Free Republic

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi met Sunday with former Lebanese Prime Minister and the Future Movement leader MP Saad Hariri in Cairo, discussing what they called Iranian “interference” in the region as well as other international and regional issues. Following the meeting, Hariri told media reporters that they tackled the Iranian “intervention” in the region, Veto gate reported Sunday. Iranian- led Shiite militia ( from Iran and Iraq) and Iraq army troops battled against the Sunni Islamic State (IS) group in outskirt of Tikrit city in Iraq in the past few days, a development that has stirred worries of Gulf...

CAIRO, Mar 8 (Aswat Masriya) - Cairo's criminal court postponed the trial of ousted president Mohamed Mursi for charges of spying for Qatar. The next session will be held tomorrow and will be a secret session. Mursi, who was ousted in July 2013, stands trial alongside 10 others, including two of his aides over accusations of leaking classified national intelligence to the Qatari intelligence. This trial started last month, with Mursi saying in the first hearing that he was brought to court "forcibly". Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat accused Mursi and his two aides, head of his presidential office Ahmed Abdel...

The British government says it is committed to regulations issued by UN and EU on freezing potential assets of the deposed Yemeni president and two Houthi leaders The British authorities refused to comment on whether they have frozen any assets owned by former Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh and two leaders of the Houthi rebels. On 18 December, the EU Council decided to impose financial sanctions, including asset freezes, on Saleh, the president of Yemen’s General People’s Congress Party Abd Al-Khaliq Al-Houthi, and the Houthi group's second-in-command Yahya Abdullah Al-Hakim. The council blacklisted Saleh for obstructing peace in Yemen, notably...

Yemen's defence minister was set to resume his duties from second city Aden on Sunday after defecting from Shiite militia who control the capital, a source in the president's office said. General Mahmud Subaihi's escape from Sanaa follows that of Western-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who has called on ministers to join him in the southern port city to reestablish the government if they can. The minister made it safely to Aden but one of his guards was killed in a firefight with Huthi militiamen during the escape, an aide told AFP. The militia had named Subaihi head of a...

BEIRUT: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the election of a president in Lebanon hinges on the success of a nuclear deal between his country and Iran, Al-Mustaqbal newspaper claimed Sunday, however figures cited in the report later denied the diplomat made such remarks. “Diplomatic sources in Paris” told Al-Mustaqbal that Kerry informed Boulos Matar, the Maronite bishop of Beirut, during a Saturday meeting between the two in Paris that an end may be in sight to Lebanon’s nine-month-long presidential vacuum. The report claimed the meeting lasted for 45 minutes. “Washington is optimistic that a Lebanese president...

An event held last Fri­day at the National Press Club and broad­cast live on C-SPAN 3 focus­ing on the U.S.-Israel rela­tion­ship fea­tured a num­ber of vir­u­lently anti-Israel speak­ers who made con­spir­a­to­r­ial claims about Zion­ism, the influ­ence of the “Israel Lobby” and much more.jeff-blankfort-summit-dc-cspan The event, dubbed as a National Sum­mit to “Reassess the U.S.-Israel ‘Spe­cial Rela­tion­ship,’” was spon­sored by anti-Israel groups If Amer­i­cans Knew, the Coun­cil for the National Inter­est (CNI), the Insti­tute for Research: Mid­dle East­ern Pol­icy (IRmep) as well as the Wash­ing­ton Report on Mid­dle East Affairs. Ses­sions at the sum­mit included, “How does the Israel lobby influ­ence...

At least 19 civilians were killed in a weekend attack by Boko Haram Islamists on three remote islands in Niger with many victims burnt alive, a local lawmaker said. Sunday’s onslaught took place on three islands located on Lake Chad, said ElHadj Aboubacar, a deputy from the town of Bosso in southeastern Niger. “We have been informed that at least 19 people have died, most of whom were either burnt alive or drowned in the lake,” he told AFP. There has been no official confirmation of the death toll but a private radio station in Niger has reported that two...

Operatives of a secretive Iran-backed terrorist network in Turkey scouted the area hosting a radar site in Malatya's Kürecik district that is part of a NATO early warning radar system, an ongoing investigation has revealed. According to an 854-page police investigation on the Tawhid-Salam terror network obtained by Today's Zaman, witness testimony provided to the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office on March 22, 2013 indicated that suspects tied to Iranian intelligence had collected information about Kürecik. The witness said many front companies with the cover of legitimate businesses such as real estate agencies or bookstores had been established in Malatya by...

New Delhi, Jun 24: With no word from Tehran yet, India is all set to send legal request letters to four nations including Iran seeking help in its probe into the bombing of an Israeli embassy’s vehicle here in February. Official sources said today that Letters Rogatory for Iran, Malaysia, Thailand and Georgia has been sent to Union Home Ministry for vetting after which it would sent to Legals and Treaty Division of Ministry of External Affairs to be sent to these respective countries. The sources said Iran had been earlier requested through diplomatic channels for help in tracing Houshang...

