Free Republic

An ex-CIA analyst was sentenced to more than three years in prison Wednesday for leaking top secret documents about Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran last year. Asif William Rahman, 34, had pleaded guilty in January to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information after he was arrested for absconding with records from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency last October that indicated Israel was planning to launch airstrikes in response to a massive Iranian missile attack. Rahman, who had been a CIA employee since 2016 and had access to top secret documents, leaked the stolen information on social...

Iran has ordered thousands of tons of ballistic missile materials from communist China, raising new concerns about the regime’s intentions and its growing alliance with America’s adversaries. This development comes amid tense negotiations with the Trump administration over the future of Iran’s nuclear program, as the regime works to rebuild its military capabilities. According to a Wall Street Journal report, shipments of ammonium perchlorate are expected to arrive in Iran within the next several months. An Iranian company, Pishgaman Tejarat Rafi Novin Co., recently placed the order for this missile component, with the material sourced from Hong Kong-based Lion Commodities...

As Israel continues to wage a defensive war against the terrorists who invaded and slaughtered hundreds of Jews on October 7, the Jewish State is under attack as never before in the West. I found this out for myself when I was invited on to Piers Morgan Uncensored to discuss the situation in Gaza.What my appearance and censorship on the ironically named “Uncensored” show demonstrated was a refusal, perhaps even a fear, to hear the reality, the facts and the law when it comes to the war against Hamas. This is in stark contrast to…As Israel continues to wage a...

The German government handed out a record number of citizenships to immigrants last year, rising to nearly a quarter of a million passports, with Syrian and Turkish nationals representing the largest cohorts. According to data collected by 13 of 16 federal states in Germany and provided to the Welt Am Sonntag newspaper, 249,901 foreigners were granted citizenship in 2024, the highest number since records began in 2000. This number surpassed the previous record set in 2023, when 200,095 people were awarded citizenship. Last year’s record naturalisation number is likely much higher, given that the states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and...

Briton 'shot dead' in Amman Monday September 4, 2006 A gunman has killed a British man and injured five western tourists and a local guide, at a Roman amphitheatre in Amman, according to the Jordanian government. Reuters is reporting that the gunman chanted as he fired at the tourists visiting the popular site, which is in the centre of the Jordanian capital. Nasser Joudeh, from the Jordanian government, said the wounded were three Britons, one Dutch, one New Zealander and the Jordanian guide Jordanian police have cordoned off the site. "I was walking when I saw someone pull out a...

A gunman opened fire on tourists at the Roman Amphitheater in Jordan's capital on Monday, killing a British man and wounding six other people, including a police officer, officials said. Interior Minister Eid al-Fayez said a British man was killed, while two British women, a Dutch man, an Australian woman, a New Zealand woman and a police officer were injured. The man, clean-shaven and appearing to be his mid-30s, shouted "God is great!" before firing several shots at them, said an Iraqi witness, Mohammad Jawad Ali. The worst attack, a triple suicide bombing at hotels in Amman in November, killed...

A massive explosion occurred overnight Thursday at a military warehouse on the outskirts of the Jordanian city of Zarqa, Arab News reported. The installation, east of the city, contained idle mortar bombs belonging to the armed forces, said Amjad Adaileh, minister of state for media affairs. The Jordanian Army said that an explosion occurred in one of the munitions depots under dismantling. The fire was caused by an electrical short circuit. "According to the Armed Forces headquarters, until this moment, no injuries were recorded as a result of the explosion," Adaileh said. The installation is located away from civilian areas...

King Abdullah II called for a global fight against terrorism yesterday as Jordan acknowledged for the first time that al Qaeda in Iraq used foreign suicide bombers to attack Amman hotels, killing 57.

Syria’s new government will relocate ISIS families from camps, with Kurdish and US support. The new Syrian transitional government is seeking to find a way to deal with thousands of ISIS families who have been housed at camps in eastern Syria since ISIS was defeated in Syria in 2019. When ISIS was defeated in several villages near the Euphrates River in 2019, some of the terrorist group chose to surrender, and thousands of families of ISIS fighters ended up in the hands of the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The thousands of families were sent to several camps and detention facilities...

Germany: Two Suspected Migrant Stabbings Leave Eight Injured, Including 11-Year-Old Girl MultiKulti Germany has seen another spate of stabbings in which migrants from Kosovo and Syria are reportedly the suspected perpetrators. On Sunday morning, five local football fans were injured, four seriously, after being attacked by a man with a knife and a cane sword “indiscriminately” outside a bar in the city of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia. The victims, fought back against the assailant, resulting in him fleeing the scene. According to police, as the man fled, he left behind a bag containing multiple knives, a liquid that smelled of...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers Tuesday that Syria may be weeks away from plunging into another civil war or collapsing altogether. Rubio, who met with top Syrian officials last week during President Trump’s Middle East trip, said fears for the fledgling Damascus government were the main reason Trump abruptly opted to implement a 180-day waiver on sanctions last week following his meeting in Saudi Arabia with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. “It is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the challenges they’re facing, are maybe weeks — not many months — away from potential collapse and a...

