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The skyscraper in the heart of Manhattan had been violating US sanctions since 1995. Its tenantswho have included Juicy Couture, Godiva Chocolate, and Starwood Hotelshave been paying millions of dollars a year to, ultimately, the Iranian government.

Through all the efforts to sanction and isolate Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, the owners of 650 Fifth Avenue gave the Iranian government a critical foothold in the very heart of Manhattan, acting US attorney Joon H. Kim said yesterday in a statement.

However, despite first filing a lawsuit in 2008, only yesterday did the US government win the right to seize the 36-story building, which is valued somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion.

How did Iran manage to evade the authorities for so long? In two words: shell companies.

The building was nominally owned by the 650 Fifth Avenue Companya shell corporation set up in 1989 to avoid paying federal taxes on the rent it was raking in. That shell company was then owned by another shell company registered in Jersey, a tax haven and UK crown dependency. Through this web of cut-outs, rent from the building was then channelled to Bank Melliwhich is owned by the Iranian government, the court determined.

Even though it had been set up to avoid taxes, the structure then came in handy for keeping ownership concealed from the US government once sanctions were put in place. Proving in court that an Iranian bank was the ultimate beneficiary took an investigation involving no less than five institutions: the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, the New York police, the Department of Justice, and the Manhattan district attorneys office. The court decision this week was the biggest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in US history.

Efforts to stop to nefarious actors secretly setting up US companies have failed time and again in Washington. But a bipartisan set of lawmakers hopes that by highlighting the risks to national security, their latest effort to pass a law forcing shell companies to disclose their real owner will succeed this time. In an interview with Quartz this week, New York congresswoman Carolyn Maloney pointed out exactly this potential for using rent or earnings from US property to finance terrorism.

How irresponsible do you have to be to not know who owns your properties? she asked, the day before announcing her fifth attempt to pass a bill on the matter. We had a bomb go off in my district on 23rd street [in Manhattan] maybe four months ago, and you wonder where they got the money fromthe longer we wait to fix the the problem the more we put our country at risk.

For Stefanie Ostfield, deputy head of the US office of anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, its a stark case of how the law allows unscrupulous actors to involve themselves in the US. The fact that we allow individuals to hide behind US companies and not disclose who they are enables the Iranian government, or a terrorist network, or organized crime to hide [from law enforcement]and potentially hurt US companies and citizens, she said.

Read more:
Why Iran got away with using a $500 mln New York skyscraper as a secret slush fund for 22 years - Quartz

Police officers stand outside Iran's parliament building following an attack by several gunmen, Tehran, Iran, June 7, 2017.(photo byMajid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Author:Fazel Hawramy Posted June 30, 2017

Iranian authorities have rounded up at least 150 people in Tehran and in the Kurdish areas in the west of the country following the June 7 terrorist attacks in the capital, which claimed 18 lives.

The five young attackers who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in a video released shortly after the attacks appear to have traveled from Kermanshah province to Tehran undetected in early June. The rare but deadly strikes targeted two of the most guarded locations in the capital: the parliament and the mausoleum of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

How these men obtained firearms and explosives to carry out the attacks is not clear, but Iranian officials have admitted that the country's security establishment was taken by surprise. On June 27, parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission held its second closed-door session to examine the June 7 attacks. "In this session, the new plan to maintain the security of the parliament and the ways to confront future possible incidents were discussed and necessary measures were taken," the semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency reported about the meeting. Iran has held IS directly responsible for the attacks, but it ultimately blamed the United States and "regressive" regimes in the Persian Gulf region for supporting the group. As a symbolic gesture, on June 18 Iran fired several missiles from the Kurdish areas in the west of the country, where the attackers came from, at an IS position in northeast Syria. "Our enemies should know that Tehran is not London or Paris; this was a small measure, and if they make another mistake, we will strike them with deadlier attacks," said Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Since the June 7 attacks, security forces have taken no chances and have rounded up a large number of individuals mainly associated with Salafist groups in a bid to crack down on their activities, sources inside Iran and human rights activists from outside the country told Al-Monitor. "More than 50 individual terrorist backers were arrested in Kermanshah province following the terrorist incident in Tehran, and a number of explosive belts, electronic detonators and weapons were discovered," Mohammad Hossein Sadeghi, the prosecutor of Kermanshah province, said on June 25.

"No one has been freed apart from two women," said a source from the town of Paveh, where four of the attackers came from and where the Iranian authorities are said to have arrested more than 50 individuals. At least one of the attackers, Saryas Sadeghi, was reported to have been on the radar of the intelligence services, said sources in Paveh, but it is not clear how he managed to travel to Tehran to carry out the strikes along with four other attackers. "One of Saryas' brothers has been arrested, and he is still in custody," an activist who monitors the human rights situation told Al-Monitor.

In prisons across the Kurdish region, authorities have reportedly taken severe measures even against Salafist prisoners who were imprisoned before the attacks on Tehran.

According to a tally from Hangaw Human Rights News, a web-based organization that documents human rights abuses in the Kurdish areas of Iran, close to 150 people have been detained since the attacks in Tehran. While the real number could be much higher, Hangaw has verified the identity of 45 individuals who have been taken into custody across the Kurdish region in western Iran. "These individuals were arrested on charges of connections with Wahhabi groups, and according to witnesses, they were beaten during the arrests," Hangaw reported, referring to the puritanical Islamic doctrine originating from Saudi Arabia.

On June 24, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed that several people have been arrested in the capital and are under investigation in connection with the attacks, but he refused to divulge information about the cases to the press due to "security and intelligence reasons."

While government officials have maintained that terrorists cannot cause damage to the security of the Islamic Republic because of the readiness of the IRGC and other security forces, some officials have admitted that IS took them by surprise. "Given the huge improvement in the level of security in our country in recent years, the Daesh [IS] forces used the element of surprise, but I am confident now that the security and intelligence forces will maintain a safe environment and will not allow another terrorist attack to take place," Seyed Qassem Jassemi, a member of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said June 26, adding, "If it was not for the defenders of the shrine [Shiite fighters deployed to Syria], no doubt we would have had to fight Daesh [IS] in Kermanshah and Hamedan."

Jassemi's remarks echo claims repeatedly made by Iranian officials that to avoid fighting terrorist groups inside Iran, they need to be fought in Syria and Iraq. To this end, thousands of Shiite fighters from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon supported by Iran have been deployed to Syria since 2011 to shore up President Bashar al-Assad's forces against jihadi groups, including IS. Iran also provides military assistance and advisers to the Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq to fight IS militants in the country.

But while the battles in Syria and Iraq are important for Iran, the attacks in Tehran appear to have been a wake-up call for Iranian officials, reminding them that domestic threats are as important as those from abroad. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that blowback from the military interventions in the region may be a very real and serious prospect. In the meantime, perhaps the most immediate question is whether Iranian security forces have cast too wide a net in the search for terror suspects. If so, it has the potential of causing more trouble than it seeks to thwart.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/06/iran-tehran-attacks-crackdown-salafists-kurdish-region.html

Original post:
Iran cracks down on Salafists in wake of Tehran attacks - Al-Monitor

There's mischief afoot in the White House, and it's the familiar mischief of regime change. Some in President Trump's advisory circle are reportedly pushing for an official embrace of regime change as the United States' policy toward Iran.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is at the forefront of this ill-advised endeavor. "I don't see how anyone can say America can be safe," he told Politico, "as long as you have in power a theocratic despotism" in Iran.

Well, senator, let me explain.

First, let's agree the government of Iran is an unsavory regime. Tehran has a well-documented record of human rights abuses, so Cotton's "theocratic despotism" label is not unfair. Iran also has a reputation for sponsoring terrorism and backing Syria's genocidal government.

To be sure, the recent re-election of President Hassan Rouhani, who campaigned on a message of moderation and liberalization, is a step in the right direction. Rouhani's hardline opponent was considered the favorite of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his voters hailed the win as a victory for peace and positive international diplomacy. More importantly, younger Iranians are increasingly secular and pro-Western. They are challenging their government's strict social controls and have a positive view of America. As these generations mature and Khamenei's cohort dies off, political evolution (if not revolution) is likely.

Still, it would be nave to deny that the potentially free and open Iran of the future is not yet here. But it would be even more naveand dangerous, tooto make the leap from this basis to Cotton's support of U.S.-orchestrated regime change.

The weight of pragmatic considerations here is enormous. Consider what happened in Iraq, the United States' biggest post-9/11 regime change project. What was sold as a necessary and relatively easy war has dragged on these 14 years. Iraq today is less stable than it was before American military intervention; it has become a breeding ground of terrorism, a festering sore oozing the poison of radicalism across the greater Mideast. We have little to show for more than a decade of nation-building efforts spread across three presidencies. With trillions spent and tens of thousands of American and Iraqi lives lost, no one can credibly say regime change in Iraq was a decision worth repeating.

