Category Archives: #StopIran

Meet the Bravery in Syria

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The Pentagon and Joint Chiefs Chairman is in full opposition with the White House that Islamic State is contained.

WashingtonTimes: The nation’s top military officer on Tuesday said the U.S. has “not contained” the Islamic State, contradicting President Obama’s reassuring remarks last month just before the terrorist attacks in Paris.

“We have not contained ISIS,” Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, referring to the terror group by its acronym, The Hill reported.

Gen. Dunford said the Islamic State has been “tactically” contained in areas in Iraq and Syria since 2010, but said “strategically they have spread since 2010.”

He said the terror group poses a threat beyond Iraq and Syria, to countries such as Egypt, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon and Jordan, The Hill reported.

Gen. Dunford gave his testimony alongside Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who announced Tuesday that the U.S. will expand its special operations force in Iraq and Syria to help fight militants.

In part from HuffPo: “We crossed the border at 3 a.m.,” Saleh said in an interview with The Huffington Post last week. He remembers the time for a reason: It was the moment he attained relative safety for himself and his family. Crossing into Turkey meant they had successfully outrun the Syrian army’s airstrikes. Saleh never imagined it would one day be his job to run back toward the bombing.

But three years after he escaped from Syria, that’s exactly what this former electronics merchant is doing. Saleh left his family in Turkey and returned to Syria to become a member of the White Helmets, a group of local volunteers who carry out search-and-rescue operations amid the country’s increasing violence and mounting destruction.

The White Helmets, also known as the Syrian Civil Defence, are apolitical, refusing to align themselves with any one group or military faction. Founding members of the White Helmets were trained by the Red Cross, and the Syria Campaign, a nonprofit registered in the U.K., helps coordinate fundraising efforts for the group.

“We work with everybody to help everybody,” Saleh said. Not concerned with the allegiances of the bombers or of those bombed, their focus is saving lives — and they routinely put their own lives on the line to do it.

“When we hear the sound of an airplane, we respond quickly. We ask civilians where the bombing took place. We ask the neighbors if they know if there is still anybody under the destruction,” Saleh explained. “Sometimes we’re able to rescue lives, when we have the proper equipment. And sometimes we can’t.”

In the three years since the start of the Syrian civil war, an estimated 191,000 lives have been lost, according to a United Nations report released in August — although the report noted that the real number is likely higher.

US Admits Iran Will Punk the World on the JPOA

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The US never really expected Iran to come totally clean about a key element of its nuclear program

 BusinessInsider: The Iran nuclear deal will clear a crucial milestone on December 15, when the International Atomic Energy Agency submits a report on the extent of Iran’s previous nuclear-weaponization activities.

The completion of that investigation into the possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program is one of the major prerequisites for the full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the landmark nuclear deal that Iran and a US-led group of six countries signed in July.

iran nuclearREUTERS

In theory, the JCPOA won’t be implemented unless Iran complies with a separate “roadmap” agreement with the IAEA. That agreement, which was signed the same day as the JCPOA, lays out the parameters of the agency’s weaponization investigation. The JCPOA isn’t supposed to go into effect unless the sides “fully implement” that roadmap agreement.

But “full implementation” doesn’t really have a fixed meaning within the JCPOA, an agreement that is voluntary and non-binding. And according to an Associated Press analysis out Monday, the IAEA’s investigation is likely going to have inconclusive results.

As the AP notes, the head of the IAEA has “been careful to diminish expectations, describing his upcoming report last week as ‘not black and white.'” And according to the AP, Iranian officials have spoken about the IAEA probe using similar language, “suggesting they already know that the agency’s conclusions won’t be damning.”

Iran has already threatened that it simply won’t comply with the JCPOA if it’s dissatisfied with the IAEA’s report. That might be more than just an empty ultimatum, since according to the AP the announcement is consistent with what Iranian diplomats are saying behind closed doors as well.

“Two Western diplomats familiar with the issue say those same threats have been made in negotiations with IAEA officials,” the AP reported.

