Archive for the ‘Iran’ Category

Iran, China quick to congratulate Putin on election win as others reject vote – The Times of Israel

Irans President Ebrahim Raisi is among the first to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his decisive win in Russias presidential election, state media reports.

The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a message sincerely congratulated Vladimir Putin on his decisive victory and re-election as the President of the Russian Federation, state news agency IRNA reports.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also sends a congratulatory message to Putin, saying his re-election fully reflects the support of the Russian people, Beijings state media reports.

The tone from the West is starkly different, with France and others charging that Putins re-election was neither fair nor free.

The French Foreign Ministry says in a statement that the vote took place in a context of repression within civil society and the conditions for a free and democratic election were not respected.

The ministry also praises the courage of the many Russian citizens who peacefully protested against this attack on their fundamental political rights.

Lithuanias Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis also says the vote lacks legitimacy.

In this atmosphere of non-freedom definitely there can be no elections, Landsbergis says before a meeting with fellow ministers from the EU in Brussels.

Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russias election on Sunday, cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.

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Iran, China quick to congratulate Putin on election win as others reject vote - The Times of Israel

U.S. and Allies Warn Iran Not to Send Missiles to Russia – The New York Times

The United States and six other major world powers warned Iran on Friday not to provide ballistic missiles to Russia to aid Moscows war against Ukraine and threatened to retaliate if it does by cutting off Iranian air travel to Europe, among other measures.

The Group of 7 nations issued the warning in a statement coordinated with the White House in hopes of making Tehran think twice before arming Russia even further at a time when American security aid to Ukraine remains blocked in Congress by Republican leaders, who are following the lead of former President Donald J. Trump.

The Reuters news agency reported last month that Iran had already provided Russia with around 400 surface-to-surface missiles, including many from the Fateh-110 family of short-range weapons capable of striking targets as far as 435 miles away. Biden administration officials said on Friday that they had not been able to confirm that Iran had already transferred missiles but assume that it intends to.

The G7 leaders said they were extremely concerned about reports of possible Iranian transfers. We call on Iran not to do so, as it would add to regional destabilization and represent a substantive material escalation in its support for Russias war in Ukraine an aggression which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and the U.N. Charter, they said in their statement.

Were Iran to proceed with providing ballistic missiles or related technology to Russia, we are prepared to respond swiftly and in a coordinated manner including with new and significant measures against Iran, the leaders added.

Biden administration officials said that one example of a response would be to end flights into Europe by Iran Air, the countrys flagship national carrier, further isolating the nation.

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U.S. and Allies Warn Iran Not to Send Missiles to Russia - The New York Times

Iran remains the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East – JNS.org

(March 18, 2024 / JNS)

As all eyes are on Gaza amid Israels war with Hamas, sometimes forgotten is that the Islamic Republic of Iran been responsible for funding and training not only that terrorist organization but also Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, as well as the Houthis in Yemen.

In the meantime, based on data from the International Atomic Energy Agency, experts now report that Iran can assemble a nuclear bomb in approximately seven days. Iran is a key member of the new axis of evil, along with Russia and China, and has many bases throughout Latin America, which threatens U.S. national security interests.

Meanwhile, it has been 18 months since the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran in September 2022, following her arrest by the Islamic Republics morality police for improperly wearing a head covering. Emboldened by protests that erupted following her death, many women in Iran are now going without their hair uncovered. However, none of this means a loosening up of Irans draconian laws.

The people of Iran went to the polls on March 1, but the ruling Guardian Council oversaw the election, deciding which candidates were eligible to run. Many avoided the elections altogether, seeing them as a sham. What does this say about the future of Irans counter-revolution? Is there any hope that the Iranian people can overthrow their suffocating regime?

Here to discuss these issues and more are Dr. Walid Phares and Gazelle Sharmahd.

The opinions and facts presented in this article are those of the author, and neither JNS nor its partners assume any responsibility for them.

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Iran remains the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East - JNS.org

Netanyahu: Defeating Hamas would be ‘stinging blow to Iran’ – JNS.org

(March 18, 2024 / JNS)

Victory in the war against Hamas would deliver a stinging blow to the Iran terror axis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, adding that Israelis are united in pursuit of this goal.

The vast majority of the people, the army, the [IDF] reservists. They want victory because they understand that victory is essential for survival, the premier told board members of the pro-Israel AIPAC lobbying group at his office in Jerusalem.

Contrary to the picture being presented in the United States, Netanyahu asserted that the vast majority of the public is behind the governments goals of destroying Hamas, freeing the hostages and preventing Gaza from again threatening Israel.

Additionally, Israel must push Hezbollah back from the border, the prime minister said.

The description [being painted in the U.S.] is that you have an outlier prime minister with some extreme fringe groups and that is what is driving the policy. It is false, deliberately false. Wrong. There is unity among the people to achieve victory along the lines I described. It is within reach, and we are going to do it, Netanyahu said.

If we achieve these goals, then we will also deliver a stinging blow to the Iran terror axis which is behind everything that we are seeing here today, he continued.

This is not just Israels battle, but also the battle for the victory of the Israel-American-moderate Arab axis against the Iran axis, the prime minister stressed.

Netanyahu attempted to allay concerns about evacuating noncombatants from Rafah in southern Gaza, saying that there is plenty of space between Rafah and the central corridor that takes up 65% of the Strips territory.

He said that those arguing against the Rafah operation, who would leave the remaining Hamas battalions in place, are making a case for losing the war.

They keep saying that local politics is interfering with this. They may be right, but on which side of the pond? We have to win this war.

We have to stand together here, and we have to stand together there, because its the right thing to do and the necessary thing to do, Netanyahu said. Its the one thing that will ensure the viability, future and security of the State of Israel.

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Netanyahu: Defeating Hamas would be 'stinging blow to Iran' - JNS.org

U.S. expands mission to stop Iran’s arms smuggling to Yemen – The Washington Post – The Washington Post

The Biden administration is expanding efforts to surveil and intercept Iranian weapons being smuggled to Yemen, where Houthi militants have staged a deadly campaign of violence against commercial shipping that has proved resilient to six weeks of military strikes, said U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The initiative seeks to map seafaring routes used by Tehran and stop the arms shipments while in transit, an acknowledgment that the Houthis are likely to pose a significant security challenge for the foreseeable future. It is part of a broader strategy that also includes sanctions and diplomatic pressure, but it faces constraint as essential military resources are in short supply.

A senior U.S. defense official described the evolving mission as a renewed effort to try to better understand what those water routes look like. Like others interviewed for this report, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive military activity. The work requires considerable collaboration with the U.S. intelligence community, the official said.

A second senior defense official characterized the effort as very vigorous, saying Washington also is exploring how partner nations can expand their focus on disrupting Iranian arms smuggling to help offset a limited inventory of U.S. drones and other surveillance assets that are central to the process. The official declined to identify which nations are involved in those conversations, but said all governments affected economically by the Houthi attacks should do more.

Its definitely a challenge in an area as large as the one we are describing to identify all of these craft, this person said. But we are devoting significant resources to identifying, tracking and where we have the ability interdicting. And what we are finding is significant.

The Houthis, who rose from a ragtag band of rebels to functioning now as the de facto government overseeing much of Yemen, fall under Irans regional network of proxy forces opposed to Israel and the U.S. military presence in the Middle East. The groups leaders have characterized its actions in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as a demonstration of solidarity with Hamas fighters battling Israeli forces in Gaza, yet often its targeting has appeared indiscriminate it once even fired on a ship hauling grain to Yemen, where conflict has left millions in hunger, according to aid organizations.

When Houthi fighters seized Yemens capital, Sanaa, in 2014, they inherited an array of weaponry, including North Korean and Soviet-era scud missiles, Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles, and Chinese anti-ship missiles, said Mohammed al-Basha, a senior Middle East analyst at the Navanti Group. Since then, the group has learned to create more advanced weapons by modifying items in its arsenal and using technology obtained from overseas, including from Iran.

Since November shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza the Defense Department has documented at least 105 attacks on merchant vessels off Yemen, including about 40 over the past week. The weapons include one-way attack drones, rockets, ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones that can skim the waves and travel underwater, officials said.

A U.S.-led effort to protect maritime traffic has successfully thwarted many of those attacks. On March 6, however, an anti-ship missile launched by the Houthis struck a commercial vessel, the MV True Confidence, in the Gulf of Aden. At least three mariners were killed and several more were injured, U.S. officials said. Last month, a Houthi missile strike on the MV Rubymar, a U.S.-owned cargo ship, caused the vessel to sink.

While the United States conducted a campaign against al-Qaeda militants in Yemen for more than a decade, it devoted limited attention to the Houthis, who despite their anti-American rhetoric were more focused on countering an air campaign by Saudi Arabia than attacking U.S. or Western interests. As a consequence, the Pentagon today has a somewhat narrow understanding of the groups smuggling operations, current and former officials say.

Maritime smuggling has originated from Iranian ports such as Jask, in the Gulf of Oman, and Bandar Abbas, in the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.N. experts. Such shipments can be transported through the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden all the way to Yemen, or take routes over land through bordering countries such as Oman.

At least 18 maritime interdictions have occurred since 2013, revealing shipments of weapons alleged to have come from Iran ranging from machine guns to antitank missiles, said al-Basha. Additional smuggling has occurred via the Horn of Africa.

It is unknown how much materiel has gotten through undetected, making it difficult for the United States to assess the effectiveness of its recent strikes there have been dozens dating to January in degrading the Houthis ability to continue their maritime attacks.

A persistent challenge facing the U.S. military is its finite number of drones and other surveillance assets, which are in high demand by American military leaders across the world. The Pentagon, as part of a shifting global security strategy intended to focus foremost on China, in recent years reassigned some of that equipment that had been in south-central Asia and the Middle East over two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who as head of U.S. Central Command oversees American military activity throughout the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee this month that for a time, he diverted surveillance capabilities from over Afghanistan where the United States continues to monitor terrorist groups to focus instead on the Red Sea, as well as Iraq and Syria, where until recently deployed U.S. forces faced repeated attacks from groups aided by Iran.

Kurilla said the United States needs to fund more as additional capabilities.

The Houthis have shot down at least two MQ-9 Reaper drones off the coast of Yemen, once in November and again in February, U.S. officials said.

Another limitation is the availability of highly trained personnel available to carry out the perilous task of boarding vessels suspected of carrying Iranian weapons to Yemen. Although the Pentagon is stepping up its interdiction efforts, the mission is not expected to entail a major allocation of additional Special Operations forces, officials said.

Marine Corps forces deployed aboard ships also have historically participated in such missions, but for the foreseeable future, none are expected in the region because of an ongoing shortage of available amphibious ships overseen by the Navy, U.S. officials said. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit recently departed the Red Sea region after a lengthy deployment and is expected to arrive home in North Carolina in coming days.

Glimpses of the evolving mission have emerged through the handful of ship-boarding operations disclosed to the public in recent months.

On Jan. 11, two Navy SEALs were lost at sea while attempting to climb aboard a suspected smuggling vessel off Somalia. Others involved, including U.S. Coast Guard members, recovered what Centcom said was an array of Iranian-made weapons, including missile components, and took 14 people into custody. Four of them face charges, including intentionally transporting a warhead, the Justice Department announced in February.

A month later, Coast Guard personnel intercepted a vessel in the Arabian Sea and seized ballistic missile components, explosives and other weapons parts, officials said. The shipment originated in Iran, they said.

Carl Sam Mundy III, a retired lieutenant general who oversaw Marine Corps forces in the Middle East from 2018 to 2021, called these missions among the militarys most dangerous and unpredictable. They can happen with U.S. forces fast-roping from helicopters down to the suspected smuggling ship or boarding from the water after swooping in on small, high-speed boats.

Many times, we dont know what exactly the threat is, said Mundy, a distinguished senior fellow with the Middle East Institute. A lot of times, we dont know. And so, of course, that complicates the operation because youre putting people in a vulnerable situation and adding in all these atmospheric conditions that make it all very challenging.

Boarding can be carried out by SEALs, Force Reconnaissance Marines, Coast Guard maritime security response teams and other elite forces. Gathering intelligence and making sense of it are required to make such missions successful, and that takes time, he said, especially in an area as vast as the Red Sea and nearby waterways.

The problem is, its a big geographic area and we dont have enough resources to do this, Mundy said. To do this right, its going to take time.

Kenneth Frank McKenzie Jr., a retired Marine Corps general who led Centcom from 2019 to 2022, said cutting off the flow of lethal arms from Iran to the Houthis is critical.

We need to recognize that, and we need to put resources against it, McKenzie said. Principally, that requires surveillance resources, he said, but also the platforms that allow us to actually do the intercepts, and we need to work with our coalition partners in order to do this.

Elana DeLozier, a Yemen expert who runs the Sage Institute for Foreign Affairs, said it is unclear whether the Houthis will halt their attacks if large-scale Israeli military operations conclude in Gaza. Its possible, she said, that the goal posts could move, considering that the Houthis appear to derive other benefits from taking up the Palestinian cause.

One such benefit is that other Yemeni groups that are typically the Houthis adversaries must consider whether they may be portrayed as not sufficiently pro-Palestinian if they attack the Houthis.

It becomes a black-and-white thing, DeLozier said, that is convenient for the Houthis.

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U.S. expands mission to stop Iran's arms smuggling to Yemen - The Washington Post - The Washington Post