Free Republic

Unidentified aircraft struck targets in Syria near the border with Iraq on Friday, killing eight Iran-backed Iraqi militiamen, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The rights group, which is based in the United Kingdom, obtains information through a network of activists on the ground in Syria, documenting the war in Syria over the past decade. The attack, carried out by “unknown drones,” targeted vehicles and armories, according to the organization. However, the head of the Syrian Observatory said it was “unidentified aircraft” that launched the attacks, without elaborating. “Unidentified aircraft targeted vehicles and arms depots in the Albu Kamal...

Iranian militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, one of several identified as leading an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, reportedly visited the White House in 2011 during the presidency of Barack Obama. On Tuesday, a mob in Baghdad attacked the U.S. embassy in retaliation against last weekend’s U.S. airstrikes against the Iran-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH), responsible for killing an American civilian contractor. KH is one of a number of pro-Iran militias that make up the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU), which legally became a wing of the Iraqi military after fighting the Sunni Islamic State terrorist group....

A Minnesota woman pleaded guilty today to one count of delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government. According to court documents, Mariam Taha Thompson, 63, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, worked as a contract linguist at an overseas U.S. military facility where she was entrusted with a top secret government security clearance. ***** In December 2019, while Thompson was assigned to a special operations task force facility in Iraq, the United States launched a series of airstrikes in Iraq targeting Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iranian-backed foreign terrorist organization. These airstrikes culminated in a Jan. 3, 2020, strike that resulted in...

Prior to President Donald Trump authorizing targeted strikes against Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, federal agents and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers have been arresting Iranian nationals, nearly all men, in the U.S. illegally. In the last few months, federal prosecutors have also brought terrorism charges against Iranians, including those in the U.S. working for the Iranian government. Iran is a designated state sponsor of terrorism. Iranian nationals illegally in the country are considered “special interest aliens” under federal law. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Sunday issued a warning to all Americans to be on a heightened...

The United States carried out an airstrike in January that killed a leader of Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen after months of tracking him, according to current and former government officials. Qassim al-Rimi, 41, was killed in the January strike but officials had been waiting to confirm the information before making public statement, the New York Times reports. The Yemen branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has been keen to attack the U.S. and Europe. Confirmation of al-Rimi's death would mean a significant blow for the group.

Ric Grenell, President Trump's former ambassador to Germany, and Director of National Intelligence, knows a thing or two about Jack Smith, having lived in Europe when Smith was active in prosecuting war crimes in The Hague. Now that Smith has been caught tampering with evidence in his case against President Trump, Grenell's put out a devastating series of tweets about Smith's history of dishonest behavior. Let’s be clear: Jack Smith is accused of tampering with evidence, manufacturing witnesses, bribery and corruption… And that’s in the investigation of the President of Kosovo 3 years ago when Jack Smith worked at The...

There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is “the Tank.” The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there. Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President...

Finding links to the Soros family in the Joe Biden White House should come as no surprise. In addition to George’s decades-long meddling in our politics, he spent tens of millions backing Biden and other Democrats in 2020, and Alex got in on the action too, throwing $700,000 at the would-be worst president of the 21st century. As documented in the book The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network for George Soros (2022), George planted his seeds of influence in the Biden White House even before Biden took office. During the transition, the incoming Biden administration assembled “Transition...

Although the Nepalese government resisted pressures to deport back to China the refugees who are already in Nepal, it will deport those of them who will enter Nepal in the future.In October, Bitter Winter reported how President Xi Jinping’s visit to Nepal had failed to persuade the authorities of the Himalayan kingdom, under pressure from their own public opinion, to deport back to China under a proposed extradition treaty a good number of the some 20,000 Tibetan refugees living within Nepalese borders. It was an unexpected defeat for the Chinese leader, who reacted very angrily. The CCP, however, never stops...

President Donald Trump gave full pardons to former Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers convicted in connection to the death of Karon Hylton-Brown, 20, who was fatally struck while being chased by one of the officers in 2020. Trump, on Wednesday night, announced full and unconditional pardons for former officer Terence Sutton and Andrew Zabavsky, who was a lieutenant for the metropolitan police. “I HEREBY DESIGNATE, direct, and empower, the Pardon Attorney, as my representative, to sign a grant of clemency to the person named herein. The Pardon Attorney shall declare that her action is the act of the...

Note: The following text is a quote: IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 060-010 January 22, 2010 Military Commission Charges Withdrawn In Sept. 11 Case The Defense Department announced today that the convening authority for Military Commissions withdrew and dismissed the charges, without prejudice, against the five detainees charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. This action comes in light of the announcement by the attorney general of the United States that the Department of Justice intends to pursue a prosecution of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, in...

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...

Iranian general Qassem Soleymani was a master terrorist who orchestrated atrocities around the world that claimed thousands of lives, including hundreds if not thousands of Americans. That was the default position after President Trump took out Soleymani last week. The Democrats’ furious reaction overlooked realities about the Iranian regime in general and Soleymani in particular. Israel had also targeted the Quds Force commander, but according to the Kuwaiti Al-Jarida, the Obama administration tipped off the Tehran regime. Soleymani emerged unscathed and continued to spearhead the Islamic regime’s military and terrorist operations. Those were funded by criminal activity, and on that...

Bill Barr is plugged into, and gets his marching ­orders from, a network of reactionary Catholics, whose tentacles reach into the highest echelons of power. At the center is a sinister, secretive organization with a Latin name: Opus Dei, “the Work of God.” That’s the impression you might take away from a new profile of the attorney general in The New Yorker. All that’s missing are the hair shirts, cilices and murderous albino monks — the kind of thing too many secular elites believe about the lives of devout ­Catholics generally and members of Opus Dei especially. The winding and...

After a near three year absence on the social media giant Twitter, General Michael Flynn returned late on Friday night. The General, who sparked outrage from the left by going after key political figures in 2016 while being the President’s top National Security Adviser, had grown silent since he was set up by the F.B.I. Flynn returned sharing the declaration filed by his attorney Sydney Powell on January 29th, 2020. It’s a stunning recollection of how his former legal team was dishonest in representing him, and it also pulls his plea deal with the US government off the table. Flynn’s...

This is an interesting find though it’s not clear how significant it is yet. A Chinese virologist submitted a complete genetic sequence for the coronavirus to a US database two weeks before China turned over a nearly identical sequence to the world. At the time, no one recognized the significance of the submission and it was deleted because some technical information was not included in the submission.The sequence was submitted by Dr. Lili Ren, an accomplished virologist at the Institute of Pathogen Biology of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, China, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party...

The Chinese scientist who ran controversial experiments at the laboratory suspected of triggering Covid held a secret meeting with the US government to seek backing for a project that would go on to supercharge coronaviruses – shortly before the devastating outbreak started in her native Wuhan. The June 2017 meeting at America's National Institutes of Health (NIH) held by Shi Zhengli – known as 'Batwoman' because of her work on sampling and sequencing the animals' viruses – will bolster fears of Western collusion in a Chinese cover-up after Covid resulted from a reckless laboratory experiment. A new cache of documents,...

The June 2017 meeting at America's National Institutes of Health (NIH) held by Shi Zhengli – known as 'Batwoman' because of her work on sampling and sequencing the animals' viruses – will bolster fears of Western collusion in a Chinese cover-up after Covid resulted from a reckless laboratory experiment. A new cache of documents, obtained by Freedom of Information campaigners and seen by The Mail on Sunday, reveal the extent to which the controversial work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was supported, and often funded, by America. They show that US researchers seeking funding for work to engineer 'spike...

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) appears to have misrepresented impeachment evidence that was used during the House Democrats’ impeachment investigation, according to a report from Tuesday evening. According to documents obtained by Politico, text messages between Lev Parnas and Rudy Giuliani were "mischaracterized" by Schiff in a letter sent to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler last week. "In one section of the letter, Schiff claims that Parnas 'continued to try to arrange a meeting with President Zelensky,' citing a specific text message exchange where Parnas tells Giuliani: 'trying to get us mr Z.' The remainder of the exchange —...

Rep. Adam B. Schiff is promoting a new anti-Trump witness whose public allegations have been met with vehement denials and at least one lawsuit. Lev Parnas and his attorney have been lobbying to become a star Schiff impeachment witness in a Senate trial as part of the congressman’s drive to remove President Trump from office. Mr. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, injected Mr. Parnas last week into the impeachment record. He and other Democrats released two troves of Parnas downloads from his various electronic devices including texts, emails and photos of himself...