Free Republic

On Monday’s broadcast of C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal Primetime,” President Donald Trump said that he hasn’t launched further strikes on Iran because Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait don’t want to, and “I’d like to do it this way, too.” Trump said, “[N]ow it’s a question of, I could do it quickly or not. The reason I’m doing it this way is because, in speaking with Qatar — as you know, the prime minister was in the Oval Office today — in speaking to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, basically the neighbors — who were attacked pretty...

Saudi Arabia has sentenced a domestic worker from Kenya to 100 lashes after she gave birth outside of marriage. The sentence is a crushing blow to the mother, who has attempted for more than a year to return to Kenya with her child but has been blocked at every turn. The ruling, issued last month, shows the limits of a decade of social and legal reforms in the kingdom, where women can be jailed for 'illegal pregnancy'. The mother of five, Esther Wanja Muthoni, is among thousands of East African domestic workers who were recruited as housekeepers and nannies in...

BC Partners has abandoned plans to relaunch the breakaway league in 2027 after failing to secure commitments from several of golf's biggest names, leaving LIV facing a potential wind-down following five years of competition. LIV Golf's future is hanging in the balance after its proposed $300 million rescue deal reportedly collapsed, leaving the breakaway league facing the prospect of winding down operations. BC Partners Credit has abandoned plans to invest in a revamped LIV Golf 2.0, according to the Financial Times, dealing another significant blow to the organisation's hopes of continuing beyond 2026. The investment was dependent on LIV securing...

Saturday morning an attacking Houthi drone downed over eastern Saudi Arabia... The US intends to launch attacks on Iran as early as... Israel the opposition seeking a vote next month to replace the Speaker of... A sampling of US political polls... Poland's Conservative Nationalist President Karol Nawrocki jostled as he arrived at the Constitutional Court...Liberal Secularist Prime Minister Donald Tusk...suspending the court's president... At the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Atlanta no group photo... United States approving the sale of 500 Patriot missiles to Ukraine... Strait of Hormuz a new attack on an oil tanker... US Embassy in Saudi Arabia...

Oil flows out of the Persian Gulf in October nearly returned to levels seen before the start of the Iran war, but traders remain wary about a fragile recovery. Total crude exports in the region, or flows coming out of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, recently recovered to within 10% of their previous levels in January and February, according to data compiled by TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence firm tracking crude oil shipments (see chart below).

Bangladeshi authorities say they were not informed of the recent execution of two Bangladeshi nationals in the holy city of Mecca until after it had taken place, local media reports. A Bangladeshi man and woman were executed last Wednesday after being convicted of committing an "indecent act" inside a mosque, according to the Saudi interior ministry. The ministry did not specify the nature of the offending act. Bangladesh says it has reached out to the Saudi Arabian government to ask for more details about the case. The two Muslim countries share a close relationship due to their religious affinity and...

Silicon Valley relies on foreign talent to compete in the global AI race. Some tech leaders say that’s a national security risk. On paper, Abdulrahman Alfozan seemed like an ideal candidate for one of Silicon Valley’s most coveted artificial intelligence jobs. The Saudi national attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and landed an engineering job at Meta, according to his LinkedIn page and online records. Alfozan later secured a green card, spoke enthusiastically on a podcast about his Silicon Valley career and was invited to speak at Stanford University, all while working as a part-time partner at a venture capital...

The OpenAI engineer who was fired after being charged this week with bugging a conference room at the AI giant was nabbed by the FBI only three days before his one-way flight to Saudi Arabia was set to take off, according to court papers. Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35 year-old Saudi national, said he helped advise Saudi Arabia government agencies on technology and gushed in a recent podcast interview about meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, then the deputy crown prince, during the prince’s 2016 visit to Silicon Valley. Alfozan said he had been looking for guidance on whether to return...

The airport in the Saudi capital was attacked again Saturday and was evacuated, two regional officials said, two days after three Saudi citizens including a pilot were killed there as the kingdom faces an extraordinary series of assaults in the new front in the Iran war. One official said air traffic to the Riyadh airport had stopped. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media. King Khalid International Airport has been targeted multiple times in the week since a Saudi-led coalition launched a major military offensive against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring...

At least 12 people were killed – including one American – and more than 300 injured in an attack Saturday at Saudi Arabia’s international airport in Riyadh, aviation authorities there said, as the Persian Gulf nation faced some of the biggest attacks it has seen in years by Iranian-backed Houthi militants. While the rebel group did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack, it came during a week where smoke could be seen billowing above the airport and explosions sounded in Saudi Arabia’s capital in a wave of intensifying Houthi strikes. As Saturday’s attack forced aviation authorities to suspend operations...