The weaponization report is considered crucial to the successful implementation of the nuclear deal, as it will be used to formulate an inspection baseline for Iran’s nuclear program. There is extensive evidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program until as late as 2003.  The IAEA needs to be able to identify key personnel, facilities, supply chains, and past activities to establish exactly how far along Iran’s weaponization activities really are and to recognize whether those activities have been restarted.

But as the AP’s analysis suggests, the roadmap is also contentious — and perhaps even inconvenient, given its potential to interrupt the smooth implementation of a deal that Iran and the US-led group spent nearly two years negotiating. There are already signs that the US wants to get past the investigation as smoothly as possible — even if the IAEA’s “roadmap” doesn’t result in Iran’s full disclosure of its past weaponization work.

Business Insider has obtained a State Department document submitted to congressional offices during the Congress’s review of the JCPOA in July.

The 18-page document, a “verification assessment report” that is essentially the department’s outline of the nuclear deal’s various stipulations, is unclassified. But congressional staffers were only allowed to read it inside of a SCIF, or a special area for viewing and storing classified or compartmentalized information.

The section entitled “Addressing ‘Possible Military Dimensions'” discusses the US’ interpretation of the IAEA “roadmap” and its requirements.

“Iran’s implementation of its commitments under the Roadmap will bring to an end the years-long delay in the IAEA’s ability to address PMD [Possible Military Dimensions] issues,” the document reads.

Two paragraphs later, it explains that even with this high level of confidence that the IAEA investigation will resolve the PMD issue, the US’ standards fall somewhat short of full Iranian disclosure on weaponization-related matters.

“An Iranian admission of its past nuclear weapons program is unlikely and is not necessary for purposes of verifying JCPOA commitments going forward,” the report reads. “US confidence on this front is based in large part on what we believe we already know about Iran’s past activities”

“The United States has shared with the IAEA relevant information, and crafted specific JCPOA measures that will enable inspectors to establish confidence that previously reported Iranian PMD activities are not ongoing,” it continued. “If credible information becomes available regarding any renewed Iranian efforts, it would be shared with the IAEA as appropriate, whether involving previous people, locations, entities, or otherwise. We believe other IAEA member states will do the same.”

This report was circulated in Congress not long after the deal was signed. From a relatively early stage, the State Department believed that the IAEA was capable of monitoring Iran’s nuclear program without Iran fully disclosing its past activities.

This wasn’t because of any particular US trust in the Iranians. Rather, it was due to State’s confidence that US intelligence already knew enough about the extent of Iran’s weaponization program to make such an admission of past weaponization work unnecessary.

Even so, State apparently never expected full Iranian transparency on weaponization. And the Obama administration believed that Iran had no responsibility to admit to a past weaponization program under the JCPOA.

Washington always intended to give Iran a pass on full disclosure — and the result may be a watered-down IAEA investigation that’s treated more as a formality than as an integral element of an arms control agreement designed to last for decades.

The United States has it’s own Task Force, that is IF the White House allows full technology to monitor Iran.

Task Force to assess technologies in support of future arms control and nonproliferation treaties and agreements. The Task Force, however, quickly realized that addressing this charge alone would be of limited value without considering a broader context for nuclear proliferation into the foreseeable future. That realization resulted from a number of factors which included:

 Accounts of rogue state actions and their potential cascading effects;

 The impact of advancing technologies relevant to nuclear weapons development;

 The growing evidence of networks of cooperation among countries that would otherwise have

little reason to do so;

 The implications of U.S. policy statements to reduce the importance of nuclear weapons in international affairs, accompanied by further reductions in numbers, which are leading some longtime allies and partners to entertain development of their own arsenals;

 The wide range of motivations, capabilities, and approaches that each potential proliferator introduces.

 

Russia Expanding Military Footprint, Who is Watching?

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Russia Building New Military Bases On Islands Claimed By Japan

MOSCOW — Russia has begun building two modern military compounds on the far eastern Kuril islands, defence minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday, heightening long-running tensions with Japan over the disputed islands.