Apply the same approach to Iran, and the results will be more disastrous. Iran has more than double Iraq's population, and Iranians are better educated and more urbanized. Iran is more than triple Iraq's geographic size, and its economy and technological development are both superior to its neighbor to the east. Add to that the United States' history of meddling in Iran's internal affairsrecent history that is not forgotten and will keep Iranian moderates and reformers from being sympathetic to American goals and the probability of a successful regime change imposed by Washington is exactly nil.

The good news is there is no credible case such an effort is needed. Contra the threat inflation from Iran hawks, the country is fundamentally a regional power with bounded influence.

It is a majority-Shiite state surrounded by Sunni enemies, most notably the well-armed and U.S.-supported Saudi Arabia. It is halfway across the globe from our shores, isolated from us by the world's largest natural moats, and would be laughably outmatched by the U.S. in conventional warfare. Moreover, American intelligence agencies have consistently and unanimously said since 2007 that Tehran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program. And though hardly an American ally in the war on terror, Iran does join Washington in actively opposing the Islamic State, the chief terrorism threat we face today.

This assessment of Iran's limited capabilitiesnot to mention the gross expense, risk, and instability regime change would unquestionably produceis why foreign policy realists argue America can be safe without launching another long, bloody war of choice.

Again, none of this is to say the Iranian regime is a paradigm of freedom and respect for human rights. It is uncontroversial to say it is not. But you don't have to love the government in Tehran to recognize that pursuing a policy of regime change is neither necessary nor prudent.

Read the original:
Regime Change in Iran Is Neither Necessary Nor Prudent - Reason

Weddings have been moved and family visits delayed.

The Trump administration's travel ban, while a shadow of its original self, has dealt a harsh blow to the Iranian-American community, where family ties run strong and friends and loved ones regularly shuttle between Los Angeles and Tehran.

But it isn't the only immigration hurdle facing the community. Iranians allowed to seek visas to visit family in the United States may still have a hard time getting them with a screening process that can take months or longer, immigration lawyers said.

In the meantime, families are being kept apart. Iranian-American homemaker Mina Thrani, 38, had hoped to invite her aunt to visit her in Irvine over the Christmas holiday but can't because of the ban.

Xena Amirani, an 18-year-old college student from Los Angeles, said her family has been grieving since her grandmother died after being struck by a car while crossing the street. They traveled to Iran to bury her. Now, her uncle and his wife want to travel together to visit the family in California to help console them, but the travel ban is in the way.

"It is pointless," Amirani said.

The scaled-back version of President Donald Trump's policy that took effect this week places new limits on visa policies for citizens of six Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. The temporary ban requires people who want new visas to prove a close family relationship in the U.S. or an existing relationship with an entity like a school or business.

The U.S. has nearly 370,000 Iranian immigrants, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, far more than the other countries targeted by the order Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen.

Despite a lengthy history of friction between Tehran and Washington, personal ties between residents of the two countries have held strong.

"Everyone is being hit by this because everyone has a relative in Iran, and there is quite a lot of travel in between," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council.

But travel isn't always easy, and the challenge predates the Trump administration. Because there is no U.S. embassy in Iran, Iranians must go to other countries for visa interviews, requiring time and money.

And it can take longer to get visas approved for Iranians than for citizens of many other countries, immigration attorneys said, while U.S. officials conduct screenings.

"Even under Obama, it was very hard to get these visas and get the background checks cleared. But now, it is official policy," said Ally Bolour, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles.

The Department of Homeland Security said this week that the Supreme Court's decision to allow a partial reinstatement of the ban will help protect the U.S.

But that rings hollow to some Iranian-Americans who note that many in their community came to the U.S. seeking freedom following Iran's Islamic revolution of the 1970s and that the hijackers who carried out the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States were from other countries not limited by the ban.

Trump's initial travel ban in January was broader, affecting current and new visas, which sparked chaos at airports around the world.

Mina Jafari, a 28-year-old graphic designer in Washington, said that during that time, her fianc?e's Iranian mother was in the process of obtaining a visa to travel to the couple's wedding, but it was revoked because of the ban.

That prompted Jafari to move the wedding to Iran so her soon-to-be mother-in-law could attend. The only problem is her elder sister can't go with her due to concerns about her political activism.

"I have family who is banned from Iran, family banned here," Jafari said. "It is a really crazy situation."

Originally posted here:
For Iranian-Americans, Trump travel ban keeps families apart - ABC News

Iranian officials have blasted the U.S.s decision to partially reinstate a ban on incoming nationals from six majority-Muslim countries, including Iran, arguing it is assisting in the fight against militant groups and has complied with the terms of a 2015 nuclear deal.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to Twitter Friday to condemn theSupreme Courts decision this week to allow the White House to prohibit U.S. travel for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen unless they prove a credible claim of bona fide relationshipwith someone in the U.S.

The travel ban, which originally included Iraq and omittedexemptions for familial or professional relationships, was devised by President Donald Trump, who designated individuals from these six countries in the Middle East and North Africa ascredible threats to national security.

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Zarif has long been a critic of the ban, especially after Iran received praise Friday from the U.N. and EU for respecting the terms of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). U.S. now bans Iranian grandmothers from seeing their grandchildren, in a truly shameful exhibition of blind hostility to all Iranians,Zarif tweeted on his official account.

Related: Trumps War: From bombing Syria to challenging Russia and Iran

The U.N. & entire world say Iran is in full compliance with its commitments, but U.S. visceral hatred of Iran compels it to deny the obvious, he added, referring to international acknowledgment of Irans efforts to denuclearize in exchange for the U.S. rolling back economic sanctions as part of JCPOA.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif (pictured) and German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel speak to the media following talks in Berlin, on June 27. Despite its active role in battling the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria as well as receiving international praise for its compliance with a U.S.-led multilateral nuclear deal in 2015, Iran remains a bitter foe of President Donald Trumps administration, which accuses Tehran of sponsoring terrorism and included it on a list of countries from which citizens are mostly restricted from traveling to the U.S. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Zarif played a leading role in the negotiations with the administration of former President Barack Obama that ultimately led to theJCPOA deal being reached between Iran, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany in July 2015. While the deal moderately improvedU.S.-Iranian relations, it was opposed by conservatives in both countries and repeatedly attacked by Trump as he campaigned and came to office. He and his supporters accuse Iran of breaching their side of the deal and, despite a White Housesponsored review findingIran was incompliance of the deal in April, Trump has continued to target Iran in his foreign policy.

In addition to opposing Irans alleged nuclear ambitions, which Tehran argues is solely for energy purposes, the U.S. has long accused Iran of destabilizing the region through its funding of militant and political groups such as Lebanons Shiite Muslim Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. Hezbollah, an avowed enemy of U.S. ally Israel, has been accused of conducting bombs and assassinations around the world, but its fighters are also deeply involved in the fight against ISIS and other insurgents trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Iran-backed forces, which fight alongside the Syrian army, have also made widespread gains against jihadists, but theiradvances have frustrated U.S. attempts to secure influence in parts of Syria where ISIS has been defeated and the U.S. military has been declared illegal by Assads government. As a result, the U.S. has increasingly targeted the Syrian army and allied militias, angering both Iran and Assads other international backer, Russia.

A map shows areas of control in Iraq as of June 19. An alliance of Iraqi military, Kurdish forces, majority-Shiite Muslim militias backed by Iran and U.S.-led coalition forces have all but defeated the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in Iraq. The U.S., however, has expressed concerns about Irans growing influence in the country and in neighboring Syria in the wake of ISISs collapse. Institute for the Study of War/U.S. Central Command

Across the border, Iran has played a key role in reversing ISISs 2014 takeover of nearly half of Iraq. Iran sponsors a number of majorityShiite Muslim militias known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Forces that work alongside the Iraqi military and Kurdish militants in defeating ISIS. The U.S. has reluctantly accepted the role of these forces in Iraq, which has a Shiite Muslim majority, but has accused them of committing revenge attacks on the local Sunni Muslim population. The Popular Mobilization Forces are advancing along the countrys border with Syria as Iran-backed forces in Syria conduct a parallel offensiveagainst ISIS. Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani said Thursday his countrys role against ISIS was superior to that of the U.S.

At the time when Iraq was being overrun by Daesh, by ISIS, did the United States make the slightest move in defense of it? Or was it the Iranian nation that rendered aid to the Iraqi nation and Iraq government?Larijani told CNN.

Had we not assisted them, Baghdad would have been occupied by ISIS. It is with the help of Iran that Daesh, ISIS, is on its last breath in Iraq (and Syria),Larijani added.

See the article here:
Iran: Travel Ban Is 'Shameful' to All Iranians Fighting ISIS and Upholding Nuclear Deal - Newsweek