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An examination of damage to an Israeli-owned cargo ship currently docked in Dubai indicates an explosion that hit it in the Gulf of Oman was caused by mines covertly attached to the ship, according to a Sunday TV report. Channel 13 news did not cite sources for the report, which contradicted earlier reported assessments in Israel that that blast was caused by missiles. An Israeli team is believed to be in Dubai to examine the ship following the suspected attack. The ship is undergoing repairs in Dubai. Limpet mines are a type of naval explosive that attach to targets using...

Former State Department envoy says conduct 'unbelievable' Iranian refugee and former Trump official Ellie Cohanim slammed John Kerry on Wednesday, calling the former secretary of state's backdoor meetings with Iran during Trump’s presidency "anti-American" and an attempt to undermine the administration’s foreign policy stances. During an appearance on "Fox and Friends," the former State Department special envoy called the Biden administration’s talks with Iran to reenter the nuclear deal "diplomatic malpractice" and urged them to stop making unilateral concessions and instead increase demands on the Iranian regime. "What exactly was it that John Kerry was telling them - just ignore...

What could they possibly have been planning? No doubt they just wanted to do the jobs that Americans refuse to take, right? While Leftists continue to deny that border control is a national security issue, recently a Muslim migrant from Jordan named Moayad Heider Mohammad Aldairi was sentenced to three years in prison for sneaking at least six Yemeni Muslims into the United States across the border from Mexico. Their intentions were unlikely to have been benign. Judicial Watch reported back in 2016 that police in a New Mexico border town arrested a woman they described as an “Islamic refugee”...

Foreign powers test US defenses amid coronavirus pandemic BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 04/19/20 08:00 AM EDT U.S. adversaries are probing America's defenses as the world is preoccupied with the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. In the past two weeks, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have all moved to test Washington in the sea, in the air and on land as U.S. forces have become more restricted in movement amid concerns over the spread of COVID-19. “Exactly how distracted is the U.S. military? They want to know,” said Susanna Blume, the director of the defense program at the Center for...

While the world is absorbed in the Coronavirus drama, yet another caravan of illegal immigrants is heading north to the United States from Central America. The group departed recently from the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula and is making its way to Guatemala en route to the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The final destination is the U.S., according to a Mexican news report that reveals the caravan has some 500 Central Americans but is expected to grow along the way. “They left their country due to a lack of work opportunities and prevailing violence,” according to the...

A contractor for the Pentagon has been charged with providing classified U.S. intelligence to a Lebanese national connected with terrorist group Hezbollah, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. The department alleges Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, began transmitting the classified intelligence around December 30, when Iraqi militiamen stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Thompson is a linguist who at the time was working at a U.S. special forces base in Erbil in northern Iraq. The classified “files contained classified national defense information including true names, personal identification data, background information, and photographs of the human sources, as well as operations cables...

Impeachment-Coup Update Judicial Watch Files New Supreme Court Brief in Key Abortion Case Honduras Arrests U.S.-Bound Iranians as New Caravan Heads North Trans State Workers Sue Florida Demanding Support for Controversial Surgeries The New Anti-Semitic Moment Impeachment-Coup Update The President, the rule of law, and our Constitution continue to be abused as the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump continues. We’ve done many media interviews on the current crisis, notably with Lou Dobbs and Dan Bongino. (My interview with Dan was retweeted by President Trump!) The president is going to be acquitted but with significant damage to our republic,...

What underlies the rage of the Democrat Party and of the leftist Democrat Establishment vis-à-vis President Donald Trump? Over forty years ago, during my high school years in Iran, my father and I had a conversation. He was an avid Republican, even though he lived on the other side of the world. Right before I prepared to leave Iran for the U.S., he gave me some fatherly advice. He explained why the Democrat Party was bad for America, bad for Iran, and bad for the world. He advised me that if I ever became a US citizen, I should never...

It is hard to understand Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei’s blunder in attacking the US Embassy in Baghdad. He either believed Trump was weakened by his impeachment, as western liberal Media breathlessly and continuously reported, or he might have been misled by John Kerry’s incompetent advice (apparently Kerry met again with Khamenei’s emissaries in Paris just few weeks ago). Whatever the reasons, his goal of triggering a limited war with America to rally his people around the regime has failed miserably. (my emphasis.)

The gaudy red ring that helped initially identify the corpse of Iran’s Major Gen. Qassem Soleimani is no Hope Diamond, according to local jewelers. Dealers believe the distinctive ring worn by Soleimani is either a red carnelian stone — believed by some Middle East Muslims as able to bestow “blessings”– or possibly an inexpensive ruby that would cost a few hundred bucks. “From the photo, it looks like it’s a carnelian stone — it’s not a ruby; it comes from Africa,” said Maykel Rieth, a professional cutter for R Gems Inc on West 48th Street. “The ring is made out...

Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. "The Russians are no longer advising, but co-leading the war in Syria," one intelligence official said. The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran's proxies throughout the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Intelligence sources told Fox News that -- in addition to the previously reported arrival of nearly 50 Russian marines, 100 housing units and armored vehicles...

For $250,”friends” — or $1000 for a “champion” (photo included) — you too can attend a fundraiser with Chelsea Clinton for her mother at the home of Michael and Sholeh Chegini in Newport Coast, California, according to an invitation to the event obtained by Right Turn. Michael Chegini served on the board of directors and thereafter the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a notorious group with links to the Iranian regime that opposed, among other things, any sanctions on Iran. “The Clintons never miss an opportunity to put money ahead of principle,” a spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition...

the support of the US and President Trump is invaluable to the ordinary Iranians: ... On Persian social media outlets and apps such as Telegram, which is extremely popular among Iranians, people are cheering the US support. People are asking the US to support them in other ways as well, in addition to helping them bypass the internet-blocks and shut-downs that the Iranian regime recently implemented. If the Iranians succeed in changing this Islamist regime, it will bring down the highest state sponsor of terrorism, the leading regime in human rights violations, the top state sponsor of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitic...

Iraqis scaled the wall around the Iranian consulate in Karbala and raised an Iraqi flag over it. They said only the Iraqi flag should fly high in the sky and that Iranians should be ejected. Other protesters tried to burn the wall around the compound. This is the second time the consulate has been attacked in a week; it was previously targeted on October 26. Protests in Iraq have reached their crescendo after a month in which 250 demonstrators have been killed. The Iraqi Prime Minister has been pressured to resign. Protesters have targeted the political party offices of Iranian-linked...

The Air Force Times' Sean Naylor scored an interview with Major General Mike Flynn, director of intelligence for General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan. There isn't a lot new here to longtime readers of The Long War Journal and Threat Matrix. Flynn gives an overview of the Taliban groups, notes that al Qaeda operatives serve as combat enablers for the Taliban, estimates Taliban forces in Afghanistan at between 19,000 to 27,000 fighters, and said Pakistan remains a major haven for the Taliban and al Qaeda. Of particular interest are Flynn's comments on Iran and the role...

The Lockerbie bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by a Syrian-based terrorist group, a former Iranian intelligence officer has admitted. Abolghassem Mesbahi, a defector to Germany, said Pan Am flight 103 was downed in 1988 in retaliation for a US Navy strike on an Iranian commercial jet six months earlier, in which 290 people died. He claims the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was Iran’s Supreme Leader, ordered the bombing “to copy exactly what happened to the Iranian Airbus”. …

History is recorded daily, whether we like it or not. History isn't what happened, but the stories of what happened and the lessons these stories include. Iran is deteriorating faster than we thought, almost to the point of no return. The Iranian people are aware that after 40 years of complete devastation by the rulers of the Islamic regime, they no longer want the Islamic Republic. In an interview with the Associated Press, Reza Pahlavi remarked, "We all know that regime change is the ultimate formula." Mr. Pahlavi is a harsh critic of the clerical rulers who have dominated Iran...

There are few things more damaging to the liberal media’s credibility than conflicts of interest and false/fake stories. For CNN, it was the latter on Friday’s New Day as co-host Alisyn Camerota treated former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett to a softball interview, but failed to disclose that Valerie’s daughter (Laura Jarrett) is a CNN Justice correspondent. If CNN wants to lecture Fox News or anyone else in the media about ethics, perhaps it should lead the way in transparency. And, no, it shouldn’t be assumed all viewers are able to make the connection between Laura and Valerie Jarrett. The...

Cape Town, South Africa, July 9 “Day Zero.” That’s when water taps throughout the city are expected to go dry before Israel declared statehood in 1948, its leaders focused on water security as closely as they did military preparedness. Israel is in the fifth year of drought, today citizens can reliably count on abundant water. Cape Town another story. reservoirs began receding more than two years ago. This problem turned into a crisis because of subsidy-distorted water pricing, inefficient irrigation, and a lack of desalination facilities and a long-term plan. In 2016 officials from Israel’s Foreign Ministry recognized the problem...

Pundits have marveled at what a big surprise it is that ordinary Iranians have revolted against the mullahs. It's a surprise to them, but no surprise to American Thinker's readers, whose Iranian contributors have kept us posted for years about what is really going on in Iran. Just look at these pieces by Hamid Bahrami, Reza Shafiee, Hassan Mahmoudi, Amil Imani, and Shahriar Kia. Over and over again, these writers warned there is a problem, and now Iranians' protests against corruption, soaring prices, environmental ruin, Revolutionary Guards thuggery, poverty, and bank collapses have become the "surprise" story of the day....