Free Republic

SOHR activists have revealed new details about the recent Israeli attack that hit Syrian territory on October 21.According to SOHR sources, military logistics and equipment used to assemble Iranian-made drones in Dimas military airport area in western Rif dimashq were destroyed after being directly targeted by Israeli missiles. A radar and airstrip were also targeted at the airport. However, no casualties have been reported so far.In January 2022, shipments of weapons, ammunition, and parts to manufacture drones had arrived at Dimas military airport in the western countryside of Damascus at T4 airport in Homs countryside, SOHR reliable sources reported.It is...

Last fall, amid concerns that the Iran deal would result in a financial windfall for Iran’s proxy terror organization, Hezbollah, Congress passed the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act. It mandated new, stringent sanctions against banks and other financial institutions doing business with Hezbollah.The bill passed unanimously in both the Senate and the House, leaving President Obama little choice but to sign it into law on December 18.Though less in the spotlight recently than the Islamic State, Lebanese-based Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any terror organization except al-Qaeda; has a vast global reach encompassing Europe, Africa, and Central and South...

Iran has sent around 1,500 fighters to Syria over the past few days, a regional official and Syrian activists claim. The Iranian soldiers, bolstered by Russia’s airstrike campaign, are preparing for a grand offensive against militants in the northern Aleppo province, which would be announced in the coming days, the official told the AP. They’re also accompanied by a new wave of Hezbollah fighters. The soldiers were arriving at Damascus airport and transported to a military base in the coastal town of Latakia. The presence of Iranian troops could strengthen Russia's mission of empowering Syrian President Bashar Assad's embattled government....

The Obama administration is declining to inform Congress about the number of American citizens and troops killed by Iran and its terror proxies, according to a document provided to Congress and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The administration was repeatedly asked by Congress to release figures describing how many Americans and Israelis have been killed by Iran’s military and terror activities since the country’s 1979 revolution. In a series of on-the-record responses obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon, and provided in written form to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Kerry sidestepped the questions on all of the three separate...

The hours of congressional testimony, the speeches and the press conferences this week were all, nominally, about Iraq. But another, equally explosive question - what to do about Iran - loomed over the presentations by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the American military commander in Iraq, over U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and over U.S. strategy for the Middle East. Petraeus and Crocker, arguing that there has been progress in stabilizing Iraq since President Bush ordered a troop build-up there last year, fingered Iran's support for Shiite militias in Iraq, which they called "special groups," as the No. 1 threat...

The mastermind of the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans has been captured, U.S. and Saudi officials said on Aug. 26. The arrest of Ahmed al-Mughassil, who was described by the FBI in 2001 as the leader of the armed wing of the Saudi Hizbullah group, was one of the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists. The arrest concluded a nearly two-decade manhunt.

Khobar Towers June 23, 2006 The Wall Street Journal Louis J. Freeh Ten years ago this Sunday, acting under direct orders from senior Iranian government leaders, the Saudi Hezbollah detonated a 25,000-pound TNT bomb that killed 19 U.S. airmen in their dormitory at Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The blast wave destroyed Building 131 and grievously wounded hundreds of additional Air Force personnel. It also killed an unknown number of Saudi civilians in a nearby park. The 19 Americans murdered were members of the 4404th Wing, who were risking their lives to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq....

Lebanon’s Hezbollah is on the verge of launching an offensive against Syrian rebel groups in the mountainous Qalamoun region straddling the Syria-Lebanon border, north of Damascus. But what was once seen as a relatively minor engagement in the broader Syrian conflict has taken on new significance. After military setbacks in the north and south of the country in the past six weeks, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is desperate for a victory and is depending on his Shia Hezbollah allies to deliver it. Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies badly need to defeat — and to be seen...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is the only major Republican likely 2016 presidential candidate who hasn't weighed in on the controversy over Indiana's "religious freedom" law that erupted this week — and his explanation for avoiding the issue is questionable.

Is Iran’s Lebanese client losing its grip? Last week Hezbollah buried one of its princes, Jihad Mughniyeh, the 22-year-old son of the late Imad Mughniyeh, a legendary Hezbollah commander implicated in such infamous operations as the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. The assassination of the elder Mughniyeh in Damascus in 2008, typically attributed to Israel, is regarded as one of the organization’s most traumatic blows. However, some in the Shiite community here say that Israel’s January 18 strike on a three-car convoy in the Golan Heights near the Syrian town of Quneitra—which killed the younger Mughniyeh...

The large-scale offensive the Syrian army launched in southern Syria Sunday, Feb. 8 – the broadest in that region in the nearly-four year conflict – heralded Act III of the Iranian-Hizballah drive for a position on Israel’s Golan border, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Israel curtailed Act I on Jan 18 with an air strike which killed a dozen Iranian and Hizballah officers scooping out the Golan town of Quneitra for their new base. Among them were the commander of Iranian forces in Syria, Revolutionary Guards general Mohamad Ali Allah Dadi and a senior Hizballah officer Ali al-Tabtabani. This cut short...

