Hassan Damirchi, a Prominent Musician of Azerbaijani Origin, Subjected to Harassment – HRANA News Agency, an organ of the human rights activists of Iran, has reported that Hassan Damirchi (Hassan Harguli), a prominent musician of Azerbaijani origin, is being subjected to unfair pressure by security apparatus for having accepted a plaque of honor from the Government of Azerbaijan Republic.
Hassan Damirchi, a Prominent Musician of Azerbaijani Origin
About a month ago, in January 2015, Damirchi travelled to Azerbaijan Republic to take part in a musical event. However, two weeks after his arrival, he was held back for interrogation by security personnel in Tabriz; his passport was taken and he was told that he would be contacted by the authorities concerned in due course.
Last week, the Office of Intelligence Security (Ettelaat), located in Khayaban-i-Saeb in Tabriz City, called him twice and asked that he present himself for interrogation, and that he should surrender both plaques of honor—one he had recently received from the Government of Azerbaijan and the other which he had received earlier from the Government of Turkey. Damirchi protested to the unfair pressure and illegal interrogations exerted against him by the regime’s Intelligence Apparatus.
According to available information, this prominent musician has asked the security agency to prosecute him in accordance with the law and legal procedure, if he has indeed done something wrong. However, he considers the pressure he is presently undergoing as unfair, unjust, and unacceptable.
Hassan Damirchi
It may be recalled that in a similar case, Hassan Harguli, a 72 year old veteran musician of Azerbaijani origin, was accused of acting against the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran and was put in jail for six months. According to his lawyer, Naghi Mahmoudi, the Iranian Supreme Court has now exonerated him from the charge of opposing the IRI; but in spite of this, ever since he was arrested in 2007, his music institute (Amuzishgah-i-Museequiyy-i-Azerbaijan) remains closed, its license cancelled, and he is personally barred from performing.
Iran’s IRGC says it monitors all social networks in country – Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) is monitoring all social networks in the country, Mostafa Alizadeh, a senior IRGC cyber-space expert said, the country’s ISNA news agency reported Feb. 2.
Iran’s IRGC says it monitors all social networks in country
“We have intelligence control over all social networks,” Alizadeh said, adding those who think the cyberspace is safe. He urged those who are engaged in suspicious or questionable activities online, stop them immediately.
“We ask them to keep the cyber-space clean,” he argued.
The IRGC expert further said that the organization will connect with those who involved in shady social activity and “advise” them.
He also unveiled details about arresting members of a cyber-group involved in “propagating obscene contents” via Facebook.
The IRGC pursued and identified 350 “offensive” Facebook pages, which were managed by 36 individuals, Alizadeh said, adding they had mission to change the Iranian lifestyle and target the families across the country to spread immorality.
At least 130 pages have been completely removed, and 12 individuals were arrested, he said. The arrested people are from Tehran, Alborz, Gilan and Mazandaran provinces, the expert said, adding 24 people also have been summoned to court.
An IRGC center combating organized cyber crimes said in a statement on Jan. 31 that it has managed to arrest the major elements behind the criminal activities on Facebook.
The arrested people have received indirect and covert support from the Western governments and had targeted a remarkable number of Facebook users in the guise of cultural and social pages over a span of two years, the statement said.
It should be noted that several of world’s most popular networks, such as Twitter and Facebook are banned in Iran, while users are still able to access them via proxies. A proxy allows bypassing ‘gates’ meant to block certain sites.
A survey by Iranian Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports indicates that 69.3 percent of the country’s young generation use proxy servers to by-pass the filters and access banned Internet websites.
Iran’s budget reveals its hardline priorities – The Iranian budget for the coming year, which begins on March 21, gives a fairly clear snapshot of the ruling regime’s priorities. And an understanding of those priorities should prove relevant to an issue that is much more prominent in the minds of Western policymakers and their constituents: the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers.
Iran’s budget reveals its hardline priorities
The regime is caught between a rock and a hard place. The very things that it needs for its material survival are the same things that threaten its ideological survival.
On one hand, Iran is facing serious economic pressures that provide it with an obvious incentive to complete a deal and thus secure relief from U.S.-led sanctions. Despite its best efforts, the regime has been unable to deny that those pressures exist.
The regime’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has touted a so-called “resistance economy” that he hopes would make Iran virtually immune to sanctions. Suppressive entities like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have dutifully followed that line by making bold statements about how impervious Iran is to pressure from the West.
But the language is equally consistent among independent economic analysts: U.S.-led sanctions have “crippled” the Iranian economy. Even Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in January that the nation cannot make meaningful economic progress until Western sanctions are broken.
The only way to accomplish this is by striking a deal with the West at the nuclear negotiating table.
On the other hand, Iran’s ideological and budgetary priorities make this an extremely difficult proposition. Despite the simultaneous pressures of ongoing sanctions and severely depressed oil prices, some of the most important projects for Tehran include spreading its influence among foreign countries, competing against Western interests in the region, and holding onto power via the same human rights abuses and suppressive policies that have made it a pariah within the civilized world.
