Iran - Page 173

The largest weapons manufacturer in Latin America, Brazil-based Forjas Taurus SA, has reportedly been accused by Brazilian prosecutors of selling some 8,000 handguns to a known arms trafficker from war-ravaged Yemen in violation of international sanctions.

Islamic authorities in Saudi Arabia have responded to an extensive missive by Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling the Saudis “murderers” and “puny Satans” in response to a massacre that killed thousands at last year’s hajj. Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti dismissed Iran’s ire by arguing that Iranians are “not Muslims.”

The U.S.-led air campaign’s primary focus on the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in the Middle East has helped a former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria gain strength, U.S. military officials and other analysts have acknowledged.

(Reuters) A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship changed course after a fast-attack craft from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps came within 100 yards (91 meters) of it in the central Gulf on Sunday, U.S. Defense Department officials said on Tuesday.

Iran is systematically testing the boundaries of the nuclear deal it struck with the West, and the Obama administration has repeatedly swept this under the carpet, acting as “Iran’s lawyers” instead, a senior Israeli security expert has warned.

Iran-linked Shiite Houthis and their allies, armed groups loyal to the former president of Yemen, have attacked an independent news outlet in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and apprehended its manager, Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya News Channel reports.

In a message relayed by Iranian state media, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Muslim nations to “fundamentally reconsider the management of the two holy places and the issue of hajj.”

Contents: Turkey sends more tanks into Syria in ‘New Phase’ of military action; Syrian rebels capture 14 villages near Hama in four days; Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian army once again close to collapse

Turkey on Saturday sent more tanks into the northern Syrian village of al-Rai to fight Islamic State extremists, opening a new front after its intervention last month against the group, state media reported.

TEL AVIV – An Iranian Grand Ayatollah recently said that the Mahdi – the Shi’ite version of the messiah – will arrive in a “super-modern vessel like a spaceship” and that until that time there will be no “peace, security or decency” on earth.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, announced on Wednesday that construction would soon begin on two new nuclear power plants, with assistance from Russia.

According to a report by the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank with a retroactively unfortunate acronym, Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran includes even more secret side deals than we thought – most, or all, of them favoring Iran.

Contents: Fault lines: Saudi Arabia-China-Pakistan and India-U.S. continue to harden; Saudi Arabia and China sign economic and military agreements; Saudi Arabia and Pakistan discuss economic and military ties; U.S. and India sign a landmark defense agreement

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is in charge of American military activity in the Middle East, warned that the United States will protect itself from increasing Iranian aggression in the Arabian Gulf, adding that ultimately the U.S. “will prevail.”

Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Mahmoud Vaezi, announced on Sunday that Phase One of the new “national Internet” is complete.

Provocative clashes between Iranian ships and the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf have nearly doubled in the first half of 2016 to 19 from 10 during the same period last year, Fox News reports, citing new Pentagon data obtained from a U.S. defense official on condition of anonymity.

The entire world, including America, recognizes Iran’s military might, an Iranian Air Force colonel has said.

Tehran – Iran has inaugurated the first phase of its “National Network of Data,” a national Intranet, its official news agency IRNA reported Sunday.

Barack Obama’s billion-dollar gifts still are not buying any love from Iran, as Ayatollah Khamenei promised devastating counterattacks to U.S. aggression on Sunday, a day after the naval commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boasted of achieving naval superiority over the United States in the Persian Gulf.

The Brazilian magazine Veja has published what it claims to be an official Venezuelan government document authorizing the purchase of multiple chemicals used to make weapons from the government of Iran, a violation of UN sanctions, in 2009.

Dubai – Iran has arrested a member of the negotiating team that reached a landmark nuclear deal with world powers on suspicion of spying, a judiciary spokesman said on Sunday.

The AFP and Times of Israel report: The Israeli Supreme Court on Sunday rejected an appeal by an Israeli man against extradition to the US, where he has been charged with selling arms — including spare parts for fighter jets

TEL AVIV – Tehran has deployed a Russian-made long-range missile system to central Iran to protect its Fordo nuclear facility, Iranian state television said Sunday.

Iran is seeking to recruit potential jihadists in Latin America to attack the United States and is using its embassies in the region as intelligence centers that promote terrorism, according to an expert on the Islamic Republic’s presence in the Americas and an anonymous congressional source.

Iran has detected and removed malicious software from two of its petrochemical complexes, a senior military official said on Saturday, after announcing last week it was investigating whether recent petrochemical fires were caused by cyber attacks.

A $400 million cash delivery to Iran to repay a decades-old arbitration claim may be unprecedented in recent U.S. history, according to legal experts and diplomatic historians, raising further questions about a payment timed to help free four American prisoners in Iran.

Iran has dismissed accusations by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that it delivered missiles to Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Soon after taking office, President Barack Obama promised he would work with Iran to negotiate a nuclear agreement that “will open the door to greater opportunity” not only for its people but for U.S.-Iranian relations. We were also told he would only negotiate a deal that prevented Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iran on Friday denied US accusations it has delivered missiles to Yemeni rebels, retorting it was US support for a Saudi-led coalition backing the government that had prolonged the conflict.

The Iranians have performed dangerous “high-speed intercepts” of American ships twice this week. In the second encounter, occurring in the Persian Gulf on Wednesday, a U.S. Navy ship was forced to fire three warning shots at the Iranian aggressors.

LOS ANGELES, California — Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton declared Sunday that the Iranian nuclear deal is the “worst act of appeasement in American history.” Bolton was speaking at the Luxe Hotel on Sunday for the American Freedom Alliance’s conference, titled “Islam and Western Civilization: Can They Coexist?”

TEL AVIV – A retired Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general, who was deployed to Syria as a senior Iranian commander of Shia troops, said in an interview last week that Iran’s ultimate goal in forming a Shia army is to destroy Israel by 2039.

TEL AVIV – Israeli warplanes targeted positions of the Iran-backed Hezbollah Shiite militia along the Syria-Lebanon border on Wednesday, reported the Times of Israel, citing Arab media quoted in Hebrew news sites.

(Reuters) Four vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “harassed” a U.S. destroyer on Tuesday by carrying out a “high speed intercept” in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. defense official said on Wednesday.

JAFFA, Israel – Iran is actively trying to bring Turkey and Syria closer together, according to a report in the international Saudi publication Asharq Al-Awsat, headquartered in London.

Islam had an estimated 3 million adherents in Latin America and the Caribbean as of the end of last year, marking an increase of nearly 25 percent from the 2.3 million who were residing there in 2010, a Breitbart News analysis of U.S. Department of State (DoS) data shows.