Free Republic

On Wednesday, April 27, according to Syria’s Defense Ministry backed by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Israel launched a missile attack on positions near Damascus killing four Syrian soldiers. The Syrian state news agency claimed the missiles had been launched from Tiberias in north-eastern Israel. According to the head of SOHR, Rami Abdel Rahman, the missile attacks hit arms depots in several suburbs of Damascus used by Iran-backed groups. At least five separate sites were targeted. The SOHR was established in 2006 to catalogue human rights violations by the dictatorial regime of Bashar Assad in Syria. Since...

...Putin has ordered troops moved from Syria to Ukraine.

ACI MENA will operate from the campus of Erbil’s Catholic University.EWTN Global Catholic Network has launched an Arabic-language news service headquartered in Erbil, Iraq, Michael P. Warsaw, EWTN's chairman of the board and CEO, announced March 25, on the Solemnity of the Annunciation. The Association for Catholic Information Middle East and North Africa, or ACI MENA, will publish original news content in Arabic using a network of correspondents across the region. The news agency will operate from the campus of Erbil’s Catholic University (CUE). A ceremony marking the occasion was held in Erbil, which included Archbishop Bashar Warda of the...

Syrian President Bashar Assad has promised to provide some 40,000 militants to the Russian Federation for the war in Ukraine, The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported on Thursday afternoon. According to Ukrainian intelligence, weapons and other equipment will be transferred to Russia and Belarus from Syria in the near future, the statement reported, in addition to as many as 40,000 militants. A report on March 13 from Ukrainian intelligence indicated that Russia had already opened 14 recruitment centers across Syria, in Damascus, Aleppo, Hamma, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, in order to strengthen its forces. Russia is reportedly paying foreign mercenaries a...

On the eve of Purim, a signed agreement resurrecting the Iran deal looms imminent. For those who forgot, another lucrative agreement between a politician and a Persian ruler signed 2,500 years ago was also intended to annihilate the Jewish people. Still, it didn’t work out as planned. Rafael Grossi, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy, said in an interview with France 24 on Tuesday that as long as Russia receives written guarantees from the US that its demands will be met, all of the involved parties are on the verge of finalizing an agreement on the recent talks being...

<p>Around a third of Ukrainian refugees arriving in France are actually economic migrants from other areas of the world, mostly North Africa and the Middle East, according to an investigation by newspaper Le Figaro.</p><p>Over 5,000 refugees have already arrived in France from Ukraine, with some being transported by bus from Berlin and others arriving by rail and air.</p>

A tough choice between Muslim Europe and Muslim Russia. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Russia, with a birth rate of 1.5 children per woman, has invaded Ukraine, where the birth rate is 1.2 children per woman, to determine which nation with below replacement birth rates will go extinct the fastest. In the long run the only winners of the war to determine whether Ukraine will belong to the 1.2 or 1.5 people will be the Chechen and other Muslim soldiers doing...

An alleged Israeli airstrike targeted sites near Damascus on Wednesday night, according to Syrian state news agency SANA. Three Syrian soldiers were killed and material damage was caused by the strikes, according to SANA. According to the Syrian Capital Voice site, the strikes targeted an air defense battery in al-Kiswah and an Iranian weapons shipment at the Damascus International Airport. A Syrian air defense missile fell on the road leading to the Damascus International Airport, according to the Capital Voice. The opposition-affiliated Halab Today TV reported that the strike resulted in seven deaths and 12 injuries, as well as significant...

Romania and the United States have signed an agreement that would establish the first U.S. military bases in an Eastern European country from the former Soviet bloc. The United States already has the rights to a base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, and is in the process of vacating one in neighboring Uzbekistan. With the United States already possessing a military presence in much of the world, what does it want with even more foreign bases? Washington, 7 December 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Romanian President Traian Basescu seemed as pleased to be hosting the bases as the Americans are...

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his ground-breaking work negotiating the Abraham Accords. Kushner worked on the Accords in his capacity as White House Senior Advisor, along with his deputy, Special Assistant to the President Avi Berkowitz, who was also included in the nomination. The nomination was submitted by U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.). The New York Post obtained a copy of the nomination, in which Zeldin wrote, “The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, represent the most significant diplomatic breakthrough between Israel and Arab nations in decades.” Zeldin...

