Free Republic

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....

Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, was killed during an Israeli strike in Iran, The New York Times reported on Friday evening, citing an Iranian source. Qaani succeeded Qasem Soleimani as commander after the latter was killed in a targeted operation by the United States in 2020. What was Qaani's mission in the Middle East? From an intelligence perspective, Qaani's mission appears to have had several dimensions, none of which have escaped the vigilance of Mossad, the CIA, or allied intelligence agencies in the region. Qaani also wanted to revive and consolidate control of...

From Basra to Amarah, violence has increased between coalition and the radical Shiite's forces. BAGHDAD – Even as US-led forces in Iraq made progress against loyalists of militant Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr over the weekend, the insurgency spread from the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala to British-controlled cities of Basra and Amarah in the south. Analysts say the escalation is evidence that coalition military efforts are squeezing Sadr's Mahdi army, forcing them to fight elsewhere. But at the same time, Sadr - whom the US has vowed to "capture or kill" - is capitalizing on the horror over the...

One year ago, the name Ali Sistani was forbidden in Iraqi newspapers. Today, a whisper from the grand ayatollah's house sends Western journalists scrambling, their Iraqi stringers ordered into action. To journalists, and armchair pundits, the reality of Sistani's influence is irrelevant. What matters is what thousands of Americans living isolated in their cocoon beyond the walls of the Green Zone believe, or what is believed by the CNN and BBC reporters who seldom venture out from their luxury hotels. English-speaking Iraqis cringe at the simplistic generalizations we see on Western television. The Sistani you see and the Sistani we...

BEIRUT: Following the assassination of cleric Abdul-Majid al-Khoei in Iraq Thursday, inter-Shiite rivalry continued as a group of armed Shiites demanded Sunday that top cleric Ali Sistani leave the country by Tuesday, or face attack. “We are investing intensive efforts and making contacts with Shiite factions around the world to try to defuse this problem, protect Sayyed (Sistani) and let him remain in Najaf,” Mourtada Kashmiri, Sistani’s representative told The Daily Star in a phone interview from London. Followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, son of late cleric Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr who was assassinated in 1999, surrounded Sistani’s house and ordered him...