Iran
Iran International moves shows to Washington, citing threats
A Farsi-language satellite news channel based in London long critical of Iran’s theocractic government said Saturday it had moved its broadcasts to Washington “to protect the safety of its journalists” after reportedly being targeted by Tehran.
The alleged targeting of Iran International comes as Tehran also has long harassed members of the BBC’s Persian service for their work reporting on the country. However, the threats against Farsi-language networks broadcasting abroad have exponentially grown as they cover the nationwide protests that have rocked Iran since September — providing information otherwise unheard across the Islamic Republic’s state-controlled television and radio networks.
Iran International described making the decision after London’s Metropolitan Police told it “about the existence of serious and immediate threats to the safety of Iranian journalists” working there.
Reached for comment, Iran International referred to a statement saying that “threats had grown to the point that it was felt it was no longer possible to protect the channel’s staff” or the public around its studio in London.
“A foreign state has caused such a significant threat to the British public on British soil that we have to move. Let’s be clear this is not just a threat to our TV station but the British public at large,” the channel’s general manager Mahmood Enayat said. “Even more this is an assault on the values of sovereignty, security and free speech that the U.K. has always held dear.”
Enayat added: “We refuse to be silenced by these cowardly threats. We will continue to broadcast. We are undeterred.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran International tied its decision to London police days earlier announcing the arrest and charging of Austrian national Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, 30, with allegedly “collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”
Police say they arrested Dovtaev a week ago at London’s Chiswick Business Park, home to the offices of Volant Media UK Ltd., the owner of Iran International. However, police did not directly tie Dovtaev to a threat against the channel. Police reportedly placed armed officers around the channel in November over threats against it.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Dovtaev had a lawyer.
Voltant Media, once majority-owned by a Saudi national, also broadcasts another channel called Afghanistan International.
Iran International has focused intensely on the nationwide protests that have swept Iran since the September death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman earlier detained by the country’s morality police. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry describes the channel as a “terrorist organization.”
“Its operatives and affiliates will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence,” Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib said in November. “And from now on, any kind of connection with this terrorist organization will be considered to be tantamount to entering into terrorism and a threat to the national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
That same month, the broadcaster said the Metropolitan Police warned that two of its British-Iranian journalists faced threats from Iran that “represent an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families.” Meanwhile, another outspoken critic of Iran’s government living in the U.S. has faced multiple alleged plots by Tehran targeting her.
The BBC in February filed a separate complaint to the United Nations saying there were “increased security concerns for BBC News Persian journalists in the light of extraterritorial threats.”
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Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.
Satellite photos: Damage at Iran military site hit by drones
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press on Friday showed damage done to what Iran describes as a military workshop attacked by Israeli drones, the latest such assault amid a shadow war between the two countries.
While Iran has offered no explanation yet of what the workshop manufactured, the drone attack threatened to again raise tensions in the region. Already, worries have grown over Tehran enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels, with a top United Nations nuclear official warning the Islamic Republic had enough fuel to build “several” atomic bombs if it chooses.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose earlier tenure as premier saw escalating attacks targeting Iran, has returned to office and reiterated that he views Tehran as his country's top security threat. With State Department spokesperson Ned Price now declaring Iran has “killed” the opportunity to return to its nuclear deal with world powers, it remains unclear what diplomacy immediately could ease tensions between Tehran and the West.
Cloudy weather had prevented satellite pictures of the site of the workshop since it came under attack by what Iran described as bomb-carrying quadcopters on the night of Jan. 28. Quadcopters, which get their name from having four rotors, typically operate from short ranges by remote control.
Images taken Thursday by Planet Labs PBC showed the workshop in Isfahan, a central Iranian city some 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Tehran. An AP analysis of the image, compared to earlier images of the workshop, showed damage to the structure's roof. That damage corresponded to footage aired by Iranian state television immediately after the attack that showed at least two holes in the building's roof.
