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The war on Syria is a war on Iran, says Iranian top military official

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The war on Syria is a war on Iran, says Iranian top military official

The current war on Syria is a war on Iran, an Iranian top military official was quoted as saying on Friday by the semi-official ILNA news agency.

The comments by Iran’s Chief-of-Staff Maj. Gen. Hassan Feiruzabady followed the statements by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during his meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Damascus earlier in the week. “Syria is not the only target, but the target is to put an end to the whole axis of resistance,” Assad told Salehi.

“What Mr. Bashar al-Assad has said is true, because Syria represents the front line for resistance facing the occupiers of Jerusalem. It has remained in that frontline for years,” the Iranian top official said. He was referring to the Israeli occupation by the “occupiers of Jerusalem.”

Feiruzabady, known for his close ties to the Iranian Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei, said that as long as “facing the Israeli aggression is considered one of the main goals and ambitions of the Iranian Islamic revolution, then both Iran and Syria should join hands in achieving this goal.”

The Syrian opposition has often accused Tehran of supporting the Syrian regime with weapons. The last few days have witnessed several statements by Iranian officials regarding means of Iranian interference in Syria.

Western members of the U.N. Security Council blasted Iran on Thursday for providing Assad with weapons to help him crush an 18-month-long uprising by rebels determined to topple his government.

“Iran’s arms exports to the murderous Assad regime in Syria are of particular concern,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told the 15-nation council during a meeting on the world body’s Iran sanctions regime.

The allegation, reported by Reuters on Wednesday, said arms transfers were organized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant echoed Rice’s condemnation of arms transfers to Syria.

“This is unacceptable and it must stop,” he said. “It is in stark contrast to the will of the Syrian people and a reminder of Iran’s hypocrisy in claiming to support freedom in the Arab world.”

German Ambassador Peter Wittig said worries about Iranian support for Assad “are aggravated by unsettling recent reports indicating that Iran is shipping arms to Syria under a humanitarian pretext.”

Neither Russia nor China, which have joined forces in vetoing three resolutions that would have condemned Assad’s assault on the opposition, mentioned the allegations about arms shipments to Syria.

Source: Alarabiya

Iran gives spies false info: nuclear chief

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Iran gives spies false info: nuclear chief

The head of Iran’s Atomic Agency says it has fed false intelligence to British spies about Iran’s nuclear advances in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites.

Haaretz reports that Fereydoon Abbasi said in an interview with Al-Hayat on Thursday, September 20, that Western intelligence services, and the British in particular, have been gathering information about Iran’s nuclear program, including details about Iran’s nuclear scientists, whom Iran alleges were killed by Israeli agents.

“We presented false information sometimes in order to protect our nuclear position and our achievements, as there is no other choice but to mislead foreign intelligence,” he said. Abbasi was also quoted as saying that “sometimes we present a weakness that we do not in fact really have, and sometimes we appear to have power without having it,” Abbasi reportedly said.

He added that these issues were clarified when members of the International Atomic Energy Agency inquired about them.

Abbasi accused the IAEA of taking a hostile approach toward Iran and acting as if Iran is guilty and must prove its innocence.

“This is the same tactic used against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and now they are trying to find a legal way to isolate Iran and impose more severe sanctions,” Abbasi claimed.

He denied that Iran has barred IAEA inspectors from visiting its nuclear sites and said: “Each time they asked to visit the sites, we approved it within two hours, but we will not allow them to enter other sites which they claim are nuclear sites. These sites, such as Parchin, are for military operations and have been there for more than 90 years. In these sites we produce military weapons for defence against aerial attacks.”

He went on to say that Iran has made arrangements that these sites are safe from satellite monitoring, and the demand for the Western insistence on having IAEA inspectors visit these sites could be a way of trying to get sensitive information about Iran’s military capabilities through these inspections.

Abbasi has already accused the IAEA of allowing the information it receives about Iran’s nuclear program be exploited by saboteurs.

He stressed once more that Iran’s nuclear program is only targeted toward producing fuel for its reactors and aiding medical research.

Source: Radiozamaneh

Underground missile silos displayed at army exhibition

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Underground missile silos displayed at army exhibition

The Iranian Army displayed its latest military achievements, including underground missile launch pads, in an exhibition in the Northern city of Noshahr. The underground missile silo, called Jask-2, is capable of launching missiles against surface targets from underground launch pads. Ali Khamenei visited the exhibition of the Army’s technical, defense, combat and scientific achievements and activities. Research drones equipped with laser system capability and subsurface remote-controlled Taha reconnaissance vessels were among the achievements on display in the exhibition.

Source: Iran Daily Brief

Iran pours more troops into Syria, ready to target Israel from Syria and Lebanon

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Iran pours more troops into Syria, ready to target Israel from Syria and Lebanon

Iran continues to fly military personnel and quantities of weapons into Syria by civilian aircraft which cut through Iraqi airspace, American intelligence sources disclosed early Thursday, Sept. 20. UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon also said that, “Unfortunately, both [Syrian] sides, government and opposition forces, seem to be determined to see the end by military means.”

