Free Republic

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...

• Syrian rebels are speeding toward the major city of Homs, where residents are fleeing ahead of potential clashes between the rebels and regime forces. • The rebels seized Hama to the north on Thursday, the second major city taken from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in just over a week of fighting. • A new uprising has also emerged in the southern Daraa province, with rebels there claiming to have taken a major military base and announcing that their “destination is Damascus.” • Russia’s embassy in Syria has urged its citizens to leave the country, citing “the difficult military and...

Tens of thousands of people are fleeing Syria's third-largest city Homs amid reports that rebels are closing in, just over a week since they launched their lightning offensive. The rebels seized Hama to the north on Thursday, a second major blow to President Bashar al Assad who lost control of Aleppo last week. The leader of the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, told residents of Homs "your time has come". Rebel forces began the biggest offensive against Syria's government in years last week. They have been advancing south, and Homs would be the next stop...

Syrian rebels captured the key city of Hama on Thursday, bringing the insurgents a major victory after a lightning advance across northern Syria and dealing a new blow to President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. The Syrian army said it was redeploying outside the city "to preserve civilians lives and prevent urban combat" after what it called intense clashes. Rebels said they were preparing to keep marching south towards Homs, Syria's great crossroads city that links the capital Damascus to the north and coast. "Your time has come," said a rebel operations room in an online post,...

Syria claimed that its counteroffensive successfully pushed back insurgents attempting to advance toward the strategic city of Hama, while opposition forces reported capturing additional Syrian soldiers and Iran-backed militants in intense clashes. This latest flare-up in Syria's civil war follows recent gains by insurgents, including the capture of large areas in the northern city of Aleppo and towns in the southern part of Idlib province. The conflict between President Bashar Assad's government and armed opposition forces, which seek to overthrow him, has claimed an estimated half-a-million lives over the past 13 years. According to Syrian state media SANA, government forces,...

Syrian insurgents fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have launched attacks in the central province of Hama, threatening to cut off government troops from a key route linking the capital, Damascus, with rebel-held Aleppo. The army was engaging in “violent confrontations” with armed groups in Hama, the Syrian state news agency, Sana, reported. Separately, a longtime independent war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Tuesday morning that rebel factions in the province had managed to seize several “towns in the last few hours”. “Syrian and Russian air forces carried out dozens of strikes on the area,”...

Iran-backed militants entered Syria yesterday to bolster dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime against the Islamist rebels who seized Aleppo. Militias crossed into the war-torn country from neighbouring Iraq, following a lightning offensive against the Syrian army by rebel forces from the hardline Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish rebel groups. Their seizure of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and swathes of territory in the north of the country has reignited the deadly civil war in Syria and shocked its allies in Russia and Iran. President Assad blamed the West for the ‘terrorist escalation’, and accused the US and its allies...

Russia and Iran have rushed to the aid of an embattled ally as the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad announced a counteroffensive against rebel groups that have scored stunning advances in the past 48 hours. Russian warplanes hit rebel-held targets in the northwest region of Idlib on Sunday as Iran’s foreign minister made an emergency trip to Damascus to demonstrate support for the Assad regime. Syrian jets also hit rebel-held areas of the cities of Aleppo and Idlib which have fallen to the insurgents’ lightning advance. The moves were a sign of the deep shock delivered to Mr. Assad,...

The Syrian military rushed reinforcements to the country’s northwest and launched airstrikes on a major city Sunday in an attempt to push back insurgents who seized the country’s largest city of Aleppo in a surprise offensive in recent days. The insurgency, led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, launched their campaign on Wednesday with a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and the countryside around Idlib, before moving toward neighboring Hama province. On Sunday, government troops created a “strong defensive line” in northern Hama, according to Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as they attempted to stall the...

Islamist rebels have seized control of Aleppo and punched through into Hama city amid claims that Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad has allegedly fled to Russia with his family. Thousands of Syrian insurgents fanned out inside Aleppo in vehicles with improvised armor and pickups, deploying to landmarks such as the old citadel on Saturday, a day after they entered Syria's largest city facing little resistance from government troops. Syria's armed forces said in a statement Saturday that to absorb the large attack on Aleppo and save lives, it has redeployed and is preparing for a counterattack. The jihadist-led rebels seized Aleppo...

