English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 19/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 08/56-59/:”Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 18-19/2022
Question: “What does the Bible say about thankfulness/gratitude?/GotQuestions.org?/November 18/2022
Rahi meets Bou Habib, Hajjar
Mikati chairs meeting on children's protection from violence
Berri meets UN’s Wronecka, broaches general situation with British Ambassador
Bassil says would run for presidency if candidates are 'bad'
Bassil denies seeking deal with Berri behind Hezbollah's back
Franjieh: I won't conspire against resistance nor against its rivals
3 arrested in Bekaa over $1 million swiped from Mt. Lebanon home
Report: Bassil leaked audio after failed 'presidential deal' with Berri

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 18-19/2022
Pope Francis says Vatican ready to mediate to end Ukraine conflict - paper
US moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing
Iranians protest at funeral for child killed in shooting
Iran protests: Social media videos show flames at home of late leader Khomeini
IAEA Board Orders Iran to Cooperate ‘Urgently’ with Probe
Canada Imposes New Iran Sanctions over Drones for Russia, Human Rights
Iran: Videos Show Flames at Khomeini Home
Accelerating US-Israeli Military Cooperation Against Iranian Threat
Where's Putin? Leader leaves bad news on Ukraine to others
Russian strikes force Ukraine to face hours-long power cuts
Rockets target US-led forces in northeast Syria
Greek, Israeli defense ministers stress importance of ties
Gaza fire kills 21 from one family during birthday party
Turkey: 17 charged over bombing in Istanbul that killed 6
Threats to peace dominate Asia-Pacific leaders' summit

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 18-19/2022
A win against Iranian arms smuggling to Yemen/Ryan Brobst and Bradley Bowman/Washington Examiner/November 18, 2022 |
The Russian-Turkish Bond to Harm the West/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/November 18, 2022
Old Iranian Slogan Conquers the World/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 18 November, 2022
Is this a New Era in US-Russian-Chinese Relations?/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 18 November, 2022
Iran May Be Outsourcing Kamikaze Drone Production to Venezuela/Farzin Nadimi/ The Washington Institute/November 18/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 18-19/2022
Question: “What does the Bible say about thankfulness/gratitude?”
GotQuestions.org?/November 18/2022
Answer: Thankfulness is a prominent Bible theme. First Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Did you catch that? Give thanks in all circumstances. Thankfulness should be a way of life for us, naturally flowing from our hearts and mouths.
Digging into the Scriptures a little more deeply, we understand why we should be thankful and also how to have gratitude in different circumstances.
Psalm 136:1 says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.” Here we have two reasons to be thankful: God’s constant goodness and His steadfast love. When we recognize the nature of our depravity and understand that, apart from God, there is only death (John 10:10; Romans 7:5), our natural response is to be grateful for the life He gives.
Psalm 30 gives praise to God for His deliverance. David writes, “I will exalt you, O Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. O Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. . . . You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever” (Psalm 30:1-12). Here David gives thanks to God following an obviously difficult circumstance. This psalm of thanksgiving not only praises God in the moment but remembers God’s past faithfulness. It is a statement of God’s character, which is so wonderful that praise is the only appropriate response.
We also have examples of being thankful in the midst of hard circumstances. Psalm 28, for example, depicts David’s distress. It is a cry to God for mercy, protection, and justice. After David cries out to God, he writes, “Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy, and I will give thanks to him in song” (Psalm 28:6-7). In the midst of hardship, David remembers who God is and, as a result of knowing and trusting God, gives thanks. Job had a similar attitude of praise, even in the face of death: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21).
There are examples of believers’ thankfulness in the New Testament as well. Paul was heavily persecuted, yet he wrote, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him” (2 Corinthians 2:14). The writer of Hebrews says, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28). Peter gives a reason to be thankful for “grief and all kinds of trials,” saying that, through the hardships, our faith “may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6-7).
The people of God are thankful people, for they realize how much they have been given. One of the characteristics of the last days is a lack of thanksgiving, according to 2 Timothy 3:2. Wicked people will be “ungrateful.”
We should be thankful because God is worthy of our thanksgiving. It is only right to credit Him for “every good and perfect gift” He gives (James 1:17). When we are thankful, our focus moves off selfish desires and off the pain of current circumstances. Expressing thankfulness helps us remember that God is in control. Thankfulness, then, is not only appropriate; it is actually healthy and beneficial to us. It reminds us of the bigger picture, that we belong to God, and that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). Truly, we have an abundant life (John 10:10), and gratefulness is fitting.

Rahi meets Bou Habib, Hajjar
NNA/November 18/2022
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rahi met in Bkerki on Friday with Caretaker Foreign Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, over the current general situation. He later received Caretaker Minister of Social Affairs, Hector Hajjar, with whom he discussed the Syrian refugee file. Hajjar told reporters that he handed the Patriarch a study about the losses Lebanon has endured due to the presence of the displaced Syrians. He also urged the state officials to act in support of the Syrians' repatriation.

Mikati chairs meeting on children's protection from violence
NNA/November 18/2022
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday chaired a meeting devoted to discussing the means to protect children from violence, in the presence of UN Special Representative on Violence against Children, Najat Maalla M'jid, and the ministers of justice, education, social affairs, and interior.
"I would like to felicitate the Prime Minister and the present ministers on their commitment to protecting children against violence, discrimination and poverty," said the UN official following the meeting. "Children's protection is a judicial, social, medical, and administrative protection all at once," she added. "The goal is to activate a series of accessible services for the sake of the suffering children," she continued. She also stressed the UN and UNICEF's readiness to provide the needed assistance and means to enhance the services offered by the local organizations in that respect.

Berri meets UN’s Wronecka, broaches general situation with British Ambassador
NNA/November 18/2022
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Friday received at the Second Presidency in Ain El-Tineh, United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka. Speaker Berri also received, in Ain El-Tineh, British Ambassador to Lebanon, Hamish Cowell, with whom he discussed the current general situation and the bilateral relations between Lebanon and the United Kingdom. Among Speaker Berri's itinerant visitors for today had been a delegation of Bar Association' former deans that included Amal Haddad, Boutros Doumit, Andre Chidiac and Nohad Jabr.

Bassil says would run for presidency if candidates are 'bad'
Naharnet/November 18/2022
Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil would run for presidency if he finds that the chosen candidate is "a bad president."
"I will not accept to have a bad president and in that case of course I would run," Jebran said in a press interview, as he reiterated that his party is trying to reach a solution and a consensual candidate who would be able to make reforms. Bassil had previously said that he opposes that Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh becomes a president because he does not agree with him on the same political program regarding reforms and building the state. In a leaked audio from Paris he said that electing Franjieh as a president would bring Lebanon back to the nineties. "We will move from a Berri-Hariri-Hrawi troika to a Berri-Mikati-Franjieh troika," Bassil said, adding that even if all parties agree on Franjieh, "the FPM will say no."

Bassil denies seeking deal with Berri behind Hezbollah's back
Naharnet/November 18/2022
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil's office said Friday in a statement that a meeting he had with Speaker Nabih Berri was not behind Hezbollah's back. Al-Jadeed TV had reported Friday that Bassil had tried and failed to make a presidential deal with Berri in a meeting on Tuesday. It claimed that Bassil had suggested to agree with Berri on a presidential candidate other than Franjieh. Bassil would secure Bkerki's approval and Hezbollah would then back Berri and Bassil's candidate when it will realize that it is impossible for Franjieh to become president. Berri refused, advising Bassil to discuss the presidential file with Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and to agree with him on the candidate, al-Jadeed said. "Bassil had informed Hezbollah in advance of the visit's date and objectives," Bassil's office responded. It added that a report published in al-Akhbar newspaper on Friday is "not accurate."The report had said that Bassil had contacted the Charge d'Affaires at the Embassy of Lebanon in Qatar, Farah Berri, and asked her to arrange a meeting between him and Berri. "The meeting was the idea of Berri's daughter (Farah)," Bassil responded. He added that he did not seek an agreement with the Speaker behind Hezbollah's back as some media outlets said.

Franjieh: I won't conspire against resistance nor against its rivals
Naharnet/November 18/2022
Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh has stressed that he “will not conspire against the resistance nor against its rivals and enemies,” days after Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah openly announced that his party wants a president for Lebanon who “would reassure the resistance.”
“I’m ready for all possibilities. For the presidency and for failure to reach it. Others are fighting over it today as if it is a lottery prize whereas in fact it is a real ball of fire,” al-Akhbar newspaper quoted Franjieh as telling sources informed on his stance. “I don’t know if I will succeed or fail, but what I know is that I will try and exert efforts to succeed,” Franjieh added. Noting that being elected president is “not a goal in itself,” the Marada chief reminded that he had given up the post in the 2016 elections and said that he is “not clinging to it now” if “there is no chance for salvation and success.”
Asked whether he is a “confrontation candidate,” Franjieh said that a consensual president is not one who is elected in a consensual manner bat rather one who “also acts in this manner.” “Of course I’m a member of a project and camp and I’m holding onto my position in them, but my election would oblige me to be for all Lebanese, be them pro-government or in the opposition,” the Marada chief added. “I will implement what I can pledge to do, not more and not less,” he said. “I will not be the president of my camp exclusively, but I will give the resistance what rivals or enemies cannot give,” Franjieh went on to say.
Moreover, he added: “We cannot forget that we are in a country that is governed by balances of power and political and sectarian balances that confine the ability to act. Those unable to confront the resistance will become confident that their election will make them more incapable of thinking to strike it.”
“We need patience in thinking and behavior to address all our problems, including the arms of the resistance,” Franjieh went on to say. Hezbollah’s weapons “do not need my cover or protection,” the Marada chief added, noting that he agreed with what Nasrallah recently said about “a president who does not stab the resistance in its back.”“What I will do is that I will not conspire against the resistance, nor against its rivals and enemies,” Franjieh said. “I won’t take revenge on anyone nor settle any score with anyone – not over the past nor over the future,” the Marada leader added, pointing out that “Hezbollah’s arms have a regional and international dimension that we alone cannot settle.”As for his ties with Washington and Paris, Franjieh said: “So far I have not heard from the Americans and French that they support my election, but I have not received any negative message indicating that they oppose me or don’t want me. The same thing applies to Saudi Arabia.”

3 arrested in Bekaa over $1 million swiped from Mt. Lebanon home
Agence France Presse/November 18/2022
Police in Lebanon, where a banking crisis has forced people to stash cash at home, said Friday that three people have been arrested after stealing over $1 million from a private residence. The three Syrians -- a man, his wife and a relative -- were arrested on November 11 in the Bekaa, a week after allegedly making off with the trove that had been kept in the safe of a house in Mount Lebanon, said a police statement. The bulk of the cash had been recovered, but one of those detained had spent around $70,000 on a wedding, a car and furniture, it added. Lebanon has been reeling from a financial crisis dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent world history. It has driven people in the eastern Mediterranean country to hide a total of around $10 billion in their homes, according to Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh.

Report: France to support presidential candidate agreed-upon by Bassil, al-Rahi
Naharnet/November 18/2022
France and Qatar are coordinating with Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil over the presidential file and other topics, al-Akhbar newspaper said. The daily elaborated Friday that France would support a presidential candidate that Bassil and Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi would agree upon without announcing his name, within a framework that guarantees an exit from the political and economic crisis. It said that the coordination between Bassil, France and Qatar also revolves around the International Monetary Fund's role regarding the capital control law and the offshore gas exploration that French company TotalEnergies will launch in Lebanon in January. Bassil had arrived Wednesday in Paris to discuss with French officials presidential, governmental and economic matters, media reports said. He had a "positive" meeting in Paris with French presidential envoy Ambassador Pierre Duquesne, al-Akhbar reported.

Report: Bassil leaked audio after failed 'presidential deal' with Berri
Naharnet/November 18/2022
Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil had met with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, days before a leaked audio of Bassil speaking in Paris infuriated the speaker, media reports said. Al-Akhbar newspaper reported Friday that the meeting happened away from the media, after Bassil contacted the Charge d'Affaires at the Embassy of Lebanon in Qatar, Farah Berri, and asked her to arrange a meeting between him and Berri. The two leaders met at the start of this week as Berri welcomed Bassil's initiative to start "a new chapter." But few days after the alleged meeting, in a leaked audio from Paris, Bassil said that electing Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh as a president would bring Lebanon back to the nineties. "We will move from a Berri-Hariri-Hrawi troika to a Berri-Mikati-Franjieh troika," he said. Berri responded, shortly after the audio was leaked, that the situation in 1990 was better than the Aoun-Bassil-Jreissati era of the past six years. Bassil's statements also embarrassed Hezbollah as its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had mediated between Bassil and Franjieh, al-Akhbar said, adding that Bassil has complicated the situation, especially that Hezbollah still considers that no candidate can reach Baabda without Bassil's consent. Al-Jadeed TV reported Friday that Bassil attacked the speaker from Paris and leaked the audio after he failed to make a presidential deal with Berri during their meeting on Tuesday. It claimed that Bassil had suggested to agree with Berri on a presidential candidate other than Franjieh. Bassil would secure Bkerki's approval on the name before proposing it to the other parties. Hezbollah would then back Berri and Bassil's candidate when it will realize that it is impossible for Franjieh to become a president. The media outlet added that Berri refused, advising Bassil to discuss the presidential file with Nasrallah and to agree with him on the candidate. Berri would then approve the name that Bassil and Nasrallah would agree on. Bassil had arrived Wednesday in Paris to discuss with French officials presidential, governmental and economic matters, media reports said.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 18-19/2022
Pope Francis says Vatican ready to mediate to end Ukraine conflict - paper
NNA/November 18/2022
Pope Francis reiterated on Friday the Vatican was ready to do anything possible to mediate and put an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the pontiff said in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa. Asked whether he believed reconciliation between Moscow and Kyiv was possible, the pontiff called on everyone not to give up. "But everyone must commit to demilitarising hearts, starting with their own, and then defusing, disarming violence. We must all be pacifists. Wanting peace, not just a truce that may only serve to rearm. Real peace, which is the fruit of dialogue," he told the paper. ----Reuters

US moves to shield Saudi crown prince in journalist killing
Associated Press/Associated Press/November 18/2022
https://ca.yahoo.com/news/us-moves-shield-saudi-crown-030729651.html
The Biden administration declared Thursday that Saudi Arabia's crown prince should be considered immune from a lawsuit over his role in the killing of a U.S.-based journalist, a turnaround from Joe Biden's passionate campaign trail denunciations of Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal slaying.
The administration said the senior position of the crown prince, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler and recently named prime minister as well, should shield him against a suit brought by the fiancée of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and by the rights group Khashoggi founded, Democracy for the Arab World Now. The request is non-binding and a judge will ultimately decide whether to grant immunity. But it is bound to anger human rights activists and many U.S. lawmakers, coming as Saudi Arabia has stepped up imprisonment and other retaliation against peaceful critics at home and abroad and has cut oil production, a move seen as undercutting efforts by the U.S. and its allies to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.
The State Department on Thursday called the administration's call to shield the Saudi crown prince from U.S. courts in Khashoggi's killing “purely a legal determination."The State Department cited what it said was longstanding precedent. Despite its recommendation to the court, the State Department said in its filing late Thursday, it “takes no view on the merits of the present suit and reiterates its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi." Saudi officials killed Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. They are believed to have dismembered him, although his remains have never been found. The U.S. intelligence community concluded Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had approved the killing of the widely known and respected journalist, who had written critically of Prince Mohammed’s harsh ways of silencing of those he considered rivals or critics.
The Biden administration statement Thursday noted visa restrictions and other penalties that it had meted out to lower-ranking Saudi officials in the death. “From the earliest days of this Administration, the United States Government has expressed its grave concerns regarding Saudi agents’ responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder,” the State Department said. Its statement did not mention the crown prince's own alleged role.
Biden as a candidate vowed to make a “pariah” out of Saudi rulers over the 2018 killing of Khashoggi.
“I think it was a flat-out murder,” Biden said in a 2019 CNN town hall, as a candidate. “And I think we should have nailed it as that. I publicly said at the time we should treat it that way and there should be consequences relating to how we deal with those — that power.” But Biden as president has sought to ease tensions with the kingdom, including bumping fists with Prince Mohammed on a July trip to the kingdom, as the U.S. works to persuade Saudi Arabia to undo a series of cuts in oil production. Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and DAWN sued the crown prince, his top aides and others in Washington federal court over their alleged roles in Khashoggi's killing. Saudi Arabia says the prince had no direct role in the slaying. “It’s beyond ironic that President Biden has singlehandedly assured MBS can escape accountability when it was President Biden who promised the American people he would do everything to hold him accountable," the head of DAWN, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in a statement, using the prince's acronym. Biden in February 2021 had ruled out the U.S. government imposing punishment on Prince Mohammed himself in the killing of Khashoggi, a resident of the Washington area. Biden, speaking after he authorized release of a declassified version of the intelligence community's findings on Prince Mohammed's role in the killing, argued at the time there was no precedent for the U.S. to move against the leader of a strategic partner.
The U.S. military long has safeguarded Saudi Arabia from external enemies, in exchange for Saudi Arabia keeping global oil markets afloat.
“It’s impossible to read the Biden administration’s move today as anything more than a capitulation to Saudi pressure tactics, including slashing oil output to twist our arms to recognize MBS’s fake immunity ploy,” Whitson said. A federal judge in Washington had given the U.S. government until midnight Thursday to express an opinion on the claim by the crown prince's lawyers that Prince Mohammed's high official standing renders him legally immune in the case. The Biden administration also had the option of not stating an opinion either way. Sovereign immunity, a concept rooted in international law, holds that states and their officials are protected from some legal proceedings in other foreign states’ domestic courts. Upholding the concept of “sovereign immunity” helps ensure that American leaders in turn don’t have to worry about being hauled into foreign courts to face lawsuits in other countries, the State Department said.
Human rights advocates had argued that the Biden administration would embolden Prince Mohammed and other authoritarian leaders around the world in more rights abuses if it supported the crown prince's claim that his high office shielded him from prosecution.Prince Mohammed serves as Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler in the stead of his aged father, King Salman. The Saudi king in September also temporarily transferred his title of prime minister — a title normally held by the Saudi monarch — to Prince Mohammed. Critics called it a bid to strengthen Mohammed’s immunity claim.

Iranians protest at funeral for child killed in shooting
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)/ November 18, 2022
A large anti-government protest erupted in Iran on Friday at the funeral of a child killed in a shooting that his mother blamed on security forces. It's the latest in a wave of demonstrations that have flared across the country over the past two months. Videos circulating on social media showed hundreds of protesters at the funeral for 9-year-old Kian Pirfalak in the southwestern city of Izeh. Protests also erupted in the eastern city of Zahedan, which has seen the deadliest violence since the nationwide demonstrations began. The protests first erupted after the Sept. 16 death of a 22-year-old woman who was being held by the country’s morality police. They rapidly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics and an end to the theocracy established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Authorities have heavily restricted media access and periodically shut down the internet as they struggle to contain the biggest challenge to their leadership in more than a decade, making it difficult to confirm details of unrest in different parts of the country. State-run media in Iran reported that seven people were killed and several wounded, including security forces, in a shooting in Izeh on Wednesday. Authorities blamed the attack on “terrorists” without providing further details. Among the victims was Pirfalak. His mother, Zeinab Molaei, said security forces stopped the family in their car and told them to drive away for their own safety because of a nearby protest. When they turned around, the security forces opened fire on the vehicle, she said, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency. State media had initially said a young girl was killed, but later amended those reports. Fars said 11 people have been arrested in connection to the shooting in Izeh, which Iranian officials say is under investigation. Dozens of protesters had gathered in different parts of Izeh around the time of the attack, chanting anti-government slogans and hurling rocks at police, who fired tear gas to disperse them, state-run media reported at the time. Protesters also torched a Shiite religious seminary in Izeh. Violence has erupted around some of the protests as security forces have clamped down on dissent. Iran has also seen a number of recent attacks blamed on separatists and religious extremists, including a shooting at a major Shiite shrine last month that killed over a dozen people and was claimed by the Islamic State group. Iranian officials have sought to link the attacks to the protests and blame all the unrest on hostile foreign actors, without providing evidence. The protesters say they are fed up after decades of repression by a clerical establishment that they view as corrupt and dictatorial. At least 388 people have been killed and more than 16,000 arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group monitoring the unrest. It says at least 53 members of the security forces have been killed. Rights groups accuse security forces of firing live ammunition and bird shot at demonstrators, and of beating them with batons, violence captured in numerous videos circulated online.

Iran protests: Social media videos show flames at home of late leader Khomeini
(Reuters)/November 18, 2022.
Video clips showing the ancestral home in Iran of the late founder of the Islamic republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on fire have been widely shared on social media, with activists saying it was torched by protesters. Reuters verified the location of two video clips using the distinctive arches and buildings that match file images. The semi-official Tasnim news agency, however, denied Khomeini's house was set on fire, saying a small number of people had gathered outside the house.The social media videos show dozens of people cheering as a flash of fire is sparked in a building. Reuters could not independently verify the dates when the videos were filmed. Activist network 1500Tasvir said the incident occurred on Thursday evening in Khomeini's birth town of Khomein, south of the capital Tehran. The house had been converted into a museum. "The report is a lie," said the Tasnim news agency, adding: "the doors of the house of the late founder of the great revolution are open to the public." Khomeini died in 1989. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been under intense pressure from nationwide protests calling for his death since the Sept. 16 death of young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran's morality police. Separate videos posted by Tasvir purported to show marchers in several cities in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan province, including in the capital Zahedan, where protesters chanted "Death to Khamenei", and Chabahar, where demonstrators removed and trampled the sign of an avenue named after Ayatollah Khomeini. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of those videos. On Friday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported pro-government demonstrators in the northeastern city of Mashhad, where two members of the Basij militia were killed on Thursday.
Two intelligence agents were killed in clashes with protesters on Thursday night, according to the Revolutionary Guards' news site. It also said that three other Revolutionary Guards and a Basij member were killed in Tehran, and one Basiji and one member of the police were killed in Kurdistan on Thursday.

IAEA Board Orders Iran to Cooperate ‘Urgently’ with Probe
Vienna - Raghida Bahnam/November,18/2022
The atomic watchdog's board of governors has passed a resolution ordering Iran to cooperate urgently with the agency's investigation into uranium traces found at three undeclared sites. The resolution says "it is essential and urgent" that Iran explains the origin of the uranium particles and more generally give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) all the answers it requires. A diplomat from the Board of Governors told Asharq Al-Awsat that according to the IAEA Statute and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the issue could be referred to the UN Security Council. The resolution was adopted on Thursday with 26 votes in favor out of 35, five abstentions, and two countries absent. Only Russia and China voted against it. "The Agency has reiterated to Iran that at this meeting it expects to start receiving from Iran technically credible explanations on these issues, including access to locations and material, as well as the taking of samples as appropriate," according to the resolution. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani accused earlier the western countries of practicing “political pressure” on Iran. Kanaani warned of the "adverse effects" of the motion on the remaining technical issues with the UN body. A European diplomat told Asharq Al-Awsat that it would be “wise” of Iran to cooperate with the IAEA. “The western countries have many options” in case Iran didn’t show cooperation, the diplomat warned. The European Union Ambassador to the IAEA, Stephan Klement, said that “the EU expects rapid and tangible progress to be achieved in the shortest time-frame and shall consider further action accordingly.”“We stress that the implementation of modified Code 3.1 is a legal obligation for Iran under its CSA, which cannot be modified or suspended unilaterally, and urge Iran to resolve this issue.”For his part, Iranian nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami backtracked previous statements he made Wednesday on the possibility of an IAEA delegation visiting Tehran. Eslami had announced that “for the moment, no visit of the agency is on the agenda.”Yet, he affirmed on Thursday that any IAEA delegation may visit Iran. Speaking to reporters after the first day of the Board of Governors meetings on Wednesday, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi rejected Iranian claims that the agency has been politicized and said Tehran needs to “start delivering something”. Grossi expected Iran to start giving satisfactory answers during this visit. Iran had reached an agreement with the agency last week on cooperating with the probe, following a visit of an Iranian delegation to Vienna and a meeting with Grossi.

Canada Imposes New Iran Sanctions over Drones for Russia, Human Rights
Asharq Al-Awsat/November,18/2022
Canada has imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, targeting individuals involved in alleged human rights abuses and companies it accused of supplying Russia with drones for use in Ukraine, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
It is the fifth package of sanctions Canada has implemented against Iran this year. It targets six individuals and two entities, Shahed Aviation Industries and Qods Aviation Industries, the foreign ministry said. The ministry said Shahed Aviation produces drones used by Russian forces to attack Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, while Qods Aviation makes drones for Iran's military and armed movements like Hezbollah and develops drones that are exported to Russia for use in Ukraine. "Canada will not hesitate to use all diplomatic tools at its disposal to respond to the Iranian regime's aggressions, whether in Iran or abroad," Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement. The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on people and companies, including Shahed Aviation, that it accused of being involved in the production or transfer of Iranian drones that have been used by Russia in Ukraine.
Tehran acknowledged for the first time this month that it had supplied Moscow with drones but said they were sent before the war in Ukraine. Wednesday's sanctions also target officials that Canada accused of participating in the suppression of protesters in Iran, the foreign ministry said.
Canada has imposed a series of sanctions against Iran over alleged human rights abuses, including the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman while in the custody of Iran's morality police. Iran, which said Amini died due to pre-existing medical conditions, has accused Western states of trying to exploit the protests over her case to destabilize clerical rule in place since the 1979 revolution.

Iran: Videos Show Flames at Khomeini Home
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 18 November, 2022
Video clips showing a fire at the ancestral home in Iran of the Iranian regime’s late founder, Ruhollah Khomeini, have appeared on social media, with activists saying it was torched by protesters. Reuters verified the location of two video clips using the distinctive arches and buildings that match file images.
However, the semi-official Tasnim news agency denied Khomeini's house was set on fire, saying a small number of people had gathered outside the house. The social media videos show dozens of people cheering as a flash of fire is sparked in a building. Reuters could not independently verify the dates when the videos were filmed. Activist network 1500Tasvir said the incident occurred on Thursday evening in Khomeini's birth town of Khomein, south of the capital Tehran. The house had been converted into a museum. "The report is a lie," Tasnim said. "The doors of the house of the late founder of the great revolution are open to the public."
Khomeini died in 1989.
His successor, Ali Khamenei, has been under intense pressure from nationwide protests calling for an end to rule hardline clerical rule since the death in September of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran's morality police. Separate videos posted by Tasvir purported to show marchers in several cities in Sistan-Baluchistan province, including in the capital Zahedan, where protesters chanted "Death to Khamenei", and Chabahar, where demonstrators removed and trampled the sign of an avenue named after Khomeini. State media said authorities held a funeral ceremony for seven people killed in the southwestern city of Izeh in what it described as a terrorist act. But the mother of a 10-year-old victim, Kian Pirfalak, could be heard on social media videos blaming security forces for the shooting of her son. A video posted on social media and purporting to be from Pirfalak's funeral showed protesters chanting "Khamenei we will bury you". Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of those videos. On Friday, Tasnim reported pro-government demonstrators in the northeastern city of Mashhad, where two members of the Basij militia were killed on Thursday. Two intelligence agents were killed in clashes with protesters on Thursday night, according to the Revolutionary Guards' news site. It also said that three other Revolutionary Guards and a Basij member were killed in Tehran, and one Basiji and one member of the police were killed in Kurdistan on Thursday.

Accelerating US-Israeli Military Cooperation Against Iranian Threat
Ramallah/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 18 November, 2022
Israel and the United States are developing “joint military capabilities at accelerated pace" to counter evolving threats in the Middle East, and especially against Iran, Israel’s army chief of staff Aviv Kohavi said on Wednesday. Kohavi made the remarks during his meeting with Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) General Michael Kurilla, who arrived in Israel on Tuesday in the fourth official visit since he assumed his post in April. “We are operating together on all fronts to gather intelligence, neutralize threats, and prepare for various scenarios in either one or multiple arenas.”The Israeli army said in a statement that Kurilla, alongside commanding general of the Israeli army’s Northern Command Major General Ori Gordin, visited the Rosh HaNikra crossing point on the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon and the Alpha Line between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights.
Gordin briefed Kurilla on the security challenges along each border, the threat posed by the Lebanese Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and the strategic importance inherent in preserving security on the Israeli-Lebanese maritime border.
Kurilla also reviewed the efforts exerted to prevent Iran from positioning its arms on Syrian territory and recruiting citizens to carry out operations. The army said Kurilla met with Kohavi and other senior military officers to discuss Israel’s efforts to obstruct Iran’s plans to establish a large military presence in Syria and transfer its weapons to Hezbollah. Kurilla also visited the Nevatim Air Force Base southeast of Beer Sheva and the 116th “Lions of the South” Squadron, which operates the F-35i “Adir” aircraft. Kohavi, Commanding Officer of the Israeli Air Force Major General Tomer Bar, and Nevatim Air Force Base commander Brigadier General Gilad Keinan accompanied Kurilla. Kurilla and the army leaders discussed opportunities to improve integrated air and missile defense and regional security. He later met incoming army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, who is due to take office on January 17.

