Tag: iran

Reuters Has Ulterior Motives For Reporting That Iran Tipped Russia Off Before The Crocus Attack

Reuters cited three unnamed sources to exclusively report on Monday that Iran had allegedly tipped Russia off about a then-impending major terrorist attack after learning about it from ethnic Tajik ISIS-K terrorists who were detained after the group’s early January attack in Kerman. The information lacked specific details, but the outlet editorialized that “It is harder…for Russia to dismiss intelligence from diplomatic ally Iran on the attack” than from the West, the latter of which they claim that it downplayed.

Accordingly, Reuters wrote that this “raised questions over the effectiveness of Russian security services”, thus exposing the ulterior motive behind this report. The West has done all that it can to deflect from Russia’s accusations that Ukraine was tied to this terrorist attack via the evidence that its investigation has uncovered. This includes claiming that the vague warning that the US passed along to Russia was obtained from spying on ISIS-K, not on Kiev like this analysis here compellingly argues.

By including an Iranian dimension into the emerging narrative of early warnings ahead of the Crocus terrorist attack, the West via Reuters wants to further deflect from its own and Ukraine’s involvement in what happened while simultaneously discrediting the Russian security services. This analysis here debunks the false narrative that President Putin downplayed ISIS-K threats in the run-up to the attack, yet the West is doubling down on that claim, largely in response to evidence implicating Kiev.

To be sure, there’s a chance that one or some of those ethnic Tajik ISIS-K terrorists that Iran detained in January might have heard about the group’s plans to attack Russia, but that’s altogether different than them having knowledge of the then-impending Crocus plot. Russia already knows that it’s in that group’s crosshairs after they bombed its embassy in Kabul in September 2022. Without specific information, whether from Iran or anyone else, nothing on the home front would have changed in response to that.

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Israeli Airstrike Hits Iranian Consulate Building in Damascus, High-Level Iranian General Reported Killed

On Monday, an Israeli airstrike leveled an Iranian consulate building that’s next to the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital of Damascus, marking a significant escalation in Israeli attacks on Iranians in the region.

Initial reports say at least seven people were killed, including Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Several Iranian diplomats and other IRGC members have also been reported killed, but the details and final death toll are not confirmed.

Iran has confirmed the death of Zahedi, who oversaw the IRGC’s Quds Force operations in Syria and Lebanon, and is vowing a harsh response. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani Tehran will “decide on the type of response and punishment against the aggressor.”

The bombing of the diplomatic facility comes a few days after Israel launched some of its heaviest airstrikes in Syria that reportedly killed 52 people, including Syrian soldiers and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel has also killed multiple members of the IRGC since it ramped up airstrikes in Syria after October 7.

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Iran claims ownership over Antarctica and plans military base there

Iranian navy Rear Adm. Shahram Irani declared that his country has “property rights” in Antarctica, particularly the South Pole, in a newly surfaced video.

“With regard to the South Pole, we have property rights there, and they belong to the public,” Irani said in the video of a television broadcast from last fall.

He added, “Our plan is to raise the flag there, inshallah. It is not only military work but also scientific work that needs to be carried out.”

Irani said that the move would benefit Iran’s scientific community.

“Our scientists are getting ready for a joint operation, encompassing the efforts of all our people, in keeping with the guidelines of our leader, inshallah,” he said.

The Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute translated the interview on Iran’s Channel 1 television channel in late September 2023.

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Pentagon Admits It Has No Evidence Iran Was Behind Drone Attack That Killed 3 US Troops in Jordan

The Pentagon on Monday said Iran “bears responsibility” for the drone attack in northeastern Jordan that killed three US troops but admitted it has no evidence that Iran was directly involved.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the responsibility fell on Iran due to its support for Iraqi Shia militias the US believes carried out the attack.

“In terms of attribution for the attack, we know this is an [Iran]-backed militia. It has the footprints of Kataib Hezbollah, but [we’re] not making a final assessment,” Singh said at a press conference. “Iran continues to arm and equip these groups to launch these attacks, and we will certainly hold them responsible.”

When asked if the US knew Iran and Iranian leaders were “actually behind this attack, as in planned, coordinated, or directed it,” Singh admitted the US had nothing to show that.

“We know that Iran certainly plays a role with these groups, they arm and equip and fund these groups. I don’t have more to share on — terms of an intelligence assessment on if leaders in Iran were directing this attack,” she said.

Singh was again asked about the claim that Iran was behind the attack and said the US just knows that “Iran funds these groups” and had nothing more to add. Later in the press conference, she said Iran “bears responsibility” for the killing of three American soldiers.

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U.S. Asks China to Ask Iran to Ask Houthis to Stop Attacking Red Sea Shipping

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the Biden administration has asked top Chinese officials to pressure Iran to make its Houthi proxy terrorists in Yemen halt their attacks on Red Sea shipping.

According to the Times’s sources, these pleas from top Biden officials — all the way up to White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — have fallen on deaf ears in Beijing.

The Biden team has reportedly been asking China for help for “the past three months” but saw “little evidence China had put any pressure on Iran to restrain the Houthis.”

The best Beijing could do was a bland statement asking all parties to guarantee the safety of Red Sea shipping. The Houthis responded by assuring China and Russia that ships flying their flags would not be attacked. Terrorist attacks on the vessels of other nations continued unabated.

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Is A Huge War Coming? US & Israel Bomb Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Gaza & Lebanon While Threatening War With Iran

The brutal war that Israel is waging on Gaza is increasingly becoming a regional conflict.

Since October, the United States and Israel have bombed not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Now, the U.S. government is even threatening Iran with war. President Joe Biden sent the Iranian government a private message while the U.S. military was bombing Yemen on January 13. He said threateningly, “We’re confident, we’re well prepared”.

While this is happening, South Africa has introduced a case in the International Court of Justice, the top United Nations judicial authority, which accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

South Africa’s case has garnered support from dozens of countries across the Global South.

This case has frightened Israel and its sponsors in Washington. They are apparently seeking to expand the conflict into a regional war, to try to win more sympathy and to turn attention away from what South Africa and many countries have referred to as a genocide in Gaza.

In fact, top UN experts have been warning precisely this for months: that the Palestinian people face “the risk of genocide in Gaza”, and that there has been a “failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide”.

The Financial Times reported in December that, in just two months of Israeli bombing, Gaza had become one of the most heavily bombed areas in human history.

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Pakistan Strikes Back At Iran, Targeting Militants Near Border

Pakistan has struck back at Iran with attacks on militant groups near the border between the two countries after Tehran targeted militant sites within Pakistan just two days prior. Pakistan said it used weapons including drones and loitering munitions to hit the Iran-based Baloch separatist militants, stoking fears of an escalating conflict between the two countries. It’s the first time another country has openly struck inside Iran since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

The Iranian attacks on Pakistani territory were part of an unprecedented operation involving what Iranian officials described as “precision missile and drone strikes.” These were directed against two alleged strongholds of Jaish al Adl (JAA), a Sunni Islamist militant group that has previously mounted attacks in Iran, including against the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and police. Pakistani authorities said that Tuesday’s strikes hit civilians, killing two children.

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Iran Dispatches Warship To Red Sea, Houthis Warn Of “Repercussions” After US Forces Kill Rebels During Maersk Ship Attack

Regional instability risks mount in the Red Sea following the Iran-backed Houthi attack on a Maersk container ship on Sunday. US Forces responded with attack helicopters that eliminated three small boats and ten rebels.

After the skirmish, a spokesperson for the Yemeni militia group warned of “consequences and repercussions” for the US aggression. 

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea confirmed on the Yemeni TV channel Al-Masirah that US forces killed ten of its fighters. 

“US enemy forces attacked three boats belonging to the Yemeni Naval Forces, which led to the martyrdom and the loss of ten people from the Naval Forces,” Sarea said.

The spokesman said its fighters were “performing their humanitarian and moral duty” to deter Israel-related commercial vessels from transiting the Red Sea “in solidarity and support for the Palestinian people.”

He said the US “bears the consequences” for attacking and killing ten of its fighters, adding that the “military movements in the Red Sea to protect Israeli ships will not prevent Yemen (Houthi militia) from performing its humanitarian duty in support of Palestine and Gaza.”

Perhaps even more problematically from a global escalation perspective, Iran dispatched a warship to the Red Sea.

The Alborz destroyer traversed the Bab El-Mandeb strait, a narrow choke point between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, on Monday, Iranian state media said, adding that Iran’s naval fleet has been operating in the area “to secure shipping lanes, repel pirates, among other purposes since 2009.”

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Biden orders strike on Iranian-aligned group after 3 U.S. troops injured in drone attack in Iraq

President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. military to carry out retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. servicemembers were injured in a drone attack in Northern Iraq.

National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said one of the U.S. troops suffered critical injuries in the attack that occurred earlier Monday. The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, under an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit for the attack.

Biden, who is spending Christmas at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was briefed on the attack. and ordered the Pentagon to prepare response options.

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Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian “Falls Apart” As Spain, Italy, France Reject Request  

Australia is the latest country to reject a request from the United States to send warships to the Red Sea under the command of the Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect commercial vessels along the critical maritime trade route from Iran-backed Houthi. 

Defense Minister Richard Marles told Sky News that Australia’s military would not send a “ship or a plane” to the Red Sea but would triple the number of troops for the US-led maritime force. 

“We need to be really clear around our strategic focus and our strategic focus is our region,” Marles said.

The Pentagon’s formation of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a new task force to protect shipping from Houthi drone and missile attacks in the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, requires increased warship patrols by the US and allies. This will create a security umbrella over commercial vessels to defend from attacks. 

Reuters said about twenty countries have signed up for the Pentagon’s new operation. However, several countries, including Australia, Spain, Italy, and France, have rejected the Pentagon’s request to participate in the operation. 

Spain’s Defence Ministry said it would only participate in NATO-led missions or European-coordinated operations – not ones commanded by the Pentagon: 

“We will not participate unilaterally in the Red Sea operation.” 

Italy’s Defence Ministry voiced similar concerns, indicating it would send naval frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea but only respond to requests by Italian shipowners. 

“Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea has practically Collapsed as France, Spain, and Italy have all announced their Withdrawal from the US Command Structure for the Operation, with the Three Nations stating they will only conduct further Maritime Operations under the Command of NATO and/or the European Union and not the United States,” X account OSINTdefender wrote. 

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