Free Republic

There’s more to Donald Trump’s Middle East trip than billion-dollar contracts, parades of camels and a storm back home over Qatar’s offer to give the president a new Air Force One. A tour narrowly billed by the White House as a chance for Trump to show he’s a master dealmaker is jumbling the region’s geopolitical jigsaw puzzle.Wherever he goes, Trump’s brings disruption that can forge possibilities. And he takes risks – for instance, his decision on this trip to lift sanctions on Syria to give a war-ravaged nation a second chance.But the move revives a perennial question about Trump’s entire...

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,...

Several reports have suggested that ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad may have been poisoned in Moscow. According to these reports, he fell ill on Sunday afternoon. Assad has been under the protection of Russian President Vladimir Putin since fleeing Syria in December 2024. A social media account, General SVR, operated by a former Russian spy, stated that Assad sought medical assistance after experiencing coughing and choking. The account suggested that there was reason to believe that it was an assassination attempt. On the social media account, it has been claimed that Bashar al-Assad called the security guards after he was...

1976"Human Rights Internet reporter," 1987, vol. 12, p. B-107 In 1970, during 'Black September,' Jordan itself killed 3,400 Palestinians in just 10 days. In 1976, the Syrian army killed more than 23,000 Palestinians. 2011-2012Mathieu Rabechault: US says Iran forming pro-regime militia in Syria," AFP, August 14, 2012 Rights groups say more than 23,000 people have been killed in 17 months of fighting between troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebel forces, including civilians killed in the regime's brutal crackdown.

The Times will accuse DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard of meeting with then-Lebanese Hezbollah Supreme Leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2017.The New York Times is preparing to publish a deep state hit piece on President Donald Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. The piece is purportedly based on National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of a pair of anonymous terrorists.Two people familiar with the matter told The Federalist the Times will accuse Gabbard, a former Democrat congresswoman from Hawaii, of meeting with then-Lebanese Hezbollah Supreme Leader Hassan Nasrallah on a Middle East trip in 2017. The paper of “all the...

On Monday, the new government of Syria canceled Russia's 49-year operating lease at the port of Tartus, bringing a multi-decade Russian naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean to a close. A military cargo ship that had been loitering just off the coast has now berthed at the Russian naval pier, where military vehicles are staged for a likely evacuation. "According to the Director of Tartous Customs, the agreement signed with the Russian company to invest in Tartous Port has been canceled and all its revenues are now for the benefit of the Syrian state," reported local news agency Levant24.

Syria’s new government terminated a treaty granting Russia a long-term military presence in the Mediterranean, a deal brokered under ousted leader Bashar al-Assad, Syrian media reported Tuesday. Authorities also said that revenue from the port would “now benefit the Syrian state,” reversing the previous agreement under which Russia received 65% of Tartus’ profits. The report added that Syria’s new leadership may investigate the treaty’s economic impact on the country.

Syria’s former media chief and top aide to Bashar al-Assad said that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have “tricked” the ousted Syrian president in his final days as leader. Speaking to Mazeej Studios, a podcast produced by Saudi channel Al Arabiya, Kamel Saqr said that Assad was in Moscow in late November, just over a week before Syrian rebels captured Damascus. According to him, the rebels had already captured much of Aleppo by the time Assad met Putin on Friday 29 November. There, Saqr said Assad asked for Putin’s support in helping Iran transport equipment and support to strengthen his...

Deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia less than two weeks ago, but his escape may have been facilitated by the Israelis in exchange for bombshell information. Literally. First, though, Assad is enjoying his rest in Moscow, where he and his family have been granted asylum... But not all is well for Assad ... terms of Assad's asylum: Bashar is strictly prohibited from engaging in political activity or leaving Moscow without prior approval from Russian authorities. Asma al-Assad filed for divorce through a Russian court and requested permission to leave Moscow for London; her request is still under review....

SYRIAN despot Bashar al-Assad traded his country's military secrets with Israel in exchange for safe passage out of the country, it has been claimed. The murderous tyrant allegedly handed over coordinates for weapons depots which Israel is now using to drop bombs on Syrian targets in a cowardly last act.

There are no good guys in this fight. The ISIS and al Qaeda takeover bodes most ill. Christians and religious minorities face genocide. Sharia, the most system of governance on the face of the earth, will be imposed. “The international media has been trying to portray these “rebels” as plucky freedom fighters against the tyrant Assad, but actually they’re Islamic jihadis who will impose Sharia and make life miserable for the remaining Christians of Syria.

To the victors go the spoilers. When Islamist rebel forces in Syria marched into Damascus and stormed the palace of Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, they found a massive fleet of high-end cars, including Mercedes, Porches, Audis and Ferraris. Videos shared on social media show gleeful looters touring a massive garage in the presidential palace, chock full of high-end roadsters from the deposed dictator’s private stash. ... One eagle-eyed commenter pointed to a coveted Mercedes-Benz with gullwing doors. SUVs, motorcycles, ATVs and what appears to be an armored truck also awaited the rebels, who traipsed through the sprawling mansion taking selfies,...

The Syrian people are exuberant about the end of the Bashar al-Assad regime. But there is one atrocity by this notorious family that has been described as “one of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world.” That is the 1982 encirclement, starvation and mass execution of the residents of the Syrian city of Hama. This atrocity was committed by Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad. Last Friday, residents of Hama tore down the statue of Hafez al-Assad while the city fell to rebels. While much of the world just saw it as another Syrian city falling, its significance...

Over the past four decades, Iran devoted its best military minds, billions of dollars and sophisticated weapons to a grand project — countering U.S. and Israeli power in the Middle East through what it called the “axis of resistance.”The alliance, made up of like-minded armed groups or governments in five Middle Eastern countries, allowed Iran to project power as far west as the Mediterranean and south to the Arabian Sea.But in a breathtakingly short time, it has largely unraveled.Syrian rebel groups ousted the country’s longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in less than two weeks as the government’s military forces put up...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination on Sunday, as rebels said they had infiltrated the capital with no sign of army deployments. Syrian army units abandoned their positions on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday night, fleeing the advance of rebel forces. The military said it was “reinforcing” defensive lines around the capital, which appeared to have collapsed. Mohammed al-Rahmoun, the Syrian interior minister, earlier said there was a “very strong security cordon on the outskirts of Damascus and no one can break it”. But the Syrian opposition fighters early on Sunday disproved this,...

The nearly quarter-century rule of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad came to a stunning end, when he fled the country by plane for an unknown destination as rebel troops stormed into the capital city of Damascus with little resistance. Thousands of people rushed to the city’s main square waving and chanting “freedom” as rebel breached the city gates on Sunday, local time, and Assad’s army fled from the streets, witnesses said. Assad, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for 24 years, boarded a plane and left Damascus for parts unknown, two senior army officers told Reuters. Shortly after...

I first met Qassem four years ago, at the height of the European refugee crisis. The BBC had sent me to capture the stories of Mideast migrants, thousands of whom would daily wash ashore on the Greek isles. He was around 15, malnourished and clearly traumatized. As we sat together in a cabin at a ­migrant camp on the island of Lesbos, his hunched body rocked backward and forward. His marginal life amounted to a speck of dust amid the geopolitical earthquakes that were remaking the region at the time. Yet the story he told opened a window onto the...

HTS rebel commander says forces have begun to enter Homs War monitors, the leader of the HTS fighters and pro-government media all reported late on Saturday that forces loyal to President Bashar Assad had largely withdrawn from the country's third city, Homs. The head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said Syrian troops and members of different security agencies had withdrawn from Homs, and that HTS forces had started to enter the suburbs.

Syrian opposition fighters have reached the suburbs of the Damascus capital for the first time since the region was recaptured by government troops in 2018, as president Bashar al-Assad's regime nears collapse. One resident said the city was on edge, with security forces on the streets and many shops running out of staple foods. The Syrian army withdrew from much of the country's south on Saturday but later said it was fortifying positions in the Damascus suburbs and in the south. Syria's state news agency denied reports that Assad had already fled to Russia claiming he continued to govern from...

Iran has reportedly started to withdraw troops from Syria as advancing rebel forces threaten to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to The New York Times. Syrian insurgents took control of the central city of Hama following the retreat of government forces on Thursday, just days after rebels captured most of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city. Evacuations were initiated on Friday for commanders and personnel from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, according to Iranian officials and regional commanders cited in the Times report. Diplomatic staff serving at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus were also...