Free Republic

Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, was killed during an Israeli strike in Iran, The New York Times reported on Friday evening, citing an Iranian source. Qaani succeeded Qasem Soleimani as commander after the latter was killed in a targeted operation by the United States in 2020. What was Qaani's mission in the Middle East? From an intelligence perspective, Qaani's mission appears to have had several dimensions, none of which have escaped the vigilance of Mossad, the CIA, or allied intelligence agencies in the region. Qaani also wanted to revive and consolidate control of...

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qasem Soleimani wasn't the only major-league terrorist killed in the drone strike ordered by Trump. Also killed was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a top Iraqi paramilitary leader whose long, bloody career includes attacks on American and other Western embassies, as well as being a founder of Kata'ib Hezbollah, a group responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq. In 2009, the U.S. sanctioned both al-Muhandis and Kata'ib Hezbollah as terrorist entities. In some ways, killing al-Muhandis was more significant than the death of Soleimani. He's been an active terrorist against the U.S. since the...

BREAKING: "Unconfirmed report that Qais Khazali, one of the people the US named as responsible for storming of US Embassy in Baghdad, has been killed in new Baghdad airstrike"

US report confirms nine Abrams tanks ended up with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Nine Abrams tanks the United States had provided to Iraqi forces for the battle against the Islamic State (IS) are now in the hands of the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militias, a US military audit confirmed. A quarterly inspector general report for the US mission in Iraq and Syria, released on Feb. 2, confirms that M1 Abrams battle tanks and other lethal equipment provided to the Iraqi government by Washington have ended up with the Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular...