Archive for the ‘Iran’ Category

Netanyahu: Defeating Hamas would be ‘stinging blow to Iran’ – JNS.org

(March 18, 2024 / JNS)

Victory in the war against Hamas would deliver a stinging blow to the Iran terror axis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, adding that Israelis are united in pursuit of this goal.

The vast majority of the people, the army, the [IDF] reservists. They want victory because they understand that victory is essential for survival, the premier told board members of the pro-Israel AIPAC lobbying group at his office in Jerusalem.

Contrary to the picture being presented in the United States, Netanyahu asserted that the vast majority of the public is behind the governments goals of destroying Hamas, freeing the hostages and preventing Gaza from again threatening Israel.

Additionally, Israel must push Hezbollah back from the border, the prime minister said.

The description [being painted in the U.S.] is that you have an outlier prime minister with some extreme fringe groups and that is what is driving the policy. It is false, deliberately false. Wrong. There is unity among the people to achieve victory along the lines I described. It is within reach, and we are going to do it, Netanyahu said.

If we achieve these goals, then we will also deliver a stinging blow to the Iran terror axis which is behind everything that we are seeing here today, he continued.

This is not just Israels battle, but also the battle for the victory of the Israel-American-moderate Arab axis against the Iran axis, the prime minister stressed.

Netanyahu attempted to allay concerns about evacuating noncombatants from Rafah in southern Gaza, saying that there is plenty of space between Rafah and the central corridor that takes up 65% of the Strips territory.

He said that those arguing against the Rafah operation, who would leave the remaining Hamas battalions in place, are making a case for losing the war.

They keep saying that local politics is interfering with this. They may be right, but on which side of the pond? We have to win this war.

We have to stand together here, and we have to stand together there, because its the right thing to do and the necessary thing to do, Netanyahu said. Its the one thing that will ensure the viability, future and security of the State of Israel.

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U.S. expands mission to stop Iran’s arms smuggling to Yemen – The Washington Post – The Washington Post

The Biden administration is expanding efforts to surveil and intercept Iranian weapons being smuggled to Yemen, where Houthi militants have staged a deadly campaign of violence against commercial shipping that has proved resilient to six weeks of military strikes, said U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The initiative seeks to map seafaring routes used by Tehran and stop the arms shipments while in transit, an acknowledgment that the Houthis are likely to pose a significant security challenge for the foreseeable future. It is part of a broader strategy that also includes sanctions and diplomatic pressure, but it faces constraint as essential military resources are in short supply.

A senior U.S. defense official described the evolving mission as a renewed effort to try to better understand what those water routes look like. Like others interviewed for this report, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive military activity. The work requires considerable collaboration with the U.S. intelligence community, the official said.

A second senior defense official characterized the effort as very vigorous, saying Washington also is exploring how partner nations can expand their focus on disrupting Iranian arms smuggling to help offset a limited inventory of U.S. drones and other surveillance assets that are central to the process. The official declined to identify which nations are involved in those conversations, but said all governments affected economically by the Houthi attacks should do more.

Its definitely a challenge in an area as large as the one we are describing to identify all of these craft, this person said. But we are devoting significant resources to identifying, tracking and where we have the ability interdicting. And what we are finding is significant.

The Houthis, who rose from a ragtag band of rebels to functioning now as the de facto government overseeing much of Yemen, fall under Irans regional network of proxy forces opposed to Israel and the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. The groups leaders have characterized its actions in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a demonstration of solidarity with Hamas fighters battling Israeli forces in Gaza, yet often its targeting has appeared indiscriminate it once even fired on a ship hauling grain to Yemen, where conflict has left millions in hunger, according to aid organizations.

When Houthi fighters seized Yemens capital, Sanaa, in 2014, they inherited an array of weaponry, including North Korean and Soviet-era scud missiles, Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles, and Chinese anti-ship missiles, said Mohammed al-Basha, a senior Middle East analyst at the Navanti Group. Since then, the group has learned to create more advanced weapons by modifying items in its arsenal and using technology obtained from overseas, including from Iran.

Since November shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza the Defense Department has documented at least 105 attacks on merchant vessels off Yemen, including about 40 over the past week. The weapons include one-way attack drones, rockets, ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones that can skim the waves and travel underwater, officials said.

A U.S.-led effort to protect maritime traffic has successfully thwarted many of those attacks. On March 6, however, an anti-ship missile launched by the Houthis struck a commercial vessel, the MV True Confidence, in the Gulf of Aden. At least three mariners were killed and several more were injured, U.S. officials said. Last month, a Houthi missile strike on the MV Rubymar, a U.S.-owned cargo ship, caused the vessel to sink.

While the United States conducted a campaign against al-Qaeda militants in Yemen for more than a decade, it devoted limited attention to the Houthis, who despite their anti-American rhetoric were more focused on countering an air campaign by Saudi Arabia than attacking U.S. or Western interests. As a consequence, the Pentagon today has a somewhat narrow understanding of the groups smuggling operations, current and former officials say.

Maritime smuggling has originated from Iranian ports such as Jask, in the Gulf of Oman, and Bandar Abbas, in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.N. experts. Such shipments can be transported through the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden all the way to Yemen, or take routes over land through bordering countries such as Oman.

At least 18 maritime interdictions have occurred since 2013, revealing shipments of weapons alleged to have come from Iran ranging from machine guns to antitank missiles, said al-Basha. Additional smuggling has occurred via the Horn of Africa.

It is unknown how much materiel has gotten through undetected, making it difficult for the United States to assess the effectiveness of its recent strikes there have been dozens dating to January in degrading the Houthis ability to continue their maritime attacks.

A persistent challenge facing the U.S. military is its finite number of drones and other surveillance assets, which are in high demand by American military leaders across the world. The Pentagon, as part of a shifting global security strategy intended to focus foremost on China, in recent years reassigned some of that equipment that had been in south-central Asia and the Middle East over two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who as head of U.S. Central Command oversees American military activity throughout the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee this month that for a time, he diverted surveillance capabilities from over Afghanistan where the United States continues to monitor terrorist groups to focus instead on the Red Sea, as well as Iraq and Syria, where until recently deployed U.S. forces faced repeated attacks from groups aided by Iran.

Kurilla said the United States needs to fund more as additional capabilities.

The Houthis have shot down at least two MQ-9 Reaper drones off the coast of Yemen, once in November and again in February, U.S. officials said.

Another limitation is the availability of highly trained personnel available to carry out the perilous task of boarding vessels suspected of carrying Iranian weapons to Yemen. Although the Pentagon is stepping up its interdiction efforts, the mission is not expected to entail a major allocation of additional Special Operations forces, officials said.

Marine Corps forces deployed aboard ships also have historically participated in such missions, but for the foreseeable future, none are expected in the region because of an ongoing shortage of available amphibious ships overseen by the Navy, U.S. officials said. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit recently departed the Red Sea region after a lengthy deployment and is expected to arrive home in North Carolina in coming days.

Glimpses of the evolving mission have emerged through the handful of ship-boarding operations disclosed to the public in recent months.

On Jan. 11, two Navy SEALs were lost at sea while attempting to climb aboard a suspected smuggling vessel off Somalia. Others involved, including U.S. Coast Guard members, recovered what Centcom said was an array of Iranian-made weapons, including missile components, and took 14 people into custody. Four of them face charges, including intentionally transporting a warhead, the Justice Department announced in February.

A month later, Coast Guard personnel intercepted a vessel in the Arabian Sea and seized ballistic missile components, explosives and other weapons parts, officials said. The shipment originated in Iran, they said.

Carl Sam Mundy III, a retired lieutenant general who oversaw Marine Corps forces in the Middle East from 2018 to 2021, called these missions among the militarys most dangerous and unpredictable. They can happen with U.S. forces fast-roping from helicopters down to the suspected smuggling ship or boarding from the water after swooping in on small, high-speed boats.

Many times, we dont know what exactly the threat is, said Mundy, a distinguished senior fellow with the Middle East Institute. A lot of times, we dont know. And so, of course, that complicates the operation because youre putting people in a vulnerable situation and adding in all these atmospheric conditions that make it all very challenging.

Boarding can be carried out by SEALs, Force Reconnaissance Marines, Coast Guard maritime security response teams and other elite forces. Gathering intelligence and making sense of it are required to make such missions successful, and that takes time, he said, especially in an area as vast as the Red Sea and nearby waterways.

The problem is, its a big geographic area and we dont have enough resources to do this, Mundy said. To do this right, its going to take time.

Kenneth Frank McKenzie Jr., a retired Marine Corps general who led Centcom from 2019 to 2022, said cutting off the flow of lethal arms from Iran to the Houthis is critical.

We need to recognize that, and we need to put resources against it, McKenzie said. Principally, that requires surveillance resources, he said, but also the platforms that allow us to actually do the intercepts, and we need to work with our coalition partners in order to do this.

Elana DeLozier, a Yemen expert who runs the Sage Institute for Foreign Affairs, said it is unclear whether the Houthis will halt their attacks if large-scale Israeli military operations conclude in Gaza. Its possible, she said, that the goal posts could move, considering that the Houthis appear to derive other benefits from taking up the Palestinian cause.

One such benefit is that other Yemeni groups that are typically the Houthis adversaries must consider whether they may be portrayed as not sufficiently pro-Palestinian if they attack the Houthis.

It becomes a black-and-white thing, DeLozier said, that is convenient for the Houthis.

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U.S. expands mission to stop Iran's arms smuggling to Yemen - The Washington Post - The Washington Post

OHCHR / IRAN FACT FINDING MISSION | UNifeed – UN Web TV

The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFMI), was established in November 2022, by the Human Rights Council to investigate the alleged human rights violations in Iran in connection with the protests that began there on 16 September 2022, especially with respect to women and children.

Despite the efforts of the Fact-Finding Mission to engage with the Government of Iran, the Government did not grant the Mission access to the country, nor respond to calls for meetings.

The Mission ultimately collected and preserved over 27,000 evidence items. It conducted a total of 134 in-depth interviews with victims and witnesses, including 49 women, and 85 men, both inside and outside the country, and gathered evidence and analysis from experts on digital and medical forensics, and domestic and international law, among others. The Mission closely reviewed the Government of Irans official documents, including public statements of officials, alongside 41 reports of Irans High Council for Human Rights (received by other UN bodies), and also held exchanges with Irans Special Committee to investigate the 2022 Unrests.

The Mission found that State authorities in Iran were responsible for egregious human rights violations in connection with the protests that started on 16 September 2022.

The FFM investigation into the fate of Jina Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian- Kurdish woman whose death in custody of the morality police sparked the protests that September two years ago, Our findings showed based on examination of medical documents and also of pattern evidence of the treatment of women in these situations that Jena Moussa Amin, his death was an unlawful death, and we believe that the state is responsible. the Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission stated.

Following Jina Mahsas death, protests were sparked across the country and grew into what we now know as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Young women and school children were at the forefront, with many removing their hijab in public places as an act of defiance against long-standing discriminatory laws and practices.

During the protests, the security forces used firearms, including assault rifles, as well as metal pellets and paintball guns, causing deaths and extensive injuries. The use of AK 47s was documented widely, killing large numbers of people within the first few days, and impacting disproportionately on some of the minority areas.

The use of such unnecessary and disproportionate force on largely peaceful protests, resulted in unlawful killings and injuries of protesters resulting in credible figures of 551 deaths, among them at least 49 women and 68 children, in 26 out of the 31 provinces in Iran, Sara Hossain said.

There were disproportionately high numbers in minority-populated regions. On just one day, 30 September 2022, Bloody Friday, in Zahedan city, Sistan and Baluchistan province, credible information indicates that security forces killed 104 protesters and bystanders, mostly of men and boys, the highest number of deaths documented within a single day during the entire duration of the protests.

The Mission acknowledges the Governments claim that some 54 security forces were also killed and many others injured. The Mission requested information from the Government about the circumstances of those deaths, in order to investigate these situations last June, but has till today received no response to enable it to assess those claims in accordance with its methodology.

Security forces also carried out mass arbitrary arrests of protesters. The Government of Iran itself announced that 22,000 people were pardoned in connection with the protests, suggesting that many more were detained or charged.

Women and men, boys and girls, were viciously beaten and arrested while dancing, chanting, writing slogans, or honking car horns in peaceful acts of solidarity. Upon apprehension, security forces transferred detainees en masse in a coordinated manner to unofficial detention facilities run by the Ministry of Intelligence, Basij and the Revolutionary Guards, the Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission stated.

The FFM heard from witnesses, while in detention, many protesters, including women and children, were held incommunicado, in inhumane detention conditions, subjected to prolonged solitary confinement which stripped basic facets of their dignity. Security forces deprived them from contacting families or lawyers and put them out of the reach of the law, in some cases in conditions amounting to enforced disappearances. To punish, humiliate or extract a confession from them, detainees were often subjected to sexual and gender-based violence, including gang rape and rape with an object, as well as beatings, flogging, or electric shocks, in acts that constitute torture, she said.

Children were subjected to extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, and held in detention along with adults. Others were brought to juvenile detention centres or mental health facilities aimed at reforming them, she said.

Trials were marred by systematic violations of due process. Most persons tried in connection with the protests were brought before Revolutionary Courts, on vague charges of corruption on earth or waging war against God in relation to protected conduct or speech. Many were denied access to counsel of their choice, and not able to access their case files, or copies of their judgements. Judges manifested clear bias against protesters, systematically dismissing complaints of rape, torture and ill-treatment.

At least nine young men were arbitrarily executed, following hasty and flawed proceedings that disregarded basic fair trial and due process guarantees, creating terror among other protestors. By January this year, Iranian courts had pronounced at least 26 death sentences against persons in relation to the protests, Hossain said.

A year and a half on, women and girls are still confronted daily by discrimination in law and in practice affecting virtually all aspects of their private and public lives. We are receiving chilling reports on the use by the State of artificial intelligence, including through new mobile apps, to monitor and enforce compliance by women and girls with mandatory hijab rules, she said.

Without holding accountable the perpetrators of the violations in the context of the protests that started on 16 September 2022, the cycle of impunity cannot be broken. Sara Hossain urged the Government of Iran to take immediate and concrete measures to halt executions, promptly release all those arbitrarily detained in connection with the protests, including women arrested for defying the mandatory hijab, cease judicial harassment of victims and their families, provide them with redress, truth, justice and reparations and dismantle and disband the persecutory system of the enforcement of these laws and policies.

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OHCHR / IRAN FACT FINDING MISSION | UNifeed - UN Web TV

China, Russia, Iran naval drills challenge US domination of the seas – Peoples Dispatch

Russian and Chinese warships have arrived in Iran's territorial waters to participate in joint naval drills dubbed "Maritime Security Belt 2024". Photo: IRNA

Iran, China, and Russia carried out a naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman from March 12-15. The drill, named the Marine Security Belt 2024, encompassed an area of 17,000 square kilometers (6,600 square miles). Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan, and South Africa were official observers of the action.

The naval exercise had the goal of strengthening maritime cooperation and safeguarding peace and stability, as stated by the Chinese Defense Ministry. Irans Admiral Mostafa Tajaddini stated that the three nations operation was also meant to confront piracy and terrorism, support humanitarian activities and the exchange of information in the field of rescue.

The Marine Security Belt 2024 involved more than 20 ships. China sent guided-missile destroyer Urumqi, guided-missile frigate Linyi and comprehensive supply ship Dongpinghu, Russia sent the cruiser Varyag from its Pacific Fleet, while Iran contributed a range of vessels, including warships Dena and Abu-Mahdi, as well as naval helicopters, speedboats and submersibles.

The exercise was not unprecedented, as the three countries had carried out three other similar exercises since 2019. Though, it was a display of increased cooperation between the three countries.

The location of the exercise is noteworthy. The Gulf of Oman is in the northern part of the Indian Ocean. It leads into the Strait of Hormuz, right off the coast of Iran. The Strait of Hormuz connects the Gulf of Oman to the Persian Gulf. At its narrowest point, it is only 21 miles wide, of which only 6 miles are navigable. As much as 21% of the worlds oil is shipped through the strait of Hormuz. For this reason, the Strait is of strategic geopolitical importance. Any disruptions in shipping through this strait would cause an immediate spike in the price of oil, potentially destabilizing the worlds economy.

Farther west in the Indian Ocean is the Gulf of Aden, leading to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, on to the Red Sea. It is in this area that the United States is leading a coalition of forces in intense naval operations since December 2023.

Israels genocide of Gaza has had an enormous impact on the peoples of the entire world, and especially in West Asia. In the region, people have demanded action from their governments in support of Gaza. The most concrete actions did not come from oil rich Gulf monarchies, which limited their actions to words, making statements and declarations. They came from Yemen, a country emerging from an eight year occupation by a Saudi-led coalition. Yemen suffered immensely through the occupation, with widespread extreme poverty, starvation and disease.

It was only two years ago, on March 30, 2022, that Saudi Arabia ended its occupation. As a result of the brutal occupation, Yemen is still struggling with a severe economic crisis, with an estimated 50% of its population living below the poverty line. The force leading the fight against the Saudi invasion was Ansar Allah, which leads the Yemeni government today, referred to in Western media as the Houthis.

In November 2023, Yemen started showing solidarity with Palestinians suffering from the genocide by targeting all ships supplying Israel sailing off its shores. Whether Israeli-flagged or not, Ansar Allahs pledge to disrupt Israeli supplies has been a success. Despite overwhelming naval superiority, the US, UK and their allies have been unsuccessful at making the passage of Israeli supply ships safe.

The Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb is only 20 miles wide. This largely neutralizes the vast advantage that the US navy enjoys in the region. The March 14 reports that the Yemeni forces have acquired supersonic missiles further exacerbates the US challenge in helping Israel resupply its military for its nearly six month long bombing of Gaza.

