Free Republic

While many Iranian officials have threatened genocide, Qassem Soleimani was actually tasked with it. As an architect of Bashar Assad’s genocidal war against the Syrian people, he was one of the most guilty men on earth. As the Godfather of Iran’s global terror network, he was also one of the most dangerous. His terror world tour was finally cut short last Friday by a precision airstrike, in what was arguably President Trump’s boldest and most presidential move thus far. Soleimani was identified only by his hand, itself identified by a red-stone ring he was known to wear. Soleimani was the...

Iran threatens rape of Obama daughter Warns of mass abductions, brutal killings of American citizens if U.S. hits Syria (Daily Caller) As Congress debates whether to support President Obama’s call for a limited strike against Syria for the alleged use of chemical weapons, Iran is vowing to back Bashar al-Assad’s regime to the hilt and threatening to unleash terrorism should the U.S. strike. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Wednesday told the Assembly of Experts — the body that chooses the supreme leader — that “[w]e will support Syria to the end.” And in an unprecedented statement, a...

Maaret al-Numan (Syria) (AFP) - Thin mattresses, children's toys, a gas heater: Abu Ismail packed a pick-up truck with scant belongings before fleeing a northwest Syria town nearly emptied of residents by recent regime attacks. "I don't know where I am going, if I will find a house for my family, or what will happen to us," the 42-year-old father of seven told AFP, plumes of smoke rising around him. Tens of thousands of people like Abu Ismail have fled the Maaret al-Numan region, located in jihadist-held Idlib province, since December 16, following a rise in air strikes, according to...

White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier may have been liquidated by intelligence agents upon the CIA’s instructions or with the agency’s direct participation, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Russia’s Rossiya-24 television on Thursday. The Syrian president said he saw links between the death of Le Mesurier and the deaths of US financier Jeffrey Epstein, Al Qaeda chieftain Osama bin Laden and Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was killed several weeks ago, they said he had committed suicide in jail. However, he was killed because he knew a lot of vital secrets connected...

<p>TAL ABYAD, Syria — A car bomb killed at least 13 people in a Turkish-held border town in northeast Syria Saturday, as thousands of Kurds in the wider region protested against “Turkish occupation.”</p> <p>The bombing ripped through Tal Abyad, one of several once Kurdish-controlled towns seized by Turkey last month in a deadly cross-border offensive.</p>

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday that his government’s ultimate goal was to restore state authority over Kurdish controlled areas in northeast Syria after an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal but he expected it to happen gradually. In a state television interview Assad also said that a deal between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin to drive out the Kurdish-led YPG militia from a 30 km (19 mile) “safe zone” along the border was a “positive” step that would help Damascus achieve its goal. “It might not achieve everything ... it paves the road...

In Iran, Eshaq Jahangiri Kouhshahi, the first vice president of the President Hassan Rouhani's regime, said on Oct. 22 that $22 billion of the country's resources were taken to Istanbul and Dubai under the pretext of increasing the value of the country's troubled rial currency. However, the miserable dollar price of the rial was not reduced from the act, and the $22 billion was not returned to the country. Something else was going on. Iran is facing unprecedented economic instability, a horrifying nightmare, along with corruption, embezzlement, and looting. It's institutionalized, so what we can infer from this is that...

As U.S. troops follow President Trump's orders and pull out of northeast Syria, they leave behind men they fought side by side with against the Islamic State group. Amid fears of ethnic cleansing by Turkey, the Kurds have agreed to withdraw from a border area where fighting is underway, and now terrified civilians are also fleeing. Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports. Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6

It’s all over but the shouting, and there really doesn’t even seem to be much of that. Yesterday was supposed to be the end of the ceasefire in northeastern Syria, at which point we expected the Turks to begin “cleansing” the twenty-mile wide border region of any remaining Kurdish fighters. But dawn broke and the fighting still seems to be on hold. The reason was announced earlier this morning and it seems that the Russians have stepped in and put all the combatants back in their respective corners. (Associated Press) Turkey’s Defense Ministry is signaling it won’t resume its...

The American president just gifted 2.5 billion barrels of oil to long-time Syrian enemy Bashar Al-Assad and, by default, Iran and Russia. As far as gifts go, it was both well-received and unexpected given the ‘Deep State’ designs on Syria for years. To recap: Last week, Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, and then had them stand down and step aside while the Turkish military poured across the border into Northern Syria, taking down any Kurds that stood in their way. After five days of bloodshed, Turkey agreed to a temporary ceasefire at the behest of the...

