Free Republic

The long, convoluted, and somewhat disgusting history of KSA to the present day.

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

The actor converted to Catholicism after filming Abel Ferrara's 'Padre Pio.'Shia LaBeouf has been received into the Catholic Church after taking the sacrament of confirmation, and is reportedly considering becoming a deacon. The Catholic News Agency reports that the Transformers star was confirmed Sunday by Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota. “We are thrilled to share that our dear friend Shia LaBeouf has fully entered the Church this past weekend through the sacrament of confirmation,” the Capuchin Franciscans from Western American Province said in a statement posted to Facebook. Friends, please join me and the Capuchin friars in continued prayer...

The Alrasool Islamic Center of Utah is a vital place of worship for members of the Shi'a Muslim faith throughout the Intermountain West, not just for Salt Lake County's congregation. The 129-year-old building that originally housed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only place of worship available for members of the Islamic sect in Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming. It also helps many refugees coming into the region from the Middle East in addition to the Utahns it serves.

The current conflict between the Jewish State and the Muslims of Gaza is in no small part fueled by the tenets of Islam. Islam hates Jews. It hates Christians. It hates Baha’i. It hates … all non-Muslims. Non-Muslim Muslim apologists beware -- you're next, even if you are too stupid and naïve to see it coming. Islam is a cult. : Absolute authoritarianism without accountability. Zero tolerance for criticism or questions. ... A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave (apostacy is punishable by death). Followers...

Why are individuals who claim to be peaceful Muslims not distancing themselves from Imam Husham Al-Husainy and his anti-American and dangerous rhetoric, but rather endorsing and promoting it? In a remarkable display of power, nearly 5,000 Shia Muslims gathered in Dearborn, Michigan, to commemorate the 40th day of Imam Husayn (A.S) in a significant religious observance known as Chehlum or Arbaeen. This event, which takes place 40 days after Ashura, commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, during the Battle of Karbala. Dearborn, often referred to as the Arab capital of North America, has...

Late last week, a bulldozer toppled a minaret that has watched over the city of Basra, Iraq, for nearly three centuries, leaving local residents dismayed.Minarets like this one serve as the beacons from which Muslims are called to prayer five times each day. At roughly 36 feet tall, this particular minaret has stood since 1727. Cultural officials say that the initial plan had been to preserve and relocate the Siraji Mosque's minaret, which was reportedly contributing to traffic jams, according to Reuters.Officials from the Sunni Endowment Office, which oversees Sunni religious sites, say they had no knowledge of the impending...

Onion and tomato prices have skyrocketed after flash floods washed away large number of crops prompting the Pakistan government to allow imports from neighbouring countries to lower costs. In a shocking case of food wastage, protestors have been seen stopping vehicles carrying imported tomatoes coming from Iran in Kalat district of Balochistan, and destroying the produce on the streets. The bizarre reason as per social media is that the tomatoes are from a Shia country and so Sunni extremists will not allow it.

Shia LaBeouf converts to Catholicism after discovering traditional Latin Mass

The man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie held a fake driver's license bearing the surname of an infamous Hezbollah commander, it has been claimed. That driver's license, which was was found on 24-year-old Hadi Mater bore the name Hassan Mughniyah. Both the first and second names are linked to infamous terrorist organization Hezbollah. The group's current leader is named Hassan Nasrallah. While one of the group's most notorious figures was Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a CIA-linked assassination in Syria in 2008. NBC New York reports that Mater's social media accounts showed that he was sympathetic to Shia...

A man arrested as the prime suspect in the serial killing of four Muslim men in Albuquerque is believed to be a Sunni Muslim himself, it has been reported. Police named the man as 51-year-old Muhammad Syed, who lived in southeast Albuquerque. He emigrated from Afghanistan 'in the last few years', police said on Tuesday, and was twice charged with domestic violence - but charges were dropped. Court records obtained by DailyMail.com show Syed was arrested in May 2018 and charged with 'battery (household member)'. He pleaded not guilty, and prosecutors dropped the charges in August of that year. Four...

