Free Republic

Beirut / Baghdad -- One of the most powerful men in Iraq isn't an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat. He's an Iranian general, and at times he's more influential than all of them. Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani (51) ( pictured) commands the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, an elite paramilitary and espionage organization whose mission is to expand Iran's influence in the Middle East . As Tehran's point man on Iraq , he funnels military and financial support to various Iraqi factions, frustrating U.S. attempts to...

Last week’s bombing near the grave of the Quds Force general that killed 84 is the latest episode in ISIS’s war on Shiite Muslims.. In the immediate aftermath of the January 3 blast that killed at least 84 people near the grave of general Qassem Soleimani in the Iranian city of Kerman, some low-level Iranian officials hinted at a possible Israeli involvement. Iran’s deputy parliament speaker claimed it had the signs of an Israeli assault — even though it showed radically different features from Israel’s alleged operations in enemy territory, which usually involve precision killings of key enemy figures. The...

Two bombs exploded in the middle of a procession at an Iranian cemetery that commemorated the death of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a drone attack ordered by Donald Trump on Jan. 3, 2020. At least 103 people were killed and 171 injured. Dozens more are in critical condition, and the death toll is expected to rise. Soleimani, one of the top Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American service people in Iraq and the Middle East. It's unknown if an explosion in the suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday...

EXCLUSIVE: The influential House Committee of Education and the Workforce on Thursday launched an investigation into the role of a former Iranian official, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, at Princeton University. It is claimed that he is suspected of advancing the interests of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism. Twelve Republican committee members sent a letter to Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber with detailed questions about the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran via Mousavian’s activities on the campus of the New Jersey-based Ivy League institution. Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., who along with Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., spearheaded the letter to...

Survivors of a 1996 terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen are offendedthat an Iraqi official with ties to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was welcomed to the White House this week. “Outrage at the visit to the White House really doesn’t describe what I feel,” said William M. Schooley, who survived the June 25, 1996, bombing of the Khobar Towers. “I watched outstanding airmen die that night and witnessed horrific carnage. The survivors of Khobar Towers have been swept under the rug and now have received the greatest insult,” he added. The Washington Times first reported...

Tucker Carlson blasted Iran hawks in the Washington establishment Friday, saying they have wanted a war with Iran for decades and that they may have finally gotten it thanks to President Trump ordering a drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani Thursday. "What happened yesterday wasn't just another symbolic bombing," Carlson warned on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "It was a pivot point. Neocons in Washington understood that immediately." -snip- "Yes, Soleimani was linked to the deaths of Americans. Nobody mourns his passing. But Mexico and China are also linked to the deaths of Americans. Each has flooded our country with...

President Joe Biden hasn’t blocked Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi from entering the U.S. to speak at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in New York City next month. Raisi will attend even after an Iranian military officer was charged this month with trying to assassinate former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. For weeks, Senate Republicans have been calling for President Joe Biden to block Raisi, who the U.S. sanctioned in 2019 for his role in executing children in 2018 and 2019. Earlier this month, The Department of Justice charged an Iranian military officer with trying to hire people...

In January, 2020, Israeli media outlets reported that the United States had "updated" Israel before assassinating Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Now a former Israeli military intelligence chief, Tamir Hayman, has revealed that Israel played a far more crucial role in the killing, having convinced the Trump administration that Soleimani posed an "immediate threat" to American soldiers and should be taken out. Speaking exclusively to Jewish News, Hayman, currently the managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies, said, "Israel convinced the U.S. of Soleimani’s malign activities against Americans....

The Iraqi supreme court has issued an arrest warrant for former U.S. President Donald Trump for the assassination on Iraqi soil of Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, IraqiNews reports, citing a Baghdad news agency. The warrant was issued on Thursday in connection both with the killing of Soleimani and of another Iraqi militia leader, chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq–both of whom were killed in a drone strike in January 2020 near the Baghdad airport. That assassination operation led to Iranian strikes on the Aia Al-Assad U.S. base in Iraq. The arrest warrant charges...

