Free Republic

... The newspaper cited former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as publicly calling Turkey a threat to Israel last week and accusing Ankara of aligning with a hostile regional bloc. Bennett warned Israel could not “turn a blind eye” to Turkey, adding that Tel Aviv must counter threats from both Tehran and Ankara...

Iran’s Assembly of Experts has selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei who was eliminated in US-Israeli strikes, as the next Supreme Leader of Iran, according to a report by Iran International on Tuesday evening. According to the report, Mojtaba’s selection was made under heavy pressure from the Revolutionary Guards. Mojtaba, 56, lost his wife in the strike in which his father was eliminated. Earlier, the Assembly of Experts’ building in the city of Qom was bombed while votes were being counted to determine Khamenei’s successor. Due to fears of targeted eliminations, the 88 members of the Assembly of...

Russia has warned that the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran could result in the very outcome they were seeking to prevent, by spurring both Iran and its Arab neighbours to seek to acquire nuclear weapons. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the logical consequence would be that “forces will emerge in Iran … in favour of doing exactly what the Americans want to avoid acquiring a nuclear bomb. Because the US doesn’t attack those who have nuclear bombs”. Lavrov told a press conference that Arab countries could also join the race to build a bomb. The...

War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday outlined what he described as a "clear" three-part mission against Iran, insisting the conflict "is not endless" and sharply rejecting comparisons to past U.S. wars in the Middle East. Speaking during the first Pentagon briefing since U.S.-Israeli strikes began over the weekend, Hegseth said Operation Epic Fury has a narrowly defined objective: destroy Iran’s offensive missile capabilities, cripple its navy and prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Stena Bulk has confirmed that a commercial vessel hit in an Iranian missile attack in Bahrain early on Monday was one of its own ships, known to be in the employ of the US Navy. TradeWinds reported that the vessel hit in the strike that left one Asian maritime worker dead and two seriously injured, could be the US-flagged, 49,800-dwt Stena Imperative (built 2016).

Okay, okay. Rita Panihi is an Iranian news anchor in Australia. Sue me. She posts the videos the Fake News Media won't show in this country. Iranians dancing in the streets and in their homes doing the Trump Dance to the YMCA and marching behind banners that say We Stand With Trump and many other celebratory celebrations.... ...

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a polarizing hardliner who became the face of Tehran’s nuclear defiance and incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric — was reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes during Saturday’s strikes inside Iran. A report by the Israeli media outlet Ma’ariv stated that Ahmadinejad was under house arrest at the time and was killed in a targeted strike on his home. Ahmadinejad served as Iran’s sixth president from 2005 to 2013, rising from relative obscurity as mayor of Tehran to defeat establishment figure Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a surprise 2005 runoff. Critics at home and abroad described him as a...

Six people were killed and about 15 more were injured (Sunday) at the scene of a missile strike in the Beit Shemesh area, following the launches from Iran towards Israel. A 10-year-old girl and another person were seriously injured in the strike. MDA teams are providing medical treatment at the scene and are working to evacuate the injured to hospitals. Hadassah Hospital prepared for a mass casualty incident. The missile struck the roof of a shelter where people had gathered in response to the red alert sirens. It was also reported that in the latest barrage, a 50-year-old man was...

For decades, Iran managed to bluff American presidents. It deterred attacks from a superpower and carried out proxy campaigns against its neighbors and Israel. Our strikes on Iran on Saturday are evidence that this long-term strategy of negotiating in bad faith is bankrupt. The military campaign underway is the direct result of Iranian leaders’ foot-dragging, obfuscation and delay tactics. This time, they misjudged the president. The path to today began in 2020, when President Trump made the decision to strike then Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, an Iranian military leader who masterminded attacks against American people and facilities in the Middle...

Large crowds of Iranians poured into the streets of Tehran and other cities across Iran overnight, celebrating the news that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed during a day of coordinated U.S. and Israeli attacks. The ayatollah’s death, after nearly 40 years of authoritarian rule, represented a historic shift for Iran’s theocratic regime. Many Iranians, inside and outside the country, rejoiced, even as the threat of more attacks by U.S. and Israeli forces cast a pall over some celebrations. ...in neighborhoods across Tehran, the capital, pockets of exuberance emerged. In video calls with The New York Times,...

Russia says it has handed over the remains of 1,000 soldiers to Ukraine and has received the bodies of 35 Russian soldiers in return. Vladimir Medinsky, a top aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced the exchange of bodies in a short announcement on Telegram. He gave no details, but included an image showing bodies being unloaded from a truck. Hours later, Ukraine said it had received 1,000 bodies which, "according to prior information from the Russian side, may belong to Ukrainian defenders".

Déjà vu. A new Palestinian security force is set to operate under the National Committee for Gaza Management (NCAG) and will receive training in Egypt, as part of a broader plan to stabilize the Gaza Strip. Simultaneously, an international stabilization force is expected to deploy across five sectors, eventually reaching around 20,000 troops, alongside a civilian policing force of up to 12,000 personnel, according to Idan Kowler’s report on Walla. Under the plan, all weapons in Gaza would be centralized under a new civilian authority as part of a full disarmament process, a prerequisite for reconstruction. The announcement did not...

New satellite imagery and flight tracking data show a base in central Jordan has become a key hub for the U.S. military’s planning for possible strikes on Iran. Imagery captured on Friday shows more than 60 attack aircraft parked at the base, known as Muwaffaq Salti, roughly tripling the number of jets that are normally there. And at least 68 cargo planes have landed at the base since Sunday, according to flight tracking data. More fighter jets could be parked under shelters. The satellite images also show more modern aircraft, including F-35 stealth jets, compared to the aircraft normally seen...

23-year-old French nationalist who suffered head injuries after Antifa thugs beat him has now died. The man, identified as Quentin, was reportedly part of an informal security group defending a protest outside a political conference near Sciences Po in Lyon. The group was defending members of Collectif Némésis, a right-wing pro-women organization. Quentin was attacked while attempting to protect the group amid confrontations with members from an “anti-fascist” group known as Jeune Garde. According to the French outlet BFMTV, police said tensions began around 6:40 pm when opposing groups gathered. Roughly 50 people were involved in the altercation, and two...

A poll shows that around 40% of under-40s across Britain would refuse to serve in the armed forces if WW3 broke out. Meanwhile, 30% said they would still refuse to serve even if the nation was facing an imminent invasion. Experts across the world believe we've never been closer to a global conflict since the end of WW2 as tensions mount over Iran, Greenland, Venezuela, Israel and Palestine, and Russia and Ukraine.The UK recently raised the age limit for Army reservists from 55 to 65, a clear signal of its preparation for conflict. However, a 2024 YouGov poll shows that...

On June 8, 1967, the Israeli military machine-gunned, bombed and torpedoed the U.S.S. Liberty, an American vessel floating off the Sinai Peninsula, killing 34 service members. Those facts are not in dispute. But almost everything else about the attack is driving a wedge through the MAGA movement. On one side are prominent voices like the podcaster Ben Shapiro, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Rich Lowry, editor in chief of The National Review. They insist the attack on the Liberty was a tragic case of mistaken identity amid the chaos of the Six-Day War, a conclusion shared by a U.S....

Korean War hero Royce Williams is being awarded the Medal of Honor, and his actions are something not even Hollywood could have dreamed up. Congressman Darrell Issa announced on Wednesday that President Donald Trump officially informed Williams of his MoH. The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest military award. It is only awarded for actions so heroic that oftentimes, the person earning it is killed. Williams is still with us in 2026, and his once-secret actions are now out in the public. Buckle up for one of the most insane war stories you'll ever hear.

The Russian invasion force is in disarray following the deactivation of its Starlink satellite communications. Meanwhile Ukrainians are rushing to get their terminals whitelisted to maintain the service. Both sides have made extensive use of the commercial Starlink service, which provides long-range, jam-resistant communication. Now the service operated by SpaceX is being denied to the Russians, and only terminals officially registered in Ukraine will work. “The Starlink terminals added to the ‘whitelist’ are working. The Russians’ terminals have already been blocked,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in a statement on Thursday, The effect on the Russians has been catastrophic,...

At an emergency summit of European Union leaders in Brussels, the building blocks of an empire were beginning to take shape. […] In a brutal new age of world powers, the EU wants to build a bigger, richer, stronger “super Europe” able to resist the dangerous whims of the globe’s autocrats. Turning 27 quarrelsome small to middle-sized powers into a geopolitical heavyweight has been Emmanuel Macron’s largely unheeded call ever since the US president’s first term. This time, though, it is different, multiple Brussels insiders have told The Telegraph. “Let’s take a step back and realize we live in a...

The Pentagon on Friday night released a long-awaited strategy that prioritizes the U.S. homeland and Western Hemisphere — a stunning reversal from previous administrations that aligns with President Donald Trump’s military strikes in Venezuela and efforts to acquire Greenland. The National Defense Strategy — a dramatic shift from even the first Trump administration — no longer focuses primarily on countering China. Instead, it blames past administrations for ignoring American interests and jeopardizing the U.S. military’s access to the Panama Canal and Greenland. The strategy calls for attention to the “practical interests” of the U.S. public and an abandonment of “grandiose...