Where's Putin? Leader leaves bad news on Ukraine to others
DASHA LITVINOVA/TALLINN, Estonia (AP)/November 18, 2022.
When Russia's top military brass announced in a televised appearance that they were pulling troops out of the key city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, one man missing from the room was President Vladimir Putin.As Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Sergei Surovikin, Russia’s chief commander in Ukraine, stiffly recited the reasons for the retreat in front of the cameras on Nov. 9, Putin was touring a neurological hospital in Moscow, watching a doctor perform brain surgery.
Later that day, Putin spoke at another event but made no mention of the pullout from Kherson -– arguably Russia’s most humiliating withdrawal in Ukraine. In the days that followed, he hasn't publicly commented on the topic.
Putin’s silence comes as Russia faces mounting setbacks in nearly nine months of fighting. The Russian leader appears to have delegated the delivery of bad news to others — a tactic he used during the coronavirus pandemic.
Kherson was the only regional capital Moscow’s forces had seized in Ukraine, falling into Russian hands in the first days of the invasion. Russia occupied the city and most of the outlying region, a key gateway to the Crimean Peninsula, for months.
Moscow illegally annexed the Kherson region, along with three other Ukrainian provinces, earlier this year. Putin personally hosted a pomp-filled Kremlin ceremony formalizing the moves in September, proclaiming that “people who live in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia become our citizens forever.”Just over a month later, however, Russia's tricolor flags came down over government buildings in Kherson, replaced with the yellow-and-blue banners of Ukraine.
The Russian military reported completing the withdrawal from Kherson and surrounding areas to the eastern bank of the Dnieper River on Nov. 11. Since then, Putin has not mentioned the retreat in any of his public appearances.
Putin “continues to live in the old logic: This is not a war, it is a special operation, main decisions are being made by a small circle of ‘professionals,’ while the president is keeping his distance,” political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya wrote in a recent commentary. Putin, who was once rumored to personally supervise the military campaign in Ukraine and give battlefield orders to generals, appeared this week to be focused on everything but the war.
He discussed bankruptcy procedures and car industry problems with government officials, talked to a Siberian governor about boosting investments in his region, had phone calls with various world leaders and met with the new president of Russia’s Academy of Science. On Tuesday, Putin chaired a video meeting on World War II memorials. That was the day when he was expected to speak at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia — but he not only decided not to attend, he didn't even join it by video conference or send a pre-recorded speech.
The World War II memorial meeting was the only one in recent days in which some Ukrainian cities -– but not Kherson -– were mentioned. After the meeting, Putin signed decrees awarding the occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol the title of City of Military Glory, while Luhansk was honored as City of Labor Merit. Independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin attributed Putin’s silence to the fact he has built a political system akin to that of the Soviet Union, in which a leader – or “vozhd” in Russian, a term used to describe Josef Stalin – by definition is incapable of making mistakes. “Putin and Putin’s system … is built in a way that all defeats are blamed on someone else: enemies, traitors, a stab in the back, global Russophobia -– anything, really,” Oreshkin said. “So if he lost somewhere, first, it’s untrue, and second -– it wasn’t him.”Some of Putin’s supporters questioned such obvious distancing from what even pro-Kremlin circles viewed as a critical developments in the war.
For Putin to have phone calls with the leaders of Armenia and the Central African Republic at the time of the retreat from Kherson was more troubling than “the very tragedy of Kherson,” said pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov in a post on Facebook.
"At first, I didn’t even believe the news, that’s how incredible it was,” Markov said, describing Putin’s behavior as a “demonstration of a total withdrawal.”Others sought to put a positive spin on the retreat and weave Putin into it. Pro-Kremlin TV host Dmitry Kiselev, on his flagship news show Sunday night, said the logic behind the withdrawal from Kherson was “to save people.”According to Kiselev, who spoke in front of a large photo of Putin looking preoccupied with a caption saying, “To Save People,” it was the same logic the president uses – “to save people, and in specific circumstances, every person.”
That's how some ordinary Russians can view the retreat, too, analysts say. “Given the growing number of people who want peace talks, even among Putin’s supporters, any such maneuver is taken calmly or even as a sign of a possible sobering up –- saving manpower, the possibility of peace,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.
For Russia's hawks -– vocal Kremlin supporters who have been calling for drastic battlefield steps and weren’t thrilled about the Kherson retreat -– there are regular barrages of missile strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, analyst Oreshkin said.
Moscow launched one Tuesday. With about 100 missiles and drones fired at targets across Ukraine, it was the biggest attack to date on the country’s power grid and plunged millions into darkness. Oreshkin believes that such attacks don’t inflict too much damage onto Ukraine’s military and don’t change much on the battlefield. “But it is necessary to create an image of a victorious ‘vozhd.’ So it is necessary to carry out some kind of strikes and scream about them loudly. That’s what they’re doing right now, in my opinion,” he said.

Russian strikes force Ukraine to face hours-long power cuts
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)/November 18, 2022.
Ukraine's electricity grid operator warned of hours-long power outages Friday as Russia zeroed in on Ukraine's energy infrastructure with renewed artillery and missile attacks that have interrupted supply to as much as 40% of the population at the onset of winter. Grid operator Ukrenergo said outages could last for several hours with colder temperatures putting additional pressure on energy networks. You always need to prepare for the worst, we understand that the enemy wants to destroy our power system in general, to cause long outages," Ukrenergo's chief executive Volodymyr Kudrytskyi told Ukrainian state television Friday. “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long."
Kudrytskyi added that the power situation at critical facilities such as hospitals and schools has been stabilized.
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, overnight shelling and missile strikes targeted “critical infrastructure” and damaged energy equipment, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov. Eight people including energy company crews and police officers were injured trying to clear up the debris, he said.
Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy and power facilities in the past weeks have left millions without heating and electricity, fueling fears of what the dead of winter will bring. Energy infrastructure had again been targeted Thursday after Russia two days earlier unleashed a nationwide barrage of more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people.
Those attacks have also had a knock-on effect on neighboring countries like Moldova where a half-dozen cities across that country experienced temporary blackouts.
Russian forces unleashed the breadth of their arsenal to attack Ukraine's southeast employing drones, rockets, heavy artillery and warplanes resulting in the death of at least six civilians and the wounding of an equal number in the past 24 hours, the office of the president reported.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, part of which remains under Russian control, artillery pounded ten towns and villages. The death toll from a rocket attack on a residential building in the city of Vilniansk Thursday climbed to nine people, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko posted on Telegram. In Nikopol, located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, 40 Russian missiles damaged several high-rise buildings, private houses, outbuildings and a power line. In the wake of its humiliating retreat from the southern city of Kherson, Moscow intensified its assault on the eastern Donetsk region where Russia's Defense Ministry said Friday its forces took control of the village of Opytne and repelled a Ukrainian counteroffensive to reclaim the settlements of Solodke, Volodymyrivka and Pavlivka.
The city of Bakhmut, a key target of Moscow's attempt to seize the whole of Donetsk and score a demonstrable victory after a string of battlefield setbacks, remains the scene of heavy fighting, said regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said that Ukrainian troops were pushed back from Yahidne in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv province, and Kuzemivka in the neighboring Luhansk province. Donetsk and Luhansk were among the four Ukrainian provinces illegally annexed by Moscow in September, together with Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
At the same time, Moscow is fortifying its defenses in the southern region to thwart further Ukrainian advances. Russian troops have built new trench systems near the border of Crimea, as well as near the Siversky-Donets River between Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, according to a British Ministry of Defense report. Meanwhile, Ukrainian and international investigators continue their work on uncovering suspected war crimes committed by Russian forces during the Karkhiv region's near seven month-old occupation. Ukraine's National Police said in a statement Friday that its officers had initiated over 3,000 criminal proceedings over what it said were “violations of the laws of customs of war” by Russian troops. A lighting Ukrainian counteroffensive in September reclaimed the Kharkiv region and pushed Russian forces back toward the Donbas, the country’s eastern industrial heartland, and regain strategically located cities including Izium and Kupiansk. Reports of torture and other atrocities committed by Russian troops have also emerged from the Kherson region where Ukrainian officials said they have opened more than 430 war crimes cases and are investigating four alleged torture sites.
Alesha Babenko, from the village of Kyselivka said he arrested by the Russians in September and locked in a basement. The 27-year-old said he was regularly beaten by Russian soldiers while bound, blindfolded and threatened with electric shocks.
“I thought I was going to die,” he told The Associated Press. Kherson residents continued to line up for food from a charity with many saying they had nothing to eat and are making do without heating or electricity. One man said “all the fridges have defrosted, we have nothing to eat.” Despite the hardship, a small sign of a return to normality was news that the first train from the capital Kyiv to Kherson would be departing Friday night. Ukraine’s state rail network Ukrzaliznytsia said around 200 passengers will travel on the train – the first in nine months. Dubbed the “Train to Victory”, the train’s carriages were painted in eclectic designs by Ukrainian artists and the tickets were sold as part of a “Tickets to Victory” charity project. In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors approved a resolution calling, among other things, for Russia to withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia plant, Ukraine’s and Europe’s biggest. British ambassador Corinne Kitsell tweeted that 24 countries voted for and two against the resolution, which was led by Canada and Finland, on Thursday evening. Russian ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov identified the two countries that voted against as Russia and China, and said seven states abstained.

