Free Republic

Nearly seven years after the Myanmar military killed thousands of Muslim Rohingyas, in what the UN called "textbook ethnic cleansing", it wants their help.From interviews with Rohingyas living in Rakhine State the BBC has learned of at least 100 of them being conscripted in recent weeks to fight for the embattled junta. All their names have been changed to protect them. "I was frightened, but I had to go," says Mohammed, a 31-year-old Rohingya man with three young children. He lives near the capital of Rakhine, Sittwe, in the Baw Du Pha camp. At least 150,000 internally displaced Rohingyas have...

Iran is trying to mobilize this diplomatic support before lashing out with its promised “retaliation.” In the past, Iran has attacked Erbil in Iraq when it wanted to “retaliate.” Iran is engaged in the first part of its response to an airstrike this week in Damascus, which Iran has blamed on Israel. It is not only slamming Israel, it is also blaming the United States. This shows how Iran is seeking to link the incident that killed several key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members to a wider regional struggle in which Iran is engaged in trying to reduce US influence...

Moscow on Monday accused Israel of carrying out an “unacceptable” attack on a diplomatic building in Syria, after air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus. “On the evening of April 1, the Israeli Air Force struck the Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “We strongly condemn this unacceptable attack against the Iranian consular mission in Syria.” Israel did not comment on the reported attack. Syrian and Iranian officials have also accused Israel of staging the strikes. Moscow said that any attacks on a diplomatic building were “unacceptable”. “We call on the...

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says strike on Iranian consulate in Syria killed two of its generals and five officers.

Over 40 people were killed and dozens injured in airstrikes overnight near Aleppo, in northwestern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the alleged Israeli attack hit at least one weapons warehouse belonging to Hezbollah near the Aleppo International Airport in the early hours of Friday morning. The UK-based monitor further said strikes also targeted Syrian air defense installations in nearby Al-Saferah and that explosions were heard in the Kafr Joum area, in western Aleppo. Footage from the moment of the attack shows huge explosions and mushrooms of dust rising from the area. Two unnamed security sources...

In the arts these days, they insist that context is everything. So what is one to make of this vile picture, of Hamas terrorists from the October 7 massacre proudly posing with their 'kill' on the bed of a pickup truck, the mangled, mutilated, body of a 22-year old woman, proudly preening and posing for their trusted photographer from the Associated Press? Shame on @RJI for awarding @AP 'Picture of the Year' award, of this image, which their Hamas-embedded photographer took of Shani Louk, as she was murdered, violated and thrown on back of pick-up truck! You must be so...

The Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning in eastern Syria, targeting Iranian assets and operatives involved in a recent plot to smuggle advanced arms to West Bank terrorists, The Times of Israel has learned. More than 15 people were reportedly killed in the strikes in the Deir Ezzor and al-Bukamal areas, close to Syria’s border with Iraq. The strikes targeted assets belonging to Iran’s Unit 4000, the Special Operations Division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Intelligence Organization, and the special operations unit of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria, known as Unit...

Flag found when Iran's chief rabbi arrived with members of the Jewish community to observe the Fast of Esther and pray at the traditional site.

Joe Biden turning against Israel puts Scott “in mind of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac.” That was the time when Hitler’s National Socialist regime was allied with Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They signed their Pact on August 23, 1939, and Stalin began handing Jews directly to the Gestapo. In September, 1939, both powers invaded Poland, effectively starting World War II.In November, 1939, Stalin invaded Finland and in April of 1940 Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. On May 10, 1940, Hitler invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The genocidal maniac then turned his...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the Turkish President, and the rude-and-crude master of all he surveys from the 1,100 room “White Palace” that he had the government build for him in Istanbul, at a cost to the Turkish taxpayers of $615 million. But when a man like Erdogan comes along only once a millennium, why should the national exchequer skimp? In Istanbul, having announced to the world that he will not be running for office again (the hundreds of journalists he has imprisoned in Turkish jails must now be breathing proleptic sighs of relief), just to make sure we do not...

A Lebanese migrant who was caught sneaking over the border admitted he’s a member of Hezbollah, he hoped to make a bomb, and his destination was New York, The Post can reveal. Basel Bassel Ebbadi, 22, was caught by border patrol on March 9 near El Paso, Texas. While in custody he asked what he was doing in the US, to which he replied: “I’m going to try to make a bomb,” according to a Border Patrol document exclusively obtained by The Post. In a subsequent sworn interview, Ebbadi said he had trained with Hezbollah for seven years and served...

