Free Republic

For the first time ever, a blood red flag is being flown over the famous Jamkaran Mosque in the Iranian "holy city" of Qom. And as I will explain below, the fact that this mosque is directly associated with the Mahdi makes this symbolic gesture doubly significant. The hoisting of this flag was broadcast on Iranian state television, and it was obviously intended to send a message to Shiites all over the globe. So precisely what was that message? Well, we are being told that according to Shiite tradition a red flag represents both "blood spilled unjustly" and a call...

Former Iranian armed forces chief Hassan Firouzabadi, who once accused Western nations of spying on the country using lizards, has died of coronavirus aged 70, local media reported on Friday. Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami praised Firouzabadi's "continuous efforts" to defend "the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran", in a statement published on the Guards' Sepahnews website. A trained doctor, Firouzabadi joined the Basij Islamic volunteer militia during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. Serving in administrative roles, he swiftly rose up its ranks before being named head of the armed forces in September 1989 by Iran's supreme leader...

Iran is dedicated to annihilating Israel, the Islamic regime’s military chief of staff declared Sunday. “The Iranian nation is standing for its cause and that is the full annihilation of Israel,” Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said in a speech to a defense gathering Sunday in Tehran. His remarks came on the day International Atomic Energy Agency director Yukiya Amano flew to Tehran to negotiate for inspections of Iran’s nuclear program. They were reported by the Fars News Agency, the media outlet of the Revolutionary Guards Corps. While many within the Islamic regime, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have often stated that...

Iran is ready to expand its military and security ties with Iraq, its armed forces chief of staff has said, a week after the exit of US forces from their neighbour. General Hassan Firouzabadi hailed the "forced departure" of the US and allied forces that he said "was due to the resistance and determination of the Iraqi people and government," the state Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The statements were made in messages Gen Firouzabadi sent to his Iraqi counterpart, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, and to Iraq's acting defence minister, Saadun al-Dulaimi, IRNA said. The departure of the US troops...

Special Dispatch - No. 2492 August 17, 2009 On July 12, 2009, the Iranian news agency ISNA published a letter written by Iranian chief of staff Hassan Firouzabadi to the Hidden Imam (the Shi'ite messiah, also called the Mahdi). In his letter, Firouzabadi depicts the post-election protests as a conspiracy against the Iranian regime by the West and the reformists in Iran. He also rejects accusations of Basij brutality, saying that the group did not act against the Iranian people in suppressing the protests, but rather tried to protect them. He concludes by urging the Hidden Imam to come speedily...

London, Aug. 16 – Iran masterminded the July 12 attack on an Israeli military squad by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah which ignited a major military offensive against the group by the Jewish state, Iran Focus has learnt. A well-placed source inside the clerical establishment told Iran Focus that prior to the start of hostilities Tehran dispatched several top officials including the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to attend a summit in Syria which took place on July 4 and focused on ways to upset the regional balance in the Middle East. Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of...