient, ruined temple in northern Iraq, Faiza Fuad joined a growing number of Kurds who are leaving Islam to embrace the faith of their ancestors -- Zoroastrianism.Years of violence by the Islamic State jihadis have left many disillusioned with Islam, while a much longer history of state oppression has pushed some in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region to see the millennia-old religion as a way of reasserting their identity."After Kurds witnessed the brutality of IS, many started to rethink their faith," said Asrawan Qadrok, the faith's top priest in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.During Fuad's conversion...

"Patently in error" That's British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's view of President Trump..... Speaking to the media at the White House today the President urged Mr. Johnson to work towards an agreement with the EU that will allow large amounts of trade with the United States..... Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage will not stand as a candidate for the House of Commons in the December 12th General Election.... Tires burned and streets blocked Sunday in Baghdad.... In Lebanon on Sunday thousands rallied in support of President Michel Aoun....then anti-government forces came out onto the streets.... A very blunt message from...

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday that his government’s ultimate goal was to restore state authority over Kurdish controlled areas in northeast Syria after an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal but he expected it to happen gradually. In a state television interview Assad also said that a deal between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin to drive out the Kurdish-led YPG militia from a 30 km (19 mile) “safe zone” along the border was a “positive” step that would help Damascus achieve its goal. “It might not achieve everything ... it paves the road...

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has congratulated United States President Donald Trump on the elimination of Islamic State terror-movement leader Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Bin Salman said the historic operation was another step in the fight against terrorism...

In Iran, Eshaq Jahangiri Kouhshahi, the first vice president of the President Hassan Rouhani's regime, said on Oct. 22 that $22 billion of the country's resources were taken to Istanbul and Dubai under the pretext of increasing the value of the country's troubled rial currency. However, the miserable dollar price of the rial was not reduced from the act, and the $22 billion was not returned to the country. Something else was going on. Iran is facing unprecedented economic instability, a horrifying nightmare, along with corruption, embezzlement, and looting. It's institutionalized, so what we can infer from this is that...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that northeastern Syria is suitable for Arab people to live, but not Kurdish people, because of the area’s desert topography. “What is important is to prepare a controlled life in this enormous area, and the most suitable people for it are Arabs. These areas are not suitable for the lifestyle of Kurds ... because these areas are virtually desert,” Erdogan said, pointing to a map of the Syria, in an interview with Turkish television channel TRT. Erdogan’s remarks attempt to defend Ankara’s military offensive, “Operation Peace Spring,” against Kurdish-led militias in Syria,...

Russia's Defence Ministry has criticised the United States' decision to send armoured vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to protect oil fields, calling it "banditry." US Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said the move is aimed at keeping the fields from potentially falling into the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group. The decision was the latest sign that extracting the US military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump has made it out to be. On Saturday, there were several troop movements in Syria...

A new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds a sharp rise in the percentage of Trump voters who do not think the U.S. bears responsibility to do anything about the fighting in Syria. Apparently, President Trump’s pullout -- which has created an unfolding disaster there, including the threat of a reconstituted Islamic State -- may be driving Trump voters away from any sense of responsibility for that region. Which raises a question: What will happen to the GOP in the After Trump era? Will it become a more nationalist party, along the lines of the “America first” vision that Trump has been articulating...