Iran Deploying Warships to Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico

Iranian military frigate and light replenishment ship are seen docked for refueling

 Iranian military leaders announced on Tuesday the country will send a fleet of warships into the Atlantic Ocean en route to the Gulf of Mexico, where the Islamic Republic aims to solidify ties with several Latin American states, according to the commander of Iran's navy.
Following orders from Iran's supreme leader, the newly installed commander of its navy, Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi, announced a fleet of Iranian warships would soon be making their way into the Atlantic Ocean, despite what Iran claims is opposition by U.S. officials.
As Iran continues to deploy military assets to Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern hotspots, its navy is placing a renewed focus on displaying force in international waters, according to the military leaders.
The latest military displays follow a series of provocative moves by Tehran aimed at rattling U.S. officials in the Trump administration, which has increasingly sought to confront Iran's regional intransigence. Any Iranian presence in the Atlantic Ocean is certain to put U.S. military leaders in edge, according to experts who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.
The Iranian war fleet 'will berth in the friendly states in Latin America and the Gulf of Mexico in the near future by deployment in the Atlantic Ocean,' according to Iranian Navy Cmdr. Khanzadi.
Iran intends to show greater force in international waters and is working to solidify ties with allies in Latin America, according to Khanzadi, who was quoted in Iran's state-controlled press organs.
The effort to send warships to the Atlantic Ocean is meant to send a message to the Trump administration, the commander said.
'The Americans had somewhere said that the Iranians cannot sail 9,000 miles from Bandar Abbas to the Gulf of Mexico, given their capabilities, but we will certainly prove them this capability and will contact our friends [in Latin America],' Khanzadi was quoted as saying.
'We are not faced with any restriction for deploying in the seas, and anywhere we feel that we have interests to develop ties,' according to Khanzadi. 'We will certainly deploy there and we enjoy this power too.'
A State Department official declined to comment on Iran's latest military announcement.
Iranian efforts to sail its warships into the Atlantic Ocean coincide with a call by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to boost the Iranian military presence in international waters.
'The navy is in the frontline of defending the country with important regions, such as Makran, the Sea of Oman, and the international waters, in front of it,' Khamenei said in Tuesday remarks celebrating Iran's Navy Day.
'Presence in free waters should continue similar to the past,' Khamenei added ahead of a meeting with Iranian military leaders.
Khamenei further disclosed that Iran is working to produce more advanced military equipment.
'The navy is more advanced and capable compared with 20 years ago but this level of advance is not convincing and a high-speed move should be pursued with determination, high morale, lots of efforts, innovation, and action,' he was quoted as saying.

Iran jails senior judge implicated in raping, torturing of detainees to death

Former general prosecutor and member of the Iranian delegation at the Human Rights Council Saeed Mortazavi talks to the press at Geneva, Wednesday, June 21, 2006. (File photo)

Iran’s court of cassation has sentenced Judge Saeed Mortazavi, a former prosecutor in the courts of the Iranian capital, on two imprisonments after being convicted of involvement in the killing of two detainees who were arrested following the 2009 protests, in addition to his involvement in cases of rape and torture of detainees done under his knowledge.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran quoted Hassan Kamali, the lawyer of the families of Mohammed Kamrani and Mohsin Rouh Al Amini who killed under torture at the “Kahrizak” detention center in 2009, as saying that the ruling of the 22nd Division of the Court of Cassation in Tehran against Judge Mortazavi became final.

The first court cleared Mortazavi of being involvement in the murder, which made the voctims’ families protest. He added that Mortazavi admitted his responsibility for some incidents that took place in Kahrizak detention center and was initially sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, but the court of cassation reduced the sentence to two years.

For his part, Mir Majid Taheri, lawyer of the family of Mohsen Rouh Amini, announced that the Court of Appeal notified Mortazavi of the rule bya message on the mobile phone, as per what “Tasnim” news agency reported.

 

Demonstrators gather in Union Square to mark the 40th day since the death Neda Agha Soltan, a young woman who was killed during post-election protests last month in Tehran on July 30, 2009 in New York City. 

He was dismissed from his position in 2010 after demonstrators were tortured to death during their detention, during the uprising, which broke out in June 2009 to protest fraud in the presidential election, which Ahmadinejad won for the second time. But he became the president of the Social Security Institute, where he was accused of corruption and embezzlement as well.

Mortazavi is one of Ahmadinejad's closest assistants, he was accused by the human rights institutions, including the “Human Rights Watch”, of being 'one of the major violators of human rights in Iran.' 'His shameful history goes back to years of repression of activists and imprisonment of journalists and critics,' the organization said in a statement.

The United States also accuses him of 'serious human rights violations' along with other officials of Ahmadinejad's government, his name is also on the human rights sanctions list in Washington and the European Union .

