Free Republic

In a stunning sweep of the Yemeni capital, the country's Shiite rebels seized homes, offices and military bases of their Sunni foes on Monday, forcing many into hiding and triggering an exodus of civilians from the city after a week of fighting that left 340 people dead. It was the latest development in the Hawthi blitz, which has plunged volatile Yemen into more turmoil, pitting the Shiite rebels against the Sunni-dominated military and their Islamist tribal allies. The heavily armed Hawthi fighters on Monday seized tanks and armored vehicles from military headquarters they had overrun, and raided the home of...

(Reuters) - An al Qaeda splinter group launched a rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in Sanaa on Saturday, injuring several guards, to retaliate for what it said on social media was a U.S. drone strike in a northern province the day before. The rocket landed 200 meters from the heavily fortified embassy, which lies in a compound surrounded by high walls, hitting members of the Yemeni special police force who guard the site. At least two were injured, police said. The attacker fired the rocket from a M72 light anti-tank weapon from a car before speeding away, a police...

On Obama's watch, the regional balance of influence and power has shifted even further away from the United States and toward Iran and its allies. The Islamic Republic has continued to deepen its alliances with Syria and Turkey and expand its influence in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. And, now, the Obama administration stands by helplessly as new openings for Tehran to reset the regional balance in its favor emerge in Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and perhaps elsewhere. If these "pro-American" Arab political orders currently being challenged or upended by significant protest movements become at all more representative of their populations,...

Yemen's president is accusing Iran of provoking current unrest in his country as Shi'ite Houthi rebels advance on the capital Sana'a. -excerpt- He claimed in a statement that Iran was trying to “trade Sana'a for the Syrian capital, Damascus,” a reference to Iranian support for Syria's Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war.

The Houthis, Iranian backed rebels have taken control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. The comparison to Hezbollah is apt as Reuters is reporting that the Houthi are blocking the appointment of Yemen’s president. So what’s Iran’s interest in Yemen? It was spelled out by Michael Segall of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs two and a half years ago. A couple of Segall’s observations are sobering: "Iran regards Yemen in general, and its Shia northern part in particular, as a springboard for subversion and for creating a tangible threat to Saudi Arabia, its main religious-political rival in the region. Iran also...

Gulf Arab states have demanded the restoration of government authority in Yemen, issuing a thinly veiled criticism of rebels with ties to Iran who have taken control of the capital, Sanaa. Fighters from the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi movement seized Sanaa on Sept. 21 after overrunning an army brigade affiliated to the moderate Islamist Islah party, making them effectively the power brokers in the country. The Houthis have since refused to quit the capital, which they control despite an agreement they signed with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to make them a part of the government. An emergency meeting of Gulf Cooperation...

It hasn't made much noise worldwide, but Iran's rapidly deteriorating relationships with several African countries is huge news across the continent. On February 16, the Nigerian Federal High Court in Lagos began the prosecution of an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Azim Aghajani, and a Nigerian associate, Usman Abbas Jega. They are accused of arms smuggling. This video link is in Arabic, but is very self-explanatory. It is of the opening day of the court proceedings.The story is a classic, just one of many on the Dark Continent nowadays: In late October 2010, Nigerian intelligence officials...

The next few months will be decisive for the Iranian regime, which sees a strategic defeat looming on the horizon as all of its red lines in the Middle East are being trampled After years of enjoying the position of the main hegemon in Iraq and Syria, Iran is now facing an escalating dilemma as other powers have entered the scene to deal with the rising threat of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), an extremist group which has occupied stretches of Iraqi and Syrian territory in the past months. Previously, Iran had taken advantage of the...

A drop in global oil prices, driven in part by a boom in U.S. shale oil production, is threatening to hit the economies of energy-exporting Russia and Iran harder than Western economic sanctions have done.

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Arab allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussing the creation of a military pact to take on Islamic militants, with the possibility of a joint force to intervene around the Middle East, The Associated Press has learned. The alliance would also serve as a show of strength to counterbalance their traditional rival, Shiite-dominated, Iran. Two countries are seen as potential theaters for the alliance to act, senior Egyptian military officials said: Libya, where Islamic militants have taken over several cities, and Yemen, where Shiite rebels suspected of links to Iran have...

