Free Republic

<p>In 2007, the US Treasury designated the IRGC’s Quds Force, its unit in charge of operations abroad, “for its support of terrorism,” and has described it as Iran’s “primary arm for executing its policy of supporting terrorist and insurgent groups.” By law, the power to appoint and remove the commander of the IRGC is given to the supreme leader. The supreme leader also appoints clerical representatives to the various units of the IRGC whose guidance and instructions are binding on commanders. Iranian law makes “belief and practical obedience to the principle of the clerical rule” a condition of membership in the IRGC, further establishing absolute loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the IRGC’s guiding principle. Efforts to normalize the IRGC’s extraordinary role in Iran over the years have resulted in a complex organization chart. Administratively, the IRGC falls under the Joint Armed Forces General Staff, part of the Ministry of Defense. But these layers of oversight do not give Iran’s nominally elected civilian authorities real control over the IRGC, as the entire military remains subordinate to the Supreme National Security Council, which in turn answers to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has long been calling for the international community to completely end the appeasement approach vis-à-vis the regime in Iran. On January 11 of this year, Mrs. Rajavi called for the specific IRGC blacklisting as an FTO alongside the referral of Iran’s human rights violations dossier to the United Nations Security Council.</p>

A report in Arab media stated the President Trump’s long-awaited Middle-East Peace plan includes resettling up to one million Palestinians in Jordan in exchange for $45 billion in development projects. Al-Akbar, an Arabic-language news service based in Beirut, reported on Friday that Jordanian King Abdullah II agreed to the condition during his last visit to Washington. In addition, Israel would reacquire land in Tzofar, a town in the Arava desert, and Naharayim, where Jordan conquered in 1948 the Island of Peace and a hydroelectric power-plant that belonged to Israel. Israel currently leases the land however it is officially part of...

CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour identified Haifa in northern Israel as being located in the 'West Bank,' the Jordanian name for Judea and Samaria, in introducing a Palestinian Arab human rights lawyer. Amanpour made the gaffe on Wednesday during her global affairs interview program on CNN. She introduced human rights lawyer Diana Buttu to respond to an interview with Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon, who discussed the as yet unveiled United States peace plan. “Diana Buttu is a human rights lawyer and she joins me from Haifa, on the West Bank,” Amanpour said. In a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rejecting a plank of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, the House on Thursday invoked never-before-used powers to demand that his administration withdraw support from the Saudi-led war in Yemen . The Senate passed the same resolution in March with bipartisan support. Trump is expected to issue a veto of the measure , his second as president, and Congress does not have the votes to override him.

Moscow (AFP) - The body of an Israeli soldier missing since the 1982 Lebanon War has been found by the Russian and Syrian armies, President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu visited Putin in Moscow five days before he is to seek a fifth term in office in a difficult election. "Our military together with Syrian partners found the place of his burial," Putin said, referring to Sergeant First Class Zachary Baumel.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fly to Moscow on Thursday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Israeli leader's office said on Tuesday. The statement did not elaborate on the intended topics of discussion. The two leaders will meet five days before Israel's April 9 election in which the right-wing Netanyahu faces a strong challenge from a centrist candidate. On Monday, Netanyahu told reporters he and Putin spoke by telephone about Syria, whose Russian-backed president, Bashar al-Assad, has been gaining ground in an eight-year civil war.

Full title: Iranian women's rights activist condemns Western feminists for wearing the hijab in 'solidarity', saying: 'Calling the compulsory headscarf my country's culture is INSULTING' Masih Alinejad said female visitors to Iran were leaving activists 'on their own' She rejected the argument that visitors should wear the hijab 'out of respect' The issue has been thrown into new focus in the wake of the Christchurch attack

The Palestinian leader spoke in advance of the anticipated roll out of what US President Donald Trump is calling the “Plan of the Century” to resolve the Israeli-Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Trump Administration will allow Israel to annex portions of the West Bank and split the Gaza Strip from the West Bank so that it can be a state of its own, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday. Speaking at the Arab League summit in Tunisia, "What is coming from the US is more dangerous and serious,” he said. “The US will tell Israel, annex part of the Palestinian...

Recently Facebook and Twitter revealed they had removed a network of accounts linked to the Iranian government that attempted to launch online Disinformation campaign. Microsoft said it seized 99 websites used by Iranian hackers to steal sensitive information and launch other cyber attacks. The company said the group, which it has been tracking since 2013, has tried to snoop on activists, journalists, political dissidents, defense industry workers and others in the Middle East, including some who were “protesting oppressive regimes” in the region. Hackers did so by tricking people in those organizations to click on malicious links disguised to resemble...

