recommendations for Trump

The Trump administration should pursue firm policies in countering Iran’s militaristic, hegemonic and ideological ambitions. In the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, the lobbyists for the Iranian regime have succeeded in pushing appeasement policies with Iranian leaders, giving billions of dollars to Iran, and in making Washington hesitant when it to comes to Iran’s military adventurism and anti-American posturing. These policies have turned the tension into regional conflagration.

President Obama and Iranian lobbyists played the public well by arguing that appeasing Iran’s leaders will make Iran a constructive player and more moderate. The creation of concepts such as “moderates” versus “hardliners” is a Western fallacy and fabrication. In Iran, authorities do not use these concepts.

Iran’s politicians across the political spectrum might use different means but they try to achieve the same objectives: preserving the political establishment of the Islamic Republic, Velayate Faqih (the Supreme Leader) and the revolutionary principles of 1979.

A lesson in history

Trump should observe and learn the bitter lessons derived from the two terms of the Obama administration. The last eight years gave us evidence that appeasement policies with the Iranian government are not only fruitless, but also a danger to Washington’s and its allies’ national security, geopolitical, strategic and economic interests. President Obama began his presidency by extending his hand to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei immediately rejected and humiliated the US.

Obama did not give up. The nuclear negotiations began with the promise that lifting of the UN Security Council’s sanctions against Iran would be considered a solution to satisfy Iran. Yet Iranian leaders did not show any signs of change in their policies. Khamenei continued lashing out at America, the “Great Satan”.

Following every anti-American speech that Iranian leaders delivered, Obama gave more concessions and exemptions, and signed “secret” deals. Iran kept all its nuclear infrastructure and decades of sanctions were lifted immediately even before Iran had to comply with the flimsy terms of the nuclear deal.

The last eight years gave us evidence that appeasement policies with Iran are not only fruitless, but also a danger to Washington’s and its allies’ national security, geopolitical, strategic and economic interests
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

After the nuclear agreement, Iran began publicly, and more aggressively, test firing ballistic missiles in violation of the United Nations resolutions. Iran publicly admitted that its Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds force – the elite branch of the IRGC that operates in foreign countries – are fighting on the ground in Syria, helping President Assad’s regime.

President Obama continued his reticent stance. Iran became economically empowered as billions of dollars flowed into Iran and Tehran gained global legitimacy as Washington did not condemn Iran for it violations and aggressions.

Iran sent more weapons to its proxies including the Houthis, while the US intercepted five Iranian shipments of weapons after the nuclear agreement. Iran’s proxy, the Houthis, attacked the US navy threatening US national security. However, President Obama continued with his appeasement policies.

Iran became more emboldened and began publicly escalating harassment of US Navy ships and detaining American Navy officers, forcing them to divulge sensitive information, and posting videos of a US sailor crying and handcuffed, in an attempt to further humiliate the US.

Hardball tactics

Iranian leaders learned that hardball tactics plays well with the US. Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism increased. Khamenei reasserted Iran’s position that the US will remain Iran’s number one enemy. He stated that the Iranian nation ousted the Satan and that we should not let it “back through the window”.

The IRGC leaders repeatedly threatened several countries in the region. Iran threatened Israel with their missile capabilities and Khamenei openly threatened the destruction of Israel as he pointed out: “Some Zionists have said that regarding the result of the nuclear deal they (Israelis) have been relieved of concerns about Iran for 25 years. But we tell them that you will not see the coming 25 years and God willing there will not be something named the Zionist regime in the region.”

Iran’s hostage taking of Americans took the spotlight again. The country arrested American citizens as hostages while its military publicly demanded billions of dollars as ransom to release them. Some politicians claim that Obama paid a ransom to release four Iranian-American citizens. Iran arrested more afterwards.

Iran’s military adventurism and the IRGC’s deployment of hard power significantly increased across the region in order to expand Tehran’s military empire and advance Khamenei’s regional hegemonic ambitions. Iran gave birth to many Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. Iranian leaders bragged about dominating four Arab capitals (Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, Sana’a).

The Russia-China-Iran axis has strengthened, tipping the global balance of power against the US and its European allies. Russia intensified airstrikes in Syria and ratcheted up its efforts to undermine the US global role.

Domestically speaking, Iran tightened the rules on personal freedoms, social justice, liberty and women rights. Human rights violations increased under Rowhani’s presidency and Iran was ranked number one in executing people per capita. Executions surged to a 25 year-high.

Three-pronged policy for Trump

Trump administration should take a three-pronged approach toward the Iranian government. Regionally speaking, Washington needs to hold Iran accountable for any aggression, anti-US and anti-Israeli rhetoric. Washington should take legal action when Iran violates UN security resolution such as test firing ballistic missiles or breaching the arms embargo.

The US should stand with its Middle eastern allies to counter the IRGC expansion of its stranglehold in the region and should drive the IRGC forces out of foreign territories. Financing of Iran’s proxies and delivery of arms to them should be countered appropriately.

Domestically speaking, the US should not turn a blind eye to, but instead, needs to publicly condemn Iran’s increasing human rights violations. Washington ought to support Iran’s civil society, opposition groups, and Persian media outlets that seek to advance democratic values in Iran. With regards to the nuclear agreement, several reports have revealed that Iran has already violated the nuclear deal by attempting to purchase materials that are only used for developing nuclear weapons.

The US should not solely rely on the IAEA to inspect Iran. IAEA has repeatedly failed in monitoring Iran as several clandestine nuclear sites had been revealed. The US should take serious action to bring these violations to the attention of the UN Security Council members. Since Russia and China will support Iran, the US should take unilateral proportionate action such as re-imposing Obama’s repealed sanctions on Iran.

President Obama and lobbyists for the Iranian regime played the Americans well in the last eight years. But we learned that reticence to Iran’s hegemonic ambitions and appeasement with Iranian leaders only results in more conflicts, destruction, anti-American policies, anti-Israeli sentiments, and human rights violations. If appeasement policies with Iran continue, regional conflict will exacerbate.

Trump administration should avoid silence and appeasement policies toward the Iranian regime and should proportionately counter Iran’s hegemonic ambitions.
____________________

News - Iranian Resistance IRAN: Political Prisoner, Maryam Akbari Monfared Denied Medical Treatment for Filing Complaint

Maryam Akbari-Monfared

Iran Focus- London, 5 November - Political Prisoner, Maryam Akbari-Monfared, arrested in December 2009 for alleged participation in the peaceful 2009 street protests after a foul and bogus Presidential Elections in Iran, and later charged with being connected to the PMOI/MEK has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the so called “waging war against God” in June 2010.
Four of  her siblings were executed in the 1980s for their affiliations with the MEK, and in 2009 she was also accused of making phone calls to her remaining brother and sister who were at the time based in Camp Ashraf in Iraq.
“I was in the courtroom when my wife was being tried,” her husband Hassan Jafari said. “Judge [Abolqasem] Salavati told my wife that she was paying for her brother and sister’s activities. I was left with taking care of our three small girls, whose mother has now been imprisoned for six and a half years.”
Making this terrible situation even worse, it’s now reported on November 3, by Amnesty International that this political prisoner of conscience, Maryam Akbari Monfared, is being denied access to medical treatment at Tehran’s Evin Prison . 
“Maryam is facing reprisals after filing a formal complaint that seeks an official investigation into the mass killings of political prisoners, including her siblings, in the summer of 1988,” Amnesty International reports.

