Free Republic

The US has picked up intelligence on what an Iranian retaliatory strike for the alleged Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus in which a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was eliminated, will look like, CBS News reported on Friday. According to the report, the American intelligence indicates that Iran is planning a retaliatory attack that would include a swarm of Shaheed loitering drones and cruise missiles. Officials quoted in the report say the timing and target are unknown, but a proportional response to the Damascus attack would be to hit an Israeli diplomatic facility. The attack...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

Civilians were killed in attack condemned by U.S., France but not yet acknowledged by IsraelIran fired missiles late Monday at what it claimed were Israeli "spy headquarters" near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria. Four civilians were killed and six injured after missiles hit an upscale area near the consulate in Erbil, the seat of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to the security council of the Kurdish regional government. Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said in a statement that it had hit a headquarters...

Nearly six months after he was stabbed during a lecture in New York, author Salman Rushdie will be publishing a new book, “Victory City”, on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Rushdie, 75, was blinded in his right eye and his left hand was badly injured by the stabbing. After the attack, Rushdie was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital, where he was briefly put on a ventilator, his agent said last October. Rushdie's upcoming 15th novel will be published by Penguin Random House and takes the form of a translation of a mythical epic originally written in Sanskrit about the Vijayanagara Empire that...

An Iranian senior missile engineer died in southern Iran several days ago, according to a report by an Iranian dissident group published on Saturday night. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps engineer Said Thamardar Mutlak was described in alleged funeral announcements shared by the National Iranian Congress as having been made a shahid (martyr) and murdered in Shiraz. The report stated that Iranian authorities did not want news of the death to be published, and that Mutlak’s family had been threatened not to share the news. Did Iran hint to alleged assassination? “Cowardly assassination of heroes of our scientific prowess didn’t help...

Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Saturday threatened to avenge the killing of its top general, saying it would go after everyone responsible for the January U.S. drone strike in Iraq. The guard's website quoted Gen. Hossein Salami as saying, "Mr. Trump! Our revenge for martyrdom of our great general is obvious, serious and real." President Trump warned this week that Washington would harshly respond to any Iranian attempts to take revenge for the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, tweeting that "if they hit us in any way, any form, written instructions already done we're going to hit them 1000 times harder."...

So long as the world is entertaining worst-case scenarios, the media does Americans no favors in omitting that Iran-Hezbollah has for years prepared to strike in their own hometowns. Weirdly absent from much of the professional speculation about where and how Iran will exact its promised “severe revenge” for the U.S. drone strike killing of Quds Force Gen. Qassem Suleimani is mention of the dead man’s highly suggestive hint. During a time of intense saber rattling between Iran and President Donald Trump in July 2018, Suleimani gave a speech during which he called out the American president: “Mr. Gambler, Trump!...

As head of the Quds Force in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani is widely regarded as one of the world's leading terrorists. Now Barack Obama has effectively granted him an amnesty. Qassem Suleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, fully deserves his reputation as one of the world’s leading terrorist masterminds. For a decade a more he has been the driving force behind an array of Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups, from Hizbollah to Hamas, which have orchestrated a reign of terror throughout the Middle East. From a purely British perspective, he was responsible for training and...

On January 3, 2020, near Baghdad's airport, a U.S. air raid targeted Qasem Soleimani, commander of Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (“IRGC’s”) terrorist arm. He was killed instantly. To understand how important this is, one needs to understand who Qasem Soleimani (1957-2020) was. Soleimani, a one-time construction worker and weightlifter, joined the IRGC after the 1979 revolution and soon headed one of the IRGC’s main cadres. Khomeini assigned Soleimani to suppress a Kurdish movement in Mahabad, Western Azerbaijan. Soleimani's brutality earned him command over a Quds Guard Corps unit in Kerman. The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) gave Soleimani opportunities...

Iran Is Weak Suleimani's killing was long overdue. The last time Iran was chastened on the world stage was when the U.S. sank half of the Iranian navy in 1988. The first thing to say about the U.S. airstrike on Thursday night that killed Qassem Suleimani, the longtime leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force, is that President Trump made the right decision.Taking out Suleimani, who was killed as he traveled in a convoy near the Baghdad airport, was long overdue. In a statement, the Pentagon said Suleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service...

  With his resignation and a new book coming out the Left was eager to hear Mattis snipe at Trump. They weren’t expecting him to jackhammer their ‘Scandal-Free’ golden boy.One of the most controversial decisions of Obama’s presidency was the Iran deal.Obama had to give up a HELL of a lot to make his Iran deal happen, and every new revelation makes that ‘deal’ he struck look even worse. Prior be being Secretary of Defense under Trump, Mattis served as commander of U.S. Central Command under Obama and Biden. Mattis had predicted that Iran would continue to provoke the...

Yesterday, National Security Adviser John Bolton announced the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force. It caught many by surprise as it indicated they were sending a “clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.” Until the release, there were no indications that an Iranian attack was imminent. Except, perhaps there were indications and nobody put the pieces together. On April 23rd, a huge story went mostly unnoticed as former Iranian Brigadier General Ali...

President Donald Trump announced Monday the US will formally designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. "This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft," Trump said in a statement that described the IRGC as "the Iranian government's primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign."

TEHRAN, Iran – The website of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is reporting that a general who fought in Syria and Iraq has allegedly accidentally killed himself while cleaning a gun. Gen. Ghodratollah Mansouri allegedly shot himself in the head by accident while cleaning his pistol, according to the Sunday report. The report added that Mansouri was veteran of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and a "defender of the shrine," a reference to Iranians who fight against the extremist Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria and Iraq. Since 2014, Mansouri was a regional commander of the Guard's ground forces in the northeastern city...

Three men were charged in an indictment returned Nov. 27 for their roles in a scheme to defraud U.S. Military contracts in Afghanistan, engaging in illegal commerce in Iran, and laundering money internationally. Their conduct was in connection to two multi-million dollar contracts to provide supplies and logistical support to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Special Agent in Charge Patrick J. Lechleitner of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington, D.C. and Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John F. Sopko made the announcement. Abul...

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering a proposal that could lead to potentially designating Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The officials said several U.S. government agencies have been consulted about such a proposal, which if implemented would add to measures the United States has already imposed on individuals and entities linked to the IRGC. The IRGC is by far Iran’s most powerful security entity, which also has control over large stakes in Iran’s economy and huge influence in its political system.

“I do not fear Trump. We must thank the new American president because he showed the real face of America and because he exposed what we have been saying for decades about the political, moral and economic corruption in it.” This is the recent statement made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against the newly-elected US administration. Yes, we’re passing through a new phase. There has been a major transformation following the reactive years of isolationism which show the depth of the roots that America has returned to in terms of engaging with world crises and contributing to managing...

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s elite military force, is sending assets to infiltrate the United States and Europe at the direction of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to recent Farsi-language comments from an Iranian military leader. The IRGC “will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” according to the Iranian military commander, who said that these forces would operate with the goal of bolstering Iran’s hardline regime and thwarting potential plots against the Islamic Republic. “The whole world should know that the IRGC will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” Salar Abnoush, deputy coordinator...

Istanbul, Turkey (AP) - Syria handed over 22 suspects to Turkey on Sunday in connection with four deadly suicide bombings in Istanbul, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, all Turks, reportedly fled the country after the attacks, which targeted two synagogues in near-simultaneous bombings Nov. 15 and the British consulate and a British bank in twin attacks five days later. A total of 61 people were killed. Citing a statement from paramilitary police, Anatolia said the suspects included Hilmi Tuglaoglu, a close associate of Azat Ekinci, a central suspect in the blasts. News reports have named Ekinci as...