The Iranian state TV footage, as well as satellite photos, suggest the building's roof also may have been built with so-called “slat armor.” The structure resembles a cage built around roofs or armored vehicles to stop direct detonation from rockets, missiles or bomb-carrying drones against a target.
Installation of such protection at the workshop suggests Iran believed it could be a drone target.
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in July claimed to have broken up a plot to target sensitive sites around Isfahan. A segment aired on Iranian state TV in October included purported confessions by alleged members of Komala, a Kurdish opposition party that is exiled from Iran and now lives in Iraq, that they planned to target a military aerospace facility in Isfahan after being trained by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.
Read more: Iran reports drone attack on defense facility in Isfahan
It remains unclear whether the military workshop targeted in the drone attack was that aerospace facility. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the satellite images and other questions about the workshop.
The attack comes Iran’s theocratic government faces challenges both at home and abroad. Nationwide protests have shaken the country since the September death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman detained by the country’s morality police. Its rial currency has plummeted to new lows against the U.S. dollar. Meanwhile, Iran continues to arm Russia with the bomb-carrying drone that Moscow uses in attacks in Ukraine on power plants and civilian targets.
Israel is suspected of launching a series of attacks on Iran, including an April 2021 assault on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges. In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top military nuclear scientist.
Israel has not commented on this drone attack. However, Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the country’s secret military units or the Mossad.
A letter published Thursday by Iran's ambassador to the U.N., Amir Saeid Iravani, said that “early investigations suggest that the Israeli regime was responsible for this attempted act of aggression." The letter, however, did not elaborate on what evidence supported Iran’s suspicion.
Targeting Iran, US tightens Iraq's dollar flow, causing pain
For months, the United States has restricted Iraq’s access to its own dollars, trying to stamp out what Iraqi officials describe as rampant money laundering that benefits Iran and Syria. Iraq is now feeling the crunch, with a drop in the value of its currency and public anger blowing back against the prime minister.
The exchange rate for the Iraqi dinar has jumped to around 1,680 to the dollar at street exchanges, compared to the official rate of 1,460 dinars to the dollar.
The devaluation has already sparked protests. If it persists, analysts said, it could challenge the mandate of the government formed in October after a yearlong political stalemate.
The dinar’s deterioration comes even though Iraq’s foreign currency reserves are at an all-time high of around $100 billion, pumped up by spiking global oil prices that have brought increasing revenues to the petroleum-rich nation.
But accessing that money is a different story.
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq’s foreign currency reserves have been housed at the United States' Federal Reserve, giving the Americans significant control over Iraq’s supply of dollars. The Central Bank of Iraq requests dollars from the Fed and then sells them to commercial banks and exchange houses at the official exchange rate through a mechanism known as the “dollar auction.”
In the past, daily sales through the auction often exceeded $200 million per day.
Ostensibly, the vast majority of the dollars sold in the auction are meant to go to purchases of goods imported by Iraqi companies, but the system has long been porous and easily abused, multiple Iraqi banking and political officials told The Associated Press.
U.S. officials confirmed to the AP that they suspected the system was used for money laundering but declined to comment in detail on the allegations or the new restrictions.
For years, large quantities of dollars were transferred out of the country to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Lebanon through “gray market trading, using fake invoices for overpriced items," a financial adviser to the Iraqi prime minister said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The inflated invoices were used to launder dollars, with most of them sent to Iran and Syria, which are under U.S. sanctions, leading to complaints from American officials, he said.
In other cases, the currency is smuggled across land borders under the protection of armed groups that take a cut of the cash, said Tamkeen Abd Sarhan al-Hasnawi, chairman of the board of Mosul Bank and first deputy of the Iraq Private Banks League. He estimated that as much as 80% of the dollars sold through the auction went to neighboring countries.
“Syria, Turkey, and Iran used to benefit from the dollar auction in Iraq,” he said.
A member of one of Iraq’s Iran-backed militias, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, said the majority of Iraqi banks are owned indirectly by politicians and political parties that have also used the dollar auction to their benefit.
Late last year, the Fed began imposing stricter measures.
Among other steps, at the request of the U.S., the Central Bank of Iraq started using an electronic system for transfers that required entering detailed information on the intended end-recipient of the requested dollars. One hundred Central Bank employees were trained by the Fed to implement the new system, the prime minister’s financial adviser said.
“This system started rejecting transfers and invoices that used to be approved by the central bank,” he said. “Around 80% of transactions were being rejected.”
The amount of dollars sold daily in the auction plummeted to $69.6 million on Jan. 31, from $257.8 million six months earlier, according to Central Bank records. Far fewer of the dollars are going toward buying imports as well, down to around 34% from 90%.
Even when transactions are approved, it takes banks up to 15 days to get the funds rather than two or three days, Hasnawi said.
Unable to get dollars at the official price through banks, he said, traders turned to the black market to buy dollars, causing the price to rise.
In November, the Central Bank of Iraq added four new banks to the list of those banned from dealing in dollars. Two U.S. officials confirmed that the Fed requested the four banks be blocked because of suspected money laundering. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the case.
A spokesperson for the New York Fed declined to discuss the specific measures taken with regards to Iraq. But the Fed said in a statement that it enforces “a robust compliance regime” for the accounts it holds. The statement said that this regime “evolves over time in response to new information, which we gather in the regular course of monitoring transactions and events that may impact an account and in communication with other relevant U.S. government agencies.”
The system of keeping Iraq’s oil revenues at the Fed was originally imposed by U.N. Security Council resolutions after the 2003 ouster of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein by the U.S-led invasion. Later, Iraq chose to maintain the system to protect its revenues against potential lawsuits, particularly in connection to Iraq’s 1990s invasion of Kuwait.
The new U.S. restrictions come at a time of increased tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Negotiations over a nuclear deal are floundering. Washington has imposed new sanctions and condemned Iran for cracking down on protesters and providing drones for Russia to use in Ukraine.
Also, in Iraq, allegations came to light in October that over $2.5 billion in Iraqi government revenue was embezzled by a network of businesses and officials from the country’s tax authority
The case “brought (U.S.) attention to the scale of corruption in Iraq” and how the corruption can benefit Iran and other parties hostile to the U.S., said Harith Hasan, head of the Iraq unit at the Emirates Research Center, an Abu Dhabi-based think tank.
The new Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who came to power via a coalition of Iranian-backed parties, does not have a strong relationship with the U.S. that could have enabled him to soften the implementation of the new financial measures, Hasan said.
Al-Sudani has downplayed the current devaluation as “a temporary issue of trading and speculation.” He replaced the Central Bank governor and instituted measures intended to ensure a supply of dollars at the official rate.
Al-Hasnawi said the government's recent measures will not stop the financial bleeding. If the current situation persists, he said, “within one year, most banks will declare bankruptcy” and there is likely to be mass civil unrest.
“This U.S. pressure impacts the Iraqi street in a clear manner, and we do not see clear solutions until now,” he said.
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AP staff reporters Samya Kullab in Baghdad and Christopher Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report. Sewell reported from Beirut.
Fatal shooting at Azerbaijan Embassy in Iran raises tensions
A gunman stormed the Azerbaijan Embassy in Iran's capital Friday, killing its security chief and wounding two guards in an attack that spiked long-simmering tensions between the two neighboring countries.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said it would evacuate the diplomatic post, accusing Iran of not taking reported threats against it seriously in the past that include inciting comments in hard-line media over Azerbaijan's diplomatic ties to Israel.
Tehran’s police chief, Gen. Hossein Rahimi, initially blamed the attack on “personal and family problems,” something quickly repeated across Iranian state media. But within hours Rahimi would lose his position as police chief after footage emerged that appeared to show a security force member doing nothing to stop the attack.