Heartbreaking aftermath of Syrian nursery school bombing as six children killed

 BEIRUT- AFP, NOV 7, 2016-  At least six children were killed on Sunday in Syrian government shelling that hit a kindergarten in the rebel-held town of Harasta outside the capital Damascus, a monitor said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said 17 people, most of them children, were also injured in the shelling.

An AFP photographer saw the body of one child, a girl, lying on a bed at a makeshift hospital, her face bloodied and her clothes torn.

At the kindergarten, smears of blood were left on the tiled floor, underneath a small red slide propped against a wall painted with children’s drawings.

Harasta is in the rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta, outside Damascus, a region that is regularly targeted by government airstrikes and shelling.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 20 11 with anti-government protests. 
Mirror, 07 Nov. 2016- These heart breaking pictures show the bloody aftermath of a nursery school bombing in war-torn Syria.
At least six children have been killed and up about 25 others injured after forces of Syrian regime bombed the school.
Harrowing pictures show crying children covered in blood and toys scattered across the blood-stained floor after a mortar shell smashed into the school in the rebel-held city of Harasta, near Damascus.
A young girl stares at the camera with specks of blood on her cheeks. Satchels sit on chairs surrounded by blood.

Toys on the blood-stained floor of the kindergarten


Blood on the floor after children's bags were left on chairs during the bombing


A battered shoe of a child following the shelling

More blood stains the ground
A playground earlier used by the children now has pools of blood underneath swings.
Reports suggest a mortar shell smashed into the nursery.

An injured child receives treatment in hospital after the bombing



The makeshift hospital emerged after forces of  Assad  bombed the nursery

During the attack the nursery have been hit. The incident happened at about 10am local time.

Destruction at the kindergarten after the shelling


Blood stains the floor near the playground set of swings


Blood-stained clothes of an injured child



Blood on the floor of the of the kindergarten

Iran Air participates in Syrian airlift, but Obama does nothing

Iran Airlines

The Hill, Sept. 17, 2016 - Last week, the Obama administration admitted, during a congressional hearing, that it had authorized cash payments to Iran, timed with the release of U.S. hostages, in January. Cash was reportedly loaded onto an unmarked Iranian cargo plane before it was flown back to Tehran.
Congress was right to criticize the administration over this episode. So why should it now let the president approve the largest sale of U.S.-manufactured airplanes to Iran Air, an accomplice to mass murder in Syria?
Iran Air is negotiating an agreement for the purchase of 100 aircraft from the aviation industry giant Boeing. It is also taking part in the weapons and military personnel airlift to Syria that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is coordinating on Tehran's behalf.
The morning of the hearing, while administration officials were reassuring Congress that the money was being used to address 'critical economic needs,' an Iran Air Airbus A300 took off from Tehran, bound for Damascus. But instead of heading to its stated destination, Flight IR697 headed south, to the Iranian port city of Abadan, where it landed for a quick stopover before continuing to the Syrian capital.
For over a year now, Abadan's airport has served as the principal logistics hub for the IRGC airlift in support of Syria's loyalist armed forces and the Shiite militias, which Iran dispatched to Syria, alongside its own Quds Force, to save the Syrian regime from collapsing.
Usually, Iran's Mahan Air and Pouya Air run the airlift alongside Damascus's state-owned airline, Syria Air. Between 2011 and 2013, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the three airlines under Executive Order 13224 as entities engaged in the support of terrorism over their material role in the IRGC's airlift to Syria.
That Mahan, Pouya and Syria Air would continue to carry their deadly cargoes is not surprising. They have nothing to lose. Based on available information on the commercial flight tracker Flight Radar 24, there were at least 195 Mahan Air flights to Syria over the last year.
Iran Air, on the other hand, has much to gain from sitting out the airlift. Last year's nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), left Mahan, Pouya and Syria Air under sanctions, but it delisted hundreds of Iranian entities previously involved in proliferation activities. One of them was Iran Air.
The JCPOA not only removed sanctions against the company, but it lifted aviation sanctions against Iran in general, making it possible for Iranian airlines not under sanctions to purchase new aircraft and spare parts, sign maintenance deals and obtain training for its technicians.
Iran Air has taken full advantage of this. In January, it signed a deal with European industry giant Airbus for 118 aircraft. The Boeing deal would add 100 more. Other deals are being negotiated that would dramatically increase Iran Air's current fleet of 36 aircraft to several hundred.
Participating in the Syria airlift could jeopardize all of this. Under the JCPOA, Washington cannot re-impose nuclear sanctions against entities that have been removed from the sanctions list. But it can slap terrorism sanctions against any of them if they were demonstrably involved in activities covered by Executive Order 13224.
Carrying weapons and personnel to Syria is one such case. Flight records show that Iran Air's flight 697 — the Tehran-Damascus route — was operated 66 times over the last year, including three times from Abadan, on Sept. 8, June 9 and May 10. There were at least an additional 20 Iran Air flights to Damascus between Dec. 14, 2015, and the end of August 2016. Not all originated in Tehran, however. On Feb. 14; June 5, 6 and 7; July 24 and 25; and Aug. 10, aircraft took off from Yazd. On June 25, it originated from Kermanshah. And on July 30 and Aug. 6, 8 and 28, it departed from Abadan.
Many of these flights switched off their transponders above the western Iraqi desert, and in some cases, for part of their journey in Iranian airspace. Moreover, in the abovementioned cases, the flight number's associated route did not match the actual plane's journey. These practices are illegal under international civil aviation rules, and also reveal the intention to conceal the aircraft itinerary and likely its cargo.
Iran has never hidden its resolve to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power at whatever cost. The ayatollahs also have a track record of suborning their country's economy to the pursuit of revolutionary goals. It is not surprising that they instructed Iran Air to contribute to the Syria war effort, but it is disconcerting that Washington has ignored this evidence and allowed Boeing to continue its negotiations. Disconcerting, but given how badly the administration wants the nuclear deal to succeed, not surprising.
Success, however, cannot come at the cost of compliance. The next president should take note of what is by now glaringly obvious: Iran Air should be sanctioned for its role in perpetuating and exacerbating the Syrian civil war.