Israelis—along with all the other disappointed allies—are learning how little it pays to be on Barack Obama’s good side Israeli security fence on Egyptian border, and Hamas Terror Tunnels Let’s just say it up front and avoid tip-toeing around with politically correct language. President Obama and his administration are the most anti-Israel to have held office and likely the most anti-Semitic. Forget about his public declarations of friendship and support for Israel. For six years Obama has demonstrated his antipathy toward the only democratic nation in the Middle East, the Jewish state. That’s why an anonymous administration official felt free...

In a 17-minute audio message, purportedly from its elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group sets its sights firmly on Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam and the world's largest oil producer and exporter. The speaker does not refer to it as Saudi Arabia, since this is a name derived from the ruling tribe, the al-Saud, whose authority IS does not accept. Instead he calls it "the land of Haramayn", the land of the two holy places, meaning Mecca and Medina.

Reports: Top Iranian Negotiator ‘Frequently Shouts’ at Kerry, Western Officials VIENNA—Iran’s foreign minister and lead negotiator in nuclear talks is known to frequently scream and shout at Western diplomats, including Secretary of State John Kerry, a practice that has caused alarm among bodyguards stationed outside the negotiating room, according to a member of the Iranian diplomatic team who spoke to the Farsi-language press. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif—who is scheduled to hold one-on-one talks with Kerry this evening in Vienna—”frequently shouts at Western diplomats” in such a forceful manner that bodyguards have hurriedly entered the negotiation room on occasion worried...

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for attacks against the rulers of Saudi Arabia in a speech purported to be in his name on Thursday, saying his self-declared caliphate was expanding there and in four other Arab countries. Baghdadi also said a U.S.-led military campaign against his group in Syria and Iraq was failing and he called for "volcanoes of jihad" the world over. Reuters could not independently confirm the authenticity of the speech - an audio recording carried on Islamic State-run social media. The voice sounded similar to a previous speech delivered by Baghdadi in July in a...

While it may reject Israel’s existence, Hamas certainly agrees with Prime MInister Binyamin Netanyahu - and disagrees with the US State Department - that its “ultimate goal” is to establish an “Islamic state” (caliphate) over what it sees as the “occupied lands of Palestine.” In short, while the US disputes PM Netanyahu’s statement that “Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas” – Hamas itself does not. China Weekly reported that, on Tuesday, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said in a ceremony to honor police officers killed in the latest Gaza operation that "we don't want to establish an Islamic emirate...

Representatives of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) stated that they will ruin the Kaaba after capturing Saudi Arabia. APA reports quoting Turkish media that ISIS wants to take control of Arar city of Saudi Arabia and start operations here. ISIS member Abu Turab Al Mugaddasi said that they would destroy the Kaaba in Mecca: “If Allah wills, we will kill those who worship stones in Mecca and destroy the Kaaba. People go to Mecca to touch the stones, not for Allah.”

Watching a stampede of seemingly unconnected 'democratic movements' across the moslem ME, you might be fooled into thinking that America and the wonderfully liberating basis of representitive government is only just a few airstrikes away from fruition. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In a TV interview, Iranian analyst Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini called Saudi Arabia "a tribe on the verge of extinction." Al-Hosseini, a former advisor to Iranian President Khatami, further said: "We in the axis of resistance are the new sultans of the Mediterranean and the Gulf... and we will shape the map of the region. We are the sultans of the Red Sea as well. Following are excerpts from the interview, which aired on Al-Mayadeen TV on September 24, 2014: Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini: The Bab Al-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz tighten the noose on the Red Sea, on Israel...

... President Abdullah Gul, ... recently received a visiting group of Americans, including a handful of reporters, of which I was one. ... Despite the hospitality, I came away with the uneasy sense that there is trouble brewing in Ankara. A secular, Muslim-majority state, long allied with the West, Turkey in 2002 voted into power an Islamic party, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP. The AKP's leaders have been fashioning a new role for their government--a role embraced by President Barack Obama--in which Turkey behaves less as a firm ally of the West than as a multilateral mediator and...

Glenn Beck Show: Islamic Caliphate Coming Soon. On Yesterday’s Glenn Beck Show, Glenn had on one of his friends (seems like many of his guests are his friends), an author/Middle East expert by the name of Joel Rosenberg, whose latest book is “The Twelfth Imam.” Together, Beck and the guest went over why the instability in Egypt is so relevant to the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. According to Rosenberg, the first step in creating the imminent Islamic caliphate is for the Muslims to focus on both Jerusalem as well as Saudi Arabia’s Mecca and Medina. Since they already possess...