Free Republic

President Barack Obama is nominating a major fundraiser for his presidential campaign to be the next U.S. ambassador to Sweden. The White House says Azita Raji is Obama’s pick for the job. She’s a former investment banker who served as national vice-chair of finance for Obama’s 2012 campaign. She helped raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign as a “bundler” in 2012. …

Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Al-Baghdadi Talks of America's Annihilation and the Muslim Conquest of the World; Declares Support for Nuclear Bombs for Muslim and Arab Countries The following are excerpts from speeches and interviews with Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Husseini Al-Baghdadi, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on May 5, 2006, on Syrian TV on May 3, 2006, and on ANB TV on April 14, 2006.TO VIEW THIS CLIP: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1135. "The Mujahid Iraqi People... Has Shattered the American Plan, Not Only in the Region, but Throughout the World"Ayatollah Ahmad Husseini Al-Baghdadi: "Jihad in Islam, from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence, is of two...

Israel’s reported strike January 18 on a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy driving on the Syrian Golan Heights was one of the most strategically significant events to have occurred in Israel’s neighborhood in recent months. Its significance lies both in what it accomplished operationally and what it exposed. From what been published to date about the identities of those killed in the strike, it is clear that in one fell swoop the air force decapitated the Iranian and Hezbollah operational command in Syria. The head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, the head of its liaison with Iran, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son...

The freshly appointed chairman of a federal investigation into the Benghazi massacre is an apologist for Islamic terrorism who has a cozy relationship with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. And to add insult to injury, at press time Tuesday evening the chairman of this new State Department panel, former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, was poised to participate in a panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia.” The news comes on the heels of a new report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism that found...

<p>WASHINGTON - An order from President Bush authorized a series of U.S. raids against Iranians in Iraq as part of a broad military offensive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.</p> <p>Bush issued the order several months ago, Rice told The New York Times as she prepared to visit the Middle East. She said the president acted "after a period of time in which we saw increasing activity" among Iranians in Iraq "and increasing lethality in what they were producing."</p>

Tehran, 17 Jan. (AKI) - One of the five Iranians arrested last week by the US army in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil is wanted in Austria in connection with the assassination of Kurdish leader Andol Rahman Ghassemlu in 1989. Mahommad Jaafari Sharoudi was one of five Iranian officials detained last week in the Kurdish-controlled city on charges of being connected to a faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. Abdol Rahman Ghassemlu, the historic leader of Iranian Kurds, was killed in an apartment in the outskirts of the Austrian capital...

Secretary of State John Kerry says he told Iranian officials during the nuclear talks that "death to America" chants at public rallies in their country were "pretty stupid." "I told them that their chants of ´death to America´ and so forth are not helpful, and they´re pretty stupid," Kerry said, lowering his voice, during a question-and-answer session at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, where he sought to sell the controversial nuclear deal. Critics have long seized on the chants, saying it shows Tehran is hostile to the United States and that the international community should not trust negotiations

Members of the Parsi Zoroastrian community in Calcutta have filed a petition in a local high court against the music video for the song “King” by Amitis featuring Snoop Dogg, calling it blasphemous and disrespectful toward their faith, the Times of India reports. Zoroastrianism is a millennia-old faith with roots in ancient Persia and a flourishing community in India; its scripture emphasizes the sanctity of nature and the duality of existence. Amitis is an Iranian-born singer who now lives in Atlanta; “King” appears to be her entrance into the realm of Western pop. Snoop Dogg is Snoop Dogg — in...

A former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the FBI says played a role in a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen, accompanied Iraq’s prime minister to the White House on Monday, attending an event at which President Obama trumpeted the end of the Iraq War. Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, transportation minister in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, was part of the delegation that visited the White House to discuss Iraq’s future and Iran’s influence there, among other topics. -excerpt - Louis J. Freeh, who served as FBI director in the Clinton administration and the early months...

Face of evil: MOHSEN RABBANI The Islamic Shiite cleric active in Latin America since the early 1990s. Responsible for the 1992 and 1994 anti-Jewish massacres in Argentina. Wanted in that country and by the Interpol for the crimes. Called for Israel to be "wiped off," in 1994. 'Chief' Islamic operator of Hezbollah - Quds activities of: Islamizaton --including 'recruting converts for Islam'-- and terror networks in Latin America, resides in Brazil. Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil - Pages 122-3Tom Diaz, Barbara Newman - Random House Digital, Inc., 2006 - History - 272 pagesThe man directly responsible for this cell-building...