Clearly, Iran is augmenting its military involvement in the constantly escalating Syrian civil war, broadening it into a multinational conflict which threatens to drag Lebanon in, by means of the Iranian-Syrian ally, Hizballah.

The UN Secretary General’s statement implying that the two Syrian sides are determined to fight to the bitter end is echoed in Iran’s resolve to fight to the bitter end for Assad, on Syrian soil.

Tehran is not hiding its actions. Sunday, Sept. 16, Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Commander Gen. Ali Jafari said openly that Al Qods Brigades units were present and operational in both Syria and Lebanon.

No comment on this revelation has come from the US, Israel or Israel’s military (IDF) chiefs – notwithstanding its menacing import, namely, that Tehran is no longer hanging about and waiting for its nuclear program to be attacked in order to punish Israel, but is getting ready for a pre-emptive operation.

Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have chosen silence in the face of what any other nation would regard as a casus belli: the open deployment of enemy forces on its northern and eastern borders.
This must have been the catalyst for the IDF’s surprise two-division strength drill Wednesday on Israel’s Golan border with Syria. But the IDF spokesman sounded almost apologetic when he explained that the exercise had nothing to do with the events in Syria or with Hizballah, and that it was no more than a routine drill for testing preparedness.

DEBKAfile’s military sources say that, in the current climate, no military operation by any army on the Syrian border – especially one of this magnitude – may be regarded as “routine.” Only a week ago, the Golani Brigade concluded a large military exercise in northern Israel including the Golan. That sort of frequency must have operational connotations: The IDF is evidently keeping the army on the move and in a constant state of readiness to fight a real war without delay on terrain made familiar by repeated war games.
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz has a penchant for expressing himself through symbols, his method of overcoming the restrictions placed on his tongue by military and other constraints.

On New Year’s Eve last week, the general handed military correspondents a small gift: The Hebrew edition of the American writer Richard David Bach’s “There’s No Such Place as Far Away.”

For the Golan drill Wednesday, he decided to attach Maj. Gen. (res.) Nati Sharoni, chief artillery officer in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to his party of advisers and observers.
The book was a clear message to Tehran and doubting Thomases at home that the IDF is fully capable of an operation against Iran’s nuclear program and of successfully accomplishing any mission far from its shores.

Gen. Sharoni’s presence at the Golan exercise, and the exercise itself, was a warning to Iran, Hizballah and Syria that they will be disappointed if they hope to catch Israel unready, as it was by the surprise attack which almost overcame the IDF 39 years ago before the tide of war was turned back against Egypt.

Source: Debka

Leftist student activist reports to Evin Prison

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Leftist student activist reports to Evin Prison

Student activitst Sourosh Sabet reported to Evin prison to begin serving a two-year sentence. He was arrested four years ago and accused of undermining state security and public order. He previously won a medal at the Mathematics Olympiad and earned the highest score on graduate-school admissions exam in Iran.

Source: Iran Daily Brief

Tombstone reveals intervention of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Syria

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Tombstone reveals intervention of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Syria

The grave of a young major in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Tehran proved true the reports about the role of Iranian forces in suppressing anti-regime protests.

Several Iranian websites posted the photo of the grave of Muharram Turk, a major in the Revolutionary Guard, in the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, the biggest in the capital Tehran. According to the tombstone, Turk was born on March 30, 1978 and was “martyred” on Jan. 19, 2012 in the Syrian capital Damascus.

The grave also had a picture of Turk and some Persian verses glorifying martyrdom and mentioning that “another door of martyrdom was opened for us,” obviously in reference to the conflict in Syria.

The picture of the grave was first published in a blog and was later shared by several independent and opposition websites.

The blogger said he was walking by coincidence by the cemetery and the grave attracted his attention, because Damascus has become a place of death, so he took a picture of it and posted it on his blog.

Information about Turk, the circumstances of his death, or the reasons for his presence in Syria was, however, hardly available on Iran’s most known official or semi-official websites.

Turk’s name was mentioned on the Tehran Municipality website, on which pictures of Turk’s funeral were posted. His funeral was attended by a large number of mourners especially from the military.

Pictures of Iran’s Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were held by the attendants of the funeral, indicating that it was organized by the authorities and that Turk died while he was on duty.

Another website called Heyat Fatemiun, which pays special attention to deceased soldiers, published very brief information about Turk.

According to the website, the major was “martyred” after he was hit by a grenade during military exercises carried out by the Revolutionary Guard.

The picture was published shortly after Revolutionary Guard commander Major General Mohammed Ali Jaafari vehemently denied the intervention of the Iranian military in Syria and stressed that cooperation with the Syrian regime does not exceed the “consultative” level.

Despite praising the revolutions that took place in several countries in the region like Egypt and Tunisia and calling it an “Islamic awakening,” Iranian state media refers to the Syrian revolution as a “fake version” of the Arab Spring that is supported by Western and Israeli agendas.

Source: Alarabiya

Christians face arrest, persecution in Iran, U.N. experts say

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Christians face arrest, persecution in Iran, U.N. experts say

More than 300 Christians have been arrested since mid-2010 in Iran where churches operate in a climate of fear and Muslims who convert to Christianity face persecution, United Nations human rights investigators said on Thursday.

