Free Republic

Two container ships near the strait of Hormuz have ⁠sunk after being struck by missiles, amid the sharpest rise in Iranian attacks on shipping since the start of the US-Israel war with Iran. The increase in attacks suggests Iran is trying to fully close the strategic waterway in an attempt to frustrate Donald Trump’s efforts to bring down fuel prices before the US midterm elections on 3 November. The Trump administration has been attempting to deflect attention from the economic impact of the war on Iran by blaming Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries for increased fuel prices.

US Central Command on Wednesday announced that US Military forces destroyed an Iran-affiliated ship targeting US Navy ships in the Gulf of Oman on October 6. Two US Marine Corps Apache helicopters fired missiles at the dhow. Crew members were evacuated from the vessel prior to the destruction. Full statement from CENTCOM: On Oct. 6, U.S. forces destroyed an Iranian-affiliated dhow conducting surveillance and targeting U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf of Oman. Over the past seven months, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has continued to indiscriminately target thousands of civilian mariners transiting regional waters in addition to U.S. Navy...

The Russian Revolution — commonly conceived of as the communist overthrow of the Romanovs — actually took place over the course of two steps. First, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917. Then, that fall, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks decapitated the left-wing government led by the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries in what came to be known as the October Revolution. That’s the one that was celebrated as a holiday in the Soviet Union, and is now by socialists everywhere. Not the left’s triumph over the right, but the bloodthirsty left’s defeat of the far-left. History is repeating itself in the...

Funny how accountability only works one way. It’s always Trump’s fault when Islamic Republic of Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, but never genocidal-Hamas Gaza leaders’ fault when their October 7 attacks trigger a war in Gaza. Funny how accountability only works one way.

Iran's vice president for executive affairs, Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, said Wednesday that talks with the U.S. require approval from Iran's top security body and the Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. "If the decision is to fire missiles, we will fire missiles on the orders of the commander-in-chief. If the leader deems negotiations appropriate, we will negotiate," Ghaempanah said, according to Iran International. Ghaempanah said all decisions must be guided by Iran's national interests, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The news agency also reported that Tehran is prepared to launch missile strikes if ordered by Khamenei but is open...

“Turkish journalist İbrahim Karagül, who is close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has published columns since the start of the Iran War envisioning the destruction of Israel at the hands of Turkey. In a March 13, 2026 column titled "If it makes that 'fatal mistake,' Turkey will invade Israel! It will burn and destroy Tel Aviv and liberate Jerusalem. You have not understood the turn of history! Our silence is dangerous! They cannot invade Iran. There will no longer be Arab-Persian wars or a sectarian war either. The 'Middle Eastern order' has collapsed. Israel is a one-day state."

Iranian and Turkish representatives at an interfaith conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, erupted into protest after David Antebi, the representative of the Sephardic Chief Rabbi David Yosef, mentioned the October 7th Massacre during his address. Despite the protest, the hosts and participants maintained order, and the conference continued as planned. .....

On Monday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish aired a clip of UN human rights spokesperson Shabia Mantoo condemning the planned livestream of Nidal Hasan’s execution as “abhorrent” and incompatible with the prohibition on torture. Cornish then asserted that the broader debate has already been settled. CNN’s decision to platform the UN statement as a serious contribution drew an immediate rebuttal from conservative panelist Tiana Lowe Doescher of the Washington Examiner. “I could care less what the UN says. They had Iran on the women’s rights commission.”Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Guest post by Banafsheh Zand at Iran So Far Away The growing influence of Islamists linked to the Khomeinist Regime in the United States was shown on September 23, 2026, when a University of Michigan student of Iranian heritage named Iman Dashti asked Michigan’s Democratic Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed if he opposed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Confronting El-Sayed with his words from earlier this year that he would not comment on the death of Regime leader Ali Khamenei because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today,” Dashti asked him “if you renounce the...

Rachel Timoner, Senator Schumer’s ‘Rabbi’, had spent the years since Oct 7 denouncing Israel. The trendy leftist clergywoman had been active with anti-Israel groups such as J Street and T’ruah, and had co-founded the New York Jewish Agenda leftist organization alongside Sharon Kleinbaum who had faced an exodus from her ‘temple’ after saying prayers for Hamas terrorists. When Prime Minister Netanyahu came to speak at the UN, Timoner addressed a rally “to demand that Netanyahu be held accountable for his war crimes” and blamed antisemitic attacks on Jews by Muslims, including a Muslim terror attack meant to kill Jewish preschoolers,...

