Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 06-07/2023
Violations targeting rights and freedom of journalist Maryam Majdouline Al-Laham are firmly condemned
Elias Bejjani/September 06/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/122028/122028/
The flagrant violations inflicted on journalist Maryam Majdouline Al-Laham's rights and profession as a journalist are strongly condemned, as well as all judicial attempts in a bid to suppress her freedom, and fabricate false charges, in order to force her giving up stances and tweets she took in the course of her investigative professional journalistic work.
Meanwhile the arbitrary, discretionary summoning for interrogation,  the unfair arrest, and the conditional release are all flagrant legal violations of her rights.
Al-Laham's oppressive judicial case shows clearly that some of the judiciary in occupied Lebanon has been politicized, and turned into tools of repression and terror in the hands of those who dominate and control the decision-making  process of state institutions, including some of the judiciary, and many judges.
We demand that the freedom and rights of journalist Maryam Magdalene Laham in particular, and those of the media in general are respected, and that all media judicial cases are exclusively dealt with in the Publications Court.

Hadchit's 'Valley of the Saints:' Preserving 400 years of sacred Christian history
LBCI/September 6, 2023
In this valley hiding centuries of struggle and sacred history that lasted for 400 years, the sky feels closer. As you traverse the valley of Hadchit, each of the 9,000 steps unveils a story from Christian history dating back to the Middle Ages.
On your way to the Saint Behnam Monastery, you are greeted by the altar of Saint Sarkis, which embraces one of the largest and oldest oaks in the valley. Approximately 100 meters deeper into the valley, the Saint Behnam Church reveals itself - a heritage that time could not erase. On these rocks, remnants of ancient murals believed to belong to a revered saint are visible, with black pigment depicting robes. The passing millennia could not erase the faith embodied in these monasteries.  In the Church of Saint Chmouni, which you enter through an "arch," the architecture hints at the Mamluk era. About two months ago, during the restoration of the altar, medieval murals were discovered, leading to a temporary halt in construction to study and preserve them. Beside it is a mural depicting the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot walk through the Hadchit Valley without encountering the blessings of the Monastery of the Cross, which has a mural of the crucified Christ in the middle and is decorated with a painting of the Annunciation and paintings of several Christ's disciples. On the walls are Syriac and Arabic manuscripts believed to be by Arab mystics. Hadchit's valley doesn't run out of monastic stories, from Saint Beskwan to Saint Silwan, culminating in the Saint Anthony Al-Bedwani hermitage, 30 meters above the church in the rock. Inside, there are engravings of triangular crosses that are rare in Lebanon, and stones carved with crosses symbolizing the passage of the Crusaders. These four monasteries, including the Monastery of Saint Asia, have been under ongoing restoration efforts to preserve a history standing strong against both natural and historical forces. Only these mountains truly understand the steadfastness of the faith our ancestors lived, and only the path through this valley comprehends the serenity experienced by those who choose to pass through the gates of Hadchit's "Valley of the Saints."

Conditions for dialogue: Lebanon's path to electing a president
LBCI/September 6, 2023
Conditions and unanswered questions exist in the invitation to dialogue with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, as well as the invitation to dialogue with Le Drian. These are factors that several MPs and political blocs need to consider before deciding whether or not to participate. Among those is the Free Patriotic Movement, which, although they have responded positively to the invitation, their positivity is conditional on President Berri providing a clear plan and content for the dialogue. In contrast, the Lebanese Forces, Kataeb Party, and several opposition blocs and MPs refuse any dialogue before the election of a president. However, some raise several questions about what they consider to be the lack of clarity in Berri's invitation's format, content, and who it includes among the parliament members. To these questions, sources close to Speaker Berri responded, clarifying to LBCI that the participants in the dialogue invited by the Parliament Speaker will represent the political and sectarian 'mosaic' in the parliament. Furthermore, the dialogue agenda includes a single item: the election of a president. If the participants reach an agreement or fail to do so, everyone will immediately proceed to a session called by Berri to elect the president. It will be an ongoing session where rounds will be held until white smoke emerges, signifying the president's election. Will these answers be sufficient for the FPM to join the dialogue, or will it join the boycott front?

Berri reportedly sends message to al-Rahi about dialogue
Naharnet/September 6, 2023
Speaker Nabih Berri has sent a message with an envoy to Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, media reports said. The message included Berri’s “vision regarding the presidential juncture,” the reports added. Al-Joumhouria newspaper said the patriarch received the message in the last week of August and that it included the roadmap that Berri will follow as of September 1 to implement his “dialogue-electoral initiative” during the second half of September, “should it receive the needed response.”Berri has called on the heads of parliamentary blocs and political parties to participate in “dialogue in parliament for seven days at the most” before going to “open-ended sessions to elect a president.”Berri’s call was met by rejection from the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party and some opposition MPs.

Berri clings to dialogue as FPM declares conditional participation
Naharnet/September 6, 2023
Speaker Nabih Berri is carrying on with his call for dialogue and is awaiting the final stances of the parties, sources from his bloc told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, while noting that “a large number of blocs have announced their support for the initiative, including Christian parliamentary blocs.” MP Jimmy Jabbour of the Free Patriotic Movement meanwhile told Radio VDL (93.3) that “the FPM respects the stances of the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb Party” on rejecting dialogue, but noted that “the only way to reach results is going to dialogue among the Lebanese so that foreign solutions don’t get imposed on them.” The FPM’s political council meanwhile announced after a meeting that the Movement is “ready to take part in a dialogue that would quickly reach practical results leading to the election of a president.”“This dialogue should not be traditional, but rather practical and effective, and it can take many bilateral or multi-party forms with its agenda being limited to the presidential term’s program (presidential priorities) and the president’s characteristics and name,” the FPM added. It however linked its participation to receiving “guarantees that this dialogue would end with open parliamentary sessions for electing the president that would not stop until this election takes place.”The FPM is “waiting for those who called for this dialogue to give the necessary answers so that the FPM’s final stance can be announced accordingly,” the Movement said. Berri has called for seven days of dialogue in September after which open sessions would be held for the election of a president. Lebanon has been without a president since the end of Michel Aoun's term on October 31, 2022. The parliamentary blocs have failed to elect a successor despite holding 11 electoral sessions.

Berri awaits MPs feedback, says Geagea stance on dialogue 'regrettable'
Naharnet/September 6, 2023
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri seems to be very relieved, a week after he called for a seven-day dialogue, following which open presidential election sessions would be held, al-Liwaa newspaper reported Wednesday. The daily said that Berri is patiently waiting for the positions of the political forces to crystallize regarding the dialogue. "And if they don't want it, too bad for them," the daily quoted Berri as saying. While many MPs lauded berri's initiative, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel both rejected his call for dialogue. Gemayel said the opposition will confront what he called “Hezbollah’s coup” and Geagea accused Berri and Hezbollah of trying to strangle the opposition through dialogue. "They invite you to dialogue to strangle you and kill you or to stifle your principles, beliefs and freedom and force you to do what they want," Geagea charged. He said that vacuum for years is better than a president supported by the "Axis of Defiance." "We will only accept a president who would embody our beliefs and aspirations."Berri expressed regret over Geagea's words. "All I can say is that I regret his stances," he said.

Qassem to Geagea: Your project has no chances
Naharnet/September 6, 2023
Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has hit back at Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea over his latest remarks on presidential vacuum. “Someone has said that they are willing to bear vacuum for months and years but not willing to bear us. This means that they are ready to see the country in ruins and not ready to open the door to a certain agreement or settlement to finalize the presidential juncture,” Qassem said, referring to Geagea. “The people are not willing to bear vacuum pending the implementation of the project that you are dreaming of and which has no chances,” Qassem added.
He also stressed that Geagea and his camp “cannot secure the election of a president who resembles them with this extent of nervousness, challenge and confrontation.”“Anyhow, we understand their nervousness, which is a signal of impotence, and they will not be able to obtain anything with this approach. It would be better for them to propose nationals steps and suggestions that would pave the way for electoral sessions, similarly to what Speaker (Nabih) Berri has done with his dialogue idea,” Qassem added.

Nassar honors Rodge: Amr Diab concert returned Lebanon to tourism map
Naharnet/September 6, 2023
Caretaker Tourism Minister Walid Nassar has honored prominent Lebanese music producer and DJ Rodge over his achievements in the field of music and concerts in Lebanon and the world, offering him a memorial shield. Nassar said that he wanted to honor Rodge “at the building of the Ministry of Tourism, not anywhere else,” noting that the Lebanese producer “has become famous internationally as well as locally and an icon of entertainment and musical culture as part of the entertainment tourism that Lebanon is known for.” Nassar also lauded Amr Diab’s latest concert in Lebanon which featured Rodge as a DJ, announcing that “it put Lebanon back on the Arab and international tourism map.”“The impact of this huge concert is still resonating across the entire Arab world in light of the large numbers of attendees, and this is due to the success of this concert’s organizers,” the minister added, noting that DJ Rodge played a key role in the concert’s success. Nassar also noted that Rodge had taken part in Shakira’s 2011 concert in Lebanon. “Although we are going through bad economic circumstances and a political crisis, we pride ourselves in such young talents in Lebanon, and it is our mission to support individuals such as Rodge,” the minister added. Rodge for his part said he is proud to be Lebanese, noting that “the culture of Lebanese music and life has no equal in the world.” He also said that Nassar’s honoring of him gives him motivation to achieve further success, thanking the minister and any person who might help him in what he is doing.

New EU ambassador to Lebanon takes office
Naharnet/September 6, 2023
The newly designated Ambassador of the European Union to Lebanon, Sandra De Waele, took office this week. Ambassador De Waele met with caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Abdallah Bou Habib, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, an EU Delegation statement said. Ambassador De Waele underlined the European Union’s “long-standing partnership with Lebanon and reiterated its commitment to the Lebanese people, in light of the worsening socio-economic crisis,” the statement added. “I look forward to working closely with Lebanese authorities, civil society organizations and the international community to place Lebanon on the path to recovery,” she said. “The European Union continues to support the implementation of structural reforms, which would help Lebanon build strong state institutions that are accountable to their citizens. Fully operational institutions would also be beneficial for EU-Lebanon relations,” she added. De Waele has worked for over 25 years for the European Union, including postings in different EU Delegations, and most recently in the headquarters of the External Action Service in Brussels.

A race against time: Will Syrian and Palestinian camps in Lebanon face blackouts?
LBCI/September 6, 2023
Will electricity be cut off from Syrian and Palestinian camps in Lebanon by winter?
Regarding the Syrian refugee camps, Lebanon's Electricité du Liban (EDL) has been engaged in negotiations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for months. EDL has proposed that the UNHCR deduct a sum directly from each refugee's aid to be paid directly to it in exchange for providing electricity to the camps. Sources within EDL report that the initial response from UNHCR was rejection, although another meeting is scheduled for next week between the two parties, indicating that part of the aid provided to the Syrian refugees is allocated to the cost of electricity, so why is it not paid directly to the institution? EDL obtained from UNHCR the names and numbers of property owners where the Syrian refugee camps are located and the numbers of those responsible for the camps and assigned the local administrations there to communicate with them. Furthermore, some Syrian camps make payments directly to property owners for electricity, while others channel their payments through overseeing associations. Meanwhile, many camps suspend electricity and do not pay. Additionally, 900 electricity meters have been installed by the institution, waiting for someone to pay. According to EDL sources, if an agreement is not reached next week, the institution will escalate the matter to the ministerial committee responsible for the electricity plan, potentially resulting in withholding electricity from camps that do not make payments. Regarding Palestinian refugee camps, numerous households have electricity meters, but many others, constructed through unauthorized horizontal and vertical expansion, lack electricity meters and, therefore, do not cover the cost. As part of its negotiations with UNRWA and the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, EDL had proposed installing a primary outlet for each camp, provided that a company in the camps would collect [bills] from the homes. Additionally, terms and conditions documents have been submitted in this regard. However, the main issue that hinders progress is who will conduct the tender and how the cost will be distributed among the camp households.If negotiations fail here, the matter will be escalated to the ministerial committee responsible for electricity to make an appropriate decision, given that no party can benefit from electricity without payment.

Hamas, Hezbollah lash out at Bahrain as Israeli FM concludes visit
Rina Bassist/Al-Monitor/September 6, 2023
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen wrapped up a three-day visit to Bahrain on Tuesday, leaving the the Gulf nation with several bilateral agreements and cooperation pledges. The Gaza-based Palestinian organization Hamas condemned Cohen’s visit in a statement on Tuesday, pledging “its rejection of normalization with the Zionist occupation.”Hamas also mentioned the upcoming visit of Moroccan senate leader Enaam Mayara to Israel, scheduled for Thursday. "We call on our brothers in Arab states to retreat from this dangerous path that will bring them nothing but damage from a fascist, racist entity built on treachery," said the group. The Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah also condemned Cohen's trip. The Iran-backed group accused the Bahraini government on Tuesday of "worsening its political and moral decline through rushing towards normalization with the enemy after years of oppressing and terrorizing the Bahraini people." The Palestinian Authority, which maintains good ties with Manama, did not immediately comment. Cohen arrived in Bahrain on Sunday for his first visit to the kingdom. On Monday, he met his Bahraini counterpart Abdullatif Al Zayani and the two signed agreements on technology, finance and bilateral relations, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release. The official Bahrain News Agency reported that the diplomats signed two joint declarations. The first relates to the establishment of a "Bahrain-Israel Internship Programme" focused on software, engineering, science and related fields, while the second relates to activities for youth. Zayani also signed a memorandum of understanding with Ron Klein, the deputy director of Israel's Securities Authority, on financial cooperation, specifically capital markets, fintech and innovation, according to the agency. Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa also met Cohen on Monday. The prince also reiterated Bahrain’s “firm stance” on peace between Israel and the Palestinians that “guarantees the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” according to a statement from the prince’s office.
Cohen also inaugurated Israel’s new embassy in Manama on Monday, relocating from a building that hosted the embassy in 2021. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Al-Monitor on Wednesday that the original embassy was a temporary location, and that they have now moved to a permanent one. The Israeli diplomat was also scheduled to meet Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Agence France-Presse reported on Sunday. However, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson denied that was the case.
Cohen told reporters at the inauguration ceremony that he and Zayani further agreed to increase direct flights, tourism, trade and investment between Israel and Bahrain, Agence France-Presse reported. On Tuesday, Cohen tweeted a picture of himself along with Israeli member of parliament Amit Halevi, the president of the Knesset’s Israel-Bahrain friendship group, and announced the conclusion of the visit. Why it matters: Cohen’s visit occurred on the eve of the third anniversary of the US-brokered Abraham Accords on Sep. 15, in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates established full diplomatic relations with Israel. The Palestinian Authority condemned the agreement at the time. Israel-Bahrain relations have strengthened since then. Israeli President Isaac Herzog became the first Israeli head of state to visit Bahrain when he went to Manama last December. Israel and Bahrain also signed a security cooperation agreement last year. The enhancement of ties is occurring despite high tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. Bahrain has condemned the provocations and settlement expansion policies led by the Israeli government. In July, Bahrain postponed Cohen’s trip following Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Temple Mount/ Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem. Bahrain and Israel nonetheless share a desire to boost economic relations as well as concerns about Iran. Bahraini authorities have publicly accused Iran of being behind terrorist plots in the kingdom.

Why Iran might favour Biden's Lebanon-Israel peace mission
Raghida Dergham/The National/ September 07/2023
A settlement to end the land border disputes is in Tehran's interest for a variety of reasons
Almost a year after Amos Hochstein helped broker a historic agreement between Lebanon and Israel to demarcate their maritime border, the US energy envoy landed in Beirut on Wednesday to assist the neighbours in their attempt to resolve their outstanding land border disputes.
Success in this regard could provide US President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign with a considerable boost.
This isn’t a move simply to resolve the fate of a few square metres of disputed territory, or about carrying out land swaps.
We are talking about a potential end to the Lebanon-Israel conflict, achieved by securing Beirut’s independence from the path of negotiations that involved Syria.
A deal could benefit Tehran, given Trump’s possible return would be a source of concern for the regime
It is worth noting that previously Damascus imposed what it termed “twin-track” negotiations on Lebanon for decades, which impeded Beirut’s attempts to end its complex conflict with Israel at a time when Syria’s own issues with Israel remained unresolved. This was intended to ensure that Lebanon remained a bargaining chip for Syria.
However, today’s circumstances have shifted to a “first come, first served” approach, due in large part to the Syrian government’s diminished regional influence, its struggles to maintain control over its own territory, and the fact that the primary Arab player in regional and international affairs today is not Syria but Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration is now actively engaging with Saudi Arabia, marking a shift in strategy as Washington views this as the most viable way to engage with the region.
Mr Hochstein’s Lebanon visit might seem insignificant in the context of US-China and US-Russia relations, Nato’s expansion, and the creation of alliances around the world. But it is of strategic importance to Washington – and one that goes beyond the extraction of oil and gas necessary for Europe in a time of scarcity imposed by the Ukrainian war.
The primary message Mr Hochstein conveyed to those he met in Lebanon, including officials and non-governmental figures, is that the Biden administration is concerned about long-term stability and peace and is prepared to work towards rectifying the irregularities on the Blue Line, which covers the Lebanon-Israel boundary.
Mr Hochstein also emphasised conflict resolution by way of partnering with regional countries, rather than by imposing an agenda, as was sometimes the US approach in the past.
As the two parties’ dossiers are prepared before they are officially presented, negotiations on the land border are unlikely to be more challenging than the maritime border talks were. They are also not expected to take 12 years to resolve.
There are six disputed points along the Blue Line, of which major disagreements revolve around point B1 in the Naqoura sector with an area of 500 square metres, and Shebaa Farms, which fall under the mandate of the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which maintains the ceasefire between Syria and Israel. The rest of the disputed areas are considered “minor”, at least according to a Lebanese official directly involved in the negotiations, and they can be resolved through land swaps.
Mr Hochstein has gained a reputation for engineering deals. And his ambition appears not to be limited to the Lebanese-Syrian-Israeli tripartite framework but extends to resolving a fundamental dispute that would greatly facilitate the normalisation of Saudi-Israeli ties.
A key feature of the demarcation of the Lebanon-Israel maritime border is that it practically eliminated the logic of “resistance” and thus managed to restrain Hezbollah after the group agreed to the deal with Iranian approval. Some argue that this is the most important achievement of the Biden administration in the Middle East, and replicating this success on the land border could become an electoral asset, with the selling point being peace between Lebanon and Israel, and the neutralisation of Hezbollah and the logic of resistance, all with Iran’s consent.
Such a deal could benefit Tehran, given that Donald Trump’s possible return to the American presidency next year would be a source of concern for the Iranian regime. A second Trump administration might resume its policy of maximum pressure as it attempts to force the regime to abandon its governing ideology. It is unlikely to seek normalisation with the regime, or any desire to revive the nuclear agreement with it.
The Biden administration, on the other hand, views improved Saudi-Iran ties as an avenue for reopening discussions with Tehran on reviving the nuclear deal, with Saudi assistance. This marks a major departure on Mr Biden’s part, given that he was vice president when the Obama administration opted to exclude the Arab countries from nuclear negotiations with Iran. Today, Washington appears keen to impress upon Riyadh and Tehran that it has made a fundamental correction in its strategic partnership with the Arab Gulf countries.
Iran understands this and could play ball.
Hezbollah has shown a measure of goodwill regarding the demarcation of the land border. Recent statements by its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, on the “sovereignty” of the Lebanese state and not interfering in the decisions of the people of Ghajar village, which is split by the Lebanon-Israel border, are important. For they might well reflect an Iranian desire to resolve regional problems through diplomacy.
The UAE, meanwhile, played a key role in the passage of a recent UN Security Council resolution to extend the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. But its role went beyond facilitating the adoption of the resolution, to affirming the authority of the Lebanese state in working to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territories. If Israel agrees, this could lead to a new chapter in Arab-Israeli conflict resolution and normalisation.
The UAE has led efforts to reintegrate Syria into the Arab fold, alongside its own pioneering steps towards establishing relations with Israel. Damascus, in turn, could be placed on a path to resolving its conflict with Israel, if innovative approaches are followed regarding the issue of the disputed Golan Heights.
In an era of drones and new military technology, the likes of Shebaa Farms and Golan Heights no longer hold the strategic significance they once did. Syria was on the verge of signing a peace treaty with Israel two decades ago, but it was stalled partly over the control of Lake Tiberias. But the lake’s importance has since diminished due to climate change.
Such changes on the ground offer a fresh perspective on securing peace in the Middle East. Could fresh thinking lead to an openly negotiated deal between Iran and Israel one day?
https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2023/09/03/why-iran-might-favour-bidens-lebanon-israel-peace-mission/