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report – Parts 1 and II on the morning after an terrorist bombing rampage at three idyllic Sinai desert resorts – with two dozen known dead and scores still missing – the first clues have been found to the identities of the hands behind the massacre and their targets. DEBKAfile’s intelligence and counter-terror sources report that the explosives used to tear away the entire frontage of the Taba Hilton and hit the Nueiba oasis campside further south on the Red Sea coast were of Iranian manufacture; the same make as the bombs used in the 1996 Khobar Towers...

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are expressing misgivings about President Obama's potential meeting with Iran's new president on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York next week. The White House said Friday that the president was “ready to engage” with Rouhani, further adding to the speculation that the two could meet face-to-face in what would be the first such encounter since the two countries broke off diplomatic ties in 1980. Several lawmakers believe such a meeting would be a mistake, empowering Iran before it has made any real concessions on its alleged nuclear weapons program....

“The supersonic and long-range anti-ship Yakhont missiles of the Syrian army and the Lebanese Hezbollah (resistance movement) are serious deterrents to a US naval attack by its warships in the Mediterranean Sea,” Dr. Mostafa Zahra, a military analyst and strategic studies expert, told FNA on Monday. He said that Syria’s Iskandar high-precision ballistic missiles and its anti-ship Scud missiles will also target the US warships in case of a US naval invasion of Syria, reminding that the American military vessels are not equipped with any weapons system to intercept or divert the Syrian anti-ship missiles. The P-800 Oniks, also known...

Obama promised to “reset” the U.S. relationship with Russia, and he succeeded: Russia went from disliking, but respecting, America and President Bush, to loathing, and looking down upon, America and, especially, her president. The photograph of Obama and Russian President Putin sitting side-by-side radiating hatred spells it all out. One of the reasons given for Putin’s hostility, in addition to Obama’s decision to aid Syria’s Al Qaeda rebels, while Russia is aiding Bashar al Assad’s Iranian and Hezbollah fighters, is Edward Snowden’s revelation that the US is spying on Russia. That, of course, is ridiculous. The US has been spying...

'Palestinian' refugees from Syria who are staying in the Ain el-Hilweh 'refugee camp' near Sidon have burned aid that was provided to them by Hezbullah, and told Hezbullah to stay out of Syrian affairs. The refugees at the Palestinian Ain el-Hilweh camp in Sidon called on Hizbullah to withdraw its fighters from Syria and not to interfere in Syrian affairs, NNA said. The military support of Hizbullah has helped Syrian regime forces gain the upper hand in the battle for control of Qusayr, a key town for both the regime and the insurgents, where a fierce army assault began 12...

MIAMI (Reuters) - Guantanamo war crimes prosecutions of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked planes attacks will be delayed by two months because of lost files caused by Pentagon computer problems, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday. A weeklong pretrial hearing had been set to begin on Monday in the death penalty case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and four alleged co-conspirators. The judge overseeing the case postponed the hearing until June 17 at the request of defense lawyers who said three to four weeks' worth of their confidential work files had...

Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been transferred to Iran to receive medical treatment due to cancer, a Lebanese website associated with the opposition to Hizbullah reported on Monday, according to Israel’s Channel 2 News. According to the report on the Sawt Beirut International website, Nasrallah’s condition recently deteriorated and he was evacuated to Tehran by an airplane sent on behalf of the Islamic Republic and which took off from the Rafiq al-Hariri International Airport in Beirut. The report, however, has not been confirmed by any other source and its reliability is unclear. Channel 2 News reported that while similar reports...

Some of you may remember the picture above and the post that went with it. The picture was taken at the train station in Bologna, Italy on August 2, 1980. I missed being there by a couple of days. Italy thought it had a deal with the PLO not to carry out terror attacks on its soil. It was wrong. The European Union is about to repeat the mistake. The EU may declare Hezbullah a designated terror organization, but only if they reach the conclusion that Hezbullah was behind the terror attack at a Bulgarian airport a few months ago....

Hizbullah's rockets were meant to be used against Israel. Instead, it appears they are now being fired at Arabs. Syrian opposition forces say Hizbullah has been firing hundreds of rockets into Syria on a daily basis, and is a full participant in the Syrian civil war. Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Syrian opposition Local Coordination Committee-member, Mohamed al-Homsi, accused Hizbullah of “intervening in the fighting alongside the Syrian regime with all of its power,” adding “Hizbullah is firing its rockets – the same rockets that it claims are to fight Israel – into Syrian territory to kill Syrian people.” Al-Homsi, who...