Free Republic

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...

Days after Iran received hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief from the controversial nuclear deal, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday admitted a good portion of the massive funds will go to terror. Speaking at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kerry spoke about the massive kickback Tehran is receiving after nuclear sanctions were lifted last weekend. "I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists," he acknowledged to CNBC. "You know, to...

Every president is entitled to the confidence of the nation that he means well. That includes Barack Obama, even when he retreats to his other home in a universe far, far away. He just doesn't understand what's going on here on Planet Earth, where the rest of us live. Meaning well is not enough. He seems to understand now, after it was explained to him at some length, that America is indeed the exceptional nation that Abraham Lincoln said it is, but not for the reasons Mr. Obama thinks. "The United States of America is the most powerful nation on...

TEHRAN, Jan. 13 (MNA) – Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said IRGC Navy will decide about detained US marines who illegally entered Iran waters once chain of command passes down its orders. “All vessels must give prior notice if they want to sail through another country’s waters, especially if they are military,” said Ali Fadavi, Commander of the IRGC (the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps) Navy, referring to the two American riverine command boats that had illegally crossed into Iranian territorial waters around Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf. “In the world of international relations, there is only one instance of innocent...

It hasn't made much noise worldwide, but Iran's rapidly deteriorating relationships with several African countries is huge news across the continent. On February 16, the Nigerian Federal High Court in Lagos began the prosecution of an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Azim Aghajani, and a Nigerian associate, Usman Abbas Jega. They are accused of arms smuggling. This video link is in Arabic, but is very self-explanatory. It is of the opening day of the court proceedings.The story is a classic, just one of many on the Dark Continent nowadays: In late October 2010, Nigerian intelligence officials...

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps has in recent weeks launched increased cyber attacks on Obama administration officials, hacking into their email and social media accounts. U.S. officials believe that the hacks are related to the recent arrest of an Iranian-American businessman in Tehran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has routinely conducted cyberwarfare against American government agencies for years. But the U.S. officials said there has been a surge in such attacks coinciding with the arrest last month of Siamak Namazi, an energy industry executive and business consultant who has pushed for stronger U.S.-Iranian economic and diplomatic ties. Obama administration personnel are...

(CNN)At first glance it looks like the set of a James Bond movie -- a seemingly impregnable mountain base packed full of uniformed men and sinister-looking missiles on their launch vehicles parked along a long tunnel buried deep underground. But this is in fact a real-life missile facility in Iran, according to the country's semi-official FARS news agency. In a rare moment of openness, Iran on Wednesday broadcast pictures from The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force of a tunnel reportedly dug some 1,640 feet (500 meters) under a mountain.

Iranian Terrorist Attack Against U.S. Revealed How Bill Clinton concealed it from the public and U.S. intelligence. October 7, 2015 Arnold Ahlert    A bombshell report by the Washington Times reveals that fecklessness in the face of terror isn’t a condition exclusive to the Obama administration. "Bill Clinton’s administration gathered enough evidence to send a top-secret communique accusing Iran of facilitating the deadly 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist bombing,” the Times states, "but suppressed that information from the American public and some elements of U.S. intelligence for fear it would lead to an outcry for reprisal, according to documents and interviews.” Nineteen American...

LONDON (from compiled intelligence briefs) - Al-Qaida had extensive contacts with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, as well as with an elite military unit which helped the terrorists train and plot attacks against Americans, according to a former intelligence officer who recently fled Iran. Hamid Reza Zakeri, a former inspector and director of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence, or MOIS, member said models of the World Trade Center, the White House, Pentagon and other United States government buildings "were in our headquarters." In an explosive interview with a London-based Arabic newspaper last week, Zakeri stated that...

Saturday's Washington Post had an article which quotes the usual unnamed intelligence sources saying that they are surprised to discover that al Qaeda has "reconstituted" itself. This surprise derives from, inter alia, the computer data found recently in Pakistan, intelligence sources (both ours and friends'), and simply looking at the range of activities in which the terrorists engage. This surprise is, as usual, unsettling, since it has been quite clear for some time now that al Qaeda and the other major terrorist groups — Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Jamaa, etc. — are all working together, and have been ever since...

Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. "The Russians are no longer advising, but co-leading the war in Syria," one intelligence official said. The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran's proxies throughout the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Intelligence sources told Fox News that -- in addition to the previously reported arrival of nearly 50 Russian marines, 100 housing units and armored vehicles...

Israel’s reported strike January 18 on a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy driving on the Syrian Golan Heights was one of the most strategically significant events to have occurred in Israel’s neighborhood in recent months. Its significance lies both in what it accomplished operationally and what it exposed. From what been published to date about the identities of those killed in the strike, it is clear that in one fell swoop the air force decapitated the Iranian and Hezbollah operational command in Syria. The head of Hezbollah’s operations in Syria, the head of its liaison with Iran, and Jihad Mughniyeh, the son...

Tehran, 17 Jan. (AKI) - One of the five Iranians arrested last week by the US army in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil is wanted in Austria in connection with the assassination of Kurdish leader Andol Rahman Ghassemlu in 1989. Mahommad Jaafari Sharoudi was one of five Iranian officials detained last week in the Kurdish-controlled city on charges of being connected to a faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. Abdol Rahman Ghassemlu, the historic leader of Iranian Kurds, was killed in an apartment in the outskirts of the Austrian capital...

Republicans pounced on a report Monday that said top White House adviser David Plouffe took a $100,000 speaking fee from an Iran-tied firm whose technology may have been used to track dissidents, claiming Plouffe's involvement could represent a "loophole" in sanctions against the regime. The White House rejects the notion that anything improper took place. According to The Washington Post, Plouffe was paid for two speeches he made in Nigeria in December 2010 about a month before joining the White House -- and apparently before the company hosting him started coming under heavy scrutiny from the Obama administration. The White...

Tehran, Dec 28 (ANI): al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri were spotted in Iran's Najamabad city two months ago, The News reported on Sunday while quoting a British daily. The daily attributed the story to a source having links with the Revolutionary Guards. The report said: "A man with links to Iran's intelligence services and hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC) has told the daily that he saw the al-Qaeda leader in Iran two months ago. He saw him arrive at an RGC guesthouse close to the small town of Najmabad on 23 October." The Al-Qaeda leader,...

A former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the FBI says played a role in a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen, accompanied Iraq’s prime minister to the White House on Monday, attending an event at which President Obama trumpeted the end of the Iraq War. Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, transportation minister in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, was part of the delegation that visited the White House to discuss Iraq’s future and Iran’s influence there, among other topics. -excerpt - Louis J. Freeh, who served as FBI director in the Clinton administration and the early months...

Survivors of a 1996 terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen are offendedthat an Iraqi official with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was welcomed to the White House this week. “Outrage at the visit to the White House really doesn’t describe what I feel,” said William M. Schooley, who survived the June 25, 1996, bombing of the Khobar Towers. “I watched outstanding airmen die that night and witnessed horrific carnage. The survivors of Khobar Towers have been swept under the rug and now have received the greatest insult,” he added. The Washington Times first reported...

The commander of the Basij militia of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that “erasing Israel off the map” is “nonnegotiable,” according to an Israel Radio report Tuesday. Militia chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi also threatened Saudi Arabia, saying that the offensive it is leading in Yemen “will have a fate like the fate of Saddam Hussein.” Naqdi’s comments were made public as Iran and six world powers prepared Tuesday to issue a general statement agreeing to continue nuclear negotiations in a new phase aimed at reaching a comprehensive accord by the end of June.

Qassem Soleimani is first senior official to reveal Tehran’s ambitions in Hashemite kingdom. A top commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said this weekend he believed Tehran had the ability to control events in Jordan, as it does in Iraq and Lebanon. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds force — the foreign wing of the Revolutionary Guards — was addressing a youth conference in Tehran. His remarks were the first time a senior Iranian official has openly discussed Iranian ambitions in Jordan.

Highlights: "Having aligned with everyone from Castro to the Supreme Leader of Iran (a country which rapes teenage girls so that they don’t die as virgins, and stones teenage rape victims), Obama has to make it seem as if it’s the Republicans who are the traitors." "During his original campaign, Obama said, “We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon." Bill Clinton said during his first term in office, 'North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb.' North Korea could and did. Bill Clinton knew all along that it could and would." "Clinton and Obama didn’t accidentally...