Free Republic

Head of MI5 paints sobering picture of range of threats facing Britain and European allies LONDON—The U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency is devoting more resources to countering state threats than during the Cold War, as Britain looks to fend off escalating hybrid attacks from Iran and Russia.Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, said the country “had entered a new era of national security” as intelligence services face a growing waterfront of risks that extend far beyond the traditional threat posed by Islamist terrorists.“These days our terrorist and state threats operational missions are pretty much of equal scale: that in itself...

We're living in the best timeline. This morning, Ilhan Omar's home was raided by Homeland Security, because marrying your brother to commit immigration fraud is apparently a "no-no." Boxes of evidence were hauled from Omar's DC home and now we know that the investigation into Omar's citizenship status has an official nickname: World War Eleven The hard-hitting journos at WaPo have brought us absolute gold with this reporting.

A projectile struck a passenger terminal at the international airport in Riyadh on Sunday, a day after a missile hit the same terminal and killed 12 people, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said. The Houthis claimed responsibility for those attacks and others. Saudi authorities said there were injuries in the latest attack on the King Khalid International Airport complex for terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights. Saturday's missile attack was the deadliest in a Gulf Arab nation since the Iran war began, with another 300 people wounded, some critically. The airport was still closed Sunday....

Donald Trump agreed to buy diesel from Vladimir Putin after Volodymyr Zelensky ignored his requests to stop bombing Russian oil refineries, sources have said. Mr Trump announced on Friday that Putin would "immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel fuel to the American and global marketplace", followed by another 1.5 million tons before the end of the year. The US president is facing pressure from voters over the cost of fuel before November's midterms as diesel prices have soared around 70 per cent since he launched a war against Iran. On Friday, a gallon of diesel cost $6.28, up...

The White House is monitoring a plague outbreak in Russia after a lab technician died and hundreds of people she came into contact with were placed in quarantine. An official with the Trump administration told Axios on Sunday that the administration is 'aware, monitoring the outbreak, and assessing options.' Darya Shipilova, 28, was reportedly working at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute in Siberia when she was exposed to pneumonic plague

“The United States has decided to remove all of its B-1 bombers from an air base in the United Kingdom following a suspected terror plot in the country. Around a dozen American bombers were stationed at the RAF Fairford air base, located northwest of London, until the Pentagon made the move on Sunday. The air base was used as a hub for launching bomber strikes in Iran. The Pentagon said in a statement on Sunday: 'While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all U.S. bombers that...

Russia has warned NATO it would be ready to resort to nuclear ​weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders the Baltic Sea. In a document sent to NATO ‌and seen by Reuters, Moscow accused the alliance of a "dangerous and reckless course" that entailed "high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict". The document said this included the possibility of "Russian strikes against decision-making centers in the alliance's member states right from the outset". "Russia will be ready to use the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal,...

An American spy satellite that was recently declassified to the public has mysteriously exploded, sparking concern that more satellites that provide phone and internet service may soon suffer the same fate. The device, called USA 32, broke apart while in low Earth orbit on September 13, creating a large debris cloud just over 480 miles above the planet, the US Space Force said. The military added that 'further analysis is ongoing' and did not release any other details or rule out the possibility of an anti-satellite weapon. USA 32 had been in space since 1988 and was also known by...

Russia was behind an arson attack on an Estonian defence company in the capital Tallinn last month, authorities say. Prime Minister Kristen Michal said the attack on Milrem Robotics - which supplies Ukraine with unmanned military vehicles - was ordered by Russian special services, but gave no details. Moscow has been accused of launching sabotage attacks in a number of Nato countries that have been helping Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022. Russia denies such allegations and has been quick to reject the Estonian accusation, too. But EU countries have rushed to Estonia's...

A squad of Ukrainian “kamikaze ground robots” airdropped behind enemy lines have taken out 3,000 Russian soldiers and reclaimed 48 square miles of occupied territory in Donetsk, officials announced. The secretive mission, dubbed “Operation Vivaldi,” began in May and wrapped up last week, when the Third Army Corps of the Ukraine’s Armed Forces made details of the feat public. “An historic moment,” it boasted on Telegram Thursday. “The Third Army Corps has begun a new stage of the war with the landing of ground robots.” The operation recaptured five villages and three settlements in the contested region of Donetsk in...

