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26 April 2023

Ayatollah Abbasali Soleimani died in hospital after being shot in the northern town of Babolsar

A senior Iranian Shia Muslim cleric and member of the powerful Assembly of Experts has been killed in a gun attack in northern Iran, state media report.

Ayatollah Abbasali Soleimani died in hospital after being shot at a bank in Babolsar, in Mazandaran province.

Its governor said the attacker, who has been arrested, was a bank security guard and that the motive was unclear.

Ayatollah Soleimani was one of 88 clerics on the Assembly of Experts, which appoints the Supreme Leader.

The elected body also monitors his performance and can - theoretically - remove him if he is deemed incapable of fulfilling his duties.

He also previously served as the personal representative of the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the restive south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, stepping down in 2019 after 17 years in the role.

BBC Persian's Parham Ghobadi says he was a hardliner who called for gender segregation in all public spaces in the Islamic Republic, including workplaces.

Ayatollah Soleimani, who was in his mid-70s, was visiting a branch of Bank Belli in Babolsar on personal business at about 10:30 (07:00 GMT) on Wednesday when he was shot.

CCTV footage published by the Tasnim news agency appeared to show the cleric, dressed in a traditional dark robe and white turban, sitting on a chair inside the bank.

A middle-aged man wearing a blue and white uniform and carrying what looks like a submachine gun is then seen walking up to him from behind before firing a series of shots into his back.

The man is then disarmed by two other men, one of whom is wearing a green uniform.

The governor of Mazandaran, Mahmoud Hosseinipour Nouri, said the attacker was a local man who was one of several armed guards employed by a security contractor to protect the bank.

"So far, the motive of the assailant for the act is rather unclear," he told state TV.

He said the police's investigation into the shooting was continuing, but that "our information and documents indicate that this was not a security or terrorist act".

An initial report by Hawzahnews, the official website of Iran's Shia seminaries, cited a witness as saying that the attacker was a man who grabbed a bank guard's gun and opened fire, rather than a guard.

Last April, two clerics were killed and a third was injured in a knife attack at a Shia shrine in the north-eastern city of Mashhad.

An ethnic Uzbek man was hanged in June after being found guilty of carrying out the stabbings, for which police did not reveal the motive.

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Iran: Senior Shia cleric on Assembly of Experts shot dead at bank - BBC

TEHRAN- Iran has apprehended members of a network with ties to Marxist counter-revolutionary organizations, the terrorist cult the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), and French spies.

Fars news agency stated on Monday, citing informed sources, that all of the inmates had previously been imprisoned and freed under pardons given by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

According to the investigation, the inmates had come together to plan and coordinate raising tensions in teacher and worker meetings, inspiring them to strike nationally, and bringing up the false poisoning projects at schools once more.

Two of those detained were Maryam Assadollahi (also known as Anisha) and Reyhaneh Ansari.

Because of their association and collaboration with two French agents, they were detained last year.

Last year, ahead to Workers and Teachers Day, French spies entered the country to plan disturbances and offer money to their operatives.

After being recognized, they were apprehended by Iranian intelligence officers and watched for a period to identify their domestic associates.

The inmates had congregated at the residence of a former ringleader of an unlawful self-proclaimed labor union.

The gathering was organized by foreign elements and took place under the pretense of visiting inmates relatives.

IRGC foils sabotage team linked to MKO in northern Iran

An anti-government sabotage group linked to the terrorist MKO group in northern province of Mazandaran has also been disbanded, according to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) intelligence officials.

Mostafa Bazvand, the IRGC commander in the city of Babolsar, said on Monday that the team was operating in the northern city with the intention of misleading young people.

Based on his remarks, the teams commanders engaged in acts of terrorism and sabotage and had direct communication with foreign-based organizations.

Since the riots began in Iran in mid-September 2022, the group had been sending video footage and other information to Persian-language media networks based in the United States and Britain while also misleading children, the IRGC commander said.

They were held by IRGC intelligence forces, he continued, and their social media accounts were also suspended.

When Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, passed away in mid-September in hospital three days after collapsing at a police station in Tehran, riots erupted in certain cities across Iran.

Aminis death was eventually ascribed by an inquiry to her underlying medical condition rather than to alleged police abuse.

Over the past three decades, the MKO has carried out a number of terrorist attacks against Iranian citizens and government figures.