I have long been wondering about Qatar's willingness to host Hamas' leadership post-10/7. As non-Western as Qatar is, the Emirate has been working assiduously to court Western approval and is hardly a radical Islamist state. This is not to suggest the regime is liberal or Liberal, but rather that they aren't exactly Iranian-style fanatics. The state is pretty much what you would expect in a country that is in a dangerous region filled with radicals but with an elite who are Western-educated and resolutely capitalist. I had long suspected that Western governments had given implicit approval for Qatar's hosting of...

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking Majid Dastjani Farahani, a 41-year-old Iranian national and intelligence agent, accused of orchestrating assassination plots against US officials. "Majid Dastjani Farahani, an Iranian intelligence officer, is wanted for questioning in connection with the recruitment of individuals for various operations in the United States, to include lethal targeting of current and former United States Government officials as revenge for the killing of IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani," it said in a report on March 5. Soleimani was killed in 2020 in Baghdad by an American airstrike. He was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary...

Officials say Sheher Bano, an assistant superintendent of police in Lahore, risked her life to rescue the woman after Arabic calligraphy on her outfit was mistaken for verses from the Quran. PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A police officer in Pakistan is being hailed as a hero after she protected a woman from a furious mob accusing her of blasphemy over what she was wearing. Sheher Bano, an assistant superintendent of police in the city of Lahore, “put her life in danger” to rescue the woman after colorful Arabic calligraphy on her outfit was mistaken for verses from the Quran, the Muslim...

An incident in Lahore Pakistan stands as a damning indictment of modern Islamic society. From distant Pakistan, an NBC news story surfaces that serves to remind us of everything we need to know about our current crisis. A week ago, a female police officer in Lahore, Pakistan, patrolling a shopping district in the busy muslim city, saw a crowd gathering, to taunt, accuse, and threaten a young woman in a colorful Kurta (a long shirt-dress). Her dress was covered with bright and abstract calligraphy that the crowd assumed was an improper quoting of the Koran. In Pakistan, when a crowd...

The FBI has launched an urgent manhunt for an Iranian secret intelligence official accused of plotting to assassinate Trump administration officials. Federal agents say Majid Dastjani Farahani has been trying to recruit allies in the country to murder current and former US government officials as revenge for the US assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. In an urgent notice on Friday, the FBI office in Miami asked for information on Farahani, who is said to speak Spanish and frequently move between Iran and Venezuela, where the ruling regime is friendly with Iran.

Following the deadly Iran-backed attack on American troops in Jordan on January 28, Biden and his Pentagon brass pledged a "multi-tier" response for the brazen assault that killed three U.S. service members. The retributive strikes saw at least one senior leader of Kata'ib Hezbollah — one of the handful of Iran-backed terrorist organizations that have been coordinating scores of attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East since October — in Baghdad, but there was a notable lack of punishment for the source of all the chaos in the region: the regime in Tehran. It appears that was by Biden's...

After a weekend of U.S. strikes against its proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, Iran has issued a strongly worded warning not to target a ship that U.S. officials and analysts suspect of providing real-time intelligence for attacks on other vessels in the Red Sea and serving as a forward operating base for its commandos. In a slickly produced video published on the Iranian Army’s Telegram channel Sunday, a narrator says in English that “those engaging in terrorist activities against the MV Behshad or similar vessels, jeopardize international maritime routes, security and assume global responsibility for potential future international risks.”

Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomes Argentinian President Javier Milei upon his arrival to Israel at Ben Gurion Airport. Milei, who assumed office in December, reiterates his pledge to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem. Katz thanks Milei, who made Israel his first bilateral overseas destination as president, for his support for Israel against Hamas and for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “You are a person of values ​​who is committed only to the truth,” Katz tells Milei, speaking through a translator, “and it is no wonder that you chose to come to Israel right away to support us in the just...

Couple sent to Sweden by IRGC lived in country for 5 years under fake names before being activated in plot to murder 3 Jewish citizens of Sweden, including community leader and dual US citizen. A couple was sent by the Iranian government to Sweden as undercover agents with the goal of murdering Jewish citizens, Radio Sweden reported. According to the investigation, the man and woman, who have been identified as Mahdi Ramezani and Fereshteh Sanaeifarid, were dispatched by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). They were tasked with murdering three Jews in Sweden, including Aron Verständig, Chair of the Official...