Free Republic

Israel said on Monday it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran's southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after U.S. President Donald Trump ​reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks. The escalation complicates U.S.-led efforts to broker a broader deal with Iran, driving oil prices up by nearly 5%, with benchmark Brent ‌futures back above $97 a barrel. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed the U.S. for the latest exchange of fire with Israel and said further attacks on non-military and energy targets would have consequences for the global economy. The IRGC said that...

Iran is considering attending peace talks with the United States in Pakistan, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, following moves by Islamabad to end a U.S. blockade ​of Iran's ports, a major hurdle for Iran to rejoin peace efforts. However, the official stressed that no decision had been made. With a two-week ceasefire set to expire, a senior ‌Iranian official said Tehran was "positively reviewing" its participation but no final decision had been made. The comments conveyed a clear change of tone from earlier statements ruling out attendance and pledging to retaliate for U.S. aggression. The Iranian official...

SummaryLATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Iran's president says it will not violate ceasefire unless Israel does so, and is prepared to return to negotiations ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/TEL AVIV/ISTANBUL, June 24 (Reuters) - Israel bombed a target near Tehran on Tuesday despite a furious rebuke from U.S. President Donald Trump for launching airstrikes hours after agreeing to a ceasefire deal with Iran.Trump scolded both Iran and Israel for early violations of the truce that he had announced at around 0500 GMT, but directed particularly stinging criticism at Washington's close ally over the scale of its strikes, telling it to "calm down now".He said...

DUBAI, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Gulf states are lobbying Washington to stop Israel from attacking Iran's oil sites because they are concerned their own oil facilities could come under fire from Tehran's proxies if the conflict escalates, three Gulf sources told Reuters. As part of their attempts to avoid being caught in the crossfire, Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are also refusing to let Israel fly over their airspace for any attack on Iran and have conveyed this to Washington, the three sources close to government circles said.

Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline judge who is under U.S. sanctions for human rights abuses, secured victory as expected on Saturday in Iran’s presidential election after a contest marked by voter apathy over economic hardships and political restrictions... Turnout in Friday's four-man race was a record low of around 48.8% and there were 3.7 million invalid ballots that were likely to have been mostly blank or protest votes. Appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the high-profile job of judiciary chief in 2019, Raisi was placed under U.S. sanctions a few months later over human rights violations. Those included the...

ANKARA (Reuters) - The chief of Iran’s elite military Quds force on Thursday warned President Donald Trump not to take military action against Iran, saying if Washington started a war, Tehran would be the one to end it, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. “We are near you, where you can’t even imagine ... Come. We are ready. If you begin the war, we will end the war,” Qassem Soleimani said in a speech in the central city of Hamedan, Tasnim reported.

ANKARA, Oct 9 (Reuters) - An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general has been killed near Aleppo, where he was advising the Syrian army on their battle against Islamic State fighters, the guards said in a statement on Friday. General Hussein Hamedani was killed late on Wednesday, the statement said. Iran is the main regional ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and has provided military and economic support during Syria's four-year-old civil war.