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Police officers stand outside Iran's parliament building following an attack by several gunmen, Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017.(photo byMajid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Author:Fazel Hawramy Posted June 30, 2017

Iranian authorities have rounded up at least 150 people in Tehran and in the Kurdish areas in the west of the country following the June 7 terrorist attacks in the capital, which claimed 18 lives.

The five young attackers who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in a video released shortly after the attacks appear to have traveled from Kermanshah province to Tehran undetected in early June. The rare but deadly strikes targeted two of the most guarded locations in the capital: the parliament and the mausoleum of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

How these men obtained firearms and explosives to carry out the attacks is not clear, but Iranian officials have admitted that the country's security establishment was taken by surprise. On June 27, parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission held its second closed-door session to examine the June 7 attacks. "In this session, the new plan to maintain the security of the parliament and the ways to confront future possible incidents were discussed and necessary measures were taken," the semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency reported about the meeting. Iran has held IS directly responsible for the attacks, but it ultimately blamed the United States and "regressive" regimes in the Persian Gulf region for supporting the group. As a symbolic gesture, on June 18 Iran fired several missiles from the Kurdish areas in the west of the country, where the attackers came from, at an IS position in northeast Syria. "Our enemies should know that Tehran is not London or Paris; this was a small measure, and if they make another mistake, we will strike them with deadlier attacks," said Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Since the June 7 attacks, security forces have taken no chances and have rounded up a large number of individuals mainly associated with Salafist groups in a bid to crack down on their activities, sources inside Iran and human rights activists from outside the country told Al-Monitor. "More than 50 individual terrorist backers were arrested in Kermanshah province following the terrorist incident in Tehran, and a number of explosive belts, electronic detonators and weapons were discovered," Mohammad Hossein Sadeghi, the prosecutor of Kermanshah province, said on June 25.

"No one has been freed apart from two women," said a source from the town of Paveh, where four of the attackers came from and where the Iranian authorities are said to have arrested more than 50 individuals. At least one of the attackers, Saryas Sadeghi, was reported to have been on the radar of the intelligence services, said sources in Paveh, but it is not clear how he managed to travel to Tehran to carry out the strikes along with four other attackers. "One of Saryas' brothers has been arrested, and he is still in custody," an activist who monitors the human rights situation told Al-Monitor.

In prisons across the Kurdish region, authorities have reportedly taken severe measures even against Salafist prisoners who were imprisoned before the attacks on Tehran.

According to a tally from Hangaw Human Rights News, a web-based organization that documents human rights abuses in the Kurdish areas of Iran, close to 150 people have been detained since the attacks in Tehran. While the real number could be much higher, Hangaw has verified the identity of 45 individuals who have been taken into custody across the Kurdish region in western Iran. "These individuals were arrested on charges of connections with Wahhabi groups, and according to witnesses, they were beaten during the arrests," Hangaw reported, referring to the puritanical Islamic doctrine originating from Saudi Arabia.

On June 24, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed that several people have been arrested in the capital and are under investigation in connection with the attacks, but he refused to divulge information about the cases to the press due to "security and intelligence reasons."

While government officials have maintained that terrorists cannot cause damage to the security of the Islamic Republic because of the readiness of the IRGC and other security forces, some officials have admitted that IS took them by surprise. "Given the huge improvement in the level of security in our country in recent years, the Daesh [IS] forces used the element of surprise, but I am confident now that the security and intelligence forces will maintain a safe environment and will not allow another terrorist attack to take place," Seyed Qassem Jassemi, a member of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said June 26, adding, "If it was not for the defenders of the shrine [Shiite fighters deployed to Syria], no doubt we would have had to fight Daesh [IS] in Kermanshah and Hamedan."

Jassemi's remarks echo claims repeatedly made by Iranian officials that to avoid fighting terrorist groups inside Iran, they need to be fought in Syria and Iraq. To this end, thousands of Shiite fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon supported by Iran have been deployed to Syria since 2011 to shore up President Bashar al-Assad's forces against jihadi groups, including IS. Iran also provides military assistance and advisers to the Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq to fight IS militants in the country.

But while the battles in Syria and Iraq are important for Iran, the attacks in Tehran appear to have been a wake-up call for Iranian officials, reminding them that domestic threats are as important as those from abroad. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that blowback from the military interventions in the region may be a very real and serious prospect. In the meantime, perhaps the most immediate question is whether Iranian security forces have cast too wide a net in the search for terror suspects. If so, it has the potential of causing more trouble than it seeks to thwart.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/06/iran-tehran-attacks-crackdown-salafists-kurdish-region.html

Original post:
Iran cracks down on Salafists in wake of Tehran attacks - Al-Monitor

There's mischief afoot in the White House, and it's the familiar mischief of regime change. Some in President Trump's advisory circle are reportedly pushing for an official embrace of regime change as the United States' policy toward Iran.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is at the forefront of this ill-advised endeavor. "I don't see how anyone can say America can be safe," he told Politico, "as long as you have in power a theocratic despotism" in Iran.

Well, senator, let me explain.

First, let's agree the government of Iran is an unsavory regime. Tehran has a well-documented record of human rights abuses, so Cotton's "theocratic despotism" label is not unfair. Iran also has a reputation for sponsoring terrorism and backing Syria's genocidal government.

To be sure, the recent re-election of President Hassan Rouhani, who campaigned on a message of moderation and liberalization, is a step in the right direction. Rouhani's hardline opponent was considered the favorite of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his voters hailed the win as a victory for peace and positive international diplomacy. More importantly, younger Iranians are increasingly secular and pro-Western. They are challenging their government's strict social controls and have a positive view of America. As these generations mature and Khamenei's cohort dies off, political evolution (if not revolution) is likely.

Still, it would be nave to deny that the potentially free and open Iran of the future is not yet here. But it would be even more naveand dangerous, tooto make the leap from this basis to Cotton's support of U.S.-orchestrated regime change.

The weight of pragmatic considerations here is enormous. Consider what happened in Iraq, the United States' biggest post-9/11 regime change project. What was sold as a necessary and relatively easy war has dragged on these 14 years. Iraq today is less stable than it was before American military intervention; it has become a breeding ground of terrorism, a festering sore oozing the poison of radicalism across the greater Mideast. We have little to show for more than a decade of nation-building efforts spread across three presidencies. With trillions spent and tens of thousands of American and Iraqi lives lost, no one can credibly say regime change in Iraq was a decision worth repeating.

Apply the same approach to Iran, and the results will be more disastrous. Iran has more than double Iraq's population, and Iranians are better educated and more urbanized. Iran is more than triple Iraq's geographic size, and its economy and technological development are both superior to its neighbor to the east. Add to that the United States' history of meddling in Iran's internal affairsrecent history that is not forgotten and will keep Iranian moderates and reformers from being sympathetic to American goals and the probability of a successful regime change imposed by Washington is exactly nil.

The good news is there is no credible case such an effort is needed. Contra the threat inflation from Iran hawks, the country is fundamentally a regional power with bounded influence.

It is a majority-Shiite state surrounded by Sunni enemies, most notably the well-armed and U.S.-supported Saudi Arabia. It is halfway across the globe from our shores, isolated from us by the world's largest natural moats, and would be laughably outmatched by the U.S. in conventional warfare. Moreover, American intelligence agencies have consistently and unanimously said since 2007 that Tehran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program. And though hardly an American ally in the war on terror, Iran does join Washington in actively opposing the Islamic State, the chief terrorism threat we face today.

This assessment of Iran's limited capabilitiesnot to mention the gross expense, risk, and instability regime change would unquestionably produceis why foreign policy realists argue America can be safe without launching another long, bloody war of choice.

Again, none of this is to say the Iranian regime is a paradigm of freedom and respect for human rights. It is uncontroversial to say it is not. But you don't have to love the government in Tehran to recognize that pursuing a policy of regime change is neither necessary nor prudent.

Read the original:
Regime Change in Iran Is Neither Necessary Nor Prudent - Reason

Weddings have been moved and family visits delayed.

The Trump administration's travel ban, while a shadow of its original self, has dealt a harsh blow to the Iranian-American community, where family ties run strong and friends and loved ones regularly shuttle between Los Angeles and Tehran.

But it isn't the only immigration hurdle facing the community. Iranians allowed to seek visas to visit family in the United States may still have a hard time getting them with a screening process that can take months or longer, immigration lawyers said.

In the meantime, families are being kept apart. Iranian-American homemaker Mina Thrani, 38, had hoped to invite her aunt to visit her in Irvine over the Christmas holiday but can't because of the ban.

Xena Amirani, an 18-year-old college student from Los Angeles, said her family has been grieving since her grandmother died after being struck by a car while crossing the street. They traveled to Iran to bury her. Now, her uncle and his wife want to travel together to visit the family in California to help console them, but the travel ban is in the way.

"It is pointless," Amirani said.

The scaled-back version of President Donald Trump's policy that took effect this week places new limits on visa policies for citizens of six Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. The temporary ban requires people who want new visas to prove a close family relationship in the U.S. or an existing relationship with an entity like a school or business.

The U.S. has nearly 370,000 Iranian immigrants, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, far more than the other countries targeted by the order Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen.

Despite a lengthy history of friction between Tehran and Washington, personal ties between residents of the two countries have held strong.

"Everyone is being hit by this because everyone has a relative in Iran, and there is quite a lot of travel in between," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council.

But travel isn't always easy, and the challenge predates the Trump administration. Because there is no U.S. embassy in Iran, Iranians must go to other countries for visa interviews, requiring time and money.

And it can take longer to get visas approved for Iranians than for citizens of many other countries, immigration attorneys said, while U.S. officials conduct screenings.

"Even under Obama, it was very hard to get these visas and get the background checks cleared. But now, it is official policy," said Ally Bolour, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles.

The Department of Homeland Security said this week that the Supreme Court's decision to allow a partial reinstatement of the ban will help protect the U.S.

But that rings hollow to some Iranian-Americans who note that many in their community came to the U.S. seeking freedom following Iran's Islamic revolution of the 1970s and that the hijackers who carried out the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States were from other countries not limited by the ban.

Trump's initial travel ban in January was broader, affecting current and new visas, which sparked chaos at airports around the world.

Mina Jafari, a 28-year-old graphic designer in Washington, said that during that time, her fianc?e's Iranian mother was in the process of obtaining a visa to travel to the couple's wedding, but it was revoked because of the ban.

That prompted Jafari to move the wedding to Iran so her soon-to-be mother-in-law could attend. The only problem is her elder sister can't go with her due to concerns about her political activism.

"I have family who is banned from Iran, family banned here," Jafari said. "It is a really crazy situation."

Originally posted here:
For Iranian-Americans, Trump travel ban keeps families apart - ABC News

Iranian officials have blasted the U.S.s decision to partially reinstate a ban on incoming nationals from six majority-Muslim countries, including Iran, arguing it is assisting in the fight against militant groups and has complied with the terms of a 2015 nuclear deal.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to Twitter Friday to condemn theSupreme Courts decision this week to allow the White House to prohibit U.S. travel for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen unless they prove a credible claim of bona fide relationshipwith someone in the U.S.

The travel ban, which originally included Iraq and omittedexemptions for familial or professional relationships, was devised by President Donald Trump, who designated individuals from these six countries in the Middle East and North Africa ascredible threats to national security.

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Zarif has long been a critic of the ban, especially after Iran received praise Friday from the U.N. and EU for respecting the terms of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). U.S. now bans Iranian grandmothers from seeing their grandchildren, in a truly shameful exhibition of blind hostility to all Iranians,Zarif tweeted on his official account.

Related: Trumps War: From bombing Syria to challenging Russia and Iran

The U.N. & entire world say Iran is in full compliance with its commitments, but U.S. visceral hatred of Iran compels it to deny the obvious, he added, referring to international acknowledgment of Irans efforts to denuclearize in exchange for the U.S. rolling back economic sanctions as part of JCPOA.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif (pictured) and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel speak to the media following talks in Berlin, on June 27. Despite its active role in battling the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria as well as receiving international praise for its compliance with a U.S.-led multilateral nuclear deal in 2015, Iran remains a bitter foe of President Donald Trumps administration, which accuses Tehran of sponsoring terrorism and included it on a list of countries from which citizens are mostly restricted from traveling to the U.S. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Zarif played a leading role in the negotiations with the administration of former President Barack Obama that ultimately led to theJCPOA deal being reached between Iran, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany in July 2015. While the deal moderately improvedU.S.-Iranian relations, it was opposed by conservatives in both countries and repeatedly attacked by Trump as he campaigned and came to office. He and his supporters accuse Iran of breaching their side of the deal and, despite a White Housesponsored review findingIran was incompliance of the deal in April, Trump has continued to target Iran in his foreign policy.

In addition to opposing Irans alleged nuclear ambitions, which Tehran argues is solely for energy purposes, the U.S. has long accused Iran of destabilizing the region through its funding of militant and political groups such as Lebanons Shiite Muslim Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. Hezbollah, an avowed enemy of U.S. ally Israel, has been accused of conducting bombs and assassinations around the world, but its fighters are also deeply involved in the fight against ISIS and other insurgents trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Iran-backed forces, which fight alongside the Syrian army, have also made widespread gains against jihadists, but theiradvances have frustrated U.S. attempts to secure influence in parts of Syria where ISIS has been defeated and the U.S. military has been declared illegal by Assads government. As a result, the U.S. has increasingly targeted the Syrian army and allied militias, angering both Iran and Assads other international backer, Russia.

A map shows areas of control in Iraq as of June 19. An alliance of Iraqi military, Kurdish forces, majority-Shiite Muslim militias backed by Iran and U.S.-led coalition forces have all but defeated the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Iraq. The U.S., however, has expressed concerns about Irans growing influence in the country and in neighboring Syria in the wake of ISISs collapse. Institute for the Study of War/U.S. Central Command

Across the border, Iran has played a key role in reversing ISISs 2014 takeover of nearly half of Iraq. Iran sponsors a number of majorityShiite Muslim militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces that work alongside the Iraqi military and Kurdish militants in defeating ISIS. The U.S. has reluctantly accepted the role of these forces in Iraq, which has a Shiite Muslim majority, but has accused them of committing revenge attacks on the local Sunni Muslim population. The Popular Mobilization Forces are advancing along the countrys border with Syria as Iran-backed forces in Syria conduct a parallel offensiveagainst ISIS. Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani said Thursday his countrys role against ISIS was superior to that of the U.S.

At the time when Iraq was being overrun by Daesh, by ISIS, did the United States make the slightest move in defense of it? Or was it the Iranian nation that rendered aid to the Iraqi nation and Iraq government?Larijani told CNN.

Had we not assisted them, Baghdad would have been occupied by ISIS. It is with the help of Iran that Daesh, ISIS, is on its last breath in Iraq (and Syria),Larijani added.

See the article here:
Iran: Travel Ban Is 'Shameful' to All Iranians Fighting ISIS and Upholding Nuclear Deal - Newsweek

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations and the European Union praised Iran on Thursday for implementing the landmark nuclear deal with six major powers, but U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley accused Tehran of "destructive and destabilizing" actions from ballistic missile launches to arms smuggling.