March 31, 2019, 6:43 PM CDT / Updated March 31, 2019, 7:42 PM CDT By Alex Johnson and Andrew Blankstein LOS ANGELES — The Grammy-nominated rapper Nipsey Hussle was killed in a shooting outside his clothing store in Los Angeles, multiple law enforcement sources said. Two other men were in serious condition, and a suspect remained at large. No further information was immediately available about the shooting at Marathon Clothing on Slauson Avenue in South Los Angeles. But just a couple of hours before the shooting, Hussle, 33, whose real name was Ermias Ashgedom, had tweeted, "Having strong enemies is...

A new bloc is emerging in the greater Middle East with the declared objectives of dominating the entire Arab world, confronting and containing the US and its allies; and controlling and benefiting from the entire hydro-carbon economy, from production to transportation. The leading members of the new bloc are Turkey, Iran, and Qatar; with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan submitting to the new bloc. Russian experts call the new bloc “the Middle Eastern Entente”. The key to the success of the bloc is the emerging correlation of influence of the great powers in the af-termath of the wars in Syria...

Too poor to even buy pens and notebooks for school, Mehdi left his home in Afghanistan soon after his 17th birthday and headed to Iran, hoping to make his way to Europe and find work. Instead, Mehdi ended up fighting in Syria’s civil war, a conflict he had nothing to do with, 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from home. He was one of tens of thousands of Afghans recruited, paid and trained by Iran to fight in support of Tehran’s ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad. There, he found himself thrown into one of the war’s bloodiest front lines, surrounded by the...

Iranian military leaders have openly boasted that they have begun to send weapons to Palestinian Arab terrorists in Judea and Samaria and elsewhere in the region, the Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday. The report quoted a top Iranian military commander who confirmed that weapon shipments to Judea and Samaria have already begun and that more will be sent to other “Palestinian resistance groups.” “Arming the West Bank has started and weapons will be supplied to the people of this region,” Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the commander of Iran’s volunteer Basij force, told the state-run Fars news agency on Wednesday....

A Home Office official cited the bible to claim that Christianity is not a peaceful religionThe British Home Office has agreed to reconsider the asylum claim of an Iranian Christian, after it was shown on Twitter that the department had denied the application on the grounds that Christianity is not a peaceful religion. “The Home Office have agreed to withdraw their refusal and to reconsider our client’s asylum application, offering us a chance to submit further representations. A good start, but more change is needed”, the Iranian’s caseworker, Nathan Stevens, tweeted March 22. Stevens added that he hopes “there will...

Even as the New Zealand government was condemning the Erdogan regime for using mosque shooting footage in its election rallies, the Washington Post decided to give the Islamist tyrant a platform. It was the second time in six months that The Post had given Erdogan a platform. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has prisons full of political dissidents. He has silenced the media and has tortured opponents. His brutal Islamist regime has been described as the world’s biggest jailor of journalists. It’s been estimated that a third of the world’s imprisoned journalists have been locked up by his regime. But that didn’t...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed converting the fabled Hagia Sophia into a mosque on Sunday. The Greek government responded with anger on Monday, pointing out that the Hagia Sophia was the seat of Greek Orthodox Christianity for centuries and has been designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. Erdogan said during a television interview on Sunday that the Hagia Sophia might be “reverted” into a mosque, referring to the structure’s status as a mosque following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 A.D. The Hagia Sophia was constructed as a relatively modest Greek Orthodox church in 360,...

MOSCOW, March 19 (Reuters) - Russian lawmakers on Tuesday backed the international use of a Russian alternative system for the global financial messaging network SWIFT designed by Moscow to eliminate the risk of Western sanctions. Russia has held talks with China, India, Iran and Turkey about joint use of Russia's financial messaging system, said Anatoly Aksakov, who heads the Russian Banking Association and a financial committee with the lower house of parliament. "As the system has proved to be viable and efficient, it draws interest from both Russian and foreign players, it is proposed to give any legal entities, Russian...

Militants belonging to the ‘State of Sinai’ group in Egypt have promised to “kill more Copts” after murdering a 27-year-old Coptic man because of the tattoo of a cross on his wrist. Bassem Herz Attalhah, also known as Haythem Shehata, was on his way home from work in El-Arish, capital of North Sinai governorate, on Saturday evening (13 January), with his brother Osama and neighbour and friend Mohamed, when they were stopped by three armed men, aged between 23 and 25. “We thought they were policemen because they weren’t masked… They were wearing black jackets,” Osama, 38, told World Watch...

HAPPENING NOW: Israeli tanks heading to Gaza border as dozens or rockets are being fired from Gaza.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the Salafist form of Islam exists in all its complexity. THE word “Salafism” is often used loosely, especially in continental Europe. When the relationship between Islam and jihadist violence is discussed in, say, France or Germany, the assumption is often made that the problem begins and ends with the Salafis—who put overwhelming emphasis on the first three generations of Muslims and who are thought to have professed the faith at its purest. This Franco-German sloppiness can be bewildering to Islam-watchers in Britain where Salafis have at times been encouraged to play a part in...