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TOP STORIES
The Trump administration on
Thursday accused Iran of stepping up violations of a U.N. ban on arms
exports by sending rockets and other weaponry to rebels in
Afghanistan and Yemen. The new allegations come as the U.S. ramps up
pressure on Iran to halt what it calls "malign activities"
in the Middle East and elsewhere by reinstating sanctions that had
been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal from which President Donald
Trump withdrew in May. Iran has denied such accusations in the past.
Three former executives linked
to one of the largest U.S. wartime contractors were charged on Thursday
with a scheme to defraud the Pentagon and engage in illicit trade
with Iran, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday. Anham FZCO's
former chief executive, Abul Huda Farouki, was among those charged in
connection with an $8.1 billion U.S. military supply contract to
supply food and water to troops in Afghanistan.
Iran is using teams of hit
squads in Iraq to silence critics of Iranian attempts to meddle in
Iraq's new government, according to British security officials. The
hit squads are said to have been deployed on the orders of Qassem
Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds
Force, with the aim of intimidating Iraqi opponents of Iranian
interference in Iraqi politics.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Earlier this month at a meeting
of foreign ministers in Brussels, the European Union
announced support for sanctioning measures that had been
put in place by the government of France, in response to Iranian
terror threats. This is a step in the right direction for European
policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran, albeit a tentative
one. This decision set the stage for expanding the French measures so
they are applied throughout the EU, but the multinational body has
yet to take actual, concrete steps toward exerting comprehensive
pressure on Iran's Islamist regime.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Imports of Iranian crude oil by
major buyers in Asia hit a five-year low in October, as China, Japan
and South Korea sharply cut purchases ahead of U.S. sanctions on
Tehran that took effect in early November, government and
ship-tracking data showed. China, India, Japan and South Korea last
month imported about 762,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Iran,
according to the data, down 56.4 percent from a year earlier.
When the administration of
President Hassan Rouhani fixed the exchange rate of the Iranian rial
against the US dollar back in April - an ultimately failed
effort to curb the free fall of Iran's national currency - it also
revived a controversial mandatory currency repatriation policy. The
initiative, which obligates exporters to bring home their hard
currency revenues through designated channels, may yet prove
perilous. Private sector businesses are less than happy with a
regulatory stance that forcefully tells them where to redirect their
hard-earned money.
Iran has warned that it cannot
wait forever for the establishment of a payment mechanism the
Europeans have promised to launch in order to maintain trade with
Tehran. "We've so far witnessed that the European countries have
the political will [to maintain business relations with Iran], and
have not seen any sign that proves otherwise," Deputy Foreign
Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Special Iranian anti-corruption
courts established this summer have in recent weeks handed down harsh
sentences, including the death penalty, against businessmen who
allegedly took advantage of worsening economic conditions caused by
U.S. sanctions on Iran. The tribunals, established by Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei in August, are part of a high-profile government
crackdown on corruption amid growing public anger over high
unemployment and other economic ills.
A group of UN human rights
experts on Thursday criticized the actions of the Iranian
government in jailing human rights defenders and lawyers. "We
urge the Government to immediately release all those who have been
imprisoned for promoting and protecting the rights of women."
The experts called for the government of Iran to guarantee the rights
of those imprisoned, not to arbitrarily deprive them of their
liberty, and to guarantee rights to fair proceedings before an
independent and impartial tribunal.
Iran's attorney general has said
that imprisoned ecologists were agents of influence for Israel and
the United States and there are documents proving the charge. Tasnim
new agency linked to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps quotes
Mohammad Ja'afar Montazeri as saying that infiltrating environmentalist
circles by Israel and the U.S. was always on the radar, especially
that ecologists could go to "sensitive and vital locations"
in the country and place their cameras with the pretense of
protecting animals.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
The Trump administration on
Thursday said military action against Iran could be possible should
U.S. sanctions against the country fail to curb Tehran from
delivering weapons to hostile groups in the region. "We
have been very clear with the Iranian regime that we will not
hesitate to use military force when our interests are threatened. I
think they understand that. I think they understand that very
clearly," said Brian Hook, the State Department special
representative on Iran.