According to the International Campaign for Human Rights, that the families of 53 detainees during the 2009 uprising, which lasted several months, accused Judge Mortazavi of being involved in torturing and raping their children.

The head of the Judicial Division of the Iranian armed forces, Shukrallah Bahrami, revealed that 104 detainees had been tortured and filed formal complaints.

The verdict against Mortazavi came while the former Iranian President Ahmadinejad has increased his attacks against the Larijani family, which is the dominant power in Iran's ruling regime, especially the head of the judiciary, Sadiq Larijani.

Nazi Iran

Elements of Hezbollah

The “new Hitler”… this moniker given to Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could not be more apt. Khamenei is indeed trying to follow on the footsteps of Hitler, whose delusions of grandeur led him to think he could conquer the world and build a new German empire. The result was a terrible defeat for Germany, but only after scores were killed and countries destroyed. This catastrophe would not have happened, had Europe intervened in the very early days of Hitler’s growing megalomania. 
Iran and Nazi Germany are quite alike when we look at the mindset of their rulers. But Saudi Arabia has discovered the game plan of the Khamenei regime early on. It has rescued Bahrain and Yemen from falling into Iran’s treacherous lap. The Kingdom also confronted the Shiite Crescent Project, which would have placed the region under direct Iranian domination, with Khamenei and his cronies at the helm
There has been no letup in Iran’s designs to destabilize the region ever since the Khomeini revolution of 1979.  Khomeini’s followers have been trying to export this revolution, and, in the process, have been interfering in the internal affairs of other countries by playing the sectarian card. They have been deceiving the Shiite minority by portraying them as underdogs to the Sunni majority in Arab countries. And it depicts itself as the rescuing force rushing to their help.
Arab capitals have been bombarded with this Iranian propaganda to achieve at least two of Tehran’s goals – revive the Persian Empire, and weaken the Arabs politically and economically. 
In reality, the Arab-Iranian conflict is far from being a sectarian conflict, as long as the Khomeini revolution rates Arab Shiites as second-grade followers. Neither is it a clear-cut conflict of civilizations between Arabs and Persians. It is a conflict caused by Tehran’s hostilities towards its neighbors – neighbors who have never held ambitions of holding sway over Iranian territories.

Iran in Europe MISSILE threat warning of WW3 rocket attack

Iran has warned Europe that it will place its missiles in range of the continent

IRAN has issued a chilling threat to Europe – warning it will increase its missile range so rockets can be launched at the continent. 

Daily Star Sunday, November 26, 2017 - The deputy head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned that it may increase the range of missiles to over 2,000 km – enough to strike Europe.
Brigadier General Hossein Salami said: 'If we have kept the range of our missiles to 2000 kilometres, it's not due to lack of technology – we are following a strategic doctrine.
'So far we have felt that Europe is not a threat, so we did not increase the range of our missiles.
'But if Europe wants to turn into a threat, we will increase the range of our missiles.'

  

Donald Tump objected to the Iran nuclear deal saying it is not complying with it

His comments come after France called for an 'uncompromising' dialogue with the Islamic Republic about its ballistic missile programme.
But Iran has repeatedly said its missile programme is defensive and it will not negotiate on it.
The United States has accused Tehran of supplying Yemen's Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July.
It has called on the United Nations to hold the country accountable for violating two UN Security Council resolutions.
Iran has denied supplying Houthis with missiles and weapons.
 “If Europe wants to turn into a threat, we will increase the range of our missiles”
Hossein Salami, Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, of the Revolutionary Guards, said last month that Iran's 2,000-km missile range could already cover 'most of American interest and forces' within the region.
Jafari said the ballistic missile range was based on the limits set by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the head of armed forces.
The country has one of the Middle East's largest missile programmes, including precision-guided missiles that could strike Israel.
The two countries are enemies with no diplomatic relations.
The US – a key Israel ally – has said Iran's missile programme is a breach of international law because the missiles could carry nuclear warheads in the future.
Most recently, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which relies on the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK) inside Iran, compiled a bombshell report showing Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The PMOI has been monitoring Iran’s nuclear program since 1991.
It has accused the regime of continuing to bolster its capabilities, including working on “various stages of enrichment, weaponisation, warheads, and delivery systems”.
The resistance has also said the Iranian military is hiding the country’s program in a bid to trick weapons inspectors.