The IRGC constitutes a prominent portion of Iran’s security forces while wielding considerable power over the country’s political, industrial and financial architecture. Beyond Iran’s borders, the IRGC controls the expeditionary Quds Force and directs Hezbollah and other Shiite militias, all of which have taken control over the fights against more moderate rebels in Iraq and Syria.
The IRGC is the source of some of the most aggressively anti-Western rhetoric coming out of Iran on a weekly basis. Its commanders and affiliates have very recently boasted of expanded missile stockpiles, drone technology, and other weapons systems.
And they have explicitly claimed to be prepared for war and capable of sinking U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf.
While oil revenues in Iran have decreased by at least 45 percent, with some estimates saying that the country is losing $1 billion per month, the budget for the IRGC is slated to increase by one third.
This extraordinary commitment to the most hardline elements of the Iranian regime belies the notion that the Obama administration has been dealing with a more moderate, friendly and rational Islamic Republic.
If that notion had a hint of truth to it, the Rouhani government would have stood up against ongoing efforts to expand IRGC power.
The economic strain of reduced oil prices should have given it the perfect justification to do so. But instead, the regime’s budget projections went out of their way to inflate the expected oil prices in order to sign off on spending increases.
Clearly, Tehran will only consider setting back its program if it faces more pressure, such as the new sanctions legislation currently being considered by Congress. We certainly hope that Virginia’s senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, would support that initiative.
The Obama administration has thus far stood in the way of that legislation, thinking its consequences would create a lose-lose situation — prompting Iran to walk away from negotiations and encouraging the world to blame the U.S. for that failure.
Its current budget shows just how unlikely it is that Iran will make a logical decision unless it is forced to do so. At the same time, Western policymakers should realize they are in a unique position to force that decision. And for the Obama administration, it may require as little as signing a bill that is already regarded as such obviously correct policy that Congress may be able to secure the very rare bipartisan support that would override a presidential veto.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards take lead on foreign affairs – Over the past few years Iran has emerged as a key player in some of the major trouble spots in the Middle East.
Syria, Iraq and now Yemen all have an Iranian connection, and it is becoming increasingly clear that this new more pro-active foreign policy is being driven by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
By sending weapons to far-flung countries, providing military training and advice, and funnelling money to client politicians, groups and militia, the Guards appear to be pursuing a new doctrine: in order to protect the Islamic Republic at home, Iran must confront threats abroad.
The most recent example of this policy came with the surprise news this month that one of those killed in an Israeli air strike on a Hezbollah convoy in the Syrian Golan Heights, was an Iranian general.
“We will fight to the end to destroy Israel,” vowed the Guards’ commander-in-chief Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari in one of a number of defiant speeches in response to the incident.
“The liberation of Jerusalem is near,” he added.
Khamenei in charge
The Iranian foreign ministry handed a note to the Americans through their interest section at the Swiss embassy in Tehran saying Israel had crossed Iran’s “red lines” with the killings and that it had to understand there would be consequences.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards take lead on foreign affairs
Bellicose statements, particularly against Israel, from Iranian leaders and officials are nothing new, and for the most part they are ignored as mere rhetoric for domestic consumption – to paint a powerful image of the country at home.
But there is something new in all this too: the Guards are increasingly driving and advancing Iran’s foreign policy.
The Guards – set up after 1979 revolution to defend the country’s Islamic system and to provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces – are now effectively the executive arm of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He appears to have taken all but full charge of Iran’s foreign policy in much of the world.
By doing so he has cut off the relatively-moderate government of President Hassan Rouhani from international politics, relegating the foreign ministry to a supporting role for his policies, which are implemented by the Guards.
One striking sign of the shift in the way Iran is conducting its foreign policy is the increasingly visible role of Gen Qasem Soleimani.
The charismatic commander of the Guards’ overseas operation arm, the Quds Force, Gen Soleimani has suddenly emerged from the shadows after years quietly working to increase Iran’s influence and power in neighbouring Iraq.
These days, Iranian websites and newspapers are full of photographs of him attending meetings and rallies. It appears that the Guards are keen to exploit his larger-than-life reputation to lend more legitimacy to their expanding role.
Gen Soleimani is widely credited with saving Baghdad from the onslaught of Islamic State forces last summer.
There is evidence that he personally visited the front-lines and advised Iraqi security forces on how to defend the capital as well as mobilising Iraq’s pro-Iranian Shia militia – by organising them as well as funnelling money and weapons to them.
The militia are now a major power in Iraq and control many districts north of the capital, despite the deep concerns of Iraq’s Sunni Arab population.
Gaining influence
In Syria, Gen Soleimani and the Guards have pumped the Assad regime with money and arms.
They have also helped establish a pro-government militia modelled on Iran’s Basij Resistance Force – a part-time, mostly youth-orientated wing of the Guards.
They have also encouraged the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah, to engage militarily in Syria in support of the government.
Last week, at the time of the Israeli air strike in the Golan Heights, the Guards commander who was killed in the attack was allegedly overseeing an attempt by Hezbollah to set up a missile battery aimed at Israel.
Through Syria, Iran has been arming Hezbollah with thousands of missiles of different range and types. Iranian leaders see Hezbollah-dominated southern Lebanon virtually as an extension of Iran.
Ayatollah Khamenei is now keen to open a new front against Israel in the West Bank.
He openly says so, and Guards commanders have repeated in the recent weeks that arming militants in the area is on their agenda.
The Sunni Islamist movement Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip, is already a client of Iran’s – receiving financial support as well as missile-building know-how.
The latest challenge is Yemen, where the Zaidi Shia Houthi rebels have taken over in the capital, Sanaa.
There is no direct evidence of Iran’s hand in the ascendance of the Houthis, but their worldview – their vehement opposition the US and to Israel – is similar to that of Tehran.
And there has been evidence of Iran smuggling weapons into Yemen before.
There is also evidence that the Guards have been smuggling arms to war-torn countries in West Africa. They also have a presence in Latin America, where for now the focus appears to be on economic and humanitarian projects.
The Guards’ main role in the region is to confront Israel, prop up and save Bashar al-Assad in Syria, maintain high degree of influence in Iraq, and counter the influence of the US and regional Sunni power Saudi Arabia in the region.
Ayatollah Khamenei has never been more influential.
At root of Argentina spy intrigue: a deal with Iran – President Cristina Fernandez has portrayed Argentina’s spy agency as sinister, accountable to no one, and possibly responsible for the mysterious death of a prominent prosecutor in his Buenos Aires apartment.
At root of Argentina spy intrigue
As a result, Fernandez declared this week, the Intelligence Secretariat needs to be totally shut down – and a new agency built from scratch.
“You can’t extort me. You can’t intimidate me. I’m not afraid of you,” she said, speaking directly to the agency’s leaders, in a nationally televised address on Monday.
But the underlying story of the dispute, sources close to both the agency and Fernandez’s leftist government tell Reuters, is more complicated, with roots in Iran and a terrorist attack two decades ago that has never been fully solved.
They say Fernandez has been in open conflict with her own spy agency for two years, following a deal in which she enlisted Iran’s help to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Fernandez has portrayed the agreement as the only way to confirm whether Iran’s government was behind the attack, as Argentine prosecutors have alleged.
Without Tehran’s cooperation, the investigation would have remained stalled and it would have been impossible to question Iranian suspects, Fernandez has said.
Iran has vigorously denied any role in the bombing.
However, some of the spy agency’s leaders felt betrayed by the deal, a source with knowledge of the agency’s affairs said on condition of anonymity. They had spent many years helping prosecutors build the case against Iran, and saw Fernandez’s agreement as an attempt to whitewash their investigation.
“It was like she switched sides … and was suddenly friends with Iran,” the source said. “That’s what this (dispute) is all about.”
A government official confirmed the Iran deal was the origin of the conflict, which he described as a grave threat to Fernandez. “When (the spy agency) stops supporting you, you’re screwed,” the official said.
Repeated efforts to contact the Intelligence Secretariat, or SI, were unsuccessful. No one answered a doorbell this week at the mirrored entrance to its headquarters in a stately building across the street from Fernandez’s palace in Buenos Aires.
ARGENTINES HORRIFIED
The conflict exploded into public view on Jan. 18, when Alberto Nisman, the chief prosecutor investigating the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA, was found dead in his bathroom with a bullet in his head.
Nisman had been due the next day to present new findings to Congress regarding Fernandez’s deal with Iran.
His death horrified many Argentines, as well as Jewish groups around the world, denting Fernandez’s popularity at a time when she is already dealing with an economy on the verge of recession and a long-running battle with foreign creditors over defaulted debt.
Fernandez has said she believes Nisman was murdered, although she has not detailed how, and no one has been arrested in connection with the case. Officials admit privately the truth may never be known.
Meanwhile, the depth and complexity of her dispute with the spy agency suggests the case could drag on for months or longer, with unpredictable consequences for all parties.
“This will go on and on and on, and we won’t stop asking questions, no matter who is involved,” Patricia Bullrich, an opposition legislator who was Nisman’s main contact in Congress, said in an interview.
“The roots are very deep.”
DIRTY WAR
The SI and its 3,000 or so employees report, in theory, to the president. But in practice, it has long operated in a murky world of its own, critics say.
The agency played an important role in the military government’s “dirty war” against suspected leftists in the 1970s. As many as 30,000 died at the hands of the state during the dictatorship, human rights groups say.