They welcomed the release earlier this month of Yousof Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor who spent three years in prison before his death sentence for apostasy and evangelism was commuted, but voiced deep concerns for those still detained.

In a joint statement, the independent investigators called on authorities in the Islamic Republic to “ease the current climate of fear in which many churches operate, especially Protestant evangelical houses of worship”.

Ahmed Shaheed, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, estimated that based on his own interviews and reports from activist groups, “over 300 Christians have been arbitrarily arrested and detained throughout the country since June 2010”.

They included at least 41 people detained from one month to more than a year, sometimes without official charges, said Shaheed, a former foreign minister of the Maldives, who has not been allowed into Iran despite repeated requests.

“Scores of other Christians appear to remain in detention for freely practicing their religion,” he said, noting the Iranian constitution and a landmark international treaty ratified by Iran protect the right to practice that faith.

“Churches continue to report undue pressure to report membership, in what appears to be an effort to pressure and sometimes even detain converts,” he said.

Nadarkhani, born to Muslim parents, converted to Christianity at age 19 and joined a Protestant church in the northern city of Rasht.

Sentenced

He was arrested in Oct. 2009 on charges of apostasy and found guilty. He was sentenced to death on charges of apostasy and evangelism in Sept. 2010 following a trial in which Shaheed said guarantees of due process were not upheld.

This month, judicial authorities reduced his charge to “evangelizing Muslims” and his sentence to three years, which he had already served, Shaheed said.

In the U.N. expert’s view, the charges did not qualify as offences under Iran’s penal code.
“Questions remain as to why he spent three years in prison apparently for practicing his religion, a right guaranteed in Iran’s own constitution and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” Shaheed said.

On Monday, judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, quoted by the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA), said of Nadarkhani: “Definitely his release was not the result of pressure by foreign media … At the moment he is free and I don’t have further information.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency, said on Tuesday: “A person’s arrest … is a judiciary matter. If this person has been released, it means that judicial investigations have allowed him to be released.”

Heiner Bielefeldt, U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of religion, said Christians’ right to freedom of religion was protected under Iranian law and should be granted in practice.

“The right to conversion in this context is an inseparable part of freedom of religion or belief,” he said.

He called for the protection of other religious minorities such as the Baha’is, Yarsanis, Dervishes and other religions or faiths not recognized by Iran’s constitution.

Source: Alarabiya

IRGC increases targeting precision of (medium-range) Zelzal rockets

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IRGC increases targeting precision of (medium-range) Zelzal rockets

Mohammad Ali Jafari announced that Iran has increased the targeting precision of its Zelzal rockets and narrowed their margin of error. “These rockets, which were produced 15 to 20 years ago, can fly a range of approximately 300km. These rockets did not enjoy proper precision in targeting, but after a recent project, their precision has been increased, and their margin of error has been lowered to less than 50 meters.”

Source: Iran Daily Brief

If war breaks out in the Strait of Hormuz, nothing will remain of Israel

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If war breaks out in the Strait of Hormuz, nothing will remain of Israel

Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari warned, “Our response to Israel is clear: I do not believe anything will remain of Israel (should it attack Iran). Given Israel’s small land area and its vulnerability to Iran’s massive number of missiles, I don’t think any spot in Israel will remain safe.” He said Iran’s response to any attack will begin near the Israeli border. Iran has close ties with Palestinians and Lebanon, both of whom have defeated Israeli in two separate short-term wars in recent years. He said he did not believe, however, that Israel would attack on its own. Should the US launch a strike, Jafari suggested that Iran could respond with missile salvos at US bases in the Persian Gulf. “The US military bases sprawled around Iran are considered a major vulnerability. Even the missile shields they have set up, based on information we have, could only work for a few missiles, but when exposed to a massive number of missiles, the shields will become ineffective.” He also said, “If a war breaks out where one side is Iran and the other side is the West and US, it’s only natural that a problem will occur in the Strait of Hormuz. The export of energy will be harmed. It’s natural that this will happen.” Jafari said, “If the world and international organizations fail to prevent such an attack, it’s natural that Iran’s commitments (to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) would change, and the situation would be different than in the past. These are the risks and consequences that such an attack would bring, and these matters would be a deterrent.”

Source: Iran Daily Brief

Stupidity of Israel’s leaders has put its citizens one step away from the grave

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Stupidity of Israel’s leaders has put its citizens one step away from the grave

Yahya Rahim Safavi, former IRGC Commander, said that Iran’s Armed Forces are well prepared to counter any threat, adding that enemies are well aware of the country’s deterrence power… Enemies should know that Iran’s response to any threat will be destructive and make its enemies regretful. Rahim Safavi added that Iran is now “stable and powerful,” and its Armed Forces are at the peak in terms of defensive power and preparedness. “The stupidity of the Zionist regime’s leaders to threaten Iran has put the residents of the occupied lands one step away from the grave.”

Source: Iran Daily Brief

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