“Previously, there have been attempts to threaten our diplomatic mission in Iran, and it was constantly raised before Iran to take measures to prevent such cases, and to ensure the safety of our diplomatic missions,” the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry said. “Unfortunately, the last bloody terror attack demonstrates the serious consequences of not showing proper sensitivity to our urgent appeals in this direction.”
“We are of the opinion that the recent anti-Azerbaijani campaign against our country in Iran led to such attack against our diplomatic mission," the ministry added.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called the assault a “terrorist attack.” He identified the dead security chief as 1st Lt. Orkhan Rizvan Oglu Askarov.
“We demand that this terrorist act be swiftly investigated and the terrorists punished,” Aliyev said in a statement. "Terror against diplomatic missions is unacceptable!”
The attack happened Friday morning, the second day of the Iranian weekend. Surveillance video released in Azerbaijan purportedly showed the gunman arriving by car at the embassy, running into the back of another car parked out front. He exited his car, holding what appeared to be a Kalashnikov-style rifle.
From there, details immediately conflict with the Iranian account of the attack.
Iranian state TV had quoted Rahimi as saying the gunman had entered the embassy with his two children during the attack. However, surveillance footage from inside the embassy, which matched details of the aftermath and bore a timestamp matching the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry’s statement, showed the gunman burst through the embassy’s doors alone.
Read more: Iran execution: Man publicly hanged from crane amid protests
Those inside tried to push through metal detectors to take cover. The man opens fire with the rifle, its muzzle flashing, as he chases after the men into the small side office. Another man bursts from a side door and fights the gunman for the rifle as the footage ends.
Another surveillance video from outside the embassy, which also corresponded to the same details, showed the gunman slam his car into another in front of the embassy. The gunman then got out and leveled his rifle at a figure inside of the Iranian police stand, likely a security force member, who stood still and did nothing as the man stormed the embassy.
Video of the aftermath showed an empty diplomatic police post just near the embassy, with one man apparently wounded in an SUV parked outside. Inside the embassy past a metal detector, paramedics stood over what appeared to be a lifeless body in a small office as blood pooled on the floor beneath.
Associated Press journalists later saw the embassy’s front door pocked with bullet holes after the attack.
Iranian prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari reportedly said the gunman's wife had disappeared in April after a visit to the embassy. The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency quoted Shahriari as saying the gunman believed his wife was still in the diplomatic post at the time of the attack — even though it was some eight months later.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani also said his country strongly condemned the attack, which was under investigation with “high priority and sensitivity.” Azerbaijan also summoned Iran's ambassador there to lodge a protest over the attack as authorities replaced Rahimi, Tehran's police chief, without offering an explanation.
Azerbaijan borders Iran's northwest and belonged to the Persian Empire until the early 19th century. Ethnic Azeris also number over 12 million people in Iran and represent the Islamic Republic's largest minority group — making maintaining good relations even more important for Tehran.
There have been tensions between the two countries as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iran also wants to maintain its 44-kilometer (27-mile) border with landlocked Armenia — something that could be threatened if Azerbaijan seizes new territory through warfare.
Iran in October launched a military exercise near the Azerbaijan border, flexing its martial might amid the nationwide protests rocking the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan also maintains close ties to Israel, which Tehran views as its top regional enemy. The Islamic Republic and Israel are locked in an ongoing shadow war as Iran's nuclear program rapidly enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Israel also offered its condolences to Azerbaijan over the attack.
Turkey, which has close ties to Azerbaijan, condemned the attack, called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and for measures to be put in place to prevent similar attacks in the future. Turkey has backed Azerbaijan against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Turkey, which has been subjected to similar attacks in the past, deeply shares the pain of the Azerbaijani people,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said. “Brotherly Azerbaijan is not alone. Our support to Azerbaijan will continue without interruption, as it always has.”
Iran sanctions Europeans over criticism of protest crackdown
Iran on Wednesday announced sanctions targeting more than 30 European individuals and entities, portraying the move as a response to recent European sanctions against officials linked to a crackdown on nationwide protests.
Those targeted with sanctions include Britain's attorney general and army chief of staff, several European parliamentarians and European military officials. Also targeted are the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy and three senior staffers at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which recently published a series of cartoons lampooning Iran's clerical rulers.
The sanctions would bar travel to Iran and allow authorities to block bank accounts and confiscate property in Iran. Those targeted are unlikely to have either, rendering the move largely symbolic.
The move came two days after the European Union widened its sanctions to target dozens of Iranian officials and organizations linked to the violent suppression of recent protests. It stopped short of branding Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group despite an appeal from the European Parliament.
Iran has long been under heavy U.S. and European sanctions linked to its disputed nuclear program and support for regional militant groups. The nuclear sanctions were lifted under a landmark 2015 agreement with world powers, but President Donald Trump restored them after unilaterally withdrawing the U.S. from the deal.
Read more: US imposes more sanctions on Iran over Mahsa Amini's death
Iranians have taken to the streets since September over the death of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the morality police for allegedly violating Iran's strict Islamic dress code.
The demonstrations have called for the overthrow of Iran's theocracy and pose one of the biggest challenges to the ruling clerics since the 1979 revolution that brought them to power. Rights groups say security forces have used live ammunition, bird shot and beatings to disperse protests.
At least 527 protesters have been killed and over 19,500 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained, and have blamed the protests and violence on foreign powers without providing evidence.
The demonstrators say they are fed up after decades of social and political repression by a clerical leadership they view as corrupt and incompetent.
Iran hangs former defense ministry official over spy claim
Iran said Saturday it had executed a dual Iranian-British national who once worked for its defense ministry, despite an international outcry over his death sentence and those of others held amid nationwide protests.
Iran’s Mizan news agency, associated with the country’s judiciary, announced Ali Reza Akbari’s hanging.
It did not say when it happened. However, there were rumors he had been executed days ago.
Iran had accused Akbari, without offering evidence, of being a spy for Britain’s MI-6 intelligence agency. It aired a highly edited video of Akbari discussing the allegations resembling others that activists have described as coerced confessions.
On Friday, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel criticized Akbari’s pending execution.
“The charges against Ali Reza Akbari and his sentencing to execution were politically motivated. His execution would be unconscionable," he said. “We are greatly disturbed by the reports that Mr. Akbari was drugged, tortured while in custody, interrogated for thousands of hours, and forced to make false confessions.”
Read more: Iran executes 2 more men detained amid nationwide protests
He added: “More broadly, Iran’s practices of arbitrary and unjust detentions, forced confessions, and politically motivated executions are completely unacceptable and must end.”
Britain’s Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had earlier called on Iran to stop the execution.
“The Iranian regime should be in no doubt,” he wrote Friday online. “We are watching the case of Ali Reza Akbari closely.”
Iran’s government for months has been trying to allege — without offering evidence — that foreign countries have fomented the unrest gripping the Islamic Republic since the death of a woman in September detained by the morality police. Protesters say they are angry over the collapse of the economy, heavy-handed policing and the entrenched power of the country’s Islamic clergy.
Iran is one of the world’s top executioners.
For several years, Iran has been locked in a shadow war with the United States and Israel, marked by covert attacks on its disputed nuclear program. The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in 2020, which Iran blamed on Israel, indicated foreign intelligence services had made major inroads.
Akbari, who ran a private think tank, has not been seen in public since 2019, when he was apparently arrested. He also was close to Ali Shamkhani, a top security official in Iran, leading analysts to suggest his death sentence was tied to a possible power struggle within the country’s security apparatus amid the protests.
Akbari had previously led the implementation of a 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq following their devastating eight-year war, working closely with U.N. observers.
