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A group of leading senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), is negotiating a way to pass more stringent sanctions against Russia in the coming week by piggybacking on an upcoming a measure cracking down on ballistic missile tests in Iran.

The talks, which involve the heads of at least the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations committees, plus Senate leaders and a handful of Congress most outspoken Russia critics, are geared toward attaching Russia sanctions by amendment to an Iran sanctions bill the Senate took up Wednesday just as intelligence and Justice Department officials head to Capitol Hill to testify about alleged Russian meddling in the presidential election.

Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, and former FBI director James B. Comey is expected to testify Thursday.

[Coats told associates Trump asked him if he could intervene with Comey on Russia probe]

We anticipate that amendments addressing Russia sanctions are likely to be offered, McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, noting that I support that effort from the Foreign Relations and Banking Committee chairmen and ranking members to work toward bipartisan agreement.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) was even more insistent, all but leveraging his partys support for the otherwise popular Iran sanctions bill on whether punitive measures against Russia could be incorporated.

It will be very difficult to gather Democratic support for final passage of this bill until we deal with Russia sanctions, Schumer said Wednesday.

The exact substance of the Russia sanctions senators hope to attach to the Iran bill is not yet clear, but according to senior Senate aides, talks have focused on the substance offered by a set of bills already on offer, addressing everything from Russias aggressive activities in Ukraine and Syria to allegations that Russian hackers tried to swing an American election.

One of those bills is a recent measure, from Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and ranking Democrat Sherrod Brown (Ohio), to codify into law existing sanctions against Russia that the Obama administration imposed in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2014. Their bill adds to those existing sanctions new sectoral measures against Russias mining, metals and railways; individual sanctions against Russian hackers and corruption; and tools to better track illicit Russian financing, as well as oligarchs holdings in the United States.

Another bill, proposed this year by Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and a bipartisan group of senators, would codify existing sanctions while stiffening restrictions on the Russian defense, intelligence and energy sectors, as well as anyone providing material support to people posing a cyberthreat. A third bill from Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Cardin and others, also from this year, would give Congress the chance to veto any presidential decision to ease up on sanctions against Russia.

All chief authors of those bills have been involved in the various discussions with Senate leaders McConnell and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to insert Russia sanctions into the Iran bill, according to various aides.

Which elements of those Russia sanctions bills make the cut to be included as a potential amendment to the Iran sanctions legislation has yet to be determined. But the coalescing of forces around some sort of action on Russia sanctions and soon is a marked shift for Congress, which has to date refrained from taking legislation action to force the presidents hand in dealing with a country many in the national security community consider Americas No. 1 antagonist and adversary.

Some Republican leaders have sought to create some space for the Trump administration to operate, pointing to that fact despite initial fears Trumps administration would take early steps to roll back Russia sanctions, the restrictive measures the Obama administration introduced have stayed in place. Early last month, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) insisted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would wait until the Senate Intelligence Committee completed its probe of alleged Russian election meddling and possible collusion with campaigns before attempting to pass any sanctions.

President Trump has pushed back against the consensus of the intelligence community that Russia engaged in hacking and the politicized dissemination of information, including false information, during the campaign to sway the election, potentially in Trumps favor. According to recent reports, Trump also pressured Comey and other senior intelligence community officials to use their influence to shut down the FBIs investigation into potential ties between Trump associates and campaign officials and the Kremlin.

But as allegations mount of more and worse Russian interference in the 2016 election, the pressure to respond with punitive action has been increasing on both sides of the Senate, with even the Republican leader indicating a willingness to take up the issue on the floor. Late last month, Corker indicated that if Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could not show in early June that progress was being made with Russia with respect to the war in Syria, he would green-light new Russia sanctions in the Senate, and one that included measures to censure Russia over its alleged election meddling.

On Tuesday, after a check-in call with Tillerson Monday night, Corker hinted that a Russia sanctions measure would likely be coming soon but he cautioned against making any assumptions about its contents, or presuming that any already-filed bill would be the model for it.

If senators are to use the Iran sanctions bill as a vehicle for Russia sanctions, they will have to make those determinations soon, as the Senate takes an opening procedural vote on the legislation Wednesday, setting it up for passage likely as soon as early next week. The Iran sanctions bill coming before the Senate seeks to punish Tehran for a spate of recent ballistic missile tests, as well as the activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a group the Trump administration is considering labeling a terrorist organization.

Corker, who chairs one of the two Senate committees with chief jurisdiction over sanctions, has not attached his name to any pending Russia sanctions bill. Crapo, who chairs Banking, the other committee of jurisdiction, is the lead co-author on that committees legislation, filed last week.

