Free Republic

STERLING, Va. (AP) - A senior Pentagon official is apologizing to Washington-area Muslims for the burning of Qurans at a military base in Afghanistan. Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific security affairs, says the military is investigating and that all troops are being retrained in the handling of religious materials. Lavoy's remarks were Friday at a mosque in suburban Washington, D.C. They come after protests across Afghanistan over the burning of several Qurans at a U.S. military base. Military officials say 20 people have died in the protests, including two U.S. soldiers.

Enraged Iranian officials are vowing retaliation against Israel, the US and the UK over the latest assassination of a nuclear scientist, 32-year-old Mustafa Ahmadi Roshan, in Tehran. A former Iranian ambassador who served in Mexico and Italy recommended that an American being held in Tehran be executed in retaliation for the assassination. “The terrorist attack on the scientist must not be left unanswered and therefore it is advisable to immediately execute [the suspected CIA spy [Amir Mirzai Hekmati] at the site of the explosion,” recommended former Ambassador Mohamed Hassan Qadiri in a post on his blog. He added that had...

ISLAMABAD – Intercepted militant radio communications indicate the leader of the Pakistani Taliban may have been killed in a recent U.S. drone strike, Pakistani intelligence officials said Sunday. A Taliban official denied that. The report coincided with sectarian violence — a bomb blast in eastern Pakistan that killed 14 people in a Shiite religious procession. The claim that the Pakistani Taliban chief was killed came from officials who said they intercepted a number of Taliban radio conversations. In about a half a dozen intercepts, the militants discussed whether their chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed on Jan. 12 in the North...

Iranian ships recently taunted two U.S. Navy vessels as part of escalating tensions in and around the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz. The incidents in the strait, one of the world's most important oil routes, occurred last week and involved the USS New Orleans, an amphibious transport dock, and the Coast Guard Cutter Adak, the military said Friday in releasing videos of the incidents. Iranian speed boats are seen in one of the videos approaching the USS New Orleans within about 500 yards last Friday. "The Iranian boats did not respond to whistle signal or voice queries from the New...

Osama Bin Laden's hideout will be spectacularly destroyed by the Pakistan military in front of TV cameras, it has emerged. Military chiefs plan to launch rocket propelled grenades at the mansion hideout in Abbottabad. It will then be bulldozed in order to prevent the walled complex from becoming a shrine to the former Al Qaeda leader.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The U.S. Congress' House majority leader has met with Saudi Arabia's oil minister, marking the latest stop by an official from a major oil importing nation to the OPEC kingpin since Iran threatened to shutter the vital Strait of Hormuz. A statement released Wednesday by the Saudi Oil Ministry says Ali Al-Naimi and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, discussed the importance of coordination between oil exporters and importers to stabilize oil markets.

Iran has the ability to temporarily block the Strait of Hormuz but the U.S. “would take action and reopen” it, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey said Sunday, making clear to Iran that in threatening to close the straits, it is literally playing with fire. . “They’ve invested in capabilities that could, in fact, for a period of time block the Strait of Hormuz,” Dempsey said in an interview for CBS's “Face the Nation." “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that if that happens, we can defeat that.” Blocking the strategic shipping lane linking the Gulf of Oman...

Iran has begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site well protected from possible airstrikes, a leading hardline newspaper reported Sunday. The announcement came as another newspaper quoted a senior commander in the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard as saying that Tehran's leadership has decided to order the closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz if the country's oil exports are blocked. Iran is under U.N. sanctions for refusing to stop uranium enrichment -- which can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material -- and other suspected activities that the international community fears could be used to make atomic arms....

According to MehrNews, the mouthpiece of the Islamic regime in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that the Knesset’s decision to declare al-Quds (Jerusalem) the capital of Israel not only will not save the Zionist regime but also will speed up the regime’s annihilation. Ahmadinejad made the remarks during a meeting with the head of Turkey – Iran parliamentary friendship group, Murat Yildirim, in Tehran on Tuesday. He said that the Judaization of al-Quds (Jerusalem) is in line with the domineering powers’ colonialist policies to save the Zionist regime and dominate the region. Elsewhere in his remarks, Ahmadinejad said that...

Without much media attention, thousands of American troops are being deployed to Israel, and Iranian officials believe that this is the latest and most blatant warning that the US will soon be attacking Tehran. Tensions between nations have been high in recent months and have only worsened in the weeks since early December when Iran hijacked and recovered an American drone aircraft. Many have speculated that a back-and-forth between the two countries will soon escalate Iran and the US into an all-out war, and that event might occur sooner than thought. Under the Austere Challenge 12 drill scheduled for an...

White House: Iran making threats on the Strait of Hormuz because it’s weak By Jeremy Herb - 01/03/12 04:41 PM ET In yet another ratcheting-up of the back-and-forth between the United States and Iran on Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Iran is making threats on the Strait of Hormuz because it’s “in a position of weakness.” “It’s the latest round of Iranian threats and it’s confirmation that Tehran is under increasing pressure for its continued failure to live up to its international obligations,” Carney said at Tuesday’s press briefing. “Iran is isolated and seeking to divert attention...

While signing the bill on Saturday the New Year eve in Honolulu, where he is on year-end vacation, the president expressed many reservations about some of its provisions... The bill for the year 2012 seeks to suspend 60 percent of $1.1 billion US military aid to Pakistan under the category Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund till the secretaries of State and Defence report to the Congress that Islamabad is making progress in the war against terrorism particularly progress in strategies to counter IEDs... The Obama Administration has maintained that the bill under no circumstances results in suspension of US military aid to...

Iranian navy soldiers take part in a military exercise in the Strait of Homruz on Wednesday Tensions between the United States and Iran have dangerously ratcheted up as naval officials with America's Fifth Fleet warned any attempt by Iran to close a strategically vital oil route through the Strait of Hormuz would "not be tolerated". The news heightens a sense of growing crisis in the Persian Gulf after two days of threats by senior Iranian figures that they might shut down the important trade route in response to any future international sanctions against the country's oil exports. "Anyone who threatens...

A high-ranking Iranian official has said Iran's military will practice sealing off the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transport channel, in a provocative move that illustrates Iran’s capability of disrupting the world’s oil supply. The announcement Monday by Parviz Sarvari sent oil prices up about $3 to $100 a barrel based on the speculation of a disruption during the military drills, Bloomberg reported. “Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz,” Sarvari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, said in a statement reported by Reuters. “If...

<p>ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan will shoot down any U.S. drone that intrudes its air space per new directives, a senior Pakistani official told NBC News on Saturday.</p> <p>According to the new Pakistani defense policy, "Any object entering into our air space, including U.S. drones, will be treated as hostile and be shot down," a senior Pakistani military official told NBC News.</p>