The Kingdom of Bahrain is a small island nation connected by a causeway to Saudi Arabia (15.5miles away) and once claimed by Iran (124 miles away). Wedged between these two larger regional powers, Bahrain has hosted a U.S. naval command headquarters since 1948. For decades, Bahrain has permitted U.S. access to its facilities and has hosted U.S. Naval Central Command (NAVCENT) and the U.S. Fifth Fleet at a base called “Naval Support Activity (NSA)Bahrain.” NSA Bahrain has long served as the logistical hub for U.S. maritime operations in NAVCENT’s area of responsibility and has hosted thousands of American soldiers, civilians,...

The East-West line is the Kingdom's bypass of the Strait of Hormuz, carrying crude from the eastern fields to Red Sea export capacity, and headlines confirming it is flowing normally tend to appear only when some disruption or threat to Gulf transit is already in the price. In past episodes of Gulf supply anxiety, the market's sensitivity has split between actual interruption to flows, which is rare, and the perceived risk premium around chokepoints, which is common and has historically faded once continuity of throughput is confirmed. Confirmation of normal operations typically works to unwind whatever premium the disruption story...

Yemeni government forces claimed on Monday to have retaken control of key positions near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a vital chokepoint for global trade, as they launch a renewed campaign to roll back recent gains made by the Iran-backed Houthi movement. Military spokesperson Majid Al-Nuzaili claimed on X that government forces “have succeeded in controlling Bab al-Mandeb,” adding that they have “cut off” and taken control of the road between Dhubab district, which overlooks Bab al-Mandeb, and the port town of Mocha, previously seized by the Houthis. CNN hasn’t independently verified the claim. Forces, which are backed by Saudi Arabia,...

Newsdump Alert: Saudi Oil Facility Hit By Houthis Smoke and flames seen rising from an Aramco facility.... Newsdump Alert: US Security Council Officials Meet At Camp David The National Security Council led by Vice-President JD Vance met at the Camp David retreat in Maryland on Friday... Newsdump Update: Arrested Suspect Released In Murky US Airbase Incident... The vote is four weeks from Tuesday my opinion humble as it is does not want to swerve into raging criticism but simply reflect heartfelt feelings... The Third Anniversary Of October 7th The Pain Inflicted On Israel... The music this week Freddy Weller was...

UAE is in serious trouble. Israel is now suspecting the direct involvement of certain UAE officials in the attempted hijacking of FlyDubai Flight FZ1073. Without several deliberate security violations, the hijacking would have been impossible. To make matters even more suspicious, UAE and Saudi officials still refuse to release the name of the suicidal Omani pilot. The pilot went through 2 body scanners, a metal detector and an X-ray scanner with a knife. No alarm went off during the screening. Another suspicion is that an influential airport official may have already placed the weapon inside the cockpit. Things get even...

MECCA: A suicide bomber reportedly attempted to detonate explosive-laden vest inside Grand Mosque here Friday night. The device malfunctioned and no blast occured. According to reports the alleged bomber got close to Kaaba. However, Saudi authorities on Friday, while denying suicide bombing reports, clarified that a man was arrested for harassing passerby, causing fear and panic. No details apropos the nabbed person has yet been provided. Reuters reports on Thursday: The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthis said on Thursday the terrorist group had attacked a power distribution station in the holy city of Medina this week, putting one transformer out...

A series of open miracles on the flydubai flight that very nearly went down with a plane full of passengers. Miracle 1: A plane full of people survived an attempt by the copilot to crash their aircraft. Passengers and crew broke into the cockpit and subdued the attacker after he stabbed the captain. Miracle 2: Two off-duty flydubai pilots happened to be on board. They took control of the plunging aircraft and landed it safely. Miracle 3: The plane plummeted and spun out of control - spiraling some 17,000 feet. It ultimately touched down with a chunk of its rudder...

Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv abruptly diverted to Saudi Arabia earlier today after a reported fight between the pilots triggered a distress alert, sources told CNN. Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 shows Flydubai Flight FZ1073 diverted over Jordanian airspace toward Saudi Arabia and rapidly descended 17,400 feet in just minutes around 0120 ET. Israeli fighter jets were scrambled. According to Amit Segal of Israel’s Channel 12 News: Following situation assessments and passenger testimonies, Israel is treating the incident as a full-fledged terrorist attack. It appears that the co-pilot repeatedly stabbed the captain. Once the attack began, several crew...

From my balcony in the Judean mountains, I can see the lights of Jordan on a clear night and the skyline of Amman at sunrise. On other nights, I simply look south and east and know that the same Iranian missiles and drones from the Houthis in Yemen threatening my children and grandchildren are also threatening the mosques, holy cities, the oil fields, and the very capital that keep the House of Saud in power. That is the uncomfortable intimacy of this region. We are not friends. We are not yet even fully acknowledged as legitimate neighbors. Yet Riyadh is...

Washington -- US President Joe Biden has said that he is convinced that one of the reasons why Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel was because of the recent announcement during the G-20 Summit in New Delhi on the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor that integrates the entire region with a network of railroad. Israel has launched a massive counter-offensive against Hamas after unprecedented attacks by the militant group on October 7 killed more than 1,400 people. Biden told reporters at a joint news conference with the visiting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that his analysis is based on...