Some 30 members of Iranian IRGC and Lebanese Hezbollah killed in Syria – At least 30 members of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards and Lebanese Hezbollah have been killed in Syria while fighting opposition forces.
Some 30 members of Iranian IRGC and Lebanese Hezbollah killed in Syria
Syrian opposition forces have said most of those killed in the Daraa region carried Iranian identification cards.
The source said the bodies of those killed members of IRGC and Hezbollah have remained on the ground and they have not been able to remove them from the scene of the clashes.
Meanwhile, local media in Iran reported that on Sunday a commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will be buried in the southern province of Khuzestan after being killed in a battle in Syria.
The commander, in his fifties, was said to be the second highest-ranking commander from Khuzestan killed in Syria for fighting for the Syrian dictator.
A dozen women injured by Basij in southern city – A number of young Iranian women including at least five university students have been stabbed in their hips with knives in past few days in southern city of Jahrom.
A dozen women injured by Basij in southern city
According to the information received from source in Jahrom, at least 12 women have been victim of the violent attacks. The women were attached by at least four men riding on motorcycles.
The local official have acknowledged that at least six women have been injured in the wave of attacks and they include five university students.Sources in the city said the university students have identified the attackers who are members of the regime affiliated paramilitary Basij Force.
One of the attackers was identified as Beheshti, head of the Basij force in Ghotbabad, a town 15 kilometer south of the city of Jahrom.
The attacks on university students are taking place as university students across Iran is expected to take part in yearly protest on the occasion of Student Day on December 7 – known locally as 16 Azar – to demand political freedom in Iran.
This year protest is expected to address the last month acid attacks by the regime’s gangs that targeted many young women and girls leaving them with severe burns and injuries. Some lost their eyesight and at least one person reported killed.
The Iranian regime officials in the city have claimed that have arrested those involved in the attack against the women but they did not provide any information about the attackers and their motivations for carrying out such crimes.
Earlier this month the Iranian regime’s parliament approved a bill officially putting the members of the Basij paramilitary force in charge of enforcing dress code in Iran and harassing and repressing women and youth in public under the pretext of “Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice”.
The law which passed with a majority institutionalized the work of members of the Basij paramilitaries that often patrol streets to enforce dress code and other behavior prescribed under the clerical regime’s misogynist laws.
The new law bolsters the work of Basij members that often patrol streets, and stop cars to interrogate couples about their relationships, to the resentment of many Iranians.
Acid attacks began after the Iranian regime’s parliament began reviewing bills empowering the Basij paramilitaries.
Israel has every reason to fear an Iranian nuclear weapon – In 2006 Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote: “I’d rather live with a nuclear Iran” because it’s “the wisest thing under the circumstances.” Friedman may think it wise but the Israelis and I do not. We are convinced that the Iranian leaders will launch a nuclear attack against the Jewish State whenever they have a red button to push.
Contrast Iran’s present leaders with the pre-Islamic Persian King Cyrus the Great. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible 23 times. In a letter written in 536 BC and quoted by the historian Josephus, Cyrus writes:
“I have given leave to as many of the Jews that dwell in my country as please to return to their own country, and to rebuild their city, and to build the temple of God at Jerusalem on the same place where it was before.”
I have often been asked: if Israel has a nuclear arsenal, and it does, why can’t Iran have one? And my answer is always the same: No Israeli leader threatens to wipe Iran off the map.
Israel has every reason to fear an Iranian nuclear weapon
During the Cold War, the Russians and Americans operated under a doctrine called MAD (mutually assured destruction). It assumed, correctly, that no matter how bad things got between them — the 1962 Cuban missile crisis is a case in point — neither side wanted to see the other side exterminated. The Iranian leaders are neither insane nor irrational, but they do think differently. In a recent internal discussion, the text of which I have somewhere in my files they concluded: “We have 70 million people and Israel has 7 million. If we attack the Israelis with nuclear bombs, they will respond in kind. They will probably kill half of our people, but because of Israel’s location and size we shall kill all of the Israelis within nine minutes. If Allah wills it, after the exchange is over there will be no more Israelis and there will be 35 million Iranians.”
Moreover, many Iranian leaders are Twelvers, apocalyptic Shiites who long for the re-emergence of Mohammad al-Mahdi, the so-called Twelfth Imam. The Mahdi was born in 869 and the Twelvers believe that he never died. They believe as well that after a universal cataclysm, Allah will let him return together with Jesus who will convert to Islam. Then there will be lasting peace and justice in this world.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated over and over again that an Iran in possession of nuclear arms is an existential threat to Israel. He keeps begging US President Barack Obama to set “red lines” that, if crossed, would trigger an American military response. But the President will not do so, leaving me and most Israelis to wonder whether he’s avoiding a military engagement because he has decided to live with Iran’s becoming the world’s next nuclear-weapons power.
I am convinced that he has. On September 18, 2013, he said that Tehran could keep its nuclear components if it promises not to weaponize them and assemble a bomb. On September 27, 2013, he said: “Just now I spoke on the phone with President Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The two of us discussed our ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. I reiterated to him that I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution.” Mr. Obama also said that Iran’s supreme leader “has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, and that he has indicated that Iran will never develop nuclear weapons.”
On March 5, 2013, General James Mattis, then the retiring head of the United States Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that diplomatic and economic efforts against Iran are not working, that Iran “is enriching uranium beyond any plausible peaceful purpose,” and that if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon it would trigger a regional nuclear arms race and be “the most destabilizing event that we could imagine for the Middle East.” When asked whether Israel would strike if Iran “reached a critical point in terms of nuclear capability,” the general replied: “The Israelis have said so; I take them at their word. They could conduct a strike without our help.”
So far, in the words of Yossi Klein Halevi writing in the Wall Street Journal, the Israeli prime minister has “pulled back from ordering an airstrike, in part because he has feared alienating the American president. But . . . he may well conclude that the danger of not pre-empting outweighs all the other dangers — including a strained relationship with the White House.” Or in the words of an Israeli general, “the only thing worse than striking Iran is not striking Iran.”
If a nuclear agreement emerges from the tortured negotiations among Iran and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China, the Obama Administration is only seeking to slow “the Iranian nuclear program enough so that it would take Iran at least a year to make enough material for a nuclear bomb if it decided to ignore the accord.”
If the United States expects Iran to ignore the accord, why has it gone to so much effort to reach one?
On November 20, 2014, Spain’s Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, professor of atomic and nuclear physics, former vice president of the European Parliament, and president of the International Committee In Search of Justice issued what he called “An objective, thoroughly researched report on the core issue of the nature of the Iranian nuclear program and its status.”
The Committee was formed in 2008 as a group of EU parliamentarians to seek justice for the Iranian democratic opposition. It seeks to promote human rights, freedom, democracy, peace and stability, and its campaigns have enjoyed support on both sides of the Atlantic.
Here are ten of the report’s passages:
1. Tehran’s attitude has been one of denial, deception, concealment, rejection of facts, politicization, and reluctant and partial acknowledgement only when all other alternatives had been exhausted.
2. There has never been a decisive and coherent policy response by Europe and the USA, and this fact has allowed Iran to come closer to the capability for developing nuclear weapons.
3. It will be a huge mistake to have a comprehensive agreement without demanding that Iran resolve all the military aspects of the program and expose them willingly and thoroughly.
4. As recently as November 9, 2014, President Obama once again reiterated that the US wants to make sure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons, and is interested in “verifiable, lock tight assurances that Iran cannot develop” them. But the question is how could there be any assurances as long as so many open questions remain? The simple answer is that there cannot.
5. But by constantly offering concessions at the negotiating table, the US has emboldened the Iranians to increase Tehran’s demands.
6. On November 9, 2014, Mr. Obama offered Tehran a free pass for meddling in the Middle East when he said: “Iran has influence both in Syria and in Iraq . . . It has some troops or militias in and around Baghdad, and we have we let it know that we’re not here to mess with you, but to focus on our common enemy.”
7. The Obama Administration must know that any leniency regarding Iran’s increasing interference in the region would encourage it to continue its drive on the nuclear project.
8. Thus, any possible agreement with Iran should include snap inspections in all the suspicious sites, complete implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and an absolute halt to all uranium enrichment.
9. This study can only lead to the conclusion that Iran has vigorously pursued its ambitions to obtain nuclear weapons. No serious indications that Tehran has stopped or abandoned this project or intends to do so were observed.
10. In a possible allusion to Israel, which Revolutionary Iran has vowed to wipe off the face of the Earth, the International Committee In Search of Justice concluded: “Any concessions on these issues would open the way for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. And this is something that no democratic country in this world, unless it wants to commit suicide, can ever accept.”
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s position has been steadfast and consistent: “Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
If and when that that happens it will be sailors in Israeli submarines operating both conventional and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, and Israeli pilots flying in the world’s best and the world’s third largest air force who will do the job. And they will do it successfully because only the Israel Defense Forces stand between Israel and its destruction.
Iran Upholds Death Sentence for Photographer Who Insulted Prophet on Facebook – An Iranianphotographer and blogger has seen his death sentence upheld by the country’s Supreme Court for insulting the Prophet Mohammed in several Facebook posts, according to local reports.
Iran Upholds Death Sentence for Photographer Who Insulted Prophet on Facebook
The photographer, 30-year-old Soheil Arabi, was arrested in November 2013 by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in his home in Tehran, over allegations of “insulting the Prophet of Islam” (sabbo al-nabi).
Arabi was jailed for two months in solitary confinement in the feared section 2A of Evin Prison, which is under the rule of the IRGC. During interrogation he made a “confession”, and was then moved on to Section 350 of the prison, under the judiciary’s control. He was sentenced to death by a five-judge panel of branch 76 of Tehran Penal Court on 30 August.
But his lawyers had hoped that the Supreme Court would dismiss the charges based on Article 263 of the Islamic Penal Code. According to International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, the article “explicitly states that if a suspect claims in court that he said the insulting words in anger, in quoting someone, or by mistake, his death sentence will be converted to 74 lashes”.
However, the top court not only confirmed the death sentence, but also added a new charge – “corruption on earth” – which cannot receive a pardon under Iranian law.
“Therefore, at this stage there is only room for hoping that the Judge in Branch 41 of the Supreme Court announces that this charge was added by mistake and to eliminate it, sending the case to a lateral court for review. Otherwise, Arabi will be executed,” a source told the International Campaign.
Arabi’s lawyers are rushing to obtain a stay of execution and a retrial for the blogger.
Internet Crackdown
Amnesty International has appealed to Iranian authorities not to execute Arabi and to establish an official moratorium on executions. A petition has been launched to stop his execution.
Earlier this year, another man was sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet. Rouhollah Tavana was sentenced to death on 3 August 2013 by the Criminal Court in Khorasan over a video in which he allegedly insulted Prophet Mohammed.
In May, eight people, including an Iranian-born British woman, were imprisoned over blasphemy charges on Facebook. The prison sentence spanned from seven to 20 years in jail.
In the same month, six young Iranians who danced in a YouTube version of Pharrell Williams’ hit song Happy were arrested for making an “obscene clip that offended the public morals”. They were later released on bail and received a suspended sentence of six months in prison and 91 lashes in September.
The clip was viewed by more than 100,000 people on YouTube.
Struggle for power
The “Happy Iranians” incident was widely perceived as a sign of the growing row between reformist president Hassan Rouhani, which supports internet freedom, and conservative hardliners who want to tighten up censorship in the country. Rouhani, who promised to allow people greater freedom on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter (banned in the Islamic Republic) came out in support of the young performers.
At a conference in Tehran, he reportedly said that the “ear of the one-sided pulpit is over”.
Another episode involved Iran‘s top website for gadget news, Narenji (Orange). With a good mix of reviews of the latest Android Samsung smartphone of iPhones and the latest internet memes, Narenji enjoyed a growing audience of young tech enthusiasts.
But its team of tech bloggers, working in the city of Kerman, was rounded up by the Revolutionary Guard and put into jail. The website was taken offline. All despite Rouhani’s promises to boost the tech economy with a $1bln innovation fund for developing the “knowledge economy”.
Apparently, the prosecutor accused the 16 Iranians of having taken parts to projects run by the BBC and receiving funds from London.
Ali Tavakoli, head of Kerman’s justice department, accused the group of running several projects and plans for “anti-revolutionary Iranians based abroad”, according to the Guardian.
Iran trying to control the Red Sea – In case you missed it, on September 21, the Islamic Republic of Iran expanded its foreign holdings to include Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen. That same day, Iran also took over Yemen’s al-Hudaydah port, almost 100 miles southwest of Sanaa, on the eastern bank of the Red Sea.
Iran trying to control the Red Sea
Capturing these Yemeni strongholds indicates Iran is right now pushing to implement its strategy of controlling the Red Sea, as previously forecast by the Trumpet.
To reach the Mediterranean Sea from the Indian Ocean, all seafaring trade, including 3 million barrels of oil per day, must pass through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Measuring just 18 miles across, the channel is the closest point between the two landmasses of central Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The northeast edge of the strait is firmly within Yemeni territory. The strategic importance of controlling this passage is equal to controlling the Suez Canal, since both are part of the same thoroughfare.
To control this trade route, Iran needs to dominate Yemen. That is why the events of September 21 are so significant. Iran did not send its Revolutionary Guard to gain control of the country. Rather, as witnessed in Lebanon with Hezbollah, Iran activated one of its terrorist proxies to do its legwork. In Yemen, “Hezbollah” is Ansar Allah, the military wing of the Shiite Houthi tribe, which comprises 30 percent of Yemen’s population. The majority of the country is Sunni.
In the months before the takeover of Sanaa, the Yemeni government was in disarray as anti-government protests, triggered by rising fuel prices, spread through the capital.
Then on September 21, Ansar Allah simply took advantage of the situation. “Astonishingly,” Arab News wrote, “security forces in Sanaa stood back as rebels went on the rampage engaging in street battles and hoisting their flags over government buildings, banks, [and] the airport, ostensibly to prevent civilian casualties and damage to property.”
In the two months following the capture of Yemen’s capital, the Houthis entered a power sharing agreement with the Yemeni government. Again, this is similar to what happened in Lebanon with Hezbollah. While Iran denies activating and arming the Houthis in the coup, many Iranian personalities could not help but gloat at their achievement.
“We in the axis of resistance are the new sultans of the Mediterranean and the Gulf,” said Mohammed Sadeq al-Hosseini, adviser to former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami. “We in Tehran, Damascus, [Hezbollah’s] southern suburb of Beirut, Baghdad and Sanaa will shape the region. We are the new sultans of the Red Sea as well.”
The Yemeni power-sharing government will only last as long as Iran continues to get its way. Many nations, especially the European nations on the other side of the Red Sea trade, are concerned by Iran’s pushy moves in Yemen. In a November 4 fact sheet analyzing the Iranian takeover of Yemen, Michael Segall wrote (emphasis added):
Iran also sees Yemen as an important factor in its policy of establishing a physical Iranian presence, both ground and naval, in the countries and ports of the Red Sea littoral, which control the shipping lanes that lead from the Persian Gulf to the heart of the Middle East and onward to Europe. If the Shia rebels gain control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Iran can attain a foothold in this sensitive region giving access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, a cause of concern not only for its sworn rivals Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Gulf states, but also for Israel and European countries along the Mediterranean.
Arab commentators in the Gulf have warned in recent years about this Iranian push.
While Arab commentators may have speculated about this push in recent years, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has warned about this Iranian push for almost a quarter of a century!
Furthermore, in 2011, the Trumpet alerted readers to “Pay Attention to Yemen,” revealing Iran’s plans for the country in light of its Red Sea strategy. As we wrote back then, “[W]hat does Iran expect to gain by establishing a strong presence in Yemen? Take a look at the accompanying map [above]. Basically, Iran wants Yemen for the same reason it wants Ethiopia, Eritrea and Egypt: TO CONTROL THE RED SEA!”
Now that Iran has taken over Yemen, its strategy to control the waterways between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean nears completion. To understand where these events are headed, read “Libya and Ethiopia Reveal Iran’s Military Strategy.”
Nemesis: The Shadowy Iranian Training Shia Militias in Iraq – Down a dusty backstreet in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Karada this month, I met Sheikh Raad Al Kafaji, a former Iraqi Army officer specialising in artillery, and a veteran fighter from the days of the Iran-Iraq war. He is head of the al Kafaji tribe and a commander in the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia, one of the Shia militias at the forefront of the fight against ISIS in Iraq.
After the fall of Mosul in July, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a religious edict (fatwa) calling on Iraqi “citizens to defend the country, its people, the honor of its citizens, and its sacred places”. That is, to come defend their religion in a holy war against ISIS.
The Shadowy Iranian Training Shia Militias in Iraq
Sheikh Raad says that in the initial days after Sistani’s fatwa, men as old as 60 came to his small offices begging to fight to hold back ISIS and Sunni-led insurgents.
According to Iraqi Deputy National Security Adviser, Dr Safa Hussein al-Sheikh, the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia, founded in the months leading up to the 2003 American invasion, is known for being smaller and more organised than the other Shia militias – and is considered highly secretive and adept, even by Iraqi intelligence standards.
“In the past, they had focused more on American targets – sophisticated, lethal, organised attacks that were not penetrated by the American or Iraqi intelligence,” Al Sheikh says.
When I visit, the 58-year-old Sheikh Raad sits wearily in his office wearing battle fatigues and several jewelled garnet and turquoise rings. With him is his young fourth wife, who surprisingly has her dark hair uncovered, and is heavily made up, dressed in tight trousers and high heels. She wants to film his conversation on her cell phone.
The Sheikh sees no irony in the fact that his current financial backer, Iran, was his former mortal enemy.
“Saddam imposed that war (the Iran-Iraq war) on the Shia people in Iraq and Iran,” he says. “It was Saddam’s fault. Not the fault of Iran.”
He says Kata’ib Hezbollah has about 4,000 fighters (Iraqi intelligence puts the figure closer to 1,000) that are “experienced from fighting in Amerli, Samara, but also have past experience fighting with Hezbollah in Syria”.
He himself goes back and forth to Syria, largely to protect Shia shrines near Damascus. Much of it is done around the town of Sayyidah Zaynab – “Lady Zaynab” – a southern Damascus suburb that has a Shia shrine of the same name.
Some of his men, he says, were paid up to $700 (£446) a day by Iran to fight in Syria, but in Iraq they are getting far less, although he says Iran is arming his men with weapons – AK-47s, 12.7 mm heavy machine-gun and PKCs, a lighter, 7.62 mm, machine-gun used in many of the former-Soviet Bloc and Middle Eastern countries.
“Here, we are fighting for justice – for our faith – not for money,” he insists. “And don’t forget there is a big difference between Hezbollah in Iran and Hezbollah in Iraq. Philosophically, we have the same enemy – Daish (ISIS) and Israel – but we are fighting here for justice.”
To understand the presence of Shia militias in Iraq today, and the increasing sway of Iran, you have to go back to the legacy of the mass graves.
Shortly after Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who had systematically repressed the majority Shiites for decades by cracking down on their political parties and crushing Shia movements, fell from power in April, 2003, human rights workers and US investigators began exhuming graves where thousands of Shiites and ethnic Kurds had suddenly disappeared.
It is unclear how many Shias died during the Saddam years, but the figures range from 400,000 – 700,000 people. One grave near Baghdad alone held nearly 15,000 bodies. In another, near the southern city of Samawah, more than 72 were discovered, mainly women and children.
It is believed that up to 60,000 Shias disappeared from Baghdad during those years of terror, and ended up in pits of earth. Years later, when Saddam was finally gone, relatives would stand at the open graves, desperately tried to find something that could link them to their lost.
“I just wish I could feel him, touch him, see him,” said the sobbing mother of one of “the disappeared,” Hilu Issa, who went missing in 1980 at the age of 25. (I spoke to her in May 2003 just after the US-led invasion.)
The image of her vanished son remained frozen in time. “I need to know what happened to him.”
Saddam’s men typically came at night, and took people away without warning. Hilu’s mother never saw him again.
The day after Saddam fell, with the city of Bagdad in chaos, it was finally possible to put together pieces of the puzzle. In al-Haakimiya, a notorious Mukhabarat (secret police) prison used during his reign, I and an Iraqi colleague found evidence of brutal torture: restraints; blindfolds; torture instruments with hardened blood still on them; cells the size of bathtubs where desperate men had scrawled messages to the families they would never see again.
In post-war Iraq, the political tables flipped. After the American invasion, it was the Shias in power, the Sunnis who were being hunted.
When Haider al Abadi, a moderate Shia was designated prime minister last August, it was with the promise that his government would be more inclusive, and break the cycle of revenge and vengeance between Iraqi Shias and Sunnis.
But it is still hard to find any Shia family that has not, in some way, been touched by Saddam’s brutality and that does not still bear, in some way, a grudge or at least a quest for justice.
Last January, Nouri al Maliki, the former prime minister, and a Shia dissident under Saddam who held strong nationalistic ideals, launched a bombing campaign in Anbar Province, which is largely Sunni, apparently with the intention of driving out jihadists, aka, ISIS.
But human rights groups were concerned that the bombs were not just landing on the insurgents – but on civilian targets and neighbourhoods, in particular hospitals and residential areas. They saw the Anbar campaign as another widening of the endless sectarian conflict. As the bombing went on, it also became apparent that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) were simply not up to handling the job of pushing back ISIS. This opened the door to the Shia militias.
“What happened then is that some smaller Shia groups proposed they would join the fight,” says al-Sheikh, the deputy national security adviser, at his office in Baghdad.
“That was their first operation. There were initially probably only a couple of hundred Shia militiamen fighting then, until the fall of Mosul. Then it went in a different direction.”
When Mosul fell on June 10 2014, a wave of terror rippled through Baghdad’s population. Rumours and truths flew through the crowded markets and streets: ISIS fighters were a mere 20km (12 miles) from the city; ISIS were killing Shia and raping Shia women; ISIS had come to destroy all Shia Muslims.
He also meant that the Shia militias were back in control, filling in the military vacuum the ISF had left. Now the Shias were back– but this time as protectors of the people, with the government heavily relying on them.
“They call themselves jihadists, not militias,” says al-Sheikh. “They learned their skills from fighting American occupiers before they left.” (The Shia militias are believed to be responsible for a large proportion of the American combat deaths during the occupation).
Then came what the Baghdad morgue director called a “spike” in the number of Sunni disappearances and murders in the capital: clear reprisals for the ISIS killings. One June morning, he showed me and other reporters photographs of the work of the Shia militias: Sunni men tortured, beaten, murdered, their bodies thrown into fields, bloated and purple.
“It’s starting again,” he said, referring to the bloodiest period of the civil war, in 2006.
It also brings another element to Iraq – the increasing reliance and influence of Iran, the Shia regional giant. Ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979, governments inside and outside the Arab world have feared Shia fundamentalism. But today in Baghdad, the men who rose up to fight against ISIS in the wake of them overrunning Mosul are overwhelmingly Shia. And they clearly have a religious as well as a military agenda.
Their money comes largely from Tehran, as do their weapons and best trainers, according to various sources in the Iraqi government and foreign analysts. The memory of a bitter war fought between Iraq and Iran from 1980-1988 in which nearly a million men died seems very far off in their memory.
Part of this resurgence of the Shia militias is the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s potent call to arms in July, following Mosul’s defeat.
The rush of Shia men of all ages – some even in their 60s who had fought in the Iran-Iraq – was staggering. They crowded to three or four central recruitment centers in Baghdad, were vetted, and about half of them were immediately dispatched to the belt of Baghdad. They then fanned out to ISIS fight alongside what was left of the demoralised ISF.
Five months on, with the American led campaign to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS, underway, the Shia militias are the backbone of the Iraqi military operation.
As well as their American experience, their training also comes from the recent battlefields of Syria. Many were sent to help protect the Shia shrines from the Syrian Sunni rebels.
Iraqis insist there is nothing to fear from Iran’s heady presence in Iraq. They also say, in many ways, their allegiance lies with Iran.
“Who arrived here to save us three days after Mosul fell?” asks Dr Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a Member of Parliament and a former National Security Adviser (and best known as the man who led Saddam to the gallows and requested the guards loosen his handcuffs).
“Not the Americans. They only sent abysmal air strikes three months later when their citizens [the journalists James Foley, and later Steven Sotloff and Peter “Abdul-Rahman” Kassig] were beheaded. The speed of the Iranian response to Baghdad and Erbil was the next day.”
The Iranians sent 88 Russian-made Sukkhoi ground attack jets within weeks. They also sent their best fighters to train and advise – members of the elite Republican Guard. They sent pilots, weapons, and uniforms.
They also sent their military mastermind, Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Quds Force, whom many military leaders regard as an excellent, and highly strategic commander.
While usually secretive, Soleimani allowed himself to be photographed last September on the battlefields of Amerli, clearly sending a message to the West that Tehran was very present.
“He is here often in Baghdad, and Northern Iraq,” said one of Iraq’s leading Shia politicians who asked to remain anonymous. “Of course the Iraqi government knows about this. He is smart. He is also a man who loves war. He knows he is good at it.”
As to why Iraq would trust Iran with their bitter legacy and so many dead, al-Rubaie shrugs: “We are faced with an existential threat – ISIS. You use any means in this case. You use any means.”
Many Iraqis see the militias as crucial for their survival. Sajad Jiyad, a London-based analyst with the Iraqi Institute for Economic Reform (IIER), explains that: “The militias are very powerful – but post-June they became even more so because there was a vacuum. They have good resources and committed fighters,” Jiyad says. ”Most of the Shia communities that suffer from car bombs and suicide attacks are actually glad to have their protection.”
And the fact that they are backed by Tehran? “The US has to reconcile with Iran,” says al-Rubaie. “With or without a nuclear deal. A US-Iranian reconciliation will be a huge contribution to the stability of the region.”
One of the main militias, Asaib ah Al-Haq, or The League of the Righteous, has leaders who have been jailed on terrorism charges during the US occupation. Asaib is the group most loathed by Sunnis who see it as a threat to their security. There is also believed to be a large criminal backbone at the heart of the militia, which is sometimes, but not always true.
“When anything bad happens in Baghdad, Asaib get blamed,” says al-Rubaie, making the militiamen sound more like naughty schoolboys than hardened killers.
Another is the Badr Brigades, formed in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. A third is Sheikh Raad’s Kata’ib Hezbollah. Added to this are many other splinter groups that have risen up in various Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad.
With the militias, however comes Iran’s powerful political and religious influence. The question is, what will happen to Iran when ISIS is eventually destroyed? (which al-Rubaie reckons might be 3-5 years militarily, but 7-10 years ideologically.)
Will the Iranians be willing, after this kind of investment, to pack it all in and go home?
Probably not, says al-Rubaie, but he says it’s time the West softened its “allergic” stance on Iran.
So what will be the end game? The fear is a Lebanese civil-war scenario, with militias from various sectarian divisions running riot throughout the country. Or that the Shias, tasting power now, and with Iran’s strong backing, are unlikely to give the Sunnis a fair hand when ISIS is eventually destroyed.
For Western diplomats, the concern is how the Shias see the future.
“Do they envision an Iraq that is completely Shia – where they are running little fiefdoms?” asked one.
Whatever their role in the future, for the moment, the militias are not going anywhere. They are crucial to ending the war against ISIS. One Western security adviser in Baghdad says that the Shias are “essential” to bolstering the flagging Iraqi Army.
“The truth is,” says Safa Hussein al-Sheikh, the Deputy National Security Adviser, “They prove to be more effective fighters than the Security Forces in many situations. They have experience from fighting the Americans, and from recently fighting in Syria. “
He pauses, and does not seem happy about his conclusion. “Fighting the Americans made them really experienced, really strong fighters.”
Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Vows to Continue Protest – Well-known Iranian human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh says she’s determined to continue protesting a decision to ban her from practicing law.
Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Vows to Continue Protest
Sotoudeh started picketing outside the offices of the Iranian Bar Association in Tehran a month ago, holding signs reading “right to work” and “rights of dissenters,” after the association, reportedly under official pressure, banned her from working as a lawyer for three years.
“If my sentence is not overturned, I will keep protesting until the end of the three-year ban,” Sotoudeh told RFE/RL by telephone on November 26.
She also said the independence of the Iranian Bar Association must be restored.
Nasrin Sotoudeh was released from jail last year after serving half of a six-year sentence on charges that included acting against Iran’s national security and spreading propaganda against the establishment.
Sotoudeh, the co-winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov human rights prize in 2012, said her peaceful protest had received the support of many activists and intellectuals in Iran.
“Every day from 9:30 a.m. until 12 p.m., I protest in front of the Bar Association. I’ve been joined by many political and social activists and also social figures,” she said.
Sotoudeh added that some of those who have joined her picket have been pressured by the authorities and threatened with arrest.
Sotoudeh said intelligence officials detained and interrogated her for several hours on November 25 after she took part in a gathering against acid attacks targeting women in Isfahan.
“I was asked how long I was planning to keep protesting and I also heard some threats that day,” she said. “[But] I don’t believe that my seven-hour detention on that day was not connected to my ongoing protest in front of the Bar Association.”
The rights advocate told RFE/RL that many passersby had also expressed support for her actions.
“Sometimes they even say from a distance, ‘We’re with you,’ and they flash victory signs.”
Sotoudeh has gained the respect of many people inside and outside of Iran for her defiance in the face of state repression.
Before her arrest in 2010, Sotoudeh was involved in sensitive political and human rights cases.
During her time in prison, she went on hunger strikes several times to protest her sentence and a travel ban imposed on her daughter.
The 3 reasons why Iran nuclear talks keep failing – After months of insisting that they would definitely reach a nuclear agreement by November 24, and that there would be no extension of the deadline, the Iranian and world-power negotiators gathered in Vienna announced that there is no agreement and talks will be extended.
The new deadline is for a political framework agreement by March 1 and a final agreement by July 1. That’s a real setback, and a bad sign for the feasibility of ever reaching a deal. So what happened? Here are three major reasons why the nuclear negotiations failed to succeed, and why reaching a deal has been, remains, and will continue to be so difficult.
1) Lack of trust makes some of the negotiation issues almost impossible
Everyone agrees, in very general terms, what a final deal should look like: Iran would limit its nuclear program such that it will not be able to build a bomb, and in return the US and world powers would greatly reduce international sanctions.
The 3 reasons why Iran nuclear talks keep failing
The big problem with this plan is it requires a lot of trust to make work. The US and world powers have to trust that, if Iran keeps some elements of a civilian nuclear program, it won’t try to cheat on its promises and use those elements for a weapons program — something Iran has done in the past.
Iran, meanwhile, has to trust that the US and world powers aren’t just scheming to weaken Iran’s nuclear program and then keep the sanctions in place. That fear might seem strange to Americans, but Iran’s leaders are positively convinced that the West is bent on Iran’s destruction and will never tolerate a strong Iran, and thus that any promise of sanctions relief is a ruse meant to tempt Iran into surrendering its nuclear program. One reason Iranians believe this is the experience of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq: Saddam abandoned his weapons of mass destruction and allowed humiliating international inspections, only to later be invaded over a WMD program that did not exist.
But this problem is much, much worse than a simple matter of “Iran and the US have to learn to trust each other.” There are a few specific, mechanical negotiation issues that require one of the two sides to grant the other extraordinary trust: something neither of them is willing to do.
A good example of this is sanctions relief: does the UN lift its Iran sanctions outright or only temporarily? Iran wants the UN to pass a resolution lifting the sanctions outright; the US does not want to do this because, if Iran cheats on its commitments (which the US has a reasonable fear of Iran doing) then the US would have to pass a whole new set of sanctions from scratch, and there’s a good chance China and Russia wouldn’t support it. In other words, lifting the sanctions outright would give Iran an opening to grow its nuclear program and in the process be rewarded with reduced sanctions.
That’s why the United States wants the UN to just pass a resolution every six months or so temporarily lifting sanctions. That way, if Iran cheats, the sanctions will eventually fall back into place on their own once the resolution expires. Iran hates this idea because it would leave the country totally exposed to the US; the Americans could increase their demands every six months and Iran would have little choice but to comply, or a new president could come in and simply refuse to continue passing the temporary resolution. At that point, Iran would have surrendered its nuclear program — its best defense, it believes, against American aggression — and opened itself to more bullying than ever.
And that’s just one issue where the long history of mutual distrust makes actual agreements very, very difficult. There are more, and none of them is much easier.
2) Both sides are weakened by hard-liners at home
US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, can’t just lock themselves in a negotiating room and hammer out a deal. Both sides have to think about what sort of deal they can sell back home. And that, in many ways, is the hardest part.
In the US and Iran, political hard-liners oppose negotiations, want to set much higher demands for the other side, and have the power to blow up any agreement they don’t like. In Iran, that means the hardliners in the country’s parliament as well as the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps, who can pressure the real national authority — Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — to reject an agreement. In the US, that means members of Congress, predominantly but not exclusively Republicans, who see themselves as Iran hawks.
So any nuclear deal has to be able to win approval in three different places: in the negotiating room in Vienna, among the anti-American hard-liners in Tehran, and among the Iran-hawk hard-liners in Washington. Finding a deal that satisfies all three sets of requirements is really hard, and maybe not possible.
Just as bad, the mere fact that these hard-liners exist weakens Kerry and Zarif; both sides in the negotiations know that their counterpart is not the real, final authority.
That, as much as anything, seems to have done in the negotiations. The New York Times reports, as an example, that, “Zarif, while friendly, outgoing and Westernized, had pushed to the very limits of his brief; he often warned that the final decision would be in the hands of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.” Meanwhile, “Kerry’s position was complicated by the Republican midterm election victory and the fear of feeding the narrative that Mr. Obama was a weakened president.”
Worse, both sets of hard-liners seem to be actively working at times to sabotage negotiations, and they’re very good at it. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is itching to pass a new sanctions bill, which would badly undercut President Obama’s ability to negotiate and make him look powerless. When the Republicans take control of the Senate in 2015, they might just get it passed. In Iran, the supreme leader has at time announced increases to the nuclear program that have apparently taken Zarif by surprise.
3) They just don’t agree
The trouble is not all just about domestic politics and difficulties in technical implementation. At some very basic levels, the two sides do not agree over the most fundamental issue of all: how much of a nuclear program Iran would be allowed to retain.
“Underneath all of this are differences in perceptions of what a reasonable, exclusively peaceful nuclear program in Iran should entail,” George Perkovich at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote recently. “Iran insists on retaining certain capacities that others judge to be beyond what is necessary, and therefore suggestive of a desire to perhaps produce nuclear weapons in the future.”
The US and Iran broadly agree that Iran should be allowed to have some sort of basic, peaceful, civilian program, but not a weapons program. But they can’t, or simply don’t, agree on what sets the line between a basic, peaceful, civilian program versus a weapons program. So there are lots of big and small technical disagreements, such as a new type of centrifuge Iran wants to start using, that express this disagreement.
This problem feeds the other two. Because neither side really trusts the other, each sees every technical dispute as not an honest disagreement but as a cynical, clandestine effort to cheat. And, meanwhile, the hard-liners in Washington and Tehran believe these disagreements make the deal vulnerable, and draw attention to those issues to try to push a deal to collapse. All of which does, indeed, make the deal more fragile and less likely to succeed.
