Tag: IRAN

Iran Navy Begins “Massive Drill” Stretching Across World’s Key Oil Chokepoints

By Tyler Durden

Iran’s navy has begun a three day war game exercise on Friday in the Persian Gulf, in an expansive area encompassing Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, to the Sea of Oman and even stretching to northern parts of the Indian Ocean, state media reports. Some reports indicate the games could go on for as much as a week, but all emphasized the “large-scale” nature of the drills in which Iran’s navy will showcase the Fateh-class submarine — a domestically built sub carrying cruise missiles and torpedoes, as well as its Sahand destroyer.

The cruise missile-firing capable Fateh, or “Conqueror”, was launched for the first time at the start of this week and has been touted as “state-of-the-art” and with the ability to stay underwater for five weeks at a time. Crucially, the large exercises come after last week’s US-sponsored Warsaw conference in which both Israeli and US officials made threats of war with Tehran. Indeed during the conference Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu openly stated that he was attending the summit with an aim to “advance the common interest of war with Iran.”

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The games also come at a time when even foreign policy establishment insiders, such as the Council on Foreign Relation’s Steven Cook, increasingly acknowledge that the White House’s “march to war against Iran” is now “echoing the drumbeats” of the lead up to the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Writing in Foreign Policy, Cook warns:

Taken together—the Warsaw conference, Pence’s bullying of the Europeans, Bolton’s threatening video, and the broader background noise in Washington—the events of the past week were familiar in a foreboding way. The chatter about Iran has not become the war fever that gripped Washington in 2002 over Iraq, but the echoes of that year are not hard to miss in the Trump administration’s effort to shape the domestic and international debate about Iran.

Iran’s drills in the coming days will further involve battleship exercises and amphibious and anti-amphibious warfare maneuvers, according to Iranian military statements.

Though there’s general agreement that Iran’s navy poses no match of US superiority on the sea and in the skies, Iran seeks to be a significant disruptor of American Persian Gulf capabilities.

Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, commander of Iran’s navy, reflected this in comments announcing the inauguration of the games: “For the first time, these weapons will be tested seriously and we can make the maritime region unsafe for the enemy in any way possible,” he said. He said the games, formally called “Velayat 97,” will begin 2km from the Strait of Hormuz and extend 10 degrees north of the Indian Ocean, in an extended zone some analysts worry may indicate broader intentions regarding Oman and Yemen. 

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As the Jerusalem Post summarizes of this concern, “In Yemen Iran has supported the Houthi rebels who have used Iranian technology to target Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles.” And recently, “In addition Oman enjoys decent relations with Iran but Oman also hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year and has sought to play a role in the Israel-Palestinian peace efforts.”

In the past, Iranian war games have resulted in close encounters with US warships traversing parts of the Persian Gulf. But this somewhat “routine” occurrence could potentially spark a major incident considering the high level of aggressive rhetoric coming out of Washington at this time.
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Sweden: Gay Resident Beaten by Migrant Gang in LGBTQ-Certified Asylum Home

By Ben Warren

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Around 20 Afghan migrants assaulted a gay resident in an LGBTQ-certified asylum home in Westsura, Sweden, according to local media.

The victim, described as an “Iranian gay man,” received such a fierce beating from the asylum seekers in the dining room that the local migration board had to hire a security company to “maintain order” days after the incident.

“It [was] like twenty rockets were lit,” said a staff member. “The entire dining room was coming. They charged over tables and chairs.”

“…They attacked no one else.”

The staff present only interfered after the attackers began to use chairs and forks on the victim.

Only one of the attackers, Abdul Azizi, was convicted of assault; he claims his actions were in “self-defense,” an account the staff and victim denies.

“If I had been alone and he had said [such] ugly things then I could have checked myself, but when he said this openly to everyone, we all became so upset and couldn’t control us,” said Azizi. “We may have made an unconscious error, but honor violations are serious for us.”

This particular asylum home is locally celebrated due to it being the first of its kind to be LGBTQ-certified by Sweden’s Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL) back in 2015.

To earn that title, workers went through 16 hours of training, two workshops, and paid attention to details like sex-divided toilets and the art on the walls.

Interestingly, prosecutors have ruled out the assault being a hate crime, a perspective the victim seems to disagree with.

