Free Republic

(excerpt) The member, identified as Reza Dastani, was killed on his way to work. Efforts are underway to identify and arrest the assailants. (excerpt)The assassination comes just days after IRGC Col. Davoud Jafari was killed in a roadside bombing near Damascus that Iran has blamed on Israel. The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported that Jafari served as an adviser for the IRGC Aerospace Force in Syria and was among one of the Iranian officials responsible for the seizure of two US Navy command boats carrying 10 US personnel in the Persian Gulf in January 2016. The Intelli Times blog revealed...

BEIRUT — The U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria said Tuesday that they will turn to the government in Damascus for support should Turkey go ahead with its threat to launch a new incursion into the war-torn country. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, said after a meeting of its command that its priority is to reduce tension near the border with Turkey but also prepare for a long fight if Ankara carries out its threat. The announcement appears to be a message directed at the United States and meant to elicit pressure from Washington on Turkey’s President...

Air defenses respond to missile attack on Damascus Syria accused Israel of launching missiles on an area south of Damascus on Monday evening, targeting the suburb of Saida Zaynab. Air defenses were activated around 11:18 pm on Monday in response to “hostile missiles” detected approaching Damascus, the state news agency SANA reported. State TV described the attack as “Israeli aggression.” The missiles came from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights and “most” were intercepted by air defenses, SANA said, citing military sources. Eyewitnesses reported seeing several explosions in the night sky over the Syrian capital. At least one missile...

PM Netanyahu at Cabinet: I just met US Senate Republican leader McConnell. Over the weekend I spoke with US Senate Democratic leader Reid. » I heard from both of them about strong and continuing bipartisan support for Israel and of course this is very important. » I expressed our concern over the agreement formulated with Iran in the nuclear talks, which appears to confirm all of our concerns and more» Even as meetings proceed on this dangerous agreement, Iran's proxies in Yemen are overrunning large sections of that country, » and are attempting to seize control of the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb...

An alleged Israeli airstrike targeted sites near Damascus on Wednesday night, according to Syrian state news agency SANA. Three Syrian soldiers were killed and material damage was caused by the strikes, according to SANA. According to the Syrian Capital Voice site, the strikes targeted an air defense battery in al-Kiswah and an Iranian weapons shipment at the Damascus International Airport. A Syrian air defense missile fell on the road leading to the Damascus International Airport, according to the Capital Voice. The opposition-affiliated Halab Today TV reported that the strike resulted in seven deaths and 12 injuries, as well as significant...

At least 14 people were killed and several others were wounded in central Damascus on Wednesday morning in an explosion on a Syrian military bus, Syrian state TV reported. According to additional reports from Syrian and Lebanese outlets, the casualties were Iranian officers. Syrian state TV showed footage of the charred bus, reporting that the blasts occurred while people were heading to work and school. As of yet, according to the reports, no organization has claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred at a main bus-transfer point under the Hafez al-Assad bridge, where vehicles converge and head out to different...

Israel shared three cell phone numbers used by Qasem Soleimani with U.S. intelligence in the hours before American drones unleashed Hellfire missiles on the Iranian general last year, Yahoo News reported Saturday. The revelation sheds new light on the role that Israel played in the killing of Soleimani, who the State Department says was responsible for hundreds of U.S. troop deaths as the head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force. The drone strike occurred shortly after midnight on Jan. 2, 2020, as Soleimani and his entourage were leaving Baghdad's international airport. As three Delta Force sniper teams monitored Soleimani...

The Portland Police Bureau with assistance from the FBI are investigating a video death threat made against Mayor Ted Wheeler by a self-described Antifa collective. The Post Millennial can report exclusively that a left-wing journalist is linked to the video. The disturbing two-minute video was posted Wednesday night on Twitter by a newly created account named, “@knotathreat.” It was quickly shared and promoted among Portland’s Antifa and extremist far-left accounts. TPM is not posting the video because it includes a home address associated with Wheeler. The video shows a masked person standing in front of a MAX Light Rail train...

On Tuesday night, Israel launched an airstrike on two ammunition depots maintained by Iran-backed militias in the suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus. Air defenses responded to the strikes, state television reported. State TV said Syrian air defense shot down some of the Israeli missiles before they hit their targets. It gave no further details or say which suburbs came under attack. They were the first attacks since Feb. 28, when Israeli missiles struck southern suburbs of Damascus. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations....

