Free Republic

Amid a wave of U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean and plans for covert operations in Venezuela, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is leading a bipartisan effort to force a vote to stop President Trump from unilaterally declaring war on the South American nation. Kaine, a longtime proponent of Congress' powers to declare war, filed the resolution late Thursday, a move that will force the Senate to take up the legislation after a 10-day waiting period. Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., co-sponsored the plan. Kaine said concerns about war in the Latin American region are growing. "The pace...

Ghassan Duhine, the deputy of an anti-Hamas resistance group in the Gaza Strip issued a Rosh Hashanah statement on social media. The deputy head of the Abu Shabab militia in the Gaza Strip, wished the Jewish people a happy New Year in a social media post on Sunday. The post included a handwritten note in Hebrew seen by The Jerusalem Post. Duhine extended "sincere congratulations to our Arab Jews, especially, to the Jewish people in general, and all those who celebrate this holiday around the world." Several Hamas supporters took to social media to express disapproval of Duhine's statement. They...

Each case will be judged on its own merits, but this is part of a pattern of selective prosecution.President Donald Trump has embarked on a campaign of prosecuting political foes, from ex-FBI director James Comey to New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). On Thursday night, his former national security adviser, John Bolton, became the third high-profile antagonist to face charges in as many weeks. What’s different now is that the Justice Department’s charges, and the evidence underlying them, appear stronger than in previous cases.A grand jury in Maryland indicted Bolton on 18 counts of transmitting and retaining national defense...

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Oct. 15 that the agency is cracking down on espionage by foreign adversaries, with an increase in arrests as high as 50 percent. “We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran,” he said at a press conference. “In China alone, we’ve had over a 50 percent increase in espionage arrests alone, and prosecutions,” Patel said. “In Iran, we have had a 50 percent increase, again, in espionage cases. And in Russia, we had a 33 percent increase in espionage cases alone.” State Department employee Ashley Tellis, arrested...

A Minneapolis FBI agent who started his career with the agency as an intern in 2000 has been charged with leaking classified information to the news website The Intercept. Terry James Albury's attorneys, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, said in a statement that their client, the only African-American FBI field agent in Minnesota, was "driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI." "Terry Albury served the U.S. with distinction both here at home and abroad in Iraq," the statement read. "He accepts full responsibility for the conduct set forth in...

RABAT, Morocco (AP) - One of three Moroccans arrested in connection with the Madrid train bombings was already being closely watched by authorities in his homeland, where he was suspected of ties to an al-Qaida-linked group, a Moroccan official said Sunday. Jamal Zougam, 30, was one of thousands of Moroccans put under surveillance by authorities after May terrorist bombings in the coastal city of Casablanca, a high-level official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. There were no formal accusations against him. The other two suspects, Mohamed Bekkali, 31, and Mohamed Chaoui, 34, had no police record at...

Because of them, telephone taping was carried out a year before the massacre.Two of the Moroccoan Islamist Fugitives Were the Key to Investigate Jamal Zougham Before 3/11.LD (Luis del Pino) The surprising flight of nine Islamists from a Moroccan prison last week has taken an unexpected turn, when it was discovered that two of them, the Chatbi brothers, were allegedly linked to the top sentenced for 3/11, Jamal Zougham, and his stepbrother Mohamed Chaoui, arrested like Zougham on March 13th, but released a few weeks after the Madrid attacks. Although that relation between Zougham and the Chatbi brothers was finally...

One of the four bodies handed over to Israel by Hamas does not belong to an Israeli hostage but to a Gazan, a security official said following identification attempts at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute. According to another security source, the fourth body is that of a Gazan wearing an IDF uniform. According to the first source, 21 deceased hostages remain in Hamas captivity, and additional bodies are expected to be transferred to Israel on Wednesday. "Following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match...

Socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said there is no room for pro-Israel voters within his coalition, arguing that fellow Democrats should not make "an exception" for people who are "progressive except Palestine." The Democratic nominee said his long history of anti-Israel activism—which includes founding the Bowdoin College chapter of the extremist and terror-aligned Students for Justice in Palestine organization—informs his belief that pro-Israel liberals should be driven out of the left.

New York magazine wondered aloud about the success of President Donald Trump in achieving a peace deal in the Middle East while the Biden administration was an utter failure in that regard. That puzzlement was reflected in the title of Ross Barkan's Tuesday Intelligencer section column, "How Did Trump Get a Peace Deal Done Where Biden Could Not?"Barkin struggles with the idea of Trump's success by denigrating him as merely a transactional deal maker in the real estate mode as well as being primarily motivated by a desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, such mockery is to be...

They are part of Russia's broader targeting of infrastructure that now is being carried out with greater precision thanks to advances in long-range drone technology that include onboard video feed. In the attack in Shostka, less than 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the Russian border, two explosives-laden drones struck two commuter trains in quick succession. Russia has stepped up railway attacks over the past three months, seeking to sow unrest in Ukrainian regions it borders by depriving people there of rail connections, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, the CEO of the Ukrainian state railway, told The Associated Press. “What happens is not just...

Hamas appeared to renege on key demands of President Trump’s cease-fire deal just hours after the world celebrated the end of the Gaza war — with a top official saying the terror group will not give up its arms or control over the Gaza Strip. Spokesman Hazem Qassem claimed Monday that Hamas has no need to abide by every word of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, including calls for the terror group to lay down its arms. “We do not need to limit ourselves to the Israeli terms and definitions related to weapons,” Qassem told the Al-Arabiya news channel. “We will...

Reports and video have emerged of a massive explosion in Cairo, Egypt ahead of President Trump’s Peace Summit. Israel Hayom: A powerful explosion rocked the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Monday, shattering windows kilometers away from the site. The blast occurred at a military base in the northern part of the city, close to several government institutions. The explosion took place as regional and world leaders were gathering in Sharm el-Sheikh, in southern Sinai, for a peace summit on the future of the Gaza Strip. A huge cloud of smoke was seen rising over Cairo, the largest city in the Middle...

Antony Blinken, Joe Biden’s former Secretary of State, tried to claim that the Biden administration deserved credit for the Israel-Hamas peace agreement, arguing that Donald Trump’s success wouldn’t have been possible without the groundwork that Biden’s team supposedly laid. That’s pure fantasy. Hamas surrendered because Trump backed it into a corner with decisive pressure, not because Biden’s diplomats pulled off some behind-the-scenes miracle.Hamas surrendered its last living hostages, giving up the only leverage it had left in this mess they started two years ago. This wasn't some breakthrough negotiation. It was a complete capitulation, and Hamas knew it was their...

When I wrote on Saturday that the foreign policy establishment is in utter shambles, I'm not sure I expected them to respond with such utter shamelessness. Yet, here we are, with former Secretary of State Antony Blinken giving Joseph Robinette Biden credit for the recently negotiated Gaza peace deal. No, I'm not kidding, and that's not even the worst of it. As RedState reported, the deal will see the release of the remaining hostages, with Israel not having to vacate Gaza. Instead, they'll pull back to a predetermined line inside the territory, forming a buffer zone to ensure the disarmament...

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - In a stunning and unprecedented public rebuke that signals a deep and potentially significant crack in the facade of the "Axis of Resistance," a prominent and historically influential Iranian newspaper has declared that the Hamas-led "Al-Aqsa Storm" operation of October 7, 2023, was a "costly mistake" and a "definite mistake from the beginning" that has wasted decades of effort and brought nothing but devastation to the region.The scathing assessment, published in a detailed editorial by the Jomhouri-e Eslami newspaper on Sunday, argues that the two-year war sparked by the attack has produced no winners, but has instead...

Taliban in Afghanistan said be as crazy as us. Pakistan said to Taliban, you fill us with disgust. But the Taliban had new allies, China, Iran and some others So they attacked poor Pakistan, their dear Islamic brothers. Transcript linked below video.

Firefights broke out along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border late on Saturday, with the Afghan Taliban attacking Pakistani posts, according to security officials from both countries, following a Pakistani airstrike in Kabul this week. Pakistani security officials said that they were responding "with full force" to what they called unprovoked firing from Afghanistan. The exchange of fire took place at more than six locations along the border, they said.

The US ambassador to Israel has called cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson "delusional" after she told Sky News the UK played a key role in the Gaza peace deal. The education secretary told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that Sir Keir Starmer's presence at a signing ceremony for the ceasefire deal in Egypt on Monday "demonstrates the key role that we have played". She did not say exactly what the UK's role in the ceasefire, largely attributed to Donald Trump, is or was. But she added: "We have played a key role behind the scenes in shaping this. "It's right that...

Hamas is strolling through a public square, shooting civilians. Narrator broadcasts in Hebrew with English subtitles. English subtitles for Arabic speakers in the video. Very short.