Free Republic

Hannity

Sometime last January, several agents belonging to Israel's intelligence service Mossad, approached a non-descript warehouse in Tehran. After disabling a few alarms and bypassing other security measures, the agents entered the building.  The agents had hit the jackpot. Over 61/2 hours, the agents removed tens of thousands of documents relating to Iran's nuclear program. The documents included warhead designs and information on how other countries had assisted Iran in their nuclear program. The upshot is that the documents - as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech last April when he made the raid public - prove...

The archive of Iranian nuclear documents seized by the Israeli Mossad from a Tehran warehouse in January shows that Iran’s program to build nuclear weapons “was almost certainly larger, more sophisticated and better organized” than was suspected, unnamed nuclear experts were quoted as saying in the New York Times on Sunday, after being shown selected documents from the haul by US reporters. One of the Iranian documents specifies plans to build a first “batch of five weapons” and discusses sites for possible underground nuclear tests, the Times reported, after one of its reporters was given limited access to the haul...

A top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Iran would immediately withdraw its “military advisers” from Syria and Iraq only if their governments wanted it to. “Iran and Russia’s presence in Syria will continue to protect the country against terrorist groups and America’s aggression,” said the adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, in a conference in Moscow, according to Reuters. “We will immediately leave if Iraqi and Syrian governments want it, not because of Israel and America’s pressure,” he stressed. Iran and Russia back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war. Iran has been...

Russia is planning to expand its Syrian bases at Tartus and Hemeimeem to Libya. The possible Russian move into Libya represents the most recent failure stemming from the policies of President Obama that backed Islamist rebels who overthrew and killed Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Mr. Obama has said that the failure to prepare for the aftermath of the ouster of Gadhafi was the worst mistake of his presidency. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also came under fire for failing to provide security for Americans who were attacked and killed in Benghazi after Gadhafi’s fall. The push for a...

In biggest attack since 2014 war, Israeli army says it struck 40 targets, including Hamas' Beit Lahia battalion HQ, More than 140 rocket alarm sirens sound in southern Israel, 90 rockets fired at Israel, 16 intercepted by Iron Dome. Israel's cabinet will meet on Sunday to discuss the escalation in the south. A Palestinian official who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said Egypt and other international players were holding contacts iwht Israel and Gaza to restore calm.....

U.S. regulators Friday approved the first treatment for smallpox — a deadly disease that was wiped out four decades ago — in case the virus is used in a terror attack. Smallpox, which is highly contagious, was eradicated worldwide by 1980 after a huge vaccination campaign. But people born since then haven’t been vaccinated, and small samples of the smallpox virus were saved for research purposes, leaving the possibility it could be used as a biological weapon. Maker SIGA Technologies of New York has already delivered 2 million treatments that will be stockpiled by the government, which partially paid for...

British detectives investigating the poisoning of two people by the nerve agent Novichok in southern England say scientists have found the source of the deadly substance. The Metropolitan Police said Friday that a small bottle found during searches of Rowley’s house Wednesday was tested and scientists confirmed the substance in the bottle was Novichok. Police are still looking into where the bottle came from and how it came to be in Rowley’s house. Further tests will be carried out to establish whether it is from the same batch that contaminated Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in March.

Former UK Ambassador to the US Sir Christopher Meyer, 74, was beaten bloody by two attackers at Victoria Station in London on Wednesday, hours after he published an essay supporting President Donald Trump’s visit to the UK Thursday.

The U.S. ambassador to Germany urged Berlin on Tuesday to stop Iran withdrawing large sums of cash from bank accounts in Germany to offset the effect of new U.S. sanctions imposed after Washington withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal. Richard Grenell, a longtime critic of the accord, told the mass-circulation daily Bild that the U.S. government was extremely concerned about Tehran’s plans to transfer hundreds of millions of euros in cash to Iran. “We encourage the highest levels of the German government to intervene and stop the plan,” Grenell said. […] Bild first reported on Monday that German authorities were...

A major purpose of Iran wanting to enlarge its footprint in Syria may be to hide aspects of its nuclear program from the International Atomic Energy Agency, former top IDF Military Intelligence official Yossi Kuperwasser said on Wednesday. Speaking at a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs conference on the Iran nuclear situation, JCPA fellow Kuperwasser, a former IDF brigadier-general, noted that IAEA inspectors are limited to inspecting Iran’s territory, as the Iran nuclear deal did not grant IAEA inspectors complete access to Iranian scientists. Based on that limited access, Kuperwasser said Iran could move and conceal its nuclear scientists and...