About 12,000 of the nearly 17,000 Iranians who have died in terrorist attacks since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 have been victims of MKO-perpetrated terror.

The EU designated the organization as a terrorist organization until January 2009, when the EU Council withdrew the label in response to intense political lobbying.

Likewise, the United States followed the decision in September of 2012.

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Iran arrests people suspected of having connections to French spies - Tehran Times

TEHRAN The historical town of Siba, which is situated in the Kukherd district of Irans Hormozgan province, has gained a national status to receive better maintenance and care.

The historical town of Siba, which is located in the Kukherd rural district in Bastak county, has been registered on Irans cultural heritage list, the provincial tourism chief said on Sunday.

Siba is home to an ancient hydraulic structure and arrays of ruined structures, castles, and fortresses, Mohammad Mohseni said.

In addition to the historical town, a former administrative structure, a bridge, and an edifice were added to the prestigious list, the official stated.

Siba fortress and a neighboring bathhouse are among the most remarkable examples of the cited Sassanid structures surrounded by a trench in the ancient town.

The history of Siba fortress was the center of government in that area. It acted as a fortified military base for some time and was surrounded by a huge trench for protection. A trench was an ancient defensive strategic feature to defend the cities, castles, and forts in Persia before the Islamic era. The gigantic structure was considered a traditional defensive ancient landmark like other landmarks at that time, such as huge city gates, cellars, security tunnels, and underground military storage.

The bathhouse was built adjacent to a natural hot spring, during the Sassanid era. It served Sassanid government officials, the merchants from nearby seaports and desert caravan routes, and the public.

The Sassanid era is of very high importance in the history of Iran. Under Sassanids, Persian architecture and arts experienced a general renaissance. Architecture often took grandiose proportions, such as palaces at Ctesiphon, Firuzabad, and Sarvestan, which are amongst the highlights of the ensemble.

Generally, a Sassanid archaeological landscape represents a highly efficient system of land use and strategic utilization of natural topography in the creation of the earliest cultural centers of the Sassanid civilization.

In 2018, an ensemble of Sassanian historical cities in southern Iran, titled Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region, was named a UNESCO site.

AFM

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Sassanid town in southern Iran named national heritage - Tehran Times

April 27 (Reuters) - Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman in international waters on Thursday, the U.S. Navy said, the latest in a series of seizures or attacks on commercial vessels in sensitive Gulf waters since 2019.

Iran's army said it had seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman after it collided with an Iranian boat, injuring several crewmen, Iranian state media reported.

"Two members of the boat's crew are missing and several were injured due to the collision of the ship with the boat," an army statement said.

The U.S. Navy identified the vessel as the Advantage Sweet. According to Refinitiv ship tracking data, it is a Suezmax crude tanker that had been chartered by oil major Chevron (CVX.N) and had last docked in Kuwait.

Chevron said it is aware of the situation involving the Advantage Sweet and is "in contact with the vessel operator with the hope of resolving this situation as soon as possible," a spokesperson said.

The vessel's destination was listed as the U.S. Gulf of Mexico port of Houston, ship tracking data showed.

Its manager is listed as Genel Denizcilik Nakliyati AS. The Turkey-based company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Marshall Islands Maritime Administrator said it was aware of the situation and was in communication with the vessel's owner/operator but declined to comment further.

"Iran's continued harassment of vessels and interference with navigational rights in regional waters are a threat to maritime security and the global economy," the U.S. Navy said, adding Iran has in the past two years unlawfully seized at least five commercial vessels in the Middle East.

The U.S. Navy added that after sending a P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft to monitor the situation, "we have since been able to determine the IRIN (Iranian navy) conducted the seizure".

Iranian authorities did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

About a fifth of the world's crude oil and oil products passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow choke point between Iran and Oman which the Advantage Sweet had passed through, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa.

Maritime security company Ambrey said the vessel had been boarded via helicopter. "The vessel did not show any signs of conducting evasive manoeuvres prior to the incident," it said.

Munro Anderson, with maritime security company Dryad, said separately that Iran usually detained vessels for "leverage or signalling".

