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Iran: Saudi airstrike on Yemenis, near downed jet, war crime

Press TV – February 16, 2020

Iran has denounced the international community’s silence on Saudi airstrikes, the latest of which killed at least 31 civilians in Yemen’s al-Jawf province Friday, calling it a war crime.

“The international community’s silence on these war crimes has emboldened their perpetrators to kill more civilians,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in Tehran on Sunday.

The United Nations office in Yemen said preliminary field reports indicated that “as many as 31 civilians were killed and 12 others injured in strikes that hit al-Hayjah area” in al-Jawf province.

The health ministry in al-Jawf province said women and children were among those killed, Yemen’s al-Masirah TV reported. They were attacked as they gathered near the wreckage of a Saudi warplane shot down on Friday evening.

Mousavi strongly condemned “the criminal attack by the Saudi-led coalition forces and offered commiserations to the bereaved families and the oppressed Yemeni people,” IRNA news agency reported.

“Over the past several years, we have repeatedly witnessed that whenever Saudi-led coalition forces or their allies suffer humiliating defeats in the battlefield, they react by cowardly slaughtering women, children and civilians with American weapons,” Mousavi said.

“Yesterday’s crime in Jawf province is just one example among dozens of their war crimes,” he added.

Saudi Arabia’s state-run news agency quoted military spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki Saturday as saying that the tornado warplane belonging to the kingdom’s air force had been shot down over the province of Jawf on Friday.

Yemeni forces said they shot down the warplane with an advanced surface-to-air missile.

Saudi warplanes later targeted people who had gathered near the wreckage of the jet. Officials said aid workers could not reach the site of the attack due to continuous flights by Saudi warplanes over the area.

“As usual, when the most brutal US-Saudi aggression receives painful strikes in the military confrontation fields, it replies with great folly by targeting civilians,” spokesman for Yemeni armed forces Yahya Sare’e said on Saturday.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Lise Grande also denounced the “terrible strikes” in al-Jawf province.

“So many people are being killed in Yemen – it’s a tragedy and it’s unjustified. Under international humanitarian law parties which resort to force are obligated to protect civilians,” she said.

“Five years into this conflict and belligerents are still failing to uphold this responsibility. It’s shocking,” she added.

International aid group Save the Children also condemned the Saudi airstrikes, saying they showed the Yemen conflict was “not slowing down.”

“This latest attack must be urgently and independently investigated, and perpetrators held to account,” said Xavier Joubert, the group’s country director in Yemen.

“Those who continue to sell arms to the warring parties must realize that by supplying weapons for this war, they contribute to making atrocities like today’s all too common.”

Saudi Arabia and a coalition of its vassal states launched the war on Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall a Riyadh-backed former regime and crush a popular Houthi movement opposed to the kingdom’s meddling in their country.

The Saudi military aggression, coupled with a naval blockade, has killed up to 100,000 people and injured many more. It has plunged Yemen into what the UN says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The UN says an estimated 24 million Yemeni people – close to 80 percent of the population – need assistance and protection.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday stressed that the humanitarian catastrophe and violation of human rights and international laws in Yemen must end.

February 16, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel sets up new Iran command for action against Iran: Report

Press TV – February 14, 2020

The Israeli military has set up a new “Iran command” amid Tel Aviv’s anti-Tehran confrontational rhetoric, according to Israeli media.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the multiyear “momentum plan” was presented by Israeli chief of staff lieutenant general Aviv Kochavi to all military commanders on Thursday.

The plan, despite awaiting an official approval by the Israeli cabinet, has been endorsed by military affairs minister Naftali Bennett and presented to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The new “Iran command” will be led by a major general and will seek to “bolster” the “attack capabilities” and “intelligence gathering on the Islamic Republic”, including by means of cyber and satellite operations.

The plan will also set up a new “rapid-maneuvering” infantry division to “penetrate enemy territory”.

Among other provisions in the plan, Israel will seek to double the number of its precision weapons and further increase the number of its missile interceptor systems across the occupied territories.

According to the report, the creation of an “Iran command” comes as the Israeli military is worried that its opponents are gradually growing stronger, with the “gap” between them “closing quickly”.

Tel Aviv has adopted an open policy of provocative military action against Iran and certain regional states allied with Tehran.

Following the defeat of foreign-backed terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, Israel has stepped up its military aggression against the two countries in fear of an emerging Iran-led alliance against terrorism and foreign occupation forces.

On Saturday, Bennett said that Tel Aviv and Washington had divided up the fight “against Iran” in Syria and Iraq respectively.

In October, Kochavi said that despite knowing that its enemies are not interested in war, the Israeli military has “increased its pace of preparations” for confrontation.

‘Searching for an excuse to level Tel Aviv’

Iran’s support, provided chiefly under the command of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, had had a major role in empowering Syria and Iraq to fight against foreign-backed terrorists and foreign occupation in their countries.

Anti-terror commander, Lt. Gen. Soleimani was assassinated by US forces in early January while on an official visit to Iraq at Baghdad International Airport.

According to recent remarks by Major General Mohsen Rezaei, a top IRGC general and the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, Israel had a direct role in the assassination by informing Washington of Soleimani’s flight to Baghdad International Airport.

“We were searching for the Americans to give us an excuse to hit Tel Aviv just as we hit Ain al-Assad,” Rezaei said. “We would have leveled Tel Aviv no doubt,” he added.

Speaking on Thursday, Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Major General Hossein Salami responded to Bennett’s remarks about dividing roles with the US against Iran.

“We tell them that you are making a mistake, as always,” he said, adding that “if you make the slightest error, we will hit both of you”.

“We have told them repeatedly; do not rely on the United States, they may not able to help you,” he said. “If you want a reliable plan, look towards the sea as it is your final resting place,” he added.

The IRGC chief made the remarks during a ceremony marking the 40th day since the assassination of General Soleimani.

During the ceremony, Salami said that Soleimani’s efforts had greatly emboldened Palestinian resistance against Israel.

“When he entered the battlefield against the Zionists, the Palestinians were fighting with stones, but due to Soleimani’s efforts, Gaza, the West Bank and north of Palestine have become fields of fire against the Zionists,” Salami said.

“They have consequently concealed themselves behind walls; Soleimani put the Zionists in prison,” he added.

Salami added that Soleimani had defeated Washington’s plans for a “new Middle East”, noting that due to the general’s efforts, a multi-national force has emerged in the region to resist US and Israeli plans.

“General Soleimani generated so much power that if the Zionists only listen slightly next to the their borders, they can hear the languages of Pakistanis, Iranians, Hijazis, Lebanese…,” he said.

The IRGC chief lauded Soleimani’s legacy of defending “the downtrodden, wherever they were”, adding that the “deserts knew him more than the streets”.

“The Hindu Kush ranges, the Bamiyan and Panjshir valleys in Afghanistan knew him better than the Afghans,” Salami added.

Salami concluded his remarks saying that “the final and ultimate slap will continue until the last American soldier leaves the Muslims land” despite Iran’s military retaliation against Washington following the assassination of Soleimani.

Iran fired a volley of ballistic missiles at the Ain al-Asad airbase and another US-occupied outpost in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan on January 8, a few days following the assassination.

Despite the Trump administration initially denying any casualties, the Pentagon has since gradually revealed that at least over 100 US soldiers have suffered from “brain injuries” in the operation.

Speaking on Thursday, IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif said that Washington has sought to conceal the number of its killed soldiers by using the term “brain injury” to describe casualties.

Sharif added that the assassination of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis – who was the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units – “marked the beginning of the end of US presence in the region” and that it will lead to the liberation of Jerusalem al-Quds.

February 14, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Last Week’s Cyberattack Against Iran Originated in the US – Iranian Civil Defence Chief

Sputnik – February 14, 2020

The United States government reportedly carried out a number of cyberattacks targeting Iran’s internet infrastructure over the past year, in response to Tehran’s shootdown of a US drone over Iranian airspace in the Hormuz Strait, and other actions in the Middle East which Washington has blamed on the Islamic Republic.

Iran foiled a ‘large-scale’ attack on the country’s cyber infrastructure on February 8, with the denial of service (DDOS) attack believed to have been launched by the US, Brig. Gen. Gholam Reza Jalali, chief of Iran’s Civil Defence Organization, has said.

“It’s very difficult and time-consuming to trace the source of a cyberattack. The Telecommunication Infrastructure Company is currently studying and looking for the source of the recent cyberattack against the country… but our analysis is that the US was the origin,” Jalali said, his comments cited by Press TV.

“The Americans’ cyberattack has been foiled by our cyber defence unit,” the commander said, but warned that the attack may be just a test ahead of larger planned attacks.

The February 8 DDoS attack caused widespread internet outages across Iran. Deputy Information and Communications Technology Minister Hamid Fattah said Sunday that the attack targeted communications infrastructure, and called it “the biggest attack” of its kind in Iran’s history. The disruption was said to have continued for about an hour before being dealt with by Iran’s DEJFA ‘Digital Fortress’ system.

“Since Americans failed to give a military response to our recent shoot-down of their unmanned aerial vehicle in Iranian waters as well as our missile attack on the [al-Asad Airbase in Iraq], they are responding to our country through continued economic pressure and cyberattacks,” Jalali suggested.

According to Jalali, the US attack failed to cause any damage.

He noted that last week’s attacks were further cause for Iran to accelerate its efforts to complete the construction of a National Information Network (NIN) in case further attacks are impending. The national infrastructure project, to which the Iranian government has already committed the equivalent of about $200 million, foresees the creation of a secure and stable communications internet network serving as a backup national intranet, providing information services, government e-services and other crucial data to citizens.

Last year, Iran’s Information and Communications Technology Ministry reported that the country had thwarted some 33 million cyberattacks against sensitive sites last year. In November, Jalali accused the US of declaring a cyberwar against Iran.

February 14, 2020 Posted by | Deception | , | 2 Comments

Gen. Soleimani assassinated to sabotage Iran’s talks with Saudis, UAE following Israeli briefing: NYT

Press TV – February 14, 2020

Washington ordered the assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani to sabotage de-escalation talks between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates following a report by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, according to the New York Times.

The paper reported on Thursday that General Soleimani had been arranging talks in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in order to de-escalate tensions with Tehran.

