Free Republic

The disgraced relative of an Iranian warlord being deported from California has reached out to her former LA love interest from an ICE detention center to beg for help. Married Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, niece of terror mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani – former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who was taken out in a deadly 2020 U.S. air strike – frantically called Maziar Aflaki, 68, on Monday from the facility in Pearsall, Texas. But on hearing her voice, retiree Aflaki declined to accept the call, claiming years of harassment and abuse at the hands of Afshar. He told the...

Majid Khademi, the IRGC intelligence chief killed in Tehran early Monday, was not a battlefield commander so much as a career security insider who rose through Iran’s secretive counterintelligence system and helped oversee repression, surveillance and anti-infiltration work. His death matters because he sat at the junction of two of the system’s most sensitive functions: guarding the Guards from infiltration and directing the intelligence arm accused of crushing dissent. In March, Washington’s Rewards for Justice program offered up to $10 million for information on Khademi and other senior IRGC figures, a sign that he was seen abroad not just as...

SNIPPET: "A Reston man who federal officials said sold $250,000 worth of machinery parts from American manufacturers to Iranian companies pleaded guilty to felony charges in U.S. Federal Court in Alexandria on Thursday. Vahid Hosseini, 62, ran a business called Sabern Industries from his home in Reston, FBI officials said."

US President George W. Bush's policies have harmed Washington's global image and the country needs "wise" leaders to regain its lost credibility, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Saturday. Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Bush's policies have isolated him both internationally and at home, citing the Republican Party's losses in Congress last November as proof of Bush's declining popularity. "Instability in Iraq is the result of wrong policies and incorrect decisions of the US government. This illogical approach of the US government is even disliked by the American people," Iran's official news agency, IRNA, quoted Hosseini as saying. "The United States needs...

Iran today criticized as unacceptable a decision by Europe's second-highest court to end a freeze on assets of the main Iranian opposition group abroad. Iran said the decision risks "resuscitating terrorism." The Court of First Instance on December 12 ordered the European Union to cancel a decision from May 2002 to freeze the funds of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MEK). The EU classifies the MEK as a terrorist group, but the MEK argues that it should be removed. A court spokesperson has said the move could result in its removal from the EU terror list. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad...