Free Republic

President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that the United States is preparing to take new action against alleged drug trafficking networks in Venezuela, telling service members during a Thanksgiving call that efforts for strikes on land will be starting “very soon.” “In recent weeks, you’ve been working to deter Venezuelan drug traffickers, of which there are many. Of course, there aren’t too many coming in by sea anymore,” Trump told service members in the call. “You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also,” the president continued. “The...

Hamas gathered sensitive information on IDF movements, bases and weaponry from IDF soldiers’ social media accounts—and used that information to train for and execute the October 7 massacre. That’s according to a disturbing scoop by @Doron_Kadosh . I’ll break down his main findings. During the October 7 massacre, Hamas terrorists “managed to disable [IDF] tanks in the Gaza border area and render them unusable.” How? “The terrorists knew about a secret button in the tank which, when pressed, disables the tank for a certain period.” This left Israeli officials wondering: how on earth did Hamas have such sensitive information on...

In a significant shift in the Middle Eastern power dynamics, Iranian officials have admitted that their once-loyal proxy force, the Houthis in Yemen, is increasingly defying Tehran's orders. Reports indicate that the Houthis, who have long served as Iran's strategic arm in the ongoing conflicts against the United States and its allies, are now acting independently, much to the dismay of their former benefactors. A senior Iranian official disclosed that the Houthis have distanced themselves from Iran. “They have gone rogue for a while and are now really rebels,” the official stated, reflecting concerns within the Iranian regime as they...

The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force. President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilizing and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would...

Although WWII is fast (and dangerously) becoming a misty memory, it’s probable that most people still know about the infamous “Tokyo Rose” (actually a collective of English-speaking Japanese women) who would broadcast reports intended to demoralize troops fighting the Japanese. In England, Lord Haw-Haw (another collective) broadcast false news intended to demoralize troops fighting the Nazis. Indeed, Wikipedia has a long list of famous fake-news spouting propagandists during wartime.Image created using AI.Today, propagandists don’t use radios; they use social media, but the tactic is the same: disseminate false material to demoralize the enemy. Yesterday, X, whether intentionally or not (I’ve...

Water, and its absence, has become Iran’s national obsession. In the mosques of northern Tehran the imams have been praying for rain, while the meteorologists count down the hours until the weather is forecast to break and rain is finally due to fall from the sky. Forecasts of “rain-producing clouds” are front-page news. More than 50 days have passed since the start of Iran’s rainy season and more than 20 provinces have not yet had a drop. The number of dams that have less than 5% of their reservoir capacity had increased from eight to 32, and the crisis has...

Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country’s president has said. The situation in Tehran is the result of “a perfect storm of climate change and corruption,” says Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. “We no longer have a choice,” said Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian during a speech on Thursday. Instead Iranian officials are considering moving the capital to the country’s southern coast. But experts say the proposal does not change the reality for the nearly 10 million people who live in Tehran and...

In the grip of constant terror, Africans have become a people of suffering, living on high alert as armed gangs spill blood from the sands of Sudan to the churches of the Congo. In Nigeria, which has gotten the lion’s share of the attention thanks to pop star Nicki Minaj’s personal crusade, men with machetes and rifles gunned down more Christians on Wednesday, turning a house of worship into a place of terror. Children’s screams rip through the air in the footage of the massacre, as the pastor and other people are rushed away to an unknown fate in a...

In recent days, prolonged water cuts across Tehran have created widespread panic among the Iranian capital’s 10 million residents. Last week, after years of drought and reduced rainfall and snowfall, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that Tehran’s residents would have to ration water—and eventually evacuate the capital—if there was no rain by late November. They’ve had years of warning, but Iran’s rulers have done nothing to resolve an increasingly existential water crisis. A few experts have been warning about the impending doom for decades. Most Tehranis, insulated from the hardships long faced by poorer, peripheral provinces, are only now feeling...

Moving administrative capital from Tehran due to collapse of water supply. Starting up nuclear program again, arming up for battle against...against (da Jooos!) and exiting non-proliferation treaty, arresting "spies" everywhere, military gradually defecting to Reza Pahlavi, currency imploding. Transcript linked below video.

A drastic new message adorns the walls of the Iranian capital, usually reserved for war heroes and weapons. “There is a water shortage!” reads the government poster's slogan, inside a water container that is nearly empty. “It’s fall and there is still no rain.” That’s not news to Erfan Ensani, 39, who returned home from a long day working in the textile section of the city’s central bazaar last week to find his taps running dry. Iran is facing its worst water crisis in decades. With no end in sight and authorities warning they may even have to evacuate the...

Nov 18 (Reuters) - Hamas rejected the United Nations Security Council passing a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza plan, saying it fails to meet Palestinians' rights and demands and seeks to impose an international trusteeship on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose. "Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation," the group added.

In the hope of shifting the debate on divestment from Israel to the real issue—the nature of the divestment campaign—and not the specious accusations regarding University President Lawrence H. Summers’ speech on the issue, I would like to suggest why I believe the campaign is properly characterized as “anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent.” I would like to look carefully—if necessarily briefly—at the strategy of the campaign and the rhetoric of the petition, in order to show how it implicitly demonizes Jews. Supporters of the divestment campaign insist they seek to protest the policies of the Sharon government, and...

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has assured that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have safe passage and will not face arrest if he attends the 80th-anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz later this month, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The assurance follows a call by Polish President Andrzej Duda for the government to guarantee Netanyahu's security. In a letter obtained by Bloomberg News, Duda cited the "absolutely exceptional circumstances" surrounding the event. Netanyahu is currently under an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Gaza. “Anyone who wishes to attend the Auschwitz...

When Merat Behnam first gathered enough courage to ride her yellow scooter through the gridlocked streets of Iran ‘s capital to the coffee shop she runs, traffic wasn’t her main worry. She instead girded herself for disapproving looks, verbal abuse and even being stopped by the police for being a women riding a motorbike in Tehran, something long frowned upon by hard-liners and conservative clerics in Iran. But Behnam, 38, found herself broadly accepted on the road — and part of a wider reconsideration by women about societal expectations in Iran. It’s not all encompassing, particularly as hard-line politicians call...

Exposing Hezbollah: IDF claims terror group murdered prominent Christian-Lebanese critic. Hezbollah's Unit 121 abducted the politician, poisoned him, and staged his body to look like he died in a car accident, the IDF claimed. Christian Lebanese politician, Elias Hasrouni, was assassinated by the Hezbollah terror group he opposed, the IDF confirmed on Friday. Known for his staunch criticism of the terror group, Hasrouni worked as the Secretary-General of the Lebanese Forces central council in Bint Jbeil when he was killed in an ambush last year.

Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker sailing from the United Arab Emirates to Singapore, a US official told the Associated Press on Friday afternoon. The tanker had made a sudden course and began heading toward Iranian territorial waters, British maritime security firm Ambrey noted earlier Friday morning. Ambrey said the tanker, reported 22 nautical miles east of the UAE port of Khor Fakkan, had earlier been approached by three small boats while transiting southbound through the Strait of Hormuz before later deviating course in the Gulf of Oman. The agency said the incident was "likely highly targeted." The United...

Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker as it traveled through the narrow Strait of Hormuz on Friday, a U.S. official said, turning the ship into Iranian territorial waters in the first-such interdiction in months in the strategic waterway. Iran did not immediately acknowledge the seizure, though it comes as Tehran has been increasingly warning it can strike back after facing a 12-day war in June with Israel that saw the U.S. strike Iranian nuclear sites. The ship, the Talara, had been traveling from Ajman, United Arab Emirates, onward to Singapore when Iranian forces intercepted it, said the U.S. defense...

A skewed Trump speech edit, a Gaza film built around a Hamas operative’s son, and repeated factual distortions have plunged the BBC into a credibility crisis. Conservatives are celebrating, Trump is threatening a major lawsuit, and the network faces a steep political cost There is no need to attribute superpowers to Donald Trump. No American president, not even a narcissist in White House mode, can shake a public broadcaster in another country and continent and trigger the resignation of its director general and head of news. The BBC misled the public about Trump. It deceived viewers who had always regarded...

“Can I ask a question? How many of you are visiting Israel for the first time? How many have been here before? Wow, two.Well, welcome to all of you. It’s very good to see you here with Foreign Minister Saar and Deputy Minister Sharren Haskel and our Ambassador to Washington, Yechiel. Stand up. Look at this man. Look at this man. Look at him. He, Yechiel, represents the greatest military comeback in recent history.On October 7th, we were attacked with no provocation by the Hamas monsters. They murdered 1,200 of our citizens. They burnt babies alive. They raped and then...