Free Republic

While there is not much time left until June 18, the day of the presidential elections in Iran, the war between the two factions within the regime for winning this seat has escalated. On April 25, a letter signed by 220 members of the Iranian parliament was published in the media. The MPs asked Ebrahim Ra'isi, the head of the regime's judiciary, to run for the presidency. The letter was published contrary to the usual custom of non-interference of the legislature in the affairs of the executive branch. Ra'isi's endorsement is also interpreted as an attack against the current president,...

WALLACE: ...in October of 2002 in which you authorized the use of force, you went further than the president ever did. Let's watch:(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)ROCKEFELLER: I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th that question is increasingly outdated.(END VIDEO CLIP)WALLACE: Now, the president never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?ROCKEFELLER: No. I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a...

<p>Russia should reconsider its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad in light of the apparent chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 people and "horrified us all," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday.</p>

Full title: EXCLUSIVE: Deputy of banned suicide-bomb-endorsing cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi had White House meeting with National Security Council staff --------------------------------------- The UK and U.S. have banned Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who leads the anti-Israel International Union of Muslim Scholars. The Obama administration invited that group's VP, Abdallah bin Bayyah, to a private meeting on the day it announced support for Syria's rebelsThe organization ended its December 2012 board meeting by calling for the end of Israel and the return of its lands to the PalestiniansHours after MailOnline began inquiring with the National Security Council about its meeting with bin Bayyah, the cleric's...

Seriously, should conservatives even WANT to depose Bashar al-Assad? It is clear that Assad's biggest crime is being Western educated and a strong leader. THAT is what got him in trouble with the Islamofascists and their allies in the White House and the American left. Assad may be brutal, but he is the closest thing we have to a representative of WESTERN civilization in Syria. Shouldn't conservatives be arguing for a political solution that would keep him in power and keep the Islamo-nuts OUT of power?

Imagine if these savages win ..... Golem writes: Execution in Idlib by Jabhat al-Nusra. Victims are apparently "Sunni supporter of Al-Assad". The white jihadists are Chechens and perhaps Dagestani judging from their Russian accents. The same ethnicity as the Boston bombers, if you remember the younger bomber on his vkontakte page had web videos supporting jihad in Syria. The most disturbing aspect is all the little children there cheering people being beheaded.

More than 3,000 U.S. military personnel have secretly returned to Iraq via Kuwait and 17,000 more are on their way in response to the civil war in Syria that has spilled over into northern Iraq, according to a report published Monday by Iran's Press TV. The news follows by four days a report from the Russian news service RT that the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower has joined the USS Iwo Jima off the coast of Syria. Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week issued stern warnings to Syria about unspecified but serious "consequences" that would follow if...

Escalation. No real detail except this from Reuters: TURKEY SAYS HAS STRUCK TARGETS IN SYRIA IN RESPONSE TO MORTAR STRIKE ACROSS BORDER - STATEMENT FROM PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE This came after a Syrian mortar killed five Turks today. Turkey has contacted the United Nations and the Nato military alliance after Syrian shells killed five people in a Turkish town near the border between the two countries. The shells exploded after being fired into Akcakale from Tall al-Abyad in Syria, where forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are trying to put down an 18-month-old insurgency.

According to the Spanish daily ABC, a Libyan rebel commander who played a key role in overthrowing the rule of Muammar Qaddafi previously participated in the May 2010 attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza aboard the Turkish-owned vessel the Mavi Marmara. The operation famously culminated in a deadly clash between Israel Defense Force commandos and “activists” armed with iron rods and knives aboard the ship. The paper’s source for the story is the rebel leader himself: Mahdi al-Harati, the commander of the so-called Tripoli Brigades, which are widely credited with having played a decisive role in the rebel...

Another Arab dictatorship looks ready to collapse, and this one might have the biggest impact of them all. The embattled Bashar Assad regime in Syria lost its Prime Minister overnight, as Riyad al-Hijab fled to Jordan and announced his defection: SyriaÂ’s prime minister defected to Jordan on Monday, according to news reports, becoming the most senior official yet to quit the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad.A statement read on the al-Jazeera Arabic news channel that was described as coming from Prime Minister Riyad al-Hijab said he had resigned to protest his governmentÂ’s harsh tactics as it escalates its efforts...

Syria says the year-long revolt to topple President Bashar al-Assad is now over, but it will keep its forces in cities to "maintain security" until it is safe to withdraw in keeping with a U.N.-backed peace deal. The agreement proposed by United Nations-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan says the Syrian authorities must be first to withdraw troops and stop violence immediately. The army kept up an offensive against opposition strongholds on Saturday, pummelling the Khalidiya district of Homs city. "Mortars are falling every minute and the sounds of explosions are shaking the neighborhood," an activist report said. A child...

Iran is helping its ally Syria defy Western sanctions by providing a vessel to ship Syrian oil to a state-run company in China, potentially giving the government of President Bashar al-Assad a financial boost worth an estimated $80 million. Iran, itself a target of Western sanctions, is among Syria's closest allies and has promised to do all it can to support Assad, recently praising his handling of the year-long uprising against Assad in which thousands have been killed. China has also shielded Assad from foreign intervention, vetoing two Western-backed resolutions at the United Nations over the bloodshed, and is not...

The embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has banned all men between the ages of 18 and 42 from traveling outside the country without prior authorisation, according to local media. "Syrians between the ages of 18 and 42 are banned from travel if they don't have prior authorisation from the (army's) recruitment office," Aliqtisadi business magazine said on its Internet site. The travel ban until now had only applied to men who had not completed their two-year compulsory military service. Aliqtisadi said the new measure, clearly linked to the revolt gripping the country, was being applied at border posts,...

Despite reports of high-level defections of government and military officials, U.S. intelligence sees no signs of significant deterioration of support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by his inner circle, senior U.S. intelligence officials said Friday. Read also: U.N. envoy to meet with Syria's president The officials, who would speak only on the condition that their names not be used, said that to date, the defections have been of lower-level officials and those in the military. None of those defections, including the group of military officers who are reported to have defected this week, are close enough to al-Assad to truly...

Hillary Clinton kept the heat on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a speech Monday night, declaring that his "days are numbered." The secretary of state mentioned Syria a handful of times in a broader speech to the National Democracy Institute on U.S. Middle East policy, indicating that both Syria and Yemen are next in line for democratic revolutions. Clinton told the audience that Assad had "systematically violated each of [the] basic requirements" of the Arab League's peace plan laid out last week in Cairo, which included directives to release captives and pull military resources from the streets. The league has...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A judge will decide whether a Virginia man accused of spying on U.S. citizens for Syria will remain jailed while he awaits trial.

SNIPPET: "There are some good reasons for allowing at least a few jihadi forums to operate." SNIPPET: "However, there are limits to our ability to exploit all the intelligence opportunities a forum may present. To put it another way, jihadi forums contribute to future terrorism in ways that are unpredictable and/or beyond our ability to control. This would be the view held by those other government agencies who prefer to seek out and destroy forums and to take down forum activists. For my part, I can live with keeping online those forums we have sufficient access to monitor and resources...

Syria's 'Butcher of Hama' living in £10 million Mayfair townhouse The massacre of civilians in the rebellious Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughur has awoken terrible memories for the people of Hama, 60 miles to the north, where up to 40,000 people were killed during an uprising in 1982. Rifaat al-Assad moved, more than a year ago, to a Georgian mansion off Park Lane By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter 9:00PM BST 12 Jun 2011 Today, Mahar al-Assad, the bloodthirsty brother of President Bashar al-Assad, is the man leading his army on a mission of vengeance against those who have dared to...

Devotedly washed and sprinkled with rose petals, Hamza Ali al-Khateeb lies prepared for burial. But the rituals of death cannot wipe away the horrific injuries that have mutilated his body almost beyond recognition. Nor do they blot out that Hamza - riddled with bullets, kneecapped and with neck broken and penis hacked off - has the rounded cheeks and gentle face of a child. At 13, he is one of the youngest known victims of Syria's ruthless crackdown on protesters who have tried to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The teenager's family were told not to speak of...

WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Friday imposing new sanctions against Syria's intelligence agency and two relatives of President Bashar al-Assad in response to a crackdown on protests, senior U.S. officials said.