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 06-07/2023
Despite Billions in Sanctions Relief, Iran Expands Nuclear Weapons Capabilities
FDD/September 06/2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported this week that Iran expanded its nuclear weapons capabilities between May and August. Across every indicator — enrichment, centrifuge installation, new underground facility construction, facilitating IAEA monitoring and access, and cooperating with an IAEA probe into undeclared nuclear weapons work — Iran’s nuclear threats worsened over the last three months. Yet in July and August, the Biden administration brokered a deal to provide Tehran at least $16 billion in Iranian assets previously frozen in Iraq and South Korea, while allowing Tehran to dramatically increase oil exports to China through non-enforcement of U.S. sanctions.
Expert Analysis
“The Biden administration will spin Iran’s actions as a concession. But the administration’s flawed Iran policy has allowed Tehran to expand its nuclear program, and the Islamic Republic is now on the threshold to nuclear weapons.” — Anthony Ruggiero, Senior Director of FDD’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program and Former Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Council Senior Director for Counterproliferation and Biodefense
“U.S. policy is, de facto, underwriting the expansion of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and terrorist threats. It’s time for Congress to use its oversight rights and stop the administration from freeing up more funds for the Tehran regime.” — Andrea Stricker, Deputy Director of FDD’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program
“The policy of paying Iran to roll back its nuclear capabilities has failed dramatically. The fig leaf of slowing the rate of 60 percent enrichment is too small to cover up the ongoing expansion of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related capabilities.” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
Iran’s Nuclear Expansion
Across its three enrichment plants, Iran reportedly increased its stockpiles of uranium enriched to 5, 20, and 60 percent, thereby advancing Tehran close to producing 90 percent, or weapons-grade uranium (WGU). Thus, Iran now remains capable of producing enough WGU for several nuclear weapons in under three months. Moreover, Iran installed a new cascade of advanced centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment plant, thereby expanding its enrichment capacity.
The IAEA also reported that it had made “no progress” on its nearly five-year investigation into Iran’s undeclared nuclear weapons work at two sites. Iran did not allow the IAEA to reinstall surveillance cameras at centrifuge manufacturing facilities, nor did it turn over footage and data requested by the agency. Iran also denied visas to inspectors. The agency did not report on the status of a new underground suspected enrichment facility in Iran.
Expansion Comes Alongside Major U.S. Sanctions Relief
Illicit Iranian oil exports surpassed 2.2 million barrels per day in August, Bloomberg reported on August 21. This volume exceeds the five-year high Iran reached in May as the United States declined to enforce existing U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports. The growth came as Reuters reported that $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets in South Korea were transferred to Switzerland’s central bank in exchange for the release of five Iranian American hostages in Iran. It also came one month after the United States permitted Iraq to release $10 billion to pay off its natural gas import debts to Iran.

Israeli intelligence minister meets Iranian diaspora in London
Rina Bassist/Al Monitor/September 6, 2023
LONDON — Israel’s Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel met on Wednesday in London with several Iranian activists and journalists in part of a monthslong campaign by the senior Israeli official to establish public channels with Iranian exile groups, as protests against the regime in Tehran approach their one-year anniversary. A source close to Gamliel told Al-Monitor that the senior Israeli official spoke with the Iranian guests on the importance of getting the West to join the battle in Iran for human rights and freedom, and that Iran continues its terror campaign not only against Israel but also in other places in the world. The minister told her interlocutors about her cooperation with Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah of Iran, who visited Israel last April and is part of preparations for "the day after" in Iran. The ministry's spokesperson declined to say where exactly the meeting took place.
"The minister considers these meetings an excellent opportunity to build bridges and to pass messages to the Iranian regime that the Iranian people are not giving up their freedom," the source told Al-Monitor. Since being appointed to her position, Gamliel has met Iranian activists in exile on several occasions. Also, together with the Foreign Ministry, she has been leading the campaign to persuade the European Union to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization. Iran, for its part, has accused Israel of carrying out sabotage attacks targeting its nuclear program and defense industries as part of a wider strategy aimed at regime change.
Follows a series of meetings for Gamliel
Gamliel traveled to London and Rome last June where she met government officials. Both of her visits were aimed at promoting the blacklisting of the IRGC. On June 22, the Israeli minister met with British Minister of State for Security under the British Home Office Tom Tugendhat and also with members of the House of Lords from both major parties. A week later in Italy, Gamliel met Sen. Giulio Terzi, who serves as a member of the European Union Council against a nuclear Iran.  On Aug. 10, Gamliel participated as a keynote speaker at an online meeting titled "The Path to a Democratic Iran." The conference was organized by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. In her speech, Gamliel called on the West to outlaw the IRGC and expressed her support for the Iranian people and Iranian demonstrators. Former American national security adviser John Bolton also participated in the meeting, as did some Iranian activists, including one of the founders of the IRGC turned pro-democracy activist Mohsen Sazegara. At that online meeting, Gamliel said, "We must guide the Iranian people toward freedom. The Iranian regime is currently oppressing tens of millions of Iranians, including women and children. It holds them hostage and commits acts of terrorism and torture against them." Gamliel added that "Europe must deal with banning the IRGC and take a more significant step than imposing sanctions."Gamliel noted that "the people of Israel stand by the Iranian people. When Crown Prince (son of the last Shah) Reza Pahlavi visited Israel, we together sent a message of freedom and hope to millions of Iranians. We must lead a vision for a safe, stable and prosperous Iran for the sake of the Iranian people and the entire world." The Israeli intelligence minister has been supporting Iranian women ever since the beginning of the demonstrations in Tehran nearly a year ago. In an op-ed published in the Maariv newspaper on March 8 on the occasion of International Women's Day, Gamliel wrote, "The citizens of Iran are not Israel's enemies. Peaceful relations, respect and appreciation prevailed between the peoples for many years" before the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Israeli military kills militant, teenage gunman in West Bank
Associated Press/September 06/2023
Israeli troops have killed a Palestinian militant during an army raid in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said, while elsewhere in the occupied territory a teenage Palestinian gunman opened fire at Israeli soldiers, wounding one before being shot and killed. The events marked the latest violence to roil the territory during one of the most violent stretches of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in nearly two decades. Israel has pressed on with near-nightly raids in the West Bank while Palestinian militants have ramped up shooting attacks against Israelis. The early morning military raid into the Nur Shams refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem on Tuesday prompted a firefight between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants. The army said troops found and demolished an explosives stockpile. Residents shared videos of bulldozers ripping off all the asphalt on the camp's main road. The army also said that soldiers came under attack from armed gunmen and shot back at Palestinians who were also burning tires and hurling explosives. The Palestinian health ministry identified the man killed as 21-year-old Ayed Abu Harb and said he died from a bullet wound to the head. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group later claimed Abu Harb as its member. Footage from the raid released by the Israeli military appears to show a massive fireball engulfing a building. Another video appears to show an explosive detonating beneath an Israeli military bulldozer.
Shortly after the Israeli military received reports of a gunman opening fire toward a shopping mall in a Jewish settlement, it dispatched security forces dispatched to the area near Route 90, the main highway through the Jordan Valley. When Israeli forces spotted the gunman, they said he opened fire at them, wounding an Israeli soldier who was evacuated for medical treatment. The Israeli military said troops shot at the Palestinian attacker. The Palestinian Health Ministry said 17-year-old Mohammed Zubaidat was killed. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have spiked as the Israeli military intensifies its arrest raids in the West Bank. More than 30 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis since the start of 2023. More than 180 Palestinians have been killed in the violence, with nearly half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of those killed were militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions as well as people not involved in the confrontations have also died. Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. Palestinians say the raids undermine their security forces, inspire more militancy and entrench Israeli control over lands they seek for a hoped-for future state. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Israel Cracks Ring of Iran-Backed Bomb Smugglers
FDD/September 06/2023
Latest Developments
A West Bank terrorist ring responsible for smuggling military grade explosives from Jordan into Israel was cracked, said Israel’s security agency. The Shin Bet reported on September 5 after the filing of indictments that Israel detained three suspects — two Arab citizens of Israel and a Palestinian — in early August in the West Bank city of Tulkarm with four bombs and four pistols in their possession. The agency added that the suspects told interrogators they worked on behalf of members of the Iran-backed terrorist group Islamic Jihad based in the flashpoint West Bank city of Jenin.
The news followed an overnight military raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarm in which Israeli troops uncovered a bomb cache and killed an Islamic Jihad terrorist after he opened fire on them.
Expert Analysis
“This case is an example of Iran’s multi-front hostilities toward Israel involving Israeli Arabs, West Bank Palestinians, neighboring Jordan, and one of the most active Tehran-sponsored terrorist groups, Islamic Jihad. One hopes that Amman is mounting similarly determined intervention on its side of the border.” — Mark Dubowitz, FDD CEO
“The regime in Iran continues its tenacious efforts to arm militants in the West Bank. It continues to exploit the Jordanian border to do so. And it continues to push the West Bank toward lawlessness amidst the unraveling of the Palestinian Authority. The tipping point for all of this has not yet been reached. But it will come eventually, which will give way to intensified Israeli military action.” — Jonathan Schanzer, FDD Senior Vice President for Research

Former Mossad chief says Israel enforcing apartheid system in West Bank
Associated Press/September 06/2023
A former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Israel is enforcing an apartheid system in the West Bank, joining a tiny but growing list of retired officials to endorse an idea that remains largely on the fringes of Israeli discourse and international diplomacy.
Tamir Pardo becomes the latest former senior official to have concluded that Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank amounts to apartheid, a reference to the system of racial separation in South Africa that ended in 1994.
Leading rights groups in Israel and abroad and Palestinians have accused Israel and its 56-year occupation of the West Bank of morphing into an apartheid system that they say gives Palestinians second-class status and is designed to maintain Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
A handful of former Israeli leaders, diplomats and security men have warned that Israel risks becoming an apartheid state, but Pardo's language was even more blunt. "There is an apartheid state here," Tamir Pardo said in an interview. "In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state." Given Pardo's background, the comments carry special weight in security-obsessed Israel. Pardo, who served as head of Israel's clandestine spy agency from 2011-2016, wouldn't say if he held the same beliefs while heading the Mossad. But he said that he believed among the country's most pressing issues was the Palestinians — above Iran's nuclear program, seen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an existential threat.
Pardo said that as Mossad chief, he repeatedly warned Netanyahu that he needed to decide what Israel's borders were, or risk the destruction of a state for the Jews.
In the past year, Pardo has become an outspoken critic against Netanyahu and his government's push to reshape the judicial system, slamming his old boss for steps he said would lead Israel to become a dictatorship. His candid evaluation Wednesday of Israel's military occupation is rare among leaders of the grassroots protest movement against the judicial overhaul, which has largely avoided talk of the occupation out of concern that it might scare away more nationalist supporters. Pardo's remarks, and the overhaul, come as Israel's far-right government, which is made up of ultranationalist parties who support annexing the West Bank, is working to entrench Israel's hold on the territory. Some ministers have pledged to double the number of settlers currently living in the West Bank, which stands at a half-million. In apartheid South Africa, a system based on white supremacy and racial segregation was in place from 1948 until 1994. The rights groups have based their conclusions on Israel on international conventions like the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It defines apartheid as "an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group."
Pardo said Israeli citizens can get into a car and drive wherever they want, excluding the blockaded Gaza Strip, but that Palestinians can't drive everywhere. He said that his views on the system in the West Bank were "not extreme. It's a fact."
Israelis are barred from entering Palestinian areas of the West Bank, but can drive across Israel and throughout the 60% of the West Bank that Israel controls. Palestinians need permission from Israel to enter the country and often must pass through military checkpoints to move within the West Bank.
Rights groups point to discriminatory policies within Israel and in annexed east Jerusalem, Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by the Hamas militant group since 2007, and its occupation of the West Bank. Israel exerts overall control of the territory, maintains a two-tier legal system and is building and expanding Jewish settlements that most of the international community considers illegal. Israel rejects any allegation of apartheid and says its own Arab citizens enjoy equal rights. Israel granted limited autonomy to the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, at the height of the peace process in the 1990s and withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. It says the West Bank is disputed territory and that its fate should be determined in negotiations. Pardo warned that if Israel doesn't set borders between it and the Palestinians, Israel's existence as a Jewish state will be in danger. Experts predict Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel plus the areas it captured in 1967 — the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Continued occupation could force Israel into a hard choice: Formalize Jewish minority rule over disenfranchised Palestinians — or give them the right to vote and potentially end the Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine. "Israel needs to decide what it wants. A country that has no border has no boundaries," Pardo said.

To appease Biden, Israel’s Netanyahu floats judicial compromise, Saudi progress
Ben Caspit/Al Monitor/September 6, 2023
TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been signaling in recent days that he is ready to back away from parts of the controversial judicial overhaul plan, in hopes that such a step, combined with progress toward normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, will guarantee a meeting with US President Joe Biden, preferably at the White House, political sources in Israel have said.  Relations have been strained between the Netanyahu government and the Biden administration ever since Netanyahu returned to power in December and formed a government with a far-right coalition. Netanyahu cannot or will not rid himself of those ministers or curb their racist/anti-Palestinian statements, but he is hoping to curry favor with the White House by halting the judicial overhaul.
Compromise or deception?
Monday night’s primetime news shows carried an unexpected report that a compromise was in the works freezing and diluting the government-led judicial overhaul. The proposed blueprint was said to be the result of prolonged secret negotiations between a key aide to President Isaac Herzog — Ovad Yehezkel — and representatives of Netanyahu, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and attorney Michael Ravillo. In a series of phone calls, Netanyahu reportedly convinced Herzog that he was seriously considering his proposed compromise designed to set aside the judicial overhaul, thereby averting an unprecedented looming constitutional crisis. Right now, the plan’s prospects of success appear to range from slim to none. Once again, as has been his habit throughout his lengthy career, Netanyahu conducted sensitive and secret negotiations over a controversial issue, maintained total deniability and convinced the honest broker that he was on board, only to encounter strong public opposition and appear to back off.  Such was the case with many of his rounds of negotiations with the Palestinians, with numerous political allies and rivals, and even with a proposed United Nations-backed plan to resettle African asylum-seekers, which he retracted shortly after announcing it in 2018. That decision has come back to bite him in the riots by Eritrean asylum-seekers in Tel Aviv this past weekend. This time, the deceived party was Herzog, and not for the first time. News of the proposed compromise generated immediate opposition among Netanyahu’s coalition partners and right-wing political base. Netanyahu had scared his own shadow. In days gone by, Netanyahu would have flicked such a response aside as he would a pesky fly. These days, he is torn between what he would really like to do and what he can realistically do. Just minutes after the news broke, his Likud party denied that any understandings had been reached. The two extreme right pillars of his governing coalition — National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — responded with derision, and final rites were administered on Tuesday morning by Justice Minister Yariv Levin, the leading architect of the judicial overhaul, who said in an interview with Kol Barama radio station that details of such a compromise were “unacceptable.”Under the proposed outline, the makeup of the Judicial Appointments Committee would remain unchanged, contrary to the demand of Levin and his allies. Second, the blueprint called for an 18-month freeze on legislating other components of the overhaul — to be anchored by a binding Basic Law designed to prevent Netanyahu from reneging on his promise yet again. Third, the compromise proposed modification of the law adopted in July eliminating the top court’s “lack of reasonableness” argument against government decisions. The compromise plan would mark a sweeping victory for the mass protests against the government, which have been roiling the streets of Israel for 36 weeks, and that's why its viability is akin to prospects of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on resolution of their conflict. Neither side is truly willing or politically able to compromise. Netanyahu is driven, as always, by expediency. The timing of Monday’s leak served him well, coming as it did as his aides were ironing out the final details of his long-postponed meeting with President Joe Biden, scheduled for around Sept. 18-19 at the White House. Netanyahu is keen to convince the Biden administration that he is indeed setting aside the contentious legislation that has deeply clouded his relations with the president, and even to portray the compromise as benefiting Washington's genuine effort to push Israel and Saudi Arabia into each other's arms. Netanyahu also has another consideration in mind. His nemesis — the Israeli Supreme Court — is scheduled to debate a series of petitions filed against the judicial overhaul legislation and other dramatic government decisions. The court is expected to strike down some of the laws, or at least rule that the Knesset must amend them. A first such debate will take place as early as Sept. 12. The leak, according to which serious negotiations are underway between the parties and a compromise outline has even been reached, could make the justices think twice before intervening in the legislative process, especially of a quasi-constitutional Basic Law such as the elimination of the “reasonableness” doctrine. The likelihood of the leak being yet another Netanyahu spin is underpinned by an amazing confession offered this weekend by national security adviser and close Netanyahu associate Tzachi Hanegbi, who told a Channel 12 interviewer that the mass pro-democracy protests were the most effective factor in slowing the original more sweeping legal reform plans. “That's a fact," he stated, although he later tried to rephrase his remarks.
Saudi normalization facing opposition
Anyone who knows Hanegbi and Netanyahu knows that this was not a slip of the tongue. It was designed to create a false sense of victory among the protest movement and the Knesset opposition, allowing Netanyahu to get an Oval Office photo op and perhaps even a historic signing ceremony with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the White House lawn. However, another complication in normalization with Saudi Arabia emerged Tuesday, when opposition head Yair Lapid told senior White House officials that he will find it difficult to support a deal that would include authorization for the Saudis to enrich uranium. Lapid met in Washington with several American officials, including Amos Hochstein, the special adviser on energy matters, and Brett McGurk, Biden's special envoy to the Middle East. A statement from his office quoted Lapid as saying "Strong democracies do not endanger their security interests in order to solve political problems." Lapid came out against statements made in recent days by associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including Energy Minister Israel Katz and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, that Israel might agree to let Saudi Arabia establish a civil nuclear program on its soil. Apart from Lapid, Netanyahu has also been encountering objections to a normalization deal within his own coalition. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reiterated last week his party’s position against any compromises with the Palestinians, even if normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia depends on that.
Netanyahu still hopes to convince the White House that he is headed for a compromise and that he has no intention of proceeding with the judicial legislation unilaterally without broad public consensus. He may prove, yet again, that what he says in English for external consumption does not tally with his or his aides’ Hebrew-language portrayal of the situation. As for the explosive decisions facing the Supreme Court, these could throw Israel into a deep constitutional crisis forcing state institutions, security forces and other public servants to decide whom to obey — a Supreme Court ruling or a Knesset decision. The compromise outline was supposed to help all sides overcome this hurdle and postpone the dilemma for 1½ years. As of now, that delay appears to have been delayed.