The speeches at a Security Council meeting on implementation of a U.N. resolution endorsing the July 2015 nuclear agreement showed the deep division over Iran between the five major powers who view the deal as a major achievement and the Trump administration, which is reviewing it.

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that Iran is abiding by a nuclear deal with the United States, but warns that could change. The Washington ...

President Donald Trump, congressional Republicans and Israel have assailed the agreement as a windfall to Iran that only delayed its pursuit of nuclear weapons. GOP lawmakers say it saved Iran's economy by lifting economic penalties and allowed the country to funnel more money to terrorist groups.

Haley said only that the U.S. would adhere to the deal to rein in Iran's nuclear program while conducting the comprehensive review.

She focused on what the U.S. views as Iran's repeated violations of the 2015 resolution, which she accused the Security Council of ignoring. She cited ballistic missile launches and illicit procurement of missile technology as well as "proven arms smuggling."

"Iran's destructive and destabilizing role in the Middle East goes far beyond its illicit missile launches," Haley said. "From Syria to Yemen and Iraq to Lebanon, Iran's support for terrorist groups continued unabated. Iran's weapons, military advisers and arms smugglers stoke regional conflicts and make them harder to solve."

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President Trump used his visit to Saudi Arabia to lash out against Iran. The Iranian government is not happy to be singled out. It's accusing the...

By contrast, the focus of U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman, EU Ambassador Joao Vale de Almeida and ambassadors from Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany was on Iran's adherence to the nuclear agreement, though there were also expressions of concern about its missile tests and smuggling.

Feltman told the council that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "is deeply encouraged by the continued commitment by all participants to the agreement," calling it "the embodiment of successful multilateral diplomacy, political will and perseverance."

He noted the International Atomic Energy Agency has issued seven reports, the latest in early June, documenting Iran's continued implementation of its nuclear-related commitments and said Guterres believes sustained implementation of the deal "will guarantee that Iran's nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful."

The diplomatic achievement, Feltman said, "gives us all hope that even the most difficult issues among states can be addressed through dialogue, understanding and reciprocity."

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Iran's newly re-elected president to dismantle Iran's "network of terrorism" and to end ballistic missile ...

Vale de Almeida, speaking on behalf of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini who coordinates the nuclear deal, said, "The initial results are clear and speak for themselves: Iran's nuclear program has been rolled back and placed under tight inspections."

At a time when the world is again faced "with the threat of unchecked nuclear capabilities" -- a reference to the threat from North Korea -- he said the Iran deal known as the JCPOA is "a pillar of the international non-proliferation agenda" that needs to be fully implemented.

In an apparent reference to the U.S. debate over the deal, Vale de Almeida stressed: "We would not be in a better position to address all the other non-nuclear matters (with Iran) without the JCPOA in place."

Britain's deputy U.N. ambassador, Peter Wilson, called the Iran agreement "one of the most important diplomatic achievements in recent memory."

He said the United Kingdom encourages all countries and parties to the agreement -- a message that appeared especially aimed at the U.S. -- "to uphold their commitments, including ensuring that the Iranian people gain further tangible benefits from sanctions relief."

But Wilson also said "some less positive issues" raised in Guterres' latest report need to be addressed. He cited Iran's Jan. 29 launch of a medium-range ballistic missile, reported violations of a ban on conventional arms transfers, including new evidence of an attempted arms shipment from Iran to Somalia, and multiple violations of a travel ban, including by Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force.

Haley stressed that the United States won't "turn a blind eye" to such violations and will interdict cargo prohibited under the U.N. resolution and continue to impose sanctions on Iran.

"The continuance of the Iranian regime's destructive, destabilizing behavior will prevent it from ever having a normal relationship with the United States and the rest of the world," she said. "And the regime's continued oppression of its own people speaks volumes about its true nature."

Link:
US, allies disagree about Iran's nuke deal compliance - CBS News