Authorities have not released any details about his trial. Those accused of espionage and other crimes related to national security are usually tried behind closed doors, where rights groups say they do not choose their own lawyers and are not allowed to see evidence against them.
Read more: Iran execution: Man publicly hanged from crane amid protests
The anti-government protests, which have continued for nearly four months with no sign of ending, are one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution that brought it to power.
At least 520 protesters have been killed and more than 19,300 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided official figures on deaths or arrests.
Iran has executed four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests in similarly criticized trials, including attacks on security forces.
Iran sentences Belgian aid worker to prison, lashes
Iran has sentenced a Belgian aid worker to a lengthy prison term and 74 lashes after convicting him of espionage in a closed-door trial, state media reported Tuesday.
The website of Iran’s judiciary said a Revolutionary Court sentenced 41-year-old Olivier Vandecasteele to 12.5 years in prison for espionage, 12.5 years for collaboration with hostile governments and 12.5 years for money laundering. He was also fined $1 million and sentenced to 2.5 years for currency smuggling.
Under Iranian law, Vandecasteele would be eligible for release after 12.5 years. The judiciary website said the verdicts can be appealed.
Iran has detained a number of foreigners and dual nationals over the years, accusing them of espionage or other state security offenses and sentencing them after secretive trials in which rights groups say they are denied due process.
Critics accuse Iran of using such prisoners as bargaining chips with the West, something Iranian officials deny. Vandecasteele's conviction comes after an Iranian diplomat in Belgium received a 20-year prison sentence in 2021 over masterminding a thwarted bomb attack against an exiled Iranian opposition group in France.
Iran has not released any details about the charges against Vandecasteele. It is unclear if they are related to anti-government protests that have convulsed Iran for months or a long-running shadow war with Israel and the U.S. marked by covert attacks on Iran's disputed nuclear program.
The nationwide protests began after the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly violating Iran's strict Islamic dress code. Rallying under the slogan “Women, life, freedom,” the protesters say they are fed up with decades of social and political repression. Iran has blamed the protests on foreign powers, without providing evidence.
Vandecasteele's family said last month that he has been detained in an Iranian prison for months and has been on a hunger strike. They said he was deprived of access to a lawyer of his choice and is suffering from serious health problems.
Belgium has urged its nationals to leave Iran, warning that they face the risk of arbitrary arrest or unfair trial.
“Iran has provided no official information regarding the charges against Olivier Vandecasteele or his trial,” Belgium's Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said in a statement. “We will summon the Iranian ambassador today, given the information that is circulating in the press.”
“Belgium continues to condemn this arbitrary detention and is doing everything possible to put an end to it and to improve the conditions of his detention,” she said.
The anti-government protests, which have continued for nearly four months with no sign of ending, are one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution that brought it to power.
At least 520 protesters have been killed and more than 19,300 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided official figures on deaths or arrests.
Iran has executed four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests, including attacks on security forces. They were convicted in Revolutionary Courts, which do not allow those on trial to pick their own lawyers or see the evidence against them.
London-based Amnesty International has said such trials bear “no resemblance to a meaningful judicial proceeding."
Norway and Denmark summoned Iranian ambassadors this week to protest the executions and Iran's handling of the demonstrations.
"What is happening in Iran is completely unacceptable and must stop," Norway’s Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said. “We have strongly condemned the executions. ... We have called on Iran to end the use of the death penalty and to respect human rights.”
In Denmark, Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called the executions “completely unacceptable" and said the European Union should impose additional sanctions on Iran.
Separately on Tuesday, the state-run IRNA news agency said Iran’s intelligence ministry arrested six teams of operatives linked to Mossad, Israel's chief intelligence and secret-service agency.
Without providing evidence, the report said the spy teams planned to assassinate an unnamed high-ranking military official and had carried out several sabotage operations in the country’s big cities.
