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Irans national flags are seen on a square in Tehran in 2012, a day before the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

WASHINGTON Iran continues to be the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism, the Trump administration said Wednesday in a new report that also noted a decline in the number of terrorist attacks globally between 2015 and 2016.

In its annual Country Reports on Terrorism released Wednesday, the State Department said Iran was the planets foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2016, a dubious distinction the country has held for many years. It said Iran was firm in its backing of anti-Israel groups as well as proxies that have destabilized already devastating conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. It also said Iran continued to recruit in Afghanistan and Pakistan for Shiite militia members to fight in Syria and Iraq. And, it said Iranian support for Lebanons Hezbollah movement was unchanged.

In terms of non-state actors, the report said the Islamic State group was responsible for more attacks and deaths than any other group in 2016, and was seeking to widen its operations particularly as it lost territory in Iraq and Syria. It carried out 20 percent more attacks in Iraq in 2016 compared with 2015, and its affiliates struck in more than 20 countries, according to the report. Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department and subjected to a variety of U.S. sanctions since 1984, and many of the activities outlined in the report are identical to those detailed in previous reports. But, this years finding comes as the Trump administration moves to toughen its stance against Iran. The administration is expected to complete a full review of its policy on Iran next month.

President Donald Trump has been particularly critical of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration and only reluctantly certified early this week that Iran remained entitled to some sanctions relief under its provisions.

Iran remained the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2016 as groups supported by Iran maintained their capability to threaten U.S. interests and allies, said the report, the Trump administrations first, which was released just a day after the administration slapped new sanctions on Iran for ballistic missile activity. Some of those sanctions were imposed on people and companies affiliated with Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the report said continues to play a destabilizing role in military conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Iran used a unit of the IRGC, the Qods Force, to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations and create instability in the Middle East, the report said. It added that Iran has publicly acknowledged its involvement in Syria and Iraq.

Hezbollah worked closely with Iran to support the attempt by Syrian President Bashar Assads government to maintain and control territory, according to the report. And with Iranian support, Hezbollah continued to develop long-term attack capabilities and infrastructure around the world, it said.

New sanctions were slapped on individuals and groups tied to Irans ballistic missile program, hours after the State Department again certified that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal struck two years ago. William Brangham speaks with chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner and Nick Schifrin about the schism within the Trump administration about Iran and the nuclear deal.

The report also accused Iran of supplying weapons, money and training to militant Shia groups in Bahrain, maintaining a robust cyberterrorism program and refusing to identify or prosecute senior members of the al-Qaida network that it has detained.

As in previous reports, Sudan and Syria were also identified as state sponsors of terrorism.

In its final days, the Obama administration suspended some sanctions against Sudan in recognition of that countrys improved counterterrorism record. In early July, the Trump administration extended those suspensions by three months. Countries can be removed from the list at any time following a formal review process, but the report offered no explanation for why Sudan remains on it.

In fact, it said counterterrorism is now a national priority for the Khartoum government and that Sudan is a cooperative partner of the United States on counterterrorism, despite its continued presence on the state sponsors of terrorism list.

Despite the activities of Iran and groups like the Islamic State in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria, and Boko Haram and al-Shabab in Africa, the total number of terrorist attacks in 2016 decreased by 9 percent from 11,774 in 2015 to 11,072, according to statistics compiled for the report by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.

That reduction was accompanied by a 13 percent decrease in deaths from 28,328 to 25,621 from such attacks over the same period. Of those killed in 2016, 16 were American citizens, including seven in high-profile attacks in Brussels in March and Nice, France, in July. Seventeen Americans were injured in the Brussels attack and three in Nice, the report said.

The report attributed the drops to fewer terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan and Yemen. At the same time, the report said attacks in the Congo, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan and Turkey increased between 2015 and 2016.

READ MORE: Can Trump improve his record-low approval rating?

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Iran still top state sponsor of terrorism, US report says - PBS NewsHour

Shuttle diplomacy.

The worlds biggest gas field lies between Qatar and Iran, and the half-competitive, half-cooperative race to exploit it has taken a new turn. For both countries, this enormous resource is also a source of political power. Now, with the emirate at odds with Tehrans foe, Saudi Arabia, its tacit cooperation with Iran is gaining, even as the two are set to compete more intensely in gas markets.

In 1971, Shell first drilled into what became Qatars North Field and was disappointed to find not oil, but gas, though in vast quantities. The country was only a modest oil producer with a tiny domestic and regional energy market. Through the 1980s and 1990s, it struggled to develop a liquefied natural gas project to export to Asia, but with low global energy prices, a cost-cutting BP gave up and Mobil took over. The emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who took power from his cautious father in a bloodless coup in 1995, was keen to press ahead.

Exxon might not have had the entrepreneurial mindset to create the project, but when it bought Mobil in 1998, and soon afterwards oil and gas prices began to rise, it had one of its most valuable global assets. The wily former oil minister, Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, worked with the emir to use Qatars strategic position to sell gas both east and west. Total, ConocoPhillips and Shell also built LNG plants, while the Abu Dhabi state firm Mubadala, with Total and Occidental, constructed the Dolphin pipeline to the neighboring United Arab Emirates.

When the U.S. import market disappeared because of the rise of shale gas, Qatar was nimble enough to focus on Europe and Asia, and reacted rapidly to boost supplies to Japan after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The Japanese were grateful, even if they felt they paid a stiff price as LNG prices soared to records. And in less than two decades, Qatar became the worlds wealthiest country per capita, a major global investor and an expansive political actor involved across the Middle East.

Meanwhile, despite Qatari maps showing the field conveniently ended at the border, Iran drilled its sector in 1991, and gradually established that it had about a third of the total reserves in what it called South Pars. But it was slowed by sanctions, mismanagement, and indecision and political infighting over what the gas should be used for -- reinjected in ageing oil fields to boost recovery, sold to petrochemical industries, burnt to generate power or heat homes, or exported by pipeline to neighbors or as LNG.

In 2005, Qatar imposed a moratorium on further development of the North Field, saying it needed to study the reservoir. That moratorium has only just been lifted -- but a field study does not take 12 years. There were good commercial reasons to halt -- the LNG market was becoming oversupplied and domestic construction capability was overstretched. Saudi pressure blocked new pipelines to Bahrain and Kuwait, which even made difficulties over the route of the Dolphin pipeline.

But there has also been suspicion that the Iranians warned Doha to stop new projects that they felt would start draining their gas. Since 2014, Irans production has been gaining rapidly as long-delayed phases of South Pars, awarded to domestic contractors who were hampered by sanctions and financing problems, have finally been completed. By 2020, Irans output from South Pars will exceed Qatars from the North Field.

The South Pars phases that have not begun development -- 13, 14 and 22-24 -- are at the northeastern end of the field, well away from the border. The one exception is Phase 11, which lies on the border, and has been a priority to prevent gas migrating from the Iranian to the Qatari side.

The contract that Total and China National Petroleum Corporation signed on July 3 for Phase 11 is thus a crucial part of Irans strategy, as the first deal awarded under the new Iran Petroleum Contract, designed to attract foreign investment following the lifting of nuclear-related sanctions at the start of last year. The production will initially go to the domestic market, but later could support Irans first LNG export project. It is a key public relations win for both post-sanctions Iran and for theadministration of recently re-elected President Hassan Rouhani.

This came only two months after Qatar announced the end of its moratorium, with the beginning of a new gas production project. Just a day after the signature of the South Pars Phase 11 deal, Qatar Petroleum Chief Executive Saad Sherida Al Kaabi said its new project would double in size, raising total LNG export capacity by 30 percent to 100 million metric tons per year by about 2023, maintaining it as the worlds largest, outpacing Australia and the U.S.

This was a signal to high-cost LNG competitors that Qatar would fight for its market share, and it was a sign of defiance to the Saudi-led coalition. The chief executives of ExxonMobil, Total and Shell all visited Doha recently.

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The interesting question is, what deal or understanding did Iran reach with Qatar over its expansion? If the emirate had instituted its moratorium on account of warnings against further projects by the Iranians around 2005, this could not be sustained now that their own production nearly matches Dohas, from just a third of the total reserves. The Saudi-led blockade has pushed Doha closer to its big northern neighbor, and at the same time, the Iranians, seeing a chance to divide their Arab neighbors, may be willing to make life a little easier for the Qataris. Cooperation suits both owners of this field -- for now.

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To contact the author of this story: Robin M. Mills at robin@qamarenergy.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net

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Qatar Warms Up to Iran on Natural Gas - Bloomberg

A view of the Iranian parliament in Tehran September 2, 2009.

Under Irans current drug law, at least 10 offenses, including some that are nonviolent, are punishable by death, including possession of as little as 30 grams of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines. The law also mandates the death penalty for trafficking, possession, or trade of more than five kilograms of opium or 30 grams of heroin; repeated offenses involving smaller amounts; or the manufacture of more than 50 grams of synthetic drugs.

On December 6, 2016, 146 members of parliament introduced a draft amendment that sought to replace capital punishment for drug offenses with imprisonment for up to 30 years, while allowing the death penalty if the accused or one of the participants in the crime used or carried weapons intending to use them against law enforcement agencies. The death penalty also would still apply to a leader of a drug trafficking cartel, anyone who used a child in drug trafficking, or anyone facing new drug-related charges who had previously been sentenced to execution or 15 years to life for drug-related offenses.

In mid-July, Human Rights Watch interviewed via smartphone applications six family members of prisoners who are on death row. They said that they are hopeful that the new law would spare their loved ones from execution. The mother of a man executed in Khoram Abad prison in Lorestan province on June 24, said, If authorities hadnt executed my son today, [under the new law] he would have been sentenced to imprisonment.

Under article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified, countries that still retain capital punishment may apply the death penalty only for the most serious crimes. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the independent expert body that interprets the covenant, has said that drug offenses are not among the most serious crimes, and that the use of the death penalty for such crimes violates international law. Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances because it is inherently inhumane and irreversible.

Parliament should resist any pressure to curb reforms to the drug law and move forward with a bill that better protects the right to life, Whitson said. This would be the first step in addressing the epidemic of executions in Iran and a move toward abolishing the death penalty.

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Iran: Halt Drug-Related Executions - Human Rights Watch

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Monday was a tough day for President Trump's agenda. As the Senate's bid to overturn Obamacare collapsed amid Republican infighting(more on that later in the newsletter), the White House reluctantly certified Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration in 2015. This was the second time the Trump administration has done so it is required every 90 days to notify Congress whether Iran is living up to its commitments.

Trump assented tothe movewith profound reservations and pushed for more sanctions on Iran.Senior administration officials made clear that the certification was grudging, my colleague Karen DeYoungwrote, and said that President Trump intends to impose new sanctions on Iran for ongoing 'malign activities' in non-nuclear areas such as ballistic missile development and support for terrorism.

Trump reportedly fumed at having to assent toanother certification of Iran's compliance, which wasconfirmed by international monitors and the other signatories to the agreement.Key U.S. allies, including Britain, France and Germany, see the dealas an effective curb on Tehran's putative nuclear ambitions. They don't link its implementation to concerns about Iran's other troublesome behaviors, including its support for various militant groups in the Middle East and its unjust detentions of foreign nationals.

The nuclear agreement helps significantly to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Peter Wittig, the German ambassador inWashington, wrote this year. But we remain very realistic about Irans problematic role in the region.

Iran remainsthe president's No. 1 geopolitical bugbear. Trump, who seems determinedto smasheverypillar of former president Barack Obama's legacy, repeatedly cast the deal as a capitulation to the Islamic Republic. The only memorable event in the short-lived tenure of ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn was his cryptic statement officially putting Iran on notice. In Saudi Arabia, on his first foreign visit, Trumpsigned on to Riyadh's vision for the Middle East one that is shaped first and foremost by antipathy toward Tehran.