Suppression and Poverty in Iran has Resulted in the Doubling of the Rate of Drug Addictions among Women

Increase in Drug addiction in Iran

Iran’s chief justice for drug enforcement agency in an interview with Mehr News agency on September 7, 2016 has pointed out the increasing rate of drug addiction among women.
Ali Moyedi said, “Overall from one million three hundred and fifty thousand drug addicts, 10 percent of them are women. This number has been doubled in comparison to our previous estimation”.
This official without pointing out to the real causes of this societal disaster also said “What we are facing today in area of drug use is the change in rate in which women are gravitating toward addiction. The change of this rate is the reason that we are facing this problem today.”
It is necessary to point out that on August 27, 2016 statement by the national council of resistance of Iran which was issued regarding: “The hanging of 12 prisoners in Karaj central prison in early August” that “The origin of drug distribution goes back to Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards. The income from such illegal activities are directed to Terrorism and it is used for spreading their fundamentalist ideological agenda.”
In a United Nations confidential report leaked by wiki leaks, it has been pointed out that the Iranian regime could be the biggest drug cartel in the world. (U.S. Embassy cables in Baku June 12, 2009)
Furthermore, some officials of the Iranian regime and Revolutionary Guard are directly responsible for the distribution and selling of drugs among Iranian youth specially students. Finally, a parliament member Rasoul Khezri has pointed out that the estimated number of people who are struggling with drug addiction is around 10 million. He also stated: “Although the inflation has caused an increase in price of all goods, the price of a lethal drug called “Crystal Meth” has significantly decreased.”

Maryam Rajavi’s statement on Montazeri’s tape recording about Iran’s 1988 massacre

Maryam Rajavi; Mr. Montazeri’s Tape a Testament to Mojahedin’s steadfastness and to Regime Leaders’ Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity

Maryam Rajavi : Tape recording of Mr. Montazeri’s Meeting with Those Responsible for Mass Executions of Political Prisoners is a Testament to Mojahedin’s Refusal to Surrender and to Regime Leaders’ Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, described the audio recording of a meeting between Mr. Montazeri, then successor to Khomeini, and those responsible for the mass executions of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 as a historical document.
She said the recording attested in the strongest possible manner both to the Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK) political prisoners’ rejection of surrender and to their admirable allegiance to, and perseverance in, their commitment to the Iranian people. The recording is also irrefutable evidence that leaders of the mullahs’ regime are responsible for crimes against humanity and the unprecedented genocide, Mrs. Rajavi said.
Khamenei, whose name is mentioned in the remarks made by the members of the “death commission” in this very meeting, openly declared his support for the mass executions that same year, and in the 28 years since has maintained close ties with the murderous officials who carried them out. He is a mastermind of these atrocities, and must be made to answer to the Iranian people and put on trial, she said.
She said: Mr. Montazeri, himself a founder and ideologue of the principle of velayat-e-faqih (absolute rule of the clergy), emphasizes in the recording, “The Iranian people are repulsed by the velayat-e-faqih” and “later will say that Agha (referring to Khomeini) was bloodthirsty and brutal figure.” His statements attest to the illegitimacy of the ruling regime from the 1980s, to the people’s repugnance towards the velayat-e-faqih, and to the righteousness of the resistance to overthrow that regime.
Mrs. Rajavi said: Montazeri’s remarks addressed to the four members of the ‘death commission’ that this massacre was “the greatest crime committed during the Islamic Republic,” and the four officials’ acknowledgement that they were in the process of massacring the Mojahedin political prisoners and planning how to continue this atrocity, leave no room for doubt that the actions of these four men and many other leaders of the regime involved in these atrocities are, by any measure or definition, a crime against humanity.
She added: The international community, therefore, is obligated to bring them to justice. In particular because these four individuals and the others who carried out the massacre of political prisoners referred to in this meeting have, from the beginning of this regime to the present day, held posts at the highest levels of the judicial, political and intelligence apparatuses. At present, Mostafa Pourmohammadi is Hassan Rouhani ’s Minister of Justice. Hossein-Ali Nayyeri is the current head of the Supreme Disciplinary Court for Judges. And Ebrahim Raeesi is among the regime’s most senior clerics and the head of the Astan Qods-e Razavi foundation (a multi-billion dollar religious, political and economic conglomerate and one of the most important political and economic powerhouses in the clerical regime).
Mrs. Rajavi said: Montazeri’s affirmation that the Intelligence Ministry had for some time been investing in the mass executions and that Ahmad Khomeini (Khomeini’s son) had “been saying for three or four years, ‘The Mojahedin, even the ones who read their newspaper, to the ones who read their magazine, to the ones who read their statements – all of them must be executed’” are further evidence of the reality that the mass executions of 1988 were a premeditated crime against humanity. This rules out absurd assertions by the ruling regime and its toadies, who have tried to relate the executions to the Mojahedin’s Eternal Light military operation and thus blame the organization for this odious crime, she stressed.
The discussion with the members of the death commission took place on August 15, 1988, less than three weeks after the executions had begun. It reaffirms the horrifically high number of execution victims and refutes all of the regime’s deceptive ploys to downplay the extent of this crime. Montazeri in one instance says, “In the (cities’) prisons, they have done everything imaginable… and in Ahwaz it was really horrendous.”
Mrs. Rajavi emphasized: Montazeri’s statements, such as his description of the execution of a 15-year-old girl and of a pregnant woman in Isfahan, as well as the statements by the executioners in the meeting reveal the extent of the ruling regime’s ruthlessness and vengeance against the Mojahedin women and their glorious resistance. Addressing these murderers, Montazeri says, “I reminded Khomeini that according to the decrees of most religious scholars, a woman, even if she is a mohareb (enemy of God) must not be executed. But he did not agree, and said that women, too, must be executed.”
In the audio recording, one of the members of the death commission reveals: “As for the girls, God is my witness as far as we could, we tried to bargain with them. I have very strong nerves, but day before yesterday when I saw only one of them ……. I was really devastated. I started pleading with her to just write a couple of lines and we would send her back to the prison.”
Mrs. Rajavi saluted all the victims of the 1988 massacre, particularly the women and girls who frustrated the regime with their heroic resistance. She said: They paid the price of standing loyal to the cause of freedom and equality. And there is no doubt that tomorrow's free Iran will indeed blossom from their glorious sacrifice. This is a future which will be unquestionably realized.
She also hailed members and supporters of the Iranian Resistance and all freedom-loving Iranians who have participated for several weeks in worldwide campaigns to honor the 28th anniversary of the massacre of political prisoners in Iran and to spread the message of those gallant freedom fighters both in Iran and abroad.
Mrs. Rajavi called on all Iranians, especially Iranian youths, to demand justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre. This, she said, is a nationalist and patriotic duty and part of the Iranian people's struggle for regime change in Iran and to restore the Iranian people's right to political determination, a right that the clerical regime attempted to fiercely destroy with the 1988 massacre.
She added: Khamenei and his regime have concealed all the information and details of this crime. They must be compelled to publicly announce the complete list of names of those massacred and the locations of their graves and mass graves, one by one.
Mrs. Rajavi emphasized: As far as the Iranian people are concerned, they will never give up on their demand for the prosecution of each and every one of the regime's leaders involved in this massacre, no matter how many years it takes. The United Nations and the UN Security Council must make the necessary political and legal arrangements for the international prosecution of the regime's leaders for this crime against humanity.

Audio file revives calls for inquiry into massacre of Iran political prisoners

  The biggest crimes in Iran has been committed by the government

The Guardian, 11 August 2016 - The publication for the first time in Iran of an audio recording from nearly three decades ago has reopened old wounds from the darkest period in the Islamic Republic.
In the summer of 1988, thousands of supporters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organization were executed in a massacre of political prisoners. In the pre-internet age, the incident was subject to a media blackout in Iran and received scant attention abroad, unlike other acts of carnage that rank alongside it, such as Srebrenica.
Only one senior Iranian official dared to speak out at the time: Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who was in line to lead the country after Khomeini, then supreme leader and the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Montazeri wrote a number of letters to Khomeini condemning the executions, and the grand ayatollah soon fell out of favour. He was later placed under house arrest and faced huge restrictions until his death in December 2009.
This week, on the 28th anniversary of that bleak summer, Montazeri’s official website, run by his family and followers, published an audio file from a meeting he held in 1988 with senior judges and judiciary officials involved in the mass executions.
In an extraordinarily blunt manner, Montazeri is heard telling his audience, among them the sharia judge and public prosecutors, “In my view, the biggest crime in the Islamic Republic, for which the history will condemn us, has been committed at your hands, and they’ll write your names as criminals in the history.”
The 1988 mass execution is believed to have started after the MEK forces launched a military incursion against Iranian forces

In the audio recording, Montazeri tells his audience that he believes the authorities had a plan to execute political prisoners for a few years and found a good excuse in the wake of the incursion.
The ayatollah says he felt compelled to speak out because otherwise he would not have an answer on the “judgment day”. “I haven’t been able to sleep and every night it occupies my mind for two to three hours … what do you have to tell to the families?”

International Community Should Halt Iranian Terrorism

Arab Human Rights Forum dedicates Arab Gulf parliamentary initiative to face Iranian threats

Manama-Human Rights activists stressed in the first edition of the pan-Arab Forum on Iranian threats to Arab human security, which was held in Manama, Bahrain, on Saturday, that Arabs have become prone to sectarian threats that target their right to live a secure and stable life.
They blamed the current situation on the Iranian acts, which include imposing its sectarian ideology on Arab states, compromising the military and security state of affairs of countries and exposing Arabs’ lives to several risks.
The forum titled “No Rights without Security,” was organized by the Arab Federation for Human Rights under the auspices of the Speaker of the Council of Representatives Ahmed bin Ibrahim al-Mulla.
The forum said that Arabs cannot enjoy their rights and fundamental freedom unless there is peace, stability and security.
They also noted that Iranian interference in regional affairs is discordant with the principles of international relations of good neighborliness and peaceful coexistence.
The forum condemned acts of Iranian agents and members, who spread sectarianism in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, saying it is a terrorist state that is denounced regionally and internationally.
Moreover, in a bid to counter the Iranian threats, a joint Arab initiative was launched on the sidelines of the forum.
The initiative aims at supporting efforts of Arab and the Gulf governments as well as organizations to confront Iranian threats and stave off their impact on the future of the Arab national security.
“Today we announce the inauguration of this initiative to support Arab and GCC efforts to face the Iranian threats. It promotes non-governmental efforts to curb the
threats posed by the Iranian regime,” Defense and National Security Parliamentary Committee Member MP Jamal Buhassan remarked during the announcement.
Commenting on the forum, Speaker al-Mulla said that “No life or development are possible without providing and ensuring security and stability,” affirming that combating terrorism is the duty of everyone, especially with Iran’s clear role in supporting terrorist groups that jeopardize the security of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and that of the Arabs as a whole.
He underscored the importance of the forum in countering Iran’s negative conduct in the region, strengthening security, stability and human rights across the Arab world and confirming the Arab identity and Arab efforts to denounce and put an end to sectarian conflicts.
He said that the acts of Iran and its affiliate parties can no longer be tolerated, noting that Iran has failed to respond positively to all Arab efforts aiming to contain its meddlesome conduct and build up relations, sticking to its destructive terrorist plots which led to many conflicts across the Arab Nation.
The Speaker called for the need to step up joint Arab cooperation in confronting the wave of multipolar ideological and sectarian extremism resulting from Iran’s limitless interference in the Arab internal affairs in a bid to subjugate and weaken the Arab region and keep it from carrying out its development plans.

Ransom by another name

A rose is rose, and a ransom, a ransom

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist. His latest book is “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America” (Zondervan, 2014).


The Washington Times, Aug. 8, 2016 - You’ve probably heard the very old riddle: When is a door not a door? When it’s ajar.
An updated version might go like this: When is a ransom not a ransom? When the Obama administration says it isn’t.
President Obama and his State Department want us to believe that $400 million in foreign cash that was flown into Iran under cover of darkness on an unmarked cargo plane was merely money “owed” to the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terrorism from a failed arms deal negotiated with the Shah of Iran more than 35 years ago.
The president’s explanation is that the money was part of the nuclear deal reached with Iran and the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague. The president says settling the claim now is actually saving money, the full amount of which might have had to be paid if the case were fully litigated before the court.
We are to ignore a statement by one of the four Americans held hostage by the Iranian regime (one of them since 2011) before being released in January. Christian pastor Saeed Abedini told Fox Business Channel last week: “I just remember the night at the airport sitting for hours and hours there, and I asked police, ‘Why are you not letting us go?’ ” Mr. Abedini said the policeman answered, ‘We are waiting for another plane so if that plane doesn’t come, we never let [you] go.’ “
What was the “other plane” carrying that was so important to the Iranian government that only its arrival would trigger the release of Mr. Abedini and the three other hostages, and its failure to land would keep them in captivity? Food? Toilet paper? Western movies? Or money?
It is a sad day when one must choose between believing the American president or the Iranian government that has vowed to wipe out Israel and then come after America and subject the world to fundamentalist Islam. The administration refuses to say how many Americans have died directly or indirectly from Iran’s support of terrorism.
The Washington Free Beacon reported last fall that the administration has stonewalled a request from Congress to release figures on the number of Americans and Israelis killed by Iran and its terror proxies since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Undoubtedly, this was to ease opposition to the deal with Iran not to proceed with the creation of nuclear weapons, which they most assuredly are creating in secret, or will create when the “restrictions” expire in a maximum of 15 years, depending on one’s interpretation of the deal. Iran is permitted to enrich uranium in the meantime.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal last week, former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey thought he knew the reason for the foreign cash and the secrecy behind the January transfer of funds: “There is principally one entity within the Iranian government that has need of untraceable funds. That entity is the Quds Force — the branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps focusing particularly on furthering the regime’s goals worldwide by supporting and conducting terrorism.”
The Iranian regime clearly sees the $400 million as ransom for the illegally held Americans. A video showing pallets of foreign cash has surfaced on the internet. The administration won’t confirm that is the money it sent, but does it matter? The money was sent.
Consider the definition of “ransom” and whether this fits what occurred in January: “The redemption of a prisoner, slave, or kidnapped person for a price.”
A rose is a rose is a rose. And so is ransom by whatever name one may disingenuously call it.



Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist. His latest book is “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America” (Zondervan, 2014).

Saving Iran’s Children From Death Row

Shadows of an Iranian policeman and a noose are seen on the ground before an execution in Pakdasht, south of Tehran, March 2005.

The mass execution of more than 20 people in Iran’s Rajai Shahr prison was not the only grim news from that country this past week, the Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, August 9, 2016.
On August 1, Alireza Tajiki, who was sentenced to death at age 15 following a trial that fell short of international standards, was saved from execution thanks to the last-minute efforts of his family and his lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh. Unfortunately, the postponement is only temporary.
Alireza, now 19 is set to be executed on August 3.
Amin Tajiki, Alireza’s brother, told Human Rights Watch that their family had requested a retrial based on new evidence, but the court rejected their request.
Scores of children are believed to be on death row in Iran, despite denials by the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadegh Amoli Larijani. Amnesty International has identified the names and locations of 49 such children, and the UN believes the number could be as high as 160. The majority of children on death row in Iran were convicted in trials that fell far short of international standards. In many cases, they reported torture and mistreatment in detention.
On July 18, Amnesty International reported that Iranian authorities hanged Hassan Afshar, who was arrested at 17. He had no access to a lawyer.
As a party to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on Rights of the Child, Iran is obliged to end child executions. The country has taken some small, positive steps. Since 2013, judges may use their discretion to not sentence a child offender to death if they do not understand the nature of the crime. Judges may now seek the opinion of the government’s Forensic Medical Department to assess the child’s mental state. Also, all children sentenced to death under Iran’s old penal code are eligible to be retried under the new one, passed in 2013, although they have to file for a retrial.
But, not only do these narrow reforms fail to meet Iran’s obligation to end all executions of children, but in practice, they are negated by ongoing abuses. Iranian authorities frequently deny children in pretrial detention access to a lawyer. Many children spend up to a decade on death row based primarily on confessions made under credible allegations of torture.
Now the Iranian judiciary should save all child offenders from the cruel fate of execution by granting them retrials in accordance with international human rights law standards. Child offenders like Alireza should never have been on death row in the first place.

Hunger strike held outside Downing Street in London to condemn mass execution in Iran

Campaigners start a three day hunger strike outside Downing Street

The protest is being held in reaction to the death of at least 20 Sunni inmates at Gohardasht Prison near capital Tehran on Wednesday, on the anniversary of the state-sanctioned killing of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988.
The execution was slammed by the National Council of Resistance in Iran ( NCRI ) which is hoping to use the hunger strike in Whitehall to pressure the Foreign Office to openly criticize it.
The protest also takes place 28 years after the execution of potentially tens of thousands of dissidents by Iranian authorities.
As well as achieving support from the UK government, the campaigners also hope to secure a similar missive from the UN Security Council and UN Human Rights Council.
Hossein Abedini, a spokesman for the NCRI, told metro.co.uk: that there is a lot of concern a similar execution to the one in 1988 could take place.
‘The situation in Gohardasht and other parts of Iran has really worsened,’ he said.
‘I think it's really very important [we get UK Government support] because a large number of MPs and Lords recently issued a statement and calling for cross-party support concerning Iran.
‘There is a lot of concern about the brutal hangings and torture.
‘It very important the massacres of 1988 are recognised as a crime against humanity and that very robust measures are now introduced.’
The protest will take place on Whitehall between 5 and 8pm today and tomorrow and from 3pm until 7pm on Monday, however, the hunger strike will continue regardless.
The NCRI said it had gained the support of a number of MPs such as Tory Matthew Offord, and Mike Freer and Bob Blackman who said they would attend to show their support for the raily.
The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom released a statement yesterday expressing its shock at this week’s executions.
It also called on the government to officially recognise the 1988 execution against a crime against humanity.
The statement read: ‘These latest executions come as the Iranian authorities intensify pressure on political prisoners by imposing severe punishment and denying them medical care in its prisons.
‘It is once again clear that the human rights situation in Iran has not change but rather has worsened in many areas including arbitrary arrest of dual citizens, suppression of women and of Iran’s religious and ethnic minorities.
‘The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF) strongly condemns Tehran’s continued use of death penalty, which aims to silence popular dissent.
‘The Iranian regime can no longer be allowed to hide behind the notion of “moderation” and the international community must speak up against the systematic atrocities taking place on a daily basis.’
Source: Metro UK, 6 Aug. 2016

Iranian Sunni cleric says executions may inflame regional tensions

Execution of Sunni prisoners in Iran

A leading Iranian Sunni Muslim said the execution of Sunni Islamists last week could inflame sectarian tensions in the Gulf region.
Iran executed more than 30 Sunni prisoners in groups and mass executions. There were no public trials and rights groups said the convictions may have been based on forced confessions.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said on Friday that 'overly broad and vague criminal charges' had led to 'a grave injustice'.
Molavi Abdolhamid, a leading Sunni cleric in Iran said the executions lacked 'forethought and tolerance' at a time when Iran and the whole region were suffering from extremism.
'Our main complaint is that the sensitive situation in our region has not been considered in these executions,' Abdolhamid, who is regarded as a spiritual leader for Iran's Sunni minority, said on his website.
Iran has one of the highest execution rates in the world. Amnesty International says at least 977 people were put to death there in 2015, compared to 320 in Pakistan and at least 158 in Saudi Arabia.

Morality police raid clothes shops in ban of un-Islamic clothing

Daily Express, Aug 6, 2016 - The crackdown on Western outfits in the Islamic Republic has seen factories and shops being targeted - and comes after a leading cleric bizarrely accused the fashion of causing rivers to run dry.
At least 15 women’s clothes shops have been closed down by morality police in Hamedan in a renewed drive to wipe out “improper” clothing.
Four factories and shops have also been shut down in Isfahan, central Iran.
“Islamic codes of behavior and dress” are strictly enforced in the country with women expected to cover their heads, wear trousers and a long sleeved coat or tunic that reaches to the knee.
Closing down the clothing production and distribution units under the pretext of ‘not conforming to the Islamic standards’ is ludicrous, says Elaheh Azimfar of the NCRI .
Manufacturers have been ordered to change their designs by officials and the black market for smuggled foreign clothing has experienced problems with demand.
The Tasnim News Agency, linked to the regime's Revolutionary Guards Force (IRGC), reported the crackdown.
Ebrahim Khatabakhsh, the head of the clothes manufacturers’ union in Isfahan, said: “Clothes production and distribution lines in Isfahan that do not conform to the standards of the Islamic Republic of Iran are being dealt with.
'Some of these production units have been ordered to adapt their clothing with Iranian-Islamic culture and standards. There are less smuggled foreign clothes being seen in Isfahan these days.'
Morality police are carrying out a series of raids and surprise inspections across the city.
Khatabakhsh said: “Currently joint inspections are being carried out in the mornings and afternoons until all the areas have been inspected.”
The National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), which is campaigning for a free and democratic Iran has slammed the measures.




The NCRI says at least 15 women’s clothes shops have been closed down by morality police in Hamedan.



Islamic codes of behavior and dress are strictly enforced in Iran

Elaheh Azimfar, from the NCRI, said: “Closing down the clothing production and distribution units by the clerical regime under the pretext of ‘not conforming to the Islamic standards’ is ludicrous and yet another act of suppression against women in Iran.
“It is important to realize that such acts are totally irrelevant to Islam and Islamic standards.
“The truth is that faced with an extremely discontented society, the regime sees no choice but to resort to further acts of suppression.
“Despite the intensification of the crackdown, there is growing opposition among the Iranian people, particularly women and youth.



Women expected to cover their heads in Iran

“This explains why the regime is looking for new ways of restricting people, and women have always been the foremost victims of this fundamentalist regime.”
The crackdown is the latest in a spate of repressive measures in Iran.
A senior cleric claimed women dressed in Western clothes were causing rivers to run dry and ordered the police to take action.
Seyyed Youssef Tabatabi-nejad called on the morality police to stamp out un-Islamic behavior and blamed social media for encouraging immodesty.



An Iranian policewoman warns a woman about her clothing and hair during a crackdown in 2007



Morality police also clamped down on dress in 2007


Women who fail to veil themselves correctly are reprimanded in public.
Last week a group of women were arrested for riding bicycles in the north-western city of Marivan, in Iran’s Kurdistan Province.
A number were arrested and others forced to sign written pledges not to cycle in public.
Eyewitnesses said security forces informed the women, who were planning a sports event, that under a new government directive women are banned from cycling in public.

Iran: Many families are tonight mourning the brutal and vicious mass execution of their loved ones

Following the mass execution of about two dozen Sunni prisoners in the notorious Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran, by the anti-human mullahs' regime, families of these victims are mourning tonight.
The families were informed to go to the prison before 15.00 (local time) Tuesday to visit their loved ones for a last time.
One of the families who were on route to the prison to say farewell for the last time to their young son said they received a call from prison authorities in the middle of the road telling them to go and pick up the body of their loved one from the morgue victim instead of visiting their son.
Another report from the family of a victim said the families were told to visit their loved ones for a final time in the prison before 15.00. But when the family arrived at the prison, they were told to go instead to the coroner's office to collect the body of their loved one who had already been executed.
List of names of 28 Sunni prisoners who had been forcibly moved out of Hall 10 of Ward 4 in Gohardasht Prison on Monday afternoon, August 1, 2016 are as follows:
1. Kaveh Veysi
2. Taleb Molki
3. Behrouz Shah-Nazari
4. Barzan Nosratollah-Zadeh
5. Farzad Shah-Nazari
6. Varya Qaderi-Fard
7. Keyvan Momeni-Fard
8. Alam Bamashti
9. Seyyed Jamal Seyyed-Moussavi
10. Edris Ne'mati
11. Ahmad Nasiri
12. Mokhtar Rahimi
13. Yavar Rahimi
14. Pourya Mohammadi
15. Farzad Honarjou
16. Shahram Ahmadi
17. Farshid Nasseri
18. Amjad Salehi
19. Omid Peyvand
20. Arash Sharifi
21. Kaveh Sharifi
22. Shahu Ebrahimi
23. Abdollah Sharifi
24. Jamal Qaderi
25. Omid Mahmoudi
26. Mohammad Gharibi
27. Fouad Yousefi
28. Keyvan Karimi

Then NCRI had already called on International organizations to do their utmost to prevent this heinous mass executions. In a statement issued on August 1st, the NCRI had said
The Iranian Resistance makes a call to save the lives of a large number of Sunni prisoners on death row, requesting urgent intervention by the United Nations Security Council and Member States, and international human rights organizations, especially the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and Special Rapporteur to prevent the implementation of these criminal and inhumane rulings.
A large number of special Revolutionary Guards forces raided hall 10 of ward 4 in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj (west of Tehran) in the afternoon of Monday, August 1. These repressive forces apprehended dozens of Sunni prisoners as their hands and feet were chained, mouths shut with tape and heads covered with plastic bags. These prisoners were transferred outside of the ward to an undisclosed location.
Hours prior to this transfer the regime’s forces and IRGC members had closed all wards and open-air areas, imposing special conditions in the jail. Gohardasht Prison is under the complete IRGC control.
Appeasement vis-à-vis the criminal rulers of Iran, with the execution of 120,000 political prisoners in their report card, and sending more youths to the gallows with each passing day, is nothing but collaborating and encouraging the continuation of these crimes. All political and economic relations with this regime must be conditioned to the complete halt of all executions in Iran, and this regime’s officials must be placed before justice for their crimes against humanity.

 

In the Memory of 30,000 Fallen Roses The Anniversary of the 1988 Massacre in Iran

28 years have gone since the horrific and brutal massacre of political prisoners that was carried out in just one short summer by the criminal mullahs ruling Iran.
In the summer of 1988, the clerical regime summarily and extra-judicially executed about 30,000 political prisoners held in jails across the country. This heinous massacre was carried out upon a fatwa by the Islamic regime founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.
There are strong indications that Khomeini’s fatwa was issued on July 26, 1988.
The Iranian regime has never acknowledged these executions, or provided any information as to how so many prisoners were killed in a matter of just a few months.
The majority of those executed were either serving prison sentences for their political activities or had already finished their sentences but their time in jail was extended.




Some of them had previously been imprisoned and released, but were re-arrested and executed as part of this heinous massacre.
The wave of executions of political prisoners began in late July and continued unabated for several months.
By the time it ended in the early autumn of 1988, some 30,000 political prisoners, the overwhelming majority activists of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), were slaughtered.


A site of a mass grave for some of the victims of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran

More than 70 of Assad army personnel killed in “Aleppo Rage” operation

Syrian rebels capture key Assad forces positions

Syrian rebels inflicted heavy casualties and loses to Assad Army and Iranian regime militias after a coordinated attack on the enemy position to break the Aleppo siege. Sources have put the casualties on Assad side more than 70 killed. There are a number of senior Assad Army and Iranian regime militants among the dead. Syrian rebels destroyed a number of Assad army tanks and armored cars.
Clashes continue in a number of fronts, including in South and Southwest of Aleppo. According to the reports, Assad forces stationed in the military academy of Ramouseh have been surrounded and have totally lost their morals. In addition to human casualties, the Assad regime has lost almost a dozen tanks and armored vehicles in the battle. Rebels also took 3 tanks and large amount of ammunitions and shells from Hekmat Academy.
The Free Syrian Army legal advisor, Osameh Abu-Zeid announced the second stage of the operation “Aleppo Rage.” He pointed out to the achievements of the first stage and said the second phase would soon begin.
The headquarters of the Iranian regime and Hezbollah militants were captured by the Syrian opposition forces in Aleppo.

Iran: Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, meets President Mahmoud Abbas

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi,  met with Mr. Mahmoud Abbas

EU Reporter Correspondent, August 1, 2016 - President Mahmoud Abbas, at the meeting, reiterated the need to combat fundamentalism and terrorism in the region and informed Mrs. Rajavi of the latest developments in the Middle East, in particular regarding Palestine and France’s initiative.
Mrs. Rajavi expressed gratitude for the solidarity of the Palestinian resistance and its leader with the Iranian people and Resistance. She expressed hope that the goal of the Palestinian people would be achieved.
Mrs. Rajavi believes that the Iranian regime is the main instigator of sectarian discord in the region, in particular in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine, but she added that today the mullahs’ regime is at its weakest and most fragile and vulnerable state. She said that this could be seen in the reaction of the regime’s officials and state media to the Iranian Resistance’s July 9 gathering.
Mrs. Rajavi said the Iranian regime is fearful of the solidarity and unity between the Iranian people’s resistance movement and the countries and nations of the region. She said that Iranian people and the Iranian resistance ought to take the initiative to free the region from the scourge of fundamentalism.

The people of Aleppo will never give up

The rebel-held eastern side of the city has effectively been under siege for the past few weeks after a successful pro-government forces campaign. All supply routes to those remaining in East Aleppo have been cut off by Russian backed forces.
Aleppo and its surrounding province has been the center of some of the heaviest fighting of the Syrian civil war.
 


In a recent protest one sign in particular was notably sad. The carriers have given up hope that anyone on the planet will hear their cries for help.
'To the people of Mars, Aleppo is besieged', the futile banner read.
Source: Independent, 29 July 2016

The people of Aleppo will never give up

The rebel-held eastern side of the city has effectively been under siege for the past few weeks after a successful pro-government forces campaign. All supply routes to those remaining in East Aleppo have been cut off by Russian backed forces.
Aleppo and its surrounding province has been the center of some of the heaviest fighting of the Syrian civil war.
 


In a recent protest one sign in particular was notably sad. The carriers have given up hope that anyone on the planet will hear their cries for help.
'To the people of Mars, Aleppo is besieged', the futile banner read.
Source: Independent, 29 July 2016

News - Iran News Iran's regime recruit young Afghans enticed by financial benefits to fight in Syria for Bashar Assad

Iran enlists Afghan refugees as fighters to bolster Syrias Assad

HERAT, Afghanistan - One woman here in the western Afghan city of Herat said she had begged her son not to go fight in the Syrian war, but he charged off anyway, leaving a wife and three children behind. A man overhearing her story came over to say that his son had left two months ago, and since then the family has been desperate for news about him.
Another woman, Khadija, whose son Hassan had joined Afghan brigades fighting alongside the Syrian government, said he had been pulled into the vicious conflict for the same reasons most of the young men in the neighborhood had decided to go: “He could not find work,” she said.
A teenager standing on the edge of the group, listening to the parents, said those were hardly isolated stories among the Afghan Shiites of Herat. The neighborhood, he said, “is full of them.”
Afghanistan has been hollowed out as its citizens have fled poverty and war, many seeking work in Pakistan, Iran or Persian Gulf nations, or risking the perilous trail to Europe. But this specific emigration pattern — of thousands of young men flowing into neighboring Iran and then on to fight alongside the Syrian government and its allies — has provoked extraordinary anguish for families here and for Afghanistan’s government, particularly over the past year.
Leaving a country racked by decades of war, the young Afghans who choose the path to Syria then fall into peril on the bloody front lines of Aleppo, Homs or other battlegrounds. Iranian state news media and some Afghan officials suggest that hundreds have been killed in battles over the past year.


Sara, right, said that her son, Ishaq, 40, had ignored her pleas not to join the war in Syria.
Thousands of Afghans, almost all of them Shiite Muslims from the Hazara ethnic minority, have fought in Syria in the past few years, serving in brigades supporting the government of Bashar al-Assad, according to their relatives and commanders in Syria. Most of the Afghan men are recruited or drawn from the Afghan diaspora within Iran, a crucial ally of the Assad government.
The promise of urgently needed salaries — or at least compensation for hardship or death— has done little to comfort the families left behind, or to ease their regret at the misery that forced their sons to flee in the first place.
In Khadija’s case, her son Hassan’s decision to go to Syria came after her husband, who is disabled, lost his land. But she insisted that she and her husband had urged Hassan not to go.
Though the Afghan men who leave for Syria soon face the miseries of another incessant war, they have one advantage over some other Afghan migrants: They are less likely to be deported and forced to return to Afghanistan. At the border crossing with Iran, a 90-minute drive from Herat, at least 30 buses arrive several times a week, filled with Afghans deported from Iran. Some carry families who have lived illegally in Iran for years.
But most of the deported Afghans were young men — some as young as 10, according to aid workers with the International Organization for Migration — who stole across the border desperate to find work. Many said they would return to Iran as soon as they could.


Afghans who were deported from Iran unloaded their luggage from a bus earlier this month in Herat Province.
Some of the Afghan fighters head to Syria for religious reasons. Others were coerced or duped into fighting, say human rights groups. But most were enticed by financial benefits, including the promise of legal residence for the fighters and their families in Iran, said Abdul Rahim Ghulami. He is a local official in Herat who said his brother-in-law was a commander of an Afghan unit fighting in Aleppo.
Iran’s government provides a few weeks of training and flies the men to Syria, where they join one of the Afghan brigades. Those units are sometimes viewed with suspicion by their own allies: In interviews in Syria, some of the other fighters from pro-government militias disparaged the Afghans as too young and poorly trained.
A shop owner in Damascus named Ahmed giving only his first name because he did not want to be punished who works near the Sayyida Zainab mosque, a revered site for Shiites, said the numbers of Afghan fighters guarding the mosque had increased in the last six months. They were a sorrowful lot who complained about their lives in Iran or Afghanistan when he talked with them, he said, but said they faced little choice if they wanted to support their families..
Casualties among the Afghan fighters were high, said Mr. Ghulami, who lived in Iran for 24 years. He said he visited the Iranian town of Mashhad two months ago and saw that its Afghan quarter was blanketed with black banners that signaled a house in mourning.
The size of the outflow from Afghanistan itself has been harder to tally, because the government’s disapproval has led families to stay quiet. Mr. Ghulami, who serves as a local mayor in Jebrail, a Hazara district of Herat with roughly 100,000 residents, estimated that 20 percent of the families there had someone serving in Syria. There was no way to confirm that number: no funerals of Afghan fighters, and no black banners to honor the dead.
But in Jebrail, along with another Hazara neighborhood of Herat, called Khatim al-Anbiya, it is easy to find the relatives or friends the Afghan fighters had left behind.
At the cigarette kiosk where he worked in Jebrail, a boy named Sayed Ali remembered his neighbor and classmate, Habibullah, 20, who ran off to Syria a few years ago, when he was still a teenager. This year, word came back that Habibullah had been killed in the war. Another high school student, named Jawad, disappeared from his home in Khatim al-Anbiya two winters ago, leaving his family to assume he had gone to Iran to find work, according to his uncle, Mohamed Ibrahim.
When his parents last heard from Jawad, he said he was in Syria, and told his father he was preparing to come home. Then, eight or nine months ago, a man brought the news that Jawad had been shot in the head and killed.
Mr. Ibrahim said he was not sure what took Jawad to Syria — “No one can read anyone’s heart,” he said — but said he thought the boy was just looking for work. “They go there because of poverty,” he said.
Yazdanbeg Yazdani, a 50-year-old resident of Jebrail with family in Iran, said that a year ago, he received a call from Iran telling him his younger brother, named Yunus, had joined the war as an officer and was killed in a suicide bombing attack.
Mr. Yazdani was unsure why his brother, who was 48, felt compelled to fight — whether he supported the Syrian government, or had been forced into battle, or simply needed the money. The brothers had been separated decades ago, when Yunus moved to Syria — their family fractured by migration, like so many in Afghanistan. Mr. Yazdani could not attend his brother’s funeral, which was held in Iran. But his family there sent him pictures of the service.
Source: New York Times, 28 July 2016