The report also said security forces identified 23 alleged members of these teams and had arrested 13 of them who were in the country.
US Navy says it seized Iran assault rifles bound for Yemen
The U.S. Navy seized over 2,100 assault rifles from a ship in the Gulf of Oman it believes came from Iran and were bound for Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, a Navy spokesman said Tuesday. It was the latest capture of weapons allegedly heading to the Arab world’s poorest country.
The seizure last Friday happened after a team from the USS Chinook, a Cyclone-class coastal patrol boat, boarded a traditional wooden sailing vessel known as a dhow. They discovered the Kalashnikov-style rifles individually wrapped in green tarps aboard the ship, said Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet.
Experts examining photos released by the Navy later said the weapons appeared to be Chinese-made T-56 rifles and Russian-made Molot AKS20Us. Type 56 rifles have been found in previously seized weapons caches. Similar green tarping also has been used.
The Chinook, along with the patrol boat USS Monsoon and the guided missile destroyer USS The Sullivans, took possession of the weapons. They resembled other assault rifles previously seized by the Navy, suspected to be from Iran and heading to Yemen.
“When we intercepted the vessel, it was on a route historically used to traffic illicit cargo to the Houthis in Yemen,” Hawkins told The Associated Press. “The Yemeni crew corroborated the origin.”
The Yemeni crew, Hawkins added, will be repatriated back to a government-controlled part of Yemen.
Read more: Iran deal tantalizingly close, but US faces new hurdles
A United Nations arms embargo has prohibited weapons transfers to the Houthis since 2014, when Yemen’s civil war erupted.
Iran has long denied arming the Houthis even as it has been transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Yemeni militia using sea routes. Independent experts, Western nations and U.N. experts have traced components seized aboard other detained vessels back to Iran.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in March 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting has pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.
A six-month cease-fire in Yemen’s war, the longest of the conflict, expired in October despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. That’s led to fears the fighting could again escalate. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen during the conflict, including over 14,500 civilians.
There have been sporadic attacks since the cease-fire expired, though international negotiators are trying to find a political solution to the war.
Read more: US adds new sanctions and reward to further pressure Iran
In November, the Navy found 70 tons of a missile fuel component hidden among bags of fertilizer, also allegedly from Iran and bound to Yemen.
Amid unrest, Iran’s hardliners turn their anger to France
Iranian hardliners on Sunday burned French flags outside the French embassy in Tehran, protesting cartoons published by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that lampoon Iran’s ruling clerics.
The caricatures were published at a time of persistent anti-government protests in Iran, now in their fourth month. Demonstrators are calling for the downfall of its Islamic Republic and are challenging its hardline establishment.
The demonstrations outside of the French embassy follow previous attempts by Iran’s rulers to mobilize their supporters in counter-demonstrations.
Hundreds of protesters, including students from seminary schools, shouted “Death to France” and accused French President Emmanuel Macron of insulting Iran while urging Paris to stop “animosity” toward Tehran. Police officers, some of whom appeared to be holding images of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, kept the demonstrators at a distance from the embassy building.
Read more: Iran executes 2 more men detained amid nationwide protests
State television said some clerics held similar protests in the shrine city of Qom, the center of religious learning in Iran.
Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf on Sunday linked the French magazine’s cartoons with what officials have repeatedly alleged is the West’s plot to spread purported riots in Iran.
Later in the day, President Ebrahim Raisi offered his first reaction to the French cartoons and echoed similar claims. “Resorting to insults on the pretext of freedom is a clear indication of their frustration in concluding plot for chaos and insecurity” in Iran, he said.
Charlie Hebdo has a long history of publishing vulgar cartoons mocking Islamists, which critics say are deeply insulting to Muslims. Two French-born al-Qaida extremists attacked the newspaper’s office in 2015, killing 12 cartoonists, and it has been the target of other attacks over the years.
Its latest issue features the winners of a recent cartoon contest in which entrants were asked to draw the most offensive caricatures of Supreme Leader Khamenei.