Unidentified drones attacked Syrian areas controlled by the Assad regime and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias at the Hamdan airport near the town of Al-Bukamal in the eastern region of Deir ez-Zor, according to opposition-affiliated TV station Halab Today. Before the attack, three drones were seen flying from the direction of areas under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces militia, according to Step News, a news agency founded by Syrian activists and journalists. At noon, explosions were heard at the Hamdan airport. Ambulances were sent to the airport, but the number of causalities is unknown. Iranian-backed militias in Al-Bukamal have been...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) defended President Trump's decision to withdraw troops from Syria, saying that the Kurds would be better off aligned with Syrian leader Bashar Assad. “The Kurds are going to better aligned with Assad because they frankly need a Syrian sponsor,” Paul, told Hill.TV during an interview that aired on Thursday. Paul, seen as an outsider among Republicans on foreign policy, has been a staunch defender of Trump's decision to pullout from Syria. Paul said the U.S. never intended to stay in Syria in the first place. “We were never staying there — the president never promised to...

"I think it is important for us to send a signal that we are not hellbent on regime change,” presidential candidate Barack Obama said in 2007. He was talking about Iran but citing former President George W. Bush’s disastrous precedent of ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Obama defined his candidacy in opposition to that 2003 regime change war and eventually became president. Times have changed. Most Democrats in Tuesday night’s CNN/New York Times presidential debate blasted President Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria and said they believe his decision endangers the Kurds. But only one candidate said...

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...

The Kurds in Syria say the Syrian government has agreed to send its army to the northern border to try to halt Turkey's offensive against them. Syrian state media earlier reported that government forces had been deployed to the north. It follows the US decision to pull all its remaining troops from the area... (Turkey said) It also plans to resettle more than three million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey within the zone. Many of them are not Kurds. Critics have warned this could lead to ethnic cleansing of the local Kurdish population. (Just as Turkey did after it took...

The near consensus view of President Donald Trump’s decision to remove US special forces from the Syrian border with Turkey is that Trump is enabling a Turkish invasion and double crossing the Syrian Kurds who have fought with the Americans for five years against ISIS. Trump’s move, the thinking goes, harms US credibility and undermines US power in the region and throughout the world. There are several problems with this narrative. The first is that it assumes that until this week, the US had power and influence in Syria when in fact, by design, the US went to great lengths...

Syrian President Bashar Assad met on Tuesday in Damascus with an unnamed senior Iranian official to discuss ways to cope with Israeli airstrikes in the war-torn country, reported regime-affiliated Syrian newspaper Al-Watan. According to the report, the Iranian official also discussed with Assad the Trump administration’s Mideast peace plan and presented Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s plan to contend with it. The report comes against the backdrop of recent attacks on pro-Iranian forces in Syria, some which have been attributed to Israel though it denies involvement. In other cases, Israel has taken responsibility for attacks in Syria. In the...

US-led forces have blown up three oil tankers in Syria as the United States increases its pressure on Syria by thwarting the oil trade between the PKK/YPG and the Assad regime, according to local sources quoted by several media sources. The strike was carried about by coalition planes, which hit three oil tankers, leaving four dead. The coalition has not yet made a statement about the attack. In the area controlled by Assad, oil consumption stands at around 136,000 bpd. Production, meanwhile, is only 24,000 barrels per day. This means that the regime must import significant volumes of crude oil...

WASHINGTON — The United States said Tuesday it suspected that Syrian government forces have carried out a fresh chemical attack and threatened reprisals. The State Department said it was assessing indications that the regime used chemical weapons on Sunday during its offensive in Idlib, the most significant remaining holdout in Syria of jihadist rebels.

Caught between a stalling U.S. pullout, Israeli 'alliance' and Idlib militias, Russian president finds his monopoly over Assad's resurgence may require some flexibility. Russian President Vladimir Putin can indeed credit himself with an important military accomplishment after transferring control of most of Syria’s territory to Syrian President Bashar Assad, but it seems this diplomatic minefield is presenting new and unexpected challenges for him that could erode the military achievements. The diplomatic plan Russia drew up looks, on its face, to be orderly and logical. According to the plan, Russia was already meant to be withdrawing some of its forces from...