Free Republic

Action Follows Last Month’s Seizure of 92 IRGC DomainsSAN FRANCISCO – The United States has seized 27 domain names that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unlawfully used to further a global covert influence campaign.As described in the seizure documents, all 27 domains were being used in violation of U.S. sanctions targeting both the Government of Iran and the IRGC. Four of the domains purported to be genuine news outlets but were actually controlled by the IRGC and targeted audiences in the United States, to covertly influence United States policy and public opinion, in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration...

“Goods were being transported from one country to another, and they ended up in a third country with nobody owning the goods. Why did they end up here?” said Ghassan Hasbani, a former Lebanese deputy prime minister and opposition figure. Those linked to the shipment and interviewed by Reuters all denied knowledge of the cargo’s original owner or declined to answer the question. Those who said they didn’t know included the ship’s captain, the Georgian fertilizer maker who produced the cargo and the African firm that ordered it but said it never paid for it.

A former congressional information technology (IT) aide allegedly threatened to have his stepmother’s Pakistani relatives kidnapped if she talked to U.S. law enforcement authorities, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s (TheDCNF) Investigative Group. “Imran Awan threatened that he is very powerful and if I ever call the police again, [he] will … kidnap my family members back in Pakistan,” Awan’s stepmother, Samina Gilani, claimed in the documents filed April 14 in Fairfax County, Va., in the case of Americo Financial Life and Annuity Insurance Company v. Abid A. Awan and Samina Ashraf Gilani. Imran Awan...

Younis was 'responsible for pursuing spies and collaborators.' Sources stated that Younis was on a mission pursuing a target when he was ambushed... Younis was a “close associate” of former IGRC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, Sputnik reported.

For over a year, we have been waging a relentless, nearly solitary battle in apprising the Congress and the American public about a billion dollar boondoggle and scandal: the lack of credible Arabic translators for our national security and intelligence agencies. As a result hundreds have been killed in Iraq from infiltration of our military and civilian intelligence agencies by agents of Islamist terrorists. Our FBI and CIA have been infiltrated by Muslim linguists who have successfully evaded polygraph tests and been able to pass on vital information to terror groups in the Middle East such as Hezbollah. Tens of...

A contractor for the Pentagon has been charged with providing classified U.S. intelligence to a Lebanese national connected with terrorist group Hezbollah, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. The department alleges Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, began transmitting the classified intelligence around December 30, when Iraqi militiamen stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Thompson is a linguist who at the time was working at a U.S. special forces base in Erbil in northern Iraq. The classified “files contained classified national defense information including true names, personal identification data, background information, and photographs of the human sources, as well as operations cables...

Mariam Taha Thompson, 61, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, was charged today in the District of Columbia with transmitting highly sensitive classified national defense information to a foreign national with apparent connections to Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization that has been so designated by the Secretary of State. According to the affidavit filed in support of a criminal complaint, the information Thompson gathered and transmitted included classified national defense information regarding active human assets, including their true names.  By compromising the identities of these human assets, Thompson placed the lives of the human assets and U.S. military personnel in grave...

As head of the Quds Force in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani is widely regarded as one of the world's leading terrorists. Now Barack Obama has effectively granted him an amnesty. Qassem Suleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, fully deserves his reputation as one of the world’s leading terrorist masterminds. For a decade a more he has been the driving force behind an array of Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups, from Hizbollah to Hamas, which have orchestrated a reign of terror throughout the Middle East. From a purely British perspective, he was responsible for training and...

In recent years, Hezbollah has stepped up its activities beyond Lebanon’s borders. This uptick has been clearest in the Middle East—in Iraq, Yemen, and especially Syria—but plots have also been thwarted in South America, Asia, Europe, and now, possibly, the United States. Reports of Hezbollah activity in North America are not new, though such reporting tends to focus on the group’s fundraising, money laundering, procurement, or other logistical activities from Vancouver to Miami. But last month, the criminal prosecution and conviction in New York of the Hezbollah operative Ali Kourani revealed disturbing new information about the extent of Hezbollah’s operations...

Hizballah Operative Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison for Covert Terrorist Activities on Behalf of Hizballah’s Islamic Jihad Organization Ali Kourani Was Trained by Hizballah’s External Terrorist Operations Component and Gathered Intelligence in New York City in Support of Attack-Planning Efforts The Department of Justice today announced that Ali Kourani, 35, was sentenced to 40 years in prison based on terrorism, sanctions, and immigration convictions arising from Kourani’s illicit work as an operative for the Islamic Jihad Organization, Hizballah’s external attack-planning component. “While living in the United States, Kourani served as an operative of Hizballah in order to help the...

