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Iran's ex-deputy defense minister smuggled top-secret maps and documents - some of which prove terror ties around the Middle East - out of Tehran when he defected to the West, former colleagues said yesterday. The confidential files Ali Reza Asghari brought with him provide details about Iran's links to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad as well as the radical Mahdi Army and Badr Corps in Iraq, according to an influential Arab newspaper. An Iranian colleague told the paper, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, that Asghari also had secret documents concerning Iran's nuclear missile program. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards are beefing...

A former high-ranking Iranian government official, Brig. Gen. Alireza Asghari, 63, has defected to the United States, Iranian exiles and other sources told Newsmax today. Asghari had access to highly-classified intelligence information and "defected to the Americans with lots of secrets," respected Iranian journalist Alireza Nourizadeh told Newsmax from London. The disappearance of the former Revolutionary Guards General has created a panic in Tehran. Gen. Asghari left Iran on an officially-sanctioned trip to Damascus, Syria, then went missing during a stop-over in Istanbul, Turkey on February 7, according to statements by Iranian government officials in Tehran. Nourizadeh believes he had...

Istanbul, 28 Feb. (AKI) - Retired Iranian general and former deputy defence minister, Alireza Asghari, has gone missing during a private visit to Turkey, Arab and Iranian newsreports said on Wednesday. Asghari arrived in the Turkish city on a flight from Damascus and after checking into the Hotel Ghilan has not been seen since, the reports said. Asghari is a former general in the hardline Pasdaran or Revolutionary Guard, and served in the cabinet of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. Baztab, an internet site linked to the Pasdaran, reported that Ashgari may have been kidnapped. Baztab recently reported that Asghari's...

AN Iranian general who defected to the West last month had been spying on Iran since 2003 when he was recruited on an overseas business trip, according to Iranian sources. This weekend Brigadier General Ali Reza Asgari, 63, the former deputy defence minister, is understood to be undergoing debriefing at a Nato base in Germany after he escaped from Iran, followed by his family. A daring getaway via Damascus was organised by western intelligence agencies after it became clear that his cover was about to be blown. Iran’s notorious secret service, the Vavak, is believed to have suspected that he...

The disappearance and possible defection of former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asgari has the Iranian government deeply worried — and for good reason. Meir Javedanfar, an expert on Iran and co-author of an upcoming book on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reports. UPDATE: A senior U.S. official (has confirmed) that Asgari left his country voluntarily and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran’s ties to the organization. (Washington Post) The recent disappearance of Ali Reza Asgari, Iran’s former deputy defense minister who was on a visit to Istanbul has been a mystery for the...

SINGAPORE — China put European patience to the test on Saturday, with a seasoned Chinese diplomat attributing Russia’s war on Ukraine to a failed security architecture in Europe. It fell to Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren to challenge that very Chinese interpretation. “I was actually a little bit surprised to hear it,” Ollongren told POLITICO in an interview moments after she made an impromptu rebuttal of ex-ambassador Cui Tiankai on a panel at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “It’s very, very false.” Cui, a former envoy to the U.S. and unofficially an adviser to the Chinese delegation at this top...

I think this is a case of a longtime enemy of the Kremlin making mischief at an opportune moment more so than a bankable report. It comes from Leonid Nevzlin, a prominent businessman who fled Russia for Israel nearly 20 years ago due to fear of persecution and has been a critic of Moscow ever since. In 2008 he was sentenced to life in prison there in absentia. How much stock do we want to put in a claim made by a well-known dissident with strong personal reasons to embarrass Putin’s regime?Having said that, there are reasons to believe it...

Wednesday, I posted on the rather strange absence of the two men at the top of Russia’s military hierarchy (Correlation or Causation? The Ukraine Invasion Has Stalled and Putin’s Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff Have Vanished). Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov dropped out of sight on March 11. Considering Russia is at war, this seemed most odd. One would have expected Gerasimov to make ceremonial appearances, perhaps at one of the thousands of funerals conducted for Russian men killed in Ukraine.Shoigu was personally selected to be Defense Minister by Russian...

Israeli 🇮🇱 quadruple-vaccinated Defense Minister tested positive for Covid.In a statement he said "thanks to the 4 vaccine shots, I feel fine."🤔— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) January 22, 2022 Quadruple Vaccinated Benny Gantz tests positive. Thanks to the 4 Vaccine shots, I feel fine. Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz went into isolation Saturday after testing positive for Covid. “I feel good because I am vaccinated. In the coming days I will manage security affairs from my home.” A number of boosted Israeli lawmakers have been infected in recent weeks, including Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman. חיובי...