An 18-year-old Maine man and two other teens, one in Chicago and another in Kentucky, conspired to attack a Chicago mosque with homemade explosives this month, new court documents reveal - until the FBI unraveled the plot. The teens, agents said, concocted a scheme to massacre worshippers at the Shia mosque in the name of ISIS. The recently unsealed federal filing alleges that Xavier Pelkey of Waterville and two teens, who were not named in court papers because they are juveniles, communicated through Instagram and other platforms to plot the attack. They planned to convene in the Windy City for...

A large explosion tore through a Shi'ite mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar during Friday prayers, killing at least 33 people and wounding 73, officials said, the second massive attack in a week targeting worshippers from the minority sect. A local reporter in Kandahar told Reuters that eyewitnesses had described three suicide attackers, one of whom blew himself up at the entrance to the mosque with the two others detonating their devices inside the building. ... The blast took place just days after an attack claimed by Islamic State militants, which killed scores of Shi'ite worshippers at a...

This morning, Iraq hanged 36 men in Nasiriyah prison for a 2014 sectarian massacre perpetrated by the emerging Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL). After months’ gestation in the Syrian civil war, the Sunni ISIS in June 2014 burst out of its enclaves and in the course of a few jeep-racing weeks gobbled upper Mesopotamia. It publicly declared its border-straddling conquests the Caliphate on June 29, 2014. Iraq’s army mostly melted away ahead of the onrushing threat that summer, abandoning weapons and fleeing while ISIS overran Mosul on June 10, then advanced another 200 km to snatch Saddam Hussein‘s birthplace of...

At least 40 people - most believed to be female students - have been killed in a bomb attack on a school in west Kabul, according to Afghan government officials. At least 50 are also reported to have been injured by the blast, which happened in the Shia-majority neighbourhood of Dasht-i-Barchi. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied involvement and condemned the incident. He said only Islamic State group could be behind such an atrocity.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan on January 10 claimed that India is backing the Islamic State (IS) and facilitating attacks in the country. Khan’s statement came a week after 11 Shia Hazara coal miners were brutally massacred by IS affiliated militants. In the interim, the Pakistani premier labeled the mourning families as “blackmailers” for refusing to bury their dead until Khan visits them to hear their demands for justice and security. Protesting with unburied coffins has become a means of expressing outrage against the state for the Shia Hazaras, thousands of whom have been targeted and killed since the turn...

When you meet the unbelievers, strike necks.” (Qur’an 47:4).. “Islamic State claims responsibility for attack on Pakistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority that kills 11,” by Gul Yousafzai, Reuters, January 3, 2021 (thanks to Henry): QUETTA, Pakistan -Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on Sunday that killed 11 miners from Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite Hazaras in Baluchistan province. The attack took place early on Sunday morning in the Mach area of Bolan district around 100 kms southeast of Baluchistan’s capital Quetta, killing the miners who were in a shared residential room near the coal mine where they worked, officials said. “The throats...

Director David Ayer responded to backlash over the alleged 'brownface' casting of Daytime Emmy winner Shia LaBeouf as a 'Cholo' gangster in his upcoming movie, The Tax Collector. MO 'Shia is playing a whiteboy who grew up in the hood,' the 52-year-old filmmaker - who boasts 479K Twitter/Instagram followers - explained. 'This is a [half-Jewish, half-Cajun] dude playing a white character. Also the only white dude in the movie.' The 34-year-old Echo Park native wore a three-piece suit in the trailer depicting his character as a 'terrorizing devil' collecting 'taxes' for a crime lord called Wizard. Ayer spent all Wednesday...

When U.S. missiles killed Iran’s most important general and its most important militia leader in early January as they were visiting Baghdad, it looked like American forces would be kicked out of Iraq... More than four months later, not only are U.S. forces still there, but it’s clear that the killings have created space for a new Iraqi government to assert some independence from its powerful neighbor. The signs of this new approach have been building over recent months, and the ascendance last week of Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to the post of transitional prime minister is the latest and most profound......

Earlier this week senior defense officials in Israel announced that after years of Israel’s war-between-war campaign to drive Iran out of Syria, the Islamic Republic was finally withdrawing from the war-torn country. The news came just hours after an airstrike blamed on Israel targeted a research facility in Aleppo in Syria’s north. But the announcement also came as Iran is still regrouping from the targeted killing of Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani in January and as it continues to deal with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and a disastrous economic crisis hitting the country... Almost on a weekly occurrence foreign publications...