Free Republic

The "Handala" Iranian hacker group claims it successfully breached the vehicle of a "senior Israeli nuclear scientist," revealed his identity, and left a bouquet of flowers inside the car. In a post published on Handala’s Telegram channels and X account, they wrote: "By now, you have surely felt it, the subtle shift in the air around you. The moment when an ordinary day becomes… wrong." "The first $10,000 required for deep-field infiltration and extraction of classified intelligence has been deployed. Funds are moving. People are moving. Shadows are moving. All in directions you never anticipated. "Your identity, once buried behind...

The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force. President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilizing and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would...

In a significant shift in the Middle Eastern power dynamics, Iranian officials have admitted that their once-loyal proxy force, the Houthis in Yemen, is increasingly defying Tehran's orders. Reports indicate that the Houthis, who have long served as Iran's strategic arm in the ongoing conflicts against the United States and its allies, are now acting independently, much to the dismay of their former benefactors. A senior Iranian official disclosed that the Houthis have distanced themselves from Iran. “They have gone rogue for a while and are now really rebels,” the official stated, reflecting concerns within the Iranian regime as they...

A drastic new message adorns the walls of the Iranian capital, usually reserved for war heroes and weapons. “There is a water shortage!” reads the government poster's slogan, inside a water container that is nearly empty. “It’s fall and there is still no rain.” That’s not news to Erfan Ensani, 39, who returned home from a long day working in the textile section of the city’s central bazaar last week to find his taps running dry. Iran is facing its worst water crisis in decades. With no end in sight and authorities warning they may even have to evacuate the...

Openly in broad daylight people shouting "death to Khamenei." Ibraham Alra'ii and Mohammed Zade at Mehrabad complex are swearing allegiance to Pahlavi and urging rank-and-file to do the same. Men in uniform showing the pre-revolution Iranian flag on subway platform. Lots of video. Transcript linked below video.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged four Iranian nationals over an alleged plot to kidnap a Brooklyn-based journalist and human rights activist who published material critical of the Iranian government. A superseding indictment from the U.S. District Court from the Southern District of New York was unsealed Tuesday, revealing charges against an Iranian intelligence official, Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, as well as "Iranian intelligence assets" Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi and Omid Noori.

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Oct. 15 that the agency is cracking down on espionage by foreign adversaries, with an increase in arrests as high as 50 percent. “We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran,” he said at a press conference. “In China alone, we’ve had over a 50 percent increase in espionage arrests alone, and prosecutions,” Patel said. “In Iran, we have had a 50 percent increase, again, in espionage cases. And in Russia, we had a 33 percent increase in espionage cases alone.” State Department employee Ashley Tellis, arrested...

The International Committee of the Red Cross chose a wing in Al-Shifa hospital "adjacent to the [Hamas] movement offices,” according to documents found by the IDF in Gaza and recently declassified. Two Hamas documents found by Israeli forces in Gaza indicate that international organizations such as the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders are well aware of the presence of Hamas in the Gaza Strip’s medical facilities despite obfuscating or outright denying it publicly, NGO Monitor revealed on Wednesday. The internal Hamas memos were among a cache of documents declassified by the Israel Defense Forces. NGO Monitor translated the Arabic-language...

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Tuesday that the Iranian government was behind at least two attacks against the country's Jewish community, The Guardian reported. According to Australia's domestic spy agency, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization (ASIO), Iran directed the attacks on the Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne and Lewis’ Continental Kitchen. Albanese described the incidents as “extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil.” He added that ASIO assesses it is likely Iran directed further attacks as well. The Prime Minister stated the attacks were “attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow...

Early on the morning of March 16th, 1984, William Buckley left for work at the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Officially, Mr. Buckley, a decorated veteran of the Special Forces, served as the political officer at the embassy. In reality, however, Mr. Buckley was the embassy’s CIA station chief. On his way to the compound, Buckley’s car was stopped by a group of masked men, who forced him from his car at gunpoint. His assailants would later be identified as terrorists from the group Islamic Jihad, which served as an alias for the real perpetrators, Hezbollah. The circumstances surrounding the...

Australian intelligence agencies have discovered the Iranian Government directed at least two anti-Semitic attacks in Australia. Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation had established the Iranian government was behind an October 20 attack on Bondi’s Lewis’ Continental Kitchen, and the December 6 fire bombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne. The Australian government pulled its diplomats from Tehran and has moved to expel Iran’s ambassador to Australia. “ASIO assesses it is likely Iran directed further attacks as well,” the Prime Minister said. “I can also announce the government will legislate to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary...

