Free Republic

Was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and then his body cut up with a bone saw and flown to Riyadh in Gulfstream jets owned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? So contend the Turks, who have video from the consulate, photos of 15 Saudi agents who flew into Istanbul that day, Oct. 2, and the identity numbers of the planes. Supporting the thesis of either a murder in the consulate or a "rendition," a kidnaping gone horribly bad, is a Post story that U.S. intel intercepted Saudi planning, ordered by the prince, to...

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – Syria’s Kurds “have been great partners,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday evening in Washington DC, as he addressed a conference of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA.)Pompeo affirmed that the Kurds would be party to negotiations over Syria’s political future.“We are now driving,” he said, stressing that last word, “to make sure that they have a seat at the table.”Pompeo is the most senior US official to affirm a long-term commitment to Syria’s Kurds.Previously, Amb. James Jeffrey, who was appointed Pompeo’s Representative for Syria Engagement in late August,...

As far as liberal emotionalism is concerned, America is illegitimate unless they, leftists, are in charge Day by day, the concept of fairmindedness is being drowned out by surging self-righteousness. The democrat driven kangaroo court that tried to condemn Brett Kavanaugh on the uncorroborated testimony of a woman, who has since been credibly tied to FBI deep state assets, was enough to give pause in assessing the veracity of her charges. At least it was to senators who hadn’t fully succumbed to the minority party’s coercion and sanctimonious chest-thumping. They didn’t buy the guilt by accusation.

WOW! Sammi found this at the FMSO database of the newly released Iraq Regime documents. It details Iraqi efforts to monitor a U.N. inspection team, break into their personal briefcases (actually says it was complained about but not that they did it), and hide Russian and Turkish scientists. As usual, the parentheses are the translators. (PDF)CMPC-2003-000776Mr. General Director of the Office of National Supervision Subject: Visit of the IAEA team A team of the IAEA did a SURPRISE (translator’s emphasis) visit today, on the 15th of December 2002, to 1) Oumm Al Maarek Company (Mother of all battles Company) 2)...

Syrian rebel fighters have pulled the last of their heavy weapons from front-line positions in Idlib Province, meeting the deadline for a truce negotiated by Russia and Turkey — and possibly sparing the civilian population from a bloody government offensive. It was a rare act of unity for the ordinarily fractious rebel forces, who on Monday drove trucks carrying a tank, artillery and missile batteries out of their base in this small town, as a small group of international journalists looked on. “We are now standing in the demilitarized zone,” said Saif al-Raad, a spokesman for the National Liberation Front,...

Regardless of what you may think of the death penalty, and Oct. 10's World Day against the Death Penalty, it's a very real awfulness for 2,320 brave death row prisoners in Iran. For this occasion, they issued a statement: – While 176 prisoners were executed during the first half of 2018 – While we are among the thousands of prisoners across Iran awaiting our death, and like Zaniar Moradi, who wrote before his death: "Nine years have passed. Nine years in which I languished in prison while being sentenced to the inhumane death sentence. In recent years, these brave death...

Xelil Åžirvan, a commander of a group of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, told Sputnik that a US military base had been detected near the town of Al-Qa'im in northwest Iraq on the border with Syria. "According to our data, the United States has set up a new military base in the strategically important region of Al-Qa'im in Anbar province on the Iraqi-Syrian border. Americans are building up their military presence in the region, which is why Iraqi government forces have sent more military reinforcements to Al-Qa'im to boost border protection," he said. A spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led...

Oil prices cooled off in recent days as fears of an acute shortage of supply stemming from sanctions on Iran started to subside. At least two companies in India have lined up oil shipments for November, the month that sanctions on Iran take effect. The 9 million barrels of oil secured for next month translate into nearly 300,000 bpd of supply. Meanwhile, other reports suggest that the U.S. is softening its zero tolerance approach to sanctions, and could issue waivers to some importers who make significant reductions but struggle to cut imports to zero. Taken together, the oil market is...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that he is preparing for a military solution to the violence on the country’s southern border. “If the reality of civil distress in Gaza is diminished, that is desirable, but that is not certain to happen, and so we are preparing militarily,” Netanyahu said in the cabinet meeting. “That is not an empty statement.” The prime minister’s remarks come after the Defense Ministry ordered IDF troops to send reinforcements to the region on Thursday in preparation for a possible escalation.

