Free Republic

Iranians celebrating the cancelation of visas for Islamic Regime relatives living luxurious lives in the U.S. have warned the seven deported so have are just “the tip of the iceberg.” Shayan Khosravanifarahani, a journalist and activist, praised State Secretary Marco Rubio for taking action against those who have ties to the regime, telling The Post that for too long they’ve living comfortably using money stolen from the Iranian people. He said the families of the regime were ”using American” to platform their propaganda, lobby, get educated and generally live a safe, more comfortable life. On Saturday, Rubio revoked the green...

The disgraced relative of an Iranian warlord being deported from California has reached out to her former LA love interest from an ICE detention center to beg for help. Married Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, niece of terror mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani – former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who was taken out in a deadly 2020 U.S. air strike – frantically called Maziar Aflaki, 68, on Monday from the facility in Pearsall, Texas. But on hearing her voice, retiree Aflaki declined to accept the call, claiming years of harassment and abuse at the hands of Afshar. He told the...

While American forces conducted an astonishing rescue of a downed Weapons Systems Officer, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) escalated the stakes against Iran's leadership yet again, going after the men in charge of Tehran's oppression and terror organizations. One of this weekend's big names is Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, now confirmed dead, who until the moment of his vaporization served as the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization. Khademi's death was confirmed Monday by an IRGC statement carried by the Iranian state Fars news service. The same IRGC statement said that funeral and burial arrangements would...

A man accused of hiring a hitman to take out US politicians, including President Donald Trump, says he was pressured by Iran's elite ​Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to devise the plot. A man accused of plotting to kill US President Donald Trump and other top politicians told the court on Wednesday he was pressured by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to organise their assassinations. Pakistan national Asif Raza Merchant, 47, was charged in September 2024 with seeking to hire a hitman to assassinate unidentified US politicians. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. The IRGC — Iran's elite...

The stunned Los Angeles renter of the property owned by the niece of Iranian terror mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani said he now realizes the mom and her daughter had been on ICE’s radar for some time before agents swooped on the quiet Tujunga home and hauled the pair away. Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, 47, and her daughter, Sarinasadat Hosseiny, 25, were arrested by ICE Friday and had their green cards revoked for ties to the Iranian regime. Afshar had celebrated attacks on US soldiers and military facilities, praised Iran’s Supreme Leader, called America the “Great Satan,” and voiced support for the...

The niece and grandniece of slain Iranian mastermind Gen. Qasem Soleimani were arrested by US officials, the State Department announced Saturday. Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, who live a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles, were nabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday as the US pushes to revoke green cards for foreign nationals with ties to Iran while locked in a war with the regime.

The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force. President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilizing and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would...

Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, was killed during an Israeli strike in Iran, The New York Times reported on Friday evening, citing an Iranian source. Qaani succeeded Qasem Soleimani as commander after the latter was killed in a targeted operation by the United States in 2020. What was Qaani's mission in the Middle East? From an intelligence perspective, Qaani's mission appears to have had several dimensions, none of which have escaped the vigilance of Mossad, the CIA, or allied intelligence agencies in the region. Qaani also wanted to revive and consolidate control of...

Former Libertarian National Committee Chair Angela McArdle shared details of a meeting she had with then-Republican candidate Donald Trump during the 2024 election cycle in a speech delivered at the NH Liberty Forum this past month. McArdle also discussed her experience with the campaign and her role in securing a pledge from Trump to pardon Ross Ulbricht. McArdle recounted the events in a mainstage keynote address at the annual gathering, which is hosted by the Free State Project. Local media estimated that around 300 attendees participated in the full forum. McArdle’s talk, titled “The Heart of the Deal,” covered her...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to announce he will cancel former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley’s security detail and clearance — and direct the Pentagon’s acting investigator general to launch an investigation into whether the retired soldier should be demoted in rank, Fox News reported Tuesday. Despite retiring from the Army in September 2023, the Secret Service has continued to protect Milley due to Iranian threats of retaliation on him for his role in the drone strike ordered by Trump in 2020 that killed Tehran’s Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Trump last week removed the protective...

Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has become the latest ex-official from President Trump’s first term to lose their security detail, according to a report. The Pentagon revoked Esper’s taxpayer-funded security detail on Tuesday night, CBS News reported on Wednesday. Esper’s security detail had been provided by the Department of Defense as a result of threats he’s received from Iran since the 2020 US airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. Esper, 60, served as Trump’s secretary of the Army from November 2017 to July 2019, before he...

The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges for individuals involved in a thwarted Iran-backed plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump before the election. Three people were charged in the alleged Iran-backed murder-for-hire plot on Trump's life. Shakeri, 51, still remains at-large in Iran while Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, were arrested in New York. The criminal complaint filed in Manhattan on Friday alleges an unnamed official in the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact in September to put together a plan to surveil and kill Trump, according to the Associated Press. The court filing states that the contact,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Friday in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump before this week’s presidential election. A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact this past September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump.

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House after scoring a spectacular victory in the US presidential election, Iranians wonder what his second term could mean for their country. The results of the "elections are an opportunity to review and revise the wrong approaches of the past," Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, according to Iranian media. "We have very bitter experiences with the policies and approaches of different US governments in the past," Baghaei said. Relations between the United States and Iran have been extremely tense for nearly four decades. Sources of contemporary tension include Iran's nuclear...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a message to the Lebanese people on Tuesday, urging them to “take back your country” from Hezbollah and from Iran, which arms and funds the terrorist organization. Netanyahu spoke on a day when Israel took control of the border town of Maroun al-Ras, formerly a Hezbollah stronghold from which the terror organization had fired on Israeli communities — and which had featured a statue of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani pointing toward Israel. (Soleimani was killed in an airstrike in Iraq ordered by then-President Donald Trump in 2020.) Israel’s advance is seen as a major...

An Israeli security source on Saturday confirmed to Sky News Arabic that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's successor, Hashem Safieddine, was eliminated in a Friday night strike. According to Al Hadath, commanders from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were eliminated together with Safieddine. On Friday, Israel estimated that Safieddine was injured in the strike, since those who were with him in the underground area which was struck could not have escaped the site alive. In addition, it is estimated that alongside Safieddine, senior Hezbollah intelligence officials were also present at the site and were also injured. Safieddine, 60, is a cousin of...

The Hezbollah Shura Council on Sunday chose Hashem Safieddine as Secretary General to replace Hassan Nasrallah, who was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike on Friday, Saudi news outlets Al Hadath and Al Arabiya reported. Safieddine currently serves as the head of Hezbollah's Executive Council. He is Nasrallah's cousin from his mother's side. His brother, Abdullah, is Hezbollah's envoy to Iran. In addition, Safieddine is one of six clerics currently serving on Hezbollah's Shura Council. His son, Said Ridah, is married to Zayneb Soleimani, the daughter of former Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, who was eliminated in 2020. Hezbollah denied the...

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking Majid Dastjani Farahani, a 41-year-old Iranian national and intelligence agent, accused of orchestrating assassination plots against US officials. "Majid Dastjani Farahani, an Iranian intelligence officer, is wanted for questioning in connection with the recruitment of individuals for various operations in the United States, to include lethal targeting of current and former United States Government officials as revenge for the killing of IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani," it said in a report on March 5. Soleimani was killed in 2020 in Baghdad by an American airstrike. He was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary...

The Biden administration suppressed information about Iran’s efforts to assassinate U.S. officials to ensure Congress and the American public were kept in the dark, according to a lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "What Americans don’t know is that the Biden administration has gone to great lengths to hide the extent and persistence of those threats" from Iran, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said during a Senate hearing Wednesday on Tehran’s network of terror proxies. Those threats include active plots to assassinate former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and other top U.S. officials. The administration has been "abusing the...

Farahani is also accused of recruiting people to surveil religious sites, businesses and other locations in the U.S. The FBI is searching for an Iranian intelligence officer connected to plots to assassinate current and former U.S. government officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as revenge for the 2020 death of Iranian Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani. The FBI's Miami Field office on Friday issued a "Seeking Information" notice for Majid Dastjani Farahani, 41, who is accused of acting on behalf of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. He is "wanted for questioning in connection with the recruitment of...