All aspects of the oil business have come under the growing influence of the Guards, from the shadow fleet of tankers that secretively ship sanctioned crude, to logistics and the front companies selling the oil, mostly to China, according to more than a dozen people interviewed by Reuters.

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(May 6, 2022 / JNS) The U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected the Biden administration’s outline for a deal with Iran. Members voted 86-12 to approve a motion that opposes the lifting of terrorism sanctions on Iran to limit cooperation between it and China. Senators also voted 66-13 to approve a motion to block the delisting of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The lawmakers also demanded that any final deal must address all of Iran’s destabilizing activities.

The United States has been engaged in a controversial debate over removing the IRGC from its FTO list and only keeping its foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, under sanctions. Iran has rejected a partial removal of sanctions and insists that all designations be removed.

Commenting on the vote, Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted: “Biden Iran policy has failed. No pressure led to no deal. Most of Iran’s nuke expansion since Biden election. Iran sensed weakness & made maximum demands re IRGC. Senate just overwhelmingly rejected deal they offered Iran. Change policy now. Change personnel now.”

Dubowitz recalled a CNN article in September 2020 in which U.S. President Joe Biden argued for a “smarter” way to be “tough” on Iran.

“May 2022, his ‘smarter’ Iran policy has spectacularly failed,” wrote Dubowitz. “Time for new ‘tough’ policy and new personnel with credibility to execute.”

The Biden administration’s policy, which relies mainly on appeasing Iran in Vienna to achieve any deal, appears to be faltering as the talks have largely stalled over the IRGC issue. Now, there are murmurings of the talks breaking down completely with no deal to be signed at all.

‘An escalation in Israeli actions?’

According to Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, if no deal is signed, “there is greater legitimacy for acting against the Iranian nuclear program and its branches.”

Inbar suggested to JNS the possibility that we may see “an escalation in Israeli actions, primarily covert. We may also see U.S.-Israeli cooperation in such endeavors.”

In the event this becomes reality, he said, Israel’s new friends in the Gulf “will get even closer to Israel,” and this level of cooperation “may be enough to prevent [Iran’s] race to the bomb.”

A lot depends on what happens in Vienna.

The Vienna talks, which began in April 2021, aim to return America to the 2015 nuclear deal made under the Obama administration, including through the lifting of sanctions on Iran, and to ensure Tehran’s full compliance with its commitments.

The United States unilaterally withdrew from the agreement and reimposed economic sanctions in May 2018 under the Trump administration.

Until March 11, Tehran had been engaged in negotiations with Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia directly, and the United States indirectly, to revive the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Iranian and U.S. negotiating teams have been exchanging messages through the European coordinator of the Vienna talks, Enrique Mora. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Tuesday stressed that Tehran and Washington are still exchanging messages through Mora despite the halt in Vienna talks.

“We urged the American side to be realistic,” said Amir-Abdollahian. “Removing sanctions in all areas and receiving economic guarantees are among the most important items on our negotiating team’s agenda.”

Talks broke down after Iranian negotiators demanded removing the IRGC from the FTO.

Russia also demanded guarantees that Western sanctions imposed against it after its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine would not damage its trade with Iran.

The 2015 deal provided Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to ensure that Iran would not develop a nuclear weapon—a goal Iran has long denied.

But last week, former Iranian politician Ali Motahhari told Iran’s ISCA News: “When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb. There is no need to beat around the bush,” he said.

And even though the United States is aware of Iran’s destabilizing regional activities and its continuing work on the nuclear front, it insists on negotiating with Iran.

‘Less money to fund and conduct terrorism’

On Monday, U.S. Department of Defense Spokesman John Kirby told reporters that “Iran continues to be a malign actor in the region. They continue to support terrorist groups; they continue to develop a ballistic-missile program. They obviously, even as they sit in negotiations, continue to develop certain nuclear capabilities.

“And they are harassing shipping and clearly pose a threat in the maritime domain. You pick it. There’s an awful lot there that Iran is doing in a malign way in the Middle East region. … No problem in the Middle East is easier to solve with Iran having a nuclear weapon. So, we continue to support the work of our diplomats as they try to get a new agreement here on their nuclear development.”

Last month U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the House Foreign Relations Committee that the breakout time for Iran to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon is just “a matter of weeks.”

Pushing back against Blinken’s argument that Iranian aggression is a result of Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, former special adviser for the Iran Action Group in the Trump administration Gabriel Noronha advocated tougher sanctions, tweeting: “As U.S. sanctions are enforced more, the Iranian regime has less money to fund and conduct terrorism.”

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS “we’ve seen this play before. References to a diminishing breakout time by the administration have often been ways to justify the next round of concessions to Tehran or justify the current JCPOA-centric approach.”

Source: https://www.jns.org/biden-administrations-iran-policy-failing-as-senate-rejects-appeasement/

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As negotiations between Iran and world powers continue in Vienna over potentially reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said Saturday that Tehran would not back down “an iota” from its nuclear rights.

Speaking on Iran’s Nuclear Technology Day, Raisi said, “For more than the one-hundredth time, our message from Tehran to Vienna is that we will not back off from the Iranian people’s nuclear rights… not even an iota,” according to a Reuters translation of a state media report.

“Our knowledge and technology in the nuclear field is not reversible. Iran’s [continuation of] research in peaceful nuclear fields will not depend on others’ demands or viewpoints,” said Raisi, who came to power in August.

Raisi repeated Iran’s insistence that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are only peaceful — a claim doubted by Israel and the West.

The president attended an exhibit of the National Atomic Energy Organization, to see the latest achievements of nuclear scientists, according to state media, which did not give details on those achievements. Raisi described them as symbolic of self-reliance and self-confidence.

He also said Iran’s work on its nuclear program had accelerated.

The United States and Iran blamed each other this week for a weeks-long impasse that has held up a return to the 2015 deal that sought to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that the country’s negotiators would not return to Vienna, the site of the year-long talks to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), until Washington settles outstanding issues.

“We will not be going to Vienna for new negotiations but to finalize the nuclear agreement,” Khatibzadeh told reporters in Tehran. “If Washington answers the outstanding questions, we can go to Vienna as soon as possible,” he said, without explaining the specific questions that remained.

“At the moment, we do not yet have a definitive answer from Washington,” he said.

But in Washington, Khatibzadeh’s State Department counterpart Ned Price pushed back, suggesting it was Tehran that was not giving way to make a deal possible.

And Price warned that time was running out, as Iran gets closer and closer to the nuclear “breakout” point when it has achieved the capacity to construct a nuclear weapon.

“Anyone involved in the talks knows precisely who has made constructive proposals, who has introduced demands that are unrelated to the JCPOA, and how we reached this current moment,” Price said.

“We still believe there is an opportunity to overcome our remaining differences,” Price said.

He said Iran’s continuing nuclear development has put it within “weeks” of breakout, which would nullify the benefits of a new agreement.

“Iran has been able to shrink that breakout time from where it started to a point where we can measure it in weeks rather than months. To us that is unacceptable as a long-term proposition,” Price said.

Tehran has been engaged in long-running negotiations in the Austrian capital to revive the JCPOA, with Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia directly, and the US indirectly.

The JCPOA gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to guarantee that Tehran could not develop or acquire an atomic bomb.

But the US unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 under then-US president Donald Trump, who reimposed biting economic sanctions that prompted Iran to begin rolling back its own commitments.

Last year, newly elected US President Joe Biden pledged to attempt to revive the JCPOA, blaming Trump for allowing Iran to drop its commitments to the agreement.

In the past month, the negotiations — in which the US communicated with Iran indirectly through other participants and the European Union — have brought the parties close to an agreement.

But the talks halted last month.

Among the key sticking points is Tehran’s demand that Washington remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological arm of Iran’s military, from the official US list of terror groups.

But the US insisted Friday on keeping the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps on its designated list of terror groups.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, had told a congressional hearing on Thursday that in his “personal opinion” the Quds Force should not be dropped from the terror list, which has been one of Tehran’s conditions to renew the deal.

Asked Friday whether that opinion reflected the position of the administration of US President Joe Biden, State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter seemed to agree.

“The president shares the chairman’s view that IRGC Quds forces are terrorists,” she told reporters.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/irans-raisi-says-nation-will-not-back-down-an-iota-from-its-nuclear-rights/

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Israel is concerned about an incident in Jerusalem, and it could be planning a “major operation in a sensitive area near al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem,” Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported.

Iran termed this an “unexpected event.” This is language coming from senior Iranian media sources close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC backs Hamas.

Hamas and other extremist groups have encouraged Palestinian tensions with Israel in Jerusalem during Ramadan. There were clashes and Palestinian media incitement against Israel’s foreign minister and other leaders on Sunday night.

The familiar cycle of accusing Israelis of “storming” the Old City of Jerusalem is imminent. Hamas incitement claiming it has a “right” to fire rockets will soon begin. The goal is another war with Israel like last year, a conflict orchestrated by Iran to test new rockets and drones.

This could be the messaging behind the Tasnim article. Iran is outraged by the recent Negev Summit of Arab foreign ministers in Israel, and it needs to increase its profile in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the foreign ministers of the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt, in Sde Boker, Israel, March 27, 2022. (credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)
Tehran wants to use Palestinian suffering to increase these profits. The profits for Iran are not necessarily financial, but rather using proxies against Israel.

Iranian media claim Israel is concerned that a new “operation” in Jerusalem could “bring a new wave of dangerous conflicts and will lead the Hamas movement and the [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad to a very bloody and serious reaction.”

Israeli media have indeed reported that Israel could be ready for another conflict of the sort that took place last year. The driver behind these conflicts is Hamas and PIJ, as well as Iran.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-703194

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A hacktivist organization has revealed a highly sensitive Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps document that asserts Iranian “society is in a state of explosion” because of the crippling sanctions imposed on the nation due to its illicit nuclear program.

The US government news organization Radio Farda obtained the document from Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice), the whistleblower entity that has also secured confidential documents and video footage about the torture of Iranian prisoners, wrote Farda.

According to Radio Farda’s Golnaz Esfandiari, who authored the exclusive article, “the document covers a meeting with IRGC’s intelligence wing and quotes an official named “Mohammadi” saying that Iran’s “society is in a state of explosion.”

Mohammadi added that “social discontent has risen by 300% in the past year.”

Radio Farda said it could not verify the authenticity of the document beyond the sourcing of Ali’s Justice.

The official noted that “several shocks” in recent months have “shaken public trust” in the regime of President Ebrahim Raisi, who is listed as a US-sanctioned person for his role in several mass murders, including the massacre of at least 5,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988.

Radio Farda reported that “Mohammadi referred to soaring inflation, including hikes in the price of food items, energy, and cars. He also noted the sharp declines in stock prices.”

“The leaked document includes notes from a November 2021 task-force meeting chaired by Brig.-Gen. Hossein Nejat, a senior IRGC commander and deputy head of Sarallah, a key IRGC base that oversees security in Tehran,” the station said.

Omri Ceren, the national security adviser for US Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, tweeted on Saturday: “The Biden administration is giving Iran a nuclear weapons arsenal,” with a link to a Daily Mail article that declares: “Biden REMOVES some Iran sanctions imposed by Trump, including unfreezing $29 billion in bank accounts overseas, in bid to return to Obama-era deal that three negotiators have resigned over.”

In addition to officials at the meeting from the IRGC, a US-classified terrorist organization the IRGC document noted that the meeting of the Working Group On the Prevention Of A Livelihood-Based Security Crisis was attended by the Basij militia, intelligence bodies, and the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office.

The Basij militia is a volunteer force frequently used to crush demonstrations against political and economic corruption of the theocratic state.

The Jerusalem Post reported last month that Iran’s deputy interior minister, Taghi Rostamvandi, outlined factors during a speech that could shake the foundations of the theocratic state.

The Islamic Republic News Agency, the regime-controlled news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reported that Rostamvandi warned that Iranians are seeking with greater frequency “fundamental changes in the country,” and a secular government and way of life.

Revolts against the clerical state have erupted in Iranian society since the 1979 Islamic revolution, including the widespread Green movement protests in 2009 and massive unrest in 2019.

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-695612

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Illustrative: A woman covers her face in the style of Palestinian and Lebanese militants as she holds a Palestinian flag in a pro-Palestinians gathering in Tehran, Iran, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah coordinated with Hamas on the recent fighting in Gaza between Palestinian terrorists and Israel, according to the editor-in-chief of a Lebanese daily affiliated with Hezbollah.

Ibrahim Al-Amine, editor of the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, told Hezbollah’s Al-Manar network over the weekend that during the 11-days of fighting in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, officers from the IRGC, Hamas, and Hezbollah set up a joint military operations center in Beirut.

The commander of the IRGC’s overseas Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, visited the operations center twice during the military hostilities, according to Al-Amine.

The newspaper editor claimed Hezbollah sent weapons and ammunition to Gaza and “moved a number of Palestinian resistance officers out of the Strip during the aggression,” according to Al-Manar.

Palestinian factions were also provided with data on the movements of Israeli forces, Al-Amine asserted, asserting drones were used to prevent Israel from springing an “ambush” on terror operatives along the border.

He also said if Israel “expanded its aggression, the entire axis of resistance would have confronted it,” referring to Iran and its regional proxies.

Members of the Hamas terror group’s military wing parade in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on May 27, 2021, as Hamas claims victory following an 11-day conflict with Israel. (SAID KHATIB / AFP)

Al-Amine’s comments came days after Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, said Hamas coordinated with the IRGC and Hezbollah throughout the fighting, in a press conference quoted by Israel’s Kan news.

Sinwar also said there was “full coordination between the resistance in Lebanon and resistance in Gaza,” referring to several rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon during the conflict.

The Israeli military blamed several of the rocket attacks from Lebanon on Palestinian factions in the country, not the Hezbollah terror group. However, it is unlikely that terrorists in southern Lebanon would be able to fire rockets without at least the tacit approval of the Iran-backed militia, which maintains a tight degree of control over southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Ghaani on Saturday issued fresh threats against Israel.

“I’d advise all Zionists to go back and repurchase the houses they have sold in Europe, the US, and elsewhere to come to the Palestinian territories before the houses become more expensive than today,” he said, according to the Tasnim news agency.

During the conflict in Gaza, known in Israel as “Operation Guardian of the Walls,” Iranian state television reported that Ghaani spoke by phone with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh to laud the Islamist terror organization’s attacks on Israel.

Iranian Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (R). (AP)

The fighting in the Strip, which erupted on May 10 after Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem amid escalating Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the city, ended last week with a ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza-ruling terror group.

Thirteen people were killed in Israel, all but one of them civilians, including a 5-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. Some 357 people in Israel were wounded. Terror groups in Gaza fired more than 4,300 rockets at Israel during the fighting.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said at least 243 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children and teens, with 1,910 people wounded. It does not differentiate between terror group members and civilians. The Israeli military maintained that it killed some 225 terrorist operatives and that the Palestinian death toll was in fact considerably higher than was reported. It also said some of the civilian fatalities were caused by Hamas rockets falling short and landing in the Strip.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-hamas-and-hezbollah-coordinated-gaza-fighting-in-joint-war-room-report/

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EXCLUSIVE: Long-range missiles from Iran splashed down close to a commercial ship in the Indian Ocean Saturday and 100 miles from the Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group, Fox News has learned, in the latest example of rising tensions in the region.

U.S. officials say at least one of the missiles landed 20 miles from the commercial vessel but refused to offer more specifics about the ship, citing privacy concerns. The officials requested anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Iran tests missiles frequently. Senior U.S. military officials say 100 miles was a long way from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Another source says these missiles did not cause alarm, and this was a fairly standard routine exercise.

Twenty miles near a commercial vessel is more concerning, but not seen as a threat by the U.S. military, another source said.

At least two Iranian ballistic missiles exploded on impact when they hit the ocean, sending shards of debris in all directions.

The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) steams ahead while participating in Malabar 2020 in the North Arabian Sea. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Keenan Daniels)

“We were expecting the missile launch,” one official said, but there was some concern just how close Iran was willing to push the envelope.

In May of last year, the Iranian Navy said more than a dozen people died during training when it hit one of its own warships with a missile, Forbes reported.

While 100 miles is well over the horizon and not visible from the aircraft carrier or its escort ships, American spy satellites orbiting high above in space tracked the missile launch from the Islamic Republic. It’s not immediately clear if the AN/SPY-1 radar aboard the guided-missile cruiser escorting the aircraft carrier Nimitz tracked the launch.