Russian President Vladimir Putin scolded the West on Thursday for playing what he cast as a "dangerous, bloody and dirty" geopolitical game, but said the United States and its allies would ultimately have to talk to Russia. "Power over the world is what the so-called West has put on the line in its game - but the game is dangerous, bloody and I would say dirty," Putin told the Valdai Discussion Club. "The sower of the wind, as they say, will reap the storm."

The Justice Department has charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, accusing the man of attempting to pay individuals $300,000 to kill Bolton in D.C. or Maryland. The suspect, Shahram Poursafi, 45, remains at large abroad, the Justice Department said. If found and convicted, he would face up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000 for the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, and up to 15 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Iran next week, the Kremlin said Tuesday, a day after the U.S. warned that Tehran could provide Moscow with drones for its action in Ukraine.

A recent intelligence leak report indicates that Iran is plotting to kill or capture former President Donald Trump as well as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.According to the Mirror, Iran is seeking to avenge the death of its beloved commander, Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a drone strike two years ago.The claim comes after a recent National Counterterrorism Center report, which said Iran is "waging a multi-pronged campaign against select U.S. officials."The report also mentioned threats of international legal maneuvering, the issuance of Iranian arrest warrants, as well as sanctions, and lethal action.Soleimani was considered one...

Two more top Iranian officials have been killed this week in separate mysterious incidents, just days after a top Iranian commander was gunned down outside his home and an Iranian drone manufacturing site came under attack by suicide drones. Colonel Ali Esmailzadeh of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force reportedly died during an incident at his residence in the city of Karaj. Iranian media said that he died after falling from his roof. Opponents of the Islamic Republic, however, claimed that Esmailzadeh was killed by the state because they suspected him of being a spy involved in the death of...

Las Vegas police arrested a woman who allegedly stabbed her date she met online in retaliation for the US drone strike that killed an Iranian military leader in 2020. Henderson Police Department charged 21-year-old Nika Nikoubin with attempted murder last Saturday after she allegedly lured a man she met on the dating site Plenty of Fish in bed only to attack him with a knife, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Police said that on March 5, Nikoubin and her date, who has not been identified, rented out a room together at the Sunset Station Hotel where the 21-year-old turned off...

On January 22, 2022, videos were uploaded to several YouTube channels of demonstrations in Gaza in support of the Houthis in Yemen. The demonstrators waved Palestinian and Yemeni flags and posters with the images of IRGC Qods Force Commander General Qasem Soleimani, of Hizbullah Chief of Staff Imad Mughniyah, and Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. The demonstrators chanted: "Death to the Saud clan!... America is the Great Satan!" Leader: "Salutations from Gaza!" Crowd: "Salutations from Gaza!"

Editor’s Note: Lawfare’s Board of Directors has published a post regarding this article and our editorial standards here. In the United States, the latest Iranian protests have sparked a kind of debate in which we argue fervently about whether the U.S. should tweet its support or just shut up. At the risk of making the Trump administration look moderate, I think we can choose between more than waving our hands and sitting on them. Remember, when the Iranian regime decided it didn’t like U.S. activities in Iraq, it found considerably more direct ways to express its disapproval. It just started...

On January 5, a giant statue of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian regime's dead terrorist mastermind, was displayed in the city of Shahr-e Kord. The regime unveiled the statue with much noise and fanfare just ahead of the second anniversary of Soleimani's elimination in a US drone strike in 2020. Mere hours later, the statue was engulfed in flames by dissidents, dealing a major blow against state propaganda to bill the former commander of the terrorist Qods Force as a "hero." Just a couple of days prior, the regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi delivered a televised speech in which he promised revenge...

Last Thursday was the second anniversary of the killing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani; while the date passed virtually unnoticed in the United States, it was a major event in the Islamic Republic of Iran, featuring numerous threats of revenge from enraged Iranian leaders. One of these stood out from the others: Soleimani’s successor as Quds Force commander declared that the revenge would come from inside the United States. Iran’s state-controlled Tasnim News Agency reported that Brigadier General Esmaeil Qaani was “delivering a speech to a ceremony in Mashhad” for the anniversary...

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...