Free Republic

New Article: Building an OSINT Pipeline to Cut Through the Iranian Conflict Noise. SPOILER ALERT: We're winning. I just published a long-form analysis on the Iran conflict and the strategic dynamics around it. Sorry for the Substack-only publication; the article itself was far too long and complex in formatting to publish with 𝕏 tooling. (Feedback to the 𝕏 team - if you can just make full Markdown capability, I would be thrilled.) Before anything else: I'm only a civilian data analyst, not a military officer or intelligence professional. This piece is the result of two weeks of intensive work where...

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's son has been wounded in the Iran war, it emerged today after he was named as the country's new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba, 56, the second son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was announced as his successor on Sunday after being appointed by the regime's 88-person assembly - despite previous opposition from his father. The 'vengeful' hardline cleric is already marked for assassination by Israel after it vowed to 'eliminate' whoever succeeded the slain Ayatollah, having killed him and Mojtaba's wife Zahra Haddad-Adel in strikes on the first day of the conflict. In one report on his...

A federal court in New York City convicted an Iranian agent of attempting to assassinate US officials, including US President Donald Trump, in a trial that showcased allegations of Iran-backed plotting on American soil.The verdict on Friday came during the US-Israeli airstrike campaign against the Iranian regime. Asif Merchant, a business owner who has family in Pakistan and Iran, acknowledged during the trial that he sought to put an assassination plot in motion during the 2024 presidential campaign, which was quickly disrupted by American investigators before it had a chance to proceed. ...He admitted at trial that he attempted the...

At least four U.S. service members have died. ... Respondents who identified as MAGA Republicans are 30 points more likely than non-MAGA Republicans to say they strongly approve of the military action and 34 points more likely to say it will reduce the threat Iran poses to the United States, CNN reported. They were also 50 points more likely to say they have a “great deal of trust” in Trump to make the right decisions regarding Iran... Among Republicans, 77 percent said they approve of the decision to take military action in Iran, while 23 percent disapproved. Fifty-eight percent said...

Mojtaba Khamenei — the expected next supreme leader — was reportedly wounded in an Israeli air strike. The son of Iran’s slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei survived an assassination attempt made by Israel during the devastating launch of Lion’s Roar military operation Feb. 28, which occurred in tandem with the US’s Operation Epic Fury, Times of Israel reported on Saturday. Other strikes in the joint military attack killed his father and roughly 40 other high-ranking Islamic Republic leaders. Also killed was Mojtaba’s wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, who came from a family long associated with the country’s theocracy. It’s not clear if...

Argentina has issued a new arrest warrant for an Iranian official in connection with the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires, at the same time that the alleged mastermind was named the new head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ahmad Vahidi was appointed head of the IRGC on Sunday, a day after the unit’s previous leader was killed in the first wave of US-Israeli strikes. Vahidi helmed the IRGC’s Quds Force paramilitary arm responsible for attacks abroad at the time of the AMIA bombing. Argentinians see poetry in the first strikes, which killed Iran’s supreme leader,...

Cries of “death to Khamenei” filled the night air in Tehran on June 15, rising above the thunder of Israeli airstrikes. The same defiant chorus had echoed through the city the night before, as if the people were rehearsing for the fall of the very system they were raised to fear. After five inconclusive rounds of talks between Iran and the United States, Israel launched its military campaign against the Islamic Republic’s leadership last week — and ordinary Iranians are not rallying around the regime. Instead, many are now mocking Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s fundamental miscalculation when he declared during...

Iran condemned US and Israeli threats on Monday, calling them a blatant violation of international law and insisting that neither country could "do a damn thing" to harm Tehran, Reuters reported. The remarks followed a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem on Sunday, during which they reaffirmed their commitment to countering Iran's nuclear ambitions and regional influence. Netanyahu stated during the meeting with Rubio that Israel had inflicted a "mighty blow" on Iran since the outbreak of the Gaza war and, with the backing of US President Donald Trump, expressed confidence...

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s reward came from heaven. Israel used a powerful ballistic missile that flew to the edge of space before plummeting to Earth and blasting Iran’s unsuspecting supreme leader and dozens of his top henchmen last Saturday. The Blue Sparrow, a missile that can fly for 1,240 miles and leaves the Earth’s atmosphere before crashing down, was used by Israel during Operation Epic Fury, killing Khamenei and his cohorts. So intense was the impact that debris was found in western Iraq, according to Israeli sources. The surprise attack came together last week after Israeli officials deliberately gave the impression...