Rockets target US-led forces in northeast Syria
Agence France Presse/November 18, 2022 |
The U.S. military said a rocket attack late Thursday targeted international coalition forces in northeast Syria, without causing any casualties. The U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition maintains bases in areas controlled by Syria's Kurdish forces, including at Al-Omar, the country's largest oil field. "Rockets targeted coalition forces" at the Green Village base at Al-Omar, which is close to the Iraqi border, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. There was no damage to the base or casualties, but such attacks "undermine the hard-won security and stability" of the region, said the statement. "U.S. forces in northeastern Syria are investigating the incident," it added. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported "four rockets were fired from a pro-Iranian militia base in the Mayadine region," close to the coalition forces. "Both parties put their forces on alert" after the attack, added the Observatory. Pro-Iranian militia hold significant influence in Syria's border area with Iraq, an important crossing point for weapons, fighters and goods. On November 9, a convoy of weapons and fuel destined for pro-Iranian militias in Syria was targeted in an airstrike near the Iraqi border, killing at least 14 people according to the Observatory. The U.S. and its coalition allies denied carrying out the attack, while Israel, which regularly conducts operations against Syrian and pro-Iranian forces in the country, declined to comment.

Greek, Israeli defense ministers stress importance of ties
Associated Press/November 18, 2022 |
The defense ministers of Israel and Greece on Friday stressed the importance of maintaining strong alliances to tackle global and regional threats, citing challenges such as the war in Ukraine and ongoing tension in the eastern Mediterranean. "The world is changing," Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said after meeting in Athens with his Greek counterpart, Nikolas Panagiotopoulos. "The implications of the war in Ukraine bleed through national borders. The politics of extremism and terrorism impacts countries across the globe."He cited Iran's nuclear program and the use of Iranian drones by Russian forces in Ukraine as evidence that the Islamic republic's alleged aggression "continues to be a grave threat to the region and to the world." "It is clear the global threats we see today are simply the seeds for the challenges that will develop and grow in the future, impacting national security, food supplies, immigration, energy resources," Gantz said. Last month, Gantz visited the Turkish capital, Ankara, becoming the first top Israeli defense official in more than a decade to do so, and signaling a possible resumption of defense ties with Turkey. Israel and Turkey were once close regional allies, but relations became increasingly strained under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is an outspoken critic of Israel's policies toward Palestinians. Greece has traditionally maintained good relations with both Israel and Arab nations in the Middle East, and has been seeking to strengthen alliances amid heightened tension with neighboring Turkey. "In the face of global shifts, it is our duty to ensure our alliances ... remain strong and constant," Gantz said in Athens, adding that it was in the common interest of Greece and Israel to ensure stability in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, have been at odds for decades over a series of issues, but relations have deteriorated significantly in recent years, particularly over sea boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean. High-ranking Turkish officials, including Erdogan, have made thinly veiled threats of invasion. "Aggressive revisionism is the greatest challenge we have to face in our region and poses a serious risk for the rules-based international order," Panagiotopoulos, the Greek defense minister, said, citing in particular Russia's invasion of Ukraine. During their meeting Friday, Panagiotopoulos said he and Gantz reaffirmed "our common goal and desire to expand (the) strategic defense partnership between Greece and Israel."The two countries regularly conduct joint military exercises and training, and Greece recently launched operations at a new international pilot training center created in partnership with Israel. "We are determined to maintain this ever-increasing momentum and also to enrich our defense industrial cooperation," Panagiotopoulos said.

Gaza fire kills 21 from one family during birthday party
Associated Press/November 18, 2022 |
Twenty-one victims of a fire that tore through a top-floor apartment in the Gaza Strip during a birthday party were members of the same family, two of their relatives said Friday. Thousands later joined a funeral procession for the victims. Officials in Hamas-run Gaza have said Thursday night's blaze in a three-story residential building in the Jabaliya refugee camp was apparently fueled by stored gasoline. They said it was not clear how the gasoline ignited, and that an investigation is underway. It was one of the deadliest incidents in Gaza in recent years outside the violence stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The blaze destroyed the top-floor apartment in the building, home to the Abu Raya family. Mohammed Abu Raya, a family spokesman, told The Associated Press that the extended family had gathered for twin celebrations — the birthday of one of the children and the return of one of the adults from a trip to Egypt.
Abu Raya spoke at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, where the bodies had been taken and where sobbing relatives were waiting for funeral processions to begin. Abu Raya challenged assertions that stored gasoline fueled the blaze, saying furniture made from flammable materials was more likely to have accelerated the flames. "The disaster was that no one came out alive to tell us the truth of things," he said. "I do not think that it was stored gasoline."Those killed were from three generations — a couple, their five sons and one daughter, two daughters-in-law and 11 grandchildren, according to Abu Raya and Mohammed Jadallah who had married into the Abu Raya family. Gaza faces a severe energy crisis, largely because of a crippling Israeli-Egyptian border blockade that has been in place since the Islamic militant Hamas seized control of the territory 15 years ago. People often store cooking gas, diesel and gasoline in homes in preparation for winter. House fires have previously been caused by candles and gas leaks.

Turkey: 17 charged over bombing in Istanbul that killed 6
Associated Press/November 18, 2022 |
A Turkish court has ordered 17 suspects jailed pending trial in connection with a deadly street bombing in Istanbul, accusing them of attempts against the unity of the state, deliberate killings and attempts to kill, Turkey's state-run news agency reported Friday. The court released three other suspects from custody pending trial, Anadolu Agency reported. It also ordered the deportation from Turkey of 29 people who were rounded up by police in connection with the attack. The Nov. 13 explosion targeted Istanbul's bustling Istiklal Avenue — a popular thoroughfare lined with shops and restaurants — and left six people dead, including two children. More than 80 others were wounded. The attack came as a shocking reminder of bombings that hit Turkish cities between 2015 and 2017, shattering the public's sense of security. Turkish authorities blamed last weekend's explosion on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, as well as Syrian Kurdish groups affiliated with it. The Kurdish militants groups have denied involvement. Prosecutors questioned the main suspect in the attack, a Syrian woman who is accused of leaving a TNT-laden bomb on Istiklal Avenue, for some five hours. The woman, identified as Ahlam Albashir, allegedly told her interrogators that she had entered Turkey illegally and stayed at a house in Istanbul for four months, pretending to be a couple with one of the other suspects, the Anadolu Agency reported. According to the news agency, Albashir also allegedly admitted to leaving a bag containing the explosive device on a street bench but claimed she did not know what was inside it. A trial date is expected to be set after prosecutors prepare their indictment, which could take months. One suspect was apprehended by Turkish police late Wednesday in the Syrian city of Azaz - which is currently under the control of the Turkey-backed Syrian opposition - and was being questioned by police. There was no information on the 29 people who face deportation. The PKK has fought an armed insurgency in Turkey since 1984. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since then.

Threats to peace dominate Asia-Pacific leaders' summit
Associated Press/November 18, 2022 |
Threats to peace and stability were dominating the agenda at a summit of Pacific Rim economies Friday in Bangkok, as leaders warned that war and tensions among the big powers threaten to unravel the global order. Underscoring the risks, North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japanese territorial waters, and Japan said the weapon may have the range to strike anywhere in the United States. North Korea is under U.N. sanctions for past weapons displays but has not faced fresh sanctions this year because U.S. attempts were opposed by China and Russia in the Security Council.
U.S. officials said Vice President Kamala Harris would meet with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada to discuss the missile launch, the latest of many such provocations by North Korea that raise the risks of conflict. "Geopolitical tensions are detracting from peace and stability and undermining the rules based international order, which we all agree are essential," Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told fellow leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum who began a two-day summit Friday.
APEC's long-term mission is promoting regional economic integration, but more immediate exigencies often dominate the agenda. That's true in Bangkok, as leaders appeal for an end to Russia's war on Ukraine and consider strategies for nursing along economic recoveries from the coronavirus pandemic while contending with food and energy crises, the need to cut the carbon emissions that cause climate change and other urgent tasks. "The circumstances we face today as economic leaders, multiple overlapping global crises, could not be more pressing as they inundate our region," Albanese said.
Speaking to a business conference on the sidelines of APEC, French President Emmanuel Macron echoed that call for a restoration of the global order and an end to confrontation, both in Ukraine and also in Asia, where he said friction between the biggest economies, the U.S. and China, was forcing countries to take sides. "There is no stability or peace except one based on international order and respect," said Macron, who was invited to the APEC summit as a guest by the host country, Thailand. The rise of Asia to become an engine for global growth owes its success to trade "governed by common rules, global rules," Macron said, saying multiple crises may have taken the world to a "tipping point."The APEC gathering is the third back-to-back meeting of world leaders this week after the summits of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last week in Cambodia and the Group of 20 leading economies, which wrapped up Wednesday in Indonesia.In Bangkok, host Thailand has the challenge of trying to bridge divisions and forge a consensus. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha has sought to embed the concept of sustainability into APEC's agenda. "We need to change our ways of life and ways of doing business," Prayut said in opening the leaders' meeting on Friday focused on sustainable economic growth.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that he saw signs of a "convergence" in views about how to move forward in solving the world's problems, after meetings of foreign and commerce ministers ahead of the summit.
Whether that might enable Thailand to produce a final joint statement after the summit's closed-door sessions remained to be seen; consensus generally is required among the 21 APEC members, including Russia. None of the earlier APEC preparatory meetings this year issued statements due to disagreements over whether to mention the conflict. But leaders of the Group of 20 did manage a show of unity when China and India, after months of refusing to condemn Russia's war in Ukraine, did not impede the release of a statement that harshly criticized Moscow. Asked about the prospects for a show of unity, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he did not want to "get ahead" of the talks. But, "on issue after issue we're seeing, as I said, a growing convergence among the major countries in the world," he said. With both President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin absent, Chinese President Xi Jinping is the star attendee in Bangkok. Speaking Thursday to the business conference, which was largely closed to media apart from outlets sponsoring the event, Xi warned against a "new Cold War" and attempts to dismantle supply chains built over decades. He called for strengthened cooperation and progress in achieving APEC's vision of an open Asia-Pacific economy.
In one step forward, most of the APEC region has fully reopened to travel after two years of often severe restrictions and border controls to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Xi had stayed close to home throughout most of the pandemic, making his first trip outside China since it began only in September. The Chinese economy has slowed sharply under restrictions meant to quash COVID-19 outbreaks that have flared anew: the government reported 23,276 new COVID-19 cases across the country Thursday and the southern metropolis of Guangzhou was planning to build quarantine facilities with almost 250,000 beds to cope with outbreaks. APEC members account for nearly four of every 10 people and almost half of world trade. Much of APEC's work is technical and incremental, carried out by senior officials and ministers, covering areas such as trade, forestry, health, food, security, small and medium-size enterprises and women's empowerment. Members also include Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. Apart from the French president, Thailand also invited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the prime minister of Saudi Arabia; and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was to represent ASEAN but is not attending after getting COVID-19. The summit venue, at Bangkok's main convention center, was cordoned off with some streets closed to traffic. Riot police stood guard behind barricades at a major intersection, underscoring Thailand's determination to ensure no disruptions. Protesters, who scuffled with police on Thursday and gathered in greater numbers at another area on Friday, were kept well at bay.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 18-19/2022
A win against Iranian arms smuggling to Yemen
Ryan Brobst and Bradley Bowman/Washington Examiner/November 18, 2022 |
The U.S. Navy announced on Tuesday that it has seized 70 tons of a missile fuel component and 100 tons of an explosive precursor. The items were being smuggled on a ship traveling from Iran to Yemen. This incident demonstrates that Iran continues to quite literally fuel the conflict in Yemen and the associated humanitarian crisis there. It underscores the need to ensure the U.S. and partner forces in the region have the capability necessary to interdict Iranian weapons smuggling.
How did the seizure occur?
The Coast Guard Cutter John Scheuerman and guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans intercepted a fishing vessel as it transited international waters in the Gulf of Oman. Tehran has used this route to smuggle weapons and other materiel to the Houthis systematically. The vessel carried 70 tons of ammonium perchlorate, which can be manufactured into a composite fuel when combined with other materials and used to power ballistic missiles. It also carried 100 tons of urea, which can be used as a precursor when manufacturing explosives. “This was a massive amount of explosive material, enough to fuel more than a dozen medium-range ballistic missiles depending on the size,” said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and U.S. 5th Fleet. Iran’s illicit transfer of weapons and related materials to Yemen is “irresponsible, dangerous, and leads to violence and instability across the Middle East,” Cooper said.
Iranian support for the Houthis is not new. Tehran has armed the Houthis since at least 2009 and increased aid in 2015 after the Houthis overthrew the internationally recognized Yemeni government. That development prompted an intervention from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The warring parties reached a ceasefire earlier this year but failed to extend it in October. There have been continuing violations since then, spurring growing concerns that the ceasefire is slowly falling apart. The Houthis have little incentive to establish a durable peace deal if they can rely on a continued supply of weapons and support from Iran. Despite this fact, international ire has focused largely on Saudi Arabia, often ignoring the Iranian weapons that are helping fuel the conflict and humanitarian crisis.
While the Houthis have used artillery and small arms and employed child soldiers, their preferred tactic for striking Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has been with drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. Since the war began, the Houthis have reportedly fired at least 550 drones and 350 ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia and launched at least 375 cross-border attacks in 2021 alone. And in January 2022, the Houthis fired two ballistic missiles at Al-Dhafra Air Base, which houses American service members. The intercepted fuel could have powered ballistic missiles capable of replicating such an attack.
Iran supplies the Houthis by smuggling weapons on dhows, although it also smuggles some supplies over land. This willingness to use a variety of routes mirrors Iran’s approach in arming Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tehran has sent weapons to Hezbollah over the Iraq-Syria land bridge and transports some by sea. Tehran’s use of maritime routes for smuggling helped inspire the establishment of multiple combined task forces in the region. Combined Task Force 150 focuses on the Gulf of Oman and Northern Arabian Sea, Combined Task Force 151 counters piracy throughout the Middle East, Combined Task Force 152 patrols inside the Persian Gulf, and the recently established Combined Task Force 153 operates from the Suez Canal, through the Red Sea, to the waters off the Yemen-Oman border. The U.S. and its partners have also conducted several exercises in the region, including training focusing on capabilities highlighted in this seizure.
A durable solution to the crisis in Yemen and the associated humanitarian crisis depends significantly on staunching the flow of Iranian weapons. While the news this week represents a welcome win, more must be done. Washington must work with its regional partners to increase intelligence sharing related to Iranian smuggling and build increased multilateral interdiction capability and capacity. Considering the national security threats emanating from Yemen and the humanitarian suffering there, resourcing these interdiction efforts is money well spent.
*Ryan Brobst is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Bradley Bowman is the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power. Follow Bradley on Twitter @Brad_L_Bowman. FDD is a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Russian-Turkish Bond to Harm the West
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/November 18, 2022
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19123/russia-turkey-bond
Turkey's skies remain open to Russian airlines and its doors remain open to hundreds of thousands of Russians and their money. Turkey's exports to Russia are surging.
Russian cash helped to plug the growing hole in Turkey's foreign currency reserves — and at a time when Erdogan needs foreign money to shore up the country's ailing economy before the presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2023.
Some analysts see this as a scheme to open up room for parking Russian funds in Turkey.
The Erdogan-Putin bond has two main pillars. One is pragmatism: They both strategically, politically and economically benefit. The other is ideological: They both hate Western civilization.
Turkey's skies remain open to Russian airlines and its doors remain open to hundreds of thousands of Russians and their money. Turkey's exports to Russia are surging. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation leaders' summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 16, 2022.
If they had met as presidents of other countries, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin would probably have hated each other. Historically, Turkish Islamists have hated both Tsarist and Soviet Russia. Similarly, Russians have never been fond of the Turks. Today, however, Erdogan, with a foot in NATO, is exhibiting a pro-Russian tilt never seen before. What is the secret of this ostensible marriage?
Turkey has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, thereby throwing Putin a lifeline. Turkey's skies remain open to Russian airlines and its doors remain open to hundreds of thousands of Russians and their money. Turkey's exports to Russia are surging. In July alone, exports to Russia shot up by a dizzying 75% year-on-year.
Russia's state-owned Rosatom, which is building Turkey's first nuclear power plant, had sent around $5 billion to its Turkish subsidiary, the first in a series of such transfers. Russian cash helped to plug the growing hole in Turkey's foreign currency reserves — and at a time when Erdogan needs foreign money to shore up the country's ailing economy before the presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2023.
Some analysts see this as a scheme to open up room for parking Russian funds in Turkey.
It might look to them as if the increase in the Turkish central bank's foreign currency and gold reserves — to $108.1 billion on August 4 from $98.9 billion on July 26 — had to do with Russian money flowing to Turkey. Bloomberg reported:
"Mystery capital flows into Turkey have reached new highs, allowing policy makers to boost foreign reserves despite a growing trade deficit and weak demand for lira assets."
Bloomberg's source remains unclear.
In March, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Russian oligarchs were welcome in Turkey. In October, Financial Times reported that a record $28 billion from unclear origins had flowed into Turkey between January and August this year. Turkish investigative journalist Aytuğ Özçolak listed some of the Russian oligarchs who have business interests, investments and funds in Turkey: Leonid Mikhelson, Vagit Alekperov, Vladimir Lisin, Vladimir Potanin, Alexey Mordashov and Mikhail Fridman.
According to Marc Pierini, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and former EU ambassador to Ankara, the number of Russian expatriates in Turkey, as well as their real estate investments and financial transfers to Turkish banks, have grown substantially. Furthermore, Pierini wrote, there is a suspicion that Russia is trying to circumvent some of the effects of Western sanctions via Turkey, in particular through the acquisition of stakes in Turkish oil businesses, as joint companies help to blur Russian trade in oil.
Pierini further wrote:
"The Kremlin's policy is highly pragmatic: knowing that Turkey's partners in NATO are keen to keep it in the North Atlantic Alliance and Ankara has every interest in staying within NATO, Putin's goal remains anchoring Erdoğan more and more to Russia through a vast mesh of mutually beneficial operations in the fields of defense, energy, trade, and finance.
"By doing this, Putin is comforting an embattled incumbent president and is openly bolstering Erdoğan's position in the upcoming elections. More than the Turkish president abandoning his traditional Western partners, the world is witnessing the Russian president using Turkey for his own benefits."
Jokes in Ankara's political grapevine describe Putin as "head of Erdogan's party's Moscow provincial branch." Whichever indicators one looks at, Putin wants Erdogan to stay in power. He would rather not gamble with someone else as Turkey's new leader. This is understandable. Erdogan's potential rivals have pledged to reinstate Turkey's strong bonds with the West.
The Erdogan-Putin bond has two main pillars. One is pragmatism: They both strategically, politically and economically benefit. The other is ideological: They both hate Western civilization.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Old Iranian Slogan Conquers the World
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 18 November, 2022
The three-word slogan-“woman, life, freedom”- launched by Iranian protesters in the past two months seems to have found a global resonance that few expected. You see it on giant posters in Tokyo, on a wall in the central railway station in Amsterdam, in neon-light messages in Rio de Janeiro, and scribbled on walls from Indonesia to Argentina. Hundreds of thousands of women from all walks of life across the globe have cut their hair in solidarity with the Iranian protesters. Suddenly, the global limelight is on womanhood as both a reality and a concept.
The word “life” is also getting fresh attention as a concept, reminding us that the true task of politics is to strive for a more humane and fulfilled life for everyone.
The Persian word for freedom (azadi) has done even better.
It has become the war cry of protesters against religious discrimination in India and repressive measures by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Indian writer Arundhati Roy has even published a book with “Azadi” as its title.
Where did the slogan come from?
It was first launched in 1977 at a seminar at Isfahan University, in Central Iran, marking the 25th anniversary of the granting of the right to vote to Iranian women. Opening the seminar, Hushang Ansary, then Minister of Finance and Economy, asserted that the next century would see women “conquering one summit after another” while freedom would become “ the core value of humanity.” That prediction has proved right faster than anyone expected. By 1977 the world had seen only three women as heads of governments- Sirimavo Bandaranaike in Sir Lanka, Golda Meir in Israel, and Indira Gandhi in India. Half a century later more than 60 nations have had woman prime ministers or presidents. In 1977 women were noticed by their absence in high places even in well-established Western democracies, and didn’t even have the right to vote in Switzerland.
The past decades have witnessed the accelerating feminization of politics across the world. This has happened in the political personnel at all levels, even in traditional patriarchal societies. More importantly, it has also happened in the context of political debates. Traditional macho-male issues like the quest for national glory, the flexing of military muscles, and emphasis on law-and-order have been nudged aside to open a space for “female” issues such as health, education and socio-economic solidarity.
Feminization has put the focus on this-worldly “life” as the ultimate concern of politics. This poses a threat to autocratic regimes, such as the Khomeinist one in Iran that, obsessed with the ideology, fail to deal with “bread-and-butter” issues, thus condemning their societies for deepening poverty. In terms of constant purchasing power, the average Iranian today is 40 percent poorer than in 1977.
Paradoxically, however, the average Iranian woman today is better educated than her male counterparts compared to 1977.
Women’s share of the 20 million Iranians with university degrees is estimated at around 60 percent while women’s unemployment rate is twice that of men. In 1977, women had a token presence in noticeable positions. Iran had a women Supreme Court judge before the United States and there were women Cabinet ministers before some Western democracies. By then Iran had also appointed its first woman ambassadors and celebrated its first woman brigadier-general. Iran had woman police officers and even pilots of fighter jets. Women also made a spectacular entry into the world of arts, cinema, theatre, literature and the media.
Although women were used as tokens of the regime’s progressive ambitions and cherries on the national cake, the common expectation was that they were starting a journey towards full and equal citizenship. That journey was interrupted by the mullahs who seized power in 1979. The Khomeinist regime signaled its intention to create a gender Apartheid by passing two laws that imposed a strict dress code on women. This included a new political “hijab”, inspired by the head-gear of Christian nuns, first designed by the followers of Imam Musa Sadr in Lebanon.
Before the Khomeinist take-over, many Iranian women voluntarily wore a variety of head coverings of which at least 14 can be seen in the Museum of Ethnology in Tehran. The Khomeinist “hijab” was part of a political uniform just as Lenin and Mao Zedong had imposed their versions of the cloth cap on Russian and Chinese peoples. The mullahs tried but failed to cancel many of the rights, including the right to vote and get elected, granted to women by the Shah. But they implemented a policy of marginalizing the women in public life. The Islamic Republic has seen a single woman Cabinet minister, half a dozen “assistants to the president”, two woman ambassadors in remote and, to Iran, insignificant capitals, and, as far as I know, four mayors of small towns. Women are no longer allowed to sit as judges.
Over the past 40 years, economic mismanagement has destroyed many industries that offered job opportunities to women, notably carpet weaving which had been the jewel in the crown of traditional industries for over 1000 years.
The regime’s thinly disguised ideological female phobia was illustrated by the creation, under President Muhammad Khatami, a “reformist” mullah, of a morality police, known as Gasht-e-Ershad (Islamic Guidance Patrol) which deploys armed units of both male and female “guides” to make sure women do not contravene the Khomeinist dress code.
At the time the Minister for Islamic Guidance Ata-Allah Mohajerani claimed that the force was designed to “educate” women in proper Islamic behavior and not meant as a repressive instrument. Yet, the “guides”, who receive combat training, have the authority to sermon, fine, beat up, or arrest women they believe to be infringing the dress code. It was the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in detention by the morality police that triggered the current national uprising.
Mahmud Ahmadinejad who succeeded Hojat al-Islam Khatami as the president promised to disband the morality police but, apparently, failed to convince
“Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The current uprising, however, has forced the morality police to adopt a low profile as more and more women discard the official hijab with at least the tacit support of many, if not most, men.
The triple theme of “women, life and freedom” expresses the aspirations of contemporary humanity beyond Iran’s official frontiers.

