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BEIRUT Iran fired missiles on Sunday into eastern Syria, aiming at the bases of militant groups it holds responsible for attacks in Tehran which left 18 dead last week, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched the mid-range ground-to-ground missiles from western Iran into the Deir al Zour region of eastern Syria, killing a "large number" of terrorists and destroying their equipment and weapons, it said.

The missiles targeted the "headquarters and gathering centers of Takfiri terrorists supporting and building car bombs", it said.

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

Military leaders and officials in Iran, a predominantly Shi'ite country, often refer to Sunni Muslim radicals as Takfiris.

The Revolutionary Guards are fighting in Syria against militant groups who oppose President Bashar al-Assad.

The attack last week, which included shootings and at least one suicide bombing, was on Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

"The spilling of any pure blood will not go unanswered," the Revolutionary Guards said in the statement quoted by Tasnim.

Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the Tehran attack.

Senior Iranian officials, however, have pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia, Iran's Sunni regional rival.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul on Sunday, in an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month-old campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.

SUWALKI GAP, Polish-Lithuanian border U.S. and British troops have carried out the first large-scale NATO defensive drill on the border between Poland and Lithuania, rehearsing for a possible scenario in which Russia might try to sever the Baltic states from the rest of the Western alliance.

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Iran fires missiles at militant groups in eastern Syria - Reuters

Several neighboring Arab states have cut or reduced their ties with the Arabian Gulf state of Qatar, ostensibly in retaliation for Qatars support for terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. For most Americans, any collaboration with terrorists is immoral and dangerous. Thus, many Americans may support the actions of Saudi Arabia and others in ostracizing the oil-rich nation. Such a rush to judgement, however, fails to take into the account the strategic realities that Qataris have to face, and the U.S. decisions that make those strategic calculations even more difficult.

With a population of only 2.2 million, a land area the size of Connecticut, and a small military force, Qatar is barely 100 miles from Iran, the enemy of oil-producing states throughout the region, and a budding nuclear power. (By comparison, Iran has a population of 83 million, land area the size of Alaska, and one of the most powerful militaries in the world.) Geographically, Qatar is perhaps the most vulnerable of all the Arab Gulf states, jutting as it does into the Gulf like a piece of ripe fruit.

While on a fact-finding trip to Oman just after the JCPOA was completed, I learned that the U.S. Navys 5th Fleet was moving refueling and resupply depots from the United Arab Emirates to Oman, to reduce the need for Navy ships to enter the Arabian Gulf. Economy was given as the reason for the move, but for Qatar, situated farther up the Gulf, the American move means fewer U.S. ships in the Gulf, for shorter periods of time. In context, this could seem like the first step in abandoning the Gulf altogether. While it is true that the U.S. maintains a presence at the al-Udeid air base, it is also true that Qatars isolation will make resupply and support of that base more expensive.

Nor did President Trumps election offer any reassurance. A major plank in President Trumps platform has been further retrenchment of the United States from its overseas commitments. With the U.S. president casting doubt on the continued usefulness of NATO, mutual defense arrangements with Gulf States look particularly vulnerable. Add the failure of the current administration to renounce the JCPOA, as promised, and the shadow of danger looming across the uncomfortably narrow Gulf keeps growing.

In short, Qatari leaders almost certainly believe that they have little choice but to hedge their bets and try to seem as cooperative as possible to Irans leaders. Qataris do not have to look far to see an example of such a posture. Omani officials eagerly describe their foreign policy as enemy to none, friend to all. They elaborate by noting that they are largely incapable of defending themselves against a serious attack, and add, almost in a whisper, that they cannot depend upon anyone rushing to their aid.

If anything, Qatar is more exposed than Oman. It is smaller, has fewer people, far greater oil wealth, and it is on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. Under the circumstances, accommodating the Iranian regime by assisting its clients is a harsh but necessary survival strategy, probably designed to convince the mullahs that other Gulf States would make better targets.

Given the inescapable nature of Qatars vulnerability, diplomatic isolation is unlikely to change Qatari policy. A resurgent U.S. presence in the region, however, would change everything, and permit Qatar to cut off its support for terrorist groups. During his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump set the stage for such resurgence by highlighting the emerging anti-Iran partnership that includes both the Saudis and the Israelis.

His administration should build on this visit with regular visits to the region by high-ranking officials, a clear commitment to the al-Udeid base, and by negotiating mutual defense arrangements with any state in the region that perceives a threat from Iran. Even without an open break with the JCPOA, a beefed-up U.S. presence in the Gulf would let the world know that no nation will have to confront Iran all by itself.

Given the vagaries of American interest, even in the most strategically important parts of the world, reassurance for states like Qatar will not come easily. President Trump must make it clear that the U.S. will remain a vigilant Gulf state partner, until regime change in Iran makes such vigilance unnecessary.

