Eye on Iran: Iran Unveils New Missiles, Drones

Join UANI           Top Stories AFP: "Iran on Sunday unveiled two new missiles and two new drones it said have been added to its arsenal, in a ceremony attended by President Hassan Rouhani. The Ghadir (Mighty), with a range of 300 kilometres (185 miles), is a ground-to-sea and sea-to-sea missile, the official IRNA news agency said. It is in the same family as the Ghader or Qader cruise missile, which has a range of 200 kilometres. The other missile unveiled on Sunday, the Nasr-e Basir (Clear Victory), is equipped with a seeker homing head. Its range was not given. The new Karar-4 (Striker) drone can track and monitor enemy aircraft, the agency said, while the Mohajer-4 (Migrant) drone is designed to perform photographic and mapping missions." http://t.uani.com/1qgYHKQ AFP: "Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said it has brought down an Israeli stealth drone above the Natanz uranium enrichment site in the centre of the country. 'A spy drone of the Zionist regime (Israel) was brought down by a missile... This stealth drone was trying to approach the Natanz nuclear zone,' the corps said in a statement on its official website sepahnews.com. 'This act demonstrates a new adventurism by the Zionist regime... The Revolutionary Guard and the other armed forces reserve the right to respond to this act,' the statement added. An Israeli spokesman told AFP in Jerusalem on Sunday that the military does 'not address foreign media reports.'" http://t.uani.com/1l8vzVS Reuters: "A deadline for Iran to answer U.N. nuclear watchdog questions about suspected atomic bomb research was reached on Monday without any immediate word on whether Tehran had provided the information. Western officials have long said Iran must address the U.N. agency's suspicions about its work and that this would be an important boost for parallel diplomatic efforts to end a decade-old dispute over the country's nuclear program... Diplomats told Reuters last week that the long-running inquiry by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) appeared to be making only slow headway, casting doubt on whether Iran would fully meet the Aug. 25 target date. They said there was still time for Iran to respond to the questions, noting that it had occasionally waited until the last minute to make concessions in the past. Officials said Tehran might also provide the information a few days late. There was no immediate comment from Tehran and the IAEA said it would not comment on the issue on Monday. Diplomats say the watchdog may only release details of any Iranian response in its next quarterly report, expected in early September." http://t.uani.com/1okZ41V   Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "Iran will not give UN nuclear inspectors access to a military base outside Tehran that they have been seeking to visit since 2005, Defence Minister Hossein Dehgan said on Saturday... 'The agency carried out several visits to Parchin (before 2005), took samples and found nothing untoward,' Dehgan told the ISNA news agency. 'There is therefore no reason for new access to Parchin as nothing new has come up since the last inspections.'" http://t.uani.com/1mHWZO4 AFP: "Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will meet EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on September 1 in Brussels to agree a framework for renewed nuclear talks, Iran said on Sunday... The new round of full talks will take place in New York ahead of the opening of the UN General Assembly on September 16, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the official IRNA news agency. He said Iran would hold preparatory bilateral meetings with some of the six powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany -- ahead of the talks." http://t.uani.com/1tBbFU5 AFP: "Iran has opened a uranium dioxide factory that will produce fuel for civilian nuclear plants, the head of its atomic energy agency announced Saturday. Ali Akbar Salehi said the factory in Esfahan, central Iran, which produce uranium dioxide enriched to a level of less than 5 percent was opened in keeping with an agreement between Tehran and world powers. Its main use would be for the Bushehr nuclear reactor in southern Iran, he said, quoted by state news agency IRNA. 'Under the agreement with the P5+1 which came into effect in January, we are to transform a part of the enriched uranium to less than five percent oxide,' said Salehi." http://t.uani.com/1ANeftA Press TV (Iran): "Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan says the country's missile capability is not up for discussion in talks with six world powers over Tehran's nuclear energy program. 'The issue of [Iran's] missile [capability] has not been included in the negotiations and the Joint Plan of Action agreed upon between Iran and the West,' Dehqan told a press conference on the occasion of Iran's Defense Industry Day on Saturday. 'Iran's missile capability has not been and will by no means be negotiated with anyone,' he added." http://t.uani.com/1BUPY69 Terrorism Long War Journal: "The US Treasury Department today imposed sanctions on two jihadists who act as 'key financiers' for al Qaeda and the Al Nusrah Front, which is al Qaeda's official branch in Syria. One of the two, Abdul Mohsen Abdullah Ibrahim al Sharikh, is a senior al Qaeda leader whose role in the terrorist network was first exposed by The Long War Journal in March. Sharikh is known as Sanafi al Nasr, or the 'Cultivator of Victory.' US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal that he leads al Qaeda's victory committee, which is responsible for al Qaeda's strategic planning and policy... Prior to the move, Nasr served 'as a key financial facilitator' for al Qaeda in Pakistan and then, temporarily, as the head of al Qaeda's network in Iran... The Treasury Department also reveals new details about Nasr's role in al Qaeda's network in Iran. In 'early 2013,' Nasr served as the 'chief of al Qaeda's Iran-based extremist and financial facilitation network.' ... Like Nasr, another former head of al Qaeda's Iranian presence, a Kuwaiti named Muhsin al Fadhli, has also reportedly relocated to Syria." http://t.uani.com/VO0tHg Foreign Affairs AFP: "Tehran will 'accelerate' arming Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in retaliation for Israel deploying a spy drone over Iran, which was shot down, a military commander said on Monday. 