Free Republic

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi on Thursday denied claims that Yemeni forces had targeted Mecca, calling the allegation "the lie of the age" and "a great slander," and claimed that the "Zionist enemy" represented the true threat to Mecca and other Islamic holy sites. "The real threat is the Zionist enemy, which seeks to target all Islamic holy sites, including Mecca, Medina, and Al-Aqsa Mosque," al-Houthi said. "We are ready to confront it as an Islamic alliance." Addressing the allegations against Yemeni forces, al-Houthi said: "This is an exposed lie intended to conceal failure on the battlefield and to incite others."...

The general shutdown followed a joint call by an alliance of Iranian Kurdish political groups for businesses to close and workers to stay home on the anniversary of the 22-year-old’s death in morality police custody, an event that ignited the nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Tensions were highest in Saqqez, Amini's hometown. Authorities deployed heavy security around the city and the nearby Aichi cemetery, where she is buried. Local rights group Kurdpa reported that authorities released water from the nearby Cheragh-Veis dam for a third consecutive year to submerge secondary routes to her grave, while installing elevated structures to mount...

New photos obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal for the first time the widespread damage and destruction of buildings and vehicles at multiple U.S. positions across the Middle East, as a result of Iranian missile and drone attacks. The Defense Department's inspector general this week released a fresh report on the war in Iran that revealed "equipment losses" worth up to $3.7 billion — including nearly 60 aircraft. In a first-of-its-kind mandatory report to Congress, the inspector general added that U.S. Central Command reported Iranian strikes at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

For Americans who follow the Russian-Ukrainian war, the past few months must look very strange. In the first half of summer, the story from Kyiv – and the many western media outlets that repeated it – was that Ukraine was winning. Then, not long after the NATO summit in July, Kyiv announced it lacked the interceptors to prevent a winter disaster. The country needed 300 missiles to survive, we were told. Even if these 300 missiles arrive, they are unlikely to protect a country as large as Ukraine from the sheer volume of Russian ballistic attacks and glide-bomb strikes. Now...

These days one reads fewer stories proclaiming the turning of the tide in the Russia-Ukraine war. There are also fewer tweets from Donald Trump threatening Iran with imminent destruction. Now that the noise has receded, it is a good time to listen. I am not hearing of a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive. What I am hearing instead is the thud of Russian jackboots marching deeper into the parts of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that Vladimir Putin does not yet control. Meanwhile, in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, the Houthis have taken control of the strategic port city of...

ADEN/DUBAI, Sept 12 - Saudi Arabia has shut down its East-West pipeline after the vital oil conduit came under aerial attack in the widening Middle East war. The world’s largest crude oil exporter temporarily closed the pipeline after a drone attack that both Baghdad and Riyadh said had originated in Iraq, where Iranian-backed militias operate. Iraq dismissed a military commander on Saturday in response to the attack. The 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) pipeline running across the Arabian Peninsula had helped Saudi Arabia to bypass a shipping logjam in the Strait of Hormuz, where tanker traffic has slowed to a trickle due to...

W. provided us with a helpful reminder of how the warning signs for the biggest terrorist attack on American soil were missed. Because not only did Americans "forget," New York City has an Islamist running the city. As if it were Bush's dutiful mission to push a narrative in stubborn defiance of the facts, he appeared at his presidential center with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, where he pushed the fact-free talking point that "Islam is the religion of peace." "I also made it clear that Islam was a religion of peace, not a religion of war, and that...

Saudi Arabia’s critical East-West oil pipeline system was struck on Thursday, with multiple pumping stations hit in an attack that could threaten one of the kingdom’s most important crude export routes, according to CNN, citing two U.S. officials familiar with the matter... ...OilPrice.com reported that NASA FIRMS had detected multiple large fires near the East-West pipeline, while Sentinel-3 imagery appeared to show a massive plume of black smoke stretching across western Saudi Arabia. One U.S. official said the attack involved drones originating from Iraq, although responsibility for the strikes has not yet been established... ...It also remains unclear whether the...

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The events of that day shaped my life, even though I was a third grader more than a hundred miles from any of the attack sites, with no direct connection to anyone who was there. As I’ve reflected on the 25th anniversary of the events that reshaped our world, my mind kept returning to another day that created a similar “flashbulb memory” for an earlier generation of Americans. Nearly 85 years ago, on December 7, 1941, Japanese forces launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and other...

