Free Republic

Just before Tuesday’s presidential election, the Biden-Harris administration quietly waived mandatory terrorism sanctions on the embattled Palestinian government—even as it determined that the government's leaders are paying imprisoned terrorists and fomenting violence in breach of U.S. law. The State Department, in a non-public notice to Congress, determined that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) are not complying with agreements to curb terrorism against Israel and end the "pay-to-slay" program, which rewards imprisoned terrorists for committing acts of violence. Those violations should trigger American sanctions, barring members of the Palestinian government from obtaining U.S. visas. The Biden-Harris administration...

Iraq is poised to slash the legal age of consent from 18 to to 9, allowing men to marry young children.. The proposed legal change also deprives women of rights to divorce, child custody and inheritance. ... And nobody cares. The feminists, the actresses from Hollywood, the crazy blue hair, nose ring lunatics are more passionate about their abortion rights that a 9 y old girl forced to marry a savage in Iraq… ... So glad we spent 20 years, 4000 souls, and $800 billion there. ... The evil islamic apartheid against women continues. .... Where are the western feminists...

Nov. 9 (UPI) -- At least 26 were killed and 62 wounded when an explosion occurred Saturday morning at the busy Quetta railway station in southwestern Pakistan. About 100 people were in the vicinity of the blast that occurred as a train was readying to leave for Peshawar at 8:45 a.m., CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera reported. Snip The Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack in Quetta, which is the capital of Balochistan.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof at his residence, as he concluded his visit to the Netherlands undertaken following the violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans on Thursday. In their meeting, Prime Minister Schoof described the recent attacks on Israelis in Amsterdam as a "turning point,” and expressed his commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice. The two agreed on the importance and urgency of combatting rising antisemitism, and spoke about ways to advance cooperation on the issue. Prime Minister Schoof noted that he had cancelled his participation in the COP Climate Summit in...

The respected Islamic official’s critique argued that the damage inflicted on Gaza, as a result of Hamas’s attacks, was a breach of Islamic law. Professor Dr. Salman al-Dayah, a former dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Law at the Islamic University of Gaza, issued a fatwa against Hamas for their October 7 attacks, the BBC reported on Friday. Fatwa is an Islamic religious decree made by a recognized Islamic jurist, Faqih, as a response to a question asked by a judge or government. The document accused Hamas of “violating Islamic principles governing jihad.” Dayah added, “If the pillars, causes,...

The US demanded Qatar shutter Hamas’ political office in Doha after the terror group’s latest rejection of a deal that would have freed the Israeli hostages, and the Gulf state has agreed, an official said Friday. “After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, its leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner,” a senior Harris-Biden administration official said, according to Reuters. “We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal,” the official added. The oil-rich Gulf state has been hosting the Palestinian terror group’s political leaders since 2012...

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters on Monday that Tehran is planning to “definitely respond” to an Israeli counterattack in late October that reportedly neutralized key missile manufacturing sites. Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei was not alone among Iranian officials hinting at an imminent attack against Israel on the eve of the American presidential election, in which the two top candidates on the ballot are offering significantly different policies on the Middle East. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has promised to return to his policies of heavy human rights sanctions on Iran and isolating the rogue regime in the...

Telegram channel of Iran's IGRC, its military force, posted a video threatening to kill Trump. After President-elect Trump's victory, Iran must now prepare to contend with the man it's been trying to assassinate for years. Tehran had reportedly been interfering in the U.S. election on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris. But with former Trump’s win, the regime will have to prepare for a U.S. leader who is, at the very least, a wild card. On Wednesday, the Telegram channel of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC), its military force, posted a video threatening to kill Trump. It ended with...

The Iranian government instructed one of its agents to stalk and assassinate former President Donald Trump this past September, according to a bombshell indictment unsealed by Manhattan federal prosecutors Friday. The indictment, which charges Iranian Farhad Shakeri and two New Yorkers with murder for hire and conspiracy, states that an unnamed official in Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) instructed Shakeri in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.” Prosecutors say that when Shakeri noted that the plot would “cost a ‘huge’ amount...

The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed charges against three men, one of them Iranian, who were tasked by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to kill Donald Trump before the election. This is at least the second assassination plot by Iran uncovered by the Justice Department. The first plot involved a Pakistani national with ties to Iran who hired a "hitman" to kill Trump. The "hit man" was a federal agent, and the would-be assassin was arrested in July before he left the U.S. This is an entirely new plot uncovered by DoJ and is much more involved than the first...

Qatar has reportedly informed Hamas leaders they are “not welcome” in the country, according to sources cited by Israeli broadcaster KAN on Friday. The move follows recent pressure from the United States, KAN reported, and comes just days after Donald Trump became the president-elect, ushering a new era of foreign policy into the White House. For years, Qatar hosted members of Hamas leadership, ostensibly to support dialogue during negotiations, including those around hostage situations. However, three sources familiar with the recent discussions revealed that Qatar’s stance has shifted, telling Hamas leaders to leave the country. Egyptian sources also told Lebanese...

EL PASO, TEXAS – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working at the El Paso port of entry seized 11,100 rounds of 7.62 ammunition November 5, 2024. The ammunition was concealed in the quarter panels of a vehicle crossing the Bridge of the Americas (BOTA) international crossing. “The volume of this seizure is substantial,” said CBP El Paso Director of Field Operations Hector Mancha. “To put it in perspective CBP officers working at El Paso area ports seized 15,678 rounds of ammunition in all of fiscal year 2021, 7,224 rounds in fiscal year 2022 and 11,205 rounds in fiscal year...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Friday in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump before this week’s presidential election. A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact this past September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump.

The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges for individuals involved in a thwarted Iran-backed plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump before the election. Three people were charged in the alleged Iran-backed murder-for-hire plot on Trump's life. Shakeri, 51, still remains at-large in Iran while Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, were arrested in New York. The criminal complaint filed in Manhattan on Friday alleges an unnamed official in the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact in September to put together a plan to surveil and kill Trump, according to the Associated Press. The court filing states that the contact,...

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House after scoring a spectacular victory in the US presidential election, Iranians wonder what his second term could mean for their country. The results of the "elections are an opportunity to review and revise the wrong approaches of the past," Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, according to Iranian media. "We have very bitter experiences with the policies and approaches of different US governments in the past," Baghaei said. Relations between the United States and Iran have been extremely tense for nearly four decades. Sources of contemporary tension include Iran's nuclear...

Amsterdam police detained 62 people in connection with a series of antisemitic assaults against Israeli soccer fans, which resulted in five moderate injuries and about 20 to 30 minor ones, in the Dutch capital, the city’s prosecutor René de Beukelaer said at a Friday press. The five injured people were treated in the hospital and discharged, De Beukelaer said during the briefing with Femke Halsema, the Amsterdam mayor. Witnesses described about 100 men, whom they described as Arabs, assaulting Israelis in a coordinated manner on Friday morning. The country’s largest-scale antisemitic incident in decades has shocked many Dutchmen and especially...

What will it take to shut it down? First, let’s be clear. The 92-10 vote in the Knesset in favor of banning UNRWA from operating inside Israel does not prevent UNRWA from working inside Gaza. UNRWA staff can still enter Gaza from Egypt, or from the Mediterranean.Second, this ban does not go into effect for three months. During that time, it should be possible to find alternative agencies to take over UNRWA’s role in distributing humanitarian aid, providing medical personnel, and staffing schools where the teaching is not a vehicle for pro-Hamas propaganda that poisons the minds of young Gazans.Third,...

Israeli soccer fans attacked by Arabs.Hundreds of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans report being attacked by Arabs as they left the stadium where Maccabi's game against AFC Ajax took place. At least 10 fans injured, two people unaccounted for. An Israeli who was present at the scene: "The police only arrived after half an hour."

What we know so far is that fans were ambushed, 6 reported missing, attackers were armed with clubs and knives, Israelis were thrown into rivers and run over by cars, their passports were stolen and published online, fathers walking with their children were attacked by mobs, women were beaten in the streets, many beaten unconscious, two emergency planes have been dispatched from Ben Gurion airport to evacuate citizens immediately

Hezbollah's leader, Naim Qassem, has said in a televised address that the militant group would consider ceasefire negotiations if Israel halts its "aggression."[Terrorist agitprop redacted]...the strikes were aimed at Hezbollah facilities. Despite the airstrikes, Beirut's airport continues to operate, and national carrier Middle East Airlines has maintained its commercial flights. [because Israel didn't hit civilian facilities]The strikes come after Hezbollah has already reported significant casualties from ongoing confrontations with Israel, with the Lebanese Health Ministry stating that over 3,000 people have been killed and approximately 13,600 wounded in Lebanon alone since the outbreak of hostilities.Alongside the airstrikes in Lebanon, the...