US officials on Thursday
displayed military equipment they say confirms that Iran is
increasingly supplying weapons to militants across the Middle East
and is continuing its missile program unabated. At a military hangar
in Washington, Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran,
showed reporters a collection of guns, rockets, drones and other
gear. Some of these had been intercepted in the Strait of Hormuz en
route to Shia fighters in the region while others had been seized by
the Saudis in Yemen, the Pentagon said.
President Trump's point man on
curbing Iranian aggression offered fresh evidence Thursday
that Tehran is violating a United Nations ban on weapons
exports by sending rockets and other military equipment to proxies
around the Middle East, and warned that the U.S. is prepared to use
force to curtail such activity. Standing before a dramatic backdrop
of Iranian weaponry that the U.S. says was captured
from Tehran-backed militants in Yemen, Bahrain and
Afghanistan...
Nearly a year after US
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley first rolled out a
tableau of Iranian ballistic missiles at a military base in
Washington to warn of the threat from the Tehran-backed Houthis in
Yemen, the Donald Trump administration today added to the
installation. The Trump administration is using the display in an
effort to call out Iran's alleged actions through proxy groups across
the Middle East.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Brian Hook, special
representative for Iran and senior policy advisor to the secretary of
state, provided evidence of Iran's violation of U.N. resolutions
against weapons proliferation during a news conference at Joint Base
Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C. Iran has the largest ballistic
force in the region, Hook said, with 10 ballistic missile systems in
its inventory or under development. Missile development and testing
has increased in recent years, he added.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's US-educated Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has always had enemies within the
Iranian establishment. When Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar
Bahari was imprisoned during the 2009 post-election protests known as
the Green Movement, his interrogators demanded not only that he
admit to being a CIA agent but that Zarif-who had been sidelined by
then hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after serving as Iran's
UN ambassador-had ties "to Western intelligence
agencies."
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Last Saturday, Iran's
"moderate" President Hassan Rouhani called Israel "a
cancerous tumor" in a speech at the regime's annual Islamic
Unity Conference. Rouhani's fellow speakers included deputy Hezbollah
chief Naim Qassem and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. Both terror bosses
called for the destruction of the "cancerous tumor." With
the predictability of a Swiss clock, the Europeans rushed to condemn
Rouhani. The EU in Brussels condemned Rouhani.
An Iranian cargo plane allegedly
transporting advanced weaponry to the Hezbollah terror group was
spotted flying directly from Tehran to Beirut on Thursday morning,
hours before Israel allegedly conducted airstrikes on pro-Iranian targets
in Syria. Israeli and American security officials have long
claimed that Iran has been supplying Lebanon's Hezbollah with
advanced munitions by shipping them through ostensibly civilian
airlines, including the one that flew into Lebanon on Thursday: Fars
Air Qeshm.
A shadowy businessman from the Lebanese diaspora was
sentenced in Paris on Wednesday to seven years in prison for being a
lead member of a crime ring that laundered Colombian drug money
through luxury jewelry. Mohamad Noureddine, a 44-year-old businessman
with interests in real estate and jewelry, was convicted of laundering
drug money and criminal conspiracy and fined €500,000 ($568,000).
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Tehran's support for the Houthi
militia is a flagrant violation of security in the region,
the US special envoy for Iran Brian Hook said Thursday. At
a briefing on Iran's transfer of arms to proxy groups and its
ongoing missile development, Hook said Iran is seeking to supply its
agents and militias in the Middle East with more weapons.
The US ambassador to Yemen on
Thursday accused Iran of "throwing gasoline on the fire" of
conflicts across the Middle East, vowing that America will defend its
regional interests and not "shy away when the problems get
difficult." Ambassador Matthew Tueller's comments during an
interview with The Associated Press signal that America's hard-line
approach to Tehran in the wake of withdrawing from the nuclear deal
will continue.
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