News - World News Assad and Russia use banned cluster bombs, killing and injuring dozens of civilians

 47 cluster munition attacks that killed and injured dozens of civilians in rebel-held areas

BEIRUT (AFP) - Human Rights Watch accused the Syrian regime and its ally Russia on Thursday of extensively using banned cluster munitions in their offensive against rebels in the war-torn country.
The New York-based watchdog said it had documented 47 cluster munition attacks that killed and injured dozens of civilians in rebel-held areas in three provinces since May 27.
Many of these attacks took place north and west of Aleppo, as Russia-backed regime forces sought to besiege the opposition-controlled part of the northern city, it said.
Russia in September launched a campaign of air strikes in support of Bashar al-Assad's regime.
'Since Russia and Syria have renewed their joint air operations, we have seen a relentless use of cluster munitions,' said Ole Solvang, deputy emergencies director at HRW.
'The Russian government should immediately ensure that neither its forces nor Syria's use this inherently indiscriminate weapon,' he said.
HRW in December said it had documented the use of cluster munitions on 20 occasions since Russia launched air strikes on September 30.
'Although Russia and Syria are not members of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, they are still bound by international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks,' HRW said.
Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of bomblets and are fired in rockets or dropped from the air.
Widely banned, they spread explosives over large areas and are indiscriminate in nature, often continuing to maim and kill long after the initial attack when previously unexploded bomblets detonate.
More than 280,000 people have been killed in Syria since the war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Source: AFP, 28 July 2016

The price of trusting Iran If President Obama has a strategy in the Middle East, he should reveal it

  Obama pauses as he speaks about the mall shooting in Munich, Germany,

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES - Tuesday, July 26, 2016
ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Barack Obama may be the last man in America who actually trusts the holy men in Iran, and a secret codicil, or amendment, he made to his infamous nuclear agreement with them reveals just what happens when a president has no understanding of “the art of the deal,” or the people he makes deals with.
On the first anniversary of the signing of the agreement, Mr. Obama repeated his claim that the deal he made succeeded in “avoiding further conflict and making us safer.” The president refused to make the deal a treaty, which would have included Congress in the making of it. Almost everything the administration said about the deal is turning out to be false.
The agreement was signed by five countries that joined the United States in trying to keep the mullahs from building a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it. By Mr. Obama’s leave, the mullahs can proceed with various aspects of their bomb-making in a much shorter time than was originally claimed. Iran can begin to replace its crucial and necessary centrifuges to produce fissionable material in 2027, 11 years earlier than the date the president told the public he had established.
These new centrifuges could be up to five times more efficient than the 5,000 machines it is now permitted to use. That would permit Tehran to produce nuclear fuel at twice the current rate. The mullahs and their scientists could produce a weapon in six months, not the earlier estimate of a year as needed for the “break out.”
The U.N. Atomic Energy Agency insists that Tehran is living up to the agreement so far, but this is the same U.N. agency that failed earlier to make an accurate assessment. The clandestine activity at the Iranian installations was reported by Iranian exiles in Iraq and only then confirmed by the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on three senior Al Qaeda members in Iran

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on three senior Al Qaeda members in Iran

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions Wednesday on three senior Al Qaeda members in Iran in an effort to disrupt their operations and fundraising.
The three men — Faisal Jassim Mohammed Al-Amri Al-Khalidi, Yisra Muhammad Ibrahim Bayumi and Abu Bakr Muhammad Muhammad Ghumayn — have been found to be acting for on behalf of Al Qaeda, and as a result, any of their property under U.S. jurisdiction have been blocked and U.S. citizens are prohibited from pursing transactions with them.
“Today’s action sanctions senior al-Qaida operatives responsible for moving money and weapons across the Middle East,” Adam J. Szubin, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a news release. “Treasury remains committed to targeting al-Qaida’s terrorist activity and denying al-Qaida and its critical support networks access to the international financial system.”
All three men are senior Al Qaeda veterans and have been involved in various activities for the group including financial, military and communication roles.
Source: Politico, 20 July 2016

GCC foreign ministers meet John Kerry in Brussels, relations with Iran on agenda

Foreign Ministers from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)  in Brussels

BRUSSELS- Foreign Ministers from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) met in Brussels the US Secretary of State John Kerry Monday discussing a wide range of issues of common interest with him.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 25th session of the GCC-EU joint ministerial meeting.
'The discussions were really very positive,' Kuwaiti Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Suleiman Al Jarallah told the Kuwait news agency , KUNA, after the two-hour long meeting.
The meeting covered the regional issues such as the situation in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and relations with Iran, he said.
Kerry earlier met the 28 EU foreign ministers.
Al Jarallah noted that Kerry came to Brussels after meetings in Russia, and the US official informed the GCC ministers about the US and Russian position on the Syrian crisis and the steps to be taken for a political solution and support the efforts of the special UN envoy Staffan de Mastura to resolve the Syrian conflict .
'The discussions were very frank, open and in depth with the US Secretary of State,' stressed Al Jarallah.
'The situation in Syria regretfully is very complicated and difficult and requires the continuation of efforts and pressure,' he said.
During the meeting, they discussed GCC-US relations, ways of enhancing them in various fields and follow-up of the decisions by the summit meetings held between GCC leaders and President Barack Obama at Camp David in 2015 and Riyadh in 2016, and the findings of the joint working groups.