Is this a New Era in US-Russian-Chinese Relations?
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 18 November, 2022
On the cusp of winter, a blooming international political spring is in the air. An atmosphere of optimism has prevailed over this year’s G20 summit as the US and China, the world’s two largest economies, saw their deteriorating relations come to a halt. “The world has come to a crossroads. Where to go from here,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping, and US President Joe Biden stated: “I absolutely believe there need not be a new Cold War.”
Urging the immediate peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, called for by both Russia and the US, is yet another key indicator of its great impact on the political and economic world.
The warring presidents started their meeting by congratulating each other on winning the elections, an implication that both presidents' teams have accomplished most of the task before Biden and Xi began direct negotiation. The US midterm elections results came as no surprise to me; Democrats sealed control of the Senate and Republicans took the House after a tight race. The US Congress elections are difficult because they take place locally and focus on dozens of living, social, and personal issues. By retaining control of the Senate, President Biden has sufficient power to pass his projects and veto those of his opponents. Nevertheless, this power is far from absolute as a decision to sign an agreement with Iran or keep weapons flowing to Ukraine must go through Congress and certain Democratic members of the House may choose to vote with their Republican opponents, against the President.
All the same, I expect Biden to complete his full term seeking a memorable historic achievement - a habit of US presidents. He indeed laid the cornerstone for such an achievement on Monday as he sat face-to-face with the Chinese President in Indonesia. His potential success in putting an end to the crisis so that both powers can coexist on earth would place him on the cover of Time magazine and get him nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The world would remember him, not for the mocking videos posted by his opponents, but for what he did for his country and the world by preventing a new Cold War with China early on. This difficult task can become easier if he refrains from running for a second term as he would have a bigger margin of freedom to make decisions without being concerned about their impact on public opinion and without causing Democrats to lose popularity.
The question that interests us is: How will he deal with our region and its issues during his remaining two years in the White House? A decision to return to - or even set the ground for a new - nuclear deal with Iran can only be achieved by involving concerned regional countries to avoid its abandonment in the future as in the case of former President Barack Obama’s deal. Also, if he chooses to link his name with a Palestinian-Israeli peace process, he will need the support of key regional countries. If Biden chooses to disengage from the region and its issues to focus on the US conflict with Russia and China, countries such as Saudi Arabia and others in the Gulf region would become involved in this competition and support China, because the Kingdom is China’s biggest supplier of crude oil. This would generate more US pressure on Riyadh, which seeks to achieve balance in its relations. History shows that our region has always been fertile ground for external conflict aiming at controlling waterways and energy sources. Saudi Arabia remained the target of rivals for nearly a century: The Allied powers against the Axis forces, Nazi Germany and Ottoman Turkey, and the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Today, waterways, oil, and gas are once again sources of conflict, even though the US is the world’s largest producer. The world’s great powers putting a stop to their deteriorating relations would positively impact the energy market and reset the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Iran May Be Outsourcing Kamikaze Drone Production to Venezuela
Farzin Nadimi/ The Washington Institute/November 18/2022
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/113429/farzin-nadimi-the-washington-institute-iran-may-be-outsourcing-kamikaze-drone-production-to-venezuela-%d9%81%d8%b1%d8%b2%d9%8a%d9%86-%d9%86%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%8a-%d9%85%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87/
Tehran, Caracas, and Moscow have been running a secretive air bridge just as Iran appears to be surging its transfer of attack drones to Russia, raising questions about whether these activities are linked.
As the United States considers whether to ease sanctions on Venezuela in order to boost global oil supplies, officials should take a closer look at potentially related events across the Atlantic in Ukraine, where Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones are regularly buzzing over cities and detonating their high-explosive payloads on civilian infrastructure. Venezuela has been under U.S. sanctions for years, in part due to its close ties with the Iranian regime. Apparently undeterred, President Nicolas Maduro led a high-ranking delegation to Tehran this summer, resulting in a long-term cooperation agreement that included the resumption of weekly airline flights between the two capitals in July (the route had been suspended since 2015, presumably due to foreign pressure). Although the stated reason for this initiative was to promote tourism, significant evidence suggests that the flights could also be used to transport drone materiel and other military hardware.
Conviasa’s Deep Military Involvement with Iran
Venezuela’s state-owned flag carrier Conviasa Airlines is heavily involved in Iran’s global illicit arms network, operating a joint venture with Mahan Air, the Iranian carrier that doubles as a logistical arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Among other activities, Mahan has a history of using civilian passenger flights to transport weapons and ammunition to allies such as the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and many of its flight crews are ex-IRGC pilots. The company has been under U.S. sanctions since October 2011 for secretly ferrying operatives, weapons, and funds via such flights on behalf of the IRGC’s Qods Force.
In February 2020, Conviasa and its forty-plane fleet—much of it supplied and maintained by Mahan—were blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department for supporting the Maduro regime’s destabilizing activities. Yet the airline’s suspected involvement in Iranian military activity stretches much further back. As early as 2008, the U.S. Congress and State Department expressed concerns that Tehran was using Conviasa’s weekly Caracas-Damascus-Tehran flights to transport missile components to Syria. For example, a La Stampa article published on December 21, 2008, cited Western intelligence assessments that these flights were filled with visa-exempt military personnel and sensitive military materiel.
More recently, Mahan helped Conviasa form a cargo subsidiary in November 2021. Named Emtrasur, it began operations in January 2022 with a single leased Mahan Air Boeing 747-300B3(M) (current registration number YV3531, formerly EP-MND) flying out of El Libertador Air Base. The company has functioned as the strategic airlift arm of Venezuela’s air force, with regular flights to Tehran, Moscow, and Belgrade. It made headlines this June when its only plane was detained in Buenos Aires while reportedly hauling car parts. That flight’s unusually large cockpit crew of nineteen Iranian and Venezuelan nationals included Gholamreza Ghasemi Abbasi, a retired IRGC Aerospace Force general and the current managing director of Qeshm Fars Air, another airline that operates on behalf of the IRGC. Abbasi is known as the mastermind of Iran’s efforts to arm its proxies using civilian airliners. The crew members detained in the June incident were recently released, with Emtrasur claiming that the Iranian contingent had been training the Venezuelans. Yet Washington has asked Caracas to extradite the plane for further examination.
El Libertador also houses an aviation services factory belong to EANSA, a joint venture between Conviasa and the state-owned Compania Anonima Venezolana de Industrias Militares (CAVIM). EANSA maintains drones operated by the Venezuelan armed forces, including the Iranian Mohajer-2 (known locally as Arpia or ANSU-100) and the recently unveiled ANSU-200 flying-wing design, which is very similar to the IRGC’s Shahed-171 and is reportedly under development in Venezuela using experts trained in Iran. Near El Libertador is a CAVIM arms factory that oversees the country’s drone program.
Open imageiconPhoto of an Iran-linked drone at a military base in Venezuela.
A partly assembled Mohajer-2/Arpia drone at El Libertador Air Base. Source: EANSA
Suspicious Russian Routes
On October 2, after months of suspension due to international sanctions, Moscow resumed seasonal charter flights to the popular Venezuelan tourist destination of Margarita Island, relying mainly on Conviasa’s jets given the continued European restrictions on Russian airlines. Many are concerned that these flights might also be used as cover for military activities—especially now that Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) has been added as an unscheduled stopover even on supposedly “direct” routes. Indeed, given the increasing pace of Conviasa flights between Caracas, Tehran, and Moscow, the airline may be involved in shipping Iranian arms and equipment to Russia (in theory, some of this equipment may be assembled in Venezuela as well).
According to confidential eyewitnesses, when some Conviasa flights carrying passengers arrive at IKA, they do not use the normal passenger ramp on the west side of the airport. Instead, they stop at the cargo ramp on the east side, where they are met by vehicles that load and offload pallets and containers under armed IRGC protection.
The uptick in these suspicious flights has coincided with Russia’s increasing use of Iranian kamikaze drones in Ukraine, suggesting a potential connection. In all likelihood, Iran’s drone production capacity cannot meet Moscow’s growing demand, perhaps spurring Tehran to establish a secret production line in Venezuela for the Shahed-136 or its airframe. Alternatively, such arrangements could give Tehran plausible deniability for its illegal drone deliveries.
Whatever the case, Conviasa took delivery of two Airbus A340-600 super long-haul jets from Mahan earlier this year to serve its overseas routes (registration numbers YV3533, formerly EP-MMF, and YV3535, formerly EP-MMI). The A340-600 has a range of 14,500 kilometers and can fly directly from Caracas to Moscow (9,900 kilometers) or Tehran (just under 12,000 kilometers). The jet’s normal cargo capacity is twelve tons—in addition to 308 passengers, it can hold up to forty-three standard LD3 containers and fourteen pallets. With the seats removed, it can carry forty extra tons of freight in the passenger cabin. Either way, it has ample room for transporting drone parts, other weapons, and ammunition boxes.
For their return leg from Moscow, these flights apparently fill their passenger seats with Russian tourists bound for Margarita Island, generating substantial commercial revenue in the process. And by using Conviasa, tour operators can circumvent international sanctions against Russian aviation, enabling the flights to pass through European airspace—and make unscheduled stopovers in Iran.
For example, according to tracking websites such as Flightradar24, YV3535 took off from Caracas for its Moscow direct route on September 30, but then diverted to Tehran while switching off its ADS-B tracking system. Conviasa planes have also made diversions to Tehran after taking off from Moscow, such as YV3533 on September 18 and YV3535 on October 17, 28, and 30. This practice enables the flights to avoid appearing on IKA’s scheduled arrivals list.
Notably, after landing in Tehran on September 30, YV3535 loaded up some cargo but did not take on any new passengers. Two hours later, it took off again for Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport. Other flights on this diversionary route have followed a similar schedule. According to aviation experts familiar with cargo handling at IKA, two hours is ample time to fill up this aircraft’s hold with containers or pallets. In this scenario, drone airframe components could be arriving from Venezuela, while engines and associated parts are then loaded up in Tehran.
Iran-Venezuela Drone Links
Since mid-September, Russia has been escalating its use of Iranian-made Shahed-131 and -136 kamikaze drones against Ukraine, adding Kyiv and the country’s power plants and radar stations to the target list. The Mohajer-6 surveillance and attack drone has been used there as well (e.g., on September 23, Ukrainian forces fished an intact one out of the Black Sea near Odessa). On October 11, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Tehran of selling Moscow no less than 2,400 drones. Whether or not that figure is accurate, the presence of slow but deadly Shahed drones has become a major concern for Ukraine.
Yet Tehran continues to deflect responsibility for Russia’s widespread use of these kamikaze drones, flatly denying any deliveries at first, and more recently admitting some of the transfers but insisting that they took place well before the Ukraine invasion. Unsurprisingly, even this qualified admission does not add up—according to Ukrainian sources, the Mohajer-6 recovered near Odessa had been assembled in February, the same month the war began. Whatever equivocations Iranian officials may offer going forward, their overriding intent is clear: to maintain the illusion of “neutrality” in the conflict and avoid incurring further sanctions pressure. Not coincidentally, this goal would be ably abetted if Venezuela were acting as a go-between.
Tellingly, Tehran and Caracas were cooperating in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles for years before the current crisis. In the early 2000s, President Hugo Chavez counted on Iran’s military assistance to counter what he described as the “Colombian bourgeoisie and their American allies.” In 2012, he confirmed reports that an Iranian drone production line had already been established in his country. A year later, the government unveiled a number of unarmed Mohajer-2 reconnaissance drones, each produced by CAVIM. More recently, they were armed with four small bombs hung under their wings. U.S. Southern Command watched all of these developments closely and with some concern.
In November 2020—one month after Washington announced new sanctions against Venezuela for buying Mohajer drones and other Iranian arms—President Maduro spoke of plans to expand CAVIM’s domestic drone production efforts, ostensibly with Iran’s help. In January 2021, the U.S. State Department took major new steps to “contain Iran’s malign activities” by sanctioning almost the entirety of the regime’s military industrial sector, citing its track record of supplying combat drones and other weapons to proxies in the Middle East and elsewhere. The same designation cited Maduro’s government for participating in such activities. In February 2013 and again in August 2016, the department sanctioned CAVIM under the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA).
Policy Recommendations
In an effort to curb the spread of Iranian arms to Ukrainian battlefields and cities, the United States has levied additional sanctions on multiple sectors in the Islamic Republic:
Drone-related industries
Mahan Air, Pouya Air, Qeshm Fars Air, and Iran Air Cargo, along with their facilitators in neighboring countries such as the United Arab Emirates
Numerous individual cargo aircraft serving Russia
Washington has also warned that any provision of spare parts or refueling, maintenance, and repair services to these entities would violate U.S. export controls and subject the parties to enforcement actions. Yet Tehran seems undeterred by these restrictions, so more strenuous measures may be needed to monitor and effectively curtail the Iranian networks that enable weapons proliferation to Russia—particularly given the likelihood that outside actors such as Venezuela may be involved.
To begin with, the United States should ask European governments to impose similar sanctions on the Iranian airlines mentioned above—and on Conviasa if its involvement in transferring drones and other arms to Russia is proven. In addition, officials should persuade Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to close their airspace to direct flights from Tehran to Moscow across the Caspian Sea, thereby rendering that span of the Venezuela-Iran-Russia air bridge inoperative. To be sure, the parties may find alternative sea and land routes that cannot be so easily shut down. Yet such routes can be more readily monitored, and using them would incur more costs on the states involved.
*Farzin Nadimi is an associate fellow with The Washington Institute, specializing in security and defense in Iran and the Gulf region. This PolicyWatch is published in part under the auspices of The Washington Institute’s Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Program on Great Power Competition and the Middle East.