Free Republic

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is trying to force the Obama administration's hand to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.Along with Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), the presidential hopeful on Tuesday introduced legislation calling on the Obama administration to designate the Islamist political group as a foreign terrorist organization.The bill, called the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, comes after a string of evidence suggesting the group supports terrorism, Cruz said, and after similar moves from a handful of foreign countries in recent years."As this bill details, the Brotherhood's stated goal is to wage violent jihad against its enemies, and...

The United States says it is "deeply concerned" about the death sentences handed down to former President Mohamed Morsi and more than 100 other defendants for a 2011 mass prison break. "We have consistently spoken out against the practice of mass trials and sentences, which are conducted in a manner that is inconsistent with Egypt's international obligations and the rule of law," a State Department official said Sunday. The sentences were handed down Saturday in a Cairo court. The Grand Mufti, Egypt's top religious authority, will make the final decision on the sentences on June 2. The former president is...

Reports on the death of the fourth circulated in North Sinai, says resident Three judges were killed in an attack on the Al-Arish-Rafah international road Saturday morning as they were heading to a North Sinai court. A North Sinai resident told Daily News Egypt that of the four judges travelling together, four people were killed, including a driver and one judge was severely injured. He added that reports circulated that the fourth died after sustaining injuries as well. The incident comes after ousted former president Mohamed Morsi was handed a preliminarily death sentence Saturday morning, and his papers referred to...

An explosion in southern Lebanon last week destroyed what is believed to have been a Hezbollah weapons depot. This latest in a series of mysterious “accidents” in Hezbollah-controlled precincts proved, as one Israeli official wryly remarked, that those who “sleep with rockets and amass large stockpiles of weapons are in a very unsafe place.” With the Party of God’s overland supply route through Syria choked off by the 22-month-long uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and Israel virtually in total control of the maritime route, Hezbollah’s stockpile is being systematically degraded.Yet the arsenal of Iran’s other regional proxy force, Hamas,...

Tour operators in Egypt have this week held a conference to urge Italian tourists to return, after instability in the country prompted a crisis in the travel industry following the 2011 ousting of dictator Hosni Mubarak. Around 700 tour operators gathered this week at the ‘United for Egypt’ conference held at the Port Ghalib resort, La Stampa reported. Organizers from both countries hoped the meeting would give a much-needed boost to tourism to Egypt, which has seen a dramatic fall-off in recent years. “In 2008 in Egypt there were 1,073,159 Italian travellers. That number literally collapsed and in 2013 local...

Since the start of the ill-named “Arab Spring,” the Muslim Brotherhood has been very much in the news. Coming to power through democratic elections in Egypt and Tunisia, they were toppled within a short time by the people, who discovered their true intentions. There were some in the West – but not all – who saw the light as well. British Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered a comprehensive review of the movement,... its activities in Britain and its impact on the country’s interests. The decision was made because the Brotherhood is allegedly behind terrorist operations in Egypt, and because...

A bomb attack on a tourist bus in the Sinai peninsula has killed at least three South Korean tourists and an Egyptian driver, officials have said. A number of South Koreans were also hurt in the attack, which came as the bus was preparing to cross into Israel. ...

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s trial begins on Monday November 4th, (Valentine’s day in Egypt), and intel rumors are rife that the trial will prove President Barack Obama’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. If former Chief of Egyptian Intelligence Murad Muwafi, can prove Morsi’s agreement to the presence of terrorists in Egypt and providing them with protection, he will be executed for the crime of high treason.

A controversial Homeland Security advisor who was recently promoted to senior fellow is a self-declared Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi supporter. Mohamed Elibiary, who was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council by then-Secretary Janet Napolitano in 2010, tweeted Thursday that his appointment was renewed and his position elevated: Mohamed Elibiary @MohamedElibiary I'm honored to be reappointed to Secretary's Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) and promoted to Sr. Fellow position @DHSgov #Service 12:38 PM - 12 Sep 2013 Elibiary’s tenure on the advisory council created controversy almost from the start. About a year after his appointment, PJ...

Yet Egyptians remain convinced that President Obama is backing the Muslim Brotherhood and deposed President Mohamed Morsi. At a lunch at the Egyptian Ambassador’s residence on Thursday, Dr. Mohamed Abou El-Ghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, bluntly warned a small gathering of journalists and policy wonks that he fears, “America is losing Egypt…There is a very strong perception that they are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and they are against other parties,” he said. ... The latest evidence of Obama’s purported proclivity towards the Brotherhood came in Thursday’s State Department briefing, which has made headlines in Egypt. In it,...

Arizona Senator John McCain is in Egypt with South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham just weeks after the new government, run by the Muslim Brotherhood, was overthrown by the military. Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was heavily protested by millions of people as he tried to turn the fragile State into a dictatorship under Sharia law. More from The Daily Beast: During their whirlwind tour of Cairo Tuesday, two top GOP senators held the most extensive meeting to date between U.S. officials and senior officials in the embattled Muslim Brotherhood, whose supporters are fighting in the streets to overturn last month’s...

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told Matt Lee of the Associated Press Tuesday that the U.S. had “determined that we do not need to make a determination” over whether or not the ousting of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt was a coup. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) called it a coup Tuesday, but the Obama administration has deliberately avoided using the word:

• Egyptian anti-Obama video goes viral, blames him for siding with Muslim Brotherhood US President Barack Obama appears to have angered supporters of ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, as well as supporters of the army coup that toppled him on July 3. Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is at the vanguard of the street protests against Morsi’s ouster, claim the US supported the coup. Those opposed to the Brotherhood claim Washington has been and still is supporting the Islamists. An example of the vitriol in the country can be seen in a new video clip featuring a song by...

On the same day that the U.S. Department of State issued a global terrorism warning, a message suspected to be from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was posted on multiple jihadist web forums on Friday. In the 14-minute audio message, the 62-year-old al-Zawahiri criticizes the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood-backed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, blaming the military coup that resulted in his removal on Americans and 'Zionists.' The crusaders, the seculars, the Americanized army, (former Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak's thugs and some members of Islamic parties with the support of Gulf money and American plotting, all agreed to topple Mohamed...

The Egyptian military has launched an operation in the lawless Sinai peninsula to counter terror and violence against security forces which has intensified in the area since the overthrow of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, Egyptian media quoted military sources as saying Saturday. Operation "Desert Storm" comes amid a spike in attacks in Sinai which have killed around 20 policeman and soldiers since Morsi's ouster on July 3. During a tour of the southern border on Tuesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said that Egypt was poised to launch a large counter-terrorism operation against radical Islamic cells in Sinai. "We receive...

Egypt’s deeply troubled president, Mohamed Morsi, proved to be too uncreative compared to his Turkish brothers in arms when he blamed the mass protests against his Muslim Brotherhood regime on foreign countries only. He could have been better inspired by his Turkish comrades. Even Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay was able to add some (well, the usual) sauce on his "evil foreign powers recipe": The Turkish unrest had been sparked by the Jewish diaspora. So, where, President Morsi, in your assessment of "Tahrir Square – Revisited," are the Jewish conspirators, Western capitals, financial lobbyists, global capitalists, BBC, CNN International,...

The United States urged Arab ally Egypt to pull "back from the brink" after security forces killed dozens of supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and opened a dangerous new phase in the army's confrontation with his Muslim Brotherhood... Washington, treading a fine line with an important Middle East ally and recipient of over $1 billion in military aid, urged the Egyptian security forces to respect the right to peaceful protest... U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to two senior members of Egypt's army-installed interim cabinet, expressing his "deep concern." "This is a pivotal moment for Egypt," he...

Foreign policy is hard. That's a lesson Barack Obama has been learning throughout his presidency. The world is not responding as he expected. It looks simpler from the outside. Promise to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, proclaim yourself the tribune of hope and change, receive the adulation of giant crowds in Europe and accept the Nobel Peace Prize.Obama entered office, as many presidents have, with the assumption that his predecessor's policies were wrongheaded and could readily be reversed. Because he didn't look like other presidents, in his phrase, he believed he could change the attitudes unfriendly leaders had towards...

Overseas the Arab Spring is turning into the Arab Nightmare that everyone but the Obama administration always saw coming. At home the Obama Crew is fighting to socialize all of America's health care system, strangling the energy industry with new emissions regulations, and being exposed for ordering federal employees to spy on each other. And what do our mainstream media think is the most important issue of the day? The minute-by-minute play-by-play of the Zimmerman trial. Yes sir, America. Don't worry your little heads about the coming chaos in the Middle East. Or how the Obama administration's neutral position in...

A letter by a top Libyan official blames the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens on Mohamed Morsi, the now deposed president of Egypt...