One of the finalists depicts a turbaned cleric reaching for a hangman’s noose as he drowns in blood, while another shows Khamenei clinging to a giant throne above the raised fists of protesters. Others depict more vulgar and sexually explicit scenes.
Read more: Iran authorities arrest actress of Oscar-winning movie
Anti-government protests erupted across Iran in September after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating its strict Islamic dress code.
The unrest has grown into one of the severest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution that brought it to power. Human rights groups say that at least 517 protesters have been killed and over 19,200 people have been arrested amid a violent crackdown by security forces. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained.
On Saturday, authorities executed two men convicted of allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer in the demonstrations.
The Saturday hangings brought to four the number of people known to have been executed since the unrest began in September over the death of Amini. All of the sentences were handed out in rapid, closed-door trials that have been met with international criticism.
Sunday was also the third anniversary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s downing of an Ukrainian passenger plane with two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 people on board — a tragedy that ignited an outburst of anger across Iran. Tehran initially denied responsibility for downing the plane before admitting to having mistakenly done so amid high tensions with the U.S.
An Iranian court has yet to issue a verdict three years into the trial of 10 military personnel who have not been publicly identified but are allegedly implicated in the plane’s downing.
Families of the victims met on Sunday at the site of the crash to hold a memorial ceremony separately from an official commemoration organized at Tehran’s international airport, which had been the point of departure for the flight.
In a separate development on Sunday, a court sentenced Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to a five-year prison term for “propaganda against the system,” Iranian media reported.
The outspoken and pro-reform Hashemi has been in prison since late September after she was arrested by security forces for supporting protests that have been led by women opposing the mandatory headscarf or hijab under the Islamic Republic.
In 2011, Hashemi was convicted and served five years in prison over similar security charges.
Iranian officials have continued to claim the months-long protests are being driven by foreign agents but have offered no proof.
Following Charlie Hebdo’s publishing of cartoons mocking Iranian clerical figures, authorities in Tehran shut down on Thursday a decades-old French research institute and called the closure a “first step” in their response.
Iran executes 2 more men detained amid nationwide protests
Iran said it executed two men Saturday convicted of allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer during a demonstration, the latest executions aimed at halting the nationwide protests now challenging the country's theocracy.
Iran’s judiciary identified those executed as Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, making it four men known to have been executed since the demonstrations began in September over the death of Mahsa Amini. All have faced internationally criticized, rapid, closed-door trials.
The judiciary's Mizan news agency said the men had been convicted of killing Ruhollah Ajamian, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's volunteer Basij Force, in the city of Karaj outside of Tehran on Nov. 3. The Basij have deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases have fought back.
Heavily edited footage aired on state television showed Karami speaking before a Revolutionary Court about the attack, which also showed a reenactment of the attack according to prosecutors' claims. Iran's Revolutionary Courts handed down the two other death sentences already carried out.
Read more: Iran executes first known prisoner arrested in protests
The tribunals don’t allow those on trial to pick their own lawyers or even see the evidence against them. Amnesty International has said the trials “bore no resemblance to a meaningful judicial proceeding.”
State TV also aired footage of Karami and Hosseini talking about the attack, though the broadcaster for years has aired what activists describe as coerced confessions.
The men were convicted of the killing, as well as “corruption on Earth,” a Quranic term and charge that has been levied against others in the decades since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and carries the death penalty.
Activists say at least 16 people have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings over charges linked to the protests. Death sentences in Iran are typically carried out by hanging.
At least 517 protesters have been killed and over 19,200 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained.
Read more: Iran execution: Man publicly hanged from crane amid protests
The protests began in mid-September, when 22-year-old Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly stripping off the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab.
The protests mark one of the biggest challenges to Iran's theocracy since the 1979 revolution. Security forces have used live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and batons to disperse protesters, according to rights groups.