The United States on Monday asked judges at the International Court of Justice to throw out a claim by Iran to recover $1.75 billion (€1.5 billion) in national bank assets seized by U.S. courts. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the assets must be turned over to American families of victims of the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, among others. The hearings at the tribunal were separate from Iran’s claim relating to current U.S. sanctions against Tehran. Iran’s claim in both cases is based on a 1955 Amity Treaty, which was signed 24...

On Monday Oct 8.2018 , merchants in several Iranian cities went on strike and refused to open for business in an extension of ongoing protests against the regime of Tehran. The strike, which was preplanned and widely distributed across social media channels, is in protest to increasing prices and high inflation rates. The protest movement comprises 25 of Iran’s major cities Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, commended the brave bazaar merchants and shopkeepers in Tehran and dozens of other Iranian cities who are on strike against the mullahs' corrupt regime. She said that the bazaar strike, coming...

A sprawling mansion on the Upper East Side has been frozen as part of a hard-core battle between the US government and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, The Post has learned. US officials say Deripaska, an aluminum billionaire, is close both with Russian mob leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that he is on the sanctions list because he is allegedly involved in murder, money-laundering, bribery and racketeering. Deripaska also had President Trump’s ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort — who has been convicted of crimes including money-laundering and who is cooperating with US special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe —...

Iraqi social media star and model Tara Fares has been shot dead in Baghdad….The former Miss Baghdad, and first runner-up for Miss Iraq, was killed on Thursday after gunmen opened fire on her Tara was a Christian and “famous for her bold clothing and posts on social media.” Those attributes sealed her fate, along with that of other women in her country who fly in the face of the Sharia, such as the human rights activist, Suaad al-Ali, who “was shot and killed in an outdoor market by an unknown gunman” two days before. Last month, “two well-known women in...

Despite the United States recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and relocating its embassy from Tel Aviv in May, Americans born in Jerusalem are still unable to list “Jerusalem, Israel” on U.S. passports. “The president has made clear that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem remain subject to final-status negotiations between the [Israelis and the Palestinians],” a State Department spokesperson told JNS. “We have not changed our practice regarding place of birth on passports or Consular Reports of Birth Abroad at this time.”

Russia Derangement Syndrome: Syria Edition by David Archibald 6 August 2018 The road to hell is paved with good intentions. So it has been with US involvement in Syria. To provide a context to that involvement, let’s start part way through the story with the self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable vendor on December 17, 2011, driven to despair by harassment from petty officials. That spark set off the Arab Spring. A number of Arab regimes changed; some remained resilient. That wasn’t good enough for David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy, the then leaders of the UK and France respectively. Their armed...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke out against President Donald Trump in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, blasting his anti-press rhetoric, the retreat from the world stage, and his insults of U.S. allies.

Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour on Friday launched a racial attack against Sen. Susan Collins, saying the Maine Republican was guilty of espousing “white supremacy” with her decision to support the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Ms. Sarsour, a prominent Palestinian-American activist, blasted Ms. Collins on Twitter as a “white woman” and the “mother & grandmother of white women in America who gave us a Donald Trump presidency.”

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli official played down on Wednesday the Russian upgrading of Syria’s air defences, saying the newly supplied S-300 missile system could be defeated by Israel’s stealth fighters and possibly destroyed on the ground. Moscow said on Tuesday that it had delivered the S-300, a decision it took after accusing Israel of indirect responsibility for the downing of a Russian spy plane by Syrian forces as they fired on attacking Israeli jets last month. Damascus and its big-power backer describe the advanced addition to Syria’s arsenal as a major deterrent. Israel and Washington have both voiced misgivings...

The Sudanese government has cleared a shipment of Bibles believed to have been held in Port Sudan for six years. The Arabic-language Bibles were released two weeks ago and transported to the capital, Khartoum, after years of appeals by church leaders, a local source told World Watch Monitor. “Since 2011, government customs officials have delayed the clearing of several shipments of Arabic Bibles via Port Sudan, without explanation,” the source said, adding that it had left Bibles decaying in shipping containers at the port while the approximate 2 million Christians in the country were facing a serious shortage of Bibles...

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday warned of a war with Iran after the United States pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers, AFP reported. Kerry spearheaded the diplomacy that led to the 2015 agreement in which Iran promised Western powers, Russia and China to scale back its nuclear program drastically in return for sanctions relief. In May, US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement, which he has slammed as “the worst deal ever negotiated”. Trump later signed an executive order officially reinstating US sanctions against Iran. Additional US...