Free Republic

A massive wave of armed insurrections and targeted assassinations has erupted across western Iran, leaving multiple regime security forces dead as overstretched IRGC units struggle to contain internal rebellions while fighting a broader regional war. A fresh wave of violence is shaking Iran’s Kurdish west, where Kurdish opposition fighters and Iranian regime forces are now clashing across multiple flashpoints from Mahabad and Baneh to Paveh and Marivan. The sudden intensification of domestic fighting comes at a critical moment for the Islamic Republic, as its elite military forces find themselves highly vulnerable to localized insurgencies. Tehran is forced to divert critical...

Turkey’s Hypocrisy Exposed by Israeli Recognition of Armenian Genocide Israel's recognition of the Armenian Genocide is an important step toward historical truth and exposes the profound hypocrisy of Turkey's genocide accusations against Israel while it continues to deny its own history. Turkey’s Hypocrisy Exposed by Israeli Recognition of Armenian Genocide Key Takeaways: Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide affirms an essential historical truth. Acknowledging one of the twentieth century’s first genocides reinforces the principle that mass atrocities must be remembered honestly, regardless of political convenience. Turkey’s genocide accusations against Israel are undermined by its own century-long denial of the Armenian...

A shooting at a youth welfare facility in northern Germany on Monday left six people dead, police said. The suspected shooter was arrested. Five people – four women and one man – died at the scene of the shooting in Stade, police said. A sixth, also an adult, died later at a hospital. Police said several people were wounded, some of them seriously, German news agency dpa reported, but they did not give a specific figure or information on the victims’ identity. Police said the shooting took place in the facility on Dankersstrasse, a street south of the town center....

Podgorica, Montenegro — An Iranian national who is wanted by the United States for mass hacking attacks that caused $3.4 billion in damage was arrested in Montenegro, police in the Balkan country said late Thursday.The 39-year-old man, who holds both the Iranian and Turkish citizenship, is wanted by a federal court in New York on multiple charges including conspiracy to commit computer ⁠fraud, hacking, and identity ⁠theft, a statement said. Police said they located the man in the coastal Montenegrin resort town of Kotor, where he was arrested Thursday by request of the U.S. and the FBI, Montenegrin police added."Since...

An award-winning California news reporter faced backlash for her “insensitive” comments towards Bosnia-Herzegovina during her World Cup coverage, forcing her to apologize for taking the joke “too far.” ABC7 Los Angeles’ Abigail Velez was covering the US national team’s match at a viewing party on the streets of Long Beach, Calif., Thursday, when she updated viewers on America’s next opponent after the 3-2 loss to Turkey. “The next round, Team USA will play Bosnia next Wednesday and one thing about Bosnia, I could not point out where it is on a map,” Velez quipped. “I don’t know the first thing...

🇺🇸🇹🇷 The FBI just caught a $3.7 billion fraudster His name is Ibrahim Khaldoon Hilmi, accused of running one of the biggest Medicare scams ever pulled off, and he'd been ghosting U.S. authorities since May 2025. Turns out you can't stay gone forever. He was tracked down overseas and handed back through a Foreign Transfer of Custody, and now he's on U.S. soil to answer for it. FBI Miami, the Justice Department, and partners in Turkey ran it down, with the White House fraud task force under VP Vance steering the wider push. FBI Director Kash Patel: "any criminal actor...

The U.S. military has now confirmed the acceptance of at least six F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the U.S. Marine Corps without radars. This is due to issues tied to the development of the new AN/APG-85 radar, the first production lot of which is scheduled to be delivered in 2028. The prospect of radarless F-35s had first emerged publicly back in February. The AN/APG-85 is a critical component of the larger Block 4 upgrade package for all variants of the F-35, an effort that has been mired in cost growth and delays. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Masiello, head of...

For those who cling to the insistence that President Trump is always playing 5D chess with his opponents, now would be a great time to explain to the rest of us what the strategy is behind his repeated recent moves to empower our existential Islamic enemies. First Trump prevented Israel from finishing the job with the savage terror group Hamas in Gaza, going so far as to promise to invest in developing the Palestinian territories into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Then, after vowing to rescue the Iranian people from the oppressive fundamentalist regime, Trump stopped short of finishing...

A fugitive accused of helping mastermind a $3.7 billion Medicare fraud scheme — one of the largest in U.S. history — is in American custody after authorities tracked him down in Turkey and flew him back to the U.S. to face charges, the FBI announced Monday. Ibrahim Khaldoon Hilmi was recently detained by Turkish authorities after he fled the U.S. in May 2025, the FBI said. The FBI's Critical Incident Response Group flew out to Turkey and transported Hilmi to the U.S. on Friday through a foreign transfer of custody operation. FBI Director Kash Patel hailed the operation as a...

