Report: Iran threatens to raze ancient Jewish site in favor of Palestinian consulate
Report: Iran threatens to raze ancient Jewish site in favor of Palestinian consulate
Iran-backed group launches attack near small garrison in Syria housing American special operators
Iran-backed group launches attack near small garrison in Syria housing American special operators
Iran-backed group launches attack near small garrison in Syria housing American special operators
A U.S.-backed Syrian partner force said Sunday that an Iranian-backed group launched an attack inside an agreed upon deconfliction zone.
Rocket attack hits northern Iraq base hosting US troops
Rocket attack slams into Iraqi base in remote province of Kirkuk where US troops are stationed, report says.
A rocket attack has slammed into an Iraqi base in the remote province of Kirkuk where US troops are stationed, security sources said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties, AFP news agency citing Iraqi and US security sources reported on Thursday.
Three separate Iraqi security sources told AFP that the Katyusha rocket hit the K1 base at around 8:45pm local time (1745 GMT) and US military aircraft immediately began flying low over the area.
It was the first attack on the K1 base since December 27, when a volley of about 30 rockets killed a US contractor there, which Washington blamed on Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi military faction close to Iran.
The US then carried out retaliatory attacks that killed 25 Kataib Hezbollah fighters.
Days later, another strike killed the head of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, General Qassem Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah cofounder, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Simona Foltyn said the attack came at the end of a 40-day mourning in Iran over Soleimani’s death.
“There is the possibility that this has to do with the end of the 40-day mourning period for Qassem Soleimani today,” she said, adding that the attack could reignite tensions in the region.
The attack infuriated Shia Iraqi legislators who voted to remove more than 5,000 US troops deployed in the country in a January 3 Parliament session.
Iran retaliated for Soleimani’s killing with a barrage of missiles that targeted two airbases hosting US troops in Irbil and Ain al-Asad. The troops had prior warning and none were killed, but more than 100 have since been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.
Iran and the US have since refrained from further escalation, but the issue of US troops has monopolised Iraqi politics.
“There is a fear that such rocket attacks will trigger a response that will lead once again into an escalation in a crisis that has only recently calmed down,” Foltyn said.
Iran Briefing | News Press Focus on Human Rights Violation by IRGC, Iran Human Rights
Iran’s IRGC: Killing of Soleimani will lead to liberation of Jerusalem
“The cowardly and craven assassination of commander Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis by the Americans will lead to the liberation of Jerusalem, by the grace of God.”
Iran is ready to strike the United States and Israel if they give it any reason to do so, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said in a live speech on state television on Thursday.
“If you make the slightest error, we will hit both of you,” Major General Hossein Salami said at a ceremony marking the 40th day since the death of top commander Qasem Soleimani.
Soleimani, who was head of the Quds Force, a branch of the Guards responsible for operations outside Iran, was killed by a U.S. drone in Baghdad on Jan. 3 along with Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
The killing of Soleimani will lead to the liberation of Jerusalem, the spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards said earlier, according to the Tasnim news agency.
“The cowardly and craven assassination of commander Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis by the Americans will lead to the liberation of Jerusalem, by the grace of God,” Ramezan Sharif said.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week that Iran would support Palestinian armed groups as much as it could and urged Palestinians to confront a U.S. plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced a plan that would set up a Palestinian state with strict conditions but allow Israel to take over long-contested Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian leaders reject it as biased towards Israel.
On Thursday, Iranian state TV aired an interview with Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in which he described a close relationship with Soleimani, highlighting the key role Soleimani played in helping build up Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal as well as his role in military operations during Hezbollah’s war with Israel in 2006.
Iran Briefing | News Press Focus on Human Rights Violation by IRGC, Iran Human Rights
Trump warns Senate not to approve war powers resolution on Iran
Trump warns Senate not to approve war powers resolution on Iran
Trump warns Senate not to approve war powers resolution on Iran
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned the Senate against adopting a resolution that would curb his ability to wage war against Iran, saying it would send “a very bad signal” and allow Tehran to act with impunity.
Ex-IRGC chief: ‘No doubt’ we would have flattened TLV if US bombed Iran
Iran would “no doubt” have flattened Tel Aviv after the assassination of former IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, if the US had attacked Iran, a former chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps who currently serves as Expediency Council Secretary said to the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen news network.
Mohsen Rezaei added that Israel had a role in the assassination of Soleimani and informed the United States about the commander’s flight from Damascus to Baghdad.
The Expediency Council advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on policy matters and makes decisions on legislative issues between the Iranian Parliament and the Guardian Council.
Rezaei made almost identical comments in January, saying “If [US President Donald] Trump retaliates to Iran’s revenge, we will strike Haifa, Tel Aviv and wipe out Israel,” adding that Iran is “very serious” about taking revenge and would target all US interests in the region.
On Saturday, Rezaei stressed to Al Mayadeen that Iran’s goal is currently to “get the United States out of the region.”
“We entered a new front against America because America started confronting us publicly and formally,” said the Iranian official, adding that all US bases and aircraft carriers in region are under Iranian surveillance.
“Even when American soldiers go to hotels in Kuwait and Bahrain, we monitor them,” said Rezaei.
Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, along with at least 10 other people, were killed in a US air strike in Baghdad on Thursday.
Iran Briefing | News Press Focus on Human Rights Violation by IRGC, Iran Human Rights
100+ US Soldiers Suffer From Brain Injuries Caused By Iran’s Missile Attack
In January, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched numerous ballistic missiles at the Ayn al-Asad airbase in Al Anbar Governorate, Western Iraq, as well as another airbase in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.US Soldiers
This is in retaliation for the U.S. killing of Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike at the Baghdad airport. And even though the immediate report was that none of its service members were injured or killed in the attack, its true consequences are now coming out.
Following the attack, the Pentagon released the report that 50 U.S. military personnel have been diagnosed with concussions and traumatic brain injuries. And now, on February 10, the U.S. military has revealed that there has been a spike of more than 50% in cases of traumatic brain injury stemming from Iran’s missile attack.
Now, the number of service members diagnosed with TBI (traumatic brain injury) has crossed 100. At this time, both sides have agreed to refrain from further military intervention.
In its statement, the Pentagon has confirmed that109 U.S. service members have been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury to date, of which 76 have returned to duty. This doesn’t mean that there will be no further cases as symptoms of TBI, like headaches, dizziness, sensitivity to light, and nausea, can sometimes take weeks to manifest.
Approximately 200 people were in the blast zone at the time of the attack, of which 100 have already been diagnosed with TBI, the impact of the attack was more serious than it appeared to be.
And while U.S. Republican Senator Joni Ernst has assured that “the safety & care of our deployed forces who may be exposed to blast injuries in Iraq,” it still raises doubts over U.S. military’s policy about medical emergencies and whether suspected brain injuries get the same level of urgent treatment as any other visible form of injury.
Iran Briefing | News Press Focus on Human Rights Violation by IRGC, Iran Human Rights
Facebook removes accounts run from Iran targeting Americans
Facebook removes accounts run from Iran targeting Americans
Facebook removes accounts run from Iran targeting Americans
Facebook (FB) announced Wednesday morning that it had removed a small network of fake social media accounts it said were run from Iran and were posting about US politics. Twitter also said it removed accounts from Iran, but said its investigations were ongoing and provided few details.
Families of victims seek justice over plane shot down in Iran
Families of victims seek justice over plane shot down in Iran
Families of victims seek justice over plane shot down in Iran
Puneh Gorji and Arash Pourzarabi were married in Iran on January 1. A week later, the newlyweds were returning to Canada to resume their studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton when their plane was shot down over the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Remember, Iran’s Terror Network Is Global
“They are warriors who have no borders… They are warriors who show their presence wherever needed.” That’s how Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described the Qods Force, the special operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during a Friday Prayer sermon in Tehran in January. Despite its name meaning Jerusalem in Arabic, the “Qods” (Quds) Force (and Iran’s security services more broadly), have not limited the scope of their networks and operations to the Arab world or the Middle East.Terror Network
As Washington thinks through escalation scenarios between the U.S. and Iran for the rest of 2020, Khamenei’s reference to the borderless nature of the Qods Force cannot be ignored.
It’s rare for Khamenei to address Iranians from the Friday Prayer pulpit; his previous sermon having taken place eight years ago in February 2012. Following a string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and escalating Western sanctions, Khamenei then claimed that Iran would respond to such threats with “our own threats… that when needed, God willing, will be applied.” Days later came attempted bombings of Israeli diplomats in Georgia, India, which Israel blamed on Iran and in Thailand, as well as attacks in Bulgaria by Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah that killed six people.
It’s likely that in the aftermath of the killing of Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani, Iran will revert to this tried and true terror playbook.
Already, IRGC officials in Iran, as well as a constellation of Shiite militias in Iraq, promised to exact vengeance for their slain commander. But these sympathies are not limited to the Middle East and can be found even in places where Iran lacks significant sectarian affinity, like in the Balkans, for instance.
This January in Kosovo, a women was briefly jailed for inciting violence online after the killing of Soleimani. Such individuals could hypothetically provide Iranian agents, who have shown a willingness over the past four decades to work with the diverse likes of Sunni terrorists, Mexican drug cartels, and even disaffected Americans, a vector to achieve their aims against the West.
Iran Briefing | News Press Focus on Human Rights Violation by IRGC, Iran Human Rights