A description of the Israeli attack on the T-4 airbase in Syria and the complete destruction of the control tower. The Iranians are no longer hiding their intentions and are waiting for the order to destroy Israel. Israel's help in rescuing the trapped soccer players (amazing technology!). The repercussions on Iran of Trump moving out of the Iran nuclear deal. And did you know it was Israeli intelligence that revealed the plot to blow up the convention in Paris at which Giuliani and Gingrich were scheduled to speak? Earthquakes and their possible significance. And the update is followed by a...

n a major story that came and went, President Obama shut down a major drug operation run by Hezb'allah because he didn't want to upset Iran's mullahs and endanger his Iran deal. Seems the Iran deal was considerably more important to his "legacy" than any concern about drug-dealing, the opioid epidemic, or just the idea of putting terrorists who finance themselves through the global drug trade out of business. Politico did the story about how Obama shut down Project Cassandra, so it should have gotten attention, yet it didn't. The whole thing recalls something security expert Rachel Ehrenfeld memorably told...

A Democratic candidate for a seat in the California state assembly blames Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinians and has offered her support for anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Maria Estrada, a candidate for California’s District 63 representing the southeast suburbs of Los Angeles, garnered the second most votes, some 28 percent, in a top-two primary on June 5 for the November election. She will run against incumbent and fellow Democrat Anthony Rendon, who also serves as Speaker of the California State Assembly. In an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and...

Does Iran really want to nuke Israel? Is Israel stronger than Iran? A top security expert explains Israel ranked eighth most powerful country in the world North Korea expanded missile facility during talks with Trump, analysts say Pompeo downplays North Korea's rebuke of 'gangster-like' denuclearization demands North Korea reportedly extended an offer to Israel in 1999 to nix its agreements to sell missile technology to Iran and other enemy states that posed a threat to the Jewish state at the time - if Israel paid Pyongyang $1 billion in cash. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal published...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel imposed sanctions on the Gaza Strip and its dominant Hamas Islamists on Monday in retaliation for attacks by Palestinians using burning kites and helium balloons carrying blazing rags. People taking part in more than three months of protests at the Gaza border have started scores of fires by sending the balloons and kites into Israel, vexing its advanced military which is used to dealing with more conventional weapons. With southern residents and his far-right coalition partners calling for an end to the blazes, even if that required killing the kite- and balloon-fliers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...

JERUSALEM Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the immediate closure of the main cargo crossing with the Gaza Strip on Monday in response to Palestinians launching incendiary kites and balloons into Israel. Netanyahu vowed to use a "heavy hand" against Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, and said more steps would be taken, without elaborating. Israel's military said the Kerem Shalom crossing is shut until further notice except for humanitarian aid, medical supplies and food. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called the move "a new crime against humanity" and called on the international community to intervene.

A series of maps of Judea and Samaria, focusing on the placement of Jewish communities and Israeli military facilities in the area, provoked a dramatic change in the Obama administration’s policies vis-à-vis Israel, a report by The New Yorker claims. According to the report Monday, a presentation by then-Secretary of State John Kerry to President Barack Obama in the waning days of the administration ‘shocked’ the president into taking a more aggressive stance towards Israel, withholding America’s veto on a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of Israeli policies in Judea and Samaria. The Obama administration, like its predecessors, had...

Crude oil prices could jump as high as US$250 a barrel if Iran goes through with its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to U.S. pressure on oil buyers to cut their Iranian purchases to zero, RT reports, quoting analysts. The most bullish among these analysts was Artem Avinov from online broker TeleTrade, who saw prices skyrocketing to US$250 a barrel if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, disrupting about 17 million bpd in seaborne oil trade. Avinov, however, added that this course of events is very unlikely, suggesting Iran would instead opt for “a quick economic...

The Gulf Arab state of Qatar has called on Israel to issue thousands of entry permits to Gazans living in the Hamas-ruled Strip, allowing them to work in Israel, arguing that such a move would reduce tensions and end the ongoing wave of “kite terrorism” and balloon bomb attacks. Since March 30th, tens of thousands of Gaza rioters have gathered on the Israel border, clashing with IDF forces and attempting to breach the security fence. In recent weeks, however, the rioters have shifted from direct attacks on the border to the use of improvised explosive or incendiary devices, attached to...