He already owns a $5.2 million Miami Beach condo at the prestigious St. Regis Bal Harbour resort, but Daoud Wardak apparently also wants a West Coast outpost. To that end, he’s heading for Beverly Hills — records reveal the semi-mysterious businessman, who is a son of former Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak, has bought a $20.9 million mansion on a prime Trousdale Estates street.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is to be Germany’s new defense minister, officials have confirmed. The reports come after the current defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, was voted EU Commission President on Monday. Kramp-Karrenbauer, also known by her initials AKK, succeeded Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) in December. The move would come as a surprise, as many had expected Health Minister Jens Spahn, who was passed over for party leader, to become defense chief. It was doubly surprisingly because Kramp-Karrenbauer had previously said she would forgo a ministerial post in favor of concentrating on party leadership. …

South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said Monday he would like the United States to consider redeploying nuclear weapons to the peninsula as threats from North Korea intensify. In the wake of North Korea's nuclear test over the weekend, Song is now calling on the U.S. to look at its 1991 withdrawal of nuclear weapons from South Korea. Song said he spoke with Defense Secretary James Mattis and asked him to beef up the U.S. military presence in and around South Korea as its northern neighbor shows no signs of backing off its aggressive actions that include multiple missile tests...

21:58 .   Russian Defense Ministry summons U.S. military attache, cuts off communication with Pentagon on Syria (Part 2) http://www.interfax.com/news.asp  

I have always been agnostic on the subject of UFOs and alien intelligent beings visiting earth. For one thing, there is no definitive proof one way or another. For another, it is far more amusing that way, especially since there are so many entertaining claims out there asserting all sorts of things.  Consider claims of sexual violation, or claims of captured spacecraft in Area 51 or elsewhere, or of  alien technology transfers being behind important inventions (which would seem to put the aliens into an alliance with the gold ol' USA, because we have dominated the production of world-changing technologies...

Monday’s resignation of Defense Minister Ehud Barak is another crack in the foundations of the center-left, which has been in a state of denial ever before the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and other Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria in 2005. Buoyed by a largely center-left Israeli and foreign media, which have done all but openly campaign against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Labor and Kadima parties have been grasping a dead limb that props up Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as a “peace partner.” The center-left parties feed themselves on feeling good over support of the...

MADRID, Spain (April 16) - Here's an image Spaniards will not soon forget: their new defense minister, reviewing trim, crisply uniformed soldiers, with her baby bump on display. Wearing a black pants suit and a white maternity blouse, Chacon reviews troops in Madrid on Monday after being sworn in as defense minister. She is one of nine women in Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Cabinet, compared to eight men. The surprise appointment of Carme Chacon, age 37 and with no military experience, is the boldest statement yet from a Socialist government that has made gender equality one of its...

MONTREAL (AFP) - Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay on Tuesday identified Iran as the origin of weapons used by rebels against the international coalition in Afghanistan. "We have asked the Iranians to deal with the problem because it is very hard to cut the supply lines when you have, in another country, people who are providing the arms for use against Canadian forces and others" in the 39-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, he said. Speaking during a visit to the military base at Kandahar broadcast on Radio-Canada television, MacKay said Canada was particularly concerned about improvised explosive devices from...

In this photo released by China's Xinhua news agency, Cuba's Acting President Raul Castro, left, welcomes China's Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan during their meeting to discuss relations between the two communist-run countries Friday, May 11, 2007 in Havana, Cuba. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Yin Yongjian)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan security forces raided a militant hideout and arrested a former Taliban defense minister, regarded as a top figure in the Afghan insurgency, intelligence officials said Friday. Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, considered a key ally of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar, is the most senior leader from the hard-line militia to be arrested since U.S.-led troops ousted it from power in 2001. Akhund was among five Taliban suspects arrested in a raid on a home in the southwestern city of Quetta earlier this week, said a military intelligence official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to...

Excerpt - 07:09 Report: PM mulling Ehud Barak, Gabi Ashkenazi as new defense minister (Army Radio) 07:07 Olmert aides: PM plans to remove Peretz from Defense Ministry (Army Radio