As Syria once again deteriorates into chaos, could Israel be threatened by the country’s chemical weapons into the hands of jihadists? Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is vowing to save Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad. Also, amid the rapidly escalating turmoil to Israel’s northeast, what outcome in Syria would be the most perilous for the Jewish State?

Could the collapse of Hezbollah touch off a domino effect in the Middle East? Iran's primary proxy and the world's most powerful non-state organization didn't just keep Lebanon under Tehran's thumb, after all. Hassan Nasrallah played a key role in propping up Iranian puppet Bashar al-Assad in Syria.And now Syrians are beginning to cheer their "disarray," as the New York Times puts it:Even as most of the Middle East is overtaken by outrage at weeks of destructive Israeli strikes against Hezbollah and its leaders, some communities are celebrating the disarray of the powerful militia that persecuted them.Nowhere is that sentiment...

The organization, CSTO, is a Russian-led security alliance that includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan “Radicals from Central Asia have accounted for a notable share of recent Islamic State-inspired or -directed plots and attacks in the United States, Europe, Turkey, and Iran,” Lucas Webber and Riccardo Valle wrote in a Hudson Institute analysis last year. In September 2022, ISKP – which vehemently opposes Russia’s support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria – claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the Russian embassy in Kabul which left six dead. Despite repeatedly warnings from foreign sources – including the U.S....

Protests began in Iran on September 16, prompted by the death of a 22-year-old woman who was dragged away and allegedly beaten by the morality police for wearing her hijab improperly. Now, a new horror is being forced on the protesters of Iran who've spent weeks continuing their fight amidst brutal oppression by Islamic forces. More than 14,000 Iranians have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations being held around the country, with the country's parliament voting overwhelmingly last week in favour of the death penalty. Protests are being held across the world in solidarity with Iranian citizens. Image: Taken...

Huge signs were erected this week all over Damascus, the capital of Syria, as a sign of support for Russia and the war against Ukraine. Alongside huge pictures of Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin read "Truth Will Win" and "Victory for Russia"pic.twitter.com/y06Dng72mo— Gal Aharonovich (@GalAharonovich) March 9, 2022Getty

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad tells his Russian ally Putin the assault on Ukraine is justified and aimed at ‘restoring’ post-Cold-War balance.

Something strange is going on. Why is the EU so keen to shoe-horn America back into the nuclear deal with Iran? Former US president Donald Trump ditched the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal three years ago and imposed heavy sanctions on the mullahs’ regime under his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign. Since then, the Iranians have boasted about how they have flouted the terms of the deal by accelerating their advanced centrifuge program and enriching uranium to almost weapons grade fissile status. The Biden administration is being ultra-cautious. But the EU’s high Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security, the Spanish...

Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline judge who is under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses, secured victory as expected on Saturday in Iran’s presidential election after a contest marked by voter apathy over economic hardships and political restrictions... Turnout in Friday's four-man race was a record low of around 48.8% and there were 3.7 million invalid ballots that were likely to have been mostly blank or protest votes. Appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under U.S. sanctions a few months later over human rights violations. Those included the...

One factor in a bunch of Americans opting for Donald Trump in 2016 was his promise not to start a new war in the Middle East — but the D.C. establishment secretly kept troops in Syria, and lied about it to the president.Defense One, a subsidiary of The Atlantic, came out with a story last week about a man named Jim Jeffrey. If you haven’t heard of him, don’t feel bad, but he’s pretty important in Washington, D.C. Under his fancy title, he’s been appointed to oversee the U.S. fight against ISIS and what are supposed to be the limited...

If these predictions come to pass, their fulfillment will have lasting effects upon America in the 2020s and beyond. In 2008, as the Obama administration prepared to take control in Washington, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey offered a list of bold predictions for the coming five years. Some of them bore out: The economy performed well globally despite the Great Recession, relations with Russia became more hostile without devolving into outright dysfunction, and the United States withdrew from Iraq right at the 36-month mark, which McCaffrey specified. Other predictions, such as a North Korean collapse, improved prospects for success in...