Many of the agency’s junior officers then are its leaders now, according to Gerardo Young, a journalist who wrote a book titled “The Secret Argentina” on the intelligence community.
Today, the agency still enjoys “unacceptable autonomy” and has continued to spy on politicians, leaders of social movements and others in recent years while resisting attempts at greater oversight, according to a recent report by the Association for Civil Law, a local non-profit group.
Nonetheless, Fernandez once believed she could use the SI in constructive fashion.
When her late husband Nestor Kirchner became president in 2003, he ordered the agency to help prosecutors uncover who bombed the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA, the worst attack on a Jewish institution since World War Two.
The collaboration produced results. With the SI’s help, Nisman published a report in 2006 saying Hezbollah agents had carried out the attack with financial and logistical support from Iran.
Nisman cited witness testimony, information from wire taps and the bank records of Iranians, and a photo that allegedly showed a then-official at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires looking for the kind of truck eventually used in the bombing.
In 2007, at Argentina’s request, Interpol put five Iranians and a Lebanese national on its most-wanted list in connection with the bombing. Many in Argentina’s Jewish community, Latin America’s largest, believed that justice was finally at hand.
“It seemed like the government was finally on our side,” said Eliana Hoel, 43, at an event to commemorate AMIA victims this week. “There was so much hope in those years.”
‘THEY NEEDED HIM DEAD’
And then, on January 27, 2013 – International Holocaust Remembrance Day – an unexpected announcement changed everything.
Fernandez, who by then had replaced her husband as president, said Argentina had signed a deal with Iran to create a joint “truth commission” made up of five independent judges from third-party countries to investigate the AMIA bombing.
Why she did so remains disputed.
Fernandez has said that, because of Argentine laws that forbid trying suspects in absentia, and Iranian laws that block extradition, the agreement was the only feasible way that Iranian suspects might ever be questioned in the case.
Yet many Jewish groups and others believed the deal signaled the end of Argentina’s willingness to pursue the AMIA case. The American Jewish Committee compared it to “asking Nazi Germany to help establish the facts of Kristallnacht.”
The agreement coincided with a major diplomatic push by Iran in search of South American allies, at a time when it was locked in a confrontation with Europe and the United States over its nuclear program. Leftist governments in Brazil and Venezuela also expanded trade and other ties with Iran.
In practice, the truth commission was never implemented, because an Argentine court ruled it unconstitutional – but SI leaders remained furious, the source close to the agency said.
In a report published days before his death, Nisman accused Fernandez of cutting the deal in the hope of pleasing Iran and receiving its oil, which he said would be a valuable lifeline at a time of increasing economic trouble for Argentina.
Fernandez has called that allegation absurd, and publicly accused rogue SI agents of planting false information that Nisman then used in his report.
In a Jan. 22 letter posted on her Facebook page, Fernandez suggested that after using Nisman to embarrass her, the spies arranged for his death.
“They used him alive and then they needed him dead. It’s just that sad and terrible,” she wrote.
The government official that spoke to Reuters said the SI’s leaders were also lashing out at Fernandez because they were loyal to U.S. and Israeli intelligence.
Some observers believe the confrontation with the spy agency is a red herring – and that Nisman died for other reasons. Despite Fernandez’s public accusations, none of the SI’s leaders or agents are known to have been detained so far.
Crime scene investigators still have not ruled out suicide, and other theories abound.
But Bullrich, the opposition legislator, said that in a case with so few iron-clad facts, the intrigue over Iran is, at least, a place to start.
“You had agents who were in conflict with the president. That is very serious,” she said. “We’ll pursue that. We don’t know where it will lead.
Iranian official likens Yemen’s Houthis to Hezbollah in Lebanon – The Shia Houthi group in Yemen is “similar” to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards said.
Iranian official likens Yemen’s Houthis to Hezbollah in Lebanon
“The Houthi group is a similar copy to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and this group will come into action against enemies of Islam,” Ali Shirazi said during an interview published on Sunday by the Defa Press news agency.
“The Islamic republic directly supports the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the popular forces in Syria and Iraq,” he said, adding that “officials in the country have reiterated this many times.”
Shirazi warned that his country will take vengeance for the killing of General Allahdadi and the Hezbollah members killed in Syria’s Quneitra. “The Zionists should wait for a response in any time or place,” he said.
Regarding the developments in Yemen Shirazi remarked: “A coup against Ansar Allah [the Houthis] is a coup against the people. Ansar Allah is not a small group or a special party as it represents the Yemeni people.”
“Hezbollah was formed in Lebanon as a popular force like Basij. Similarly popular forces were also formed in Syria and Iraq, and today we are watching the formation of Ansar Allah in Yemen,” he added.
This is not the first time an Iranian official has publicly announce a linked between Yemen’s Houthis and the Iranian ideological project in the region.
Last year, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, said Iran supported the “rightful struggles” of the Houthi movement in Yemen, and “considers this movement as part of the successful Islamic Awakening movements”.
