Free Republic

Last week’s bombing near the grave of the Quds Force general that killed 84 is the latest episode in ISIS’s war on Shiite Muslims.. In the immediate aftermath of the January 3 blast that killed at least 84 people near the grave of general Qassem Soleimani in the Iranian city of Kerman, some low-level Iranian officials hinted at a possible Israeli involvement. Iran’s deputy parliament speaker claimed it had the signs of an Israeli assault — even though it showed radically different features from Israel’s alleged operations in enemy territory, which usually involve precision killings of key enemy figures. The...

6 days of truce, 3 dead and 11 wounded... In the 6 days of the truce with Hamas, the Islamic terror groups targeted Israeli soldiers with two IED attacks and murdered a pregnant woman and a 73-year-old Rabbi in Jerusalem. And the latest truce, ceasefire or whatever you want to call it is still young. So far the death toll from the truce includes Liba Dickman, a 24-year old preschool teacher pregnant with her first child, Chanah Ifergan, a 67-year-old principal and Rabbi Elimelech Wasserman, a 73-year-old rabbi. Who knows what more deaths the bloody truce will bring. 3 dead...

When CNN announced that former Bay Area reporter Sara Sidner would be coming to delve into San Francisco’s lethal cocktail of fentanyl and homelessness, I knew what to expect. For the May 2023 special, Sidner asked people living on the streets why they came to San Francisco to be homeless and got the same answers I’ve gotten for years: It’s easy. Easy to get drugs, do drugs, put up a tent, steal to support your habit — and San Francisco will pay you more than $600 a month for the pleasure. It may not come as a surprise, but cities...

Day 163 of the Iranian national uprising for democracy was eventful in Iran's provinces. nationwide uprising entered its 163rd day on Saturday in different parts of the country against the mullahs' brutal dictatorship. The Iranian opposition MEK has published the names of 17 more martyrs of the February 25 nationwide uprising. So far, the names of 664 martyrs have been published. Mass demonstrations in BaluchistanOn Friday, February 24, the 162nd day of the nationwide uprising, the brave people of Zahedan held demonstrations after Friday prayers for the 21st week after the Zahedan Bloody Friday. The demonstrations took place despite the...

The U.S. ambassador to Lebanon is facing criticism within the State Department for wearing a hijab earlier this month during meetings with pro-Hezbollah officials at a time when Iranian protesters are rallying against such draconian religious displays. Dorothy Shea, who has served as the top U.S. diplomat in Lebanon since 2020, was recently pictured in regional media outlets meeting with Lebanon’s Higher Shiite Islamic Council, a religious body that experts view as allied with Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror group that wages outsized political influence in Lebanon. One senior diplomatic source told the Washington Free Beacon the gesture undermines U.S. efforts...

Iran’s government has embarked on an armed strategy of divide, crush and conquer to end nationwide protests against clerical rule in the Islamic Republic. The primary target is the Kurdish minority population, which has been protesting for more than two months. The government, dominated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has dispatched an aggressive and ill-disciplined militia known as the Basij to assault Kurdish towns and villages in western Iran. For the past eight days, thousands of Basij, transported by armored vehicles and firing heavy automatic weapons, have moved into the western border zone largely populated by Kurds. The Kurds have...

The Azerbaijani parliament on Friday announced its historic decision to open an embassy in Israel. The embassy will be located in Tel Aviv, and will be the first embassy in Israel of a country with a Shi’ite majority and a Shi’ite government. Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said: "I welcome the decision by the National Assembly of Azerbaijan to open an embassy in Israel. Azerbaijan is an important partner of Israel and home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Muslim world. The decision to open an embassy reflects the depth of the relationship between our countries."...

Protests began in Iran on September 16, prompted by the death of a 22-year-old woman who was dragged away and allegedly beaten by the morality police for wearing her hijab improperly. Now, a new horror is being forced on the protesters of Iran who've spent weeks continuing their fight amidst brutal oppression by Islamic forces. More than 14,000 Iranians have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations being held around the country, with the country's parliament voting overwhelmingly last week in favour of the death penalty. Protests are being held across the world in solidarity with Iranian citizens. Image: Taken...

A Pakistani man burnt his 12-year-old son to death... Hearing her boy's manic screams, Shaheer's mother Shazia dashed into the room where both parents threw blankets and clothes on the burning child in a desperate attempt to extinguish the flames, but their efforts were not enough to save him.