US President Donald Trump says he does not believe that China and Russia were helping Iran “at all,” adding that Moscow and Beijing had “too much to lose” if they enabled Tehran.Trump says on Truth Social that he had seen comments from his critics and opponents that China and Russia were helping Iran. “If they are, it’s at a very low level, but I don’t believe they are at all. They have too much to lose, and we would know about it, and know about it very fast,” Trump writes.Trump said in July he trusted China and Russia not to...

Les Mousquetaires says attack hit about 150 Intermarche stores Danfoss says affected French units ran outdated firmware Dutch supermarket operator Ahold affected by a cyber incident US websites of Ahold units Stop & Shop, Giant temporarily out SNIP

A ship has been struck in the Strait of Hormuz nearly every day this month, according to the International Maritime Organization. Between Oct. 1 and Tuesday, nine ships – mostly crude oil tankers – were struck in the Strait of Hormuz or off the coast of Oman, according to the IMO. Two additional ships were hit since, with one struck on Wednesday and another struck on Friday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. Wednesday’s attack was on an unnamed tanker off the coast of Madinat ash Shamal, Qatar, in the Persian Gulf. Friday’s attack was on an unnamed...

Iran announces a large oil tanker has hit a naval mine while exiting the Strait of Hormuz through the US-backed southern Omani corridor, with a massive explosion and fire in the engine room. It is the second such incident under 24 hours. A crude oil supertanker exploded and caught fire after it hit a mine while trying to leave the Strait of Hormuz using an "unauthorised and dangerous route", Iranian media Press TV has reported. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in a statement said the crude oil supertanker had switched off its navigation and global positioning systems while trying...

Governments caution flying to Saudi Arabia, or through its airspace, after weekend attack left at least 12 deadCommercial air travel has been dragged into the front lines of escalating conflicts across the globe, with airports, planes and airspace becoming the deliberate target of missile and drone attacks on a scale not seen before.Since the U.S. and Israel started the Iran war in February, major airports across the Middle East have been repeatedly targeted. Parked aircraft have been hit by missiles or falling debris from interceptor systems, killing crew members and passengers. The threat culminated Saturday in a Houthi missile strike...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has waived a restriction on $320 million in military aid to Egypt that had been previously withheld over human rights concerns, citing Egypt’s help in dealing with Iran since the conflict began earlier this year. The State Department said Thursday that Rubio had signed off on the waiver “in the interest of U.S. national security.” "The Secretary’s determination reflects the importance of Egypt to U.S. national security interests, and the concrete security cooperation Egypt provides to the United States,” the department said. In a letter sent to lawmakers whose contents were shared with The Associated...

London | The co-pilot accused of attempting to hijack a passenger jet full of Israeli passengers watched terror videos and glorified attackers as part of his radicalisation while studying in Melbourne almost a decade ago, the United Arab Emirates top prosecutor said on Friday (Saturday AEDT). The Omani co-pilot planned to crash the plane into the passenger terminal at Tel Aviv airport to kill the most number of people in a September 11 style plot, UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi revealed. The co-pilot told investigators he had acted alone, the attorney-general said. Omani pilot Hamam al-Hammami is accused of...

The airport in the Saudi capital was attacked again Saturday and was evacuated, two regional officials said, two days after three Saudi citizens including a pilot were killed there as the kingdom faces an extraordinary series of assaults in the new front in the Iran war. One official said air traffic to the Riyadh airport had stopped. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media. King Khalid International Airport has been targeted multiple times in the week since a Saudi-led coalition launched a major military offensive against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring...

WASHINGTON — Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed repeatedly refused to answer whether he considers Iran or Israel to be the “greater threat to the United States.” When presented with that question during his debate Thursday against Republican Senate hopeful Mike Rogers, El-Sayed ripped it as a “ridiculous hypothetical.” “Here’s what’s happening right now: our ostensible ally in Israel has lobbied us to go to war with Iran,” El-Sayed, a Democrat, replied. “We have watched as Iran has responded by bombing all kinds of countries in the Middle East and then choking off the world’s energy supply.” “This is a situation...

Iman Dashti, a Michigan University student, confronted Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed this week about his habitual whitewashing and rationalization of Islamic terrorism. Dashti, who said his family is a victim of the Iranian regime’s theocratic persecution, pressed the candidate at a college town hall, asking him numerous times to denounce one of the world’s most odious tyrannies. Did El-Sayed regret not speaking out against the tyrannical clerics of Iran? Would he now renounce those who held vigils supporting the mass murderer Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? Would he “unequivocally” condemn the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a group that’s not only...