He asserts the attack was the latest in a series of harassments that targeted him and other gay residents.

“When we go to the restaurant, they insult us, scream at us and threaten us,” he said. “It also happens elsewhere in the accommodation.”

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Dozen Injured By Rampaging Migrant Gang In German Town

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By

At least 12 people were injured, many hospitalized, when a gang of migrant teenagers embarked on a violent rampage in the center of Amberg, Germany.

The attackers, young men from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran, began viciously assaulting and harassing pedestrians and arriving travelers near the Amberg train station, even throwing one man down a flight of stairs, according to eyewitnesses.

Their first victim, a 13-year-old boy, was kicked in the stomach before they began calling a 17-year-old girl a “hooker” and beating her companions when they intervened.

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“Uninvolved people, including a father with his 5-year-old daughter, tried to escape, but were caught up, thrown to the ground, beaten and kicked,” PI News reports.

Another victim, 17, told Bild, “They cursed one of us as ‘n*gger’ and struck immediately. We wanted to run away, but they caught us at the traffic light. There were at least six people. Three of my friends were beaten. I was beaten down and kicked.”

Four suspects who were “already known to police” have been arrested.

Mayor Michael Cerny, who has previously expressed his gratitude to groups orchestrating placement of ‘refugees’ in Amberg, delivered a brief statement on the attack, effectively warning constituents against allowing it to taint their view of ‘asylum seekers.’

“Of course, it should not be generalized, but on the whole these idiots have done a disservice to the peaceful and dedicated asylum seekers,” Cerny wrote on Facebook.

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UK Deploys Ships to English Channel Over Migrant Crisis

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According to the UK’s home secretary, while saving the lives of migrants is important, protecting the nation’s borders is important, too.

The UK Border Force had to re-deploy two of its largest ships, known as “cutters,” from overseas missions to the English Channel, after some 100 migrants attempted to cross the strait on dinghies.

I have made a decision today to redeploy two of the Border Force’s largest vessels, known as cutters, from abroad back to the UK, to south-east England, and they will be joining a cutter that is already there and two other coastal patrol vessels,” Home Secretary Sajid Javid said.

In the most recent incident, 12 migrants, including a 10-year-old child, were detained on the UK’s Kent beach Monday.

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According to a Home Office spokesperson, the migrants presented themselves as Iranian nationals.

“They all received a medical assessment and have now been transferred to immigration officials for interview,” the spokesperson said.

“It’s both about protecting human life but also about protecting our borders,” Javid said regarding his decision. “This will help both with the human side of this situation but also to better protect our borders.”

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In a poorly concealed attempt to paint the justification for the ships’ relocation as a humanitarian one, Javid pointed out that “we must remember that this is one of the most treacherous stretches of water that there is, 21 miles with people taking grave risk, really putting their lives into their own hands by taking this journey.”

However, under a humanitarian façade, a more pragmatic approach is clearly visible.

Javid disclosed that, besides the ships’ deployment, the UK Home Office will also step up its efforts to return detained migrants to France.

“We will do everything we can to make sure [illegal border crossing] is not a success, in the sense that I don’t want people to think that if they leave a safe country like France, they can get to Britain and then just get to stay,” he said.

British cooperation with French authorities is improving, with around 40 percent of attempted crossings disrupted, and the two countries working together “both directly but also in more covert ways,” according to Javid.

According to the home secretary, some 230 migrants attempted to cross the Channel in December, with “just under half” being disrupted by French authorities before taking to the seas.

You can read this story as it originally appeared at Sputnik here.

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CFR’s Martin Indyk Slams Trump: Soon He May Be Asking ‘Why Are We Giving Israel So Much Money?’

By Chris Menahan

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Martin Indyk, two-time US Ambassador to Israel and current Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, attacked President Trump on Twitter Wednesday for saying Israel will be okay despite the US pulling out of Syria because we give them “billions of dollars.”

“This cavalier attitude is deeply worrying,” Indyk said. “Ignores the role of US as force multiplier for Israeli deterrence. From here it’s a short step to Trump asking: why are we giving Israel so much money?”

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Here’s Trump’s full comments as reported Thursday by the Times of Israel:

Speaking with reporters, Trump was asked about criticism that the move could put Israel in jeopardy by allowing Iran to expand its foothold in Syria.

“Well, I don’t see it. I spoke with Bibi,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I told Bibi. And, you know, we give Israel $4.5 billion a year. And they’re doing very well defending themselves, if you take a look.”

“So that’s the way it is,” Trump said, according to a White House transcript.

“We’re going to take good care of Israel. Israel is going to be good. But we give Israel $4.5 billion a year. And we give them, frankly, a lot more money than that, if you look at the books — a lot more money than that. And they’ve been doing a very good job for themselves,” he added.

Here’s some of the top responses to Indyk’s tweet:

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Indyk has a rather fascinating history according to his Wikipedia page (click through for source links):

In 1982, Indyk began working as a deputy research director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington.[4][5] From 1985 Indyk served eight years as the founding Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research institute specializing in analysis of Middle East policy.[6]

[…]He served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton and as senior director of Near East and South Asian Affairs at the United States National Security Council. While at the NSC, he served as principal adviser to the President and the National Security Advisor on Arab–Israeli issues, Iraq, Iran, and South Asia. He was a senior member of Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s Middle East peace team and served as the White House representative on the U.S. Israel Science and Technology Commission.

He served two stints as United States Ambassador to Israel, from April 1995 to September 1997, and from January 2000 to July 2001. He was the first and so far, the only, foreign-born US ambassador to Israel.

He has served on the board of the New Israel Fund.[7] Indyk currently serves on the Adivsory Board for DC based non-profit America Abroad Media.[8]

On July 29, 2013, Indyk was appointed by President Barack Obama as Washington’s special Middle East envoy for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.[9] Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas favored his appointment.[10] He resigned from this position June 27, 2014, returning to the Brookings Institution as its vice president and director for foreign policy.[11][12]

Controversy

In 2000, Indyk was placed under investigation by the FBI after allegations arose that he improperly handled sensitive material by using an unclassified laptop computer on an airplane flight to prepare his memos of meetings with foreign leaders.[13][14][15] There was no indication that any classified material had been compromised, and no indication of espionage.[16]

Indyk was “apparently … the first serving U.S. ambassador to be stripped of government security clearance.”[16] The Los Angeles Times reported that “veteran diplomats complained that Indyk was being made a scapegoat for the kinds of security lapses that are rather common among envoys who take classified work home from the office.”[16] Indyk’s clearance was suspended but was reinstated the next month, “for the duration of the current crisis,” given “the continuing turmoil in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza [Strip] and for compelling national security reasons.”[16]

Criticism
Receiving donations from Qatar

In 2014, Indyk came under scrutiny when a New York Times investigation revealed that wealthy Gulf state of Qatar made a $14.8 million, four-year donation to Brookings Institution, in order to fund two Brookings initiatives,[17] the Brookings Center in Doha and the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.[18] The Times investigation found that Brookings was one of more than a dozen influential Washington think tanks and research organizations that “have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities.”[17] A number of scholars interviewed by the Times expressed alarm at the trend, saying that the “donations have led to implicit agreements that the research groups would refrain from criticizing the donor governments.”[17]

The revelation of the think tank’s choice to accept the payment from Qatar was especially controversial because at the time, Indyk was acting as a peace negotiator between Israel and the Palestinians, and because Qatar funds jihadist groups in the Middle East and is the main financial backer of Hamas, “the mortal enemy of both the State of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.”[19] Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal, who directs Hamas’s operations against Israel, is also harbored by Qatar.[17] Indyk defended the arrangement with Qatar, contending that it did not influence the think tank’s work and that “to be policy-relevant, we need to engage policy makers.”[17] However, the arrangement between Qatar and Brookings caused Israeli government officials to doubt Indyk’s impartiality.[20]

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Jeb Bush On Syria: ‘Donald Trump Is Bad For Israel… Hopefully Our President Will Reverse His Decision’

By Chris Menahan

Failed presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Wednesday on Twitter that he hopes President Trump will “reverse his decision to abandon Syria” because it’s “bad for Israel.”

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He linked to an article from the New York Times by neocon Bret Stephens which said “that the ultimate long-term threat to Israel is the resurgence of isolationism in the U.S.”

“What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a president.”

Stephens said the idea “neoconservatives always put Israel first” is an “invidious myth”:

Contrary to the invidious myth that neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds, maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on the Levant.

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President Trump said Wednesday that we give Israel billions of dollars every year and they can defend themselves.

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From the Times of Israel:

Speaking with reporters, Trump was asked about criticism that the move could put Israel in jeopardy by allowing Iran to expand its foothold in Syria.

“Well, I don’t see it. I spoke with Bibi,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I told Bibi. And, you know, we give Israel $4.5 billion a year. And they’re doing very well defending themselves, if you take a look.”

“So that’s the way it is,” Trump said, according to a White House transcript.

“We’re going to take good care of Israel. Israel is going to be good. But we give Israel $4.5 billion a year. And we give them, frankly, a lot more money than that, if you look at the books — a lot more money than that. And they’ve been doing a very good job for themselves,” he added.

Stephens’ column made no mention of the billions in foreign aid America gives Israel every year.

 

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Rand Paul: ‘The Deep State is Trying to Run Congress’

By Chris Menahan

Senator Rand Paul slammed CIA director Gina Haspel on Tuesday for blocking members of the Senate from from a briefing on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

“Do you want to know what the deep state is?” Rand tweeted. “The CIA Director is coming to the US Senate and only briefing a select few members of the Senate.”

“Why shouldn’t every senator know what is going on? The deep state wants to keep everyone in the dark. This is just ridiculous!”

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Some highlights of his interview via Zero Hedge:

“To my mind this is the very definition of the deep state…”

“The deep state is that the intelligence agencies do things, conclude things, make conclusions but then the elected officials are prevented from knowing about this.”

“If we aren’t told about this and I’m not allowed to know about these conclusions, then I can’t have oversight,” he said.

“And so then state grows, the intelligence, the deep state grows and has more and more power.”

“I’ve read in the media that the CIA has said with high confidence that the crown prince was involved with killing Khashoggi,” Paul continued.

“I have not seen that intelligence nor have I even seen the conclusions. And today there’s yet another briefing and I’m being excluded. So really, this is the deep state at work … that your representatives don’t know what is going on in the intelligence agencies.”

I’d say for all intents and purposes, the deep state is running congress. They’ve also sabotaged our president.

I couldn’t help but notice Trump sent out another tweet saying how he doesn’t actually like the US spending a “crazy” $716 billion on defense.

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Trump also said last week — in an article that was totally buried — that he’d like to pull out of the Middle East entirely but Israel is “one reason” to remain. He didn’t give a second reason.

Trump also said he’s standing by the Saudis because they provide a “counterbalance to Iran” and “without them, Israel would be in a lot more trouble.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also gave a speech yesterday saying the US is building a “new liberal order” to block Russia, China, Iran.

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It really seems like the deep state is just bossing him around.

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UK: Parents called racists for questioning the age of a child migrant with a moustache in their daughter’s class

By PAUL DIJKS 24 November 2018

The 15-year-old ‘child migrant’ who is actually 25.

A migrant, claiming to be a 15-year-old pupil at Stoke High School in Ipswich, admits to another student he is 25-years-old, married with children.

When the ‘boy’ was introduced to the school, he was presented as a teenager, born in Iran, with an amazing life story.

Forced to flee the Middle Eastern theocracy, he and his younger brother arrived in the UK, claiming asylum as 15 and 12-years-old boys.

The men were informed that as ‘child refugees’ they should remain in full-time education and that the local authority would look after them until they are 25-years-old.

This didn’t sit well with parents and other pupils after pictures of the Middle Eastern migrant was shared on social media with the caption: “How’s there a 30-year-old man in our maths class?”

The school accused the parents of being racist for their complaints of the 6ft 1ins Iranian whom they’d found pictured on his Facebook with a moustache drinking beer.

One parent who kept his young daughters out of the school until the man’s removal said: “I’m ashamed both for the school and the Government for allowing this to happen.

“They have both failed to protect our children. The teachers should be sacked.”

The British public have been told that the migrants taken in under the ‘child refugee scheme’ would be toddlers and pre-teens, similarly to the Jewish children brought to Britain before the Second World War.

However, they have turned out to be males over 17-years-old, the limit considered to qualify for the ‘child’ scheme, with many having wrinkles and receding hairlines.

In one year, two-thirds of the ‘child’ migrants were medically tested and confirmed to be adults. The Home Office has even built screens to hide new arrivals from photographers.

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