The conservative Iranian Kayhan newspaper also considered the Houthis a natural extension for the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.
On Sunday, a senior official in the Iranian armed forces, Baqer Zadeh described the Houthis’ “victory in Yemen” as a victory of the Iranian Islamic Revolution saying the Islamic Republic‘s border now stretches to the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
How Iran Continues To Deceive The West – Last week’s IAF strike on a Hezbollah convoy near Kuneitra on the Israel-Syria border, in which six members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were killed, has led to increased Iranian threats to annihilate the Jewish State.
How Iran Continues To Deceive The West
Iranian top officials vowed to hit Israel with “devastating thunderbolts” that would cause “the collapse of the Zionist regime.” The IAF strike killed Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, who oversaw Iranian military actions in Syria on behalf of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
The presence of the IRGC members on the Golan Heights in Syria has led to speculation that Iran and Hezbollah were on the verge of executing a military operation against Israel.
Eyal Ben Reuven, a retired Israeli major general and former deputy head of the Northern Command of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), last week said that if the “highest level of Hezbollah and IRGC commanders were in the Golan Heights it means that what they’re planning could be an operation on a high level.”
Other reports claimed that Hezbollah planned to bring rocket launchers to the Kuneitra area in order to open a new front against Israel from the Golan Heights.
This seems to be pure speculation. The fact of the matter is that IRGC members were on a reconnaissance mission on the Golan Heights.
What does that mean? It is new evidence of Iran’s success in advancing its strategy for Syria and other parts of the Middle East (Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Bahrain).
The aim of this strategy is to widen Iran’s influence in the Middle East and beyond. It is for this reason too that Iran develops nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles; and it is one of the reasons it aims to destroy Israel, the sole regional superpower. It is therefore more reasonable to assume that Israel delivered a strong signal to Iran to not upset the delicate status quo on the Golan Heights, and that it will put limits on Iran’s activities adjacent to Israeli borders.
Iran’s involvement in Syria
Israel apparently realizes that Iran has taken over control of (what remains of) Syria from President al-Assad.
Here is how that happened.
In late 2012, al-Assad was on the ropes in his battle with opposition groups such as al-Nusra in the north of Syria and the area around Damascus. He had to make tough choices and decided to shift his forces from the Qusayr area to the area of Damascus and to eastern Ghouta and Daraya.
At that point, Hezbollah and IRGC stepped in to defend Qusayr to make sure that Homs would not be cut off from Damascus and to secure access from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon to Damascus and Homs.
However, as has become clear from a recent Der Spiegel report, there was another reason for the Iranians to step in at Qusayr. The German Magazine reported on January 9th that it had obtained secret information that made clear that the world had again been misled about Syria’s nuclear ambitions. A new nuclear facility had been built after Israel destroyed Syria’s nuclear reactor in Deir al-Zur in 2007.
This new nuclear facility is located west of Qusayr, two kilometers from the border with Lebanon. The area saw heavy fighting between al-Nusra and elite Hezbollah units in the spring of 2013. Hezbollah suffered heavy losses, but succeeded in holding the area.
Intercepted radio traffic between a high-ranking Hezbollah operative and Ibrahim Othman, the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission, delivered the clearest proof that an underground nuclear facility has been built in Qusayr. The Hezbollah man referred to the site as the “atomic factory.” During the intercepted conversations, he also mentioned that members of the IRGC were working at the facility.
According to Der Spiegel, it is almost certain that Chou Ji Bu, the engineer who built the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon in North Korea, is also involved in the new nuclear project at Qusayr.
Der Spiegel labeled the secret facility at Qusayr “a new Syrian push for nuclear weapons.” However, the area has been controlled by Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard since mid-2013. The commander of the Iranian paramilitary Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, was the one who fully orchestrated the Hezbollah takeover of Qusayr.
Though it is true that al-Assad originally directed the work in Qusayr that began in 2009, today it is clear that Hezbollah and the IRGC are the ones controlling the facility.
Members of the Free Syrian Army in the area of Qusayr reported on January 12th that Iranian officers were supervising the secret facility and that the Syrian regime is only a cover-up for this.
Another indication that Iran has de facto taken over Syria came from IRGC commander Haji Zadeh. He said that Iran is now manufacturing Iranian missiles on Syrian soil. He also said that Iranian missiles were made to hit Israel in the first place.
From Zadeh’s statement, it becomes clear that Iran uses the territory of Syria to advance its quest for regional domination and to advance its plans for the destruction of Israel.
Qusayr and JPOA
It is no coincidence either that Iran now controls a nuclear facility outside its own territory. Although Syria is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, inspections by the IAEA are not possible because of the turmoil in the country. This is an ideal situation for Iran, which is currently negotiating with the P5+1 countries about a deal designed to curb its nuclear program.
