Free Republic

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...

USS Normandy (CG 60), in accordance with international law, boarded a stateless dhow in the Arabian Sea and interdicted an illicit shipment of advanced weapons and weapon components intended for the Houthis in Yemen, Feb. 9, 2020. US Navy Photo. Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60) seized a cache of Iranian-made anti-tank missiles and other munitions aboard a dhow in the Arabian Sea over the weekend. Normandy stopped the dhow while conducting maritime security operations over the weekend, in accordance with international law, according to a statement released Thursday by U.S. Central Command.

U.S. officials have confirmed to Fox News Thursday that a U.S. Navy warship intercepted Iranian-made weapons from a vessel in the Arabian Sea earlier this week. Crew members from the USS Normandy seized a huge cache of weapons from a dhow – a small vessel with lateen sails – on Sunday while conducting maritime security operations in the U.S. Central area of operations. The weapons and weapon components were intended for the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, according to officials.

The current feud between Egypt/Turkey has caused many to draw comparisons between how the two states conduct their policies in the ever-turbulent region of the MEIn its response to Turkey’s provocative practices, Egypt has maintained a policy of resilience and followed the guidelines of international law while at the same time showing a firm stance towards the acts of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has deliberately and repeatedly insulted Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi at forums and in speeches using ad hominem tactics. From the way Erdogan has described him, it might have been thought that Al-Sisi was standing for election...

From the early days of Iranian Revolution four decades ago, the Iranian regime has tried to spread its theocratic doctrine to the rest of the Middle East. The regime has, in the process, successfully made substantial number of Iraqi and Lebanese ‘civilians’ and ‘armed groups’ its core external support bases. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who spearheads the regime, had maintained his charm among these external civilian and armed support bases for almost three and a half decade. However, the situation has been changing in the Middle East for last half a decade and the Iranian regime appears to...

SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT: Some Arab countries are trying to get the Jews they forced out to return FEBRUARY 7, 2020 BY BARENAKEDISLAM More than 850,000 Jews lived in Arab countries in the 20th century. With the creation of Israel in 1948, all but a few thousand Jews were forced to leave the Arab countries where they had lived for generations and centuries. But today, there is a palpable longing in most Arab states for the Jews to return. Many believe that only with a Jewish presence will their countries blossom and develop as they did in the past. World Israel News...

Four US Senators, including Ted Cruz, penned a letter on February 6 to Jack Dorsey asking him to ban Iranian leadership from using Twitter as part of the US sanctions against Iran. Republican senators led by Ted Cruz in a letter Thursday suggested Twitter may be violating U.S. sanctions by letting Iranian leaders maintain accounts, which they asked company CEO Jack Dorsey to ban. The big picture: Twitter has become a major political target for Cruz and other Republicans, who claim the company and other Silicon Valley giants are biased against conservatives and the Trump administration. "While the First Amendment...

When Syria’s civil war erupted, Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) recruited, trained, and deployed thousands of Shi’ite fighters to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Among them was the Fatemiyoun Brigade, comprised mainly of Afghans from the country's Shi'ite Hazara minority. From 2011, the IRGC recruited thousands of Afghan migrants and refugees within its own borders and covertly drafted hundreds of Shi'a inside Afghanistan. The majority of Muslims in Afghanistan are Sunni, but around 15 percent of its population -- mainly Hazara -- are Shi’a with religious links to the Shi'ite majority in Iran. With the...

Convicted child sex offender George Nader visited the White House at least 13 times to meet with President Trump’s then-chief strategist Steve Bannon, records indicate, raising questions about possible gaps in security and judgment. Nader first visited Bannon in the White House in February 2017. His dozen subsequent visits stretched through August, when Bannon was fired after seven months on the job. It's unclear if Nader visited the White House after Bannon left. The Lebanese American businessman, a past consultant for military contractor Blackwater, was known for his links to Saudi and Emirati leaders and secured a $100,000 speaking fee...

