Eye on Iran: U.S. and EU Probing Money of Lebanon's Hezbollah

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories Al Arabiya: "The Lebanese banking sector is once more back to the limelight with EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove placing it on his agenda in a series of meetings he is to hold with a number of Lebanese officials to track down Hezbollah's money, according to a report published by the Lebanese newspaper Annahar. Kerchove's visit to Lebanon is the culmination of pressure exercised on the country's banking sector, the last chapter of which was a report issued by the U.S.-based non-governmental organization United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). The report, published in Wall Street Journal, accused the Lebanese banking sector of laundering Hezbollah's money and of not abiding by the international sanctions imposed on Iran and Syria. The Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice requested to track down Shiite businessman Adnan Hassan Tajeddine and gain access to his bank accounts. Tajeddine, who filed for bankruptcy in the United States, is accused of smuggling Hezbollah money. Joseph Torbey, chairman of the Association of Banks in Lebanon, refuted claims that the banking sector in Lebanon in not abiding by international sanctions and called attempts at tightening the noose on it a conspiracy against Lebanon." http://t.uani.com/NmPA9R NYT: "American officials on Thursday identified the suicide bomber responsible for a deadly attack on Israeli vacationers here as a member of a Hezbollah cell that was operating in Bulgaria and looking for such targets, corroborating Israel's assertions and making the bombing a new source of tension with Iran. One senior American official said the current American intelligence assessment was that the bomber, who struck Wednesday, killing five Israelis, had been 'acting under broad guidance' to hit Israeli targets when opportunities presented themselves, and that the guidance had been given to Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group, by Iran, its primary sponsor. Two other American officials confirmed that Hezbollah was behind the bombing, but declined to provide additional details... A senior Israeli official said on Thursday that the Burgas attack was part of an intensive wave of terrorist attacks around the world carried out by two different organizations, the Iranian Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as well as by Hezbollah." http://t.uani.com/MdovS1 WSJ: "U.S. government officials, citing new intelligence, said Iran has developed plans to disrupt international oil trade, including through attacks on oil platforms and tankers. Officials said the information suggests that Iran could take action against facilities both inside and outside the Persian Gulf, even absent an overt military conflict. The findings come as American officials closely watch Iran for its reaction to punishing international sanctions and to a drumbeat of Israeli threats to bomb Tehran's nuclear sites, while talks aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons have slowed. Analysts say Iran, which denies it is developing nuclear weapons, may be looking for options to push back as it comes under growing pressure and finds its most critical ally, the Syrian regime, focused internally on its own struggle for survival." http://t.uani.com/OCSmpv     Nuclear Program & Sanctions    AFP: "India's home ministry has refused to allow three Iranian banks to open branches on Indian soil because of concerns about money-laundering and terror financing, a report said on Friday. The move complicates New Delhi's efforts to settle its oil trade bills with the Islamic Republic, the Indian Express daily reported, quoting an unnamed home ministry official for the report. The ministry has denied security clearance to applications by Parsian Bank, Bank Kasargad and Eghtesad-e-Novin Bank because of its obligation to guard against money laundering and terrorist financing, the newspaper said." http://t.uani.com/Pqg2yw Reuters: "Obscure private firms are offering Iranian crude oil at steep discounts to European oil traders as Tehran seeks ways to restore oil export flows hit by Western sanctions. Traders who buy crude for European refineries say they are getting daily calls offering Iranian crude, sometimes accompanied by the promise of fake paperwork to disguise it as oil from a different origin. Seeking to reverse a slump in exports caused by U.S. and European Union sanctions, Tehran last month scrapped a strict policy of marketing oil only through state National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to let private companies trade. The sanctions, aimed at pressuring Iran to abandon what the West says is a nuclear arms program, have almost halted Iran's oil sales to Europe. The EU banned imports from July 1 and non-EU Turkey has slashed purchases. Iranian oil initially destined for Turkey is now building up in at the Egyptian Mediterranean transit port of Sidi Kerir and is being offered in the European oil market by a growing number of small firms." http://t.uani.com/SLlY5c Reuters: "The United States should blacklist 65 Iranian officials, following the lead of the European Union which has already sanctioned them for human rights abuses, a group of U.S. senators told President Barack Obama on Thursday. The letter, signed by Republican senators Mark Kirk and Jon Kyl, and Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent, is the latest push by members of the U.S. Congress to try to urge the administration to take a harder line on Tehran. 'Artists, students, activists, human rights defenders and those seeking freedom of speech and religion are increasingly persecuted, imprisoned and tortured' by Iranian government officials, the senators told Obama. The EU has blacklisted a total of 77 Iranian officials, the senators said, noting the United States has designated only 12 of the individuals for sanctions." http://t.uani.com/PqgUmD WSJ: "The U.S. Treasury Department issued an advisory on Thursday to the maritime industry that Iran's shipping lines might be operating ships without registration. Treasury said the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, has been trying to evade sanctions 'through deceptive practices.' As a result, an increasing number of countries have revoked or refused to issue a flag to vessels in which IRISL vessels have an interest. IRISL has been under U.S. sanctions since September 2008. Sierra Leone is the latest country to revoke a flag on a vessel, which it did for Irano-Hind vessel AMIN on June 25, Treasury said." http://t.uani.com/NG1yHt AP: "The head of the U.N. intellectual property agency says it has asked U.N. sanctions officials to review computer equipment it provided to Iran and North Korea. Thursday's statement from Francis Gurry comes days after the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee demanded 'unfettered access' to U.N. documents about the deal and the U.S. State Department said it was reviewing the aid. Gurry, the director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, says the review request reflects 'the utmost seriousness' with which the agency considers complaints about its assistance to two nations subject to U.N. sanctions." http://t.uani.com/Pqh9hB Reuters: "Israelis remain mostly opposed to any unilateral attack by their country on Iran even if international diplomatic pressure fails to curb its nuclear programme, an opinion poll suggested on Friday. The survey commissioned by Maariv newspaper found only 19 percent of Israelis would support the go-it-alone strikes threatened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative government, while 26 percent thought military action should be taken - but only with U.S. backing. Twenty-nine percent said the Jewish state should not attack at all, according to the poll, which asked what it should do if foreign sanctions do not deny Iran the means to make a nuclear bomb. Twenty-six percent said they did not know the answer." http://t.uani.com/Mq4iLF Reuters: "Japanese shippers will start loading on Friday their first cargo of Iranian oil in a month and a half, after the government provided insurance guarantees to replace EU coverage which was suspended due to sanctions against Iran, sources said. The government signed contracts with two domestic shipping companies earlier this week to provide coverage for two super tankers, which are to load a total 3 million barrels of Iranian crude by the end of July for Japan's biggest refiners, industry and government sources said. One of these supertankers will start to load Iranian crude on Friday, the sources said." http://t.uani.com/MzhoI9 AP: "A lawmaker says about half of the 290 members of Iran's parliament are backing a bill favoring the closing of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, passageway for a fifth of the world's oil. Lawmaker Javad Karimi Qodoosi proposed the legislation. He says the strait is the world's lock, and the key is in Iran's hands. His comments were reported by the semi-official ISNA news agency Friday. Iranian officials say the final decision is in the hands of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran's foreign minister indicated recently that such a move was unlikely." http://t.uani.com/Pqgv3G Human Rights Guardian: "Iran has stepped up its crackdown against its Arab minority with mass arrests of activists and death sentences passed in closed-door courts. At least five Arab prisoners who are currently kept at Karoun prison in the southern city of Ahwaz are at imminent risk of execution, activists have warned. The men, Hadi Rashedi, 38, Hashem Shabani, 32, and Mohammad-Ali Amouri, 34, and two brothers Seyed Mokhtar Alboshokeh, 25, and Seyed Jaber Alboshokeh, 27, have been sentenced to death following trials described by activists as grossly unfair. According to Human Rights Watch, the five were arrested by security forces in February 2011." http://t.uani.com/NNnGn3 Foreign Affairs NYT: "Gone is the talk here that last year's Arab Spring was a gift from God. Now some in Iran are even starting to worry about how much might be at stake if President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria, long a client state of Iran's, collapses - which after a fifth day on Thursday of heavy street fighting in Damascus no longer sounds inconceivable. The fall of the Assad government would remove Shiite Iran's last and most valued foothold in the Arab world, and its opening to the Mediterranean. It would give Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states their long-sought goal of countering Iranian influence in the region, finally splitting the alliance between Tehran and Damascus that has lasted for decades. And it would further erode Iran's role as a patron of the Middle East's revolutionaries, a goal that moderate Arabs and the United States have long sought." http://t.uani.com/LxijCR Opinion & Analysis Advisory Board Member Irwin Cotler in JPost: "Next Tuesday, Iran and six major powers - the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (the P5+1) - will hold yet another 'technical' meeting in Turkey - in the words of the leading EU negotiator - also yet again - to 'look further at how existing gaps in positions could be narrowed and how the process could be moved forward.' These technical discussions follow three sets of 'substantive negotiations' in Istanbul, Baghdad and Moscow, between Iran and the P5+1, all of which ended inconclusively. While one may hope that the narrowed focus of these talks will somehow produce a dramatically different result than the previous sets of both substantive and technical negotiations, experience demonstrates that such negotiations benefit Iran alone and are part of a comprehensive Iranian strategy. Simply put, while negotiations continue, uranium enrichment is accelerated, the centrifuges spin, and Tehran approaches 'breakthrough' capacity for nuclear weaponization - the whole in line with an Iranian strategy of using negotiations as a means for advancing uranium enrichment and the nuclear weaponization program itself. That this, in fact, may be Iranian strategy was revealed by the Iranians themselves on the eve of the Baghdad negotiations on May 14, where Hamidreza Taraghi, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and close to the Iranian negotiating team, summed up the Tehran's 'successes' during negotiations as follows: First, Western countries did not want Iran to have a nuclear power plant, but its Bushehr reactor was now connected to the national grid. Second, the West had opposed Iran having heavy water facilities, but the country now has one in Arak. Third, the West had said no to any enrichment, 'But here we are, enriching as much as we need for our nuclear energy program,' Taraghi said, referring to the thousands of cascades of centrifuges spinning for years in the half-underground facility in Natanz. Fourth, since January, and on the eve of the resumed substantive negotiations in Istanbul in April, dozens more advanced centrifuges were installed in the Fordo mountain bunker complex, near Qum, built to withstand a heavy attack. Fifth, Taraghi also said that in the Istanbul talks, Iran had managed to convince the West of the importance of a religious edict, or fatwa, against the possession of nuclear weapons. In a word, Taraghi and other Iranian officials concluded that their policy 'forced the United States to accept Iranian enrichment,' and in effect, the related nuclear program... In summary, given the Iranian 3D pattern of denial, deception and delay, the whole while uranium continues to be enriched and centrifuges continue to spin - and while the nuclear weaponization program is on the verge of a 'breakthrough' - only a verifiable abandonment by Iran of its nuclear weapons pursuits will suffice. For that objective to be secured, negotiations must not be a cover for the 3Ds, but a password to full Iranian compliance with their international obligations, and a benchmark for international peace and security." http://t.uani.com/NNkyaE Gal Luft in FP: "One hundred years ago this week, five Italian torpedo boats conducted a raid in the Straits of Dardanelles, a long, narrow body of water connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara -- then the world's most important shipping passage. It was the height of the Italo-Turkish War, a precursor to World War I, and the Young Turks in Constantinople responded by playing their trump card: They closed the strait to international shipping intermittently for a few weeks by deploying their warships. But instead of aiding the war effort -- the Turks eventually lost control of their Libyan provinces -- the closure had disastrous consequences for the Ottoman Empire. At the time, the Russians sent 90 percent of their grain exports through the Turkish Straits out into the Mediterranean. Closure of the Dardanelles thus meant that millions of tons of grain were spoiled, bringing ruin to Russia's agricultural economy and reducing its export revenues for the year by 30 percent. The lesson for Tsar Nicholas II: never allow a foreign power to hold the key to your prosperity. From that point onward, Russia's foreign policy in the lead-up to World War I was laser-focused on one objective: accelerating the demise of the Ottoman Empire and inheriting control over Constantinople and the Straits. Fast forward 100 years and free passage through another strategic strait, the Strait of Hormuz, is endangered. This time it is the disruption of the oil supply, not grain, that has great powers vexed, and it is Iran that's doing the threatening. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and its Sunni neighbors -- with China's help -- are assuming Russia's role in altering the world's geopolitics. Today, Iran's economy is in shambles. Its oil exports have plummeted by nearly 50 percent since last year because of U.S. and European sanctions, while its annual inflation rate has surpassed 30 percent and its currency has declined by 50 percent against the dollar. And the more desperate the Iranians become, the more aggressively they threaten to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil passes each day... What the mullahs, their generals, and the 100 Iranian lawmakers who've expressed support for the bill to block the Strait should know is that, like the Ottomans a century ago, they are likely to be the prime casualties of any real or threatened disruption to maritime trade. The reason is simple: It's not about the heavy price the Iranians would pay if they went through with a military effort to close the Straits. In fact, they're paying the price already, as talk of closure has already made the Strait of Hormuz increasingly irrelevant." http://t.uani.com/MOgodh Michael Widlanski in the NYPost: "Yesterday's terror attack on an Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria could lead to war. The bomb killed at least six and wounded 32 others. Israeli officials quickly accused Iran and its Lebanese terror arm, Hezbollah, of the attack. 'Only in the last two months, we have seen attempts to hurt Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other places,' noted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 'This is an Iranian terror offensive that is spreading throughout the world,' he continued. And: 'Israel will react strongly.' He promised reprisals against Hezbollah, but if it becomes clear that Iranian agents played a role in the attack, action against the Tehran regime may also be on the table. Israeli analysts likened Iran and Hezbollah to cornered animals, so desperate has their strategic situation grown. Iran's ally, the Syrian government of Hafez Assad, is in danger of collapse. At nearly the same time as the Bulgarian attack, Syrian rebels succeeded in killing some of the leading members of the regime at Syrian army headquarters in Damascas. Three top general were killed, including Assif Shawkat, Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law, the head of Syrian military intelligence. But Israeli officials said the world had to step up the isolation of Iran. 'The world has to step up crippling sanctions against Iran, and not just because of its nuclear program,' declared Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. He said Israel will demand suspension of civilian airline flights in and out of Iran... Hezbollah and Iran have been concentrating on generally 'soft' targets away from Israel for two reasons: They're easier to hit than targets in Israel, and they make it harder for Israel to justify a direct reprisal on Iran or Hezbollah." http://t.uani.com/NmSF9M Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.