A US official participated in a classified Israel Air Force exercise simulating a “massive attack” on the Iranian nuclear facility reports Times of Israel. The drill took place two weeks ago, according to the report. A United States Air Force officer took part in the exercise in the role of an an observer, Israel’s Kann public broadcaster reported. The drill involved dozens of Air Force jets and included several scenarios. Among them – long-range strikes, mid-air refueling, and responses against anti-aircraft weaponry. The unconventional participation of an American official was portrayed by the report as proof of a shift in...

The mission involved Russia's Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft and the A-50 early warning and control aircraft, as well as Syria's MIG-23 and MIG-29 planes MOSCOW, January 24./TASS/.Russian and Syrian military pilots have conducted a joint air patrol mission along the Golan Heights and the Euphrates River, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. "The mission's route ran along the Golan Heights, the southern border, the Euphrates River and over northern Syria," the statement reads. "Russian pilots took off from the Hmeymim Air Base, while Syrians took off from the Seikal and Dumayr airfields outside Damascus," the ministry added...

A drone attack on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last week, which killed three people and injured six others working at an oil storage facility near the airport in Abu Dhabi, led to an immediate retaliation by Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the UAE. The Saudis blamed the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen for the drone strike and hit back with a heavy air raid on Sanaa, the rebel-held Yemen capital city. The drone attack has simply been the latest in a series of similar raids across the Middle East that all have their origins in Iran. Despite lurching...

GEORGE NADER, an American adviser to the government of the United Arab Emirates, convicted sex offender, and frequent visitor to the White House during President Donald Trump’s first year in office, has pleaded guilty for his role in helping the UAE pump millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions into the U.S. political system during the 2016 presidential election, according to documents submitted in federal court last month. Federal prosecutors disclosed in a December sentencing memo that Nader had agreed months earlier to plead guilty to a single count of felony conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government by funneling millions...

In the last article, I discussed the impacts Covid-19 may potentially have on all our lives in 2022. In this article, I want to look at one of the main potential geopolitical flashpoints of 2022: Israel and Iran. The Israel–Iran issue has been largely out of our news feeds during the past twelve months, yet the drumbeat of war between Israel and Iran has not calmed in 2021; it is just that the rest of us have been very much distracted by Covid-19. With each passing month, Israel’s growing need to defend itself against what it perceives to be an...

The Biden administration is taking seriously a string of recent threats and sanctions from Iran against Trump administration officials around the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 3, 2020 strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Iran’s actions may indicate Iran is plotting to assassinate the officials. On Saturday, Iran announced sanctions against 51 Americans, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley as well as several individuals who worked with the Trump administration, like former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and private military contractor Erik Prince. While sanctions typically yield economic punishment, current and former U.S. officials...

While Christians are facing persecution and shrinking numbers throughout the Middle East, Israeli Christians are facing a different reality with growing numbers and high quality of life. The number of Christians in Israel grew by 1.4 percent in 2020 reaching 182,000 people with 84 percent saying they are satisfied with life in Israel, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Israeli Christians make up about 1.9 percent of the state's population, most of them speaking Arabic. The majority of Christians live in Nazareth (21,400), Haifa (16,500), Jerusalem (12,900) and Shefar'am (10,400), according to the CBS. The recent storms that...

A Twitter account run by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Friday threatened to blow up the city of Dimona in the Negev desert, where a nuclear facility is located. The IRGC account, with its 12,100 followers, posted a video showing multiple explosions in a desert. “Then on the day, we [God] will deal you the fiercest blow. We will surely inflict punishment, “ the IRGC wrote in Arabic, citing a quote from the Koran, adding the hashtag “Dimona.” The video is post-dated to Friday. The account provides a link to the IRGC’s Telegram account, with its 376,084 subscribers....

Looking pensive, Winston Churchill is seen talking to a priest in a field surrounded by white crosses. The image, which was taken on March 26, 1921, shows the then Secretary of State for the Colonies at the British War Cemetery in Jerusalem. He is engaged in conversation with Rennie MacInnes, the Bishop of Jerusalem, during a memorial service for British troops killed during the First World War, which had ended just two years earlier. Now, the photo is one of hundreds taken in the Middle East during the 19th and early-20th century which have been colourised for the first time...

A new poll of Arab residents of Jerusalem by a Palestinian media outlet found that 93% of them prefer to remain under Israeli rule and would not give up their Israeli identity card. Arab residents of Jerusalem are, for the most part, not Israeli citizens, but can request citizenship if they wish. Those who are not citizens carry a special ID card allowing them freedom of movement within Israel proper.