Nimitz has remained in the northern Arabian Sea on the orders of President Trump through the inauguration. Earlier this month, the Pentagon reversed course and ordered the Nimitz not to return home, but instead to turn around and remain in the region. The aircraft carrier put to sea in early April from Washington state after the crew quarantined onboard pierside for two weeks.

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Illustrative: An Israeli submarine sails during Independence Day celebrations marking 70 years since the founding of the state in 1948, in Tel Aviv, April 19, 2018. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

After an Israel Defense Forces spokesman told a Saudi newspaper on Friday that Israeli submarines were quietly operating “everywhere,” an unnamed Iranian official told Al Jazeera Saturday that “Tehran’s response to any attack on national security will be strong and wide.”

The anonymous source claimed that Israel “is looking for excuses to drag the region into tension that will create chaos” in the final days of US President Donald Trump’s term.

And the top naval commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that Iran was ready to defend itself and was prepared for any scenario.

“Forces, systems, and equipment are at the desired level of readiness to defend the water borders, the interests and security of our country,” said IRGC Navy Commander Admiral Alireza Tangsiri.

Tangsiri’s comments came after IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman told the Saudi Arabian Elaph news outlet that Israel was tracking Iranian movements around the region and that Israeli submarines were quietly “sailing everywhere.”

Zilberman gave the interview after an Israeli submarine reportedly openly crossed the Suez Canal last week in a show of force directed at Iran. The move was approved by Egypt, according to the Kan public broadcaster, which cited Arab intelligence sources. The submarine reportedly surfaced and faced the Persian Gulf, which lies on the other side of Saudi Arabia.

The intelligence sources said the move was meant to “send a message” to Iran.

Brig. Gen. Hidai Zilberman, who was nominated to take over as the next IDF spokesperson on June 13, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

Zilberman additionally said that although Israel was not aware of any specific plans by Iran to attack the Jewish state, Iranian forces could carry out an attack from Iraq or Yemen, according to a translation of the interview by the Ynet news site.

He said Israel had information indicating Iran was developing unmanned aerial vehicles and “smart missiles” in Iraq and Yemen, and that the weapons could have the ability to strike Israel.

Zilberman said Israel had attacked targets in Syria in the past year, and used 500 smart missiles, without any response from Iran or the Syrian regime. He added that Israel had no intention of letting up its pressure campaign against Iran in Syria.

The IDF has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011 against moves by Iran to establish a permanent military presence in the country and efforts to transport advanced, game-changing weapons to terrorist groups in the region, principally Hezbollah.

Zilberman’s comments were not immediately available in English and the interview contained few direct quotes.

On Monday, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi warned Iran against attacking Israel, saying that the Jewish state will retaliate forcefully against any aggression.

Iran has threatened to attack Israel since the assassination of its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in late November, in a raid blamed on the Jewish state.

In this Sept. 18, 2016 file photo Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard commanders in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In a strikingly similar move to the reported Israeli submarine crossing of the Suez Canal, a US nuclear submarine crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday as the anniversary of the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by a US drone approached.

US military officials fear an attack by Tehran to avenge the powerful Soleimani, leader of the IRGC’s elite Quds force, who was assassinated on January 3, 2020, in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport in Iraq.

Agencies contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-warns-israeli-submarines-sailing-everywhere-iran-says-will-defend-itself/

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Illustrative: An Israeli submarine sails during Independence Day celebrations marking 70 years since the founding of the state in 1948, in Tel Aviv, April 19, 2018. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

After an Israel Defense Forces spokesman told a Saudi newspaper on Friday that Israeli submarines were quietly operating “everywhere,” an unnamed Iranian official told Al Jazeera Saturday that “Tehran’s response to any attack on national security will be strong and wide.”

The anonymous source claimed that Israel “is looking for excuses to drag the region into tension that will create chaos” in the final days of US President Donald Trump’s term.

And the top naval commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that Iran was ready to defend itself and was prepared for any scenario.

“Forces, systems, and equipment are at the desired level of readiness to defend the water borders, the interests and security of our country,” said IRGC Navy Commander Admiral Alireza Tangsiri.

Tangsiri’s comments came after IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman told the Saudi Arabian Elaph news outlet that Israel was tracking Iranian movements around the region and that Israeli submarines were quietly “sailing everywhere.”