It’s possible that Iran and world powers will manage to resolve these issues in the months before their next deadlines, for a political framework deal in March and a complete deal in July. But it will be really, really difficult.
The Four Musketeers: Khamenei, Netanyahu, Putin and Erdogan
The Four Musketeers: Khamenei, Netanyahu, Putin and Erdogan
As it happened, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan were all walking in one of the UN’s corridors.
To show that he is just an ordinary human being and a humble man, Khamenei shouted, ‘hey Vladimir, Tayyip, Bibi, come over here! Why don’t we all sit down and chat about so many things we all have in common.’
Curious to hear what Ali has to say, they hesitantly start walking toward him, (he) who was already seated at a round table with a view of the East river.
Ali: How are you all doing, I hope you’re feeling well.
Tayyip: Given the mess I am facing at home and abroad, you should know how I feel.
Vladimir: Oh I feel great; everything is fine with me. How about you, Bibi?
Bibi: What do you all care how I really feel?
Ali: We really don’t. This a nice view, isn’t it? The river, the beautiful buildings… you know, the UN should move to Tehran.
Bibi: Why on earth should the UN be relocated to Tehran?! What have you got to offer?
Ali: Well, Persia is the greatest civilization, we have lasted for thousands of years; like no other country, we are at the heart of the most strategic spot on earth. Tehran is the center of the universe, easily accessible from everywhere.
Tayyip: This is ridiculous! If the UN goes anywhere, it should be to Istanbul — after all, we inherited the riches and the culture of the great Ottoman Empire; we are also the bridge between east and west. And Istanbul — well there is no greater city in the world than Istanbul.
Bibi: Forget it, Jerusalem is the place where the UN should be located; it’s the birth place of the great monolithic religions, and absolutely no other city can rival Jerusalem.
Vladimir: Nonsense, when were you last in Moscow? Do you know how much Moscow has to offer? Look, in any case we will veto any resolution to relocate the UN unless it is Moscow.
Bibi: Listen, the UN is not going anywhere. But let me go back to you, Ali. Tell me, Ali, what did you mean when you said we have so much in common? God forbid we should have something in common.
Ali: Come on now, don’t invoke God’s name in vain. Don’t you think we are all hungry for more power? Don’t we all want control of our neighbors? And tell me, how about the so-called ‘violation of human rights’? We all thrive on that, don’t we?
Tayyip: Wait a minute Ali, speak for yourself. We don’t do such things in our country. Turkey is a model of Islamic democracy in all aspects; everybody is free and happy in my country.
Bibi: Oh yes, tell me more. Nobody abuses his people more than you do — well, maybe Ali.
Ali: Bibi, now you’re going too far. I am a pious man! I treat every one of my subjects with dignity.
Bibi: Yeah, you’re right Ali, the poor Iranian people are your subjects alright, and you know very well how to subjugate them. Another thing, I know you want to have a nuclear weapon to blow us all out.
Ali: Yeah, we want a nuclear weapon just to scare everybody, especially those Sunnis around us. We don’t want to blow you out, because if we try, you have plenty of nuclear weapons to kill tens of millions of Iranians. Well, they will all become martyrs, which is fine, but the real problem is that we don’t know if the Islamic Republic of Iran can survive, and for me, this is more important than anything else.
Bibi: Do you really think I believe you? Don’t think for a moment that we will let you have these kinds of weapons; we know what to do.
Ali: You don’t know how clever we are, we know how to hide things, we have done that for many years and we will surprise you yet. Why do you think we did not make any real concessions and agreed only this week on another extension? We know how to outsmart these gullible Americans.
Vladimir: Look guys, what are you all talking about? Human rights abuses, nuclear weapons, what else is new? Let’s talk about the real things — gas, oil, business, and money — that’s what really matters. We in Russia calm things down or buy people out with money. If money does not work, which is seldom in Russia, we flex our muscles. That’s why we don’t worry about human rights.
Tayyip: You must be kidding, Vlad. You’re trying to calm thing down, my foot; you are a ruthless man, even worse than Bibi.
Ali: Tayyip is right, look at the terrible things that you have done, Vladimir. First you annex Crimea, then you send troops and weapons to east Ukraine, hundreds are killed, and you still pretend that you don’t want to annex the rest of the country.
Vladimir: What’s this got to do with being ruthless? We offer the Ukrainians gas and money, but they did not listen. They want to join the West, they are crazy. In any case, Ukraine belongs to Russia and that’s that. Who’s going to stop me, Obama? I am not like Bibi, who wants to annex all of the West Bank and chase the Palestinians out — that’s really ruthless.
Bibi: Look, Obama can’t stop me either, he is still busy thinking about what to do, he will never put his foot down, and I know it. But leave Obama aside. Are you telling me, Vlad, that I want to annex Samaria and Judea? How can I annex territory that belongs to the Jewish people? I resent those who call Israel an occupying power.
Tayyip: Don’t be ridiculous Bibi; you occupy land that does not belong to you and on top of that you created the largest open prison in Gaza. Unfortunately, Obama has no clue what to do. See, I am a liberator; I have been fighting to liberate the poor Palestinian people in Gaza, but you and your American friends, forget it; you are heartless, all of you.
Bibi: First of all, Tayyip, it is none of your business what we do with the Palestinians, especially Hamas; we have major security problems. Tell me, what would you do if thousands of rockets were fired indiscriminately on your cities and people, just say, ‘hey guys, please stop it’?
Tayyip: You know Bibi, if you end the blockade, Hamas will not fire a single rocket.
Bibi: Baloney! I trust Hamas as much as I trust you, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan; you are all one and the same, no difference. You just hate us, period.
Ali: I know what you mean, Bibi, you think we Muslims hate the Jews. No, I hate the Israelis but love the Jews.
Bibi: So what you are saying is that Israelis are not Jews? Now I see, you love Muslims but you hate the Sunnis, isn’t that so?
Ali: Don’t change the subject, we Shiites are the true Muslims; the Sunnis are even worse than you Israelis.