Edward Lynch, Ph.D., is chair of political science at Hollins Universityin Roanoke, Virginia.He served in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Reagan administration.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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We can't let Qatar face Iran alone - The Hill (blog)

JERUSALEM For decades to come, the story of the Middle East will feature two forces with diametrically opposed goals. One camp is battling for the hegemony of Sunni Islam, especially in the Arab world. The other camp, uniting non-Sunni Muslims and non-Muslims, wants to ensure that no dominant Sunni power capable of uniting the Sunni Arab world, and ultimately the Sunni world more broadly, ever emerges.

The Sunni world in general, and the Arab Sunni world in particular, lies in ruins. In some cases, quite literally.

However, the current malaise of the Sunni Arab world shouldnt cover the simple fact that Sunni Muslims make up the majority of Muslims around the world and that the Arab world is almost exclusively Sunni.

After the collapse of the Ottoman empire, due to the intervention of the conquering British and French powers, Sunni Arabs had little to say about their political organization.

Now that they are emerging from a century-long political hiatus, a united Sunni Arab world constitutes one of the biggest, but still contestable, geopolitical prizes.

Whatever the meaning of previous borders in the Middle East, those borders have effectively been erased by the political sandstorm that was the Arab Spring.

Structures and alliances have been broken, but no natural hegemon has yet emerged. Yet, this was a region that was united in the past and therefore has the potential to be united again.

Should a united Sunni Arab polity emerge, especially if it unites under the banner of the most extreme interpretation of Islam, it could constitute an existential threat to the non-Sunni, non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities of the Middle East.

The policies of the Middle Easts non-Sunni and non-Muslim minorities echo the famous description of British foreign policy toward Europe, as put forth in the legendary comedy Yes, Minister: Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians.

In the Middle East, the role of Britain in that scenario is played by Iran, Israel and Russia. They all share the goal of maintaining a disunited Middle East. They are willing to form whatever alliances are necessary to that end.

Sunni actors, for their part, seek to consolidate their position as viable contenders for hegemony of the Sunni world in general and the Sunni Arab world in particular.

It goes without saying that they also, at the very least, want to prevent any other serious contender from emerging.

Other grand narratives usually put forward for understanding the Middle East, such as the battle between Sunni and Shiite Islam, fall short.

For starters, they all fail to take note of the vast disparity in area and numbers between Sunni and Shiite Islam, as well as the near impossibility of Shiite Islam dominating the peoples and lands of Sunni Islam.

At 10 to 15 percent, Shiites are the minority in Islam. Outside of Iran, Azerbaijan and certain sections of Iraq, they remain a beleaguered minority, with Iran as their only protector.

This is also the case for Shiites in diaspora communities around the world. Shiite Islam, as led by Iran, struggles not so much for domination of the Middle East, which a Shiite Persian power can hardly expect to achieve, as much as to prevent the emergence of a united Sunni Arab force that would threaten it.

Irans Islamist revolution of 1979 might have served to bolster Irans regional credibility as a Muslim republic. However, it also showed that its brand of Islam remains contested and even denied and denigrated in the region.

For that reason alone, Irans claim to Islamic leadership can at most be understood as a defense against the notion, frequently promulgated by Sunni Muslims, that its an illegitimate and heretical nation.

Irans nuclear policies are also better understood in this light. Iran is not only influenced by the possession of nuclear weapons by Pakistan, but is also a minority power seeking to defend itself against the threat of an emerging hegemon.

Iran has walked the fine line between pursuing nuclear capabilities and becoming an actual nuclear weapons power.

Walking that fine line has been a carefully crafted policy designed to convey deterrence through the projection of Irans capacity to develop nuclear weapons, while not going so far as to develop weapons that would drive its opponents to also seek full nuclear capabilities that would in turn threaten it.

The world has an enormous stake in the outcome of the battle for hegemony in the Sunni world in general and the Arab world, in particular.

That outcome might determine whether citizens around the world will be safe from attacks on their soil.

It might determine whether a new power emerges to threaten Europe, Russia, Africa, Asia and beyond, and what kind of Islam will shape the lives of a third of the worlds population.

Unfortunately, there is little the non-Muslim world could do to shape the result. At most, outside powers might be able to mitigate the worst possible outcomes of the protracted battle for hegemony in the Middle East and even that is questionable.

Outside observers of the Middle East should realize that, for the first time in a century, what is happening across the Sunni Arab world is authentic, but that, in this case, authentic doesnt necessarily mean positive.

It only means that what is happening is an authentic expression of the various pressures and powers of the Sunni Arabs themselves. Ultimately, the Sunnis in general and the Sunni Arabs in particular will have to work out their regional order for themselves.

This is a process that will take time decades, perhaps a century and cannot be condensed or accelerated.

No outside power can do it for them. Either a clear hegemon will emerge or the various sides will spend themselves in battles to the point of exhaustion, leading perhaps to a balanced compromise.