Under the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) that was part of the interim deal between Iran and the six UNSC countries from November 2013, Iran should halt activities at its plutonium plant in Arak. The White House fact sheet stated: “Iran has committed to no further advances of its activities at Arak and to halt progress on its plutonium track.”
Observers were quick to notice that the text contained a loophole. The reference to activities at Arak seemed to allow unlimited research and work on locations away from the site as long as they did not physically happen at Arak.
Later, it became clear that Iran had noticed the loophole too. Foreign Minister Zarif announced that Iran would continue construction at the facility. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not see any problem when reporters pressed her on the issue. She asked: “What’s the big deal about a road here or a building there?”
Foreign Policy last month reported that the United States has privately accused Iran of an international shopping spree to acquire components for a heavy water reactor such as the one in Arak. The magazine wrote that a U.S. delegation informed a UNSC panel of experts that Iranian procurement agents have been increasing their efforts to illicitly obtain equipment for the reactor at the Arak nuclear complex.
It is not clear yet what type of nuclear facility has been built at Qusayr. Weapons expert Jennifer Dyer says it is certainly not a centrifuge facility like the complexes in Natanz and Fordo in Iran. It could be a plant where yellowcake is converted to UF4 and is metalized into fuel rods for a reactor. But it also could be a plutonium facility.
The reactor in Deir al-Zur was assessed to be a gas-graphite reactor like the one in Yongbyon, North Korea. That reactor could produce enough plutonium for one or two plutonium bombs per year, Dyer wrote.
Whatever the type of nuclear facility in Qusayr, the fact is that Iran has decided to use Syrian territory to advance its nuclear program. The US State Department, however, insists that the facility in Qusayr has nothing to do with the Iranian nuclear program and that the issue will not be discussed in the ongoing negotiations with Iran.
Israeli TV shows Iranian IBM
Other evidence of Iran’s aggressive ambitions was published by Israeli TV Channel Two last week.
The Channel showed a satellite image taken by the Israeli EROS B satellite of a twenty seven meter-long Iranian Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (IBM) on a launch pad close to Teheran. This type of missile is generally used to carry a nuclear warhead and can reach the United States.
The existence of such a missile was known to Israeli intelligence. But Channel Two now reported that although images of the missile were never shown in the US and Europe, the existence of the IBM has been known to the West for at least two years. So both the EU and the US knew about the existence of the missile before they signed the interim agreement with Iran.
Iran is obligated by United Nations Security Council resolutions to suspend work on ballistic missiles. The images published by Channel Two clearly show that Iran has violated these UNSC resolutions.
More astonishing, however, is the fact that the JPOA that was part of the interim agreement between Iran and the 5+1 countries did not impose any restrictions on ballistic missile development. Originally, an US National Security Council official said that an Iranian ballistic missile test would “be in violation of the agreement” and cause the deal to “cease to exist.”
Obama officials, however, clarified their stance. Instead of imposing absolute restrictions on such tests, the JPOA apparently imposed no restrictions on ballistic missile tests. As a result, Iran now possesses a missile that can carry a nuclear warhead to the United States.
Twelve fruitless years of negotiations
These recent developments involving Iran show clearly that the regime in Teheran has not changed its ways and is still advancing its agenda of exporting the Islamic revolution by destabilizing the region.
It is also very clear that Iran keeps making progress on its nuclear program and is only conducting talks with the P5+1 -countries to buy time.
How do we know this? In fact, it is a simple story. The West has been negotiating with Iran for twelve years now. Iran’s position has remained unchanged since 2003, when the EU3 countries started to engage Iran regarding its nuclear program, through 2008, when U.S. Under Secretary of State William Burns joined the negotiations, until today, when the Obama administration is trying to obtain a deal.
The regime in Teheran insists on its right to enrich uranium and to build new nuclear facilities. Iran continues to work on the development of ballistic missiles that are used to carry nuclear warheads.
The Iranians also breached the JPOA by feeding gas into IR-5 centrifuges and by testing advanced IR-8 centrifuges. They illicitly acquired parts for their heavy-water reactor and busted through energy caps every single month of the deal. Iran is also heavily involved in a new nuclear facility in Syria that could be a plutonium plant.
Last week, IAEA director Yukiya Amono said that Iran still refuses to give the Atomic Agency all the information it needs to determine if all of the Iranian nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes.
Here is what Amono said during a speech at the University of Indonesia last Friday: “As far as Iran is concerned, the Agency is able to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declaredto us by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement. But we are not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclarednuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is for peaceful activities.”
When the moment of truth came in the negotiations in July and November last year, the Iranians refused once again to accept the proposals to limit their nuclear program.
At the same time, the positions of the West have totally collapsed. Gone is the demand that Iran dismantle its centrifuges and ship its uranium stock to a third country. Also gone is the demand that Iran cease all uranium enrichment as well as the demand to downgrade its plutonium reactor. And finally, the original demand to halt all proliferation-sensitive missile activity has gone, too.