Imagine all of this sturm und drang over someone who may not even be vertical and respiratory. Ever since the death of Ali Khamenei in the opening seconds of the joint US-Israeli military action, Iran has technically been without a head of state. The Supreme Leader in Iran controls all policy and action, as well as commanding all of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic. Ali Larijani and Masoud Pezeshkian can issue orders while hiding in hospital offices, but they do not have the perceived divine and theological authority that the top mullah has in these systems, and that...

Iran on Friday condemned the recent move by the British police to detain Iran's former ambassador to Argentina, Hadi Soleimanpour, stressing that the measure had been politically motivated. "The measure had been politically motivated and has been carried out under the influence of the Zionists. It is meant to serve the interests of the Zionist regime," said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi, according to IRIB. Jewish sources based in Buenos Aires have claimed that Soleimanpour was arrested in a London suburb on Thursday. Marta Nercellas, the lawyer representing the Amia Jewish Community Center, has claimed that Soleimanpour was among those...

His sell by date has expired. Tucker sees conspiratorial Jewish machinations driving U.S. foreign policy. Tucker has created a chasm, isolating himself from many of his former fans, me included.

On Sunday afternoon, protesters in Islamabad pressed shoulder to shoulder, most of them dressed in black, and chanted slogans that rippled through the crowd. “Death to America, death to Israel,” they shouted in unison. Among them was also Kazim Hussain, who clutched a portrait of Ayatollah Khamenei. The student, also an activist affiliated with Shia group Imamia Students Organisation (ISO), believes that the crisis unfolding in Iran was not a distant geopolitical conflict playing out beyond Pakistan’s western border. For him, it is deeply personal and emotionally moving.“This is not just an attack on Iran. It concerns all Shia Muslims,”...

Representative Eli Crane of Arizona, during Tuesday’s U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, asked Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris questions regarding Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’s home. The former Navy Seal, representing Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, asked Col. Paris, “Did your team make entry and conduct any investigation of the suspect’s home?” Paris responded, “I believe we had people that participated in securing it; there were bomb assets that we provided on the night of.” Crane continued, “Did you get any reports from any of your agents of anything fishy at the home?” Paris answered, “I...

"Assassin Thomas Crook's Connections (thread)"🚨ASSASINATION INFO DROP🚨 We found the assassin’s connections through our in-depth analysis of mobile ad data to track movements of Crooks and his associates.To do this, we tracked devices that regularly visited both Crooks’s home and place of work and followed them.🧵 Someone who regularly visited Crooks home and work also visited a building in Washington, DC located in Gallery Place. This is in the same vicinity of an @FBI office on June 26, 2023. Who’s device is this?Another device linked to Crooks visited Plymouth, MA. We found a device linked to Crooks’s work that traveled...

President Trump ordered the Secret Service on Friday to provide him “every bit of information” about his two would-be assassins. “I’m entitled to know,” he told The Post. “I want to find out about the two assassins. . . . Why did the one guy have six cell phones and why did the other guy have [foreign] apps? “No more holding back because of Biden. . . . I’m entitled to know. And they held it back long enough.

The White House repostedDepartment of War 🇺🇸@DeptofWar·36m https://x.com/DOWResponse/status/2029193589079613857 DOW Rapid Response@DOWResponse.@SECWAR “In the Indian Ocean—an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship, that thought it was safe in international waters.Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo—Quiet Death.The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War 2. Like in that war—back when we were still the War Department—we are fighting to win."

I'm surprised it's been that long since an US Submarine has sunk an enemy ship using a torpedo. You wonder what the Captain and crew of that submarine were thinking when they finally fired a torpedo in a real war versus in training.

Donald Trump’s would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks made more than two-dozen “firearms- related purchases” starting a year before he tried to kill the former president, carefully covering his tracks by using a fake name and trying to hide his activity online, according to law enforcement sources. Last spring, Crooks, 20, began to gear up — making more than 25 separate purchases from online gun supply stores using an alias, sources told The Post. Crooks took great pains to conceal his online activities, which shows he was engaged in meticulous planning even well ahead of the campaign rally, sources said. It...

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate testified before Congress on Tuesday about the possible motivation of the Trump rally shooter, but the CEO of Gab immediately contradicted his claim. Abbate testified that Thomas Matthew Crooks had posted hundreds of messages to social media, including some that expressed anti-Semitic and anti-immigration sentiments. “Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence, and are described as extreme in nature,” said Abbate. The posts were reportedly published between 2019 and 2020. “While the investigative team is still working to verify this account...