Greek police say they have arrested a 65-year-old Lebanese man on the island of Mykonos over the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985 in which a US Navy officer was killed. The suspect, named by Lebanon's foreign ministry as Mohammad Saleh, was stopped on Thursday during a routine security check when his description matched those on a German warrant for his arrest, Greek police told CNN. He was also wanted by German authorities for a kidnapping in 1987... Hijackers seized control of the Boeing 727 aircraft shortly after it took off from Athens, en route to Rome, on June...

UK: Tons of Hizballah explosives in secret bomb factory uncovered in London Terrorists with links to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah have reportedly been caught stashing tons of explosive materials in London. “The amount of ammonium nitrate reportedly found was more than that used in the Oklahoma City bombing” 24 years ago, in which at least 168 people were killed and over 680 others injured. This is merely a warning of more to come. The advancement of jihadists in the UK — and in fact most of the West — was facilitated by Leftist leaders who believe to this day...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is just about killing it at the global body. In recent remarks to the General Assembly, Haley first condemned the anti-Israel faction of the bunch for using the global body for politics, not peace promotion. And then, dramatically enough, she brought to vote a U.S.-penned measure that explicitly faulted Hamas for violence at the Gaza border — a measure that was tacked on as an amendment to an anti-Israel resolution and that actually received the thumbs-up from the majority of the voting parties. Did you get that? It actually received a majority...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he needs the assistance of Iranian and Hizballah forces in Syria and they will stay for as long as they deem necessary. "Hizballah is a basic element in this war. The battle is long, and the need for these military forces will continue for a long time," Assad told Al-Alam. Assad stressed that he invited the allied fighters into his country and he would never ask them to leave, as the United States and Israel are demanding, even as part of any peace settlement. Israel sees Tehran as a mortal foe and has pressed...

Israel launched an unscheduled military exercise on the Golan Sunday, June 10. Thousands of army reservists were ordered to report for immediate duty with full gear and come directly from their homes and work places. That the sudden IDF announcement did not set a timeline for the exercise’s ending indicated that it was prompted by the Syrian military announcement on the same morning of a major army offensive impending this week in the Quneitra region opposite Israel’s Golan border.

Has Iran given cruise missiles to Hizballah as well as Yemen’s Houthis? The maiden operational launch of Iran’s Soumar Kh-55 cruise missile was apparently entrusted to Yemen’s Houthis against a UAE target. ... Yemen’s Houthi rebels last week showed on their TV channel video footage of Iran’s most highly advanced Soumar Kh-55 cruise missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead. They claimed to have fired it at the unfinished Abu Dhabi power plant on Dec.3. The United Arab Emirates refuted this claim, saying that any missile reaching their air space would have been intercepted by advanced Emirati air defenses. But...

Pro-Shiite Militia Chiefs conferring on anti-Israel operations were targets of Israeli air strike An Israeli air raid early Saturday, Dec. 2 struck a group of pro-Iranian Shiite militia chiefs holding a secret conference at the Syrian Army’s 91st Brigade base near Kiswah. Iranian and Hizballah officers are reported among the casualties. .... The base itself lies 14km southwest of Damascus and around 50km from the Golan. Gathered there were all the militia commanders operating in southern Syria to receive their orders in advance of a major offensive to capture rebel pockets in the Quneitra region opposite Israel’s Golan positions ......

Two Middle East immigrants in the United States have been arrested in connection with terrorist activities after the FBI found out their chilling ties to the terrorist organization known as Hezbollah. This is a wake-up call to every American. According to a news release from United States Attorney’s Office, District of New York, “Ali Kourani and Samer El Debek, a/k/a ‘Samer Eldebek,’ were arrested on Thursday, June 1, 2017, on charges related to their alleged activities on behalf of Hizballah[sic], a designated foreign terrorist organization. “ Kourani was reportedly living in the Bronx in New York, while Eldebek was living...

Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese national and resident of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

War On Terror: The head of U.S. Southern Command has warned lawmakers that IS is radicalizing converts and other Muslims in Latin America and could train and send them north via human traffickers. Gen. John Kelly issued his warning in a hearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on defense appropriations for fiscal 2016. He's concerned that in addition to the Iranian terrorist puppet Hezbollah being active in Latin America, the Islamic State is promoting and recruiting for jihad against the United States in the region. "Last year, IS adherents posted discussions on social media calling for the infiltration...