Free Republic

Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources[1], according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles. At a moment when NATO members found an agreement, in the recent Lisbon summit (19-20 November 2010), to develop a Missile Defence...

The diplomatic ties between Iran and Venezuela go back almost 50 years and until recently amounted to little more than the routine exchange of diplomats. With the election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, the relationship dramatically changed. Today Mr. Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez have created a cozy financial, political and military partnership rooted in a shared anti-American animus. Now is the time to develop policies in this country to ensure this partnership produces no poisonous fruit. Signs of the evolving partnership began to emerge in 2006, when Venezuela joined Cuba and Syria as the only nations...

ROME Petroleumworld.com, December 22, 2008 Iran is using its warm relations with Venezuela to dodge UN sanctions and use Venezuelan aircraft to ship missile parts to Syria, an Italian newspaper reported Sunday. Citing US and other Western intelligence agencies, La Stampa said Iran is using aircraft from Venezuelan airline Conviasa to transport computers and engine components to Syria for use in missiles.

Iranian-backed militants are operating across the United States mostly unfettered, raising concerns in Congress and among regional experts that these "sleeper cell" agents are poised to launch a large-scale attack on the American homeland, according to testimony before lawmakers. Iranian agents tied to the terror group Hezbollah have already been discovered in the United States plotting attacks, giving rise to fears that Tehran could order a strike inside America should tensions between the Trump administration and Islamic Republic reach a boiling point. Intelligence officials and former White House officials confirmed to Congress on Tuesday that such an attack is not...

BREAKING: IDF sources said to confirm Iran has established air forces in Syria and are planning retaliatory attacks in Israel.

Round one occurred on Feb. 10, when an Iranian drone launched by a Revolutionary Guards Quds Force unit operating out of Syria’s T4 air base, east of Homs in central Syria, was shot down with a missile from an Israeli Apache helicopter that was following it after it penetrated Israeli airspace. “This is the first time we saw Iran do something against Israel — not by proxy,” a senior Israeli military source told me. “This opened a new period.” It certainly helps to explain why Israeli jets launched a predawn missile raid on the Iranian drone’s T4 home base last...

The same resolve the US, Britain and France showed in standing up to Syrian President Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria needs to be shown in preventing terrorist states and organizations from getting nuclear capabilities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a phone conversation Saturday night with British Prime Minister Theresa May. Netanyahu, who was referring to Iran, spoke about this conversation at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. US President Donald Trump has given the European powers – France, Britain and Germany – until May 12 to fix the Iranian nuclear agreement signed in 2015. If...

snip Distressingly, one of the key parties blocking U.S. efforts to curb Iranian capabilities in all areas is one of America’s closest allies: Germany. Although Germany is a member of NATO and is perceived as a loyal U.S. ally, in practice, Germany is one of Iran’s most powerful protectors and promoters. For the past several weeks, administration officials have told reporters that Germany is selling Iran technology that Iran is using to help the Assad regime replenish its chemical weapons stocks. Last week, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Germany’s Krempel Group provided components found on the Iranian rockets used...

Jordan's decision should be a no-brainer The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)—refusing to bow to pressure by President Trump to cease payments to terrorists and their families currently exceeding US$400 million annually—is looming as a potential threat to end 96 years of unbroken Hashemite rule in Jordan. PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas - addressing the ninth annual Islamic Beit al-Maqdes International Conference in Ramallah last week—has sent a veiled message of the PLO’s intention to challenge Jordan’s ruling Hashemite family if PLO demands for a State in the West Bank with Jerusalem as its capital are not met.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan welcomed U.S., British and French forces’ airstrikes on Syria, saying that the operation sent a message to Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad. “With the joint operation by U.S., U.K. and France on Saturday, the Syrian regime received the message that its massacres wouldn’t be left unanswered,” Erdogan told his ruling AK Party supporters in an Istanbul meeting. “The innocent Syrian people should have been defended long ago,” Erdogan added.

In the early morning hours of Thursday, Syria’s al-Tala’i military research facility located in Masyaf was reduced to ash and flames. The Jerusalem Post reports that contemporaneous with the strike on al-Tala’I, a Hezbollah weapons convoy in the vicinity was also hit and destroyed. According to Western intelligence sources, al-Tala’i is a center for the production of chemical weapons. Syria blamed Israel and claimed that at least two regime soldiers were killed in the attack. The regime issued a banal and somewhat hypocritical warning of the “dangerous repercussions of this aggressive action to the security and stability of the region.”...

A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq’s WMD located in three Syrian sites. Nizar Najoef, a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper “Di Telegraaf,” that he knows the three sites where Iraq’s WMD are kept. The storage places are: 1. Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons...

"Russia strongly condemns the attack on Syria where Russian servicemen are helping the legitimate government in the war on terrorism" Russian President Vladimir Putin 4/14/2018 Russia is calling for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the attacks in Syria last night...... Israel, meanwhile, apparently fearing Iranian retaliation, has declared a No Fly Zone in the Golan region......

It seems the movements in Syrian skies are telling a story of an impending confrontation between the United States and Russia. Yes, the planes keeping watch over Syria belong to Russia, but Putin is Assad’s keeper. It is almost as if Assad is the child, and Putin is the father. Make no mistake about it, this looming war will be fought between the US and Russia. At this time, Iran is making decisions for Syria, as Assad is holed up in a Russian bunker. While Iran is filling Assad’s shoes, Russia is filling his skies. Russian jets have been routinely...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has called on the Israeli government to show "restraint" amid what has now been weeks of protests by Hamas terrorists who have swarmed the Israeli border and stoked violence. "I am deeply concerned about the deaths and injuries in Gaza," Warren was quoted as saying. "As additional protests are planned for the coming days, the Israel Defense Forces should exercise restraint and respect the rights of Palestinians to peacefully protest." The quote is likely to rankle the pro-Israel community, which has become increasingly strained with the Democratic Party as lawmakers such as Warren adopt a...

Lebanon's civil war has been described as a house of mirrors in that "it was easier to find your way in than to find your way out," (Thomas Friedman). The longer the war dragged on the more disorienting the "house" became until the most impossible ironies emerged as Lebanon's very reality. At one point following the 1982 invasion, Israel supplied Iran with US manufactured TOW missiles in a hostage exchange agreement. Iran thereafter transferred the missiles to Hezbollah within Lebanon where they were then fired back at the Israelis occupying the south. I inspected the assortment of rocket launchers in...

Moscow will shoot down any U.S. missiles fired at Syria and retaliate against American launch sites, the Russian ambassador to Lebanon has warned. Ambassador Alexander Zasypkin made the comments on Tuesday while speaking on the Hezbollah-affiliated al-Manar TV channel, Reuters reported. President Donald Trump is currently considering military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad following Saturday’s suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Douma near the capital city of Damascus. Medical relief groups say the attack killed dozens of civilians.

Yemen’s rebel Houthi movement launched earlier on Wednesday drone strikes on a Saudi Aramco facility and on an airport in Saudi Arabia, Houthi-owned Al-Masirah TV channel reported on Wednesday. Aramco says that its plants are operating normally and safely, Reuters reports. The Iran-aligned Yemeni rebels, who have been fighting a Saudi-led Arab coalition in Yemen since 2015, said that they targeted on Wednesday morning local time the Abha airport in Asir and Aramco in Jazan, according to the Houthis’ Al-Masirah outlet. Saudi Aramco has a 400,000-bpd refinery in Jazan in the country’s southwest. The refinery is part of a project...

Oil prices soared on Wednesday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted earlier in the day that Russia would better “get ready” for U.S. missiles in Syria. At 08:33 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, WTI Crude was above $66 and Brent—above the $71 mark. WTI Crude was up 0.92 percent to $66.12, while Brent Crude had jumped 0.87 percent at $71.66. “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys...

The dominant narrative of modern Middle East history emphasizes European colonization and accepts as a truism that the former colonial powers prioritized the protection of their material interests—in oil, above all—above the dignity and self-determination of the region’s inhabitants. --Thus did botched decolonization result in endless instability...Thus did the region become a breeding ground for radicalism, intensified by Cold War rivalry between the superpowers, who replaced the European colonizers as the region’s meddling overlords...Then came Mikhail Gorbachev—a Westernizing reformer. At last, the Cold War was over. A new world order was at hand. What if this conventional wisdom is nonsense?...