According to Peter Baker of the New York Times, Trumphad told his security team that he would not keep [certifying Iran's compliance]indefinitely andcomplained at an hour-long meeting last week aboutdoing so this time. His top advisers, including national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis noneof whom have muchsympathy for the Iranians had to persuade him to abide by the accord.

While candidate Trump blustered about scrapping the nuclear dealaltogether, his administration has been compelled to shy away from such drastic unilateral action. Still, it seemsTrump himself is eager for the deal to unravel.

The Trump administration has deliberately created an environment of uncertainty by consistently questioning the validity of the deal, said Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, which seeks better ties between Washington and Tehran, hinting that the U.S. might quit the agreement, and by suggesting that it might pursue regime change in Iran. Parsi saidin an email that rather than pursuing dialogue with Tehran to resolve remaining disputes, as every one of our European allies have done, the Trump administration has chosen to escalate tensions and eschew opportunities to come to a mutual understanding.

At a NATO summit in May, Trump tried to persuade European partners to stop making trade and business deals with Iran a move that could in itself constitute a violation of the deal, which stipulates that its parties will refrain from any policy that woulddamage Iran's economic dealings while it complies with the accord.

But officials from other governments that are signatories to the dealshow little willingness to renegotiateits terms. Just last month, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel hailed the pact as a great sign of hope and a historic window for a rekindling of ties. Numerous European companies are plunging into the Iranian market. Thismonth, French energy giant Total signed a landmark gas deal with Iran worth close to $5 billion.

There is a clear division between where the Europeans are going and where the Americans are going on Iran, Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, saidto my colleague Erin Cunningham. The Europeans have embarked on a path of rapprochement. The U.S. is looking at a policy of isolationism and containment.

That was not lost on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in New York this week. At the Council on Foreign Relations, Zarif said the White House was sending contradictory signals. In an interview with the National Interest, Zarif scolded Trump's supposed violation of the spirit of the deal.

If it comes to a major violation, or what in the terms of the nuclear deal is called significant nonperformance, then Iran has other options available, including withdrawing from the deal, he said. Althoughthe White House would love to coax an Iranian withdrawal, that is unlikely to happen. Zarif also used his platform to chide Trump over the unraveling of his anti-Iran agenda, including thecrisisamong Arab states of the Persian Gulfthatflared up afterTrump's visit to Saudi Arabia.

We need to be more careful about the signaling, because weve seen that wrong signaling in the past few weeks in our region, particularly after the Riyadh summit, has caused a rather serious backlash in the region not between U.S. allies and Iran, but among U.S. allies, Zarif said, referring to the impasse over Qatar. So I believe it would be important to keep that in consideration, to understand the complexities of the situation.

It is a devastating sign ... that an American president is being outflanked so easily by an Iranian foreign minister, Slate's Fred Kaplanwrote. Its a sorrier sign still that the Iranian foreign minister is in the right.

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The US and Iran are heading toward crisis - Washington Post

Reihane Taravati, an outspoken social media activist, was riding in a taxi the other day when she received a stern reprimand from the driver.

Unbeknownst to Taravati, 26, her headscarf which Iranian women are required to wear as a show of modesty had slipped down the back of her scalp, leaving most of her hair exposed.

Fix your scarf, or the undercover [moral] police will see it, the cabbie told her. He worried about receiving a ticket in the mail, which would cost him about $30.

As Taravati relayed this story while sipping tea with friends in a Tehran cafe, a debate was raging in the Iranian capital that combines two things that people here obsess over: cars and the way women dress.

Specifically: is the car a public space, where women must clothe themselves modestly in accordance with Islamic laws, or a private space in which Irans ruling clerics have tolerated a bit more personal freedom?

In this traffic-choked city, private vehicles are the latest battleground in Irans ongoing culture wars, which Tehran denizens are watching ever more closely in the wake of the May presidential election.

