Free Republic

An Israeli missile attack that killed a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force in Syria last week has sparked criticism of the military partnership between Russia and Iran. On 25 December, Seyyed Reza Mousavi, a key figure in shaping Iran's military presence in Syria, was killed in a missile strike on his residence in the Zainabiyah neighbourhood of Damascus. Although it wasn't the first time that Israel had targeted Iranian forces in Syria, this incident has drawn attention to Russia's failure to deploy its advanced S-300 anti-missile defence system in support of Iran, its primary...

The US has been twiddling its thumbs while the Chinese and the Russians develop anti-satellite capabilities as well as hypersonic missiles. Over the past several weeks a hard truth has become undeniable: The United States of America is no longer the all-powerful superpower it has been since the end of the Cold War. Far from it. The strategic implications of this state of affairs are epic for both the US and its allies. A nation's position in the global pecking order is based on two things – its capabilities and its credibility. America's capabilities have diminished relative to its superpower...

Iranian Rev Guards Gen. Soleimani sets up a forward war-room in Syria after Assad’s army and Hizballah failed to recover strategic Abu Kamal from ISIS. The Revolutionary Guards Al Qods chief Gen Qassem Soleimani, supreme commander of Iranian warfronts in Syria and Iraq, was seen on Sunday morning, Nov. 19, at the scene of the Abu Kamal battle, the key southeastern town near the border with Iraq (in Deir ez-Zour province), after Syrian and Hizballah forces had failed to recapture the town from an Islamic State counteroffensive.Military sources reporting this, disclose that Soleimani’s deputy Khairallah Samadi was killed in battle....

The Obama administration likely hid information about Iran illicitly ferrying militants into Syria on commercial aircraft in order to promote the landmark nuclear deal and foster multi-billion dollar business deals with Tehran's state-controlled airline sector, according to lawmakers and other sources familiar with the matter. The Washington Free Beacon first disclosed last week that congressional leaders are calling for an investigation into Iran for using its state-controlled air carrier, Iran Air, to ferry militant fighters into Syria, where they are taking up arms in defense of embattled President Bashar al-Assad. Photographs provided to Congress show Iran using Iran Air to...

Report based on images from Israeli satellite seem to reveal Scud missile factory identical to one seen in Iran An Israeli television report said on Tuesday that Iran is building a facility in northwest Syria to manufacture long-range rockets, and showed satellite images it said were of the site under construction. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned last week that Iran was strengthening its foothold in its ally Syria as Islamic State fighters were being displaced, and said Israel was watching developments and would act against any threat. "Our policy is clear: We vehemently oppose the military buildup by Iran and...

Few details. Video at link with what is known. This s**t is going to spin out of control. Russian A/C buzzed USAF A/C today.

(CNN)Iran's military announced on Sunday that it launched several missiles into Syria, targeting Islamic State fighters in retaliation for the attacks in Tehran on June 7. The missile strikes are the first reported ground-to-ground attack from Iran into Syria since the Arab country descended into a civil war in 2011. "In this operation, several ground-to-ground midrange missiles were fired from IRGC bases in Kermanshah Province and targeted Takfiri forces in the Deir Ezzor region in Eastern Syria," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on its official news website, Sepah News. The IRGC uses the term Takfiri to describe ISIS.

“We continue to see massing [of forces] and we are concerned about that,” Capt. Davis told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday. “These patrols are unacceptable and threaten coalition forces” operating within the deconfliction zones, he said, adding that American forces would defend themselves, should regime troops attempt to breach the zone. American and coalition aircraft have dropped leaflets onto regime positions near At Tanf, in an effort to encourage those forces to cease their patrols and move away from the zone, Capt. Davis said. His comments came amid reports that U.S. weapons and vehicles have been shipped to Syrian Kurds,...

Graphic Photos *********************************************** A wounded Syrian child looks on from inside a vehicle following a reported airstrike on Kafr Batna in the outskirts of the capital Damascus Credit: AMER ALMOHIBANY/AFP ****************************************Syrian rebels and civilians in the besieged eastern half of Aleppo are bracing for an onslaught ground assault by Syrian regime forces and their Shia fighter allies which could once and for all end the opposition’s resistance in the city. US officials said they were seeing signs that thousands of troops from across the Shia world -  including Syrian regime soldiers, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hizbollah fighters, Iraqi militiamen and Afghan mercenaries...

