Free Republic

We have been warning for some time about the danger of the Iranians and their surrogates like Hezbollah using Venezuela as a launching pad for attacks inside the United States. That possibility is particularly troubling given the number of Venezuelan passport holders this administration has allowed into the country. We don’t need to speculate about this threat anymore, however. It is no longer a possibility. It is happening.video The FBI field office in Miami has issued a public alert seeking information on Majid Dastjani Farahani. According to the FBI, Farahani is an Iranian intelligence officer who is in the United...

At 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 14, Ana Belen Montes, a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), walked into a public telephone booth outside Washington's National Zoo and made two calls to pager numbers later traced by federal agents to Cuba's Directorate of General Intelligence (DGI). She already had compromised the identities of CIA agents, revealed U.S. military secrets and exposed the contents of classified files. But, as Montes sent repeated signals to her DGI handlers during the days immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the ...

The United States and Ecuador conducted joint military operations against "designated terrorist organizations in Ecuador," U.S. Southern Command announced on Tuesday. This marks the first time that the U.S. military has engaged in a land operation against South American drug cartels.

A gunman has opened fire outside a restaurant in downtown Sacramento, killing at least six people and injuring nearly a dozen others, local officials and witnesses say. The suspect – whose identity was not immediately known – fled the scene. The incident occurred at 2 a.m. on Sunday when police officers were called for an active shooter in the area of 10th Street and K Street in downtown Sacramento. It happened shortly after the last call for bars in the area.

I’ve served on the Homeland Security Committee for the past three years. I’m 100% for strong safe secure borders and stopping narco terrorists and cartels from trafficking deadly drugs and human trafficking into America. Fentanyl is responsible for over 70% of U.S. drug overdose deaths and fentanyl comes from Mexican cartels made with chemical precursors from China and trafficked across the U.S. Mexico border. Mexican cartels are primarily and overwhelmingly responsible for killing Americans with deadly drugs. If U.S. military action and regime change in Venezuela was really about saving American lives from deadly drugs then why hasn’t the Trump...

A string of deadly shootings connected to Oklahoma marijuana farms — including a quadruple execution and a home-invasion murder — has exposed a shadow network tied to New York money, organized crime and groups with links to China, according to a new report. Authorities told the New York Times that the operations were fueled by out-of-state cash, concealed ownership and lax marijuana laws — allowing criminal groups to scale up illicit grows, exploit immigrant labor and divert massive amounts of weed into the black market. The trail led investigators far from rural Oklahoma to New York City, where real estate...

Reporting live from Central America. The General Elections from 30 November gives dysfunction a bad name. Let me bring you up to date. My source is local Honduran television, before the signal was mysteriously cut, just now. The conservative candidate from the National Party "Tito" Asfura remains in the lead by 42,407 votes (1,298,835 votes) over the moderate Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla with (1,256,428). The socialist (let's be honest, communist) Libre Party candidate Rixi Moncada is a distant 3rd with 618,448 votes. The current president Xiomara Castro is from the Libre Party and under the Honduran Constitution, cannot run...

Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) gave the very strong impression that she had personally viewed a classified video of a suspected narco-terrorist drug boat involved in an alleged “double tap” strike during an interview with CNN.Actually, she did more than give the impression. She flat-out claimed she watched the video. With her own eyes.Duckworth described it as “deeply disturbing” during an appearance on CNN's “State of the Union” Sunday, accusing War Secretary Pete Hegseth of committing “essentially murder” and a potential war crime.When host Dana Bash asked her if she had viewed the video, she did not waver.“I have seen the...

The family of a Colombian fisherman who died in a U.S. military boat strike in September has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging the U.S. government illegally killed him. Alejandro Carranza was killed in a strike in the Caribbean on Sept. 15, according to the petition, filed on Tuesday. "From numerous news reports, we know that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza and the murder of all those on such boats," according to the petition. In the petition, Carranza's lawyer Dan...

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) claimed the Trump administration’s first military strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean was a “war crime.” Host Dana Bash said, “I want to turn to new questions around the first U.S. military strike in September on a ship that the administration says was carrying drugs. Now, sources tell CNN, after the missile struck the boat, there were survivors and that a second strike was launched to kill anyone who was left. Secretary Pete Hegseth is defending the move, saying it is lawful under both U.S. and...

Russia's foreign ministry denounced on Saturday "excessive military force" by the United States in the Caribbean Sea deployed as part of a drive against drug trafficking and reaffirmed its support for Venezuela's leaders. "We firmly denounce the use of excessive military force in carrying out actions in anti-drugs operations," foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on her ministry's website. "Such actions are in violation of both U.S. domestic legislation ... and the norms of international law." (snip) In her comments, Zakharova said Russia "confirms our firm support for the Venezuelan leadership in defending its national sovereignty."

