Free Republic

An explosion in southern Lebanon last week destroyed what is believed to have been a Hezbollah weapons depot. This latest in a series of mysterious “accidents” in Hezbollah-controlled precincts proved, as one Israeli official wryly remarked, that those who “sleep with rockets and amass large stockpiles of weapons are in a very unsafe place.” With the Party of God’s overland supply route through Syria choked off by the 22-month-long uprising against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and Israel virtually in total control of the maritime route, Hezbollah’s stockpile is being systematically degraded.Yet the arsenal of Iran’s other regional proxy force, Hamas,...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Demand for transporting goods from Asia to Europe by rail via Russia has increased by an average of 30% since the start of the Red Sea crisis, the Financial Times newspaper reported, citing logistics companies and rail operators. German shipping company DHL said that requests to transport goods on Russian railways have increased by 40% since container ships began traveling along alternative routes following the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, the report said on Sunday. At the same time, Netherlands-based Rail Bridge Cargo said that rail freight traffic via Russia was 31% higher this year compared...

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh responded to a question on why the U.S. hasn’t taken the Houthis out of commission by stating that “it’s really up to the Houthis when they make the calculation to stop” attacking. Co-host John Roberts asked, “The U.S. military’s got the capability of putting the Houthis out of business this afternoon, why don’t we just do it?”

The Chinese military is guilty of “irresponsible actions” toward American forces stationed at Djibouti’s Camp Lemonnier on the Horn of Africa, a senior U.S. military intelligence officer said. The home of U.S. military operations in the region and the biggest U.S. base on the continent, Camp Lemonnier is near the People’s Liberation Army’s first overseas military base, and the proximity has been a continuing source of tension. Rear Adm. Heidi Berg, director of intelligence at the U.S. Africa Command, told a small group of African-based journalists in a telephone media roundtable that China tried to “constrain international airspace” by barring...