IS group could reemerge in Syria as rival US-backed groups fight
Associated Press/September 6/2023
The weeklong clashes between rival U.S.-backed militias in eastern Syria, where hundreds of American troops are deployed, point to dangerous seams in the coalition that has kept a lid on the defeated Islamic State group for years. That could be an opportunity for the radical group to reemerge. The violence also points to rising tensions between Kurds who dominate the region and the mainly Arab population, opening the door for Syrian President Bashar Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran, to try to make inroads in an oil-rich territory where they seek to drive out U.S. troops and restore Damascus' rule.
Eastern Syria has largely been off the world's radar, particularly in the United States. But the U.S. has had some 900 troops stationed there alongside an unknown number of contractors ever since the defeat of the Islamic State group in 2019. The troops, who first arrived eight years ago, work alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group of militias dominated by Kurdish fighters. At the same time, a U.S.-supported Kurdish-led administration has governed parts of northern Syria and most of Syria east of the Euphrates River, including key oil fields, with government forces and Iranian-backed militias positioned just across the river on the western bank. The region's Arabs have roles in both the SDF and the administration but have long resented the Kurdish control. The clashes involve the Syrian Democratic Forces and an allied faction, the Arab-led Deir el-Zour Military Council. The trigger was the Aug. 27 arrest by the SDF of the council's commander Ahmad Khbeil, better known as Abu Khawla. The SDF accused Khbeil of criminal activity, corruption and of opening up contacts with the Damascus government and Iranian-backed militias. Fighting broke out between the SDF and Khbeil's loyalists, who were then joined by hundreds of Arab tribesmen in battles that spread and left tribesmen in control of several villages outside the city of Deir el-Zour. At least 90 people have been killed and dozens wounded.
Kurdish leaders accuse Iranian-backed militias and the Syrian government of fomenting the violence. Speaking to The Associated Press, SDF spokesman Farhad Shami denied local Arab fighters joined the clashes, saying it was fighters loyal to Damascus who crossed the river. "Iran and Assad regime want to depict this unrest as a result of an ethnic conflict between Arabs and Kurds," Elham Ahmad, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the SDF, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Their ultimate aim, she said, was to force U.S. troops to leave. But some warn the violence reflects local Arab resentment of Kurdish domination. Opposition activists said contacts were underway with tribal leaders to reach a cease-fire. "This is an unprecedented escalation between SDF and Deir el-Zour residents," says Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, which covers news in the region.
"This is an indication of the bad policy implemented by the SDF and wrong calculations by the Americans," said Abu Layla. He said the solution could be to name a replacement for Khbeil and give Arabs more influence in local councils. If the fighting endures, it could deepen Kurdish-Arab rifts. That could open the door for IS remnants to attempt a comeback. The U.S. military has called for an end to the fighting, warning that "distractions (from opposing IS) create instability and increase the risk of Daesh resurgence," using the Arab acronym for the Islamic State group.
Over the weekend, a meeting was held among SDF figures, tribal leaders and U.S. officials, including Maj. Gen. Joel Vowell, the commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, which oversees U.S. military operations against IS, the U.S. Embassy announced. It said they agreed on the "importance of addressing the grievances of residents" in Deir el-Zour, avoiding civilian deaths and the need for de-escalation as soon as possible.
The SDF pushed ahead in their offensive over the weekend, capturing two villages and surrounding the main Arab tribesmen's stronghold in Diban. SDF chief commander Mazloum Abdi told a local news agency that the U.S.-led coalition helped with aerial support during the offensive, but the U.S. military did not confirm or deny when contacted by The Associated Press. IS once controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria but was defeated after a long, grueling war led by the U.S. and allies including the SDF. The radical group lost its last sliver of land in eastern Syria in 2019, but its fugitive cells hiding in the region have continued low-level attacks, killing dozens over the years. Myles B. Caggins III, senior fellow at the New Lines Institute, said the clashes "present an opportunity for ISIS cells that nest in the Euphrates River Valley to emerge."
The violence also could give an opportunity for Damascus and Iran, pushing their demands for the Americans to leave. The commander of the pro-government Baqir Brigade militia, Khaled al-Hassan, told an Iranian media outlet that the violence "is a new uprising by Syrians against the American occupation and its militias," referring to the SDF.
During a recent visit to Iran, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad warned that "American occupation forces should withdraw ... before they are forced to do so." In mid-July, dozens of Arab tribesmen and members of the pro-government National Defense Forces held a rally in Deir el-Zour province that was attended by a Russian general. "The end of American forces will be at the hands of Arab tribesmen who stand behind the Syrian army," an NDF commander said during the ceremony. In March, a suspected Iranian-linked drone attack hit a U.S. base, killing a contractor and wounding another, along with five American troops. American warplanes responded with airstrikes on sites used by groups affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard. President Joe Biden said the U.S. would respond "forcefully" to protect its personnel. "Iran, Russia, and the Syrian regime have a shared interest in the departure of U.S. forces from Syria," according to a report released last month by The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. Crucial for Tehran, Iran has had a land corridor of allies linking it to the Mediterranean Sea ever since Syrian forces and Iranian-backed militias captured areas along the border with Iraq from IS in 2017. Last week's clashes came after Lebanese and Arab media outlets reflecting Iran's point of view claimed that the Americans intended to sever that link by capturing the strategic border town of Boukamal. The coalition's commanding general, U.S. Maj. Gen. Matthew McFarlane denied the reports. "The coalition is not preparing for military operations to cut off anybody except Daesh," he said. But Iran and its allies say any attempt to close the Iraq-Syria border is a red line. "I see that closing the gate between Damascus and Baghdad as a declaration of war," said Syrian political analyst Bassam Abu Abdullah, whose comments usually reflect the government's point of view.

Saudi Arabia, Iran exchange ambassadors as thaw continues
Adam Lucente/Al-Monitor/September 6/2023
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador arrived in Iran on Tuesday, marking another milestone in the improved Saudi-Iran relationship. Ambassador Abdullah bin Saud al-Anzi said that Saudi leadership “confirms the importance of strengthening relations and increasing communication and meetings between the kingdom and Iran” upon his arrival to Tehran, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. The official Islamic Republic News Agency also reported that Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Alireza Enayati, arrived in Riyadh earlier on Tuesday. Enayati was named Iran's ambassador to Saudi Arabia in May. He previously served as Iran's ambassador to Kuwait from 2014 to 2019, and more recently as director-general of the Persian Gulf Department at the Iran's Foreign Ministry. Anzi previously served as Saudi ambassador to Oman, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, which described him as a “seasoned diplomat.”
Why it matters: Saudi Arabia and Iran resumed relations in March in an agreement brokered by China. The kingdom severed ties with the Islamic Republic back in 2016 when protesters attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran following the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia and Iran were geopolitical foes long before 2016 and had already been on opposite sides of the wars in Yemen and Syria at the time relations were severed. Saudi Arabia is also opposed to Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon and its ballistic missile program. The resumption of relations between the two came amid shifting regional dynamics. In May, Saudi Arabia resumed relations with Iran’s ally Syria. Saudi Arabia also held talks with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in April. Saudi Arabia-Iran relations have steadily progressed since March followed a deal that restored relations, brokered by China. Iran reopened its embassy in Riyadh in June, while Saudi Arabia followed suit with its Tehran embassy last month. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also visited Saudi Arabia in August and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Know more: Saudi Arabia and Iran were both invited to join the BRICS alliance last month. The United Arab Emirates and Egypt were also invited to the group that currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Ukraine kills 49 elite Russian troops on way to front line
Joe Barnes/The Telegraph/September 6, 2023
Ukrainian forces killed 49 elite Russian paratroopers in a single day in an operation to prevent them from being deployed to a key section of the war’s southern front line. The members of the 7th Guards Mountain Airborne Division were embroiled in a brutal fight after Ukrainian fighters pinned them down near the village of Staromaiorske in the eastern Donetsk region, Russian military bloggers reported. Troops from the 247th VDV regiment were sent in to retrieve the soldiers’ bodies after Russian commanders refused to oversee their recovery, one report said, citing an audio recording of a Russian soldier.
Ukrainian counter-offensive forces in the area, near the border with the southern Zaporizhia region, were thought to have successfully prevented members of the division from “laterally redeploying to critical areas of the front”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported. Staromaiorske sits on one of two Ukrainian axes of advance on the outskirts of the town of Velyka Novosilka. A Kremlin-installed official in southern Ukraine had said previously that Russian forces had “tactically” withdrawn from Robotyne, the main axis of assault in Kyiv’s counter-offensive in the south. “The Russian army abandoned – tactically abandoned this settlement,” Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-appointed head of Ukraine’s partially-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said. He added that the small village, which Ukraine claimed to have liberated last week, had “ceased to exist” after lengthy battles for its control. “Holding onto a bare surface without a way to completely dig in and create a safe area for yourself doesn’t make sense,” Mr Balitsky said in an interview on state-run television. Russian propagandists and Vladimir Putin have sought to downplay Kyiv’s recent successes on the battlefield in southern Ukraine. But Ukrainian forces have slowly edged forward after an initial penetration of Moscow’s heavily fortified defences in the area as they aim to prepare to launch a mechanised assault. Military analysts Rob Lee and Michael Kofman said such a breakthrough was vital because a “narrow advance could leave its forces vulnerable to counter-attacks on the flanks”.
Complicated by Russian minefields
Ukraine’s next target in the area is thought to be a village called Verbove, which lies about six miles southeast of Robotyne. Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesman for Ukraine’s southern forces, said the Russian defences near the settlement were “not as strong” as the first line of fortifications. But he warned that dense Russian minefields would complicate attempts to advance at speed through the area. The broader aim of Ukraine’s forces appears to be to push towards the city of Tokmak, a road and rail hub, about 15 miles south of Robotyne. From there, they hope to reach the port city of Melitopol near the Azov coast, to split Russian forces in the south and east and disrupt supply routes from occupied Crimea. In response to the gains, elite Russian units have seemingly been redeployed from other areas of the front line in the hope of plugging the breach and preventing Ukraine from reaching Tokmak. ISW, which monitors the battlefield, previously reported that elements of the 76th Guard Air Assault Division, considered as one of Russia’s premier fighting forces, had been shifted to Robotyne in a bid to counter Ukraine’s advance.
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Russian missile strike on Ukrainian market kills 17 as Blinken announces new $1B aid package
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)/Wed, September 6, 2023
A Russian missile tore through an outdoor market in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing 17 people and wounding dozens, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to the country with more than $1 billion in new American funding for Ukraine, including military and humanitarian aid. Blinken’s fourth visit to the country was overshadowed by the strike in the city of Kostiantynivka, near the front line in the Donetsk region, that turned the marketplace into an inferno. It was one of the deadliest bombardments of civilians in the 18-month-old war. In addition to the dead, at least 32 people were wounded. “Those who know this place are well aware that it is a civilian area,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a news conference with the Danish prime minister in Kyiv. “There aren’t any military units nearby. The strike was deliberate.”White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said such brutal Russian attacks underscore "the importance of continuing to support the people of Ukraine.”Blinken’s visit was aimed at assessing Ukraine’s 3-month-old counteroffensive and signaling continued U.S. support as some Western allies express worries about Kyiv’s slow progress against invading Russian forces. “We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, not only to succeed in the counteroffensive but has what it needs for the long-term, to make sure that it has a strong deterrent,” Blinken said. “We’re also determined to continue to work with our partners as they build and rebuild a strong economy, strong democracy.”
About $175 million of the total is in the form of weaponry to be provided from Pentagon stockpiles and another $100 million is in the form of grants to allow the Ukrainians to purchase additional arms and equipment, according to the State Department.
In addition to the military assistance, Blinken announced nearly $805 million in non-arms-related aid for Ukraine, including $300 million for law enforcement, $206 million in humanitarian aid, $203 million to combat corruption and $90.5 million for removing mines, the State Department said. The package also includes a previously announced $5.4 million transfer to Ukraine of frozen Russian oligarch assets. The aid announced by Blinken comes from money previously approved by Congress. President Joe Biden has requested another $21 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine for the final months of 2023, but it’s not clear how much — if any — will be approved. Many Republican lawmakers are wary of providing more aid, and the party’s presidential front-runner, former President Donald Trump, has criticized U.S. financial support. Opinion polls also have shown a decline in support for the war by the American public.Biden and the Pentagon, however, have said repeatedly they will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. As of Aug. 29, there was approximately $5.75 billion left in the already approved funding for weapons and equipment taken from existing Pentagon stocks.
Blinken was to discuss other issues, including support for Ukraine’s economy, building on his June announcement of $1.3 billion to help Kyiv rebuild, with a focus on modernizing its energy network, which was bombarded by Russia last winter.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said U.S. assistance to Ukraine “can’t influence the course of the special military operation” — Moscow’s euphemism for the war. Blinken arrived in Kyiv for an overnight visit hours after Russia launched a missile attack on the city. On the train to Kyiv, Blinken met with the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, who was also on an official visit, and thanked her for Denmark’s leadership in training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s and for promising to donate the fighter jets to Ukraine, according to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Washington officials said there will be discussions of alternative export routes for Ukrainian grain following Russia’s exit from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and its frequent attacks on port facilities in the Odesa region.
Those alternatives may include new overland routes, or ships hugging coastlines to keep out of international waters where they could be targeted by Russia’s navy.
After arriving in Kyiv, Blinken laid a wreath at the city’s Berkovetske cemetery to commemorate Ukrainian troops killed defending the country. Blinken told Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba that the U.S. has “seen good progress in the counteroffensive. It’s very heartening.”In another meeting, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukraine is grateful the U.S. money is coming in the form of grants, not loans that would drive it into debt. Overnight, Russia fired cruise missiles at Kyiv in its first aerial attack on the capital since Aug. 30, according to Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv’s regional military administration. Debris from a downed missile caused a fire and damage but no casualties. In the Odesa region, one person was killed in a Russian missile and drone attack on the port of Izmail that damaged grain elevators, administrative buildings and agricultural enterprises, authorities said. The trip was Blinken’s fourth to Ukraine since the war began, including one brief excursion over the Polish-Ukrainian border in March 2022, just a month after the Russian invasion. But it will be the first time America’s top diplomat spends the night in Kyiv since January 2022, before the invasion, in what U.S. officials called another sign of American support. Blinken’s visit comes after some of Ukraine’s allies have privately expressed concern that Ukrainian troops may fail to reach their objectives. While the U.S. has been concerned by some day-to-day battlefield setbacks, American officials said, they are still generally encouraged by Ukraine’s handling of the military situation, particularly its air defense capabilities in knocking down Russian drones aimed at Kyiv. Western analysts and military officials caution that the counteroffensive’s success is far from certain and that it could take years to rid Ukraine of entrenched, powerfully armed and skilled Russian troops. Both sides will have to assess their supply shortages, with more battles of attrition likely over the winter. A long war could stretch deep into next year and beyond, according to experts.

US is sending Ukraine ammunition that can not only pierce Russian tank armor but also ignite inside
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/Wed, September 6, 2023
The US officially announced Wednesday it will send Ukraine depleted-uranium tank ammunition. These shells give Kyiv the capability to blast holes in Russian armor, and the fragments may ignite inside. The Pentagon said the 120 mm munitions are for American M1 Abrams tanks, which will arrive soon. The Biden administration announced plans to send Ukraine tank rounds with depleted-uranium penetrators. This powerful ammunition gives Kyiv the capability to not only punch holes in Russian armor, but also do additional damage inside enemy vehicles as the fragments potentially ignite. The Pentagon listed the 120 mm depleted-uranium tank ammunition as part of a $175 security assistance package that was officially revealed on Wednesday. The announcement coincided with a surprise visit to Kyiv by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Other capabilities noted in the military aid, which will pull directly from Pentagon inventories, includes artillery, missiles, anti-armor systems, and ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS. These depleted-uranium rounds will be fired from American M1 Abrams tanks, which are slated to arrive in Ukraine at some point this fall. The US announced earlier this year that it would send older — but refurbished — M1A1 variants to Kyiv on an expedited timeline, and Ukrainian soldiers spent the summer training on the Abrams tanks in Germany. Depleted uranium is a dense — and somewhat radioactive — material that the US military first began using decades ago to produce tank armor, mortar shells, and ammunition. The material is especially useful when used to make penetrator rods for tank rounds because it sharpens when it strikes enemy armor, allowing it to pierce the vehicle's hard outer shell. Rounds made from other materials tend to mushroom upon impact. The material is also pyrophoric, which means the penetrator heats up as it enters the target vehicle and the small dust and fragments can ignite and even start fires.
So when the round hits, it does more than just explode on the exterior or break through and release shrapnel. It's an event characterized by high heat and pressure, and the amount of damage it can do inside a tank or armored vehicle is substantial, especially if it ignites the ammunition stockpile. US Air Force National Guard Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians safely prepare several contaminated and compromised depleted uranium rounds on June 23, 2022 at Tooele Army Depot, UT. US Air Force National Guard Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians safely prepare several contaminated and compromised depleted uranium rounds on June 23, 2022 at Tooele Army Depot, UT.US Air National Guard Photo by Staff Sgt. Nicholas Perez. "With a tank round, it's all about getting inside the tank, penetrating the armor and getting into the crew compartment and destroying the tank," retired US Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, who served in the military for decades with the 1st Armored Division, previously told Insider. Since the introduction of these rounds, there have been concerns over the environmental and health impacts of depleted uranium, which reportedly led to earlier debates in Washington over whether or not the US should send the ammunition to Ukraine. During the nuclear enrichment process, highly radioactive uranium that's used to make nuclear weapons — called U-235 — is extracted from natural uranium ore. A byproduct of this process is depleted uranium, which contains relatively low levels of radiation and isn't necessarily a major threat to an individual's health unless a large amount of it is ingested or enters the body as shrapnel. But if this does happen, whether through metal fragments or dust particles, there is a potential for significant health complications like kidney failure. The US is not the first NATO member to send Ukraine depleted-uranium ammunition. In March, the UK announced it would send these rounds — which a British official said at the time are "highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles" — to Kyiv alongside the advanced Challenger 2 tanks that it pledged earlier in the year. Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened an escalation in response, claiming the West was stoking nuclear tensions, but the UK pushed back and said that it has been using depleted uranium in tank rounds for decades. The US pushed back as well. "This kind of ammunition is a fairly commonplace, been in use for decades," White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters around the time of the UK announcement in March. "I think what's really going on here is Russia just doesn't want Ukraine to continue to take out its tanks and render them inoperative."Indeed, Russia has lost nearly 2,300 tanks since the beginning of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to open-source intelligence collected by Oryx. Moscow has also lost over 2,700 infantry fighting vehicles and over 960 armored fighting vehicles, adding to its tally of neutralized armor. Ukraine has also lost many tanks, but it has also gotten new ones, such as the British Challenger and German-made Leopard. The latest US security assistance announcement, which includes the depleted-uranium tank rounds, comes ahead of what is expected to be an imminent delivery of 31 Abrams tanks.
These capable tanks will arrive at a crucial moment for Ukrainian forces, which are making slow but steady gains in the occupied eastern and southern regions in a counteroffensive that has been building in momentum, despite some early setbacks when it was launched three months ago. "We are determined in the United States to continue to walk side by side with you," Blinken said alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Wednesday. "And President Biden asked me to come, to reaffirm strongly our support, to ensure that we are maximizing the efforts that we're making and other countries are making for the immediate challenge of the counteroffensive as well as the longer-term efforts to help Ukraine build a force for the future that can deter and defend against any future aggression, but also to work with you and support you as you engage in the critical work of strengthening your democracy, rebuilding your economy."

Why isn't Russia running out of ammunition in Ukraine?
Sky News/September 06/2023
Is Russia running out of ammunition? It's a question Ukraine and its allies have been pondering as the war continues well into its second year. Back in December, the US military estimated that, without outside help, Moscow would burn through its stocks of artillery shells and rockets by early this year - so why haven't they run out? It's certainly true that, whatever supply issues it has encountered, Russia's war machine continues to rain down misery upon Ukraine's defenders. The answer, it appears, is that Moscow has looked to foreign suppliers to sustain its rate of fire, as well as older stocks of shells. 'First' British Challenger 2 tank destroyed - Ukraine war latest updates
North Korea
Kim Jong Un could be set for a trip to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, according to a US official. The reason? Not announced, but it comes as the US claims the Kremlin is attempting to acquire military equipment for its war in Ukraine. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said on Monday that Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu had travelled to North Korea's capital of Pyongyang last month. It is believed Mr Shoigu attempted to persuade North Korea - one of the most militarised countries in the world - to sell artillery ammunition to Russia. North Korea has previously denied having any "arms dealings" with Russia, however, the US has imposed sanctions on three entities it accused of being tied to arms deals between the two countries.
Iran
Another key ally of Russia, Iran has been accused of supplying large numbers of deadly drones to Russia. Swarms of Shahed 136 drones have been sent to attack Ukrainian cities. Early on, they wrought huge damage on the country's power supply but defenders have become increasingly able to shoot them down. "You don't know where they are going to hit, when they are going to hit," Stuart Ray from McKenzie Intelligence Services previously told Sky News. "It's a terrifying weapon."And it's not just drones that Iran is suspected of supplying. A purported arms contract seen by Sky News suggests Iran has sold ammunition to Russia, an informed security source claimed. If authentic, the 16-page document, dated 14 September 2022, appears to be for samples of varying sizes of artillery and tank shells and rockets worth just over $1m (£800,000).
China
By far Russia's biggest and richest ally, China has repeatedly denied sending military equipment to Russia since Moscow's all-out invasion of its neighbour, despite the two nations signing a "no-limits" partnership in February 2022. The US secretary of state warned China earlier this year there would be "consequences" if Beijing provides material support to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Antony Blinken said in an interview after meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that Washington was concerned Beijing was considering supplying weapons to Moscow. However there have been reports - including in July from Politico - that equipment from China that is non-lethal but still useful to Moscow's soldiers has been sent to Russia. Helena Legarda, a lead analyst specialising in Chinese defence and foreign policy at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told the outlet that while any supply of weapons might trigger an international response, things like body armour and even commercial drones would be unlikely to do so.

War sanctions against Russia highlight growing divisions among the Group of 20 countries
WASHINGTON (AP)September 6, 2023
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is facing growing skepticism from some leading rich and developing nations as the residual impact of sanctions against Russia is deepening divisions among the Group of 20 countries. With world leaders and finance ministers meeting this week in India for the G20 summit, fractures have came into the open, and alliances are tightening among some nations that have long been resistant to the U.S.-led efforts to exact economic punishment on Moscow for its war in Ukraine. The United States and its allies among the Group of Seven major industrial nations insist that the sanctions and a price cap on Russian oil have been successful at restricting revenue for the Russian economy, even though it grew, in a year-to-year comparison, by 4.9% in the second quarter of 2023. Russia and China, meanwhile, have declared a “no limits” partnership of their own. And the economic bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — known as BRICS — is trying to increase its use of local currencies instead of the U.S. dollar. Also likely to be seen at the G20 summit is budding closeness of U.S.-India ties in light of a shared concern about China's military and economic assertiveness.
As President Joe Biden and Yellen visit New Delhi, they will have to navigate a more fragmented economic and political environment during difficult negotiations over securing food and energy supplies for developing countries.
Yellen’s trip, her fourth to India in less than a year, comes shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin said a landmark deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain safely through the Black Sea during the war will not be restored until the West meets his demands on Moscow's own agricultural exports.
Putin says that a parallel agreement promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer has not been honored. Russian officials also complain that restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.
Russia is hoping it can use its power over Ukraine’s Black Sea exports as a bargaining chip to reduce Western sanctions. “It's a combination of different factors that I think that makes it difficult for the G20 to work in concert in a way that they did in the past," said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Those factors include the war in Ukraine and nations' weaponizing currencies and commodities, she said. “Something I imagine they can get behind is the importance of getting energy and food flowing and other food security issues for developing nations," she said.
The Treasury Department said Yellen’s four-day trip will highlight “the importance of imposing severe costs on Russia and mitigating global spillovers.” Yellen will stress the consequences of the war, "including through the price cap, which has been achieving its dual goals of reducing Russian revenue while keeping global energy prices stable," the department said. Yellen also will focus her efforts on strengthening food security through changes to multilateral development banks and by replenishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development. That may be difficult as G20 nations increasingly gravitate into blocs and with some leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, opting to skip the summit. Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, said the meetings should be an opportunity to work at what the nations agree upon, including multilateral development bank issues and changes to debt restructuring. “India has wanted to present itself as the convener of the world at a time of international fragmentation," Lipsky said. “It will be harder to do with Xi not there.” There are risks to greater factures in the global economy, according to an August International Monetary Fund report, which estimates that greater international trade restrictions could reduce global economic output by as much as 7% over the long term, or roughly $7.4 trillion. Trade between China and Russia has swelled, due in large part to the impact of Western sanctions on Russia, as well as the price cap on Russian oil, which allows China and India to purchase energy from Russia at discounted prices. Still, China's economy is facing an overall slump. Mark Sobel, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that despite Russian oil shipments being reoriented to China and India, the G7 anticipated "if it gave China and India greater scope to seek discounts on Russian oil, that meant less revenue for Russia and was consistent with the thrust of G7 actions.”Sobel said the sanctions against Russia as well as other measures to curb Russian oil proceeds were "targeted and highly appropriate.”
Russia and China are increasingly trading in China's yuan, which replaced the U.S. dollar as Russia’s most traded currency in early 2023. The BRICS nations have agreed to expand trading in their local currencies to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar. Critics in the developing world are increasingly uneasy about the U.S. ability to use the dollar’s worldwide influence to impose sanctions against its rivals, including Russia. In 2015, the BRICS countries launched the New Development Bank as an alternative to the U.S. and European-dominated International Monetary Fund and World Bank. “We have to be realistic about what this Group of 20 can accomplish," Ziemba said, “but I do think there is a benefit of having a place where many of the biggest economies in the world meet, as a place to understand where their differences come from.” Members of the G20 are the European Union and Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the United States.

Turkey's Erdogan eggs on Syria's Arab tribes against US-backed Kurds
Amberin Zaman/Al-Monitor/September 06/ 2023
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come out in support of Arab tribes engaged in violent clashes with the United States’ top local ally against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria’s oil-rich eastern Deir Ezzor province, calling their actions a “principled struggle for dignity.”“Deir Ezzor’s true proprietors are the Arab tribes,” Erdogan told reporters Monday as he flew back from Russia after meeting with President Vladimir Putin. His comments have reinforced allegations that Turkey is helping to fuel the unrest in line with its ongoing campaign to destroy the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES). Ankara says the administration, which operates under US military protection outside the central government’s control, poses a threat to its national security. This is because of its close links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the rebel group waging an armed campaign against the Turkish army for Kurdish autonomy within Turkey. The Turkish leader asserted that Putin was in agreement with him that “it was significant that as owners of the region, the Arab tribes had come together to struggle against the terrorist organization.” Erdogan continued, “It is seen that the arms and ammunition provided by the United States to this terrorist organization has not served peace in the region. Each and every weapon given to the terrorist organization has contributed to the spilling of blood and to the unraveling of Iraq and Syria’s territorial integrity.”
Turkey has long lobbied Washington to ditch its alliance with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and more recently joined Russia and Iran, the principal backers of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in calling on America to withdraw its estimated 900 special operations forces from the Kurdish-led region. Russia has been squeezing US military aircraft in Eastern Syria while Iran has stepped up the flow of weapons for use against US bases to pressure them to leave. Russia and Iran have been coordinating. The Syrian government is desperate in particular to wrest back control of Arab-majority Deir Ezzor, which is home to 70% of the country’s oil wealth, amid ongoing protests over fuel hikes and other grievances in Druze-majority Suwayda and neighboring Daraa, which are under its control.
Violence between the SDF and the Arab tribes living under its control therefore presents opportunities for would-be mischief makers, but not all pan out. As the SDF and tribesmen faced off in Deir Ezzor, Turkish-backed Sunni Arab factions moved against SDF-held territory near Manbij and Tell Tamar further north, only to be repelled by Russian airstrikes.
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder on Tuesday downplayed news of those attacks. "Our focus is going to be on the defeat-ISIS mission. We certainly recognize that there are multiple actors in the region and that at times, there will be different perspectives," he said. Yet Ryder signaled the US had no intention of abandoning the SDF in favor of any alternate forces. "One only need look at their efforts as it relates to al-Hol and the detainee population [of IS families] there," Ryder told reporters. "We'll continue to work with the SDF and other regional partners and the international community on the defeat-ISIS mission," he said. Aside from the regime Syrian Kurdish leaders have publicly blamed “external forces” — a euphemism for Iran, Turkey and Russia — for the fighting that has left more than 70 people dead, including at least nine civilians. But they have refrained from mentioning either Russia or Iran by name for fear of drawing their wrath. There is no such skittishness when it comes to Turkey. “Erdogan and his malign regime are among those contributing to the tragedy and suffering of the Syrian people. Rather than focusing on Deir Ezzor, they should cease their systematic racist campaign and quell hate speech against Arab refugees in Turkey,” SDF spokesman Farhad Shami told Al-Monitor. “Contrary to the narrative Erdogan and his regime are trying to portray, the situation on the ground in Deir Ezzor is different: All Arab tribes are united, offering support and actively participating with the SDF in the operation against the intruding armed groups,” Shami said. He added that SDF forces were close to regaining full control of the area as they closed in on Dhiban, the last stronghold of the rebellious Arab tribesmen, after negotiations for their surrender failed.
The immediate trigger for the tensions was the detention on Aug. 27 of Deir Ezzor Military Council Chief Ahmed al-Khbeil, better known as Rashid Abu Khawla, over his alleged collusion with the regime and Iranian-backed militias and his involvement in a wide range of criminal activities including the trafficking of drugs. Abu Khawla had long been a thorn in the SDF’s side as he built up his own private militia and power base, alienating the Kurds and other tribal leaders alike.
The SDF’s ability to prevail was never in doubt. Regime forces — had they decided to intervene in Abu Khawla’s favor — are no match for a vastly superior SDF equipped and trained by the US-led coalition and seasoned by years of combat against IS. At the same time, the regime and its allies lack the financial resources to win over the tribes, which in turn remain deeply divided amongst themselves. However, the bad blood created by the flare-up will be hard to overcome, analysts say.
It’s unclear why the SDF finally decided to move against him at this particular time — Abu Khawla’s laissez-faire attitude toward the jihadis is cited as one reason — but when it did, Abu Khawla’s men fought back and by Wednesday were joined by several prominent tribal leaders in calling for the SDF to leave Deir Ezzor. The Arab tribes have always been an Achilles' heel for the SDF. It was only under intense US pressure that the SDF extended the fight against IS to Arab-majority areas, including Deir Ezzor. The province is split between the SDF to the east of the Euphrates River and regime forces and Iran-backed Shiite militias to the west. In a bid to head off potential conflict, Syrian Kurdish leaders installed local Arabs in positions of influence, including as the heads of local military and civilian councils, and the US-endorsed policy appeared to work. But the past week’s bloodshed suggests otherwise. However much the SDF points to malign outside forces, “The principal cause is the rejection by the Arab tribes of Kurdish authority over them,” said Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor and research director at the University of Lyon 2 who closely monitors the Syrian conflict.
“The situation as in much of the rest of Syria is catastrophic in economic terms, and the tribes consider the AANES incapable of running their region, especially in Deir Ezzor where there is electricity for only an hour a day, just two functioning hospitals and people are simply fed up,” Balanche told Al-Monitor.
“They believe the Kurds are stealing their oil. There are more and more Arabs who contest the SDF presence,” Balanche said. On Sunday, a US delegation led by the State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich and commander of the US-led coalition Maj. Gen. Joel Vowell met with Kurdish and tribal leaders in Deir Ezzor where US forces maintain bases, including at Syria’s largest gas field, Al-Omar. “They agreed on the importance of addressing grievances” of locals and “the dangers of outsiders interfering,” the US Embassy said in a statement posted on its Twitter account.
Behind closed doors, US officials asked tribal leaders if they would rather be ruled by the Assad regime, according to regional sources who declined to be identified by name. Many tribal leaders are not averse to the US presence but would rather deal with the Americans directly than go through the SDF. “They want to create a little Arab kingdom of their own, with control over their own oil,” Balanche said.
Additional reporting by Jared Szuba in Washington.

EU Commissioner: Turkey must take on democratic reforms to revive EU bid
Ezgi Akin//Al-Monitor/September 6, 2023
ISTANBUL — EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi relayed to Ankara on Wednesday that Turkey must implement democratic reforms in order to revive its decadeslong stalled membership bid to join the bloc.
Varhelyi traveled to the Turkish capital to meet with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and other high-level officials after the country's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tabled reviving his country’s stalled EU membership negotiations in return for his greenlight of Sweden’s accession to NATO on the sidelines of the NATO summit in July. Speaking alongside Fidan following their meeting, Varhelyi recalled that the membership negotiations between Ankara and Brussels have been at a “standstill” since 2018. “For this to be remobilized, there are very clear criteria set out by the European Council that need to be addressed. These criteria are related to democracy and the rule of law,” he told reporters. He also added that a convincing roadmap by Ankara in a bid to address these concerns might reignite debate over Turkey’s membership among leaders who seek to reset ties with Ankara. The European Commission announced in 2018 that Turkey's full membership negotiations with the bloc had come to a standstill over the country’s dismal human rights record, erosion of rule of law, as well as tensions between Ankara and EU member countries Greece and Cyprus. Fidan, in turn, said his government has stepped up its efforts to reverse the course of the ties with the bloc, reaffirming his government’s decisiveness on Turkey's stalled EU membership negotiations that started in 2015. “At a time when the enlargement policy is back on the EU agenda due to geopolitical concerns, excluding Turkey from this process would be a great strategic mistake,” he said. Fidan added that the two agreed on a framework about short- and medium-term steps that could be taken as part of efforts to restore ties between Ankara and Brussels. Turkey’s refusal to abide by the European Court of Human Rights — a separate body from the EU but the top human rights court of Europe — stood out as one of the top obstacles to any attempt to revive Turkey’s stalled EU bid.  The most notable case is of renowned philanthropist and Turkish businessman Osman Kavala who has been behind bars since 2017 on charges widely slammed by many international watchdogs as “politically motivated." Last year, a Turkish court sentenced Kavala to life imprisonment without parole for trying to overthrow the government and his involvement in nationwide anti-government protests in 2013. The EU as well as the United States repeatedly called on Turkey to release Kavala, with the US State Department describing charges against Kavala as “specious.” Turkish authorities’ failure to release Kavala prompted the Council of Europe to launch infringement proceedings against Ankara last year, and the country now risks suspension or even cancellation of its membership from Europe's top human rights body. Earlier this week, Kavala was shortlisted for the 2023 Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize by the council’s Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). An independent panel formed by the PACE said that the “impugned measures” Kavala has been facing “were aimed at silencing him and dissuading other human rights defenders.”The panel will select the winner among three candidates on Oct. 8.

Who are Ennahda leaders arrested in Tunisia's latest crackdown?
Beatrice Farhat/Al-Monitor/September 6, 2023
BEIRUT — Tunisian authorities continue their crackdown against known critics of President Kais Saied with the arrest this week of two current officials and a former one from the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. The interim head of Ennahda, Mondher Ounissi, was arrested by police on Tuesday while driving his car. He was taken to “an unknown destination,” according to a statement by the party. No reason was given for the arrest, which Ennahda said came without prior notification. The targeting of Ounissi comes days after the publication of an audio recording attributed to him in which he allegedly accuses certain Ennahda officials of attempting to take over the party and receiving illegal funding from foreign parties. Minutes after Ounissi was detained, Abdel Karim Harouni, who heads Ennahda’s Shura Council, was also arrested by security forces and taken to an unknown location days after he was placed under house arrest. Authorities did not provide a reason for Harouni’s arrest. On Saturday, Ennahda condemned the house arrest of its official, which came one day ahead of a planned meeting to prepare the party’s congress scheduled for October. The party accused authorities of “intentionally restricting and besieging [political] parties.”On Tuesday, Hamadi Jebali, a former prime minister who also served as secretary general of Ennahda until 2014, was detained during a raid on his home in the city of Sousse, according to the official news agency Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP). Policemen also confiscated his phone and personal computer while searching his home. Ennahda has faced an ongoing crackdown since Saied’s power grab in July 2021. Ennahda party head Rached Ghannouchi was arrested this past April and sentenced in May to one year in prison on terror-related charges. A day after his arrest, the government on April 18 banned all meetings at Ennahda offices and shut down the party’s headquarters. Ennahda held the majority of seats in parliament before Saied dissolved the chamber in 2021 as part of his controversial measures that were seen as eroding the remaining pillars of Tunisia’s post-Arab Spring democracy. Ennahda and other opponents have labeled Saied’s actions as a coup.

US sanctions Sudan paramilitary leader Hemedti's brother for human rights abuses
Adam Lucente/Al-Monitor/September 6, 2023
The United States sanctioned a Sudanese paramilitary leader Wednesday, as pressure increases on the rebel side in the ongoing conflict in Sudan. The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it sanctioned Abdelrahim Dagalo, the deputy commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and brother of the group's leader Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo. In a statement, it alleged that RSF members “have engaged in acts of violence and human rights abuses, including the massacre of civilians, ethnic killings, and use of sexual violence.”The designation freezes any property or interests Dagalo has in the United States and prohibits those in the United States from engaging in transactions with them. The Treasury Department also called on both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces to reach a cease-fire. “The United States urges both sides of the conflict to cease the hostilities and violence perpetuating Sudan’s dire humanitarian crisis,” wrote Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson in the statement. Background: Fighting broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces in April. The conflict is ongoing despite efforts by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others to establish a lasting cease-fire. Sudan has been mired in instability since the 2019 revolution and ousting of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir. A Transitional Military Council was led by Sudan’s de facto leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan after the revolution until Burhan seized power in a coup in 2021. Hemedti was deputy leader of the Transitional Military Council. Following the coup, a rift between him and Burhan led to the current conflict. In May, President Joe Biden signed an executive order authorizing sanctions against individuals in Sudan responsible for the current violence. Why it matters: Thousands of people have been killed in the fighting, and both the RSF and armed forces have been accused of human rights abuses. The RSF’s conduct in the war has been especially scrutinized. In a letter to the United Nations last week, Human Rights Watch said that the RSF and its allied Arab militias in West Darfur “have deliberately targeted non-Arab communities, notably the Massalit ethnic group, and destroyed displacement camps and sites, killing, and injuring civilians, including those who were flee­ing to Chad.”In August, Amnesty International accused the RSF and allies of “causing untold death and destruction” in Darfur. Darfur was the site of a devastating war from 2003 to 2020. The war had an ethnic dimension, pitting Arabized Sudanese in support of the government against non-Arab rebels. The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed militia that fought on behalf of the Sudanese government in the conflict. Correction: Sept. 6, 2023. An ealier version of this article incorrectly stated that the sanctions targeted RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — rather they targeted his brother.

Cyprus condemns attack on Kuwait tourists
Agence France Presse/September 06/2023
Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos met Kuwait's ambassador on Wednesday to condemn an attack on Kuwaiti tourists during anti-migrant violence in the island’s second city, Limassol. He met Kuwait ambassador Abdullah Al-Kharafi after the Gulf emirate lodged a protest over the attack during racist-motivated violence in Limassol on Friday evening. Kombos posted on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the two diplomats had a "warm and comprehensive meeting, reaffirming the excellent level of the bilateral relations."The ministry said: "FM Kombos took the opportunity to condemn the recent deplorable incident against tourists. The minister relayed his wish to visit Kuwait very soon." There was no mention of whether there was a formal apology to Kuwait over the attack. On Sunday, Cyprus said it received a diplomatic protest from an unspecified Gulf Arab state. Wednesday's post confirmed that the country was Kuwait and that Cyprus was trying to repair any damage to its ties with the wealthy emirate. Senior diplomat Kyriakos Kouros posted on the X platform Sunday that a group of tourists left Cyprus soon after being attacked.
“They cut short the holidays to leave in a hurry, scared! I doubt they will ever come back.” Kouros, the foreign ministry permanent secretary, posted a photograph of a group at the airport. One sat in a wheelchair and had a bandaged forearm. Another was dressed in a suit. Police in the Mediterranean island have been heavily criticized for not doing more to stop Friday's violence. They said they had arrested 13 people after protesters wounded five foreigners and smashed some foreign-owned shops on the Limassol seafront. During the unrest some black-hooded protesters held a banner that read: “Refugees not welcome.”Kouros said that in all his years as a diplomat, he had never felt so “embarrassed” about an incident in Cyprus. “We should not have allowed it to develop into something so hideous,” he said. Authorities said a Vietnamese mother whose shop was vandalized on Friday will receive state support to repair her property. A post on social media had shown her in tears after the attack. Anti-migrant sentiment has grown in recent years as the government highlighted its struggles against irregular migration. European Union member Cyprus says it is a “front-line country” on the Mediterranean migrant route, struggling to cope with an influx of undocumented migrants and refugees. The latest EU data shows Cyprus has the highest number of first-time asylum applications relative to population in the 27-member bloc. With almost four million annual visitors, tourism is a key economic driver, contributing around 15 percent of GDP to the Cypriot economy.

Death toll from rainstorms in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria rises to 11
Associated Press/September 06/2023
The death toll from severe rainstorms that lashed parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria increased to 11 Wednesday after rescue teams in the three neighboring countries recovered four more bodies. A flash flood at a campsite in northwestern Turkey near the border with Bulgaria killed at least four people — with two found dead Wednesday — and carried away bungalow homes. Rescuers were still searching for two people reported missing at the campsite. Another two people died in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, where Tuesday's storms inundated hundreds of homes and workplaces in several neighborhoods.
The victims in Istanbul included a 32-year-old Guinean citizen who was trapped inside his basement apartment in the low-income Kucukcekmece district, Turkish broadcaster HaberTurk TV reported. The other was a 57-year-old woman who died after being swept away by the floods in another neighborhood, the private DHA news agency reported. The surging flood waters affected more than 1,750 homes and businesses in the city, according to the Istanbul governor's office. They included a line of shops in the Ikitelli district, where the deluge dragged parked vehicles and mud into furniture stores, destroying the merchandise, DHA reported. The floods also engulfed a parking area for containers and trucks on the city's outskirts where people found safety by climbing on the roof of a restaurant, Turkish media reports said. In Greece, a record rainfall caused at least two deaths near the central city of Volos and three people were reported missing. The fire department said one man was killed Tuesday when a wall buckled and fell on him, and the body of a woman was discovered Wednesday. Authorities banned traffic in Volos, the nearby mountain region of Pilion and the resort island of Skiathos, where many households remained without electricity Wednesday. Traffic was also banned in another two regions of central Greece near Volos, while the storms were forecast to continue until at least Thursday afternoon. In Bulgaria, a storm caused floods on the country's southern Black Sea coast. The body of a missing tourist was recovered from the sea Wednesday, raising the overall death toll to three. Border police vessels and drones were assisting efforts to locate another two people still listed as missing. TV footage showed cars and camper vans being swept out to sea in the southern resort town of Tsarevo, where authorities declared a state of emergency. Most of the rivers in the region burst their banks and several bridges were destroyed, causing serious traffic problems. Tourism Minister Zaritsa Dinkova said about 4,000 people were affected by the disaster along the entire southern stretch of Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. "There is a problem transporting tourists because it is dangerous to go by coach on the roads affected by the floods," she added.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 06-07/2023
FAQ: Avoiding an October Sanctions Surprise That Would Empower Tehran
Behnam Ben Taleblu/FDD/September 06/2023
Q: What’s all the fuss about lapsing international restrictions on Iran this October?
A: Pursuant to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2231 enshrining it, two different sets of penalties1 on Iran are scheduled to lapse, or “sunset,” this October. These restrictions are largely but not exclusively tied to Tehran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile proliferation efforts. Skeptics of the JCPOA have long warned about these and other sunsets2 as fatal flaws of the JCPOA. The expiration of these restrictions will have lasting implications for U.S. national security and for those interested in restraining Iran’s missile, military, and nuclear programs.
As Iran’s nuclear violations,3 ballistic missile testing, and arms proliferation grew in scale and scope since 2021 — to include Iran’s provision of drones to Russia for use against Ukraine4 — the saliency of preventing the lapsing of these restrictions also grew, including for parties still in the JCPOA, such as the E3 (France, Germany, and the UK). To that effect, earlier this summer, European diplomats reportedly cited this changing international context and informed Iran that they would not be easing select JCPOA-related sanctions this fall. 5
Q: Why were these restrictions slated to lapse in October 2023?
A: As part of the 2013-2015 international negotiations with Tehran that led to the JCPOA, select restrictions6 on Iran levied in UNSC sanctions resolutions between 2006 and 20107 became subject to calendar-based termination criterion as a result of wins by the Iranian negotiating team. For example, a formerly permanent embargo on conventional arms transfers to and from Iran was, with the advent of UNSCR 2231, made subject to a five-year window and expired on October 18, 2020 despite unilateral American attempts to extend it.8 Similarly, formerly permanent ballistic missile testing and transfer prohibitions were revised in UNSCR 2231 and made subject to an eight-year window expiring on October 18, 2023.9 Per the implementation timeline of the JCPOA expressed in Annex V, October 18 is known as “Transition Day,” which is one of several stages of the Iran deal. Transition Day is exactly eight years from “Adoption Day,” which was October 18, 2015, which itself was 90 days after “Finalization Day,” or the day the UNSC unanimously passed UNSCR 2231 on July 20, 2015.
Q: What are the exact restrictions that are lapsing, and what countries would be impacted?
A: October 18, 2023, known in the JCPOA as “Transition Day,” marks two different events that policymakers need to better understand. The first is the second major set of sunsets of Security Council-established restrictions on Iran, including the termination of ballistic missile prohibitions. The second is a series of steps that were supposed be taken by the JCPOA parties themselves under the political agreement. Per the JCPOA, these steps were incumbent upon Iran, the United States, and Europe (the EU and UK).
I. Sunsetting UNSCR restrictions, applying to all UN member states:
Termination of Asset Freeze: According to Paragraph 6 Subsection C of Annex B of UNSCR 2231, the UN retains a list of designated Iranian persons and entities related to Iran’s nuclear and military programs inherited from an older resolution (UNSCR 1737) that are subject to an asset freeze that will automatically lapse on Transition Day.10 This list of 23 persons and 61 entities is not to be confused with a shorter list of 36 persons and entities11 that were delisted on the day the JCPOA entered into force (Implementation Day – January 16, 2016). Examples of entities slated for delisting at the UN level include the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, which is an IRGC-run contracting firm,12 and Malek Ashtar University, an Iranian university supporting the regime’s Ministry of Defense through research and development.13 While the United States retains sanctions on many of the entities slated for delisting, the suspension of the asset freeze provision would offer Iran the ability to more effectively make the argument that its nuclear program is not a threat to international peace and security. It could also lead to challenges for jurisdictions currently freezing assets of the listed entities as required by the UN if Iran seeks repatriation.
Lifted Ban on Iran’s Ballistic Missile Activities: According to Paragraph 3 of Annex B of UNSCR 2231, “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology” until Transition Day.14 Notably, UNSCR 2231 modified and watered down more stringent ballistic missile prohibitions found in an older resolution (UNSCR 1929)15 and introduced murky language about the relationship between missile intention and design that impeded consensus on whether select Iranian missile tests could be considered as violations of Annex B.16 Moreover, the absence of a Panel of Experts for UNSCR 2231 to assess reports about alleged violations of this and other restrictive clauses in Annex B led to diminished opportunities to generate international pressure.17 Nonetheless, since 2016, the United States and E3 have treated Iranian ballistic missiles tests, drills, operations, parades, and unveilings of most surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) with a ballistic trajectory as well as Space-Launch Vehicles (SLVs) as activities that would constitute an Annex B violation.18 This will no longer be the case after Transition Day.
Lifted Ban on Ballistic Missile-Related Transfers: According to Paragraph 4 of Annex B of UNSCR 2231, carve-outs were created for the UNSC to consider, on a “case-by-case basis,”19 the potential for transfers to or from Iran of otherwise restricted and controlled long-range strike technologies relevant to ballistic missiles and drones as outlined in the Annex of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).20 This prohibition on UN member states providing Iran with missile components and technology, along with restrictions on Iran’s missile exports, are popularly called the “missile embargo” and will also lapse on Transition Day.
II. JCPOA-related commitments:
Iran: According to Paragraph 22.1, Section D of Annex V of the JCPOA, Iran is required to ratify the Additional Protocol (AP) by October 18. The AP is a supplementary political arrangement that, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “increases the IAEA’s ability to verify the peaceful use of all nuclear material in States with comprehensive safeguards agreements.”21 Per the JCPOA, Iran agreed to provisionally implement the AP until Transition Day, at which point it is to pursue full ratification of the AP by Iran’s Parliament. But given Iran’s intentional circumscribing of IAEA monitoring since February 2021,22 Tehran is unlikely to resume its full voluntary implementation of the AP, let alone work to ratify it. This makes Iran, as a country that has overtly violated its JCPOA commitments since May 2019, exceptionally unlikely to meet its Transition Day obligations.
The United States: According to Paragraphs 21.1 – 21.3, Section D of Annex V of the JCPOA, Washington is to seek legislative measures “to terminate, or modify to effectuate the termination of” select statutory penalties against Iran’s financial and banking sector, insurance entities, energy and petrochemical sector, shipping, shipbuilding, and port authorities, gold and precious metals, software, metals, automotive, and other areas to permit financial transactions between them and non-U.S. persons.23 Additionally, Washington is supposed to remove 43 names found in Annex II – Attachment 4 of the JCPOA from the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list managed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. While Washington has not been a party to the deal since May 2018 and thus is not bound by these commitments, the Biden administration has expressed interest in resurrecting the JCPOA or a lesser nuclear agreement with Tehran.24 This, coupled with the White House’s silence on the matter of Transition Day sanctions relief to date, raises the concern that unilateral executive branch actions (such as delistings), in contrast to those that would require it to work with Congress, such as seeking to terminate statutory penalties, might — as part of a relatively low-probability but high-impact scenario — still be on the table as a potential political sweetener to Tehran.
The EU and UK: Given the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and significant Iranian violations of the accord that followed, of the four actors that have Transition Day requirements, the EU and UK (the latter using sovereign political, legal, and economic authorities post-Brexit) are the only parties that realistically could still carry them out. According to Paragraphs 20.1 and 20.4 of Section D of Annex V of the JCPOA, these sunsetting restrictions include terminating or suspending older EU restrictions against Iran from 2010 and 2012 on financial messaging services, the transportation sector, select ballistic missile technology, metals, software, and conventional arms.25 Additionally, per paragraphs 20.2 and 20.3 of Section D of Annex V of the JCPOA, there are some 300-plus persons and entities tied to Iran’s missile, military, and nuclear programs on lists found in Attachment 2 – Parts I and II of Annex II of the JCPOA that are slated to have their asset freezes and visa bans removed. However, the fact that none of the EU and UK penalties automatically lapse has created the political space for debate over the utility of adhering to these sunsets when Iran is not meeting its deal obligations.26
Q: Who would benefit from these lapsing restrictions?
A: Undoubtedly, Iran would most benefit from lapsing restrictions and sunsets. Should European sanctions lapse, elements of Iran’s defense industrial base could step up efforts to procure missile components and dual-use military technology from Europe. In addition, lapsing UN prohibitions against Iranian ballistic missile tests or transfers of related technology would likely be perceived by Tehran as a measure of the international community’s hesitancy to restrain its missile program — and accordingly accelerate missile testing and transfers. Of note, even with both of these prohibitions in place, Iran launched at least 228 ballistic missiles in tests, drills, and/or military operations between the advent of the JCPOA and the end of 2022.27 Increased Iranian missile testing, particularly testing that the regime chooses not to amplify publicly, is an indication of the growing military utility of these weapons for Tehran.
Russia would be the second greatest beneficiary of lapsing restrictions and sunsets. The Islamic Republic might be waiting for ballistic missile transfers to be considered “legal” before stepping up its material support to Moscow and providing Vladimir Putin with precision-strike short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) to supplement those that Russian troops have already been using in regional military operations.28 Iran’s concerns with making any potential transfer of ballistic missiles deemed “legal” may also drive it to limit the range of some of its projectiles to under 300 kilometers and thus below benchmarks set in the voluntary Missile Technology Control Regime.29 Still, this would have the net effect of alleviating production strains on Russian precision-strike assets as well as deepening Iran’s involvement in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
Additional beneficiaries of Iran being allowed to export missiles and drones are countries in the developing world and/or those that harbor an anti-American disposition. Absent broad-based international restrictions endorsed by the UNSC, such countries might look to procure these unmanned aerial systems (UASs) from Tehran given the relative capability and cost of these weapons. Iranian drones also have a robust track record of use, from the Ukraine War to numerous battlefields of the Middle East. Iranian drones or drone technology have reportedly even appeared in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa.30 Iranian military officials have touted that 22 countries have requested to purchase Iranian drones,31 while Israeli estimates put it at around 50 countries.32 Most recently, Bolivia’s defense minister indicated his country was seeking Iranian drones.33
Some might treat Iran’s Pre-Transition Day nuclear and missile violations as proof that lapsing restrictions and sunsets will change little geopolitically. Yet overlooking these violations would be akin to repeating the same analytical mistake that dampened the international community’s will to stop the termination of the UN arms embargo on Iran in October 2020. In that instance, the seeming normalization of Iran’s arms proliferation coupled with a failure of imagination abetted European inaction. With the entire continent potentially within reach of Iran’s missiles and Russia using Iranian drones against Ukraine, Europe cannot afford to pay that price again today.34
Worse, if the EU and UK choose to overlook Iran’s noncompliance and meet their own Annex II – Attachment 2 commitments under the JCPOA, this action would ensure that the worst of the worst organizations in the Islamic Republic responsible for supporting the country’s military-industrial complex would suddenly be rendered sanctions free across Europe. This includes government actors like Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),35 the IRGC Aerospace Force (IRGC-AF), the IRGC Quds-Force (IRGC-QF), Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) as well as a host of MODAFL subsidiaries and affiliates supporting Iran’s ballistic missile and military programs. These include: Defense Industries Organization (DIO), Iran Electronics Industries (IEI), Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries (HESA), Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO), Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group (SBIG), Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG), and the commander of Iran’s IRGC-AF, Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, and former leaders of the AIO, such as Ahmad Vahid Dastjerdi. The removal of these persons and entities from EU and UK sanctions lists could open the floodgates for Iranian procurement of military technology from Europe, relieve political and economic pressure off the beating heart of Iran’s ballistic missile and military programs, and create significant sanctions coordination problems in the trans-Atlantic community since virtually all of these entities remain subject to either counterproliferation or terrorism penalties by Washington.36
Washington will likely not delist entities found in Annex II – Attachment 4 of the JCPOA. But surveying that list for the names of persons and entities on which the Obama administration considered eventually lifting sanctions proves why the structure of the JCPOA has been self-defeating. Those slated for delisting in 2023 included the likes of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, who was Iran’s chief military nuclear scientist (but was killed in 2020),37 Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani,38 the former head of the sanctioned Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), and entities like the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), which led Iran’s past nuclear weapons development efforts. In 2019, the Trump administration sanctioned four persons and 17 entities linked to SPND due to their continued support for Iran’s defense sector.39
Q: What is the significance of Europe following through on its warning to not relieve missile sanctions?
A: However welcome any European effort to defend missile sanctions on Iran might appear in principle, in practice it would represent a commendable but insufficient policy choice given Iran’s fast-evolving ballistic missile capabilities, widening radius of drone proliferation, as well as its proven capability to enrich uranium to just shy of weapons grade levels.
The last batch of nonproliferation sanctions by the EU on Iran was in late 2012,40 nearly one year before the start of overt Iranian diplomacy with the United States that led to the 2013 Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) interim nuclear deal. Since then, EU and UK sanctions on Iran have focused on punishing human rights violators,41 or more recently the Iran-Russia drone nexus, with select exceptions for terrorism.42
Conversely, but more importantly, retaining missile sanctions on Iran would constitute Europe’s first ever move that could be deemed as inconsistent with its JCPOA obligations or potentially even treated by Tehran as a JCPOA violation. Even at the height of Iranian pushback against the Trump administration’s maximum pressure policy (2018-2020),43 the EU and the UK remained so committed to the JCPOA that they created a financial channel, termed a Special-Purposed Vehicle (SPV), with the intent of circumventing U.S. sanctions to make sure Iran reaped the economic and political rewards of the JCPOA.44
That the pending European decision to remain firm on missile sanctions was also reportedly influenced by both nuclear and non-nuclear factors should also not be ignored. These include Iran’s provision of drones to Russia and its potential missile transfer to Moscow as well as the imperative of depriving Tehran of JCPOA dividends in the face of its mounting nuclear violations.45 Such thinking creates political space in Europe to work towards developing a broader, more integrated, and more united trans-Atlantic Iran policy pertaining to Iran’s nuclear escalation, terrorism and regional destabilization, great power ties, arms and drone transfers, maritime threats, sanctions busting, and human rights violations.
The last time a series of nuclear and non-nuclear developments led Europe to intensify its Iran policy (to include even outpacing U.S. Treasury Department designations) was between 2010 and 2012. At the time, Europe was confronted with a cocktail of factors that included: then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s genocidal rhetoric against Israel, reports of potential Israeli preemptive military options against Iran, Iran’s mounting nuclear escalation to include uranium enrichment to 20 percent purity and the development of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), as well as Iran’s violent repression of protestors in the aftermath of the 2009 Green Movement.
Q: What exactly can Europe do before October?
A: With limited time before Transition Day, the E3 should not seek to effect change by trying to pass a new UNSCR on Iran given the presence of Russia and China on the council and their increased willingness to serve as Iran’s lawyers on that body. Instead, they should reach for the only mechanism that allows for a collapsing of both the UNSCR 2231 and JCPOA frameworks. That mechanism is snapback.46
Snapback offers the E3 both the political cover and the legal authority to not perform all of its JCPOA-related Annex II sanctions relief obligations as well as the ability to neatly reset the clock and prevent the sunsetting of all UNSCR-based prohibitions. Given that enacting a snapback takes one month, the process would need to be commenced as soon as possible.
To date, press reports about European desires to retain missile sanctions on Iran do not mention snapback, and thus far, Iran’s nuclear violations of both the JCPOA and Annex B of UNSCR 2231 have been, despite the view of many outside experts, deemed insufficient by the Biden administration and its trans-Atlantic partners to abandon the JCPOA.47 Therefore, the most likely move the E3 is considering centers around (once again) triggering the Dispute Resolution Mechanism (DRM), which is a conflict resolution mechanism built into the JCPOA that takes advantage of deal-created institutions like a “Joint Commission” to address issues of perceived non-compliance. While the DRM could lead to snapback at the UNSC as outlined in paragraphs 36-37 of the JCPOA, it has multiple prolonged political steps that offer parties off-ramps to avoid snapback.
The E3 triggered the DRM in January 2020 in response to Iran’s mounting nuclear violations,48 but the process did not lead to any reciprocal measures or snapback nor to an Iranian nuclear rollback. In this case, triggering the DRM could afford the E3 political cover to not delist the 300-plus persons and entities found in Annex II – Attachment 2 – Parts I and II of the JCPOA as well as to not have to work to effectuate the broad range of sectoral sanctions relief that was promised in Annex II of the JCPOA and covered earlier in this document. However, the DRM process would still fail to account for the lapsing penalties found in Annex B of UNSCR 2231, which would include the erosion of limits on Iran’s ballistic missile tests and transfers and would do nothing to stop expiration of an asset freeze on the persons and entities on the 2231 list.
Given that Transition Day in October follows several key dates in September, including the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the one-year anniversary of the nationwide anti-regime protests in Iran that were touched off by the killing of a 22-year-old Iranian woman,49 as well as the one-year anniversary of the revelation of Iranian drones being used by Russia against Ukraine, the E3 should build on the momentum created by these events to generate support for its new sanctions regimes. These include new sovereign authorities in the UK to target Iranian officials supporting terror operations and other forms of destabilization50 as well as new export controls by the EU to impede Iran’s military support to Russia, especially with respect to drone technologies.51
Q: What is “Snapback” and why does the mechanism exist?
A: Snapback refers to a process that would lead to the restoration of six UNSCRs on Iran from 2006 to 2010 as well as the reinstatement of all their prohibitions and penalties. While UNSCR 2231 is an international organization’s binding resolution and the JCPOA is a voluntary political agreement, snapback would have the net effect of both collapsing UNSCR 2231 and gutting the political architecture that enshrined and supported the JCPOA, thereby ending the accord as well. Snapback was agreed to in the JCPOA to make sure that Iran recognized there would be costs to its non-compliance, costs that cannot be stopped by Russia and China, Iran’s partners on the Security Council that wield veto power.52
Snapback can be triggered by any “JCPOA participant state”53 — the United States, France, Germany, the UK, Russia, China, or Iran — by bringing a matter they deem to be “significant non-performance of its commitments under the JCPOA”54 to the attention of the UNSC. If no resolution is brought forward within 30 days to ignore the complaint by a different party, then the aforementioned restrictions and resolutions on Iran come back into force and snapback has been achieved. Should a resolution to ignore the motion be offered,55 any permanent member of the UNSC could veto the resolution, and in effect, run the clock until snapback happens.56 The tool is sometimes termed a reverse-engineered veto because it only needs one permanent member of the UNSC to accomplish snapback.
While the United States, the EU, and the UK have other broad-based sanctions on the Islamic Republic in place, snapback’s utility is that it enables the restoration of an internationally understood baseline position against Iran’s missile, military, and nuclear programs. This is particularly important for jurisdictions that might want to do something about the Iranian threat but either do not have the authority to or seldom use sanctions and trade controls as instruments of their foreign and security policy. Restoring older and more punitive sanctions resolutions on Iran through snapback would also serve to support the efforts of individual nations to develop, implement, or enforce, Iran sanctions.
Q: What can Congress do to support Europe in this context?
A: Legislatively, Congress has a long history of supporting pressure against Iran’s ballistic missile program.57 Even amidst a heated debate over exiting the JCPOA, Congress sought to tighten ballistic missile sanctions on Tehran by targeting Iran’s domestic missile supply chain.58 More recently, Congress has considered sanctions against Iranian missile and drone supply networks abroad as a backstop to lapsing UNSC penalties59— as well as legislation terminating sanctions sunsets.60 Congress could also codify into law a September 2020 executive order further imposing penalties on elements of Iran’s conventional arms programs.61 Additionally, letters and floor speeches from lawmakers on the imperative of missile and military sanctions against Iran’s defense industrial base would be helpful as well as more hearings featuring both administration voices and outside experts on how to counter Iran’s evolving conventional and asymmetric threats.
Prior to Transition Day, Congress can exercise its authority by urging the Biden administration not to impede any European effort to, at the very least, retain missile sanctions on Tehran due to Washington’s own desires for indirect nuclear diplomacy. Congress can also play a helpful role by encouraging a tougher position by the administration with respect to Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors (IAEA – BoG) meeting this September and in future sessions. By putting a spotlight on Iran’s nuclear violations and non-compliance with the AP, the United States would be able to add greater political credence to the case for European non-performance of its JCPOA obligations.
Following Transition Day, Congress can continue to play a role by encouraging the administration to help the EU and UK develop contingencies to offset any Iranian ballistic missile proliferation to Russia (and Belarus for that matter). Further, the United States and Europe should work together to make sure existing missile defenses on the continent, like the Aegis-Ashore system, which is a part of the European Phased Adaptive Approach, have the capabilities and funding they need to devalue, deter, and, if needed, defeat Iran’s long-range strike platforms. On the sanctions front, following any retention of missile sanctions by Europe, Congress can urge the administration to work with its trans-Atlantic partners to share information about other Iranian defense industry subsidiaries, affiliates, and fronts supporting Tehran’s missile program. Entities ripe for designation by the EU and UK would include those the United States has targeted since leaving the JCPOA in 2018. The goal of such a policy would be to prevent Iran from exploiting gaps in U.S., EU, and UK sanctions architecture.
Q: What is Tehran likely to do in response to the prevention of lapsing restrictions?
A: In the event of missile sanctions retention by Europe, Iran may attempt to wield an increase in ballistic missile range as a threat against the continent.62 Iranian officials have long referred to the 2,000-kilometer range cap on their ballistic missiles as merely a political rather than technical constraint. Such comments are aimed at intimidating Europe and preventing a united trans-Atlantic position against Iran.63 In January 2023, for example, three years after the Iranian ballistic missile barrage at U.S. positions in Iraq, IRGC Brigadier General Hajizadeh claimed that Iran’s 2,000-kilometer range limit on its ballistic missiles was “out of respect for Europe,” before adding that “God willing, the Europeans maintain their respect.”64
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson has indicated that the Islamic Republic will “react proportionately to any breach of commitment by the other parties” come Transition Day.65 A media affiliate of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the most important deliberative national security body in Iran, claimed that Europe’s retention of missile sanctions would lead to the “continuation of compensatory measures” in the nuclear domain.66 Tehran’s chargé d’affaires in London likened Europe’s decision to “shooting themselves in the foot” and claimed Iran could increase its uranium enrichment to higher levels of purity and potentially leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a response.67 With Iran already at 60 percent purity and having flirted with nearly 84 percent purity earlier this year — which is a stone’s throw from 90 percent, or weapons-grade — there is limited room for escalation.68 Given Iran’s existing stockpile, experts assess Tehran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb in 12 days and eight bombs worth of weapons-grade uranium in three months.69
Tehran is waiting to see the degree to which Europe decides to retain missile sanctions and if snapback or the DRM are invoked. Tehran is also trying to cast Europe as the prime mover in the crises, rather than its own mounting nuclear violations and deteriorating international context as the reason for a shift in European policy to not carry out JCPOA commitments.70
Q: Why is Tehran’s ballistic missile program a threat?
A: Iran is home to the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East.71 For more than a decade, Tehran has refined its ballistic missile capabilities to include improved range, precision, mobility, and survivability. Iran’s growing missile prowess offers the Islamic Republic a conventional strike option to punish, coerce, and deter adversaries, in addition to serving as a potential nuclear delivery vehicle.72 Iran’s missile force offers the regime an ability to become a hybrid warfighter in a changing Middle East. The more confidence Tehran feels in its missile capabilities, the lower the bar for Iran’s overt use of force with these weapons. Similarly, the more Tehran believes in the deterrent power of its growing missile force, the bolder and more unconstrained it may become in its support for terrorism, assassination, and destabilization.
Iran has proliferated ballistic missiles and/or related technology to state and non-state actors in the Middle East, such as Shiite Militia Groups (SMGs) in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. This proliferation serves to enhance Tehran’s forward deployed deterrent across various battlefields as well as to threaten U.S. positions and regional partners from multiple directions, thereby complicating the equation for existing missile and air defense assets. Progress on select Iranian missile systems and, in particular, improvements to larger solid-propellant rocket motors under the guise of a space program afford Tehran the opportunity to develop SLVs73 that can contribute to a potential Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) capability and eventually to Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) capability, which would in turn threaten Europe and America.
Q: What other major sunsets are left in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal?
A: Despite U.S. President Joe Biden admitting in December 2022 that the JCPOA is “dead,”74 the 2015 Iran nuclear deal continues to shape U.S. and international thinking on Iran policy. For example, at the G7 meeting held in Hiroshima this past May, the JCPOA was termed “a useful reference” for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear program.75 So long as this thinking, and, in effect, this overcommitment to the philosophy behind the JCPOA and its political legacy remains in effect, snapback will be highly unlikely and will expire, per Annex V of the JCPOA, in 2025.
This raises the risk that other Iran deal sunsets in the JCPOA might still be carried out or be on autopilot. Ironically, this risk is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Iran is already significantly violating its commitments under the JCPOA, rendering some of the forthcoming removals of limits on its nuclear program moot. Nonetheless, the next major restrictions that are slated to lapse after 2023 include: restrictions on advanced centrifuge deployment between 2024 and 2029, the 2025 termination of older UNSCRs (1696, 1737, 1747, 1803, 1835, and 1929) on Iran and closure of the UN procurement channel for nuclear-related goods, and the erosion of limits on Iran’s enriched uranium purity and stockpile in 2031 as well as an end to prohibitions on new Iranian heavy water reactors and enrichment facilities, among others.76

Starvation: ‘The Invisible Genocide Weapon
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/September 06/2023
The thousand-year-old genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level.
Several watchdog organizations—including the Association of Genocide Scholars, Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention—are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was annexed by and brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.
Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to claim Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Although it had been Armenian for over two thousand years, and still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “border makers” granted it to Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region. (See “15 Artsakh War Myths Perpetuated By Mainstream Media.”)
Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, though the dispute clearly did not concern it. It dispatched sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups” from Syria and Libya—including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once kept naked women chained and imprisoned—to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians.
One of these captured mercenaries later confessed that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)
All these Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (see here and here), including by raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and mockingly sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.
The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan claiming a significant portion of Artsakh.
Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor—the only route between Artsakh and the outside world. A recent report by Dutch journalist, Sonja Dahlmans, summarizes the situation since:
In the extreme southeastern part of Europe, known as the Caucasus, a silent genocide is looming. The Lachin Corridor that connects Armenia to Artsakh, the region in Azerbaijan where mainly Christian Armenians live, has been closed by the government for eight months. Supermarket shelves are empty; there is hardly any food, fuel, or medicines for the 120,000 Armenian Christians who live there, including 30,000 children and 20,000 seniors.
At the time of this writing [Aug. 24, 2023], a convoy of food and medicines has been standing in front of the border since July 25 [a month], but the International Red Cross is not allowed access to the inhabitants of Artsakh. According to journalists living in the area, most residents only get one meal a day. People in Artsakh queue for hours at night for bread, waiting for their daily rations. At the same time, sources within Artsakh report shooting at Armenians trying to harvest the land.
[I]n all probability bread will also soon be unavailable due to the shortage of fuel… Bakers can no longer heat their ovens. Last week, a 40-year-old Armenian man died of malnutrition. A pregnant woman lost her child because there was no fuel for transport to the hospital.
Separate reports tell of, in one instance, 19 humanitarian trucks “loaded with some 360 tons of medicine and food supplies” that have been parked for weeks and prevented from crossing.
This, of course, would not be the first time Turks starve Armenians to death (as the following picture of a Turkish administrator taunting emaciated Armenian children with a piece of bread in 1915 makes clear).
On August 7, 2023, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, framed the situation well:
There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.
The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.’
There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.
Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975/1976.
Similarly, after going on a fact-finding mission to Armenia, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback referred to the blockade as the latest attempt at “religious cleansing” of Christian Armenia:
Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s backing, is really slowly strangling Nagorno-Karabakh. They’re working to make it unlivable so that the region’s Armenian-Christian population is forced to leave, that’s what’s happening on the ground.
Muslim regimes regularly make life intolerable for Christian minorities in an effort to get them to abandon their properties and leave. Just a few weeks ago, the president of Iraq revoked a decade-old decree that granted Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako powers over Christian endowment affairs. “This is a political maneuver to seize the remainder of what Christians have left in Iraq and Baghdad and to expel them,” said Diya Butrus Slewa, a human rights activist from Ainkawa. “Unfortunately, this is a blatant targeting of the Christians and a threat to their rights.”
In Artsakh, the situation seems to be worse: just as no one can get in, no one can apparently get out. Azerbaijan is holding those 120,000 Armenians captive, starving and abusing them at will.
In his testimony, Brownback said that this latest genocide is being “perpetrated with U.S.-supplied weaponry and backed by Turkey, a member of NATO.” If the U.S. does not act, “we will see again another ancient Christian population forced out of its homeland.”
Not only has U.S. diplomacy been ineffective for the besieged Armenians; it has actually exacerbated matters. According to one report,
[T]he only thing the Washington-backed talks appear to have produced is the emboldenment of Azerbaijan’s aggression….
For over eight months, the region’s 120,000 Indigenous Armenians—who declared their independence in the early 1990s following escalating violence and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan—have been deprived access to food, medicine, fuel, electricity, and water in what is nothing less than genocide by attrition….
The same week peace talks began in Washington, Baku [capital of Azerbaijan] tightened its blockade by establishing a military checkpoint at the Lachin Corridor. And when Washington-based talks resumed in June, Azerbaijan began shelling the region. In the months since, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to Karabakh—and later reported that an Armenian patient in its care had been abducted by Azerbaijani forces en route to Armenia for treatment.
This is the predictable consequence of Washington’s insistence on negotiations amid Azerbaijan’s blockade of Artsakh and occupation of Armenian territory. This has signaled to Baku that its strategy of coercive diplomacy is working, disincentivizing de-escalation, and forcing Armenia to negotiate with a gun to its head…
Washington has also actively strengthened Azerbaijan’s position by indicating support for Artsakh’s integration into Azerbaijan. Given Azerbaijan’s state-sponsored dehumanization of Armenians, the litany of human rights abuses perpetrated during and since the 2020 war, and its own disastrous domestic human rights record—it is impossible to imagine Armenians could ever live freely under Azerbaijan’s rule.
For Azerbaijan, this disingenuous participation in negotiations has allowed it to uphold the veneer of cooperation while engaging in conduct that has immeasurably set back the prospects of a durable peace.
Clearly, negotiating simply bought the Azerbaijanis more time in which to starve the Armenians, and possibly another way for the United States to pretend it was “doing something” without actually doing anything — apart from allowing more savagery.
Indeed, part of the façade of diplomacy is that Azerbaijan insists that the Christian Armenians of Artsakh are being treated no differently than Muslim Azerbaijanis—since all are citizens of Azerbaijan. One report sheds light on this farce:
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other officials have declared that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are citizens of Azerbaijan, seeming to back prior statements of Azerbaijani authorities pledging to guarantee the rights and security of ethnic Armenians.
But actions speak much louder. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War three decades ago arose following waves of anti-Armenian pogroms. Azerbaijan is now one of the most repressive and autocratic countries in the world, scoring among the lowest in the world on freedom and democracy indexes—in stark contrast to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Aliyev (who inherited his post from his father) has confessed to having started the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, and proudly admitted that a generation of Azerbaijanis has been brought up to deeply despise Armenians (here and here).
He denies the Armenian Genocide (alongside Turkey) and negates the existence of Armenians as a nation, including their history, culture, and right to be present anywhere in the region.
No Armenian, not even a foreign national of ethnic Armenian descent or anyone with an Armenian sounding name, is allowed to enter Azerbaijan.
The results are clear: nearly every Armenian who fell into Azerbaijani captivity after the [Sept-Nov] 2020 war has been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, decapitated and/or murdered. None of these acts have ever been punished. To the contrary, those who kill Armenians receive medals and are glorified in Azerbaijan. It is no wonder that Armenians are petrified and cannot fathom living under Azerbaijan’s authority.
Aside from the Lachin corridor crisis, a recent 12-page report documents the systematic destruction of ancient churches, crosses, Christian cemeteries, and other cultural landmarks on land—Artsakh—that historically belonged to the world’s oldest Christian nation, Armenia.
One example is the Holy Savior Cathedral in Shushi, Artsakh. First, Azerbaijan bombed the church during the 2020 war, an act Human Rights Watch labeled a “possible war crime.” Then, after Azerbaijan seized the region, officials claimed to be “restoring” the church, when in fact its dome and cross were removed, making the building look less like a church. As one report notes,
The ‘case’ of Shushi is indicative of the well-documented history of Armenian cultural and religious destruction by Azerbaijan. From 1997 to 2006, Azerbaijan systematically obliterated almost all traces of Armenian culture in the Nakhichevan area, which included the destruction of medieval churches, thousands of carved stone crosses (“khachkars”), and historical tombstones.
Dahlmans also reports
on an Armenian church in Artsakh that disappeared after Azerbaijan’s victory in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020). During the victory, Azerbaijani soldiers pose on top of the church shouting “Allahu Akhbar” [image above]… [T]he church has been completely wiped out and only a few stone remains remain as a reminder… The Western press rarely writes about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Most reactions follow the line that it is not a religious conflict, but a claim by two countries over a disputed territory. Given the many examples that exist in which precisely religious buildings, tombs and inscriptions are systematically destroyed, it is difficult to maintain that this is the case.
One of the main reasons that Armenia finds itself standing alone against this genocidal onslaught is due to the West’s “desire to maintain favorable relations with Azerbaijan given its role as a European energy partner [and this] has outweighed any purported commitment to upholding human rights—bolstering Azerbaijan’s aggression.”
It is these same priorities that have made Russia, once the defender of all Orthodox Christian nations in the East, more apathetic than might be expected. According to another report,
Azerbaijan was able to impose this blockade because Russian peacekeepers allow them to do so. The Russians are there as part of a ceasefire agreement ending the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The same agreement, inked by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, guarantees access along that now-blocked road. Although Russia is often portrayed as Armenia’s patron, the reality is more complicated. Russia’s largest oil company owns a 19.99% share of Azerbaijan’s largest natural gas field. It is not so surprising then that Armenians in Artsakh demonstrated against Russian inaction after the killings of their police officials.
Longtime Armenian-activist, Lucine Kasbarian, author of Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People, sums up the situation:
We who are Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Coptic bitterly know just how this will end. It’s deja vu all over again. Again and again, we’ve seen the deceit and brutality, received the chilling reports, warnings, graphic videos, open letters and petitions from alarmed genocide scholars. But alas, NATO, Islamic supremacism, gas and oil are going to take precedence over life and liberty once again unless high-powered vigilantism can save the day.

China: Preparing for War
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/September 6, 2023
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is rapidly militarizing his country and has instructed its army to "prepare for war" and "fight and win" it.
"Chinese ruler Xi Jinping replaced the senior leadership of China's Rocket Force, which is responsible for almost all of China's 400 or so nuclear warheads. These personnel changes are part of what is almost certainly the most ominous development of this time. It looks like Xi is contemplating using or at least threatening to use his most destructive weapons. In other words, China is planning to go to war." — Gordon Chang, China expert, Newsweek, August 14, 2023.
"Xi sacked Rocket Force commander, Li Yuchao, and its political commissar, Xu Zhongbo. Neither has been seen in public since. Li's deputy, Liu Guangbin, has also disappeared, along with Zhang Zhenzhong, a former deputy. At about the same time, Wu Guohua, deputy commander of the Rocket Force, reportedly took his own life in early July." — Gordon Chang, Newsweek, August 14, 2023.
Xi is doubtless weighing the risk-reward ratio of launching an aggressive operation against Taiwan during US President Joe Biden's term of office. Xi is doubtless aware that his "window of opportunity" may be closing in 18 months, accompanied by a felicitously distracting US presidential election.
The timing of any Chinese assault on Taiwan will most certainly be determined by Xi's assessment of the domestic political strength of the Biden administration as well as the possible need for a strong diversion from his own imploding economy. Xi is also doubtless assessing the US president's resolve to back up his repeated declarations that US forces would come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, as opposed to the US State Department's immediate walk-back of the promise.
The Chinese Communist Party claims that the US is treating Taiwan as an independent state and these VIP visits violate its "One China Policy." The truth, most likely, is that the CCP's repeated transgressions against Taiwan's air and maritime sovereignty, after then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's August 2022 visit to Taiwan, are actually just part of the CCP's military invasion exercises on its way to an all-out assault.
The CCP's Eastern Theater Command has, in addition, established a Joint Operations Command Center, responsible for coordinating all phases of an actual invasion of Taiwan. Military moves suggestive of the CCP's hostile intent toward Taiwan, included recent deliveries of wheeled armor vehicles to China's coastal province of Guangdong, an area with several natural launch points for an invasion of Taiwan.
Xi Jinping and former Foreign Minister Qin Gang both warned the US about interfering in what China claims is an internal problem, and Xi added: "Western countries led by the United States have carried out all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to China's development." Xi has stressed that "the Taiwan question is the core of China's core interest" and has described as "wishful thinking" any expectation that China might compromise on the eventual incorporation of Taiwan into Communist China.
China has also rolled out a campaign of intimidation that shows China calling the shots. These began with the berating the US in Alaska, to which the State Department's response was "deep concerns" and continued with smuggling over the US border fentanyl and other drugs that have killed an estimated 200,000 civilians.
For a finishing touch, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the spring of 2022, tried to sell the public the idea that the US is attempting the "full-blown containment and suppression of China."
The danger, of course, is that if Xi loses faith in the possibility of a peaceful union with Taiwan, which he may hope will come about on January 13, 2024 with the election in Taiwan of a new, more complaint president, and if China's economy continues to collapse, he could decide to incorporate Taiwan with military force. He will then need to decide on the most appropriate time to launch an invasion of Taiwan. After witnessing the Biden Administration's abandonment of Afghanistan, that would most likely be while Biden is still in power.
China's leadership might be calculating that as the months get closer to the 2024 US presidential election, the Biden administration will be too focused on campaigning to response in a serious way to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. There are sure to be parallel threats to the United States, thanks to China's greater knowledge of US military sites from the spy balloon; land purchases near military bases from which the Chinese could jam, disable, or entirely prevent a US response; and a new group of possibly up to 5,000 men, many single and of military age, brought into America over its southern border. These men, even now, may be militarizing China's new US "farmland" -- as they did on China's artificial islands in the South China Sea –- to sabotage US electric grids, water supply, power plants, civilian and military airports, communication centers, highways, tunnels, bridges, ports and other strategic infrastructure.
Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping is rapidly militarizing his country and has instructed its army to "prepare for war" and "fight and win" it. He is doubtless weighing the risk-reward ratio of launching an aggressive operation against Taiwan during US President Joe Biden's term of office. (Image source: iStock)
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is rapidly militarizing his country and has instructed its army to "prepare for war" and "fight and win" it. Just a few weeks ago, China expert (full disclosure: and Gatestone Senior Fellow) Gordon Chang warned:
"Chinese ruler Xi Jinping replaced the senior leadership of China's Rocket Force, which is responsible for almost all of China's 400 or so nuclear warheads. These personnel changes are part of what is almost certainly the most ominous development of this time. It looks like Xi is contemplating using or at least threatening to use his most destructive weapons. In other words, China is planning to go to war.
"Xi sacked Rocket Force commander, Li Yuchao, and its political commissar, Xu Zhongbo. Neither has been seen in public since. Li's deputy, Liu Guangbin, has also disappeared, along with Zhang Zhenzhong, a former deputy. At about the same time, Wu Guohua, deputy commander of the Rocket Force, reportedly took his own life in early July."
Xi is doubtless weighing the risk-reward ratio of launching an aggressive operation against Taiwan during US President Joe Biden's term of office. Xi is doubtless aware that his "window of opportunity" may be closing in 18 months, accompanied by a felicitously distracting US presidential election.
The timing of any Chinese assault on Taiwan will most certainly be determined by Xi's assessment of the domestic political strength of the Biden administration as well as the possible need for a strong diversion from his own imploding economy. Xi is also doubtless assessing the US president's resolve to back up his repeated declarations that US forces would come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, as opposed to the US State Department's immediate walk-back of the promise.
Within the past year or so, the US leadership seems to have assumed that the increasingly provocative posture of China's army toward Taiwan was a mainly a consequence of visits to Taiwan by prominent US politicians, as well as the trip to Washington D.C. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. The Chinese Communist Party claims that the US is treating Taiwan as an independent state and these VIP visits violate its "One China Policy." The truth, most likely, is that the CCP's repeated transgressions against Taiwan's air and maritime sovereignty, after then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's August 2022 visit to Taiwan, are actually just part of the CCP's military invasion exercises on its way to an all-out assault. The CCP's "rehearsals" have so far demonstrated its increased capability in amphibious landing exercises, air attacks, bombing runs, and naval maneuvers in support of its ground forces.
The CCP's Eastern Theater Command has, in addition, established a Joint Operations Command Center, responsible for coordinating all phases of an actual invasion of Taiwan. Military moves suggestive of the CCP's hostile intent toward Taiwan, included recent deliveries of wheeled armor vehicles to China's coastal province of Guangdong, an area with several natural launch points for an invasion of Taiwan. Another maneuver was the April 4, 2022 exercise displaying the CCP's most modern amphibious assault ship which, in an actual invasion, would be deployed in support of its Ground Forces, specifically the 72nd Group Army.
The CCP's contempt for international law can be seen in its repeated violations of Taiwan's air and maritime sovereignty. The country's aggressive behavior was repeated on August 19-20, when several People's Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes flew so close to Taiwan that the island's military scrambled its air defense. The CCP has also violated other international agreements: the 2016 ruling of the International Tribunal at the Hague that awarded to the Philippines the waters and outcrop islets as being within their Economic Exclusive Zone; the Geneva Convention on the Laws of War, by allowing PLA troops to use medieval torture weapons against Indian troops in Himalayan Mountain clashes in 2020, and the UN's Universal Declaration on Human Rights by the mass imprisonment, rape and property destruction of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang Province.
In addition, China's Rocket Force, in April 2022, launched missiles that flew over Taiwan and landed inside Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone . Furthermore, since January of this year, Chinese aircraft and naval vessels have habitually crossed the assumed median line between China and Taiwan in the Taiwanese Strait.
Xi Jinping and former Foreign Minister Qin Gang both warned the US about interfering in what China claims is an internal problem, and Xi added:
"Western countries led by the United States have carried out all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to China's development."
Xi has stressed that "the Taiwan question is the core of China's core interest" and has described as "wishful thinking" any expectation that China might compromise on the eventual incorporation of Taiwan into Communist China.
China has also rolled out a campaign of intimidation that shows China calling the shots. These began with the berating the US in Alaska, to which the State Department's response was "deep concerns" and continued with smuggling over the US border fentanyl and other drugs that have killed an estimated 200,000 civilians; renaming Confucius Institutes instead of closing them; establishing at least six illegal police stations in the US; sending a Chinese spy balloon over America's sensitive military and nuclear military sites before the Biden Administration shot it down, after the spycraft had sent back to China in real time all the information it needed; hacking and spying, and repeatedly rejecting US proposals to establish protocols of communication in a crisis between the United States and China.
Chinese Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu also summarily refused to meet with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in May 2023. China's pattern of negativity in trying to gaslight the US and perhaps the world into thinking the US is doing what, in fact, China is doing. For a finishing touch, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the spring of 2022, tried to sell the public the idea that the US is attempting the "full-blown containment and suppression of China."
The danger, of course, is that if Xi loses faith in the possibility of a peaceful union with Taiwan, which he may hope will come about on January 13, 2024 with the election in Taiwan of a new, more complaint president, and if China's economy continues to collapse, he could decide to incorporate Taiwan with military force. He will then need to decide on the most appropriate time to launch an invasion of Taiwan. After witnessing the Biden Administration's abandonment of Afghanistan, that would most likely be while Biden is still in power.
The most extensive exercises, the "invasion rehearsal," were executed in April 2023, when apparently winds and waves are conducive to amphibious operations. Early October would offer good weather for an invasion, too.
Political perceptions of an ideal time for an invasion, however, are probably the prime factor. It is apparent that the vast majority of Taiwan's population want to maintain the status quo with increased support for independence for the next generation of Taiwanese.
China's leadership might be calculating that as the months get closer to the 2024 US presidential election, the Biden administration will be too focused on campaigning to response in a serious way to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. There are sure to be parallel threats to the United States, thanks to China's greater knowledge of US military sites from the spy balloon; land purchases near military bases from which the Chinese could jam, disable, or entirely prevent a US response; and a new group of possibly up to 5,000 men, many single and of military age, brought into America over its southern border. These men, even now, may be militarizing China's new US "farmland" -- as they did on China's artificial islands in the South China Sea –- to sabotage US electric grids, water supply, power plants, civilian and military airports, communication centers, highways, tunnels, bridges, ports and other strategic infrastructure.
*Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
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Iranian activity to expand its regional religious-cultural influence through soft power
Dr. Raz Zimmt/The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center/September 06/2023
Overview
At the beginning of September 2023, in cooperation with the Iraqi government, the Iranian authorities organized the ceremonies of the annual pilgrimage to the Shi’ite holy places (the Arbaeen). It was another expression of the Islamic Republic’s ongoing efforts to expand its regional religious and cultural influence, especially in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. On the eve of the Arbaeen ceremonies, Iranian media and commentators highlighted the importance of the ceremonies as a way for Iran to use soft power[1] to advance its status and regional influence.
In recent years, Iran has expanded its religious and cultural activities in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. It invests substantial effort in spreading Shi’ite Islam, Iranian culture, and the ideology of the Islamic Revolution. As used by Iran, soft power includes elements of both Shi’a-religious and Iranian national-cultural features, chiefly the Persian language. Iranian institutions work to restore and expand the Shi’ite shrines in Syria and Iraq, establish religious and cultural centers, open schools and branches of Iranian universities, encourage the study of Persian in educational institutions, and promote communication and propagandist activities to spread the Islamic Republic’s official positions and ideology.
In addition to religion and culture, Iran exploits the socio-economic crisis in the Arab countries to increase its civilian influence by establishing social institutions that provide health, education, and welfare services, mainly to low socio-economic strata.
Iran’s promotion of its influence through soft power is part of its efforts to establish itself in the Arab region. Part of its activity is also intended to help create a sphere of influence which can be exploited to realize its strategic goals in the Middle East, including establishing itself militarily. From Iran’s perspective, expanding its religious-cultural influence is one way to achieve strategic depth, an essential element of Iranian strategy. Its objective is to allow the Islamic Republic to broaden the front of its “struggle” against its enemies (essentially Israel and the United States) beyond its territory and create lines to defend itself far from its borders. From the Iranian perspective, expanding its regional influence depends not only on its military capabilities but also on its soft power.
Iran’s use of the Arbaeen celebrations for soft power
Over three million Iranian pilgrims arrived in Iraq at the beginning of September 2023 to participate in the Arbaeen ceremonies, which mark the end of the forty days of mourning for the death of the Shi’ite Imam Hussein. The Iranian authorities’ organizing religious ceremonies was another expression of the Iranian Republic’s continuing efforts to expand its religious and cultural influence in the Arab sphere, especially in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. During an interview, Dr. Ayoub Menati, an Iranian expert on international relations, said the Arbaeen ceremonies were an important venue for the Islamic Republic to promote its soft power. He said the traditions reflected Shi’ite solidarity and unity and served Iran as an essential diplomatic means to realize its foreign policy goals, such as strengthening ties with its neighbors, establishing Islamic unity, and improving its relations with Iraq (kurdpress.com, August 25, 2023).
According to an editorial published by the Mehr news agency on August 30, 2023, the Arbaeen ceremonies have become a source of soft power in the hands of the Shi’ites “to oppose national, Marxist, and liberal ideologies.” The spiritual power inherent in the rituals allows the Shi’ites to oppose Western hegemony and the dangers they face from the “Zionist regime” and radical Sunni Islam. The editorial emphasized the combination of the soft power inherent in the Arbaeen ceremonies and the hard power of the Shi’ites in the Middle East, which stems from the activities of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance” and the effort to establish a land corridor from Iran to Syria and Lebanon. The combination improves Shi’a’s geo-political and geo-economic position in the new world order.
Iran’s soft power activities, including the Arbaeen ceremonies, can be viewed as another, complementary layer of efforts to establish its regional military, political, economic, and cultural influence. The efforts aim to develop a sphere of influence extending from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea, which will be used to realize its strategic goals in the Middle East, including establishing itself militarily.
From the Iranian perspective, religious-cultural influence is a means of achieving strategic depth, an essential facet of Iranian strategy, especially given its limited conventional military capabilities. The concept has increased in importance during the last decade because of the upheaval in the Arab Middle East. On several occasions, Ali Khamenei, the Iranian leader, emphasized the country’s need for strategic depth as essential to Iran’s security, and defined the Muslim nations as strategic depth for Iran. At a meeting with regime officials in May 2018, Khamenei stated it was essential to realize that Iran’s presence in regional countries and the support of their populations constituted a strategic depth crucial to the Islamic Republic’s national security (Tasnim, February 27, 2019). In October 2019, he stated that the expansion of strategic depth was sometimes more necessary than achieving the country’s most critical missions and assigned responsibility for the task on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) (Ali Khamenei’s website, October 2, 2019). Strategic depth allows Iran to extend the front of the “struggle” against its enemies beyond its territory and create security defense lines far from its borders to reduce its strategic isolation through both the expansion of the “axis of resistance” (the alliance of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, the Palestinian terrorist organizations, the Shi’ite militias in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen) and through establishing religious, cultural and economic influence in the Arab countries.
Soft power in Iran’s regional policies
For the Islamic Republic, soft power is important for its efforts to establish its strength and status, including in the Arab sphere. Since the end of the first decade of this century, Iran has become increasingly interested in the concept of soft power. Government officials, senior security officials, academic researchers, and journalists have been conducting a lively discussion about the idea as part of the comprehensive deliberations about the United States-led conflict between Iran and the Western countries and Iran’s ability to advance its international status and regional influence through non-military means.
In October 2022, meeting with students in officers’ colleges, Khamenei said wars had become hybrids, combining a conventional military campaign with a soft campaign using intellectual, cultural, and cognitive tools. He emphasized the need to combine all the means and methods (Supreme Leader’s website, October 3, 2022). Hassan Rouhani, the former president of Iran, also emphasized the importance of Iran’s soft power. Meeting with commanders of the IRGC in September 2013, Rouhani said the Islamic Republic derived its strength from its regional “psychological dominance” and not from its conventional weapons (Iranian president’s website, September 13, 2013). Iranian political commentators have also indicated the growing importance of soft power as a means to expand Iran’s influence. On August 6, 2007, the conservative daily Resalat published an editorial titled “Soft Power.” It emphasized the need to strengthen Iran’s regional influence through soft power and argued that the expansion of Iran’s regional influence depended not only on its military capabilities but also on its soft power, which could not be restrained by military force.
The components of Iran’s soft power
Iranian identity is characterized by a continuous tension between its two components, the Persian-linguistic-ethnic and the Shi’ite-Islamic. The complexity of Iranian identity is also clearly visible in soft power, which Iran uses as part of its efforts to expand its regional influence. It includes both religious-Islamic and Iranian national-cultural elements. Since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic Republic has adopted an official policy designed to bridge the gap between Shi’a and Sunna and to preach Muslim unity and the rapprochement of the two Islamic schools. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Iranian authorities established organizations that encouraged the idea of the unity of Islamic schools, led by the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought (Majma’ al-Taqrib Bayna al-Madhahib), which operated from the 1940s to the 1960s under Egyptian leadership and was re-established in 1990 in the office of the leader of Iran. The Forum, which operates alongside the Ahl al-Bayt association, holds religious activities, such as convening conferences to encourage dialogue between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims and organizing programs for Sunni Muslims to study Islam at the Shi’ite religious colleges in Qom.
In recent years, Forum heads have visited Syria and Iraq in an effort to promote dialogue between Sunnis and Shi’ites. In July 2016, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, the Forum’s secretary general, visited Syria and Lebanon, where he met with senior Syrian and Lebanese officials and visited Islamic religious centers. Meeting with Imad Muhammad Deeb Khamis, the Syrian prime minister at the time, Araki said he had presented the Syrian minister of endowments with a proposal to expand Islamic unity in Syria by establishing frameworks for dialogue between Shi’ite and Sunni clerics to bring the various schools of Islam closer together. They also agreed to expand cooperation between the Forum and the Syrian Ministry of endowments (snn.ir, July 27, 2016). In April 2021, Hojjat-ul-Islam Hamid Shahriari, the Forum secretary general, visited Iraq, where he met with clerics, politicians, and local officials and called for a dialogue between Sunni and Shi’ite clerics to promote Muslim unity (IRNA, April 9, 2021).
Despite efforts to promote Shi’ite-Sunni unity, the Islamic Republic has not changed its Shi’ite identity. It is an article of the Iranian constitution, which states that Twelver Shi’a is the state religion and a criterion for candidates to serve as the leader or president of Iran and discriminates against the country’s Sunni minority. Although Iran does not limit its efforts to Shi’ite Muslims or condition the aid it extends to Muslim movements and organizations in the world on their willingness to embrace Shi’ite Islam, it prioritizes establishing its position and influence among Shi’ites.
In recent years, Iran has expanded its religious and cultural activities in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, investing considerable effort to spread Shi’a. Iran develops, and builds mosques in Najaf and Karbala, cities holy to Shi’a and important destinations for pilgrims from around the globe. For example, hundreds of millions of dollars were invested to develop and expand the tomb of Imam Hossein in Karbala. The project is led by Hassan Palarak, who heads the Headquarters of Renovating the Holy Shrines, established under the direction of the leader of Iran and managed by IRGC operatives to renovate the Shi’ite shrines in Iraq and Syria.
In Syria, Iran is also involved in restoring the Shi’ite shrines damaged in the civil war, especially the shrine of al-Sayyidah Zaynab, Muhammad’s granddaughter, a precinct south of Damascus. In recent years, Iran has purchased many nearby houses. Strengthening the shrines, encouraging religious tourism, and turning them into centers for Shi’a studies are intended to enhance Syria’s Shi’ite identity. In November 2018, Palarak visited Syria to supervise the reconstruction project Iran is carrying out near the shrine precinct. A statement issued by the information department of the Headquarters of Renovating the Holy Shrines said that once the restoration of the shrine compound had been completed, a three-story pilgrim guest house would be constructed on an area of 1,500 square meters (.37 acres) (ISNA, November 10, 2018).
Iranian efforts to spread Shi’a include establishing religious and cultural centers in eastern Syria for its promotion. In June 2019, a delegation of Iranian preachers and Qur’an reciters was sent to Syria and participated in religious ceremonies in several cities. During the visit, an Iranian news agency reported that Iran intended to expand religious activity in Syria and establish centers for Qur’an studies (iqna.ir, June 9, 2019). In recent years, Syrian opposition sources have reported the conversion of some Sunni mosques into Shi’ite religious centers. In May 2021, a Syrian news channel reported the transformation of a Sunni mosque into a Shi’ite religious center in the town of al-Ghabra near the Albukamal area on the Syria-Iraq border (Hussainiya). According to the report, Shi’ite flags and banners were placed over the mosque, the Sunni residents, who live in an area populated entirely by Sunnis, were forbidden to approach it, and it was placed under the supervision of pro-Iranian militia operatives (DeirEzzorNow Twitter account, May 3, 2021).
One of the methods used by the Iranians to establish their position in Syria is an attempt to increase the number of Shi’ite residents by settling them in places that were destroyed during the war or whose inhabitants fled. Since the Iranians understand that the demographics in Syria are far from guaranteeing a Shi’ite hegemony, they focus on strategically important areas such as large cities and the borders with Iraq and Lebanon. Therefore, during the Syrian Civil War, the Iranians and their proxies exchanged Shi’ite and Sunni populations, for example, in the town of al-Qusayr, a Sunni enclave in an Alawite-Shi’ite area located at a crossroads leading from the Lebanese border to the city of Homs. On several occasions, the Syrian opposition has accused Iran of trying to change the demographic composition in the areas near Damascus. For example, opposition sources claimed Iran demanded that as part of resolving the crisis in Syria, the Sunni residents living in Zabadani in southwest Syria be moved to areas under the control of the rebels in northern Syria, while the Shi’ite residents living in the Shi’ite villages of Fua and Kafriya be moved to areas under the control of the Syrian regime (al-Jazeera, August 15, 2015). In December 2021, Syrian sources reported that with Iranian encouragement and the assistance of the IRGC and pro-Iranian militias, approximately sixty Iraqi Shi’ite families took over residences in the city of Palmyra as part of Iranian efforts to change the city’s demography. According to the report, the families moved from the town of Albukamal to buildings in Palmyra which had been taken over by pro-Iranian militias (Ayn al-Furat, December 16, 2021).
In eastern Syria, Iran is working to expand its religious-cultural influence through cultural centers that work to mobilize support and spread Shi’a among the local population. The main cultural center was established in Deir ez-Zor in 2018 and operates through local branches in other areas in eastern Syria. In addition to cultural and recreational activities, the center provides free medical and educational services, enrichment classes for students, and courses in English and computers (BBC in Persian, June 17, 2023). The center also has propaganda activities to promote the ideology of the Islamic revolution. In September 2021, an opposition Syrian news website reported that according to local sources in the town of Hatla, north of Deir ez-Zor, the Iranian cultural center had distributed sums of money worth about 5,000 Syrian pounds (about 38¢) to each child who participated in the Arbaeen ceremonies organized by the local center and associations affiliated with Iran (Sada al-Sharqia, September 28, 2021).
In early June 2023, the Iranian-Syrian Friendship Association held a ceremony in eastern Syria to mark the 34th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Revolution. It was held in coordination with the Syrian Ministry of Culture and the Iranian Cultural Center in Deir ez-Zor and attended by Iranian representatives, led by Haj Rasool (in charge of the cultural centers in eastern Syria), Syrian regime representatives and local tribal leaders. During the ceremony, a documentary on Khomeini’s life was screened, and an exhibition glorifying his achievements was presented (naharmedia.net, June 4, 2023).
Iran also invests in education in Syria and Iraq, and during the past decade opened dozens of private Shi’ite schools in several Syrian cities and branches of Iranian universities that also offer religious courses. At the beginning of 2018, Ali-Akbar Velayati, Ali Khamenei’s advisor on international affairs, who heads the network of private Azad private universities , met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who agreed on the establishment of branches of the university in several Syrian cities (Farhikhtegan, January 17, 2018). A similar agreement was signed in February 2019 between Azad University and the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The agreement was intended to expand scientific, research, and academic cooperation between the two countries, including conducting joint studies and conferences (Tasnim, February 13, 2019).
Moreover, Iran works to expand its influence through the State Broadcasting Authority. In recent decades, Iran has made a substantial financial investment in constructing an extensive system of foreign language television, radio, and Internet broadcasts as part of the soft campaign beyond its borders. The Iranian Broadcasting Authority’s international service operates in various languages to promote Iranian-Islamic culture and spread the Islamic Republic’s official positions and ideology in the world media. In 2003, Iran inaugurated the Arabic TV channel al-Alam, and in 2006, the second service in Arabic, al-Kawthar, was launched; it focuses more on religious matters. In May 2021, Peyman Jabali, head of the Broadcasting Authority, visited Lebanon and met with Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah secretary general, and Ziyad al-Nakhalah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad secretary general. Jabali stated that the “axis of resistance” achievements had changed the regional political map, and the media should invest more significant efforts explain the victories. He emphasized the need to expand cooperation between the Iranian Broadcasting Authority and the “resistance front” media (al-Aalam, May 30, 2023).
The head of the Iranian Broadcasting Authority with the secretary general of Hezbollah
Alongside the religious-Islamic-Shi’ite component of Iran’s efforts to promote its influence through soft power, Iranian institutions also work to expand Iranian culture and knowledge of the Persian language. Iran has worked to promote Persian study programs in several regional countries in the previous decade. In an interview with the Iranian news agency, Dalal Abbas, who lectures in Persian language and literature in Lebanon, said Persian language courses were offered in non-governmental Lebanese universities. She said Iran supported the study of Persian in Lebanon, where it is studied in fifteen schools by more than 2,000 Lebanese students (IBNA, June 3, 2019). Courses in Persian are also given in several Syrian universities. Interviewed by the Iranian news agency Tasnim, Noor al-Hada Mahfouz, head of the Persian department at Damascus University, said Syrian students showed great interest in learning Persian (April 19, 2021). During a visit of Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei, Iranian minister of education, to Damascus in January 2020, he emphasized the importance of teaching Persian in the Syrian education system and asked his Syrian counterpart to allow choosing Persian as a foreign language in Syrian schools, along with, English, Russian and French (IRNA, January 23, 2020).
Iran also encourages the study of Persian in Iraq. In November 2020, Mohammad Reza Talari, the head of the scientific department at the Iranian Cultural Embassy in Baghdad, reported an increase in the number of people learning Persian in Iraq. He said the cultural association gave dozens of Persian courses at various levels at the Iranian cultural center in Baghdad (Tasnim, November 23, 2020). Iran also uses Persian New Year (Nowruz) ceremonies to promote its cultural influence in the Arab world, especially among the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, who are culturally closer to the Iranians (IRNA, March 23, 2023).
Iranian social-civilian activity
Iran and its proxies also exploit the socio-economic crisis in the Arab countries to increase Iranian influence at the civilian level, focusing on the lower socio-economic strata in the depressed, peripheral areas, for example, districts in eastern Syria, led by Deir ez-Zor, and in the south, especially in Daraa, Suwayda and Quneitra. One of the institutions is the Iranian Jihad al-Bina Association, which maintains an extensive system of social institutions dealing with health, education, finance, welfare, and communications. Its activities in Syria and Lebanon are carried out both directly and through the organization’s branch in Lebanon.[2] The Association undertook the rehabilitation of schools which were destroyed in the civil war in Syria (damascusv.com, July 27, 2022).
In recent years, Iran has announced its intention to build several thousand housing units in Syria. In November 2019, a contract was signed by the Iranian and Syrian housing ministers for the construction of 30,000 housing units by Iranian companies in Syria. However, similar to many other agreements between the two countries, nothing came of it (Mehr, November 26, 2019). Iran sent extensive humanitarian aid to Syria during the Syrian Civil War, mainly through the Red Crescent. Iran also provided Syria with assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and after the earthquake that struck Syria in February 2023. Following the quake, Iran sent over ten cargo planes to Syria, bringing medical equipment, medicine, and food for the victims. Iran apparently also exploited the flights to transfer weapons, various systems and equipment to upgrade Syria’s aerial defense capabilities (Reuters, April 12, 2023).
In Lebanon, Iran supports social-civilian activity, especially that led by Hezbollah. It is part of Iran’s overall aid to Hezbollah, estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars a year. After the Second Lebanon War, Iran invested heavily in south Lebanon and offered various social services, such as establishing schools and medical centers and providing social services. Iran is the leading financier of Hezbollah’s Foundation for the Wounded, which treats thousands of Hezbollah operatives who have been injured in the organization’s various arenas of military belligerence since 1982. It treats their injuries and deals with their rehabilitation and reintegration into Lebanese society. It also engages in extensive informational activities to increase support for Hezbollah, especially among the younger generation. Iranian involvement in Hezbollah activities was evident in the visit of a Foundation delegation to Iran in February 2018, when its members met with Esmail Qaani, then deputy commander of the Qods Force, who presented the Foundation with a certificate of appreciation.[3]
Another Iranian-supported Hezbollah social institution is the Martyr’s Foundation, part of whose budget is transferred to Hezbollah from Iran. The Foundation was established in 1982 during the First Lebanon War as a branch of the Iranian Martyr’s Fund, an Iranian institution established by Khomeini to help the families of the martyrs in the Iran-Iraq war. The purpose of the Lebanese Martyr’s Foundation is to care for the families of Hezbollah operatives who were killed during their activities in the organization and provide them with various social services. The institution provides social and economic support for the families of Hezbollah martyrs, including social assistance, education, financing the costs of medical treatment, and owning and operating an extensive network of hospitals and medical institutes in Lebanon.[4] In June 2015, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Amir-Hossein Ziaei, inaugurated a new medical center in Baalbek in the Lebanon Valley. The three-story center covers an area of 1,200 square meters and includes hospital rooms, an operating room, a recovery room, a blood bank, a pharmacy, and a physical therapy room (IRNA, June 5, 2015).
The delegation of wounded Hezbollah operatives meets with Iran's leader Khamenei (Iranian leader's website, July 13, 2018).
The delegation of wounded Hezbollah operatives meets with Iran’s leader Khamenei (Iranian leader’s website, July 13, 2018).
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[1] The breakup of the Soviet Union and the transition to a unipolar world order increased the popularity of the concept of soft power in the study of international relations. The concept was coined by Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor. Soft power relates to countries' ability to use non-forceful means, such as culture, ideology, education, government institutions and an attractive economy to create global influence and cooperation. It contrasts with the traditional use of military or economic power to enforce a country's will on world politics. According to Nye, since the end of the 20th century, the use of soft power has increased, primarily by the United States, to exercise influence over others, due to the high cost of using military force. Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York, 2004). ↑
[2] For further information see the ITIC June 26, 2019 report, "Jihad al-Bina Association in Lebanon: A Hezbollah social foundation engaged in construction and social projects among the Shiite community, being a major component in Hezbollah’s civilian infrastructure." ↑
[3] For further information see the ITIC June 5, 2019 report, "Hezbollah’s Foundation for the Wounded:" purpose, modus operandi and funding methods." ↑
[4] For further information see the ITIC April 11, 2019 report, "Hezbollah’s Martyrs Foundation: purpose, mode of operation and funding methods." ↑

The Iranian Regime's Strategy Of Taking Western Hostages To Use As Bargaining Chips With The U.S. And Europe For Political And Financial Gain
A. Savyon/MEMRI/September 06/2023
Iran | Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 1717
Introduction
On September 4, 2023, The New York Times revealed that a European Union official, Swedish citizen Johan Floderus, has been detained in Iran since his arrest in the country in April 2022 while on vacation. According to Tehran, he was engaged in espionage. He is being held in Tehran's Evin Prison.[1]
It should be noted that in July 2022, Sweden sentenced an Iranian "diplomat," Hamid Nouri aka Hamid Abassi, to life in prison for crimes against humanity. Nouri, a former Iranian judiciary official, was involved in mass executions, in the summer of 1988 and on regime orders, of political prisoners opposed to the regime. Iran has demanded, and is still demanding, his release, claiming that he was arrested for political reasons and that the accusations against him are fabricated. It is also notable that Iran is applying considerable pressure to European countries to free its citizens sentenced to prison for terrorism offenses. Recently, in May 2023, it was reported that an Iranian "diplomat," Asadollah Assadi, was freed from a Belgian prison where he was serving a 20-year sentence, in exchange for Iran's release of a Belgian aid worker arrested for "spying" (see below).
Since it came to power in 1979, Iran's Islamic regime has regularly used the taking of Western hostages for political and financial gains from the West, to the point where it can be seen as a policy.
In August 2023, it was reported that Qatar and Oman had mediated between the Biden administration and the Iranian regime to arrive at understandings for a prisoner exchange deal and the transfer of funds from the U.S. to Iran. Under the deal, five American prisoners held in Iran would be exchanged for five Iranian prisoners held in the U.S. and the release of billions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen due to the U.S. sanctions.
Iran has so far released five prisoners with dual Iranian-American citizenship who were "accused of spying," among them American businessman Siamak Namazi, detained since 2015 and serving a 10-year sentence for maintaining contacts with foreign governments; American tourist Emad Sharqi, detained since 2018 and serving a 10-year sentence in Evin Prison for espionage; British-American environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, detained since 2018 and serving 10 years for espionage, and another man and woman whose names have not been revealed.
Iran has said that the five will leave Iran within two months, and after receipt of the promised funds – $6 billion from South Korea and $4 billion from Iraq. According to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, negotiations on the release of billions of dollars more, in Japan, are underway.[2]
This report will review Iran's policy of arresting citizens of the U.S. and other Western countries, most of them with dual Western-Iranian citizenship, when they are in Iran, and demanding in exchange for their release millions or billions of dollars and the release of Iranian prisoners held in the West.
Senior Iranian Security Official: "We Released A Few Iranian Prisoners In Exchange For Some Prisoners Whose Sentences Were About To End – And, On The Other Hand, We Succeeded In Releasing Billions Of Dollars Of Our Blocked Resources Without Committing To Anything Else"
In an August 12, 2023 interview, a senior Iranian security source spoke anonymously with the Fars news agency about how Iran had achieved the current prisoner exchange with the U.S. Iranian prisoners, he said, were released in exchange for American prisoners and several billion dollars of Iran's resources that were blocked because of the American sanctions. He noted that "this sum of money that was released to Iran this time is four or five times greater than [the amount released] the last time" – that is, in 2016, when President Obama transferred $1.7 billion in cash to Iran.
In the interview, he discussed how the prisoner exchange idea had been raised with the Obama administration during the nuclear negotiations for the JCPOA: "The idea that was raised with the Americans, that in addition to the prisoner [release] there must also be action to remove the illegal seizure of Iran's monetary resources during the [prisoner] exchange, was then a new idea raised by one of the young security experts. At first, no one thought it was possible, but it was gradually accepted by [the top] hierarchy and ushered along by [Iran's] Supreme National Security Council, but the government at that time [of Iranian President Hassan Rohani] was not involved at all, and feared that this [Iranian demand] would sideline the JCPOA.
"During the previous period, this idea was new, and put forth for the first time, and the Democrats quietly accepted and implemented it. But taking into account that the last time, after implementing the [JCPOA negotiations] project [with the U.S.], they greatly pressured Obama, this time [under the Biden administration] it was harder for the Americans to accept this idea, and they knew that in light of their political rivals and public opinion in the U.S., they must respond by explaining such a compromise made to the Iranian side."
He also discussed the Rohani government's January 2016 release of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian: "Among the prisoners released at that time, the exchange of Rezaian motivated the American side more than [the other prisoners]. When his arrest became known to the Americans, they immediately sent a message to the [Iranian] government at the time stating that Jason must be freed or the negotiations and the agreement would be disrupted.
"So [President] Rohani called a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council, during the Friday sabbath – that is, less than 72 hours afterwards. Unrelated to the content of the case and to Jason's criminal [actions] and espionage, he [Rohani] said that Jason must be released, or else the government's most important issue, that is, the JCPOA, would be disrupted. The security institutions and the judiciary did not accept this, and they said that the [Rezaian] case must be investigated."
Another point, said the official, "was that the sentences of the current prisoners were almost up and essentially they had served their sentence in Iran. [Thus,] these exchanges were maximal utilization of this issue."
The security source continued: "Among the current prisoners, Baquer and [his son] Siamak Namazi and Morad Tahbaz are more important to the Americans. Siamak's father [Baquer] who was transferred [out of Iran] a few months ago [in October 2022, for medical care], had in effect already served his sentence, was very old [85], and in fact was it was not recommended that he remain in prison, and the judicial and security authorities made a good plan to release him.[3]
"[His son] Siamak Namazi, who has also been in prison for about 10 years, had been under the watchful eye of the [Iranian-American] lobby [in Washington] NIAC, and Baquer Namazi himself, who was very influential among the Democrats, and Morad Tahbaz, one of the main activists in the environmentalists' Influence Project [the name given by the Iranians for this espionage against it] has both American and British citizenship...
"A strong point of the [prisoner] exchange the last time was the Iranian side's receipt of cash at the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran simultaneously with the exchange of the prisoners. This might not have been possible this time due to the very large amount of resources [i.e. billions of dollars] released, and also due to the political conditions inside America and the Americans' past experience.
"This exchange operation is in fact one of the most successful and effective negotiation [efforts] ever to happen to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In essence, we released a few Iranian prisoners in exchange for some prisoners whose sentences were about to end, and, on the other hand, we succeeded in releasing billions of dollars of our blocked resources without committing to anything else."[4]
Iranian Regime Policy: Arresting Westerners And Releasing Them In Exchange For Financial And Political Gain
Iran's policy of taking Western hostages for political and financial gains from the West came into play as soon as its Islamic regime took power in 1979, with the kidnapping of the American diplomats. They were released 444 days later in exchange for $8 billion and an American commitment not to interfere with Iran's internal affairs.
This success was the basis for the practice's continued use by Iran, and Iranian officials have in recent years recommended several times that Americans or Britons be taken hostage and released in exchange for billions of dollars to boost the Iranian economy or for political gains from the Western countries.
On July 31, 2019, Expediency Council secretary Mohsen Rezaee said on Iran's Channel 2 that Britain must pay for the release of its citizens detained in Iran, such as British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Rezaee said the UK foreign secretary had begged Iran to release the British citizens but that Tehran had explained to him its rationale for not doing so because Iranian interests were being "trampled."
In June 2021, Iranian journalist in exile in the U.S. Masih Alinejad tweeted a video showing Rezaee, at the time a presidential candidate, calling on Iranian TV for solving Iran's economic problems by taking 1,000 American hostages and demanding billions of dollars for their release.[5]
Masih Alinejad's tweet, June 10, 2021
In October 2021, Rezaee, now vice president for economic affairs and secretary of the Expediency Council, warned that if the U.S. attacked Iran, Iran would take 1,000 Americans hostage and demand $1 billion in ransom for each.[6]
Hassan Abbasi, head of the IRGC's Center for National Security Doctrine, who is known as the IRGC theoretician, said in a speech he gave in the city of Nowshahr that the IRGC should "create income" by kidnapping Americans and demanding ransom for their return. In the speech, a video of which was posted on Aparat.com on January 17, 2020, he cited the $1.7 billion that Iran had received, he claimed, from Qatar because the aircraft that had killed IRGC Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani had taken off from Qatar. He added that Iran's economic problems could be solved by kidnapping an American every week, and thus raising $50 billion a year.
Since the kidnapping of the American hostages in the early days of the Islamic Revolution, there have been dozens of such arrests in Iran of dual Iranian-Western citizens. Western military servicemen and Western tourists have even been kidnapped outside Iran and held inside the country, as the regime negotiates for their release in exchange for large sums of money. To justify its actions, the regime accuses these hapless Westerners of spying and other security offenses against Iran.
The following are notable Iranian kidnappings of Westerners in recent years:
Bob Levinson – an FBI agent, kidnapped in Iran in 2007 – his fate is unknown.
Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal – In 2009, the three were kidnapped by the IRGC as they hiked in the Iraqi Kurdistan mountains near the Iranian border. Sentenced to eight years in prison for spying, Ms. Shourd was released after a year and a half, and the other two after two years, in exchange for $1.5 million in a deal brokered by Oman. President Obama welcomed this deal, saying of Ms. Shourd's return, "I am very pleased that Sarah Shourd has been released by the Iranian government, and will soon be united with her family."[7]
Jason Rezaian – A Washington Post journalist, Rezaian was arrested in Iran in 2014 on espionage charges. He was released in 2016, a few months after the conclusion of the JCPOA nuclear deal and before the International Atomic Energy Agency report of Iran's nuclear violations. Four other American citizens were released with him: pastor Saeed Abedini, a former Muslim who became an Evangelical Christian preacher; former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati; businessman Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, and Matthew Trevithick, who had come to Iran to study Farsi. Iran received in exchange $1.7 billion in cash.
Ahmad Reza Djalali – a Swedish-Iranian doctor and researcher, who had come to Tehran for a conference and was arrested in 2016 on charges that he was a Mossad agent. He was sentenced to death for espionage and treason, and was tortured throughout his detention in Evin Prison and held in solitary confinement.
Additionally, a 2017 Reuters investigation named some 30 dual Iranian-Western citizens arrested in Iran by the IRGC in the preceding two years. They included the aforementioned British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who had come to visit her family in 2016 and was detained in Evin Prison on charges of spying against Iran. She was released in a 2022 deal together with another Briton, Anoosheh Ashoori, who in 2019 was sentenced to 10 years for spying for the Mossad, and another two prisoners held for "accumulating illegal capital." They were freed in exchange for $530 million, which the Iranian regime claimed was owed to it by Britain.
Another foreign citizen, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian-British academic in Islamic studies who was at the time married to an Israeli, was arrested by Iranian intelligence in September 2018 for spying and collecting information under the cover of academic research and Islamic studies. She was sentenced to 10 years, partly in solitary confinement, and released as part of a deal in 2020 that also included Iranian terrorists held in Thailand who had attempted to assassinate Israeli diplomats in 2012.
France also announced in January 2023 that seven of its citizens were being held in Iran on espionage charges.[8]
Furthermore, Iran customarily kidnaps foreign citizens on its soil, imprisons them on charges of spying, and exchanges them for its own citizens imprisoned in other countries. For example, on May 26, 2023, Iran freed Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele. Vandecasteele had previously lived in Iran for six years, beginning in 2015, and was arrested when he returned to the country, and sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes for spying. He was freed in exchange for Belgium's release of Iranian intelligence officer Asadollah Assadi, described by Iran as a "diplomat."
Assadi was serving a 20-year sentence in Belgium for a 2018 bomb plot against an expatriate Iranian opposition group's rally near Paris with an expected attendance of 25,000 people. The attendees were to include senior officials from other countries, such as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt (see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10639, Oman Serves Iran By Brokering Exchange Deal To Free Iranian Agent Convicted And Imprisoned In Europe For Terrorism, May 31, 2023)
A week after Vandecasteele's release, in early June 2023, "Phase Two" of the prisoner exchange deal was carried out, with a Dane and two Austrians arriving in Belgium via Oman, which had brokered the negotiations. According to Belgian authorities, 22 European Union citizens are still imprisoned in Iran on fabricated charges.
* A. Savyon is Director of the MEMRI Iran Media Project.
[1] Nytimes.com/2023/09/04/world/europe/iran-sweden-prisoners-johan-floderus.html, September 4, 2023.
[2] At an August 14, 2023 briefing, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani rejected the reports by Al-Jazeera that $23 billion of Iranian assets had been released based on the Iran-U.S. understandings, of which $5 billion was linked to Iranian assets in Japan. He noted, in connection with Foreign Minister Abdollahian's recent Tokyo visit: "A limited part of our financial resources remains in Japanese banks. The talks to free the resources that remain are ongoing. Iran and Japan spoke in this context during Abdollahian's visit to Japan." ISNA.ir, August 14, 2023. Abdollahian said on August 30, 2023 that Iran has no blocked money remaining in any country, which suggests that the $5 million in Japan might also have been released. IRNA, August 28, 2023.
[3] It should be noted that Namazi's father, Iranian-American Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF senior official and a former provincial governor in Iran under the Shah, was arrested in 2016 when he went to Iran from the U.S. seeking the release of his son; he was freed in October 2022 due to poor health. Nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/american-citizen-baquer-namazi,
[4] Farsnews.ir/news, August 12, 2023.
[5] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 9585, Iranian Opposition Telegram Channel: Iranian Vice President Mohsen Rezaee Warns That Iran Will Take Action Against 'The 10,000 Jews Living In Iran' If Israel 'Makes A Mistake', October 12, 2021.
[6] T.me/ ircountdown/2380, October 11, 2021; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 9585, Iranian Opposition Telegram Channel: Iranian Vice President Mohsen Rezaee Warns That Iran Will Take Action Against 'The 10,000 Jews Living In Iran' If Israel 'Makes A Mistake', October 12, 2021.
[7] Pressdemocrat.com/article/news/american-woman-freed-by-iran-is-grateful-humbled, September 14, 2010.
[8] France24.com/en/tv-shows/middle-east-matters/20230125-france-demands-immediate-release-of-seven-french-citizens-held-in-iran, January 25, 2023.