Free Republic

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he’s “concerned” about a military escalation with Iran. Speaking with reporters during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential frontrunner took aim at President Trump’s tough talk against Tehran, saying “now we’re going to decide we’re going to threaten a war with Iran. I mean, the man has no foreign policy.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Iraqi officials that U.S. intelligence showed Iran-backed militias moved missiles near bases housing American forces. Pompeo made the disclosure to Iraq’s top brass during his surprise visit earlier this month, Reuters reported. The revelation comes just hours after all non-emergency personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq was ordered to leave the country. He asked the military officials to keep the Shi’ite militias in control as they are expanding their presence in the country and now are part of the country’s security apparatus. The top diplomat warned that otherwise, the U.S. would have to...

As tensions rose over the weekend between the US and Iran in the Persian Gulf, several vessels were “sabotaged” off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Both Iranian media and the UAE reported the incident, but 24 hours after it happened, much of what occurred was still shrouded in mystery, with allegations of “explosions” and questions about how severe the “sabotage” actually was. The Saudi energy minister confirmed that two of its oil tankers were targeted in a “sabotage attack.” It took place as the tankers were “on their way to the Arabian Gulf” via the Emirate of Fujairah,...

U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Monday Iran would “suffer greatly” if it targeted U.S. interests after Washington deployed an aircraft carrier and more jet fighters at a time of rising tensions with Tehran. “We’ll see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it will be a very bad mistake,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “If they do anything they will suffer greatly.” Trump’s comments came after the United Arab Emirates reported four commercial vessels had been sabotaged on Sunday near Fujairah emirate just outside the Strait of Hormuz. Iran sought to distance itself from the incident.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a busy man these days. He’s logging enough frequent flyer miles book free vacations for the rest of his life. Today he’s in Brussels to push back on the European Union as they prepare to try to salvage the Iran nuclear deal without America’s support. By the way… remind me again why we’re so worried about offending the EU anymore? It’s not as if they’re really coming down on the right side of history in a lot of current debates. (Washington Post) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday arrived Brussels in an unplanned...

Iran's Revolutionary Guard successfully carried out a surveillance flight over a US aircraft carrier, Tasnim reported. The drone flew over a US warship in the Persian Gulf, as well as over the USS Dwight...

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGG) faked an entire video claiming to show American warships transiting disputed waters in the Persian Gulf by piecing together old scraps of unrelated footage, French analysis confirms. The original video, published by the IRGC on April 28, allegedly showed the flight deck of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and was used to advance the claim that Iran was spying on the American military. It went public just weeks after Washington placed the IRGC on its list of terrorist organisations. As Breitbart News reported, Iran’s Tasnim news agency claimed a camera-equipped Iran Revolutionary Guards’ spy drone...

Iran's state TV has broadcast footage purporting to show a close encounter between the Revolutionary Guard's navy and the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The incident purportedly happened in the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, the passageway for nearly a third of all oil traded by sea. Saturday's footage is likely meant as a show of strength amid new U.S. sanctions on Iran and the Trump administration plans to bring Iranian oil exports down to zero. In the video, Guard speedboats are seen closing in on the U.S. carrier. Iranian sailors then warn the Americans over radio communication to...

Iran says they have video shot by an unmanned drone showing a US aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. (Hat tip: LGF readers.) Iran’s Arabic language television station broadcast footage it claimed showed a US aircraft carrier cruising in Gulf waters it said was taken by an unmanned Iranian drone. The brief minute-long film, which was shown on Al-Alam television’s evening news bulletin, showed wobbly aerial footage of an aircraft carrier stacked with war planes as it sailed. The television’s anchor said the film, the property of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, showed a vessel from “the US fleet in the...

GENEVA, May 12 (Reuters) - A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Sunday the U.S. military presence in the Gulf used to be a serious threat but now represents a target, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported. The U.S. military has sent forces, including an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers, to the Middle East in a move that U.S. officials said was made to counter "clear indications" of threats from Iran to American forces in the region. The USS Abraham Lincoln is replacing another carrier rotated out of the Gulf last month. "An aircraft carrier that has at...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Four commercial vessels were targeted by “sabotage operations” near the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates without causing casualties, the foreign ministry said on Sunday, without giving details of the nature of the sabotage.

<p>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates said Sunday that four commercial ships off its eastern coast “were subjected to sabotage operations,” just hours after Iranian and Lebanese media outlets aired false reports of explosions at a nearby Emirati port.</p>

Islamic Terrorists Hit Pakistan Hotel to Target China There’s been a pattern of Islamic terrorists in the region targeting hotels. Here’s the latest attack. Pakistan. Heavily armed gunmen attacked a luxury hotel in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, in an assault in which a Pakistani separatist group claimed to be targeting Chinese interests and warned of further violence. “After more than 10 hours of continuous battle and achieving all their targets the BLA fighters have used their last bullets on them and have left this world,” said a Twitter post by what claims to be the official account of the separatist...

"I Don't Know Why They Attacked Our Village": Persecution of Christians, February 2019 by During just the first two weeks of February, "[a]t least 10 incidents of vandalism and desecration of Catholic churches have been reported in France." — Catholicherald.co.uk, February 15, 2019; France. "The attack was so terrible that Haroon's kidney was cut into two pieces" from the stabbings....After he was rushed to hospital, "doctors were forced to remove his kidney." As is common in such cases, police and local authorities tried to pressure the family not to press charges against the Muslim youths.... — Persecution.org; International Christian Concern;...

Apparently, the intelligence the Trump administration either gathered on its own or received via Israel regarding Iran’s intent to strike American interests in the Middle East in response to new sanctions was pretty solid. That would explain the shifting of a tremendous amount of military assets and firepower to the region that is currently underway. As Reuters reports, the Trump administration is warning American merchant ships of Iran’s possible intentions as well, even as a top cleric in Tehran threatened the U.S. fleet: Iran could target U.S. commercial ships including oil tankers, the U.S. Maritime Administration said on Friday, as...

"What I'd like to see with Iran, I'd like to see them call me." "You know John Kerry speaks to them a lot. John Kerry tells them not to call. That's a violation of the Logan Act. And frankly, he should be prosecuted on that, but my people don't want to do anything that's ... only the Democrats do that kind of stuff, you know." https://youtu.be/h9ToZNktPkY?t=31

President Trump accused former Secretary of State John Kerry Thursday of violating the Logan Act by meeting with Iranian officials last year. "You know, John Kerry speaks to them a lot, and John Kerry tells them not to call. That's a violation of the Logan Act, and frankly he should be prosecuted on that," Trump said at the White House. Trump argued that if a Republican were doing the same thing to a Democratic president, charges would be brought. by John Kerry in Meeting With Iranians close video Rep. Matt Gaetz blasted James Comey for having "selective amnesia" during his...

Martin said U.S. officials started noticing more "heated rhetoric" from Tehran in April, when the U.S. declared the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, but it escalated after the Trump administration said it intended to bring Iranian oil exports down to zero by ending waivers that allowed a few countries to keep buying their petroleum products. Officials told Martin that U.S. intelligence began picking up "chatter" about Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq attacking Americans in the country, where there are still about 5,200 U.S. troops deployed. On Friday, the U.S. Maritime Administration issued a fresh warning to commercial shipping companies,...

DUBAI, May 10 (Reuters) - A senior Iranian cleric said in a Friday prayers sermon that the United States' navy fleet could be "destroyed with one missile", as a U.S aircraft carrier headed to the Gulf, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported. The carrier Abraham Lincoln, deployed by President Donald Trump's administration to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, passed through Egypt's Suez Canal on Thursday, the Suez Canal Authority said. "Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai-Nejad,... referring to the Abraham Lincoln warship heading to the Gulf, said: 'Their billion (-dollar) fleet can be destroyed with one missile,'" ISNA reported from...

Arabs have everything to gain from normalization with Israel, while Israel has little to gain As an Arab activist and writer, I call on the Arab world to normalize relations with Israel, a move that would be almost entirely to our benefit alone. Israel will gain very little from this in practical terms, while Arabs stand to gain tremendously. The state of Israel is stronger and more stable than the Arab states on almost all fronts. If all borders were wide open in Arab states, few if any Israelis at all would flee Tel Aviv for Arab cities, but you...