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Senate attempting to add Russia sanctions to Iran bill - The ... - Washington Post

New York Times

James Comey, Iran, Scooter Gennett: Your Wednesday Briefing New York Times The Islamic State immediately claimed responsibility for the assaults, possibly the terrorist group's firsts major ones in Iran. Suspicions in Tehran were also directed at Iran's nemesis in the region, Saudi Arabia, which was emboldened by a visit from ...

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James Comey, Iran, Scooter Gennett: Your Wednesday Briefing - New York Times

If the Saudis are going to dump their alliance with Qatar, their main rival in the region is happy to fill the void.

The Iranians have taken the diplomatic high ground, advocating cooperation in the region and offering food and airspace to the Qataris.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi, "calls on all the neighbors involved in the current disputes in the southern Persian Gulf region to learn lessons from the past bitter experiences of the region show utmost restraint and move toward reducing tensions and returning to tranquility."

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates said Monday they were breaking off diplomatic relations with Qatar and severing air, sea and land links, accusing the tiny Gulf nation of backing terrorism and getting too cozy with Iran.

Related: Behind the Split Between Qatar And Its Neighbors

After Saudi Arabia shut its borders with Qatar, food started to disappear from the shelves of stores in Doha, the Qatari capital. Shoppers filled their carts, knowing how many consumer goods cross the Saudi border.

A top Iranian agricultural official responded by announcing Monday that Iran could send food shipments to Qatar by ship. He said the shipments would take 12 hours to reach Qatar. It is not known if any shipments have yet arrived.

People line up to buy food items at a supermarket in Doha, Qatar, on June 5, 2017. @shalome05 / via AP

Meanwhile, because Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf States have closed their airspaces to Qatari planes, Iran is allowing Qatari airlines to use Iranian airspace.

An Iranian transportation official said Tuesday that Qatari flights bound to North Africa and Europe that used to cross Saudi, Egyptian or Kuwaiti airspace can now travel over Iran, Iraq and Jordan. Flights to Northern Europe can cross Iran. The official said Iran's air traffic would increase 20 percent, as would its revenue from fees for use of its airspace.

Programs that track flight paths show that Qatari airplanes have changed their routes. Those headed to Europe are crossing the Persian Gulf into Iranian airspace and then heading north across Iran and Jordan.

The flights most affected are those to Africa, some of which must now cross south of Saudi Arabia. A flight from Doha to Khartoum now takes 2 hours and 20 minutes longer.

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Iran Sees Opening in Saudi-Qatar Feud, Offers Food, Airspace to Qatar - NBCNews.com

A new Iranian precision-guided ballistic missile is launched as it is tested at an undisclosed location Oct. 10, 2015.

farsnews.com/Handout via Reuters

The Senate is expected to vote this week on bipartisan legislation that would expand U.S. sanctions against Iran's ballistic missile program and also target its support for terrorism, human rights violations and transfers of conventional weapons.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, on Monday evening set up a procedural vote for Wednesday, with the final vote likely to take place on Thursday. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the bill out of committee late last month.

The measure, which has at least 48 co-sponsors, would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved with Iran's ballistic missile program and people who do business with them. The bill would also apply sanctions to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and notes people who are currently sanctioned as a result of Iranian support of terrorism, according to a summary of the legislation. If passed, the bill would include an arms embargo that would require the president to block the property of anyone or any entity involved in the sale, supply or transfer or prohibited weapons to or from Iran.

The House has not yet voted on the bill.

In early February, shortly after President Trump's inauguration, his administration imposed sanctions against multiple entities and people involved in procuring materials and technology to support Iran's ballistic missile program and the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard. The move came after Iran conducted a ballistic missile test.

At the time, the Treasury Department said that the sanctions are consistent with the Iranian nuclear deal's guidelines and as a result of the sanctions, "all property and interests in property of those designated today subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them."

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The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has recently expanded its campaign to recruit Iranians and disseminate its message to Persian speakers.

In late March, IS published a rare video in Persian in which it called on Iran's Sunni minority to rise up against the Shi'a-dominated Iranian establishment. The video was dismissed by Iran's state broadcaster as "nonsense" and an attempt by the group to cover up mounting losses in Iraq.

Since then, IS has published four issues of its online propaganda publication Rumiyah. Rumiyah, whose title means Rome in Arabic in an allusion to prophecies that Muslims would conquer the West, is already published in several languages, including English, Russian, French, and Indonesian.

Iran has deployed senior military advisers and thousands of "volunteers" in the past six years to help regional ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad battle an armed insurrection that includes IS and other Islamist fighters as well as groups supported by Turkey and the United States.

IS advocates a radical Salafi version of Sunni Islam and regards Shi'a as heretics, and controls parts of Iraq and Syria under what it describes as a "caliphate."

