INTERNACIONAL
Trump vindicated as explosive report confirms Iran supervises Houthi ‘political and military affairs’
FIRST ON FOX: Following a year of significant setbacks in the Middle East for Iran with its proxy forces flagging in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria, Tehran is leaning on its influence over the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen to carry out its offensive aims.
According to findings obtained by sources embedded in Tehran who are affiliated with the Iranian resistance group called the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, not only are some of Iran’s most senior military officials in its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) involved in Houthi decision-making, but Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has his thumb on the deadly group.
President Donald Trump’s recent threats against Tehran over its sponsorship of the Houthis are supported in the report, which claims well-placed sources have confirmed that one of the most senior commanders in the IRGC’s Quds Force – the elite branch of the Iranian military – is «directly commanding Houthi activities.»
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea attends a rally in Sana’a, Yemen, on Nov. 22, 2024. (REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah)
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Khamenei, according to the report compiled by the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and first obtained by Fox News Digital, personally supervises all Houthi «political and military affairs» that are first approved by his regime.
«According to reports received from within the IRGC, Khamenei has personally emphasized the importance of Houthi attacks and the necessity of sending weapons and equipment for the Houthis to IRGC commanders and regime officials,» the report said.
The weakening of Iran’s «Axis of Resistance» amid the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria has increasingly pushed Tehran to lean on its proxies in Iraq and Yemen.
President Trump is taking action against the Houthis to defend U.S. shipping assets and deter terrorist threats. (The White House)
More than 100 attacks on commercial shipping vessels have been committed by Houthi forces since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, which sparked responses from surrounding terrorist networks, including Hezbollah.
The exchange of missile and drone fire by both the Houthis and U.S. forces escalated this week when the terrorist network threatened to renew strikes on Israeli vessels after Jerusalem cut off humanitarian aid headed for the Gaza Strip this month.
President Trump responded by vowing «overwhelming lethal force» until the Houthi attacks ceased and warned Iran that it would be held «fully accountable» for any attacks.
A missile is launched from a warship during the U.S.-led coalition operation against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in early February. (U.S. Central Command)
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«[IRGC Brig. Gen. Abdolreza] Shahlai is in charge of all military, political, and economic matters related to the regime’s intervention in Yemen, including all Houthi operations and attacks,» the report said, noting his close ties to the former commander of the Quds Force who was killed by then-President Trump’s order in Iraq in 2020, Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani had the blood of hundreds of American soldiers on his hands.
The report also found that the Iranian Embassy in Yemen is currently under «full control» of the Quds Force.
While it is not necessarily unheard of for intelligence operatives to work out of embassies abroad, the report said it could find no evidence that any personnel from Iran’s Foreign Ministry were in its embassy in Yemen.
The Iranian Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions.
Armed rebels of the Iran-backed Houthi militia take part in a demonstration against the U.S. and Israel. (Osamah Yahya/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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«The mullahs’ regime is the root cause of war and instability in the region, sustained through repression at home and the export of terrorism and conflict abroad,» Ali Safavi, a member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital. «The only viable solution to the Iranian crisis is the regime’s overthrow by the Iranian people.»
«A decisive international policy toward Iran must recognize and support the legitimacy of the Iranian resistance, proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist entity, activate the U.N. Security Council snapback mechanism and endorse the Resistance Units’ fight against the regime,» he added.
La fortaleza de Putin
El premier noruego Jonas Gahr y el presidente ucraniano Volodimir Zelensi en Oslo. Foto Reuters«Una desfachatez impresionante»
A former special envoy to Haiti blames what he views as former President Joe Biden’s absentee approach to decision-making for the current woes afflicting the Caribbean nation.
Daniel Foote served as special envoy to Haiti in 2021 but resigned in protest over what he said was the administration’s failed approach of supporting unpopular and unelected leaders.
«All of the governments that the U.S. has backed or anointed or imposed in the last 110 years have not represented the Haitian people,» Foote said. He said the Biden administration backed the then-unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry solely for his unwavering loyalty despite lingering questions about how Henry rose to power.
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Suspects in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise are shown to the media, along with the weapons and equipment they allegedly used in the attack, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on July 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)
Foote has been involved with Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. He now believes the country has descended into near-total collapse.
«It’s a thousand times worse now because we broke whatever weak social contract there was between the people and the government. And there has been no government since basically 2012. It’s a failed state.»
A recent U.N. report revealed that more than 1 million people have been displaced due to gang violence in Haiti, nearly 10% of the population. Another report indicated that 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is under gang control.
Foote said he never met Biden while serving as envoy, claiming that by then, Biden had «deteriorated to the point that they didn’t want him to see a lot of people.» Instead, he said, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison devised the plan to support Henry.
Foote said he recalled a remark that Biden allegedly made as a senator in 1994: «If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interests.»
