Free Republic

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was a "true friend" to Russia and was admired both at home and abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a message on Monday, after it was confirmed that Raisi died in a helicopter crash a day earlier. Raisi "was rightly highly respected by his compatriots and enjoyed great prestige abroad," Putin said in a condolence message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that was released by the Kremlin. "As a true friend of Russia, he made an invaluable personal contribution to the development of good neighbourly relations between our countries and made great efforts...

In addition to Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, along with other officials and bodyguards, were on the flight. The helicopter has been rpeortedly located around the village of Uzi in the forests of Arsbaran. Twenty rescue teams and drones have been sent to the area. But emergency crews have so far been unable to reach the location due to foggy conditions. Below is a video of the rescue teams attempting to locate Raisi’s helicopter.

In a conversation with the First Vice President, the special assistant to the Russian President stated that, by Putin's order, two advanced aircrafts with special helicopters and 50 professional mountain rescue personnel will be dispatched to Tabriz, Iranian media reported on Sunday overnight.

Awww widdle Liz Mair is feeling threatened by Trump supporters. Trump supporters attacking her because of her sleazy attack on Melania Trump. To bad.

Lindsey Ellefson writes at Mediaite: It was the ad that launched a thousand blog posts. Liz Mair of Make America Awesome appeared on CNN Tonight to talk to Don Lemon about the infamous ad featuring Melania Trump that spurred Donald Trump into attacking Heidi Cruz. Trump blamed Cruz for the initial attack on his wife in spite of the fact that it was done by the Make America Awesome superPAC. Mair responded to that by telling Lemon, “The truth is it’s me. It’s just me.” When asked if Cruz had any involvement in the ad, she said this...

By bne Tehran bureau May 19, 2024 Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian are reportedly missing after a helicopter he was travelling in was forced to make a “hard landing” on the border of Azerbaijan, local media reported. The massive search for the Bell 412 helicopter involving Red Crescent rescue teams, military personnel, and police is ongoing but is being hampered due to heavy fog in the region. Teams of men are currently on foot looking for the helicopter at the latest reports. Iran's television networks have no changed their line from "hard landing" to "accident"...

Senior officials from the Biden administration held indirect talks last week with the Iranian regime in the Gulf state of Oman to avoid “escalation” in the region — even as Iran’s proxies continue to attack Israel and global shipping. The effort is one of few diplomatic meetings between the U.S. and Iran, and recalls the secret meetings between President Barack Obama’s envoys and the Iranian regime in Oman in 2013 that set the stage for the Iran nuclear deal.

Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi has been involved in a helicopter crash hours after posing for pictures with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and rescuers are frantically trying to reach the site. The aircraft was traveling in Iran's East Azerbaijan province near Jolfa, around 375 miles northwest of Tehran, when it suffered a 'hard landing', according to Iranian state television. Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, but had been hampered by the poor weather conditions in the area. There had been heavy rain and fog reported with some wind. The helicopter was one of a convoy of three and foreign minister...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state television reported, without immediately elaborating. Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Iranian media report that a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi encountered an accident in East Azerbaijan Province and some of his companions in the helicopter "managed to make contact with the center." Meanwhile, IRIB News Agency wrote, "Rescue teams are continuing their efforts to reach the crash site."

ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held an emergency meeting with the heads of intelligence and the ministry of justice after his fellow party member, Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli, had warned of a possible coup d'état being prepared by law enforcement agencies, the Turkiye newspaper on Wednesday. The dismissal of several police officers in Ankara's security directorate accused of links to criminal organization Ayhan Bora Kaplan has caused widespread concern. Their homes had been searched to seize digital materials. Bahceli has said the situation could be a conspiracy against the government, and the suspension of...

Turkish Foreign Minister: We must stop Israel. Either by peace or by force.

Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and his wife were indicted Friday on charges of conspiracy and accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from foreign entities, the Justice Department announced. Prosecutors allege Cuellar and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, began accepting the roughly $600,000 in bribes beginning as early as December of 2014 from an oil and gas company owned by Azerbaijan's government as well as a bank headquartered in Mexico City. While Cuellar's wife allegedly propped up sham front companies on the promise of providing consulting services to the two companies in order to launder the payments, she "performed little to no...

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar warned on Friday that “one tiny mistake” could turn Cyprus into “a new Gaza”. Tatar, not recognized as a head of state by the international community, also suggested that Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan may soon recognize the north. Turkey is the only country that recognizes the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. in an interview with the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, said, “A mistake or a misunderstanding such as the shooting of a Turkish soldier on the Green Line… would provoke a bomb between the two populations.” “If you shoot one Turkish soldier, you...

Excavations of bronze age burial sites have uncovered battle-scarred female archers, leading some archaeologists to posit that Amazons, the famed female warriors of Greek legend who are largely believed to be mythical, may have really existed. In Greek mythology, the Amazons were warrior women living northeast of ancient Greece during the late Bronze Age, between approximately 1900 and 1200 BC. The source of the Amazonian myths is Classical Greek literature in which they were first mentioned by Homer. As one of his 12 labors, Hercules has to get hold of the magic girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte, and Achilles...

This sabotage operation is not the first one carried out at Iranian nuclear facilities. A workshop belonging to Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization in the Shadabad area of Tehran was set on fire in July 2020, information concealed until now by Iranian officials, according to Iran International who claimed to have viewed judicial documents relating to the arson. The documents confirmed that Iran believes the Mossad orchestrated the fire. The judicial documents were obtained as part of a trove that a network of hacktivists leaked to the source on Thursday. Some of the referenced Iranian government documents are among millions of...

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...

By the end of June, more than 10,000 foreign workers from India will be employed in Israel, and at the same time, the process of absorbing about 10,000 foreign workers from other countries such as Georgia, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, and more will begin. The arrival of foreign workers will save the construction industry, which is currently in collapse, and most of the construction sites are closed. The trend is to bring about 40,000 more workers to Israel to complete a quota of 65,000 foreign workers because Palestinian workers who worked in the construction industry no longer come to work in...

Movsum Samadov, convicted terrorist from Azerbaijan, could have gone quietly on his way.. He had just successfully crossed into the USA through or non-existent border and was part of a group of illegals that was interviewed as to locale of origin. Fortunately for us, Mr. Samadov has a bit of an ego and likes to shit talk the dumb Americans. https://www.independentsentinel.com/possible-convicted-terrorist-threatened-a-journalist-at-the-border/ It turns out that someone was watching. They put a face to a name and came up with Movsum Samadov, Leader of the Azerbaijani Islamic Party (outlawed in Azerbaijan) an Islamist organization allied with Hezbollah and funded by Iran...

Since Hamas’s brutal attack against Israel on Oct. 7 and the resulting Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip, tensions and hostilities across the Middle East have reached fever pitch. And with such a complex regional crisis playing out, it should not come as a surprise that the Biden administration is reconsidering its military priorities in the region.It should be cause for significant concern, however, that this could involve a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. While no definitive decision has been made to leave, four sources within the Defense and State departments said the White House is no...