The Times wrote that the talks happened after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are central to the Trump administration’s so-called regional alliance seeking to pressure Iran, began to question the efficiency of Washington’s anti-Iran campaign.

According to the report, one such meeting took place last September in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates where a plane carrying “senior Iranian officials” landed for talks.

News of the meeting, which reached Washington only after it was notified by reports from American spy agencies, “set off alarms inside the White House”, according to the report.

The report added that a similar mediation attempt, also arranged by Gen. Soleimani, was underway between Tehran and Riyadh using Iraqi and Pakistani intermediaries.

The report wrote that the developments had greatly concerned Israel, which had been trying to push the Trump administration to exert more pressure on Tehran.

According to the Times, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Mossad chief Yossi Cohen on October during a trip to Israel where he was briefed on Iran’s attempted de-escalation talks with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Cohen warned Pompeo that Tehran was effectively on the verge of achieving its “primary goal” of breaking up the so-called “anti-Iran” alliance.

A few months later in early January, General Soleimani was assassinated by Washington’s order while on a formal visit to Baghdad.

According to former Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, General Soleimani was due to formally meet the Iraqi premier during the trip and was carrying Tehran’s response to a message from Riyadh regarding the de-escalation talks.

Following the attack, the Trump Administration claimed that the assassination had taken place after a reported rocket attack on a US base in Iraq killed a “US civilian contractor” and that Gen. Soleimani was an “imminent threat” to US citizens.

Many US political figures have rejected the claims and have questioned why the Trump administration has failed to provide any evidence backing its actions.

The New York Times’ Thursday report, however, reveals that entirely different considerations, such as Israel’s push to undermine Iran’s attempts at peace with its regional neighbors, were behind the assassination.

‘Months of miscalculations’

According to the report, the assassination marks yet another miscalculation by the Trump administration which has failed to bend Iran through its “maximum pressure” campaign.

Following its unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018, the US imposed unilateral sanctions against Tehran in a bid to goad Tehran to accept new terms dictated by Washington.

The Times, however, reported that a recent analysis conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shows that the sanctions have had little effect in fulfilling Washington’s goals.

The US has also sought to pressure Iran militarily by deploying troops to the region and creating a regional anti-Iran alliance in the region as part of if its anti-Iran campaign.

Washington called for the formation of a naval coalition in the region following a string of suspicious attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

Iran has vehemently denied the accusations, saying the incidents appear to be false flag operations meant to frame the Islamic Republic and push US interests.

Citing instances such as the major Yemeni attack on Saudi oil facilities last September and Iran’s downing of a US Global Hawk spy craft in June, the New York Times report said stepped-up US military presence also failed to achieve its objectives.

Witnessing the Trump administration’s faltering policy in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were convinced to open direct talks with Tehran, the report noted.

February 14, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

More Lies on Iran: The White House Just Can’t Help Itself as New Facts Emerge

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 13, 2020

Admittedly the news cycle in the United States seldom runs longer than twenty-four hours, but that should not serve as an excuse when a major story that contradicts what the Trump Administration has been claiming appears and suddenly dies. The public that actually follows the news might recall a little more than one month ago the United States assassinated a senior Iranian official named Qassem Soleimani. Openly killing someone in the government of a country with which one is not at war is, to say the least, unusual, particularly when the crime is carried out in yet another country with which both the perpetrator and the victim have friendly relations. The justification provided by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking for the administration, was that Soleimani was in Iraq planning an “imminent” mass killing of Americans, for which no additional evidence was provided at that time or since.

It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about and may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the U.S. government might have encouraged Soleimani to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of “imminent threat” being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn’t really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die.

The incident that started the killing cycle that eventually included Soleimani consisted of a December 27th attack on a U.S. base in Iraq in which four American soldiers and two Iraqis were wounded while one U.S. contractor, an Iraqi-born translator, was killed. The United States immediately blamed Iran, claiming that it had been carried out by an Iranian supported Shi’ite militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. It provided no evidence for that claim and retaliated by striking a Kata’ib base, killing 25 Iraqis who were in the field fighting the remnants of Islamic State (IS). The militiamen had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army and this disproportionate response led to riots outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which were also blamed on Iran by the U.S. There then followed the assassinations of Soleimani and nine senior Iraqi militia officers. Iran retaliated when it fired missiles at American forces, injuring more than one hundred soldiers, and then mistakenly shot down a passenger jet, killing an additional 176 people. As a consequence due to the killing by the U.S. of 34 Iraqis in the two incidents, the Iraqi Parliament also voted to expel all American troops.

It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata’ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata’ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi’a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS.

This new development was reported in the New York Times in an article that was headlined “Was U.S. Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran? Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events.” In spite of the sensational nature of the report it generally was ignored in television news and in other mainstream media outlets, letting the Trump administration get away with yet another big lie, one that could easily have led to a war with Iran.

Iraqi investigators found and identified the abandoned white Kia pickup with an improvised Katyusha rocket launcher in the vehicle’s bed that was used to stage the attack. It was discovered down a desert road within range of the K-1 joint Iraqi-American base that was hit by at least ten missiles in December, most of which struck the American area.

There is no direct evidence tying the attack to any particular party and the improvised Kia truck is used by all sides in the regional fighting, but the Iraqi officials point to the undisputed fact that it was the Islamic State that had carried out three separate attacks near the base over the 10 days preceding December 27th. And there are reports that IS has been increasingly active in Kirkuk Province during the past year, carrying out near daily attacks with improvised roadside bombs and ambushes using small arms. There had, in fact, been reports from Iraqi intelligence that were shared with the American command warning that there might be an IS attack on K-1 itself, which is an Iraqi air base in that is shared with U.S. forces.

The intelligence on the attack has been shared with American investigators, who have also examined the pick-up truck. The Times reports that the U.S. command in Iraq continue to insist that the attack was carried out by Kata’ib based on information, including claimed communications intercepts, that it refuses to make public. The U.S. forces may not have shared the intelligence they have with the Iraqis due to concerns that it would be leaked to Iran, but senior Iraqi military officers are nevertheless perplexed by the reticence to confide in an ally.

If the Iraqi investigation of the facts around the December attack on K-1 is reliable, the Donald Trump administration’s reckless actions in Iraq in late December and early January cannot be justified. Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one. To be sure, the Trump administration has lied about developments in the Middle East so many times that it can no longer be trusted. Unfortunately, demanding any accountability from the Trump team would require a Congress that is willing to shoulder its responsibility for truth in government backed up by a media that is willing to take on an administration that regularly punishes anyone or any entity that dares to challenge it. That is the unfortunate reality in America today.

February 13, 2020 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , , | 3 Comments

Democrats Ignore Trump’s Real Violations

By Ron Paul | February 10, 2020

This week the latest Democratic Party attempt to remove President Trump from office – impeachment over Trump allegedly holding up an arms deal to Ukraine – flopped. Just like “Russiagate” and the Mueller investigation, and a number of other attempts to overturn the 2016 election.

We’ve had three years of accusations and investigations with untold millions of dollars spent in a never-ending Democratic Party effort to remove President Trump from office.

Why do the Democrats keep swinging and missing at Trump? They can’t make a good case for abuse of power because they don’t really oppose Trump’s most egregious abuses of power. Congress, with a few exceptions, strongly supports the President flouting the Constitution when it comes to overseas aggression and shoveling more money into the military-industrial complex.

In April, 2018, President Trump fired 100 Tomahawk missiles into Syria allegedly as punishment for a Syrian government chemical attack in Douma. Though the US was not under imminent threat of attack from Syria, Trump didn’t wait for a Congressional declaration of war on Syria or even an authorization for a missile strike. In fact, he didn’t even wait for an investigation of the event to find out what actually happened! He just decided to send a hundred missiles – at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars – into Syria.

We are now finding out from whistleblowers on the UN team that investigated the alleged attack that the report blaming the Syrian government was falsified and that the whole “attack” was nothing but a false flag operation.

Is such unauthorized aggression against a country with which we are not at war not worth investigating as a potential “high crime” or “misdemeanor”?

Last month, President Trump authorized the assassination of a top Iranian General, Qassim Soleimani, and a top Iraqi military officer inside Iraqi territory while Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission. Trump and his Administration tried to claim that the attack was essential because of an “imminent threat” of a Soleimani attack on US troops in the region.

We found out shortly afterward that they lied about the “imminent threat.” The assassination was not “urgent” – it was planned back in June. Trump then claimed it didn’t matter whether there was an imminent threat: Soleimani was a bad guy so he deserved to be assassinated.

But the attack was an act of war on Iran without Congressional declaration or authorization for war. Is that not perhaps a “high crime” or “misdemeanor”?

We are finding out that, contrary to Trump claims, Soleimani was not even behind the December attack on US troops in Iraq. New evidence suggests it was actually an ISIS operation attempting to goad the US into moving against Iraq’s Shia militias.

Fantasies about Trump being an agent of Putin or trying to get Ukraine to help him win the election are presented as urgent reasons Trump must be removed from office. Real-life violations of the Constitution and reckless militarism that may get us embroiled in another Middle East war are shrugged off as “business as usual” by both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

Democrats won’t move against Trump for what may be real “high crimes” and “misdemeanors” because they support his overseas aggression. They just wish they were the ones pulling the trigger.

Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute.

February 12, 2020 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , | 2 Comments

No military aspect to Iran’s satellite carriers: Defense minister

Press TV – February 12, 2020

Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami says Iran’s satellite carriers have nothing to do with its military activities and lie completely outside the country’s defensive practices.

“The satellite carriers have nothing to do with the subject of missiles, and constitute a completely non-defensive and non-military issue,” Hatami said following a government meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

According to the defense chief, a satellite might be used for defense-related purposes, but the carriers are totally non-defensive in nature.

On Sunday, the Iranian Space Agency said the country had launched its domestically-made Zafar satellite using a Simorgh satellite carrier, but that the missile had fallen short of reaching the designated orbit.

The agency added that the data from the launch would be used to optimize future launch attempts.

As with every country that has experimented with satellites, the Iranian nation likewise has a vested right to avail itself of the technology, he added, noting that the country would, therefore, strongly pursue its relevant plans in this regard.

The Iranian defense minister was apparently reacting to claims made by France and the US about Tehran’s space program following the launch.

Reacting to the launch on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of trying to improve its ballistic missile skills through the satellite launch and vowed to exert more pressure.

A day earlier, France also criticized the launch and suggested that it was inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which “calls upon” Iran not to undertake any activity related to missiles “designed to be capable of” delivering nuclear weapons.”

Commenting on Iran’s missile activities, Hatami noted that the defense program was in complete accord with international regulations that prohibit the development of projectiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

“Nothing of the kind exists in the Islamic Republic,” Hatami said. “All of our missiles, which we take pride in and which constitute an important factor of Iran’s defense and military power, are made with conventional warheads.”

“The projectiles are high in precision, something that the Americans came in proper touch with at Ain al-Assad [Airbase],” he said.

The US airbase, which is located in Iraq’s western Anbar Province, and another American outpost in the Arab country’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region came under retaliatory ballistic missile strikes by Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) last month.

The strikes were prompted by the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and a number of others in a set of drone strikes targeting Baghdad’s civilian airport.

“We do not need anything beyond this. Our missiles are precision-guided and fitted with conventional warheads,” Hatami added.

The Islamic Republic, he added, was likely to launch its Zafar (Triumph)-2 Satellite in the beginning of the next year on board Simorq (Phoenix) Satellite Carrier.

The official said the country considered the vehicle and satellite technology to be one of the subject matters of its research activities.

He said the Islamic Republic would pursue the research “until it reaches a stable stage,” and the country attains the ability to “do this in the form of a sustained practice.”

February 12, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Iran stresses right to enhance space technology, rejects France ‘meddlesome’ claims

Press TV – February 11, 2020

Iran has dismissed France’s “meddlesome” claim about its space program following a recent satellite launch, saying the Islamic Republic reserves the right to make scientific progress.

Tehran on Sunday launched its domestically-made Zafar (Triumph) satellite using a Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier, but the missile fell short of reaching the designated orbit.

The satellite launch came on the same day that Iran unveiled a new missile, ‘Ra’d-500 (Lightning-500),’ which is equipped with a composite engine block as well as the new generation of propellant for missiles and satellite carriers.

The French Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned Iran for trying to put a satellite in space and unveiling the new ballistic missile, urging Tehran to abide by international obligations on its controversial missile program.

“In keeping with its obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, Iran cannot engage in activities, including launches, connected to ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons,” said the French statement, claiming that Tehran’s ballistic missile program “hurts regional stability and affects European security.”

Rejecting the “meddlesome” statement on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Tehran has “an inherent right to develop science and technology.”

“Iran’s defensive missile program has also nothing to do with Resolution 2231 because Iranian missiles have not been designed to carry nuclear weapons,” the official said.

Resolution 2231 endorsed a nuclear deal inked in 2015 between Tehran and six world states — the US, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China.

The US, however, abandoned the deal in May 2018 in defiance of the resolution, throwing the future of the agreement in doubt.

The European parties initially vowed to keep the deal alive but failed to fulfill their contractual obligations under intense US pressure, prompting Tehran to begin suspending the implementation of parts of its nuclear commitments on a stage-by-stage basis a year later.

Iran says its counter-measures are reversible if the European signatories take meaningful action to save the deal.

February 11, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Yet Another Israeli Provocation in the Middle Eastern Skies

By Vladimir Platov – New Eastern Outlook – 11.02.2020

While using a civilian airliner as cover, four Israeli F-16 fighters approached the outskirts of Damascus and launched an attack on local residential areas late night on February 6. There’s no disputing that by adopting such tactics the Israeli Air Force endangered the civilian aircraft – an Airbus A320 owned by the private Syrian Cham Wings Airlines, arriving at Damascus from Najaf International Airport (NJF) in Iraq with 172 passengers on board. This Syrian airliner was running late and it’s clear from data provided by FlightrRadar24, that Israeli military aircraft were clearly expecting the arrival of yet another A320, owned by SyrianAir due to arrive from Tehran, hoping to provoke local air defence units into destroying the liner by mistake.

If it weren’t for the prompt actions of the flight dispatchers of Damascus International Airport and its efficient automated air traffic control system, this civilian airliner would have been in peril, but thankfully it managed to escape the kill zone, landing safely at the nearest available airfield, the Russia’s Hmeimim air base.

The situation is painfully similar to September of 2018, when 4 Israeli F-16s launched missile strikes against unknown targets in Syria’s Latakia province, using Russia’s Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft with 15 crew members aboard as cover. Predictably enough, the Israeli jets provoked a response from Syrian anti-aircraft units resulting in the destruction of the Russian aircraft. All people on board were killed.

On December 26, 2018, another Syrian airline Cham Wings Airlines plane was bound to land at Damascus International Airport, but in a bid to escape a similar provocation staged by the Israeli Ari Force, it detoured and landed at Russia’s Hmeimim airbase. On that day a total of two civilian airliners had to change their flight routes as a result of the Israeli Air Force, which threatened innocent civilians in what that can only be described as a provocation. In both cases near Damascus, the jets were operating from the airspace of a third country – Lebanon, justifying their actions by alleging to attack Iranian warehouses and convoys that were said to be used for military operations against Israel.

In both cases, passengers aboard civilian airliners were at risk as local air defense units were bound to open fire to repel the Israeli missile attacks, risking civilian aircraft approaching Damascus International. In other words, on more than on one occasion a situation similar to the tragic incident with the Iranian downing of the UIA Boeing 737, traveling from Tehran to Kiev was deliberately staged by the Israeli Air Force. As for the downed Boeing the Iranian authorities officially recognized that it was mistakenly shot down by air defence units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which resulted in the untimely demise of 167 passengers and nine crew members – citizens of Iran, Ukraine, Canada, the UK, Sweden and Afghanistan. This tragedy inflicted significant political, economic and PR damage on Iran. In this regard, the clearly distinguishable similarities of the provocative attacks in Iran and Syria are obvious, which raises reasonable questions regarding the strategic command that must be planning such attacks.

It is also noteworthy that the Israeli Air Force chose the SyrianAir flight arriving from Tehran as its target, with Israel explaining all of its recent aggressive actions in Syria and the Middle East through the prism of countering the rising influence of Iran.

Thus, the Israeli General Staff conducting military operations in Syrian airspace using civilian aircraft carrying passengers as a cover is now something of a trademark of the Israeli Air Force, which isn’t afraid of putting the lives of hundreds of innocent people in harm’s way to achieve its ends.

Acting in this way, striking from cover, like highway robbers, the Israeli Air Force seeks to avoid getting caught violating Syrian airspace or even being hit by Syrian anti-aircraft missile systems. They strike Syrian territory, appearing in the sky, for example, over Lebanon, leaving Damascus’ hands tied. If Syrian air defenses shoot down an Israeli plane over Lebanon failing to officially invade Syrian airspace, then Damascus will be framed by Israel, the United States and its allies as an aggressor attempting to provoke war in the Middle East. In addition, geographical features surrounding Damascus play a huge role here. Israeli military jets would typically launch strikes against targets within Syrian territory from the Bekaa Valley, covered from all sides by mountains. They seem to appear from nowhere from behind the mountains and disappear just as rapidly, while still managing to hit various targets.

For these reasons, there can be no objective assessment regarding the efficiency of the Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems delivered to Syria to allow Damascus to defend its air space.

At the same time, looking at the provocative and frankly aggressive actions of Israel who has repeatedly launched missile attacks against civilian targets inside Syria, it can be confidently said that it has already crossed the “red line” and Damascus may at any time retaliate against these aggressors, which will add one more conflict to the long list of the existing armed conflicts within the region.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has raised the issue of Israeli air strikes on Damascus via official UN statements, while pointing out that such attacks are only possible due to US support and the UN Security Council remaining silent about them. As indicated in one of the most recent messages of the Syrian Foreign Ministry, such treacherous actions fit within the framework of Israel’s attempts to prolong the crisis and derail Damascus’ anti-terror efforts and to raise the morale of the remnants of terrorist groups. Thus Israel is acting as their supporter. In addition, this is yet another attempt made by the Israeli government to avoid discussing the most pressing regional problems including the peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which only leads to an increase in anti-Israeli sentiments across the region and the world.

At the same time, the stubborn silence of the international community and the United Nations regarding such Israeli actions is truly surprising, when civilians, including foreign citizens, passengers of civilian aircraft arriving in Syria every day, may perish in similarly provocative attacks carried out by the Israeli Air Force in the future.

February 11, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 3 Comments

US uneasy as Iraq gets new prime minister

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | February 5, 2020

In happier times, Washington and Tehran might well have zeroed in on Mohammed Tawfik Allawi as their consensus candidate for the post of Iraq’s prime minister.

Why not? He was opposed to Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship — although, unlike most Shia politicians who fled from Saddam’s tyranny, he never lived in Iran but chose UK.

However, unlike his famous (notorious) cousin Iyad Allawi who also lived in exile in the UK and whom the US handpicked to head the first government during its occupation (2004-2005), Mohammed Allawi didn’t work for the western intelligence.

Even detractors dare not say that he ever was on Tehran’s payroll. In fact, he wasn’t — unlike another famous relative Ahmed Chalabi.

Yet, although part of Iraqi Shia aristocracy, he was sensible enough as an aspiring Iraqi politician to have good rapport with Iran.

Mohammed Allawi is said to be deeply religious and yet is secular-minded. He twice resigned from former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s cabinet protesting against the latter’s “sectarian agenda and political interference”.

There is no conceivable reason why the US cannot be happy that Iran has failed at this crucial juncture in regional politics to insert an ‘yes man’ as the head of the new government in Baghdad.

But prioritising Iraq’s stability more than anything else, Tehran welcomed Mohammed Allawai’s appointment. On the contrary, even after five days since President Barham Salih gave him the appointment letter, Washington is holding back.

American think tankers wired into the US establishment have run down Mohammed Allawi as a mere frontman of Moqtada Al Sadr’s Sairoon coalition and its rival, the Fatah alliance led by Hadi Al Amiri. They anticipate that he is doomed to fail.

The heart of the matter is that there is much angst in the American mind that Mohammed Allawi, once confirmed as prime minister by the Iraqi parliament, may not only restructure US-Iraqi relations, but eventually take the winds out of the sails of the so-called protests whom Washington and its regional allies have inserted since October into the Iraqi body polity as an extra-constitutional centre.

Today, the US’ capacity to influence the Iraqi political elite — a vast unwieldy network of politicians, Shia political parties, security forces, militias, and religious figures that make up Iraq’s muhasasa (sectarian power-sharing) political system — stands much diminished. Clawing its way back up the greasy pole is difficult.

Thus, the protest movement in Iraq, which is now entering its fourth month, has come to be the principal instrument for Washington (and its Saudi and Emirati allies) to surreptiously advance the broader geopolitical confrontation with Iran that is being played out within the country.

The Iraqi protest movement bears striking similarity with Hong Kong’s, which too had brought the local government down on its knees. In Iraq too, it is a remarkably young movement made up almost entirely of adolescents or youth below the age of 25 and a significant female participation.

The movement has an inchoate programme that keeps mutating — ranging from electoral reforms to eradication of corruption — amidst the artistic graffiti, rap videos, and citizen journalism as modes of political activism and civic engagement.

The Iraqi protest movement too has no unified leadership and yet through its abstract calls for the removal of the current political elite it has worked to insert itself as a factor in the decision-making over the prime minister’s nomination. Some hidden forces are evidently pulling the strings from behind, as in Hong Kong.

The outgoing Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi bitterly complained in the Iraqi parliament on January 5 that in two telephone conversations, the US President Donald Trump had threatened him with precisely such protests to overthrow him if he didn’t comply with US demands.

POTUS allegedly threatened to position US marine snipers “atop the highest buildings,” who will target and kill protesters and security forces alike in an attempt to pressure the Prime Minister.

Therefore, it is hugely significant that the Iraqi protestors have rejected Mohammed Allawi’s appointment. Iraq is now at a political impasse. In essence, Washington will do everything in its power to prevent the new government from settling in.

In Hong Kong, the turmoil began subsiding once the US-China trade deal was signed. In Iraq, everything depends on the negotiation of the terms of engagement with the US. The amorphous nature of the protest movement means that it may meet with sudden death as well.

The Trump administration hopes to salvage relations with Baghdad and smother the Iraqi demand for American troop withdrawal. The top US commander in the Middle East Gen. Frank McKenzie visited Baghdad on Tuesday to set the ball rolling.

In a longer perspective, US hopes that the Sadrists could be exploited as a powerful driver of placing the Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) structure under real controls of the government.

But there’s a caveat. As a seasoned American analyst puts it, “Moqtada also believes he has a role to play as a ‘guide’ focused on ‘social justice’… While unlikely to be a ruler in the mould of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Moqtada is also unlikely to be a ‘quietist’ cleric in the style of Sistani. Something in-between is more likely, raising parallels with Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah. This is not a comparison that should reassure (Washington).”

In fact, on Tuesday, Sadr supporters took control of the iconic Tahir Square building in Baghdad and evicted the protestors ensconced there.

The bottom line is that although the level of emotion in the Sadrist discourse about American forces in Iraq is no more acute as it used to be a decade ago, it still remains a deeply held conviction of the movement, from Moqtada himself to the militant cadres, that the presence of foreign military forces should not become a proforma reality of Iraqi life.

February 5, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iranian Strike on US Base Was Modeled After Trump’s Syria Strikes

By Paul Iddon – Offiziere.ch – February 4, 2020

In many ways, the Iranian ballistic missiles attack on U.S. forces in Iraq and the U.S. missile strikes against targets in Syria were strikingly similar in the way they sought to avoid bringing about any serious escalation that could have led to war.

On January 8, Iranian ballistic missiles simultaneously targeted the Al-Asad airbase in Iraq’s Anbar province (see image above) and Erbil International Airport in Iraqi Kurdistan, where U.S. military personnel is housed. While Iran fired at least 22 ballistic missiles, the U.S. did not suffer any fatalities. Tehran said the attack was retaliation for the U.S. assassination of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani on January 3. Washington did not retaliate and fears of a significant escalation, or the dire prospect of a direct US-Iran war, subsequently decreased.

Tehran launched the attack after giving plenty of forewarning. On January 5, Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s military advisor, told CNN that the then-upcoming attack would come directly from Iran, rather than from Tehran’s proxy militias, against U.S. “military sites” in the region. “Our reaction will be wise, well considered and in time, with decisive deterrent effect”, he said. His statement made it unequivocally clear that, rather than attack any U.S. bases or targets in the Gulf states, Iran’s retaliation would come in Iraq, giving U.S. forces based there about three days to prepare themselves.

Five days after the strike, Reuters cited two Iraqi officers based in Al-Asad as saying that American and Iraqi forces began moving troops and hardware to fortified bunkers eight hours before the strike. Reuters also cited another Iraqi intelligence source, who went so far as to say that the U.S. troops seemed “totally aware” that the attack would come “after midnight”. Consequently, the Iranian missiles simply hit “empty bunkers that had been evacuated hours before”. It was later revealed, despite U.S. President Donald Trump dismissing the symptoms as mere “headaches“, that Iran’s missile strike did wound 64 U.S. personnel by giving them traumatic brain injuries.

The way in which Tehran carried out this missile strike was not wholly dissimilar to the two past U.S. cruise missile strikes against Syrian regime targets in April 2017 and April 2018. For example, on the morning of April 7, 2017,  the U.S. responded to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack [details] carried out three days earlier by hitting Syria’s Shayrat Airbase with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. It did so after giving prior warning to Russia, a major ally and backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Moscow likely gave Damascus some prior warning, and it was also likely the regime knew that particular base would be hit. “Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line”, said Navy Captain Jeff Davis at the time. “US military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield”. Despite that enormous strike package of 59 Tomahawk missiles raining down on the base, Syrian Armed Forces’ remaining Su-22s were able to land and take off from the base hours later. The situation did not escalate into any major confrontation with Damascus.

On April 14, 2018, the United States, this time in a coordinated strike with the United Kingdom and France, fired even more cruise missiles at three targets related to Syria’s chemical weapons program, in response to a [fake] chemical attack in Douma one week earlier. As with the Shayrat attack, the U.S. gave notice to ensure there were no serious casualties or subsequent escalation. The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., published a statement on Facebook in which he explained that: “Before we took action, the U.S. communicated with the RF [Russian Federation] to reduce the danger of any Russian or civilian casualties”. Additionally, a pro-Syrian regime official confirmed that: “We had an early warning of the strike from the Russians… and all military bases were evacuated a few days ago”. These measures were clearly taken to avoid any significant escalation or war.

Later, Trump came close to bombing targets inside Iran following Tehran’s shooting down of a U.S. surveillance drone over the Gulf of Oman on June 20, 2019 (see image right). According to Trump, he approved strikes against three targets but then called it off a mere 10 minutes before it was set to commence. His decision came after the U.S. military gave him its prediction that at least 150 Iranians would have been killed, something Trump deemed wouldn’t have been “proportionate” to the destruction of an unmanned aircraft. Also, more likely than not, the U.S. military made clear to him that a limited strike similar to the previous ones against Syria would be much harder to carry out against Iran itself and escalation or major war would have, therefore, been far more likely.

Tensions between Iran and the United States remain high, and the prospect of war or a major escalation cannot be discounted. Nevertheless, de-escalation measures, however imperfect, taken by Tehran and Washington in these incidents indicate that neither side actually wants a full-blown war.

February 5, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

US, Israel ramp up nuclear weapons testing, deployment amid regional provocations

Press TV – February 1, 2020

Israel says it has ramped up the deployment and testing of nuclear and nuclear-capable weapons amid heightened regional tensions after the US assassinated top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and unveiled a biased Middle East plan.

The ministry of military affairs of the Israeli regime on Friday announced that it had conducted a launch test of a “rocket propulsion system from a base in the center of the country”.

The ministry refused to disclose any additional details regarding the nature of the missile, contrary to its usual conduct following satellite launcher and missile interceptor tests.

The little information revealed about the test prompted speculation among observers that the tested projectile may have been related to Israel’s long-range ballistic missile program, which Israel seeks to not acknowledge publicly.

Tel Aviv conducted a similar rocket engine test last December with Israeli media reporting that the test was meant to be a “show of force” of the Israeli regime’s “nuclear deterrent system especially aimed at Iran”.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said last year that the Israeli regime is in possession of approximately 100 atomic warheads, noting that it has 30 gravity bombs which can be delivered by fighter jets – some of which are believed to be equipped for nuclear weapon delivery.

The regime has refused to allow inspections of its military nuclear facilities or sign the the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

US deploys new nuclear warhead 

The Federation of American Scientists also warned that Washington was deploying the recently developed W76-2 low-yield nuclear warhead as part of a new generation of less-destructive yet more “usable” nuclear weapons.

The report said the W76-2 warhead, which has an explosive yield of about a third of the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in August 1945, was supplied to Ohio-class USS Tennessee ballistic missile submarines last month.

The authors of the report, military analyst William Arkin and Federation of American Scientists Nuclear Information Project director Hans Kristensen, warned that such weapons increase the likelihood of a nuclear armed conflict.

In a Newsweek article published earlier this month, Arkin and Kristensen said that the development of the W76-2 warhead is the result of Pentagon planning for potential first strike scenarios “against adversaries, especially Iran”.

The article noted that Washington simulated a nuclear strike against Iran in the Global Thunder 17 nuclear exercise in October 2016 during the tenure of then-US President Barack Obama.

It pointed that the newly-deployed W76-2 warhead “is intended for exactly the type of Iran scenario that played out in the last days of the Obama administration”.

Israel and Washington’s provocative military deployments and weapons testing come at a time of major regional tensions resulting from Washington’s recent unveiling of the “deal of the century” and notably its assassination of General Soleimani.

Iran retaliated to the January 3 assassination with a volley of ballistic missiles launched at the US-occupied Ain Al Assad base in Iraq and another outpost in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iran, which has noted that Tel Aviv played a part in the assassination of Lieutenant General Soleimani, had threatened to target Israel if the US were to respond to Iran’s retaliatory attack.

Seeking to downplay the attack and deny any casualties, the Trump administration has since backed down from earlier pledges to respond to Iran’s retaliatory attack.

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

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