«That explains Joe Biden’s approach to Haiti,» Foote said.
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Police stop a motorist in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Biden’s spokesperson and Sison did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
Nuland rejected Foote’s accusations, calling them «completely false» and referred Fox News Digital to former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols.
«What I observed that there was intense coordination, and there was not one person or two people who would make a significant decision on the policy,» Nichols said, noting that he got the job roughly a week before Foote resigned on Sept. 21 and so was not involved in earlier decisions. «All issues were debated extensively internally at multiple levels, all the way up to the principals, that’s the Cabinet secretary level.»
Foote said that in the past he felt no need for security while walking around Haiti because Americans were widely welcomed. Things are not the same anymore.
«Now the Haitians are looking at China, looking at Russia,» he said. «They’re like, ‘Somebody help us. The Americans just keep screwing us over,’ yet they still want the Americans to help them.»
A member of the G9 and Family gang patrols a roadblock in the Delmas 6 neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 11. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
The Biden administration committed around $600 million to fund an international security force, known as the multinational security support mission (MSS), composed of personnel from countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, Chad and Guyana. But Foote said he sees the MSS strategy as a waste of taxpayer money.
«They don’t have the security backbone to take on the gangs,» he said. «They need help. And that help is not 5,000 random police officers from a mishmash of 10 different developing countries led by the Kenyans, who have never led a security mission in history.»
Police from Kenya stand on the tarmac of the Toussaint Louverture International Airport after landing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Marckinson Pierre)
Nichols defended the MSS, declaring their efforts «incredibly heroic.»
«Having seen them on the ground in Haiti, it’s an extremely professional force, extremely courageous and one committed to the mission,» he said.
Foote recommends that President Donald Trump send 60 U.S. special forces personnel to train an elite anti-gang unit in Haiti and reestablish a signals intelligence program to monitor gang communication. Without such action, he said, the consequences would extend far beyond Haiti’s borders.
«It’s just going to continue to create chaos right off the U.S. shores and create a massive surge in migration,» he said. «Because if you walk down the street in Port-au-Prince, you look around and think, ‘I can understand why people leave. Humans can’t live in these conditions.’»
President Joe Biden addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Jack Brewer, who played in the NFL before founding a global foundation that has been in Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquakes, echoed Foote’s assessment.
«People are being burned alive, police officers are getting their heads bashed into the pavement – bloody, torturous deaths,» Brewer said. «One of my doctors had five of his close friends and relatives murdered. This all just happened this week.»
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Brewer said that any real change can come only from within Haiti.
«I’m talking about a culture that doesn’t accept stealing and doesn’t accept corruption,» he said. «Right now, culturally, it’s acceptable to steal, and that has to change. Until you fix the moral fabric of a nation and reinstate law and order, it doesn’t matter what America does.»
Hamas has claimed responsibility for rockets fired at Israel on Thursday.
«This launch is the resistance’s first response to the zionist entity’s violation of the ceasefire, which resulted over 710 martyrs in the last three days. It also comes after the IOF’s renewed ground invasion into Beit Lahia this morning, and the failure of the mediators and the world to curb the IOF’s aggression,» according to reports.
Strikes launched by Israel killed at least 58 Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, according to hospitals via the Associated Press.
The Jewish State resumed attacks across Gaza earlier this week, breaking a ceasefire, which reportedly killed over 400 Palestinians – mostly women and children – on Tuesday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
Israel’s military indicated that it intercepted a missile fired by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels early Thursday before it entered Israel’s airspace, the AP reported.
ISRAEL LAUNCHES NEW GROUND OPERATION IN GAZA
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives statements to the media inside The Kirya, which houses the Israeli Defense Ministry, after their meeting in Tel Aviv on Oct. 12, 2023. (Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
«Hamas refused offer after offer to release our hostages. In the past two weeks, Israel did not initiate any military action, in the hope that Hamas would change course. Well, that didn’t happen. While Israel accepted the offer of President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Hamas flatly refused to do so,» Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video shared to X on Tuesday. «This is why I authorized yesterday, the renewal of military action against Hamas.»
«Israel does not target Palestinian civilians. We target Hamas terrorists,» he declared. «And when these terrorists embed themselves in civilian areas, when they use civilians as human shields, they’re the ones who are responsible for all unintended casualties.»
Israel launched its war on Hamas in response to the terrorist group’s heinous attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., a staunch supporter of Israel, continued to express his support while visiting the foreign nation this week.
«Hamas does not want peace. I unapologetically, 100% stand with Israel, and demand the release of all remaining hostages. Sending this from Israel,» Fetterman said on X on Tuesday.
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Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., said on X on Wednesday, «Hamas could end this war right now if it released the hostages held in Gaza. It could’ve done so months ago, but instead it’s brought devastation by prolonging this conflict. America must lead the world in pressuring Hamas to end this war and bring the hostages home.»
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