Zilberman gave the interview after an Israeli submarine reportedly openly crossed the Suez Canal last week in a show of force directed at Iran. The move was approved by Egypt, according to the Kan public broadcaster, which cited Arab intelligence sources. The submarine reportedly surfaced and faced the Persian Gulf, which lies on the other side of Saudi Arabia.

The intelligence sources said the move was meant to “send a message” to Iran.

Brig. Gen. Hidai Zilberman, who was nominated to take over as the next IDF spokesperson on June 13, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

Zilberman additionally said that although Israel was not aware of any specific plans by Iran to attack the Jewish state, Iranian forces could carry out an attack from Iraq or Yemen, according to a translation of the interview by the Ynet news site.

He said Israel had information indicating Iran was developing unmanned aerial vehicles and “smart missiles” in Iraq and Yemen, and that the weapons could have the ability to strike Israel.

Zilberman said Israel had attacked targets in Syria in the past year, and used 500 smart missiles, without any response from Iran or the Syrian regime. He added that Israel had no intention of letting up its pressure campaign against Iran in Syria.

The IDF has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011 against moves by Iran to establish a permanent military presence in the country and efforts to transport advanced, game-changing weapons to terrorist groups in the region, principally Hezbollah.

Zilberman’s comments were not immediately available in English and the interview contained few direct quotes.

On Monday, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi warned Iran against attacking Israel, saying that the Jewish state will retaliate forcefully against any aggression.

Iran has threatened to attack Israel since the assassination of its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in late November, in a raid blamed on the Jewish state.

In this Sept. 18, 2016 file photo Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard commanders in Tehran, Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In a strikingly similar move to the reported Israeli submarine crossing of the Suez Canal, a US nuclear submarine crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday as the anniversary of the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by a US drone approached.

US military officials fear an attack by Tehran to avenge the powerful Soleimani, leader of the IRGC’s elite Quds force, who was assassinated on January 3, 2020, in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport in Iraq.

Agencies contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-warns-israeli-submarines-sailing-everywhere-iran-says-will-defend-itself/

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A spokeswoman for the EU on Thursday expressed condolences to the families of those killed during protests in Iran and called for dialogue to resolve the tensions.

“We expect Iran’s security forces to exercise maximum restraint in handling the protests and for protesters to demonstrate peacefully. Any violence is unacceptable,” Maja Kocijancic, spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a statement.

“The rights to freedom of expression and assembly must be guaranteed.”

Read more: Iran protests leave ‘over 100 dead,’ Amnesty says

Germany condemned Iran’s security forces for using excessive force during the unrest. A statement from the Foreign Ministry said: “The right to peaceful protest must be respected. The people in Iran must have the opportunity to show their discontent with political and economic developments, and to voice their opinions freely and peacefully. We call on the Iranian security forces to exercise the greatest possible restraint.”

Internet returns after a five-day blackout

Mass protests erupted in Iran last Friday after the government sharply raised the price of petrol, and the unrest quickly spread to cities and towns across the country.

While officials have confirmed five deaths, human rights group Amnesty International said over 100 demonstrators were believed to have been killed, and that the real toll could be as high as 200.

Meanwhile, the internet slowly returned across the country having been shut down for days by the government in an effort to stem the unrest.

Via Twitter, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked Iranians to send the US videos “documenting the regime’s crackdown on protesters.”

Given the lack of internet coverage, it was difficult to obtain reliable information about the extent of the unrest. The blackout, which had reached its fifth day, had prompted Iranians abroad to tweet hashtags like #Internet4Iran and call for an end to the outage.

Protest leaders arrested

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday declared that the unrest had been put down. “The Iranian people have again succeeded in a historic test and shown they will not let enemies benefit from the situation, even though they might have complaints about the country’s management,” state TV quoted Rouhani as saying.

Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Tuesday the protests had been a security matter, not a popular movement, and had been dealt with successfully.

The country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a statement, saying the “arrest of the rioters’ leaders has contributed significantly to calming the situation.” Protest leaders were arrested by the Guards’ intelligence arm in the province of Tehran and Alborz as well as in the southern city of Shiraz, according to the statement.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/iran-protests-eu-urges-end-to-violence/a-51

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