Russia is “actively carrying out construction of military compounds on the islands of Iturup and Kunashir,” Shoigu said at a meeting with military top brass, according to the ministry’s website.

Relations between Moscow and Tokyo have been strained for decades because of the status of the four southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.

Some 19,000 Russians live on the remote rocky islands, occupied by Soviet troops in the dying days of World War II.

The two countries have never officially struck a peace treaty and the lingering tensions over the issue have hampered trade ties for decades.

The Russian ministry said the new military buildings would help “raise the combat readiness of troops on the eastern frontiers of Russia.”

Altogether, Russia plans to put up 392 pre-fabricated buildings on the islands, including schools, kindergartens, leisure centres and dormitories, with construction work continuing through the winter.

“This year, the priority is finishing the most essential buildings and the engineering infrastructure” to receive troops and equipment, Shoigu said.

In September Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the island of Iturup and surveyed troops there, angering Japan.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has ruled out any compromise on the islands, telling his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida in September that Tokyo must acknowledge “the postwar historical realities.”

Russia has recently poured in investments to the region and reconstructed the Japanese-built airport on Kunashir.

Russia adding 2nd airbase in Syria, pursuing ‘expansion’ in military campaign

FNC: Russia has expanded its military operations in Syria to include a second airbase as well as other posts, according to a U.S. official briefed on the latest intelligence from the region – even as President Obama expresses muted optimism that Russian President Vladimir Putin eventually will “shift” his strategy and work with the West.

Moscow’s presence has grown to a total of four forward operating bases, including recently added bases in Hama and Tiyas. But the most concerning to the Pentagon is the second airbase in Shayrat which can support fixed-wing aircraft, greatly expanding Russia’s capability for airstrikes, which began on Sept. 30.

“The Russians are operating helicopters out of Shayrat airport, but they are making [preparations] to land fixed-wing aircraft,” another U.S. official confirmed to Fox News.

Shayrat is located 25 miles outside of the Syrian city of Homs, an hour drive from neighboring Lebanon.

Since September, Russia has based its warplanes and helicopters at Basel al-Assad airbase in Latakia, one of the last remaining Assad strongholds along the Mediterranean coast. While the Pentagon cannot confirm any Russian military jets have landed at Shayrat, there are reports Russia has landed aircraft in the past few hours.

Russia’s two other forward operating bases are used to land its attack helicopters employed to defend the Assad regime against Syrian rebels.

But when asked if the move to expand to a second airbase was defensive in nature in case Syrian rebels succeed in destroying the Latakia base, one of the U.S. officials pushed back.

“This is an expansion, not a defensive move at all,” the official said. He said Syrian rebels were nowhere close to taking the Russian airbase in Latakia.

The expansion comes as Russia spars with other world powers over its Syria approach.

While the Obama administration is trying to persuade Moscow to focus its efforts on taking out Islamic State targets, Russia is known to be targeting U.S.-backed rebels tasked with weakening the Russia-backed Assad regime. Obama acknowledged this during a press conference Tuesday, while also voicing hope that Russia at some point will cooperate.

While Russia’s military involvement has stoked tensions with the U.S., it has led to a direct confrontation with Turkey.

One Russian Su-24 strike aircraft was shot down by Turkey last week – and on Monday, the U.S. State Department for the first time publicly backed Turkey’s claims that the Russian warplane had entered Turkish airspace.

A Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter then sent to rescue the downed pilots was destroyed with a U.S.-made TOW anti-tank missiles by Syrian rebels. After those incidents, the Russians now have 31 warplanes and 15 helicopters – thought to be at Latakia.

Obama, discussing Putin’s calculations, said Tuesday that the situation in Syria is “not the outcome he is looking for.”

But critics will point to Russia’s expanding influence – not just in the Middle East but in eastern Ukraine, since Russia annexed Crimea and sent troops into eastern Ukraine to support a separatist movement in 2014. The Obama administration had vowed to isolate Russia over the incident.

Obama said in October he does not want a proxy war in Russia, but the CIA’s arming of rebels in Syria and Russia’s airstrikes indicates the U.S. is already engaged in one.

A senior defense official also said Turkey was “really pissed” when Russia bombed Turkmen rebels fighting Assad in Syria, ethnically tied to Turkey, and warned Russia on multiple occasions not to invade its airspace before shooting down the Russian Su-24 last week.

Obama, speaking in Paris Tuesday, alluded to the different sides the United States and Russia have taken in Syria’s civil war.

“So long as they are aligned with the regime, a lot of Russian resources will be targeted at opposition groups that will be part of an inclusive government that we support,” he said.

Iran Hung an Iranian American Citizen

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Report: Iranian-American Hanged in Iran (Updated)

Iranian-American Hanged in Iran

Kredo/WFB: A human rights organization claimed on Tuesday that an Iranian-American man had been hanged by the Islamic regime for committing murder in California.

The report could not be independently verified and it remains unclear if the man was an American citizen, as he had not been listed among any of the known U.S. prisoners being held in Iran.

“According to confirmed sources, Iranian authorities carried out the death sentence for Hamid Samiee and another prisoner at Karaj’s Rajai Shahr Prison on Wednesday November 4,” Iran Human Rights, a nonprofit organization that claims to have sources within Iran, disclosed on Tuesday.

“Samiee, reportedly accused of committing an act of murder in California, was arrested by Iranian authorities upon his return to Iran,” according to the organization’s report. “He was sentenced to death by Branch 71 of Tehran’s Criminal Court for the murder of an Iranian man identified as Behrouz Janmohammadi.”

“Confirmed sources say Samiee was arrested in 2008 after the murder victim’s family had reported him to Iranian authorities,” according to Iran Human Rights.

Samiee and Janmohammadi were reportedly friends living in Californian until an altercation took place between them, according sources who spoke to the human rights organization.

“Hamid and Behrouz were friends in California until they were involved in an altercation that resulted in Behrouz drawing a knife on Hamid; and Hamid exercised self defense, which resulted in Behrouz’s death,” the group reported, citing “an individual close to Samiee who asked to be anonymous.”

“Following the incident, Hamid managed to make his way back to Iran where he was arrested by authorities just a few months after his arrival,” the source continued. “Hamid endured extreme torture and was forced to confess against himself; and a lot of his confessions were false.”

The organization claims that Iranian officials “extracted forced confessions” from Samiee and refused to believe that had acted in self-defense.

“All they cared about was that Hamid confessed the way they instructed him to,” according to the source who spoke to Iran Human Rights.

Samiee’s family is reported to have visited the Swiss Embassy in Tehran to meet with two individuals purportedly responsible for “protecting the interests of the U.S. in Iran.”

One of these representatives, an individual referred to in the report only as Mr. Meyer, “reportedly informed the relatives that he would personally look into Samiee’s case and will coordinate his efforts with the US Department of State.”

A State Department official did not immediately respond to a request for comment and information about the credibility of the report.

Iran Human Rights did not respond to a request for more information. The Los Angeles Police Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE 1 December, 2015, 1:04 PM:

A State Department official told the Free Beacon Tuesday afternoon that Samiei is a dual citizen and that it is looking into the reports on his hanging.

“We are aware of reports of the execution in Iran of a dual citizen, Mr. Hamid Samiei,” said the State Department official, who was not authorized to speak on record. “We do not yet have official confirmation of his death and are seeking more information.”

The State Department has been aware of Samei’s plight since late October, the source said.
“This case was brought to our attention on October 28, immediately after the Foreign Interests Section at the Swiss Embassy in Tehran was notified of Mr. Samiei’s impending execution,” the official said. “We are not aware of any notification to the Department of State or the Swiss Foreign Interests Section of Mr. Samiei’s arrest, sentencing, or imprisonment prior toOctober 28. Iran does not recognize dual nationality.”
The Iranians often leave the State Department in the dark when it detains dual nations, the source said.