"The working hypothesis at the moment is that it could either be an arbitrary detention of a vessel by Iran in response to the U.S. sailing its first unmanned vessel through the region last week - as a show of force," he said. "Or, it could be in response to the sanctions on the 24th (of April) by the U.S. against personnel in Iran connected to the IRGC (elite Revolutionary Guards)."

Since 2019 there have been a series of attacks on shipping in the strategic Gulf waters at times of tension between the United States and Iran.

Iran last November released two Greek-flagged tankers it seized in the Gulf in May in response to the confiscation of oil by the United States from an Iranian-flagged tanker off the Greek coast.

Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear pact with world powers have stalled since September over a range of issues, including the Islamic Republic's violent crackdown on popular protests, Tehran's sale of drones to Russia and acceleration of its nuclear program.

The U.S. Navy, whose Fifth Fleet is based at the Gulf island state of Bahrain, called on Iran to immediately release the tanker.

The ship issued a distress call during the seizure, the U.S. Navy statement said.

According to the International Maritime Organisation shipping database, the Advantage Sweet is owned by a China-registered company called SPDBFL No One Hundred & Eighty-Seven (Tianjin) Ship Leasing Co Ltd.

Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in BengaluruEditing by Bernadette Baum

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Iran seizes oil tanker in Gulf, U.S. Navy says - Reuters

An influential commentator in Iran says the weak performance of President Ebrahim Raisi's administration has seriously terrified his conservative allies.

Mohammad Mohajeri, a conservative himself and former editor of hard-line daily Kayhan, has said in an interview that conservatives believe the current government has left such a bad record that its opponents are highly likely to win the next parliamentary and presidential elections.

"However, their fear may be baseless as the supporter of reformists and a large part of Iranian voters are not willing to take part in the elections," Mohajeri said, adding that nonetheless, conservatives will continue their smear campaign against relative moderates such as former President Hassan Rouhani, former Majles Speakers Ali Larijani and Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri.

Meanwhile, Mohajeri said in another interview that Iran's reformists and conservatives have influence only among 15 to 20 percent of the society. He also charged that 90 percent of Iran's Friday Prayer Imams belong to the conservative camp and the Friday Prayers are a podium for only one political faction.

However, a national reconciliation is possible in Iran only if the government facilitates the political participation of all political groups in the elections. He added that there is not much time for that as fierce campaigning for the parliamentary elections will start in around two months from now.

Conservative pundit Mohammad Mohajeri

He suggested that to facilitate political participation, the government needs to bring about essential changes in economic, political and cultural arenas. He argued that the government's inability to improve the economy will keep deeply disillusioned voters away from the ballot box.

Many people are also currently annoyed by the government's unilateralism. Enforcing compulsory hijab and filtering the Internet have deeply annoyed the people so that they are reluctant to take part in political activities such as voting in the elections.

However, Mohajeri said in the interview that some ultraconservatives including those around the housing minister Mehrdad Bazrpash have already started their campaign.

Mohajeri warned that if the government does anything beyond what has been stipulated in the Constitutional Law, the people will feel their essential rights have been undermined.

Many protesters during the past months chanted slogans against Iran's rigid Constitution which gives every right to hardliner clerics to restrict the freedom of the populace.

Meanwhile, he lashed out at the government's heavy-handed approach against unveiled women and said that it was quite clear from the start that policies such as launching a morality police would face resistance by women.

Agreeing with Mohajeri on the situation of the current government, Sharyar Heidari, a member of parliament told Rouydad24 website in Tehran that in the next election Raisi is not likely to win a quarter of the votes he received in 2021.

Iranian sociologist Nematollah Fazeli

In another development, Iranian sociologist Nematollah Fazeli said in an interview with Khabar Online that the government does not have a true understanding of the people's demands. Fazeli said the government would have been at ease to accept some of the demands of the people if they were simply about the economy. But the people's understanding of politics and the gender issue has changed over the years and the government cannot understand that.

"Women had a focal position in the recent movement in Iran although there were other activists too. This is caused by a major development in social knowledge in Iran," he said, which emanates from within the society and its everyday life and the people's collective experience."

Fazeli added that the understanding what happened in Iran during the past months requires a thorough understanding of women's role, but little attention has been paid to this matter by any government entity. This requires a new look at women and femininity, an issue that has been marginalized after the 1979 Islamic revolution, the sociologist said.

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Iran's Conservatives Fear Losing Upcoming Elections -