Free Republic

Fox News has reported a power struggle has broken out within Iranian leadership and a potential coup could be taking place against the new supreme leader. "Tonight there could be a coup, no-one knows who's calling the shots," Fox News' political commentator and host Jesse Watters said. Watters said that the US delegation, comprising of Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Special Envoy for Peace Jared Kushner, were supposed to leave for Islamabad, Pakistan for negotiations with Iran. Watters claimed the Iranian delegation never left Iran. He went on to say that Trump...

In the middle of an Easter lunch at the White House, President Donald Trump went off script to address speculation about JD Vance's role in securing a deal to end the war in Iran. "If it doesn't happen, I'm blaming JD Vance," Trump joked, drawing laughter at last week's East Room event attended by senior administration officials including the vice-president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. And "if it does happen," Trump added, "I'm taking full credit." The remarks perfectly captured Vance's predicament as he leads a US delegation holding talks with Iran in Pakistan. It...

Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is still recovering from severe facial and leg injuries suffered in the airstrike that killed his father at the beginning of the war, three people close to his inner circle told Reuters. Khamenei’s face was disfigured in the attack on the supreme leader’s compound in central Tehran and he suffered a significant injury to one or both legs, all three sources said. The 56-year-old is nonetheless recovering from his wounds and remains mentally ​sharp, according to the people, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. He is taking part in meetings with senior officials...

Iranian delegation led by Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf arrives in Islamabad for US talks, demanding a Lebanon ceasefire and release of frozen assets first. US VP Vance warns Iran against playing games. An Iranian negotiating delegation, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on Friday arrived in Islamabad for peace talks with the United States, Iranian media reported. The report stated that negotiations would begin if Washington accepted Tehran’s “preconditions." .....

Vice President JD Vance heads to Islamabad, Pakistan, for negotiations with Iran amid the two-week ceasefire, marking a major moment for the 41-year-old vice president and the administration as a whole. Vance departed Joint Base Andrew aboard Air Force One on Friday morning, speaking briefly to reporters before boarding the plane. Vance was optimistic that the negotiations this weekend would be positive. “As the president of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to...

Vance will be joined by US President Donald Trump’s top envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing. Iran has accused Israel of targeting one of its oil refineries, while Gulf countries reported coming under Iranian drone and missile fire throughout much of Wednesday after Israel was targeted in numerous missile attacks overnight. And while Pakistani mediators in announcing the ceasefire said that it covered Lebanon, the US and Israel have insisted otherwise and IDF strikes targeting Hezbollah reached levels on Wednesday not seen since the beginning of the war. Vance claimed a...

WANA (Apr 08) – The Full Text of the Supreme National Security Council Statement on the ceasefire is as follows: “The enemy, in its cowardly, illegal, and criminal war against the Iranian nation, has suffered an undeniable, historical, and crushing defeat. By the grace of the pure and holy blood of the Martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution, His Eminence Grand Ayatollah Imam Khamenei (Peace be upon him), the prudent measures of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and Commander-in-Chief, His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei (May God protect him), and the struggle and bravery of the warriors of...

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,”...

Pakistan carried out airstrikes on Afghanistan’s two largest cities on Friday, including the capital, Kabul, according to officials from both nations, escalating months of tension and border skirmishes into an open conflict. Beyond Kabul, home to six million people, the strikes hit the southern city of Kandahar — where the Taliban’s supreme leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, lives — and the border province of Paktia, according to Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban government. Pakistan launched the strikes hours after Afghan troops had attacked Pakistani border positions, according to Afghan and Pakistani officials. The Afghan attacks were described as retaliation...

Bush dinner tastes sour for Obama - PMO decision to entertain former President causes hurt in Washington K.P. NAYAR Washington, Oct. 24: Preparations for Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington on November 24 have begun on a negative signal to the Obama administration with a decision by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to host former President George W. Bush for dinner at Singh’s residence at the end of this month. Bush is visiting New Delhi on October 30 and 31 at the invitation of an Indian newspaper and will speak at a conference organised in New Delhi on October 31 on...

As the situation turned chaotic in Islamabad after PTI Chairman Imran Khan and his convoy entered the federal capital and started marching towards the city's D-Chowk, the government decided to seek the help of the army to control the situation and protect the government's offices located in the Red Zone. The government, in a notification, said that the army was summoned to control the situation under article 245 of the Constitution. The decision comes after the protests staged by PTI workers took a violent turn as they clashed with law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in the federal capital and injured multiple...