There is growing tension between President Hassan Rouhani, who comfortably won reelection and has said that Irans police should not be empowered to enforce adherence to Islam, and hard-line clerics who favor a stricter interpretation of religious laws.

President Rouhani has reiterated over and over in the past year that a police officer is not authorized to poke his nose into peoples private lives and enforce what they perceive as Gods preferred lifestyle, Taravati said.

Questions over what is often referred to as bad hijab a lax interpretation of the official dress code that requires women to cover their hair and figures tend to rise in the summer along with Tehrans temperatures, which frequently touch 100 degrees in July.

Last week, in the closely watched Friday sermon at Tehran University, a leading cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, took on the issue directly, saying: Private cars are not the private sphere.

Kermani invoked the forcible removal of the hijab in the 1930s by Irans former secular regime, led by Reza Shah Pahlavi, and argued that those who flouted the dress code were thumbing their nose at the ideals of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

I have heard that in some cars women do not wear hijab at all, he said. You who dont have proper hijab, you are violating the countrys independence. I thank law enforcement for trying to enforce the Islamic hijab.

In the political Shiite Islam that prevails in Iran, there is no concrete boundary between what is private and what is public. Moral police have been known to break up private parties attended by both men and women and arrest people for posting Instagram selfies because they are seen as immodest.

This month, reformist news sites reported that satellite dishes had been seized from the rooftops of private residences in two districts of Tehran. The dishes are officially outlawed hard-liners view them as a weapon of cultural invasion but a common feature of middle-class households.

Since Rouhani took office in 2013, he has insisted that peoples private lives should be protected from the regular police force and the moral police. But since May, Irans judiciary, which is close to the clerical establishment, has tried to further curtail the social freedoms that Rouhani promised.

The invisible part of the car, such as the trunk, is a private space, but this does not apply to the visible parts of the car, Hadi Sadeghi, deputy head of Irans judiciary, said this month.

Golnar Ramesh, a 28-year-old tour guide, said the post-election backlash against Rouhani supporters was a predictable turn in the rivalry between conservative and reform-minded Iranians.

In public, women and men should have the right to choose what they wear, Ramesh said. That is the meaning of the 24 million votes given to President Rouhani. It has become a repetitive and vicious pattern to crack down on freedom of choice for clothing after elections, whenever the hard-liners lose.

Shiva Ershadi, a 30-year-old interpreter who works with Afghan refugees in Tehran, recalled driving her car one evening in February 2016 following the results of parliamentary elections in which moderates and reformists won a sizable victory. She was stuck in traffic when she heard a loud banging noise it was a basij paramilitary soldier, in plainclothes and sporting a beard, warning her to fix her hijab, which had fallen off her head.

He was mad with rage and saw people like me responsible for [the election] loss, Ershadi said.

The logic behind [the hard-liners] argument is flawed and demagogic. The police consider people as potential sinners who must be punished whenever they are caught, rather than regarding them as respectful citizens entitled to the right of privacy.

Not all Rouhani supporters endorse the view that the car is private. Monireh Turkmanazar, a 66-year-old attorney, said anything visible on the streets should be considered part of the public domain and subject to police monitoring.

I think the opposition whether based abroad or inside Iran are raising a minor, irrelevant issue to raise pressure on reformists and moderates.

A reformist human rights defender, Saleh Nikbakht, said that since both cars and houses have roofs and windows, both should be considered in the private domain. But the frequent raids on houses show that the private sphere in Iran has been under attack, he said.

Hard-liners argue that when the police see through car windows that clear crimes are happening, then they can arrest people, said Nikbakht, 61. They do not want to distinguish between a woman without a scarf and a true criminal.

Taravati the free-spirited activist who in 2014 was arrested for participating in an online video set to the hit Pharrell Williams song Happy said the enforcement of Islamic dress was an attempt by hard-liners to punish Rouhani supporters.

Private life in the car, in the house and in the apartment must be respected, she said. That is what we voted for, and it is time for the president to deliver.

Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Bengali from Mumbai, India.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

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Iran's latest culture battle: Should women in cars keep their heads covered? - Los Angeles Times