President Trump has just laid out a visionary plan for achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Rather than trying to reconcile the fundamentally conflicting priorities of the two sides, he came up with a practical solution that reflects realities on the ground in the fairest way possible. Every American president since Lyndon Johnson has tried — and failed — to resolve the conflict, usually by sitting down with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to negotiate toothless agreements that have done nothing to ease tensions or prevent bloodshed. These well-intentioned efforts all made the same fatal mistake: they treated the Israeli...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Saturday that he has decided to severe all relations with Israel and the US in protest against President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled plan for Mideast peace. “We have informed the Israelis and Americans of this decision through two letters,” Abbas said in a speech at an emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo.

Go back over 40 years, to the start of Iran’s long conflict with the United States. On April 1, 1979, the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had returned to Iran from exile to assume command of the revolt, became Supreme Leader in December of that year. His rise was accelerated by the seizure on Nov. 4 of 52 American diplomats and citizens, and citizens of other countries, at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The hostage crisis became the means by which the Ayatollah crushed political opponents in Iran. Dealing with the hostage taking became...

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s president stepped in to appoint a new prime minister after the Parliament failed to do so for two months, leaving the country largely rudderless at a time of multiple political crises. The premier, Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi, is hardly a new face — he is a former member of Parliament and former minister of communications. But he is not tarnished by the corruption allegations that dog many other Iraqi political figures. In his first comments upon accepting the nomination, Mr. Allawi paid homage to the anti-government protesters who have been out on the streets since October and he...

Former Israeli diplomat Abba Eban once said the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Within minutes of President Trump proposing his Middle East Peace Plan, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas had rejected the plan with “a thousand no’s” coupled with a string of epithets rarely seen in international diplomacy.This abject lack of vision and leadership by Palestinian President Abbas is tragic, for the children and grandchildren of Palestinians and Israelis alike.The state of Israel comprises a minuscule portion of land in the Middle East, yet it has become a global center of democracy, culture, commerce, and innovation....

The United States is working to get the Iraqi government's permission to put Patriot missile defense systems in the country to protect U.S. forces there from possible Iranian attacks, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday. “One of the things we need to do is make sure we have permission from the host government, and that’s one of the matters we have to work on and work through,” Esper told reporters at a Pentagon press conference. “We need the permission of the Iraqis.” The U.S. military did not have Patriots deployed at al-Asad airbase in Iraq, which houses American troops, during...

The November 2019 uprising of the Iranian people in 191 cities that began under the pretext of protesting rising gas prices showcased the dislike of the Iranian people for a regime marked by repression, discrimination, looting, and corruption. The November uprising was a strategic blow to the regime and was instrumental in cornering it internationally. The killing of Qasem Soleimani, too, was a serious blow to the regime's credibility beyond its borders. The mullahs employed an array of propaganda tactics to portray Soleimani as a national hero and organized funeral ceremonies in different cities. By magnifying Soleimani's loss, the regime's...

For the second straight year, U.S. Navy veteran Michael White spent his birthday suffering in a horrible Iranian prison. The Iranian regime must release all American and foreign hostages!

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead two protesters in Iraq's southern city of Nassiriya overnight and a Baghdad district became a battlefield on the third day of a drive by security forces to end months of demonstrations against the largely Iran-backed ruling elite. Clashes over the weekend had already killed at least five protesters. Rockets also hit the U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone housing government buildings. Ambassadors of 16 countries in Baghdad including the United States, France and Britain condemned the use of live fire by Iraqi security forces and called for a credible investigation into the...

Audio message from spokesman says focus is now on ‘fighting the Jews and reclaiming what they have stolen from the Muslims’; urges sabotage of Trump peace plan The Islamic State group vowed Monday to shift its focus from the remnants of its “caliphate” toward making Israel the main target of its attacks. It also called to sabotage a peace plan US President Donald Trump is due to unveil, according to a purported audio message from its spokesman. Abu Hamza al-Quraishi said IS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi encourages the group’s fighters to launch “a new phase” and vowed major operations...

Turkey's leaders have called Israel the "West's spoiled child," and the "bully" of the eastern Mediterranean. When a Tel Aviv soccer team showed up in Istanbul recently for a match, the welcome was less than warm. In September, Turkey kicked out the Israeli ambassador, suspended military and trade deals and threatened legal and naval action to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. As roars of approval went up around the Arab world, few noticed another announcement quietly slipped in by Ankara: Turkey had signed off on a plan to host an American X-band radar system as part of a...