Free Republic

His name is Touraj Esmaeeli, and you haven’t heard it before. And yet, he’s a big story. He worked as a top advisor to the Iranian intelligence service, as an expert on that country’s cyberwar against the United States and other Western countries. Several of his colleagues have been arrested since last spring, accused of spying, but the spybust hasn’t been widely covered. Esmaeeli scooted off to Istanbul, where he first checked in to a hotel and then barely escaped a combination of Iranian and Turkish agents who had come to arrest him. He has taken refuge in a Western...

An eight-day "ultimatum" for Venezuela's President Maduro to call fresh elections is set to expire in hours. Several EU nations are preparing to recognize Juan Guaido as interim leader, but Maduro remains defiant. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro faces massive pressure to call for new elections before midnight on Sunday. Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium have said they will recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as president if Maduro fails to announce a second vote before the eight-day ultimatum expires. France's European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, told LCI television on Sunday that "if by tonight [President] Maduro does...

An active Venezuelan general called on the armed forces to rebel against President Nicolas Maduro and to recognize the opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim chief as pressure at home and abroad grows on the head of state to step down. In a video circulating on Twitter on Saturday, General Francisco Yanez of the air force's high command, said most of the armed forces already disavowed Maduro, who claims he is victim of a coup directed by the United States. "People of Venezuela, 90 percent of the armed forces of Venezuela are not with the dictator, they are with the...

For the first time ever, The Washington Post is airing a Super Bowl commercial during Sunday's game between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams. The 60 second spot will air during the fourth quarter, shortly before the two minute warning. According to the news outlet , the ad is narrated by actor Tom Hanks and the message focuses on the danger journalists face. The theme is, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." Hanks was chosen as the voice for the ad because of his role as former WaPo Executive Editor Ben Bradlee in "The Post," which focused on...

CARACAS - Venezuela will sell 15 tonnes of gold from central bank vaults to the United Arab Emirates in coming days in return for euros in cash, a senior official with knowledge of the plan said, in a bid by the cash-strapped country to stay solvent. The sale of gold reserves that back the Bolivar currency began on Jan. 26 with a shipment of 3 tonnes, the official said, and follows the export last year of $900 million of unrefined gold to Turkey.

Former US president Barack Obama lied to Saudi Arabia when violating the redlines he famously declared regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons and then not acting when they were used, a former senior Saudi official said in an interview with Independent Arabia. Bandar bin Sultan served for years as head of Saudi intelligence as well as the Saudi ambassador to the United States. In the interview, he recalled a last phone call between the late Saudi King Abdullah and Obama, during which the Saudi leader told the US president: “I did not expect that [after] this long life, I would...

The Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School and the AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School, in Encino and Canoga Park respectively, were vandalized overnight, in what police are calling a hate incident and a hate crime, after school officials reported Turkish flags hanging on campus. After reviewing footage from security cameras, officials are reporting that at 4 a.m. Tuesday a man wearing a mask approached the Ferrahian campus and began hanging the flags on the fence facing White Oak Avenue and on the staircase railings inside the campus. Police have been called at both campuses and are investigating. Ferrahian school principal Sossi Shanlian assured...

FULL TITLE: World War 3: ‘Resistance axis’ of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah ‘planning for war with Israel’ HEZBOLLAH has warned it could team up with Iran and Syria to bomb Israel, and is already planning for “the next war”, the Lebanese group’s leader has said, ramping up tensions in the region still further. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah made his comments as he responded for the first time to Israel's discovery of tunnels dug into Israeli territory from Lebanon by claiming his organisation had "for years" been able to enter Israel. Israel's unveiling of what it called Hezbollah "attack tunnels"...

Turkish army yesterday hit YPG targets in northern Syria, “neutralizing” many militants, state-run Anadolu Agency said in a report based on local sources. Turkish howitzer hit YPG positions in Azaz and Mare districts, the agency said.Separately, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) member was killed, and three others injured in a clash with YPG late on Jan. 26, the agency said.The Turkish military also struck YPG target in Syria’s Tal Rifat over the past three days.Tal Rifaat is some 20 kilometers west of Afrin, which has been under the control of Turkey and its Free Syrian Army allies since an operation...

DOHUK, Iraq (Reuters) - One protester was killed and at least 10 others wounded when they stormed a Turkish military camp near Dohuk in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Saturday, burning two tanks and other vehicles, residents and Kurdish officials said. Najib Saeed, the chief health official in the area, said it was not yet clear what caused the death. He said Turkish soldiers had shot at protesters and that the burning of vehicles and equipment had caused several explosions. Baghdad's foreign ministry criticized the Turkish troops for opening fire and said it would summon Turkey's ambassador over the incident.