Iran has also been active in the fight against IS in Iraq, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has reportedly advised Iraqi forces and is helping mobilize Shi'ite militias.

Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have said that their efforts will prevent IS from advancing onto Iranian territory. Officials in Tehran have warned that they would take "decisive" action if IS militants came within 40 kilometers of its borders.

"IS has published translations of selected essays and statements in Farsi [Persian], but this appears to be the first time it published Rumiyah in translation," Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR), tells RFE/RL.

But he notes that the group has been publishing Persian written materials and subtitled videos since 2015. Winter says the video and the Persian editions of the magazine "seem to be a logical progression in what was already happening."

The first edition of Rumiyah in Persian includes an article detailing why the group's violent ideology regards the killing of unbelievers as "halal" and a form of worship. The second issue features a bloody knife on its front page and gives tips about how to successfully kill unbelievers with a knife. The content of the magazines appears to be straight translations from Rumiyah's earlier editions.

Finding An Audience?

IS's online propaganda has been a key aspect of its strategy to attract new members or sympathizers and spread its message of terror worldwide. It has recruited thousands of followers from all over the world to travel to Syria and Iraq and inspired individual acts of violence elsewhere, frequently targeting large crowds.

The degree of the success of the propaganda among Iran's Sunnis is difficult to gauge. Analysts have suggested that the group's ideology holds little appeal for Sunni Iranians, who are estimated to compose 5-10 percent of a total population of 81 million and are routinely discriminated against or harassed.

"Salafism and Persian culture are like oil and water, they don't mix," says Ali Vaez, a senior Iran analyst with the International Crisis Group. "Violent extremism is more a product of instability than its primary driver, and is due more to radicalization during crises than beforehand. None of these conditions apply to Iran, which is both stable and has strong state institutions."

Vaez adds that "groups like IS exploit disorder," adding, "There might be discontent within Iran's Sunni community, but that's not quite the same as disorder."

The relatively high turnout among Iran's Sunni-populated regions in the May 19 presidential and local elections, from 60 to 90 percent according to official figures, suggests to some that extremist propaganda falls largely on deaf ears.

IS Recruits From Iran

Yet some reports and increased warnings by Iranian officials suggest that the extremist group has managed to recruit among Iranians.

In June 2016, Iranian news sites quoted an unnamed "informed source" as saying that authorities had arrested 18 people who were using the highly popular Telegram app to recruit new members.

"Eighteen top [IS] managers of Telegram channels inside the country have been identified and arrested. Some of these people ran groups with hundreds of members," the unnamed source was quoted as saying. The exact time and location of the purported arrests was not clear.

In August 2016, the commander of the Iranian ground forces said that IS had recruited members from the Western province of Kermanshah. "They recruited some in Naft Shahr and Ghasr-e Shirin and western regions," Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan said, adding that two IS members had been killed in clashes with security forces. "They had been trained and had suicide vests."

The same month, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmud Alavi said that authorities had prevented 1,500 young Iranians from joining IS.

Iranian authorities have also claimed that they have thwarted several planned "terrorist" operations in public places in Tehran and other cities.

Last week, authorities in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar, where IS has reportedly been active, issued a video in which a man claimed he was from Irans West Azerbaijan Province and had joined the group via Telegram, which is believed to have millions of users in Iran.

"In the name of god, I am Yasser from Iran, from West Azerbaijan. I joined Daesh via the app Telegram," the young man said, using a common but controversial label for IS.

He claimed an unspecified number of Iranians had joined the group in Nangarhar. Shortly afterward, Afghan lawmaker Hazrat Ali said that about a dozen IS fighters are active in that region.

"The information I now have says 10 or 12 Iranians are operating in the region comprising the homeland of the Shinwari tribe, such as Achin district," Hazrat Ali, a member of the lower house of the Afghan parliament, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan on May 30. "In the past, the number of Iranian fighters in [IS] exceeded 100, but I am not sure about where they went or what happened to them."

RFE/RL could not independently verify his claim.

Winter says Iranians among IS ranks are often forgotten about, even though, according to his research, they are relatively well represented in IS's suicide-operation statistics.

A report Winter authored for The Hague-based International Center for Counterterrorism (ICCT) claims that seven Iranians carried out suicide operations in Iraq and Syria from December 2015 to November 2016.

"Iranian fighters are rarely, if ever, featured in IS video propaganda, so it is only in suicide bomber eulogies that they come up -- and these images usually go under the radar because there are so many of them. It is not possible to know what language they speak," Winter says.

Vaez calls IS a "serious threat to Iran,... but not a homegrown one, given the limited appeal of its ideology within the country's Sunni minority."

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IS Propaganda Increasingly Targeting Iran And Its Sunnis - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty