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TOP STORIES
The U.S. recently indicted members of an Iranian
government contractor for hacking universities and companies to steal
research. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant, which highlighted Iran as a
growing force in 2017 in an annual report released today, has seen an
uptick in believed government affiliated Iranian hackers stealing
intellectual property from businesses.
President Donald Trump grew irritated with his top
military brass and national security team on Tuesday when they
advised him an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Syria would be
unwise and could not provide a timeline for when American forces
could exit, people familiar with the matter said... During the
meeting with his national security council at the White House, Trump
was told by top advisers such as Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of
the Joints Chiefs of Staff, that leaving Syria now would provide an
opening for Russia, Turkey and Iran to advance their own interests in
the country, which run counter to the United States'.
The White House on Wednesday said it was "very
concerned" about Yemen's Houthi rebels trying to "escalate
the war" in the ravaged Arab country by attacking a Saudi oil
tanker in the Red Sea the previous day. The attack caused "minor
damage" to the ship, according to the Saudi-led, U.S.-backed
coalition battling the rebels.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Others have already calculated that the risks are too
high. San Francisco-based financial-tech company Paymentwall made an
initial move into the Iranian market amid the post-nuclear-deal
exuberance of 2016, but quickly withdrew after warnings about the risks
of doing business in Iran from anti-Iran lobbying groups such as
United Against Nuclear Iran.
In order for the nuclear deal with Iran to ensure the
"exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program,"
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must be able to inspect
all necessary locations either in the territory of Iran or under its
control elsewhere, including all military sites. Since Iran's military
industry has played a well-documented and important role in
developing the country's nuclear capabilities, the absence of
inspections at military sites would prevent the effective monitoring
of the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA).
NUCLEAR DEAL
As Passover and Easter are now over, we are reminded
that the survival of Western religions is tied to a strong Israel and
a non-nuclear Iran. The question is not whether Iran will have a
nuclear weapon, but rather when, unless it is stopped.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
The head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency is
"100 percent certain" that Iran remains committed to
developing a nuclear bomb and believes the international community
must change or scrap its nuclear deal with the Islamic
Republic.
BUSINESS RISK
India is set to offer a $3-4 billion development plan
for the Farzad B gas field to Iran next week after Tehran reduced the
scope of the project, two sources familiar with the matter said.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
The day after a car bomb claimed the life of Maltese
investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia, in October last year,
one of the 47 libel suits against her was quietly dropped at a county
court in the US. Maltese private bank Pilatus Bank and its owner,
Iran-born Seyed Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, known as Ali Sadr, had filed
proceedings against Caruana Galizia earlier last year. The suit came
after a series of stories published on her website that claimed
Pilatus had laundered funds from allegedly corrupt schemes on behalf
of offshore companies and individuals, including Keith Schembri,
chief of staff to the Maltese prime minister, Joseph Muscat... The
story did not end there. In March, Mr Sadr was arrested in the US and
charged on six counts of evading Washington's sanctions against Iran.
Prosecutors claim he organised a scheme, lasting from 2006 to 2014,
to illicitly funnel more than $115m from a Venezuelan housing project
to Iranian-controlled companies via western banks.
U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday asked a federal judge to
sentence a Turkish banker convicted of helping Iran evade U.S.
sanctions to about 20 years in prison, in a case that has strained
diplomatic ties between the United States and Turkey.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
A senior official of the Yemeni Houthi rebels has said
that the insurgent group is willing to purchase weapons from Iran and
Russia if they can deliver the arms to the Yemeni capital of Sana'a,
which is currently held by the Houthis.
In addition to preventing the entry of smuggled Iranian
air-defense systems, Washington should work with the Saudi-led
coalition to blunt the impact of evolving Houthi SAM tactics.
Yemen's armed Houthi movement launched a missile at
storage tanks belonging to oil giant SaudiAramco in Saudi Arabia's
southwestern Jiza n province on Wednesday, said Yemeni state news
agency Saba, which is controlled by the group. Saudi air defenses
shot down a missile in the skies above the province, the kingdom's
official TV channel Ekhbariya reported minutes before the Yemeni
claim.
HUMAN RIGHTS
In an interview with the BBC Arabic, Iran's Foreign
Minister Javad Zarif said that the fate of British-Iranian mother
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is only in the hands of the Iranian
Judiciary. He urged the British government to respect the
"independence" of the judicial branch in the Islamic
Republic.
The family of a British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran on
espionage charges has demanded that the British government take a
bigger role in securing her release, two years after the young mother
was detained while visiting relatives.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
In Iran, she was known as Green Nasim, a social media
star with followings on YouTube, on Instagram and elsewhere. In the
United States, she cast a very different profile, a proponent of
vegan diets, animal rights and home exercise who had increasingly
become agitated by one of the tech companies that helped give her a
platform. On Tuesday afternoon, Nasim Najafi Aghdam sneaked into
YouTube's headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., and opened fire,
shooting three people before taking her own life.
SYRIA & IRAN
The leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey met Wednesday for
high-level talks on ending the Syrian war, cementing their influence
on the outcome of the conflict and isolating the United States from
the region's most crucial diplomacy.
Russia's defense minister has met with his Iranian
counterpart and hailed the two country's cooperation in Syria. Russia
and Iran both have backed Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout
the seven-year Syrian civil war, helping Assad's army turn the
conflict in his favor.
President Donald Trump's Thursday remarks about an
imminent withdrawal of US troops has drawn a great deal of attention
in the Iranian press. While some state-run outlets and those
affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards welcome Trump's announcement
as a victory for Iran and its regional proxies, others remain
skeptical about whether Washington will actually press ahead with
such a plan.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with his Russian
and Turkish counterparts today in Ankara for talks over the Syrian
conflict. Speaking at the trilateral summit, the Iranian president
blamed the United States and its allies for the Syrian crisis and
called for the withdrawal of American troops from the Arab country.
[Israeli] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu... spoke
with President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening, soon after Trump made
clear his intent to withdraw US troops from Syria, though without
setting a firm deadline. The White House issued a statement saying Trump
reiterated the US commitment to Israel's security, and the two
leaders agreed to continue "their close coordination on
countering Iran's malign influence and destabilizing
activities."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded on Wednesday
to remarks made a day earlier by Iranian President Hassan Rohani
attacking the United States and Israel for their roles in Syria.
"There's no end to the absurdity," said the prime minister.
"The Iranian terror octopus is accusing Israel of
terrorism." "If Rohani isn't familiar with the terror and
sabotage activities carried out daily by the Iranian Quds Force in
Syria, Israel can brief him about it," Netanyahu said.
IRAQ & IRAN
Mansur Moradi began panicking as blood poured from both
his legs after an unexpected explosion. Stranded in a minefield in
western Iran, any movement he made could trigger yet another blast.
The mountainous region is covered with millions of anti-personnel
landmines laid during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.
ISRAEL AND IRAN
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit out at
Iran on Wednesday after President Hassan Rouhani accused Israel of
supporting "terrorists" in Syria. "Absurdity has no
limits: Iran's terrorist regime that sends tentacles of terror across
the region accuses Israel of terrorism," Netanyahu wrote on
Twitter. "If Rouhani is unaware of the terrorist and sabotage
activities conducted daily by the Iranian Quds Force in Syria, Israel
can provide him with an update," Netanyahu said, referring to
the foreign arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. Earlier
Wednesday, during a summit in Ankara with Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin, Rouhani denounced
"the daily support of the Zionist regime for terrorists in
Syria", according to the website of the Iranian presidency.
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