The front page of the New York Times Sunday Review featured one of the most biased, poorly informed, and historically inaccurate columns about the conflict between Israel and Palestine ever published by a mainstream newspaper. Written by Michelle Alexander, it is entitled, “Time to break the silence on Palestine,” as if the Palestinian issue has not been the most overhyped cause on campuses, at the United Nations, and in the media. There is no silence to break. What must be broken is the double standard of those who elevate the Palestinian claims over those of the Kurds, the Syrians, the...

The road to the Red Cross Concentration Camp is caked in frozen mud etched with tire tracks and cracking puddles. A dog jogs ahead to dig holes in the camp’s yard. The barbed-wire fence lies in a decrepit heap next to the ticket office branded with a faded swastika and, in thick capital letters, “WACHE SS”.Also, there’s also a high school next door.“Many tourists ask, ‘Oh, is this also part of the camp?’ No, it’s just a school,” explains our guide, Aleksandra Zdravkovic. She works at the tourism office of Nis, a quiet city of 190,000 in southern Serbia, and...

Full title: ISIS WILL be defeated in Syria within a month, says military commander - five weeks after Trump said the terror group had been eliminated in the country A top military commander has said ISIS will be defeated in Syria within a month - five weeks after Donald Trump said the terror group had been eliminated in the country. Mazloum Kobani, chief of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said the last remaining jihadists will soon be flushed out and military operations against the extremists wrapped up. It comes five weeks after the US President tweeted: 'We have defeated ISIS...

Erdoğan phones Maduro after U.S. backs opposition leader Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro in a show of support after U.S. President Donald Trump formally recognised Maduro’s rival as the interim president of Venezuela, Spanish daily El Pais reported on Wednesday. Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president on Wednesday, a surprise move the 35-year-old said was the only way to save the country from “dictatorship” under Maduro. The United States, Canada, Brazil, Colombia and other U.S. regional allies quickly recognised Guaidó, prompting a defiant response from Maduro, who accused Washington of...

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco softened its rhetoric on Syria on Wednesday, with its foreign minister signaling support for calls among some Arab states for a return of Damascus to the Arab League. {snip} ...Arab states, including some that once backed rebels against President Bashar al-Assad, are seeking to reconcile with him after decisive gains by his forces in the war, aiming to expand their clout in Syria at the expense of non-Arab Turkey and Iran. The Moroccan position on Syria comes after Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil called last Friday for reinstating Syria ...

he Women’s March lost a lot of supporters last year, from Alyssa Milano to the Democratic National Committee, over charges that the organizers had an anti-Semitism problem — one they haven’t done much to counter, what with Tamika Mallory still refusing to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. The organizers insisted the first Women’s March wasn’t an anti-Trump march, which is exactly what it was: Hillary lost, and lots of women were angry and needed to vent, and the Women’s March was there for them. What was said from the stage didn’t really seem to matter, which was good, because there...

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke on Monday with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and reiterated Washington’s insistence on protecting its allies in Syria, as it withdraws forces from that country.In a phone conversation with Cavusoglu, Pompeo emphasized “the importance that the United States places on the protection of forces that worked with the United States and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS,” according to a summary of their discussion issued by State Department Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino.The principle US ally in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria has been the Syrian...

The undeclared war between Israel and Iran is heating up as, in a nearly unprecedented move, the Israeli government announced it had struck Iranian targets in Syria. Iranian troops belong to the Quds Force were hit along with targets near the Damascus airport. We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory. We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory. The Quds Force is an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards that operates almost exclusively on foreign soil. Iran deployed the Quds Force to work closely with the Lebanese terrorist group Hezb'allah,...

The Israeli Defence Forces on Sunday confirmed that its missiles are “currently targeting Iranian Quds in Syrian territory” just before midnight local time as reports from the Syrian News Agency confirms massive explosions in capital Damascus. “We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory,” the statement released by the IDF said. It marks the first time Israel has confirmed they are striking Iranian targets in Syria and that it is happening in real time. There have been unconfirmed reports since that Syrian forces are engaging with their weaponry by the Golan Heights — a...

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish prosecutors demand aggravated life imprisonment for a local US Consulate employee, Metin Topuz, who they charge with espionage for a foreign nation, membership in a terrorist organization, and participation in conspiracies to overthrow the government of Turkey.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Parliament Speaker Binali Yildirim, former ministers Ali Babacan, Muammer Guler, and Zafer Caglayan – the last two themselves targets of a high-level corruption investigation in 2013 – and former Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag are among 30 officials who claimed victimhood and are plaintiffs in an indictment released this weekend against Topuz.The Turkish national who...