<p>ISLAMABAD: A mob attacked a police station in the capital on Monday night in an attempt to lynch a man detained on a charge of blasphemy.</p><p>Senior police officers told Dawn that dozens of villagers wielding batons and iron rods attacked the Golra police station, asking the police for the custody of the suspect held for investigation into a complaint lodged against him on a blasphemy charge.</p>

Pakistan’s foreign policy has been incoherent and inconsistent since its inception. It has suffered from a chasm between policy and strategy, xenophobic tendencies, domestic politics interfering negatively with the foreign policy process, and vice versa – including the unsettling influence of the military on civilian politics and the outsize impact of religious groups. Policy-makers, rather than focusing on the policy process and the outcomes, serially succumb to socio-religious pressures, intensifying policy volatility, and that volatility, read as vulnerability, opens Pakistan up to manipulation by stronger world powers. The result is that on the issues that Pakistan flags as central to...

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis protested on Sunday against the normalisation deal signed between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, Anadolu reported. Mass rallies were held across Pakistan, including the capital, Islamabad, the port city of Karachi, northeastern city of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta, Faisalabad, Multan and Hyderabad. The protests were organised by the Milli Yakjehti Council, a political-religious alliance which called on the Pakistani people to join the protests and denounce “the controversial deal between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv”. In the city of Rawalpindi, thousands of citizens marched through the city streets led by Senator Sirajul...

Former national security advisor Susan Rice called a Chinese diplomat a "racist disgrace" in a tweet Monday. "You are a racist disgrace. And shockingly ignorant too. In normal times, you would be PNGed for this, Ambassador Cui, I expect better of you and your team. Please do the right thing and send him home. " Rice tweeted in reference to Lijian Zhao, a diplomat posted in Islamabad. In a now-deleted tweet, Zhao said that if “you’re in Washington, D.C., you know the white never go” to the southeastern part of the U.S. capital. "PNGed" refers to being designated as a...

In the shifting narratives of the Trump-Russia probe, a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud has remained a linchpin regarding claims of collusion. He is the professor who allegedly told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that the Russians had emails related to the Clinton campaign. The FBI says it opened its investigation in late July 2016 after Papadopoulos relayed that information to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, and the Australians tipped off U.S. authorities. While some news accounts describe Mifsud as an accomplice to Russian clandestine operations or a “cut-out” (intermediary), others contend he is a full-fledged Russian spy. In an official...

The woman who took part in the ISIS-inspired San Bernardino massacre is linked to her native country's most notorious radical mosque, American officials believe. Sources have told Daily Mail Online that US officials handed over information to their Pakistani counterparts about links between Tashfeen Malik and the Red Mosque in Islamabad. The mosque is infamous for its links to violence and authorities in Pakistan are now considering taking action against its preacher, Maulana Abdul Aziz, after the disclosures by US officials. It is unclear currently how law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the US have connected Malik to the mosque.

Ten police dead in Pakistan blast July 6, 2008 At least 10 policemen have been killed in an apparent suicide bomb attack in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, officials have said. The attack came on the first anniversary of a deadly siege at the city's Red Mosque, in which more than 100 people were killed during fighting. The mosque was stormed by Pakistani troops to evict militants who had taken sanctuary within its complex. Police had been deployed at a rally being held near the mosque on Sunday. "The blast happened 15 minutes after the meeting dispersed. A heavy contingent of...

ISLAMABAD - Tashfeen Malik - who the FBI says pledged allegiance on Facebook to the Islamic State before helping her husband kill 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. - was born in Saudi Arabia to a middle-class Pakistani family mainly associated with agriculture or private businesses. Her father, Gulzak Malik, previously lived in the Karor Lal Esan locality of District Layyah in Pakistan's tumultuous Southern Punjab province. Tashfeen Malik, 27 years old when she was killed Wednesday in a rented SUV in a shootout with law enforcement, went to that province several years ago to study pharmacy in Multan city...

As I walked into the department this bright brisk morning, coffee cheerily in hand, the live global seismogram display in the atrium caught my eye with an alarming event that had just happened during my bike ride into work. *gasp* that looks bad *gasp* that looks bad BIG earthquake, somewhere in the vicinity of Central/Southern Asia. Indeed, an earthquake deep (>200 km) beneath the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan had shaken a huge swath of Central and South Asia. The great depth of the earthquake meant less extreme shaking at the epicenter (nobody lives closer than 212 km from the...