Revolutionary Guards Quds Force's notorious chief Qassem Suleimani severely injured in clashes south of Aleppo For nearly 5 years the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force’s notorious chief Qassem Suleimani has been spearheading Iran’s full-pledged support for the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. This shadowy figure has been the symbol of Tehran’s infamous plots in Syria, and reports have also indicated Suleimani was running the show and issuing orders to senior Syrian generals and political officials, and at times, even Assad himself. Enjoying the full support of and reporting only to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Suleimani had unimaginable authority in Syria. That...

From Revolutionary Guards generals to Hezbollah commanders, Tehran’s agents are being offed at a rapid rate in a foreign war zone. With the aid of Russian airstrikes, Iranian-backed foreign fighters, and a combination of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regular and militia forces are on the march. Yet Iran and its proxies have taken some significant high-ranking casualties since the start of their recruitment and deployment drives to Syria. These losses all serve to map out the current offensive being launched in the northwest of the country, including Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo. While other significant losses had been suffered in past...

BEIRUT – The former head of an elite unit in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as another top general have been killed in Syria, days after one of the country’s leading officers was killed in the war-torn country. “General Farshad Hasounizad, defender of the Sayyeda Zeinab Shrine and former commander of the Saberin Brigade, was killed in Syria,” a reporter in the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) wrote in a post on his Instagram account Tuesday afternoon. The Saberin Brigade is a special forces unit of the IRGC formed in 1998 to serve as a...

Iran has sent 15,000 fighters to Syria to reverse recent battlefield setbacks for Syrian government troops and wants to achieve results by the end of the month, a Lebanese political source has told The Daily Star. The militia force, made up of Iranians, Iraqis and Afghanis, the source said, have arrived in the Damascus region and in the coastal province of Latakia. The source said the fighters are expected to spearhead an effort to seize areas of Idlib province, where the regime has suffered a string of defeats at the hands of a rebel-jihadi coalition. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander...

The buzz in the Middle East media is that the real reason President Obama changed his mind about striking Syria last week was not, in fact, that he is indecisive. Nor was it that the concept of war goes against his grain. Nor that there’s a major division between his personal advisors and government officials. Nor that the Arab League voted against America striking Syria and wanted the United Nations to intervene. Nor even that the British House of Commons pulled the rug out from under him by voting against a British attack on Syria—essentially slapping Obama’s primary supporter, Prime...

DAMASCUS -- Lebanese Hizbollah is an independent body which enjoys the protection of all Muslim states, Iran's Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mohmoud Hashemi Shahroudi told foreign reporters here on Sunday. Shahroudi also called on Muslim and Arab states to back the Lebanese resistant movement, IRNA reported. The U.S has adopted a double-standard policy in its war on terror and is using it as an 'excuse' to crush nations in support of the Israeli regime, Shahroudi said when asked by the Xinhua news agency. The Judiciary official further said that the Islamic Republic is working alongside Muslim and Arab states on a...

<p>Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Magazine report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.</p>

Special Report Iran, Syria Make Strenuous Preparations for Combat-Readiness, Partly Reflecting Major Internal Leadership Schisms Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor. GIS. A pattern of Iranian and Syrian cooperation is emerging which indicates intensive preparations for imminent hostilities, even in the face of — and perhaps even because of — growing public unrest within their societies. The June 26-27, 2007, gasoline rationing riots which struck Tehran and other major Iranian cities were perceived by Western media analysts to highlight the weakness of the Iranian clerical Government of Pres. Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad. In fact, more detailed intelligence shows that the clerical leadership...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Thirteen French tanks, the most powerful armor ever deployed by a U.N. peacekeeping force, rolled ashore Tuesday, beefing up a mission aimed at helping cement an uneasy cease-fire in Lebanon. But some European officials are concerned international peacekeepers will be at best ineffective and at worst humiliated if hostilities flare between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops. Scores of blue-helmeted French troops transferred the Leclerc tanks, AUF-1 artillery cannons, two high-tech Cobra radar trucks, and dozens of armored vehicles and transport trucks from a cargo ship in Beirut's port. The port reopened Friday after a nearly two-month Israeli...

Turkey hopes for a regional alliance to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish state Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to visit Iran to suggest the formation of an alliance between Turkey, Iran and Syria to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish state. London (KurdishMedia.com) 26 July 2004: The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is due to travel to Iran tomorrow to hold talks with top Iranian officials. During talks, Erdogan is expected to put across the message: "The partitioning of Iraq will damage us all. We can prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdistan by...