In January, 2000, Malaysia’s capital was where key members of Al Qaeda held their “Kuala Lumpur summit” to plan the bombing of the USS Cole that October, as well as the later attacks of 9/11/01. In light of this, and other facts pointing to Kuala Lumpur playing host to a hotbed of Islamic terrorists over the years, the baffling mystery of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 provokes renewed scrutiny of Kuala Lumpur in fostering international terrorism to date. In this context, Malaysia’s Islamic government and prevailing majority Mohammedan culture comes across as either grossly incompetent, or even somewhat...

Pre-emptive Expulsion Two Iranian U.N. Workers Expelled From the United States By John McWethy June 27 — Two men who work in New York for Iran's mission to the United Nations are being expelled from the United States, ABCNEWS has learned. Sources told ABCNEWS that the two Iranians were seen five days ago videotaping the Brooklyn Bridge, the entrance to the tunnels into Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. The men, who have been in the United States only four months and are described as security workers for the mission, were stopped and questioned by New York police, sources said,...

New Delhi, Jun 24: With no word from Tehran yet, India is all set to send legal request letters to four nations including Iran seeking help in its probe into the bombing of an Israeli embassy’s vehicle here in February. Official sources said today that Letters Rogatory for Iran, Malaysia, Thailand and Georgia has been sent to Union Home Ministry for vetting after which it would sent to Legals and Treaty Division of Ministry of External Affairs to be sent to these respective countries. The sources said Iran had been earlier requested through diplomatic channels for help in tracing Houshang...

When folks like Andrew McCarthy articulated why our findings about then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s close adviser Huma Abedin were important, his camp was smeared as being discriminatory. His argument had nothing to do with discrimination or Islamophobia. It had everything to do with Abedin’s familial ties compromising her judgment and allegiances to the U.S. Constitution. Here we have an example that demonstrates this reality further and it comes via Kenneth Timmerman, who has picked up on the fact that the new Secretary of State – John Kerry – has a son-in-law with family still living in Iran. This...

Not Every Leak Is Fit to Print Why have federal prosecutors subpoenaed a New York Times reporter?by Gabriel Schoenfeld 02/18/2008, Volume 013, Issue 22 Investigations of national-security leaks in Washington are not all that rare. But until Judith Miller of the New York Times was sent to jail for 85 days by a special prosecutor digging into the Valerie Plame imbroglio, investigations of such leaks in which journalists are subpoenaed were about as common as unicorns wandering the National Mall. We now have another such unicorn. On January 24, a federal grand jury in Alexandria issued a subpoena to...

A New York Times reporter will be subpoenaed to answer questions ahead of an upcoming trial of a former CIA officer accused of leaking classified information, though a Tuesday hearing indicated there is much confusion about what the journalist may be asked to reveal. Prosecutors say they will not ask James Risen if ex-CIA man Jeffrey Sterling was his anonymous source for part of the 2006 book “State Of War” that detailed a botched CIA effort to cripple Iran’s nuclear program. However, they do want to know if the two had a prior, on-the-record source relationship. Risen’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg,...

Camp Liberty is currently facing a humane and human rights crisis On Wednesday, 26 November 2014, patients in Camp Liberty adjacent to Baghdad International Airport held a rally protesting the medical siege imposed by the Iraqi government on the residents of this camp. The inhumane medical siege against Iranian dissidents, members of opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in Iraq, continues after the transfer of their protection from the US government to the Iraqi government in early 2009 and with Nouri Maliki – a political ally of the Iranian regime – coming to power in Iraq. To this day 22...

The progressive left has an answer for who to blame for this White House’s many faults: Valerie Jarrett. The most read piece on Politico at the moment is one calling on President Obama to fire Jarrett. Noam Scheiber’s piece at The New Republic illustrates why progressives are finally voicing their frustrations with Jarrett’s avowedly corporatist approach to governance, leaking quotes to display her status as a yes-woman with naive views of Obama’s popularity (Mika Brzezinski is here for the defense).

The insider-account of the damaging divisions between the White House and the State Department comes as diplomats around the world wait to see if John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, can persuade Mr Obama to greater engagement on Syria, Egypt and the wider Middle East. Vali Nasr, a university professor who was seconded in 2009 to work with Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, records his profound disillusion at how a "Berlin Wall" of domestic-focused advisers was erected to protect Mr Obama. "The president had a truly disturbing habit of funnelling major foreign policy...

<p>MILAN (AP) — Foreign ministry officials in Rome and Vienna confirm that names of two nationals listed on the manifest of the missing Malaysian airlines flight match passports reported stolen in Thailand.</p> <p>Italy's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that an Italian man whose name was listed as being aboard is traveling in Thailand and was not aboard the plane.</p>