Members of Iran’s parliament presented a bill that would oblige successive Iranian governments to eliminate Israel within 20 years and to work toward removing American forces from the region, Iranian news agency ISNA reported. ISNA revealed that the bill includes 16 articles under the name “Iran reciprocates” and was presented as a measure to respond to the assassination of Iran’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani last year. This week marks the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Iran’s top general alongside a senior Iraqi militia leader in a US drone strike in Iraq. Following the attack, Iran’s relations with the US and its allies in the region have been heightened.
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2021-01-04
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2021-01-04
The assassination of Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi militia, by laser-guided Hellfire missiles launched from two MQ-9 Reaper drones, was an act of war.
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2021-01-04
President-elect Joe Biden’s top foreign policy appointments – Antony Blinken as Secretary of State and Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor – both supported reentering the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration in 2015 and abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018. The following are their remarks by topic on Iran.
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2021-01-04
The assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani by the United States in January 2020 “was a flagrant instance of state terrorism,” says Richard Anderson Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. Falk makes the remarks in an exclusive interview with the Tehran Times as Iran is marking the assassination anniversary of the senior military officer in January 2020. General Soleimani, a legendary commander in the war against terrorists, was assassinated near Baghdad’s international airport while he was on a peace mission to Iraq. The prominent international law professor also says, “Iran has opposed non-state political violence of groups such as ISIS or Taliban that engage in terrorist activity by committing atrocities against civilians that amount to Crimes Against Humanity.”
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2021-01-04
Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, chair of the Centre for Iranian Studies at the London Middle East Institute, commends Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani’s leadership in the war against terrorists, especially ISIS, in Iraq and Syria. “I am on the record for saying that General Soleimani’s legacy will be primarily determined by his leadership in the fight against ISIS,” Adib-Moghaddam tells the Tehran Times. Nader Entessar, a professor emeritus of political science from the University of South Alabama, says General Soleimani’s acumen in fighting terrorists was “unmatched”. In a commentary on January 8, five days after his assassination in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad’s international airport, the TIME magazine wrote a commentary headlined “Soleimani spun a web of Iranian influence that will long outlive him”.
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2021-01-03
Interview with Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Hassan Nasrallah devoted to Hajj Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the al-Quds Force (whose ultimate goal is the Liberation of Jerusalem) of the Revolutionary Guards, on the occasion of the 40th day after his death, February 13, 2020.
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2021-01-02
The hack, which appears to have taken place over a period of months, appears to be from a source known as Pay2Key, with the hackers deploying a form of highly sophisticated ransomware designed to extract high quantities of information from its target, as well as demanding 100,000 pounds in bitcoins to stop leaks going public. It seems that the hack targeted a cyber security company by the name of Portnox, which itself appears to be a major provider of cybersecurity to multiple Israeli regime concerns, including the Israeli Aerospace Industry, El Al, Bezeq and Clalit Healthcare, many of which have direct links to the Israeli government, and defence systems.
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2021-01-01
The Pentagon has abruptly sent the aircraft carrier Nimitz home from the Middle East and Africa over the objections of top military advisers, marking a reversal of a weekslong muscle-flexing strategy aimed at deterring Iran from attacking American troops and diplomats in the Persian Gulf. […] American intelligence analysts in recent days say they have detected Iranian air defenses, maritime forces and other security units on higher alert. They have also determined that Iran has moved more short-range missiles and drones into Iraq. But senior Defense Department officials acknowledge they cannot tell if Iran or its Shia proxies in Iraq are readying to strike American troops or are preparing defensive measures in case Mr. Trump orders a pre-emptive attack against them. “What you have here is a classic security dilemma, where maneuvers on both sides can be misread and increase risks of miscalculation,” said Brett H. McGurk, Mr. Trump’s former special envoy to the coalition to defeat the Islamic State. […] Pentagon officials said they had sent additional land-based fighter and attack jets, as well as refueling planes, to Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries to offset the loss of the Nimitz’s firepower.
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2020-12-31
“These activities are more than just posturing. They are more like repositioning in preparation for something that could either be planned or anticipated,” said Mohammed Baharoon, the director general of B’huth Center for Public Policy here. “Moving a strike group and a nuclear submarine and flying bombers repeatedly on dry runs are costly exercises and are more than delivering a message to Iran to keep away. Wolves don’t run for nothing.” Baharoon pointed out that Israel’s decision to show and announce the sailing of a Dolphin submarine through the Suez Canal towards the Red Sea is by itself “a significant message and indication of a possible scenario in place.”
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2020-12-31
Last September, Donald Trump accidentally upended an entire generation of myths invented by the left and right that purport to explain America's costly and unpopular military adventures in the Middle East: "The fact is, we don’t have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We’ve been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don’t have to be in the Middle East. You know there was a time we needed desperately oil, we don’t need that anymore." As Mondoweiss pointed out at the time, the explosive admission went completely unmentioned in the mainstream media, which traditionally hangs on every one of Trump's words and reacts hysterically.