School strikes are taking place across Germany to protest against the possible reintroduction of compulsory military service. One of the organisers of the strike, Bela Breitner, from School Strike Against Compulsory Military Service said the federal government was "serious about gradually reintroducing compulsory military service". At one protest in Hamburg, demonstrators waved flags and held up banners emblazoned with the words "We won't take part in your wars". German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has made boosting Germany's military a priority following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A new law introducing voluntary military service came into force in January, with the aim of...

The Army Reserve has asked its commanders whether military police, medics and other support units could be made available as soon as late December to back potential military action aimed at Cuba, according to a new report. An internal Army message reviewed by CBS News sought feedback by Friday about the status of those forces, which would be “possibly needed in 90-120 days.” The missive does not mention Cuba, but the outlet cited multiple US officials who claimed anonymously that the Communist island is the focus of military planning. The message also does not say how many troops would be...

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Friday that some European leaders are openly preparing for war with Russia, accusing them of escalating tensions while ignoring their own citizens. Speaking during a meeting of Russia’s Military-Industrial Commission, Putin claimed that NATO continues to expand and that European governments are using the alleged Russian threat to justify increased military spending and cover up failures in economic and social policy. “Some European leaders openly say they are preparing for war with Russia,” Putin said, according to Interfax. Putin also insisted that Moscow has “no aggressive intentions” toward European countries and said Russia remains prepared...

President Donald Trump on Friday announced an agreement with Greenland and Denmark that gives the U.S. what he described as “permanent control over security, and all other needs” in the Danish island territory.

A drone hit the cooling tower of Russia's Kursk nuclear power plant, near the border with Ukraine, but caused no fire, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday, calling for "maximum military restraint to prevent the risk of a nuclear accident". The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "has been informed that the cooling tower of a reactor unit of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in the Russian Federation was hit by a drone early on Thursday". "It was reported that the unit was operating at the time, but its operating mode did not change and there was no fire," the...

As Iran and its allies tightened their grip on shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia scrambled this week to reroute millions of barrels of oil after being forced to close a critical pipeline damaged in an attack.The shutdown of the East-West pipeline risks keeping 4 percent of the world’s oil supply from reaching international markets and driving energy prices even higher.Saudi Arabia on Friday said it had temporarily shut the pipeline after it was struck by an Iran-backed militia. The pipeline, a 750-mile network that transports crude across Saudi Arabia to ports on the Red Sea, had been...

A Russian strike has hit a train near the Ukraine-Poland border shortly after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other top European officials had passed through. No casualties were reported after the Russian strike, which hit the train's engine. Johnson and some of Europe's most senior security advisers, including the UK's Jonathan Powell, had passed along the same line on their way back from a conference in the capital, Kyiv. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a Russian drone had struck 800m from Polish border. Russia has in recent months carried out a number of deadly attacks targeting Ukraine's...

A regional train carrying 186 passengers derailed in northwestern France Friday evening, injuring 44 people — including a young woman critically (although she is expected to survive). A metal object was found on the track following the disaster. Officials suspect it wasn’t an accident. French law enforcement wants to know what the object was, and just what the heck it was doing there. A spokeswoman for the French national police communications service, known as SICOP, told The Associated Press the piece of rail found on the track was "probably" linked to the derailment. She spoke on condition of anonymity because...

Finding deepens U.S.-China tensions ahead of the Trump-Xi summit as officials examine possible Chinese help tracking American warships Before Iran carried out its attack that killed three U.S. troops in July, Tehran acquired high-resolution satellite images of the base in Jordan from Chinese entities, according to U.S. officials familiar with details of the incident. It is the clearest evidence so far that Chinese support for Iran during the war has had lethal consequences for U.S. forces, according to the officials, who say the U.S. has connected the imagery to the attack. The U.S. officials declined to identify the Chinese entities...

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...