<p>February 20, 2002 -- SUDDENLY, it seems, America is doing more wrong than right as it fights the war on terrorism. Or so you might think from the press and TV coverage.</p> <p>In the past few days, The New York Times and The Washington Post have taken up the case of Osama Awadallah, a 21-year- old Jordanian who was a known associate of two of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers. He admits having met one of them "35 or 40 times" and claims not to have met the other though his name appeared in the other's notebook.</p>

A federal judge ordered immigration officials to release the president of Wisconsin's largest mosque from detention Thursday, finding that Salah Sarsour has raised a "substantial" claim that he was being targeted for speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights. Sarsour, a Palestinian-born legal permanent resident of the United States, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on March 30. The government has claimed he is a foreign policy threat, but Sarsour's attorneys say he was actually targeted for speaking out against Israel. U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon wrote in a decision Thursday that attorneys for...

TEHRAN, Iran — The mystery of a missing former Iranian deputy defense minister deepened Wednesday with the report by an Arab newspaper that he is being interviewed somewhere in northern Europe before defecting to the U.S. Retired Revolutionary Guards general Ali Reza Asghari disappeared in Turkey nearly a month ago and reportedly hopes to seek asylum in the United States, according to a report in the London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat. The newspaper quoted senior Iranian sources as saying Asghari is headed for the United States "along with the secrets he carried." A Senior U.S. official told FOX News that Asghari is...

Istanbul, 28 Feb. (AKI) - Retired Iranian general and former deputy defence minister, Alireza Asghari, has gone missing during a private visit to Turkey, Arab and Iranian newsreports said on Wednesday. Asghari arrived in the Turkish city on a flight from Damascus and after checking into the Hotel Ghilan has not been seen since, the reports said. Asghari is a former general in the hardline Pasdaran or Revolutionary Guard, and served in the cabinet of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. Baztab, an internet site linked to the Pasdaran, reported that Ashgari may have been kidnapped. Baztab recently reported that Asghari's...

[snip] To begin CNN This Morning's discussion of the anti-ICE riots, host Audie Cornish called on Karen Attiah, the creator and leader of the Resistance Summer School. As per its website, the school is: A "structure for radical learning . . . Students will explore how colonial legacies and racial hierarchies shape global politics, diplomacy, conflict, and coverage —and how media systems often reinforce (or resist) these power structures." Take a look below at the school's insignia featuring a clenched fist, a traditional socialist symbol. And it adopts as its motto, "A Luta Continua" [The Struggle Continues.] That was the...

The ongoing tensions between Turkey and Israel reached another high point on Sunday, after Israeli ministers reacted strongly to the suggestion of Turkey’s interior minister that Jerusalem could one day be reconquered by the successor state to the Ottoman Empire.Speaking at a party convention, Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said that “just as we witnessed the liberation of Damascus, Aleppo, and Karabakh, God willing, one day we will also witness the liberation of Jerusalem.”This is a reference to the defeat of the Assad regime at the hands of the Islamist alliance led by the now-defunct terror group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS),...

It’s a typical afternoon in Saint-Denis, the narrow streets packed with people whose faces you cannot see. The women move in niqab, shapes without features, eyes that do not meet yours. The shop signs are in Arabic, the smell of cumin and lamb fat rises from every doorway, thick and permanent, as if the street itself has been marinated in another world. From three directions at once, the call to prayer cuts through the air. Al-lahu Akbar. God is great. Come to prayer. Come to salvation. Even the French police do not enter without backup. Ambulances request escorts before responding...

“Qatar bought a soccer team, a giant energy conglomerate — and, it seems, a French President.” — Biff Spackle.In April 2024, a 73-page secret report landed on the desk of France’s President Macron. It said the Muslim Brotherhood (once aligned with Nazi Germany) had spent forty years (yes, four decades) secretly infiltrating French neighborhoods, schools, and city halls. And all of it was bankrolled by Qatar and Turkey. Emmanuel Macron read the report. He understood it. Then he locked it in a drawer. And full credit for this story goes to Behind the Narrative 📣. This is the story he...

Mehek Cooke@MehekCookeTrump just turned the Abraham Accords into an accountability trap for the Gulf states and Iran walked right into it.Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey have never held Iran accountable is due to exposure. They share a neighborhood. They can't sanction, shame, or confront Iran while having zero security architecture binding them to the West or to each other.The Abraham Accords change that math entirely. Once Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are signatories, they aren't just recognizing Israel they are locking themselves into a collective security posture.A breach of the Iran deal becomes their problem...

Air raid alerts...Kuwait and Bahrain...Iran retaliates for earlier US attacks... At least 25 attacking Ukrainian drones shot down in the Leningrad Region...at least eight attacking Ukrainian drones...shot down in Moscow Region... Dozens of people died of thirst in the Sahara Desert... One Turkish fisherman killed, four others wounded in attack...in the Black Sea... In Israel tonight a new Channel 12 news poll saying 58 percent... Israeli soldiers killing a seven-month-old Palestinian infant and wounding his parents tonight... "they're strong, they're proud" US President Donald Trump...why Iran has not agreed... "the ball is in Trump's court" Those words from a military...

The Mossad armed Kurdish militias with weapons seized during the war from the terrorist organizations Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The move to arm the militias was carried out as part of a broader plan intended to bring about the toppling of the regime in Iran. As part of the assistance, the Kurdish militias received financial support, vehicles, and were supplied with light weapons, anti-tank missiles, grenades, and mortar shells. The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was also actively involved in the security plan to arm the Kurds. Despite cooperation between the intelligence agencies, the joint...