In his modest house located on a hill in a marginalized and poor neighborhood in the city of al-Rusaifa, which is adjacent to al-Zarqa, the stronghold and origin of the Jordanian Salafist jihadist movement, Sheikh Isam al-Barqawi — known as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi — receives his followers coming from Ma'an, Amman, Salt, Irbid and a number of Palestinian camps. These cities and communities have sent hundreds of their youth to fight in Syria, Iraq and other countries. This meeting took place after four years in detention, which ended a few days ago, after he was convicted on terrorism charges. Maqdisi...

Anbar, Asharq Al-Awsat—Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters have now taken control of large parts of the strategic Anbar town of Al-Baghdadi—55 miles west of the provincial capital Ramadi—amid fears that the jihadist group is seeking to overrun the nearby Ain Al-Assad airbase where US troops are training local forces. Fierce fighting between local tribal forces and ISIS broke out in the western Iraqi town over the past 48 hours, with ISIS quickly overrunning a number of Al-Baghdadi districts. ISIS simultaneously attacked the nearby Ain Al-Assad airbase. Around 25 ISIS militants carried out the attack, led by several...

With little fanfare, another taboo in U.S.-Iran relations has shattered. Jim Slattery, a former six-term Democratic Congressman from Kansas, late last year became the first former or current American legislator to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Tehran to attend a conference on countering violent extremism, Slattery encountered a largely friendly reception from both officials and ordinary Iranians and came back equipped to present a more realistic and upbeat depiction of Iranians than is usually found on Capitol Hill. Speaking Monday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Slattery conceded that there are elements in Iran that still oppose any...

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has rejected advice to cancel the second Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, over fears of the spread of the Ebola virus. Erdoğan has insisted on going ahead with the scheduled summit in order to display solidarity with the host country, Foreign Ministry officials told the Hürriyet Daily News. The Turkish president will attend the summit in Malabo on Nov. 20-21. Following the launch of Turkey’s “opening up to Africa" strategy, the country has transited to the phase of “partnership with Africa” since 2013, according to officials. Around 200 business leaders and...

Please forgive the vanity post, BUT I just had a terrible thought....I just heard that the hijacked airliner has landed in of all places, Aftganistan.... Is that not the home turf of Osama Bin Laden?? Remember the movie a few years back where terrorists hijacked a 747 with the intentions of crashing it into New York city or some other big city??? If Bin Laden wanted to creatate a major catastrophe, that would surely do it. I suppose the military could shoot it out of the sky, but how do they insure where it is going to land, or that...

A KEY al-Qaeda operative responsible for recruiting the shoe bomber Richard Reid and one of the September 11 hijackers helped to kidnap five British children from their Norwich home and take them to Libya, a court was told yesterday. Djamel Beghal, 39, is serving ten years in a French prison for plotting a suicide attack on the US Embassy in Paris and was described as so dangerous that even other al-Qaeda members thought him beyond the pale. While he was living in Leicester in the late 1990s Beghal, an Algerian, met Azzedin Journazi, from Libya, at a city mosque and...

Assibit, 50, describes life as a slave in Niger, where 43,000 people are estimated to be in bonded labour, as the Timidria organisation which helped her escape wins an award in London. "I was my mistress's slave - that was my identity," says Assibit, 50, who ran away from her master in June of this year. Assibit is pressing charges against her former master After walking 30 kilometres to the nearest village, she was taken by locals to the Timidria office in Abalak. Assibit was born into slavery - as was her mother, her husband and her five children. The...

Well, the Bush-Cheney Administration has got a mole infestation, all right, but not of Chinese moles that allegedly burrowed into our nuke labs several decades ago. No, siree. These are Clinton-Gore moles that went to ground only last November, and they need to be flushed out as soon as possible before they can do too much damage. How to find them? Well, one approach would be to carefully analyze for clues the cries of despair -- or shouts of hurrah -- of the media elite. If, for example, the brand-new EPA administrator says she is going to regulate carbon dioxide...

(snip)....U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan... unsealed an order that demands the "confinement" of Time reporter Matthew Cooper, who has refused to testify in the probe... ... Hogan also issued an Aug. 6 order confining Cooper "at a suitable place until such time as he is willing to comply with the grand jury subpoena," and ordered Time to be fined $1,000 a day. ... ... While NBC fought a subpoena issued May 21 and was included in the opinion, it avoided a contempt citation after Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," agreed to an interview over the...

CHAD --The first phase of the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI) concluded with a graduation ceremony July 27th at the Chadian Army Camp 27. The Chadian Army anti-terrorist battalion graduated from an 8-week training syllabus conducted by the PSI Mobile Training Team (MTT) consisting of U.S. Marines. "I'm very pleased with this training. For two months, everybody made great efforts to train, and we've completed it successfully," said Chadian Army Maj. Abakar Mahamad Abdallah, commanding officer of the anti-terrorist battalion. "I appreciate the efforts of the Marines and soldiers. Now, we are ready for combat." The U.S. Ambassador of Chad, Marc...

TEHRAN (IRNA) -- Niger's Foreign Minister Aichatou Mindaoudou conferred here Monday with President Mohammad Khatami and submitted to him a written message from his Niger's counterpart. At the meeting, President Khatami highlighted the principled policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran which underlines expansion of relations with world countries based on mutual respect and voiced Tehran's willingness to broaden ties with the African countries and the Islamic states in particular. Last century was a century of independence for African continent from claws of colonization, he said adding that Africa should keep up with ongoing developments and make good on its...