Free Republic

Satellite imagery and fire-detection data are raising questions over whether Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement has struck Saudi Arabia’s strategically important East-West oil pipeline. There is no independent confirmation that the pipeline itself was hit. A large smoke plume was reportedly visible over the desert southeast of Medina, along the general route of the pipeline toward Mahd adh-Dhahab. NASA’s FIRMS system also showed clustered thermal anomalies in the area. FIRMS provides near-real-time satellite detections of active fires, but its data do not by themselves identify what is burning or establish who caused it. The reported fire comes as the Houthi-Saudi conflict...

Mr. Vance, who opposed the war from the outset and was charged by President Trump with helping to end the conflict, wanted the commanders’ individual judgments, in their own words, before they were consolidated into a Pentagon view. ...commanders were blunt. They were most worried about their depleted stocks of Patriot interceptors. The war had also exhausted the theater’s supplies of the Army Tactical Missile Systems, along with stores of the Precision Strike Missiles. Stocks of critical munitions were the lowest they had ever seen. Mr. Vance came away from some of his conversations with deep concerns about the overall...

The acting U.S. Navy secretary Hung Cao said that the Iranian military severely damaged a major Navy installation in Bahrain, acknowledging the extent of damage sustained by the base during the conflict. “They blew the hell out of Bahrain,” Cao said in an interview with The Epoch Times, which was published Thursday, referring to the Naval Support Activity Bahrain (NASB), which serves as the headquarters for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. Fifth Fleet. The base has been heavily targeted by Iran after the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against the Islamic Republic in late February. The Navy...

Iran has resumed production of ballistic missiles, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, contradicting the Trump administration’s claims that Tehran’s military capabilities have been destroyed in the months-long conflict with the U.S. Iran has assembled new missiles using existing components in more limited quantities than before the war in several underground sites, including the Khojir missile facility in southeastern Iran, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials told the Journal. The regime is also working on new underground assembly sites to avoid renewed American attacks. The U.S. and Israel have damaged several of Iran’s industrial facilities, and the U.S. naval blockade has...

W. provided us with a helpful reminder of how the warning signs for the biggest terrorist attack on American soil were missed. Because not only did Americans "forget," New York City has an Islamist running the city. As if it were Bush's dutiful mission to push a narrative in stubborn defiance of the facts, he appeared at his presidential center with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, where he pushed the fact-free talking point that "Islam is the religion of peace." "I also made it clear that Islam was a religion of peace, not a religion of war, and that...

The prevailing narrative from entertainment, academia, and other creative spheres is that Israel is the villain of all villains. And one of the words we see most often is “genocide.” A massive contingent of creative and political figures has lent their names to an open letter calling out the narrative. The letter is the brainchild of the Creative Community for Peace, and it begins, “We the undersigned are outraged and sickened by the latest blood libel to be inflicted on the Jewish people: the lie that Israel committed ‘genocide’ in Gaza. We reject this accusation with contempt.” "Central to the...

Reading The Economist often reminds me of listening to David J. Bier of the CATO Institute blather about the wonders of open borders. I keep meaning to write about Bier and will get to it soon, but the essential quality in both cases is a stubborn determination to build cases on theoretical principles, unleavened by any grasp of the real-world realities that shape how those principles play out once implemented. Bier caught my attention several times, but the most emblematic moment that stuck with me was that many of the objections we have to open borders leading to masses of...

The Iran-backed Houthi militia captured a strategic Red Sea port city on Thursday, according to two Yemeni officials, in a sweeping ground offensive that could give the group greater control over an important shipping route and further destabilize energy markets. The Houthis pushed out forces allied with the Yemeni government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, to seize the city of Mokha as well as its port, according to a local official in the city and a senior provincial official. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Mokha has been...

WASHINGTON — Any immigrant legally in the United States on a work visa would have to depart the country immediately if they lose or quit their job under a new rule being proposed by the Department of Homeland Security. The proposal would eliminate the 60-day grace period foreign workers receive when they become unemployed — allowing them to stay in the US to find more work. Instead, the loss of employment would mean an immediate loss in legal status.

The attention of Ford’s future product plans was largely focused on the Bronco Basecamp this week, though it’ll be beaten as the Blue Oval brand’s first import from China by the Transit City, with the electric van due in showrooms later this year. Arriving from November and priced from $50,000 drive-away, the Transit City is Ford’s first vehicle to be sold in Australia that’s manufactured by joint venture partner JMC in China. Smaller than the Toyota HiAce-rivalling Transit Custom, the Transit City will be electric-only, powered by a 110kW front-mounted motor, rather than its slightly larger sibling which offers turbo-diesel,...

Twenty five years ago, Osama bin Laden led the planning of Al Qaeda’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, from a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, where he lived as their guest. Now, the Taliban rule over Afghanistan once again, trying to present a more modern face to the world. But despite the veneer, the Taliban have not changed their ideology, and armed groups, including dozens of Qaeda members, remain in Afghanistan. Many of the conditions that made the Sept. 11 attacks possible remain. Extremist armed groups still have a home in Afghanistan, according to the United States, China, Russia and the...

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen wants to halt military and financial support for Ukraine should she come to power. She proposes convening a major peace conference and seeking a diplomatic resolution to the war. Her opponent, former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, has described the refusal to provide aid to Kyiv as a move that benefits Russia…

Multiple American military aircraft were damaged in Iranian strikes overnight Tuesday into Wednesday local time on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, people with direct knowledge of the matter told CBS News. One A-10 Thunderbolt, an attack aircraft known as the Warthog, was struck and lost a wing, the sources said. Roughly eight F-15s sustained light damage and were reportedly put back into service, according to the people familiar with the damage, who spoke to CBS News under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. No U.S. deaths have been reported in the strikes on...

When a group of European officials arrived in Kyiv to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day last month, they got some worrying news. The European Union, a key backer, had earlier this year finalized a loan of more than $100 billion for the country. But Ukraine now faced an unexpectedly large defense budget shortfall, President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies. To get through the year, he would need $27 billion more. Europeans understand Ukraine is in a fight for its existence but did not expect such a large budget shortfall, according to four European diplomats who, like others quoted in this piece, spoke...

Top White ⁠House ⁠advisers, including Vice ⁠President JD Vance and Secretary ​of State Marco Rubio, have privately warned ‌President Donald Trump that ‌the conflict with Iran could ⁠extend ⁠through the remainder of his presidency, the Wall ​Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials. The White House did not immediately ​respond to a Reuters request for comment. The ⁠advisers ⁠told Trump in private ⁠discussions ​in the Oval Office and the Situation ​Room that ⁠Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure, potentially prolonging the conflict beyond Inauguration Day in January 2029, the ⁠Journal added. The reported warning contrasts with Trump's own...

In one of the most underreported happenings in the Persian Gulf conflict, Yemen’s internationally recognized government and allied militias have inflicted a series of ground setbacks on Iran-backed Houthi forces over the past month. These defeats are reversing parts of a late-summer Houthi push toward the Red Sea undertaken as part of the Iranian strategy of widening its conflict with the U.S. The Yemeni government is sufficiently confident in the new fronts that they now describe this as the start of a campaign to take the Houthi capital of Sanaa. The Iranian-backed Houthis have been Iran's key ace-in-the-hole for years....

President Trump’s administration just landed a major blow against the industrial-scale scam networks stealing from Americans. In one coordinated operation, federal authorities restrained more than $52 million in cryptocurrency, sanctioned a Chinese-language criminal marketplace and helped foreign partners dismantle 13 Chinese-run scam compounds in Madagascar. This was not a small cybercrime bust. It was a strike at the infrastructure that allows fraud rings to recruit workers, build fake investment platforms, move stolen money and prey on victims across the world. The target at the center of the operation was Xinbi Guarantee, a Telegram-based marketplace that the Treasury Department says has...

.....Even more remarkably, Sen Const Barraza had been transferred to Bondi just six weeks earlier after praying he would be posted to the station where he was most needed......Sen Const Barraza, an experienced police marksman, was eating nachos at Bondi police station when a call came through on the police radio: “Possible armed offenders. Shots fired.”.....Sen Const Barraza didn’t waste another moment. He didn’t take his body-worn video camera, he didn’t take his mobile phone or even stop to put his bulletproof vest on. He didn’t take any spare pistol magazines. He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing –...

AR: ....The UAE refused to comment on the report but did not deny it and underscored that the Emirati and Israeli governments maintained open and direct communication since establishing relations more than 5 Years ago. For his part, Netanyahu wrote on social media that no such call took place between September and October 7th and called the story a malicious fabrication with a clear political timing. For more on this story and how the actions of Netanyahu before the October 7th attack are impacting the current election campaign in Israel, we turn to David Makovsky, distinguished fellow at the Washington...

Vladimir Putin has not changed his war aims a jot since 2022 and remains determined on fighting on. Donald Trump has no new plan for peace other than bringing the Ukraine war to an end on Putin’s terms. And Kyiv is running out of money and men to defend itself, just as surely as it has already run out of Patriot interceptors to defend its skies against the Kremlin’s barrages. Those are the three depressing takeaways from the latest round of shuttle diplomacy in Moscow and Kyiv by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff. On the eve...