Friday, November 30, 2018

Eye on Iran: US: Iran Violating UN Arms Export Ban In Yemen, Afghanistan



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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.






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@uani.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.

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