The original Western threat that “all options (including the military) are on the table” to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear threshold power has become a joke. Now, the U.S. administration even opposes a Congressional bill to impose deadline-triggered sanctions against Iran if no reasonable deal is reached by July of this year.
During a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats in Baltimore last week, Obama charged that the Congressmen who favor the bill were doing so only to please “donors.” Everybody in the room understood that he meant Jewish and pro-Israel donors. Senator Robert Menendez, who initiated the bill, took this as a personal affront; but Obama didn’t back away from his statement.
While on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’, Senator John McCain this weekend said that the president has lost touch with reality. He said that Iran is on the march everywhere, and there is no strategy to defeat them. McCain stated that there is a need for congressional ratification of any agreement that is made, and that it is important that Israeli PM Netanyahu speak to the American people about the dangers of a nuclear Iran.
Two women arrested for their human rights work in Iran
Two women arrested for their human rights work in Iran
Journalist and rights activist arrested at her home
Reporters Without Borders has learned that Zahra Khandan, a former journalist with several reformist news outlets who defends women’s rights online, was arrested at her Tehran home on 19 January by Revolutionary Guard intelligence operatives in plain clothes. Her home was also searched. The authorities have not said why she was arrested or where she is being held.
According to the information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, several other women’s rights activists have been arrested in Tehran after campaigning for the release of Mahdieh Golro, a fellow activist arrested during a protest outside the parliament building in Tehran on 22 October in protest against a series of acid attacks on women in Isfahan and Tehran.
Young woman arrested in court over Facebook video
Reporters Without Borders condemns young human rights activist Atena Ferghdani’s arrest in a Tehran court on 11 January when she responded to a summons about the video she posted on Facebook and YouTube on 26 December in which she described what happened to her after her arrest last August.
After her arrest on 24 August, she was incarcerated in Section 2A of Tehran’s Evin Prison – a section controlled by Revolutionary Guards – and was held until 2 November, when she was released on bail on 600 million toman (700,000 euros) pending trial.
“I was interrogated for nine hours a day,” she said in the video. “The questions were mainly about my activities and what I posted on Facebook (…) In the bathroom, they had installed cameras that filmed everything we did. I found it very embarrassing. When I protested, the guards said they were turned off (…) but one day I took a plastic cup back to my cell and guards arrived within two minutes and tore my blouse in order to get it back. I just wanted to use it to do drawings.”
Ferghdani is charged with “activities against national security,” “anti-government propaganda by means for performance art,” and “insulting government officials and parliamentary representatives in a published cartoon.”
Her family said that during her appearance in court she was the victim of violence by the guards who took her off to prison. “The guards slapped my daughter right in front of us,” her father told journalists. She is currently being held in Gharchak prison in Varamin, a city to the south of Tehran. It is a prison used for holding non-political detainees.
IRGC vows revenge after Israeli attack – Iranian military commanders have promised to strike back at Israel for the Jan. 18 attack in Syria that killed an Iranian commander and six Hezbollah fighters.
Jaffari commented on the deaths of Islamic Revolutionary Guard commander Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi and Jihad Mughniyah, the son of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh who was assassinated in 2008, saying, “Today, all the youth in the Islamic world are ‘Jihad Mughniyeh’ and all the commanders of the Islamic revolution are ‘Allahdadi.’” He added, “The makeup of these martyrs showed that the Islamic Revolution has put geographical borders behind itself.”
At Allahdadi’s funeral today, Jan. 21, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Mostafa Ezadi said, “The fighters of Islam will avenge the blood of martyrs with strength.”
Ezadi praised Allahdadi, saying, “His path will be continued by the third generation of revolutionaries and the movement is not a movement that will be harmed by a desperate act of the Zionist regime.”
On reports that Israeli was unaware that an Iranian commander was among the group targeted, Ezaid said, “Our enemy is not bound by any values, and they knew this group was a combination of Iranians, Lebanese and Syrians, and they thought they could get results with this act, but when they saw Hezbollah’s strong reaction, they said this out of fear.”
Interestingly, none of the reports mentioned a Syrian in the convoy. Also, Ezadi referred to the incident as the first Israeli missile strike against an Iranian commander in Syria, but in February 2013 Hassan Shateri was also reportedly killed by Israel, though this happened on the Syrian-Lebanon border.
Ezadi said, “The Islamic Republic will continue to help the people and government of Syria in order to establish security.”
Commander Hossein Hamedani, who according to statements by Iranian officials is responsible for establishing Syria’s paramilitaries and militias, also spoke at the funeral, saying that there are now three Hezbollahs in the region.
Hamedani said, “God promised that if you resist and have a presence, you do not need to be worried about results. Your victory is from that. God also promised that he made your enemies from the most idiotic, and they make mistakes. One time, the enemy made a mistake and went into south Lebanon, and Hezbollah was born. Then they went to Syria and another Hezbollah was born. This year, they went into Iraq and another Hezbollah was born.” He added, “Today, Hezbollah shines in the region like the sun.”
He said that strikes against such groups are intended to create fear, “but they don’t know and they don’t understand that we race toward martyrdom.” He said that rather than becoming fearful, these strikes will create a “wave of jihad and martyrdom.”
Israel Killed A Very Important Member Of Iran’s Foreign Operations – A senior general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force was among six Iranians and six Hezbollah operatives who were killed in yesterday’s airstrike in southern Syria that is thought to have been launched by the Israeli military.
Israel Killed A Very Important Member Of Iran’s Foreign Operations
Sepah News, the official online news outlet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), confirmed that Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Allah-Dadi was killed in the airstrike in Quneitra, Syria. Both Hezbollah and the IRGC claimed that Israeli attack helicopters carried out the attack.
Brigadier General Allah-Dadi is the latest high-ranking Iranian military casualty in the wars in Syria and Iraq.
The combined Hezbollah and Qods Force unit is thought to have been scouting jihadist groups, including the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic Front, two organizations that are known to operate in Quneitra. Iran has supported the Syrian government and Hezbollah against rebel forces since civil war broke out in 2011.
Hezbollah confirmed on Jan 18. that Jihad Imad Mughniyah, the son of the notorious Hezbollah military and intelligence chief who helped found the group, and five other commanders were killed while conducting a reconnaissance operation in Quneitra.
The Iranian media has described Jihad, a rising star in Hezbollah who is said to have commanded the group’s units in the Syrian Golan, as the adopted son of Major General Suleimani, the leader of Qods Force. Jihad’s father, Imad, who was closely tied to Iran, is thought to have been assassinated by Israeli intelligence in a car bombing in Damascus, Syria in 2008.
Also reported killed was Mohammad Issa, who is also known as Abu Issa al Eqlim. He has been identified as a member of Hezbollah’s military intelligence branch.
An Islamic State sniper killed Hamid Taqavi, an IRGC brigadier general who was advising Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Samarra, Iraq in late December 2014.
In October 2014, General Jabar Drisawi, a general in Iran’s Basij militia, was killed during fighting near Aleppo, Syria. And in February 2013, Hassan Shateri, a top commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps who is also said to have served on Hezbollah’s advisory council, was killed in an ambush while traveling from Damascus to Beirut.
Brigadier General Allah-Dadi may provide clues to Qods Force’s leadership structure
The material released in the Persian and Arabic language material since Allah-Dadi’s death not only provides interesting insight into his career, but also to Qods Force’s recruitment pattern.
According to the IRGC Public Relations Department, Allah-Dadi was a veteran of the Iran- Iraq War, which was fought from 1980 to 1988. He had served as the commander of the Al Ghadir IRGC Ground Forces in Yazd province in eastern Iran. The most detailed biography however, was released by Mashregh News.
According to the news agency, Allah-Dadi, a native of Pariz, Sirjan in Kerman province, volunteered for the war effort in 1980 and initially served in the irregular forces of Mostafa Chamran (1932-1981). However, as the IRGC’s 41st Sarallah Division, based in Kerman, was established under the command of Qassem Suleimani, Allah-Dadi joined him and participated in most major operations up to the end of the war with Iraq in 1988.
The ceasefire between Iran and Iraq did not put an end to Allah-Dadi’s military career. For a time, he continued serving under Suleimani in Kerman, but later served for three years as Ramazan Brigade chief of the 27th Mohammad Rasoul-Allah Force based in Tehran. In 2006, he was appointed Al Ghadir Force chief based in Yazd, where he served until June 20, 2011.
Systematic references to Allah-Dadi’s work in the local press in Yazd came to an abrupt end after the end of his tenure. This can only be explained by a piece of information released by Mashregh News: “A few years ago, invited by Major General Qassem Suleimani, IRGC QF commander, he joined the Quds Force to fight the Zionist regime in Lebanon and Syria.”
Very little information about Allah-Dadi’s work in Syria has been released to the public. According to the Jan. 19 press release by the IRGC Public Relations Department, Allah-Dadi was deployed to Syria as a military adviser in order to “assist the government and nation of Syria against the takfiri-salafi terrorists [a reference to the Sunni opposition to the Baath regime in Syria].”
He was allegedly killed while inspecting Quneitra in Syria, as “a group of fighters of the Islamic Resistance [reference to Lebanese Hezbollah]” were attacked by a “military helicopter of the Zionist regime.”
The most important information released about the late Allah-Dadi is the long history of his friendship and service under Suleimani, the current Qods Force commander.
A single case does not provide enough material for drawing conclusions concerning Suleimani’s pattern of appointments in his command, but should other former Suleimani associates and friends be identified as current Qods Force officers, that would provide important parts of the puzzle of the unit’s command structure.