Uprisings in major Iranian cities, protests, lots of footage via phone cameras, some not even covering faces, supporters of regime not helping much, because they don't have food and haven't been paid. Hizbollah is FUBAR, so can't come in and do the Thug (new dance; must become GIF like Happy Dance), people daring to wave original Iranian flag, sing original anthem, both of which are capital offenses, previously bringing summary execution. Parallels with UK are remarkable. Transcript linked below video.

If Iran is in the news because of its nuclear program, the greatest threat to the country’s well-being isn’t economic sanctions or the Sunni-Shiite schism. Rather, the greatest threat to Iran may be that the country is running out of water. The problem is so severe that social unrest, economic dislocation, even out migration can all be imagined. One government advisor recently predicted that as many as fifty million Iranians—seventy percent of Iran’s population—may be forced to leave because of a lack of water. Water problems are a proxy for bad governance, and Iran has water problems galore. By contrast,...

Already prone to droughts, Iran has exacerbated the problem with poor water management policies, which Mr. Pezeshkian acknowledged on Monday. Climate change, too, has played a role; the country has weathered five consecutive years of drought. Now, the crisis has grown so extreme that the government shut down all government offices and services in Tehran and more than two dozen other cities across the country on Wednesday, creating a three-day weekend in an attempt to lower water and electricity usage. Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokeswoman, said cities could have similar closures once or twice a week going forward, and suggested...

A social media account affiliated with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency published a pointed critique Friday of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing him of being unfit to govern due to alleged substance abuse and detachment from public needs. “How can a leader lead when they sleep half the day and spend the other half high on substances?” read the post in Farsi from the @MossadSpokesman account on X, formerly Twitter. It ended with a charged refrain: “Water, electricity, life!” The post, which was automatically translated from its original Farsi, did not name Khamenei directly but was widely interpreted as...

Following the 12-day war, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spends most days snoozing and getting “high,” an outrageous post from the Mossad’s Farsi social media account mysteriously claimed. “How can a leader lead when they sleep half the day and spend the other half high on substances?” the post asked. The statement came from a bizarre new premium X account that launched in recent weeks, claiming to be the official Farsi-language spokesperson — the official dialect of Iran — for the cunning Israeli intelligence agency, with regular posts trolling the Iranian regime. “Using drugs and speaking to spirits are...

At a United Nations conference in New York this week, the Holy See reaffirmed its longstanding support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling it the “only viable and equitable path” to a just and lasting peace. Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN, stressed that peace must be rooted in “secure and internationally recognized borders,” according to Vatican News. He also condemned the terrorist attacks by Hamas, stating that “in the light of the profound anguish and terrible human suffering that has befallen the region,” the Holy See “unequivocally” denounces such violence. “Terrorism...

There has been a spate of mysterious fires and explosions across Iran in recent weeks. Naturally the Iranians suspect, with reason, that agents of Israel are responsible. But Iran doesn’t dare to accuse Israel publicly, because that would then require that Iran respond with an attack on the Jewish state, and then Israel would answer back with a far more devastating attack. In fact, Israel may well be engaging in sabotage in order to prevent Iran from renewing its aggressive campaign against Israel, thus giving Israel all the excuse it needs to renew its bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic,...

Did we hit Iran hard enough before we stopped? This is always the question, anytime you engage in diplomacy, warfare, or a combination of the two. When it becomes necessary to do something, the question is “How much?” Israel has led the effort against Iran, as Iran has been the chief aggressor against Israel. For 46 years now, the mullahs who rule that poor country have not only threatened Israel (and the USA too) on a constant basis, they have also funded, trained, and directed numerous terrorist organizations in the region, chief among which are Hamas of Gaza, Hezbollah of...

The ruling elites of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not known worldwide for their friendly, sunny dispositions; in fact, they have a long and ever-growing list of pet hates, including America, Israel, women (at least if their heads are uncovered and they’re out in public), and man’s other best friend, dogs. The ruling Iranian mullahs have now extended a ban that was already in effect in over twenty Iranian cities to the entire country: it is now against the law to walk the dog. That means, of course, that while private ownership of dogs as pets is ostensibly permitted...