In years past, the US dominance over the Indian Ocean, specifically in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and the Red Sea went unchallenged. Geography has enabled countries challenging US hegemony in the region, like Iran and Yemen, to challenge that naval dominance, not by matching the US naval might, which would require resources they lacked. Instead, they have had to acquire enough firepower to enable them to engage in asymmetric warfare should an open war break out. Rockets, missiles and speedboats have been somewhat of an equalizer in narrow waterways where the technological advantages of the US are minimized.

Traditional naval exercises of the kind Iran, China and Russia just carried out, however, are another challenge to US naval dominance. Here again, the three countries combined may not be able to match the US naval presence in the region. But the message that this naval drill sends to the United States is that it does not own the waters of the region.

March 15 marked the completion of Marine Security Belt 2024. Iran announced the operation a success and that the goals of the exercise had been met.

Mazda Majidi is a long-time social justice and anti-war activist and an activist with the ANSWER Coalition. He has written extensively on US intervention in the Middle East and beyond.

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China, Russia, Iran naval drills challenge US domination of the seas - Peoples Dispatch

Iran at the crossroads: have the mullahs lost their grip? – The Week

Nobody was holding their breath over the outcome of this month's elections to the Majlis Iran's parliament, said Maryam Aslany and Rana Dasgupta in The Sunday Times. These were the first elections to be held after the wave of protests that convulsed the nation in 2022-23. That unrest, sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old student arrested for not wearing a hijab properly, had threatened the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, which is why he was so determined to frame last week's election as a public endorsement of the Islamic regime. To that end, every candidate was vetted by the Guardian Council, an assembly of 12 clerics controlled by Khamenei, which made it its business to disqualify almost all reformists and moderate conservatives from standing. Thus the result was always a foregone conclusion.

Yet even in this pitiful excuse for an election, Iranians managed to deliver a "stinging rebuke" to the regime, said Farnaz Fassihi in The New York Times. Deprived of their preferred candidates, many didn't bother to vote: turnout was just 41% the lowest in the Islamic Republic's 45-year history. In Tehran, it was 24%. Khamenei tried to spin the outcome as an "epic" victory; it was anything but. Some 15,000 candidates ended up competing for 290 seats, said Sina Toossi in Foreign Policy (Washington), and the winners were mainly members of a new generation of fundamentalists, many clerics, who espouse a rigid version of Islamic law and oppose any engagement with the West. Having bested their pragmatic rivals, they now seem intent on out-hawking each other on both domestic and foreign issues.

But far more important than the outcome of elections to the Majlis has been that of elections to the powerful Assembly of Experts, held on the same day, said Guido Steinberg in Cicero (Berlin). This is the body responsible for choosing Khamenei's successor: and as the supreme leader is frail and about to turn 85, it's more than likely the assembly will have to carry out that duty sooner rather than later. So once again, as with the Majlis, every effort was made to ensure the ascendancy of candidates supportive of Khamenei and to bar reformists from running: even former president Hassan Rouhani was excluded from running on the grounds he was too moderate. So skewed to the conservative Right is the assembly that a hardliner is certain to prevail in the race to succeed Khamenei. Yet by excluding conservative moderates, Khamenei may have ended up weakening his position, said Iran International (London). Radicals are far less easy to keep under control. Take a man like Hamid Rasaei, a hardliner "with a questionable reputation", who wasn't even allowed to run in the 2020 election, but who last week was elected to a Tehran seat by a huge majority. Rasaei has already disregarded Khamenei's plea for the new intake "to avoid conflicts and controversies". Quite the contrary, he has branded the speaker of the Majlis, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, "a hypocrite" and demanded his resignation. And Ghalibaf happens to be a relative of Khamenei's.

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As one of its former commanders, Ghalibaf has the backing of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), an important player in Iranian politics, so he is probably secure for now. But whichever faction prevails, the real question to ponder is how long the mullahs can retain their grip over such a disaffected populace, said The Economist. Inflation is soaring; meat and even rice are unaffordable to most people; the regime's backing of Hezbollah in Lebanon and of Yemen's Houthis is proving hugely costly; US sanctions continue to bite. And "everyone in Iran knows what the regime is truly afraid of", said Maryam Aslany and Rana Dasgupta. It's written in the graffiti sprayed on walls and bridges across the country. "Long live the king." What most Iranians long for is the return of a constitutional monarchy, and of a man now living in Great Falls, Virginia the son of the shah and scion of the dynasty that ruled before the mullahs seized power in 1979: crown prince Reza Pahlavi.

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Iran at the crossroads: have the mullahs lost their grip? - The Week