"When we declare war is supposed to be done by Congress. It's not supposed to be done willy nilly," Paul addedRepublican Sen. Rand Paul again slammed President Donald Trump over the administration's continued strikes against alleged drug boats off Venezuela, reiterating that any armed conflict should be approved by Congress. Speaking with British journalist Piers Morgan, Paul rejected the administration's claim that the strikes were targeting smugglers carrying different drugs, including fentanyl. "There is no fentanyl made in Venezuela. Not just a little bit, there's none being made. These are outboard boats that, in order for them to get to...

President Trump used an expletive Friday to warn Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro against conflict with the U.S., as the administration escalates military action against drug trafficking in the region. “He doesn’t want to f‑‑‑ with the U.S.,” Trump said, speaking from the White House during a lunch meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.Trump said Maduro had “offered everything” as part of diplomatic talks with the U.S., but which Trump reportedly called off last week. The New York Times reported Maduro had offered the U.S. a dominant stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth, as part of months-long discussions. The...

Trump administration sends memo to Congress declaring 'non-international armed conflict' with drug cartels The Trump administration sent a memo to Congress on Thursday saying that the United States is now "in a non-international armed conflict" with drug cartels, which administration officials have designated as "terrorist organizations." "The President directed these actions consistent with his responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct foreign relations," the memo states. The notification to congressional lawmakers came...

The U.S. State Department is again advising American citizens not to travel to Venezuela, warning of "severe risks" including wrongful detention, kidnapping and torture. The State Department said that it does not have an operating embassy or consulate in the South American country, and cannot provide routine or emergency consular services to U.S. citizens there. All U.S. citizens currently in Venezuela should leave immediately, the State Department said. "U.S. citizens are at extreme risk of detention when entering Venezuela at any location. They may be unjustly charged with terrorism or other serious crimes and detained for long periods," the State...

There probably isn't a more useful policy aim for the U.S. than taking out Venezuela's socialist regime. President Trump has hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan illegal aliens, including many criminals who have wrought mayhem, to deported and sending back to a democracy will be a lot easier. Venezuela's regime has served as a useful catspaw to multiple anti-American dictators, including China's oligarchs, the Russian regime, and the Iranian mullahs to keep the U.S. in check, propping up the otherwise bankrupt regime in power to harass the U.S. They've threatened and attempted to destabilize their neighbors. And close to President Trump's...

Leftists have long held no qualms about assassination against their rivals, and in Colombia, where narcoterrorism is also a problem and left-narco alliances are common, it has started up again.. But at least we have a secretary of state who is wise to what's going on. This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a high-level delegation to Bogota after a leading Colombian presidential candidate, conservative Sen. Miguel Uribe, died of his wounds in a June shooting by a criminal known as a 'sicario' or hitman who obviously had a sponsor. Rubio seems to know who that might be, though,...

The United States is strengthening its naval presence in the waters off Venezuela to counter threats posed by drug cartels. More than 4,000 personnel will be deployed to the area, amid growing tension between Washington and Caracas. The U.S. government has not indicated any intention of a land incursion into the South American nation. The news follows confirmation last week of three U.S. Aegis guided-missile destroyers being deployed to the waters. Then, more recently, Venezuela announced it would send military vessels to the Caribbean Sea and elsewhere to help combat drug trafficking. According to the U.S. Navy’s new chief of...

Belgium has seized so much cocaine from smugglers operating through the port of Antwerp that it needs more incinerator space to destroy it, officials said Monday. The massive police stash has been given the nickname the 'cocaine-berg,' with more than 100 tonnes on track to be amassed by the end of the year. Authorities are concerned that depots used to store the drugs could become targets for robberies by powerful gangs seeking to recover their lucrative cargoes. There's a problem with incinerator capacity,' Belgian customs service spokesman Francis Adyns told AFP, confirming reports in the local press promising that 'a...

An even better question: Why are Hezbollah leaders still meeting in Beirut?The Israelis launched another massive attack on a building complex "on the outskirts of Beirut," the New York Times reports this morning. This apparently refers to Dahiyeh, the suburb controlled by Hamas Hezbollah [corrected], and where Israelis killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a few days ago. Reportedly, Nasrallah's presumed successor had gathered with what's left of Hezbollah's command, and ... well ...Israel bombed a meeting of Hezbollah’s senior leadership around midnight on Thursday, a gathering that included Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor of Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s longtime...