“The Iranian government does not notify the Department of State when it detains dual nationals,” according to the official. “We generally learn about these cases through the detainees’ family or friends. Once we learned about this case, through the Swiss we asked for a stay of execution and expressed our deep concerns about the apparent lack of due process in this case.”

***

According to this individual, Samiee’s relatives visited the embassy of Switzerland in Iran and met with Ms Tamaddon and Mr Meyer, representatives who are responsible for protecting the interests of the US in Iran. Mr Meyer reportedly informed the relatives that he would personally look into Samiee’s case and will coordinate his efforts with the US Department of State. At the same time, Samiee’s relatives wrote a letter to Iran’s Head of Judiciary requesting for a halt in execution pending proper investigation and a new trial. According to Samiee’s relatives, they never received a response to their letter.

“Following an investigation conducted by detectives in Los Angeles, a police department in California charged Hamid with murder in self defense [justifiable homicide] and not first degree murder. These details were included in Hamid’s case file with Iran’s Judiciary, but were not considered by the Judge,” says the anonymous source.

According to Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, when an Iranian from any part of the world enters Iran, they are subject to the laws of the Islamic Penal Code.

Seizing Chapo Guzman’s Assets or Not

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The highways in the United States belonged to El Chapo.

CatholicOnline: The cartel has such momentum trafficking heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana from Mexico to the United States, that despite El Chapo’s incarceration in a Mexican prison, the cartel continued all operations.

The DEA report shows the Sinaloa cartel “maintains the most significant presence in the United States,” adding, “Mexican TCOs pose the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States; no other group is currently positioned to challenge them.”

Mexico seizes El Chapo’s planes, cars, houses

MEXICO CITY — As the hunt for fugitive drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán intensifies, Mexican authorities recently announced they have confiscated 11 planes, eight vehicles and six houses belonging to the kingpin in the past five months.

That’s likely just a fraction of the assets Guzmán has accumulated during his life of crime. The Sinaloa Cartel he oversees traffics billions of dollars worth of narcotics to the United States every year, according to estimates from the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The yawning gap between the seizures and Guzmán’s potential riches underscores a growing concern here: Why the Mexican government can’t or won’t seize more of Guzman’s ill-gotten gains. The problem, critics say, is a lack of laws with teeth, and the motivation to change that.

“Mexico is a weak state that has yet to form a political will around the implementation of such laws,” said lawyer Edgardo Buscaglia, who has addressed the Mexican Senate on asset forfeitures.

One issue is a 2009 law that was meant to give authorities broader powers to seize drug cartel members’ assets. Instead, the law allows only the attorney general — as opposed to local prosecutors — to confiscate assets, meaning that federal authorities are overburdened and cases routinely slip through the net.

The overall result is far fewer successfully prosecuted cases against organized crime — a total of 43 in the past six years in Mexico, about the same number neighboring Guatemala achieves each year, according to a Mexican Senate report.

The law also requires property owners to be sentenced before authorities can take their assets, delaying seizures by months or even years. Many cases collapse.

“Attacking criminal groups financially by pursuing the properties and firms that provide them with financial and logistical support is an essential part of the fight against organized crime,” said Antonio Mazzitelli, Latin American representative of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. “In Mexico, they put a criminal in jail, and nothing happens.”

Since 2007, the Treasury Department has banned 95 Mexican companies and hundreds more individuals linked to El Chapo’s drug empire from operating in the United States. All continue to operate freely in Mexico, however.

Last year, an American grand jury indicted Ignacio Muñoz Orozco, the owner of a Mexican clothing chain, on money laundering charges related to the Sinaloa Cartel. Orozco served as a higher-level official in the federal Social Development Ministry in the mid-2000s and has yet to be charged with a crime in Mexico.

“There are thousands of such cases that Mexican prosecutors decline to pursue,” Buscaglia said.

Guzman’s case underscores the nature of corruption in the country, where watchdog group Transparency International reports criminals have “captured” public institutions.

The drug kingpin escaped from a maximum security prison in July using a mile-long tunnel. Police have arrested the prison governor and several guards in connection with the breakout.