Tayyip: Don’t say that, Ali. You know, you are really something else. I always suspected how much venom you have against us Sunnis — now I know. You should be ashamed of yourself. The Sunnis don’t hate the Shiites, we just don’t trust them; you are always conspiring against us.
Vladimir: Will you stop bickering about Sunni this, Shiite that. This is all rubbish. We in Russia are very lucky, we don’t have this kind of problem because we don’t believe in anything. Forget religion, only troubles come out from religion. For us, only money talks.
Tayyip: Vladimir, how dare you say that about religion? Islam is the purest religion in the world; the Quran teaches us to love each other and sacrifice our lives for one another.
Bibi: Tayyip is right. They kill for each other, they also execute for love — look how much they care for one another in Syria, Iraq, Yemen… oh, yeah, I forgot Afghanistan.
Ali: Now Bibi, you are getting completely out of line, this is just a quarrel in the family.
Bibi: Of course I know that Ali, you only feel obliged to accommodate your butcher friend Bashar to massacre tens of thousands of innocent Muslim civilians. I guess it’s alright — after all, it is all in the family.
Vladimir: Hey guys, this is going nowhere. You see what I mean? Religion is a curse. If I could, I would ban all religious rituals in Russia altogether. Look, why don’t we just talk about the real thing, like I told you before, money and power.
Ali: You keep talking about money, ok, let us talk about money. We all need money to run our countries, so what is the problem with that?
Bibi: You are right Ali, we need money to run our countries. But I think my good friend Vladimir here is talking about what is in it for us.
Ali: May the Almighty have mercy on you. We… I mean, I, me… don’t ever take money to enrich myself, not like you — all of you.
Vladimir: Well, well, Ali, you say you don’t take money, so tell me, what do you live on?
Ali: I take only what the almighty God provides me. But you know, God is very generous to those who worship him.
Bibi: Now I understand why you are such a deep believer! I guess it pays to be a religious man because Allah watches out for his loyal servants and showers them with lots of money.
Vladimir: I have already told you, people do anything in the name of God. They kill, murder, rape, and steal, but in Russia we just do what we have to do. Everybody knows we steal and no one cares and certainly can’t do a damn thing about it. But I want to know about you, Tayyip — since you consider yourself a pious man, do you also depend on God’s generosity?
Tayyip: Listen, God has always been kind to me. I am just like Ali, I do in my country what I please and everyone thinks that I am Turkey’s savior. Look, I tripled the economy in my country in less than ten years. Am I not entitled to skim a few million here and there and make sure that my kids benefit from my sacrifices for my country?
Vladimir: Poor thing, I feel for you. Who the heck do you think you are talking to, don’t you think we know better?
Ali: Listen Vlad, you won’t get anywhere with Tayyip, I gave up on him a long time ago. But now I am not going to let you off the hook, Bibi. Don’t tell me, Mr. Netanyahu, that you are clean and have not stolen any money to spend on your puppet master wife; she will kill you if you lose your job and stop spending money on her.
Bibi: Sure, I spend money on my wife, but remember she is always by my side, so once in a while we bend the rules and charge the government for a few things here and there. Well, a few of my ministers were charged with corruption, but that’s normal. Anyway, right now I am busy expanding the settlements and trying to pass a bill that recognizes Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people — who cares about corruption?
Ali: That’s really how you are going to calm the Middle East, Bibi? But let me just get back to the money situation. Did you mean Bibi, that you steal money only under the table, just like my dear comrade here Vlad?
Vladimir: Wait a minute Ali, I never said I steal under the table. I don’t really have to hide anything, that’s the beauty about my country, Russia the Great.
Ali: Listen guys, I thought we could have a civilized chat and solve some of the pressing problems in our neighborhood, but we don’t seem to see eye to eye. But then if we did, well, it would be worse — how else will we be staying in power?
Vladimir: You said it man, I know my partners here agree with me.
Bibi: Well, at least we agree on something.
Tayyip: Hey, maybe we should meet again soon.
Ali: Don’t be a fool, people will start thinking that we are conspiring just to stay in power.
Basij Commander Calls for Stopping Iran’s Oil Exports – Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi underscored the country’s capabilities in building and producing different commodities despite the western sanctions, and urged the government to impose an oil boycott to show Iran’s power to the US.
Basij Commander Calls for Stopping Iran’s Oil Exports
“We know that we don’t need foreign countries. The hell with them (the world powers) if they don’t want to reach an agreement (with Iran) and want to impose sanctions. Let us cripple them by closing the oil valves,” Naqdi said, addressing a forum in Tehran on Monday.
He downplayed the western sanctions against Iran, and said they cannot impose food embargos against a country which has 16 neighbors.
Naqdi also stressed Iran’s huge progress in building different military tools, and said, “Despite the military sanctions, there is no weapon that our Armed Forces cannot manufacture it.”
In relevant remarks on Thursday, Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami underlined that western sanctions had backfired as they had given Tehran a strong feeling of self-reliance in different sectors, particularly in economic sector.
“The sanctions imposed on Iran have become a tool for further growth and prosperity of our economy,” General Salami said.
He noted that the West wanted to portray an inefficient, unsuccessful and defeated model out of Iran and the western countries were not interested to see Iran as a role model for the Muslim countries.
In similar remarks earlier this month, Salami underlined enemies’ failure in implementing their different plots against Iran, and said the country is now growing into a world power.
“Today, the regional Iran is turning into a global Iran,” Salami said, addressing the Armed Forces officials in Tehran.
Stressing that the power balance had changed in Iran’s interest by the important events which had happened in recent years, he said, “Iran’s strategies gave us access to the enemy in the region and when the enemy entered our operational zone, its weak points became more obvious.”
Salami said that the enemy wanted to cripple the Iranian society through sanctions, decrease the country’s regional clout by political isolation and vacate the Iranian society and the Islamic Republic’s energy by internal seditions but Tehran made their plots fall flat through understanding their strategies.
Source: Basij Commander Calls for Stopping Iran’s Oil Exports