Mr. Vance, who opposed the war from the outset and was charged by President Trump with helping to end the conflict, wanted the commanders’ individual judgments, in their own words, before they were consolidated into a Pentagon view. ...commanders were blunt. They were most worried about their depleted stocks of Patriot interceptors. The war had also exhausted the theater’s supplies of the Army Tactical Missile Systems, along with stores of the Precision Strike Missiles. Stocks of critical munitions were the lowest they had ever seen. Mr. Vance came away from some of his conversations with deep concerns about the overall...

The acting U.S. Navy secretary Hung Cao said that the Iranian military severely damaged a major Navy installation in Bahrain, acknowledging the extent of damage sustained by the base during the conflict. “They blew the hell out of Bahrain,” Cao said in an interview with The Epoch Times, which was published Thursday, referring to the Naval Support Activity Bahrain (NASB), which serves as the headquarters for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. Fifth Fleet. The base has been heavily targeted by Iran after the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against the Islamic Republic in late February. The Navy...

Iran has resumed production of ballistic missiles, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, contradicting the Trump administration’s claims that Tehran’s military capabilities have been destroyed in the months-long conflict with the U.S. Iran has assembled new missiles using existing components in more limited quantities than before the war in several underground sites, including the Khojir missile facility in southeastern Iran, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials told the Journal. The regime is also working on new underground assembly sites to avoid renewed American attacks. The U.S. and Israel have damaged several of Iran’s industrial facilities, and the U.S. naval blockade has...

When a group of European officials arrived in Kyiv to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day last month, they got some worrying news. The European Union, a key backer, had earlier this year finalized a loan of more than $100 billion for the country. But Ukraine now faced an unexpectedly large defense budget shortfall, President Volodymyr Zelensky told allies. To get through the year, he would need $27 billion more. Europeans understand Ukraine is in a fight for its existence but did not expect such a large budget shortfall, according to four European diplomats who, like others quoted in this piece, spoke...

Top White ⁠House ⁠advisers, including Vice ⁠President JD Vance and Secretary ​of State Marco Rubio, have privately warned ‌President Donald Trump that ‌the conflict with Iran could ⁠extend ⁠through the remainder of his presidency, the Wall ​Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials. The White House did not immediately ​respond to a Reuters request for comment. The ⁠advisers ⁠told Trump in private ⁠discussions ​in the Oval Office and the Situation ​Room that ⁠Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure, potentially prolonging the conflict beyond Inauguration Day in January 2029, the ⁠Journal added. The reported warning contrasts with Trump's own...

President Trump called the US-Iran conflict "small potatoes," comparing the six-month long conflict to the Vietnam War. The commander-in-chief pushed back at a reporter who criticized his downplaying of the Iran war, telling her she "wouldn't be standing here very long" because the Islamic Republic would've used a nuclear weapon.

YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CAbZRpy4tQ Excellent interview of Palmer Luckey.

Germany’s Foreign and Interior Ministers spoke publicly in Berlin on Sep. 1, 2026, to publicly announce new measures the German government will take against Russia in light of “police investigations” and “intelligence findings” which conclude that a “low-level” Russian agent was behind the drone incidents at Leipzig in August. Security services were first alerted to a potential threat when a quadcopter drone was discovered on the airport tarmac next to a parked Antonov An-124 belonging to the Ukrainian state-owned Antonov Airlines. 800 grams of explosives were attached to the drone, which CCTV footage showed impacting the wing of the aircraft...

The U.S. military hit targets in Iran on Tuesday after it said Tehran tried to attack commercial ships and American forces in the Middle East, as hostilities flare once again in an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. The U.S. strikes, and others on Sunday, abruptly ended a month without military action and threatens to fully reprise a conflict that has spiked global oil prices and posed political problems for Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections. The renewed fighting comes after President Donald Trump had appeared to pivot toward trying to bend Iran to his will through...

Iran attacked US forces in Jordan, a US source familiar with the situation told Fox News on Monday. The source added that nearly all missiles had been intercepted by US air defenses. Explosions were heard near the southern Jordanian city of Aqaba following launches from Iran, local media reported. Iranian state broadcaster Press TV reported that Iran had launched missiles at US ships in the Strait of Hormuz early on Monday morning.

The US military on Sunday struck Iran’s Larak Island, where forces were observed preparing to launch rockets with mines into the Strait of Hormuz, according to a US official, marking the first US strikes in over a month. US forces struck two Iranian launchers on the island, the official said. Residents reported hearing an explosion near Larak Island on Sunday, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency. Larak Island is near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping route that has remained at the center of regional tensions and diplomatic efforts. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed retaliation...