A video has surfaced of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad laughing about President Trump during Putin's visit to Damascus last week. The video, originally posted by a journalist for the Komsomolskaya Pravda, comes just over a month after multiple NATO nation leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, were recorded seemingly mocking the American president at a NATO summit. In the latest clip, Assad and Putin joked that Trump should follow in the footsteps of Paul the Apostle and visit the Syrian capital of Damascus. "If Trump arrives along this road...

Moscow State University is in discussions with Syria to open a branch in Damascus, the state-run TASS news agency reported Sunday, citing the university’s rector. Viktor Sadovnichy’s remarks confirm reports last week that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has allocated land in the Syrian capital to build a Russian university. As Syrian government forces reclaimed the upper hand in the country’s almost nine-year civil war, Russia has unveiled a series of commercial and relief projects to solidify its foothold there. The Syrian Education Ministry added Russian as an optional second foreign language in schools after English or French in 2014. More...

Iranian General Qassem Soleimani arrived at the Damascus airport in a vehicle with dark-tinted glass. Four soldiers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards rode with him. They parked near a staircase leading to a Cham Wings Airbus A320, destined for Baghdad. Neither Soleimani nor the soldiers were registered on the passenger manifesto, according to a Cham Wings airline employee who described the scene of their departure from the Syrian capital to Reuters. Soleimani avoided using his private plane because of rising concerns about his own security, said an Iraqi security source with knowledge of Soleimani’s security arrangements. The passenger flight would be...

TEL AVIV: Five days ago, an undisclosed intelligence agency intercepted a telephone call made by the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in which he was heard ordering his proxies in Iraq to attack the U.S embassy in Baghdad, as well as other Israeli and American targets, with the aim of taking hostages, Israeli sources say. It’s unclear whether this was a lapse in tradecraft on the part of the usually savvy Soleimani or whether the notorious Iranian military leader’s phone calls were being routinely intercepted. Nor is it clear whether it was the US or another...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A pair of Israeli airstrikes targeted senior Islamic Jihad commanders in Gaza and in Syria early on Tuesday, escalating Israel’s confrontation with Iran across the region and threatening to unleash another devastating round of cross-border violence with Palestinian militants. In eastern Gaza, the Israeli strike killed Bahaa Abu el-Atta and his wife, setting off a furious barrage of dozens of rocket attacks reaching as far as the Tel Aviv heartland as Islamic Jihad vowed further revenge. The Israeli military said Abu el-Atta was the mastermind of recent attacks against it and the militant group’s...

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...

Israel says It Attacked Iranian Targets in Syria By Linda Gradstein August 25, 2019 Israel says it had attacked Iranian targets in Syria to foil an imminent attack by what it called Iranian "killer drones" on Israel. Despite Iranian denials of the attack, the incident has sparked new tensions between Israel and Iran. Israel ordered deployment of its Iron Dome missile to its border with Syria. It is rare that Israel takes responsibility for air strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, although Israel is believed to have carried out hundreds of these attacks over the past few years. But this...

The Israeli military Saturday said it foiled a "pending large-scale attack" by Iranian forces and Shiite militia on targets in Israel with a series of airstrikes near Damascus. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed responsibility for the airstrikes, saying it thwarted Iranian drone attacks on Israel, according to a statement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in acknowledging Israel's responsibility for the attacks, said on Twitter, "I repeat: Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our forces operate in every direction against Iranian aggression." "He who rises to kill you, kill him first," Netanyahu said in his tweet, quoting Hebrew scripture.

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...

Thanks to oil, Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in the region — before becoming the continent’s poorest, ravaged by corruption and feckless economic policy. And amid the economic decline, high-ranking government officials became conspicuously wealthy. But how? According to U.S. indictments, former government officials, and regional experts, officials linked to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and members of Maduro’s government built a massive drug syndicate — while most of the country increasingly struggled to find food to eat, or medicine to care for the sick. “Venezuela was a narco state several years ago, but it has become darker and...

BEJUMA, Venezuela - In this deceptively tranquil farming village, people still talk about the ''Bejuma massacre'' in a whisper, partly because one man who spoke out is in a grave, partly because the killers were allegedly policemen. But the source of the fear can be summed up in a single word: drug trafficking, on the kind of massive level and involving corrupt government officials that has long been a profound problem in neighboring Colombia. Drug seizures in Venezuela doubled in the past four years. There are mounting allegations of drug-fueled corruption at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied...