Free Republic

After 26 years in Israel, I look more Israeli than Iranian, but even though I left Iran, the country is still part of me," Saidian told AFP. Saidian, who was wearing two pins on her lapel -- an Israeli flag and an Iranian one from before the 1979 Islamic revolution -- cries openly when talking about her native country, which she said she misses every day. If there were to be a football match between Israel and Iran, Saidian said she was not sure which side she would support. "We're like children with divorced parents: you love your mother and...

There is something extraordinary about how a young woman, born and raised in the United States, can become a voice for people she has never met in a country she has never seen, thousands of miles away. But for Iran’s Princess Noor Pahlavi, daughter of the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and granddaughter of the former shah, Mohammad Reza, that is the situation she finds herself in. As the Islamic Republic regime of Iran faces daily strikes and military pressure from the US and Israel, and with its leadership decimated, many are looking to the day the regime falls. And...

On Ukraina television last week, viewers caught images of Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition candidate in this country's contested presidential election, greeting voters and kissing babies, standard glad-handing by a pol on the stump. The broadcast of benevolent images of Yushchenko on a Russian language channel that stridently supports his opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, was short-lived. Just as suddenly, the sequence cut to historical footage of Adolf Hitler, also greeting supporters and caressing the foreheads of German children thrust toward him by their beaming parents. The message, one that has been hammered home for months now, was clear: Yushchenko is...

Netanyahu said, "So this is a regime committed to destroying the United States of America. It's the only country on the planet that says so openly and works tirelessly to achieve that goal." "The reason we had to act now is because they were, after we hit their nuclear sites and their ballistic missiles program, you'd think they would learn a lesson but they didn't. Because they're unreformable, totally fanatic about this, about the goal of destroying America." "So they started building new sites, new places, underground bunkers, that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program...

Iranians and Jews took to the streets of Golders Green on Saturday night to celebrate Israel's elimination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian. Videos from the massive street party show hundreds of local Jews and Iranian expatriates dancing to "Am Yisrael Chai," chanting Iranian protest songs, and waving Israeli and Iranian flags. Dina, who lives locally and was at the celebration, told The Jerusalem Post that It was "really incredible" to see Golders Green Road, which is one of the main Jewish roads in the north-west London community, come alive with celebration and solidarity. "It was...

It’s all backstage now. This fraught moment, the power centers locked in the coldest cold of the year, the Spanish language lessons of Bad Bunny behind us, all the real action in the battle to save the country is out of sight, moiling and churning in the deep background. Everybody’s on edge waiting for shoes to drop, praying they don’t drop on their heads. You should have seen Senator Mark Warner (D-VA; Vice-chair of the Senate Intel Committee) on Face the Nation Sunday, frothing at the mouth over Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI). He cannot believe she turned...

U.S. Frustrated By Elusive Justice Served to USS Cole Plotters May 04, 2008 It's been called "the forgotten attack" but it's one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. Eight years after the USS Cole was attacked by a motorboat packed with explosives, all of the six men convicted of the strike have escaped from prison, or been freed by Yemeni officials. Seventeen sailors were killed and 40 more wounded in the strike, blamed on Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the Cole plot, has reportedly escaped from Yemeni prisons twice. He is supposedly...

WASHINGTON — On most days now, Mahdi Obeidi rides his new mountain bike, plays with his grandkids and works on getting a U.S. patent for technology he originally developed to build a nuclear bomb for Saddam Hussein. Obeidi, who headed Hussein's uranium enrichment program until it was shut down in 1991, is the only Iraqi weapons scientist that the CIA is known to have brought to the United States after the invasion last year. The CIA also flew eight of his family members here in August 2003 and secretly set them up in three adjoining apartments in a leafy Virginia...

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution,” said the late David Horowitz, quoting a 1960s rebel. The Palestinian conflict, the climate, transgenderism, immigration, and abortion are all proximate causes for protests and now terrorism. But they are all also part of an amalgamated “omnicause” whose real purpose is to bring down the United States and the West. Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk and other recent tragedies that are rightly garnering worldwide attention, our leaders have finally woken up and are looking into who the perpetrators are and who organizes and finances them. After Kirk’s death,...

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...

Here’s what you need to know: 🔻 Armed Queers SLC is under investigation for possible foreknowledge of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 🔻 Their leader, Ermiya Fanaeian, was recognized by a State Dept–affiliated NGO, Utah Global Diplomacy, as a recipient of the "7 for 17" Award for advancing the UN's 17 Goals 🔻 Utah Global Diplomacy has since scrubbed Fanaeian's presence from their website. Unknown when this purge happened. The receipts remain. Per the 990 form with Utah Global Diplomacy (EIN 876128308), the nonprofit is a partner with the US State Department to cultivate emerging leaders and diplomacy initiatives. In other words,...

Before there was Iraq, there was Lebanon.  In 1982, following Operation Peace for Galilee, JINSA reported on the international terrorist haven that had arisen in Fatahland – the southern part of Lebanon controlled by Yasser Arafat.  Aside from the expected mélange of Middle Easterners, there were Japanese Red Army, German and Italian Red Brigades, Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Salvadorans, Colombians and Peruvians.  There were Iranian Shi’ites, East Germans and Bulgarians.  Before there was Iraq, there was Lebanon, again.  Religious Iran and secular, Ba’athist Syria made a deal to use Syrian-controlled Lebanon as a base for Hizballah to attack Israel.  Today, Israel...

All detainees had previously attempted illegal border crossings and are now awaiting deportation proceedings.. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman confirmed Tuesday that five Iranians were arrested while attempting to illegally cross the U.S. northern border with Canada. "On July 1, Border Patrol Agents from the Champlain, New York Station, responded to suspicious activity near Mooers Forks, NY," CBP's Swanton Sector said on Facebook. "Agents located a minivan occupied by five citizens of Iran and two citizens of Uzbekistan." The Champlain Station is part of the Swanton Sector. Swanton is a rural town in Vermont near Highway 89 just...

The trial of two Iranians and six others, who tried to smuggle 2.2 tons of cocaine to the island, exposed networks spanning the Middle East and Venezuela. JNS Staff. July 9, 2025 / JNS) An Irish court on July 4 sentenced two Iranian nationals in connection with a transnational drug trafficking operation involving more than 2.2 tons of cocaine, as authorities investigate suspected links to Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, Irish media reported. The men—Soheil Jelveh, 51, a former captain of the cargo vessel MV Matthew, and Saied Hassani, 39, a senior officer with significant maritime experience—received sentences of 17.5...

Three explosions rocked the Swedish capital of Stockholm over just a four-day period as the country is coming off a record year for gang-related bombings. After a few months of relative calm, gang wars in the Nordic nation once again appear to be on the rise, as three explosions at residential buildings in Stockholm have been seen since Friday when a large blast went off at an apartment in Sundbyberg where a man with ties to a criminal gang lives. This was followed by an explosion on Saturday outside a hair salon in the industrial area of Vällingby. Finally, on...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records show thousands of Iranian nationals may be eligible to be arrested nationwide on immigration-related issues. These are in addition to the approximately 1,500 Iranian nationals whom the Border Patrol detained after entering the country illegally during President Joe Biden’s term. ICE Data shows nearly 6,000 Iranians who may have entered legally but have since violated their legal status may soon be the focus of the ongoing ICE dragnet The number of Iranians arrested by ICE since the U.S. military action on Iran’s nuclear sites may soon pale in comparison to the arrest of those...

A home in Los Angeles was an Iranian human smuggling hub, according to Customs and Border Patrol after two individuals were arrested Friday afternoon in a Los Angeles County neighborhood. The home had previously been the site of the arrest of seven Iranian nationals earlier this week, some of whom were reportedly flagged on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist. Federal agents with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were seen executing a warrant at a residence in North Hills around 3 pm on Friday, marking the second law enforcement action at the property this week. CBP said that the arrests were...

ASHINGTON, June 7— A re-examination of years of terrorist plots and attacks around the world, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, suggests that American intelligence agencies profoundly underestimated Al Qaeda's reach and aspirations for more than a decade as it grew from obscurity into a global terrorist threat, lawmakers and investigators said this week.As Congressional investigators look back far beyond the series of signals missed before the Sept. 11 attacks, they are seeking answers to many questions about Al Qaeda that law enforcement and intelligence agencies still cannot answer themselves, officials said.In particular, they said, Congressional investigators are trying...

Eleven Iranian nationals have been arrested in the last 48 hours by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across eight different states and nine cities, according to CBS News. This development comes in the wake of a nationwide security alert issued after the U.S. carried out a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities this past weekend. ... One of the individuals arrested is Mehran Makari Saheli, who is a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). ICE arrested Saheli at his home in Minnesota where he "admitted connections to Hezbollah," an Iranian-funded terrorist organization. ... On Sunday, authorities also...

Prior to President Donald Trump authorizing targeted strikes against Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, federal agents and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers have been arresting Iranian nationals, nearly all men, in the U.S. illegally. In the last few months, federal prosecutors have also brought terrorism charges against Iranians, including those in the U.S. working for the Iranian government. Iran is a designated state sponsor of terrorism. Iranian nationals illegally in the country are considered “special interest aliens” under federal law. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Sunday issued a warning to all Americans to be on a heightened...