Free Republic

WANA (Apr 08) – The Full Text of the Supreme National Security Council Statement on the ceasefire is as follows: “The enemy, in its cowardly, illegal, and criminal war against the Iranian nation, has suffered an undeniable, historical, and crushing defeat. By the grace of the pure and holy blood of the Martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution, His Eminence Grand Ayatollah Imam Khamenei (Peace be upon him), the prudent measures of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and Commander-in-Chief, His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei (May God protect him), and the struggle and bravery of the warriors of...

A retired US Navy SEAL has interrupted a live television interview about Donald Trump and the war in Iran to call for the release of Australia's most decorated soldier, who was arrested over alleged war crimes. Ben Roberts-Smith, 47, will face court on Wednesday after being charged with two counts of the war crime of murder and three counts of aiding or abetting the same charge. The maximum penalty for the charges is life imprisonment. The Victoria Cross recipient, who spent the night in custody, is accused of murdering unarmed civilians while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, as...

Pakistan’s prime minister asks US President Donald Trump to postpone his deadline for Iran by two weeks and implement a truce for that same period, also urging Tehran to allow maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz during that time. “To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks,” writes Shehbaz Sharif, whose government is serving as a mediator between Iran and the United States.“Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture,” he writes...

Tehran’s targeting campaigns against U.S. organizations ‘have recently escalated,’ a federal advisory warns.Iran has demonstrated an ability to penetrate networks tied to critical U.S. infrastructure before.WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies are “urgently warning” private sector companies throughout the nation that Iranian actors “are conducting exploitation activity” that has resulted in “disruptions across several U.S. critical infrastructure,” according to a government notice reviewed by The Times.The Iranian cyberactivity comes as President Trump is threatening to target Iran’s critical infrastructure in the coming hours, particularly its bridges and power plants.Iran’s attack targeted products by Rockwell Automation’s Allen-Bradley, one of the most widely...

Asian nations - most recently the Philippines - have been particularly keen to reach agreements as their economies are heavily reliant on energy from the Gulf. In recent weeks - several Asian countries including Pakistan, India and the Philippines - have made agreements with Tehran to let some ships pass through the strait safely. China has also acknowledged that their vessels have also used the channel. Questions remain over the scope of these assurances and just how lasting these agreements with Iran will be. The Philippines imports 98% of its oil from the Middle East and was the first country...

Iran-backed militia group Kataib Hezbollah said it has decided to release American journalist @shellykittleson who was kidnapped in Baghdad last month. The militia's security chief said on his Telegram channel that it “decided to release the American suspect on the condition that she leave the country immediately."

War crime murder charges carry potential sentence of life in prisonAustralia's most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, faces war crime charges on allegations he killed five unarmed Afghans while serving in Afghanistan from 2009 and 2012, police and media reported on Tuesday. Police have not confirmed the name of the 47-year-old former soldier who was arrested on Tuesday. But he has been widely reported in the media to be Roberts-Smith, a former Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment corporal who was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan. Police charged him on Tuesday with...

The regime has flooded the White Bridge with a human chain OF CHILDREN in Ahvaz, Iran to send a message to President Trump THERE ARE CHILDREN HERE Those kids have NO IDEA what they are doing or why Further proof the regime needs obliteration

"#BREAKING: Iran has closed all diplomatic and indirect channels of communication with the United States, the state-run Tehran Times reported on Tuesday. "Any and all message exchanges have also been suspended."

Iranian American Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) on Monday said she is calling for the 25th Amendment and is introducing articles of impeachment against War Secretary Pete Hegseth due to the war in Iran. Ansari’s move comes as President Donald Trump’s 8 p.m. Tuesday night deadline for Iran to agree to a peace deal. If one is not reached, the president promised the complete destruction of Iran's power plants and bridges. “Trump is escalating a devastating, illegal war, threatening massive war crimes and targeting civilian infrastructure in Iran,” Ansari said. “In the last 48 hours alone, the rhetoric has crossed every...

Numerous news sites (see them at the twitter/X link) are reporting strikes on military sites on Iran's Kharg Island, with some postulating the whole power plants and bridges threat was a head-fake for an operation to take Kharg Island. Get your popcorn out. Could be fun.

Iran called on its youth Tuesday to form human chains around its power plants – after President Trump threatened to decimate the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure if it fails to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “Power plants that are our national assets and capital, regardless of any taste or political viewpoint, belong to the future of Iran and to the Iranian youth,” Alireza Rahimi, secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents, said in a video aired on state TV. Government officials have called on students, artists, and athletes to form the human shields from 2 p.m. local time....

JD Vance will visit Hungary on Tuesday in an 11th-hour attempt to boost key MAGA ally Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before an all-important election on Sunday, but the U.S. vice president’s trip appears unlikely to swing an increasingly bitter race. Orbán says he is “looking forward” to Vance’s trip, and with a Budapest press conference and a flag-waving rally at a 24,000-seat football stadium on Tuesday will be attempting to seize what momentum he can from it. For the Hungarian prime minister it’s a singular opportunity to portray himself as the Trump administration’s pre-eminent European ally. For the White House,...

One of Australia's most decorated soldiers, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested and is expected to be charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.The Victoria Cross recipient was arrested at Sydney Airport's domestic terminal after a flight from Brisbane this morning.The former special forces soldier's arrest comes after a mammoth defamation trial against Nine Newspapers that in 2023 ended in a court finding that on the balance of probabilities, allegations he was responsible for, or complicit in the deaths of four detainees in Afghanistan were substantially true.There have been no findings of guilt against Mr Roberts-Smith to a...

A Chinese company's publication of AI-enhanced satellite images of US bases in the Middle East is helping Iranian forces identify targets, US intelligence believes. The ABC has been briefed on the intelligence by a source inside US defence, who says ...

Ebrahim Zolfaqari said ​Iran targeted satellite equipment and ⁠munitions ⁠on the ⁠island with ​drones, adding that U.S. forces ​had relocated ⁠there from Arifjan camp after that base was repeatedly struck ⁠by Iran.Bubiyan island is the largest of ⁠Kuwait's coastal islands chain, located in the northwest of the [Persian]Gulf.

[snip] MS NOW’s resident “Republican,” Elise Jordan, went on a blistering rant against President Trump—denouncing him as “trashy,” “classless,” and “unhinged” in a tirade that outpaced even her liberal co-hosts. Reacting to Trump’s Easter post about Iran—featuring an F-bomb profanity, a “praise be to Allah” phrase, and a threat to send Iranians to “hell”—Jordan said she wasn't supposed to be surprised by "the lack of decorum and the trashiness and just the utter classlessness of Donald Trump." But she quickly escalated. I cannot believe that this characterless man is the President of the United States and is behaving this way...

While American forces conducted an astonishing rescue of a downed Weapons Systems Officer, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) escalated the stakes against Iran's leadership yet again, going after the men in charge of Tehran's oppression and terror organizations. One of this weekend's big names is Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, now confirmed dead, who until the moment of his vaporization served as the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization. Khademi's death was confirmed Monday by an IRGC statement carried by the Iranian state Fars news service. The same IRGC statement said that funeral and burial arrangements would...

Iran on Monday rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the war, even as Israel attacked a major gas field and U.S. President Donald Trump’s ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz loomed. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press. He said Iran no longer trusts the Trump administration after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic twice during previous rounds of talks. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran conveyed its...