WFP warns of starvation in Gaza as aid trucks stall at the border but reports highlight high food access to Gazans despite conflicting claims . The World Food Program (WFP) warned Sunday that families in Gaza are starving while food trucks pile up at the border, calling the situation “a race against time.” The organization urged the international community to take immediate action to restore aid flows into the Strip. While these allegations dominate political speeches and media headlines, the reality in Gaza appears more complex. Though some markets in Gaza have been photographed empty, residents have also shared images...

SummaryTrump's Gulf tour sidelines Netanyahu, marks new Middle East order Netanyahu's stance on Gaza, US-Iran talks creates rift with US Massive arms and financial deals signal US pivot to wealthy Gulf Domestic critics say Netanyahu's policies leave Israel paralysed Dubai, May 18 (Reuters)- - Nothing captured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's isolation more starkly this week than the image of U.S. President Donald Trump shaking hands with Syria's Islamist leader Ahmed al‑Sharaa - a man Israel has branded "an al‑Qaeda terrorist in a suit." "He's got the potential. He's a real leader," Trump told reporters after talks with Sharaa on...

Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., said he saw "Make Syria Great Again" signs around Damascus as Trump's popularity grows inside the war-torn country. One of the few U.S. members of Congress to meet with Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, says the former terrorist wants to pivot his country away from China, Iran and Russia and closer to the U.S. amid signs of President Donald Trump's growing popularity among the war-weary Syrian people. "There's actually signs around Damascus to say, 'Make Syria Great Again.' So they're big fans of President Trump," Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., told the Just the News, No Noise...

The new regime in Damascus, under President Ahmad al-Sharaa, does not rule out the possibility of transferring to Israel the remains of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, Lebanon's Al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday morning, quoting Arab diplomats. Cohen was hanged in Syria in 1965. In an article written by the paper’s editor, Ibrahim al-Amin, it was claimed that intensive security talks have recently been taking place between Israel and Syria. The author noted that Damascus has expressed a willingness to reveal the burial sites of Israeli soldiers who went missing in Syria during the First Lebanon War in 1982. .....

President Donald Trump on Thursday will visit a U.S. installation at the center of American involvement in the Middle East... Trump plans to address troops at Qatar’s al-Udeid Air Base, which was a major staging ground during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the recent U.S. air campaign against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis. The president has held up Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar as models for economic development in a region plagued by conflict as he works to entice Iran to come to terms with his administration on a deal to curb its nuclear program. The...

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the jihadist terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), praised President Donald Trump in an address on Wednesday for taking the “courageous and historic” step of lifting sanctions on his country. Sharaa delivered a speech to the Syrian people following an in-person meeting with President Trump in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where President Trump concluded the first of three stops in a Middle East tour on Wednesday. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who first met Sharaa shortly after HTS toppled the half-century-old Assad family regime in Damascus, arranged and presided over the meeting. The...

There’s more to Donald Trump’s Middle East trip than billion-dollar contracts, parades of camels and a storm back home over Qatar’s offer to give the president a new Air Force One. A tour narrowly billed by the White House as a chance for Trump to show he’s a master dealmaker is jumbling the region’s geopolitical jigsaw puzzle.Wherever he goes, Trump’s brings disruption that can forge possibilities. And he takes risks – for instance, his decision on this trip to lift sanctions on Syria to give a war-ravaged nation a second chance.But the move revives a perennial question about Trump’s entire...

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday had tea with a former jihadist who until recently had a $10 million US bounty on his head. Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, once known by his militant nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, met Trump in Riyadh six months after leading a swift campaign that toppled the half-a-century-old Assad regime, ejecting Iran-backed armed groups and declaring himself leader of the country. Al Sharaa was placed on the US Specially Designated Global Terrorist list in 2013 for heading al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, known as Al Nusra Front, and allegedly orchestrating suicide bombings across...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump urged Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords in a previously unplanned meeting on Wednesday, one day after lifting all sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Gulf Cooperation Council gathering in Riyadh, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoning into the conversation. Syria currently doesn’t recognize Israel’s statehood, and the Abraham Accords were just one of Trump’s requests to Syria in an effort to normalize relations. Trump also told the Syrian leader to make all foreign terrorists leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help...