At least 50 killed after suicide bomber targets last Friday prayers of the month Eyewitnesses describe 'dead bodies everywhere' after 'deafening blast' in Kabul Hundreds were inside the mosque at the time of the attack, survivors claim Today's Zikr remembrance prayers seen as heretical by hardliner Sunni Muslims Whitehall adviser says death toll could be 200 as Taliban insist only ten dead A suicide bomb blast killed at least 50 worshippers during Friday prayers at a mosque in Afghanistan today. Hundreds were gathered inside the Khalifa Sahib Mosque in western Kabul when the huge explosion took place. It's thought hundreds...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that Kiev’s new written proposals on how to resolve the ongoing armed conflict with Russia deviate from what it submitted to Moscow during the previous round of talks in Turkey. “Ukraine apparently wants to stall for time and continue the hostilities,” he said, adding that Washington may have a hand in this shift. The new proposal, sent by Ukraine on Wednesday, fails to mention that the security guarantees Kiev wants to obtain from leading world powers do not cover Crimea, the top Russian diplomat added, according to RT. “Instead of the explicit...

This rebuke of Biden’s Syria policy comes as the White House continues to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran — a deal with a key Assad backer that granted Damascus new funds to wage war against Syrian civilians... “Propped up by Russia and Iran, the Assad regime continues profiting from its crimes against humanity and has diverted millions in aid to fill its own coffers. There is no solution to the crisis in Syria as long as Assad remains,” ... The administration, more than failing to embrace its Caesar sanctions authorities, has also hollowed out the...

In a recent column in the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Nadim Koteich, a Shi'ite Lebanese journalist and media figure known for his opposition to Hezbollah, wrote that this organization is holding Lebanon hostage and is beggaring the country, for instance by preventing it from reaching an agreement with Israel that would enable it to exploit its natural gas resources. Referring to the deal that is currently under discussion, for alleviating Lebanon's energy crisis by importing gas from Egypt and electricity from Jordan, Koteich wondered why, as a country on the shores of the Mediterranean, Lebanon could drill for its own offshore...

Islamabad apparently bought peace with the TLP. As in its frequent mobilisations over the last few years, the TLP has once again forced the Pakistani state onto the backfoot and enhanced its own political clout. A relatively new phenomenon, the TLP, was founded in 2015 by Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a firebrand cleric who died in November 2020. It now has a strong following among Pakistan’s Barelvi sect. At the heart of TLP’s ideology is the protection of the Prophet’s honour and a vigorous defence of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. In Pakistan, anyone deemed to have insulted Islam or the Prophet...

The attack came only a week after a similar blast killed dozens of Shiite worshippers in the country's north. Friday's explosion occurred at the Fatimiya mosque in central Kandahar, a Taliban spokesman told the AP. Local officials described it as a Shiite mosque. The cause of the blast isn't yet clear, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility. A witness, Murtaza, who goes by one name as many people in Afghanistan do, told the AP by phone that four suicide bombers entered the mosque — two detonating explosives at a security gate to clear the way for the other...

A large explosion tore through a Shi'ite mosque in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar during Friday prayers, killing at least 33 people and wounding 73, officials said, the second massive attack in a week targeting worshippers from the minority sect. A local reporter in Kandahar told Reuters that eyewitnesses had described three suicide attackers, one of whom blew himself up at the entrance to the mosque with the two others detonating their devices inside the building. ... The blast took place just days after an attack claimed by Islamic State militants, which killed scores of Shi'ite worshippers at a...

A suicide bomb attack on worshippers at a Shiite mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz killed at least 55 people on Friday (Oct 8), in the bloodiest assault since US forces left the country. Scores more victims from the minority community were wounded in the blast, which was claimed by the Islamic State group and appeared designed to further destabilise Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover. The extremist group, bitter rivals of the Taliban, has repeatedly targeted Shiites in a bid to stir up sectarian violence in Sunni-majority Afghanistan.

Kabul: The Taliban have blown up the statue of a Shiite militia leader who had fought against them during Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, according to photos circulating on social media Wednesday. “So Taliban have blown up slain Hazara leader Abdul Ali Mazari’s statue in Bamiyan. Last time they executed him, blew up the giant statues of Buddha and all historical and archaeological sites. Too much of ‘general amnesty’,” tweeted Saleem Javed, a human rights activist. The statue depicted Abdul Ali Mazari, a militia leader killed by the Taliban in 1996, when the Islamic militants seized power from rival...

“If there is anything outrageous, then it is your incredible audacity in making these claims that are known to be based on lies, racism and deep-rooted hatred,” they wrote. The legislators decried the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime accusing others of violating freedom of expression, assembly and other human rights. “In 2019 alone, you murdered 1,500 protesters in the streets of Tehran... Your country routinely hangs or throws LGBTQ+ individuals from public buildings... Let’s not forget your recent attempts to kidnap an Iranian dissident journalist in New York or your country’s flagrant involvement in a major terrorist plot on European...

Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, a Shiite cleric who as Iran's ambassador to Syria helped found the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and lost his right hand to a book bombing reportedly carried out by Israel, died Monday of the coronavirus. He was 74. A close ally of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Mohtashamipour in the 1970s formed alliances with Muslim militant groups across the Mideast. After the Islamic Revolution, he helped found the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Iran and as ambassador to Syria brought the force into the region to help form Hezbollah.