Whatever regional order emerges, it will have to be described in terms that come from Islamic, Sunni and Arab history.

Islam is a political religion that has clear conceptions of the proper world order and the way public and private matters should be ruled and arranged.

Whatever regional order emerges, whoever the hegemon, it will be rooted in Islam as the cultural language of the region.

The idea of the caliphate isnt going away. It is merely the historical Islamic form of Arab and Muslim unity a fundamental political organizing principle.

Even if the current organization that goes by the name of Islamic State is defeated, the idea of an Islamic state will continue to hold sway as the organizing principle of the Sunni Arab world and the Muslim world more broadly.

One may be tempted to compare the idea of the caliphate and the Islamic state to the idea of a unified European continent.

That idea has an old lineage. It served not only Napoleon and Hitler, but also Jean Monnet, a founder of the European Union.

Of course, there are clear limits to this parallel. The safest thing that can be said is that an Islamic state, a caliphate and a united Sunni Arab world need not in themselves threaten the world at large. However, under a certain interpretation of Islam, they do pose a threat.

Einat Wilf is a senior fellow with the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem as well as an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Excerpt from:
Where Iran, Israel and Russia stand united - The Japan Times

Iran says it expects to sign a long-delayed deal with Total over a key gas project "within the next few weeks".

As Iran is preparing to sign a much-delayed deal with the French energy giant Total over the development of a major gas project, indications are growing that Tehran is already looking at the political messages that the deal could send to the world.

The Persian-language newspaper Jahan-e Eqtesad in a report said the cooperation between Iran and Total over the development of Phase 11 of the countrys huge South Pars gas field would act as a solid seal of approval for other international companies that they can also set foot in Irans energy projects without fears of any punitive measures.

Jahan-e Eqtesad added that the deal with Total would specifically help given that it could show a solution had already been found by an international company to get over the sanctions-related banking problems that had so far blamed been for obstructing business with Iran.

Irans Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Saturday that the talks with Total over Phase 11 were already in the final stage and that a deal could be signed within the next few weeks.

The French major last November signed a basic agreement, worth $4.8 billion to develop the project in cooperation with Chinas CNPC and Irans Petropars.

The companys chief Patrick Pouyann said in April that Total was trying to develop its own mechanism to carry out Iran-related banking transactions without falling afoul of US primary sanctions that still restrict doing financial activities with the Islamic Republic.

Pouyann added that his company had been sending small amounts of euros from banks in Europe to Tehran to learn how difficult it was to make transactions in Iran.

Wary of running into trouble with the American authorities, larger banks are for now staying away, wroteThe New York Timesin a report at the time.

We have identified some, I would say, medium-sized banks that are ready to work with Iran.

Jahan-e Eqtesad further emphasized that the deal with Total would also provide Iran with long-term political gains specifically in light of Washingtons efforts to impose sanctions against Iran.

The presence of Total [in Irans energy projects] could also be a sign of a growing rift that has recently emerged between Europe and the US, the daily added.

The Europeans that still strongly remain committed to the nuclear deal with Iran have recently distanced themselves more from the US, wrote Jahan-e Eqtesad. A clear indication on the same front, it emphasized, was the disagreement of Europe with Washington over new sanctions against Russia.

Once Europes interests become more intertwined with Irans, such issues [like opposing sanctions against Russia] would benefit the Islamic Republic.

Link:
Iran sees strategic gains in Total deal - Press TV

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait Kuwaits supreme court on Sunday reduced the death sentence of a Shiite citizen convicted of forming a pro-Iranian cell and of plotting attacks, changing it to life in prison.

Hasan Abdulhadi Ali was sentenced to death by the lower and appeals courts last year after he was convicted of being the mastermind of a cell of 26 Shiites accused of links to Iran and of plotting attacks in the Sunni-ruled emirate.

Members of the cell had been charged with spying for Iran and hiding large quantities of arms, explosives and ammunition in underground warehouses.

Ali was also found guilty of having been an operative of Lebanons Shiite Hezbollah movement since 1996 and of smuggling significant amounts of arms and explosives from Iran into Kuwait.

The supreme court judges, whose rulings are final, sentenced 20 other members of the cell to between five and 15 years in jail and acquitted two.

The cases of the remaining three members were not taken up by the supreme court because they remain fugitives.

They include the only Iranian member of the cell, Abdulredha Haider, who was handed the death penalty in absentia by the lower court in January last year.

The court had accused Haider of ties to Irans elite Revolutionary Guard and of recruiting the Kuwaiti Shiites and facilitating their travel to Lebanon, where they received military training from Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The 23 defendants present at the trial have denied the charges and said that their confessions were extracted under torture.

Iran has denied any links to the group.

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Kuwait commutes death sentence of 'pro-Iran cell leader' - The Times of Israel