'We will accelerate the arming of the West Bank and we reserve the right to give any response,' said General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, commander of aerial forces of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, in a statement on their official website sepahnews.com." http://t.uani.com/1qbJABs Reuters: "Iraq's Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday during talks with Iran's foreign minister that international efforts would be necessary to destroy Islamic State Sunni militants who have seized swathes of his country and of Syria. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, a Shi'ite Muslim regional power likely to wield influence over the formation of Abadi's new cabinet, reaffirmed Tehran's support for Iraq's territorial unity and its fight against militants... 'The Islamic Republic of Iran will keep standing by your side. Iran backs the unity of Iraq and the stabilizing of security and considers that as a priority in its foreign policy,' he said... Asked about reports that Iranian soldiers were fighting alongside Iraqi forces in the battle against Islamic State, Zarif said: 'The information about the presence of Iranian soldiers in Iraq is not correct. We don't have a single Iranian soldier on Iraqi soil because Iraq does not need those soldiers.'" http://t.uani.com/1pXXgBf AFP: "Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit ally Moscow next week, the Islamic republic's ambassador to Russia wrote on Facebook Friday, media reports said. Mehdi Sanaei said that Zarif will travel on August 29 to meet his counterpart Sergei Lavrov, saying only that their talks would focus on bilateral, regional and international issues." http://t.uani.com/1ol0mKq Opinion & Analysis UANI Outreach Coordinator Bob Feferman in Algemeiner: "While many analysts still refuse to see the commonalities among radical Islamic terrorist groups, the horrific image of the beheading of American journalist James Foley should serve as a wake-up call. The radical ideologies of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, ISIS, and al-Qaeda should be seen together as one common threat. It's time for the enlightened world to wake up to the danger and understand that it's all the same madness, the same barbarism. Further, Middle East terrorist groups and Iran (the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism) have a lot more in common than is generally understood. First, they share a fundamental intolerance of the other: Baha'i, Christians, Jews, and Yazidis, not to mention gays and lesbians and countless others. Secondly, there is the shared goal of imposing Sharia law on society. For Islamic fundamentalists, the idea of separation of church and state is not only wrong, it is evil. Third, there is the idea of waging Jihad to spread ideas. Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran said, 'We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry `There is no God but God` resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.' Finally, Islamic fundamentalists have repeatedly shown a willingness to cooperate in the pursuit of larger goals, such as striking at the U.S. and Israel. Look at Iran's support for the Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. For two decades, Iran has supplied weapons, funding, and training to Palestinian terrorists. This is not the only example of cooperation between Iran and terrorists (even if they happen to be Sunni). In the 1990s, Iran and Hezbollah provided training for al-Qaeda operatives that led to th  1998 twin bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people. In 2011 U.S. District Court Judge John Bates issued a 45-page decision in which he wrote, '... the government of Iran aided, abetted and conspired with Hezbollah, Osama Bin Laden, and al Qaeda to launch large-scale bombing attacks against the United States by utilizing the sophisticated delivery mechanism of powerful suicide truck bombs.' Our inability to see the commonality of evil amongst all Islamic fundamentalists endangers us all. Are the suicide truck bombings of American embassies or Iranian rockets that target Israeli civilians any less barbaric than the beheading of an American journalist? Since its founding in 2008, our advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) has been making the case that Iran's support for terrorists and abuse of the human rights of its own citizens is both barbaric and unacceptable. Recently, we have documented this in our new VERITAS Project. The enormity of human suffering caused by the brutal Iranian regime is shocking. And now with the shocking footage of the beheading of the American journalist, we ask this question: If ISIS was a country, would it be acceptable to do business with it? The CEO's of hundreds of multinational companies doing business in Iran should be asking themselves a very similar question." http://t.uani.com/XM11iL 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.