Free Republic

The world’s Arab countries for the first time have joined unanimously in the call for Hamas to lay down its weapons, release all hostages and end its rule of the Gaza Strip, conditions that they said could help the establishment of a Palestinian state. The surprise declaration, endorsed on Tuesday by the 22 member nations of the Arab League, also condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, which set off the devastating war in Gaza. The statement came at a United Nations conference in New York on a two-state solution to end the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. “In...

Already prone to droughts, Iran has exacerbated the problem with poor water management policies, which Mr. Pezeshkian acknowledged on Monday. Climate change, too, has played a role; the country has weathered five consecutive years of drought. Now, the crisis has grown so extreme that the government shut down all government offices and services in Tehran and more than two dozen other cities across the country on Wednesday, creating a three-day weekend in an attempt to lower water and electricity usage. Fatemeh Mohajerani, a government spokeswoman, said cities could have similar closures once or twice a week going forward, and suggested...

Roi Kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) Tweeted: Mar 14, 2022 Strange incident - an American source tells the New York Times reporter that the facility that Iran attacked in Arbil is Israeli and in fact aligns with the Iranians' claims. A moment later a senior official in the Biden administration denies to the same reporter the things and says it is a civilian facility. So what's going on here?((Farnaz Fassihi @farnazfassihi: A senior Biden administration official refuted the earlier comment by a US official...)) https://twitter.com/kaisos1987/status/1503497953671102467 ______REPLIES: One posted the picture: and added: Listen, there are here los...

Blesa Shaways @Bilesa_Shaweys Tweeted: I worked with @kurdistan24tv for 5 years. Everyday I looked at this compound, #Iran & it’s proxies are lying. It’s not an #Israeli center. There wasn’t any militants in it, we never saw any foreigners in the neighborhood... Everyone know it’s owned by Baz Karim & usually visited by his relatives. There was a small zoo inside it (contained many animals), also many luxury cars (some classic). Those who worked in this neighborhood know very well it’s no [t] an intelligence center. Some of pro #Iran journalists (unfortunately some of them working with #US media outlets)...

In 2 recent tweets I pointed out Farnaz Fassihi’s pro-Islamic Republic (#IRI) bias & factual error. In response she simply blocked me!It’s disappointing that a @nytimes journalist displays this level of intolerance of dissent & criticism. pic.twitter.com/y7YEXWKB9b— Kamran Matin (@KamranMatin) January 7, 2020NY Times writer accused of Iran bias in Twitter uprising by John Ransom on April 13, 2021 The New York Times is facing an uprising of Iranian English speakers on Twitter who claim that Times journalist Farnaz Fassihi, who styles herself as an expert on the Middle East and Iran, is just a propaganda agent for the Islamic...

Kia was arrested on Monday. On Thursday, the court decided to order detention for this person on charges of grossly and unlawfully abusing his position as someone with access to classified information and violating national security to avoid him destroying documents or escaping. The arrested person is accused of espionage for reasonable reasons, the Swedish Security Service said in a statement. His arrest comes a month after the arrest of an Iranian couple, who had obtained refugee status in Sweden by presenting a false Afghan identity. They were the agents of the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). In...

Nearly 3,000 miles from Tehran where mass executions were carried out in 1988, a murder trial in Sweden could produce new revelations that complicate life for Iran’s president-elect. Iran’s president-elect, Ebrahim Raisi, helped decide which prisoners lived or died during mass executions in 1988. A trial in Sweden may shed more light on his role.Credit...West Asia News Agency He was a 28-year-old student and member of a communist group in Iran serving a 10-year prison sentence in 1988 when, according to his family, he was called before a committee and executed without a trial or defense.

BAGHDAD — Lawmakers in Iraq voted on Sunday to require the government to end the presence of American troops in the country after the United States ordered the killing of the Iranian leader of the elite Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, on Iraqi soil. The decision to heed the demands of angry Shiite factions and politicians came as hundreds of thousands of mourners poured into the streets of Iran to pay their respects to General Suleimani, the most powerful figure in the country after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The vote is not final until Prime Minister Adel...

The threat of Sunni extremists eclipsing the power of its Shiite-dominated Arab ally presents Iran with the biggest security and strategic challenge it has faced since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. With the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an offshoot of al Qaeda, rapidly gaining territory, Iran deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security officials. Iran has invested considerable financial, political and military resources over the past decade to ensure Iraq emerged from U.S. war as a strategic partner for the Islamic Republic and a strong Shiite-led state. The so-called Shiite crescent—stretching from Iran...

Iran has sent 2,000 advance troops to Iraq in the past 48 hours to help tackle a jihadist insurgency, a senior Iraqi official has told the Guardian. The confirmation comes as the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said Iran was ready to support Iraq from the mortal threat fast spreading through the country, while the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, called on citizens to take up arms in their country's defence. Addressing the country on Saturday, Maliki said rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) had given "an incentive to the army and to Iraqis to act...