Iran warns it would increase missile range if threatened by Europe

Iran gives missiles to Houthi rebels

 The deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned Europe that if it threatens Tehran, the Guards will increase the range of missiles to above 2,000 kilometers, the Fars news agency reported on Saturday.
France has called for an “uncompromising” dialogue with Iran about its ballistic missile program and a possible negotiation over the issue separate from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran has repeatedly said its missile program is defensive and not negotiable.
“If we have kept the range of our missiles to 2,000 kilometers, it’s not due to lack of technology. ... We are following a strategic doctrine,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami said, according to Fars.
“So far we have felt that Europe is not a threat, so we did not increase the range of our missiles. But if Europe wants to turn into a threat, we will increase the range of our missiles,” he added.
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards military force, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, said last month that Iran’s 2,000-kilometre missile range could cover “most of American interest and forces” within the region, so Iran did not need to extend it.
Jafari said the ballistic missile range was based on the limits set by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the head of armed forces.
Iran has one of the Middle East’s largest missile programs and some of its precision-guided missiles have the range to strike Israel. 

“POLITICAL AND SPIRITUAL” SUPPORT 

The United States accused Iran this month of supplying Yemen’s Houthi rebels with a missile that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July and called for the United Nationsto hold Tehran accountable for violating two U.N. Security council resolutions.
Iran has denied supplying the Houthis with missiles and weapons.
“Yemen is in total blockade. How could we have given them any missile?“ Salami said, according to the Fars report on Saturday. ”If Iran can send a missile to Yemen, it shows the incapability of (the Saudi coalition). But we have not given them missiles.”
Salami said the Houthis managed to increase the range and precision of their missiles in a “scientific breakthrough.”
Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, said on Thursday that Iran only provides “advisory and spiritual” assistances to the Houthis.
Iran long denied sending fighters to Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad in the fight against the rebels, and said the Revolutionary Guards’ presence on the ground was advisory
In what seemed to be a correction of Jafari’s comments, Salami said on Saturday that Iran’s support for the Houthis was “political and spiritual.”
The United States has imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, saying its missile tests violate a U.N. resolution that calls on Tehran not to undertake activities related to missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The United States says Iran’s missile program is a breach of international law because the missiles could carry nuclear warheads in the future.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is for civilian uses only.

Iranian Resistance strongly condemns terrorist attacks in Sinai and the killing of hundreds of defenseless worshipers

National Council of Resistance of Iran

The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns the anti-Islamic and inhumane terrorist crime in the north of the Sinai Peninsula that has hitherto caused 235 casualties and numerous injuries, offers its deepest condolences to the Egyptian people and the government of Egypt, especially to the families of victims, and prays for speedy recovery for the wounded.
The brutal crime against humanity in the Sinai Peninsula, particularly against the worshipers, once again showed that the criminal terrorism under the banner of Islam, whether Shia or Sunni, not only has nothing to do with Islam, but is in stark contrast to its great teachings.
The Iranian people, who have been suffering terrorism and fundamentalism for four decades, and 120,000 of their children have been executed by the terrorists ruling Iran, feel the suffering of the Egyptian people well and share it.
This anti-human terrorism in its current dimensions has emerged in the aftermath of the rise of religious fascism in Iran in 1979.  For four decades, the Velayat-e faqih state ruling Iran has been practically the capital of export of terrorism and fundamentalism, and encourager, promoter, educator and exporter of terrorism, and all terrorist entities are directly or indirectly linked to this crime center. The regime is exploiting those countries in the region that has close relations with them to develop and spread terrorism and fundamentalism. In order to put an end to this cycle of blood and horror, it must be defeated in its center in Tehran under the rule of the mullahs.

National Council of Resistance of Iran – Foreign Affairs Committee

Iran's Earthquake Victims Suffer As Government Spends Billions On Terrorism+VIDEO

Iranians mourning next to the rubble of their home in Kouik village near to Sarpol-e Zahab, two days after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake

 They say a news event has a three-day lifespan. The regime in Tehran is counting on such a theory to have the international community move on after the recent earthquake that shook western Iran. Each passing day further reveals the scope of this vast catastrophe.

“More than 1,000 people have lost their lives,” Iranian MP Ahmad Safari said to the official ILNA news agency 72 hours after the quake. “I went to a village where they said they pulled 20 corpses from under the rubble. They were not even counted in the death toll. 70 people died just in one alley of the town of Sarpol-e Zahab. Another 250 were killed in the Mehr housing complex.”

Experts advised the government of former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13) to build 25,000 homes under the Mehr blueprint. Ahmadinejad, however, ordered the construction of 1.5 million such units, raising questions of possible negligence in construction and lack of proper supervision.

While the ruling regime failed to provide any first aid relief, Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi made an early call asking supporters to rush to their compatriots in need.

“Just as opposed to the practices of the clerical regime, now is the time to show solidarity. Assisting and saving the victims of the earthquake is a sacred national duty,” she said.

The incoming statistics of this recent quake are devastating.
“There are still people stranded in villages where 90 percent of the homes are left destroyed. No official has visited these areas. The locals, along with their children, are forced to sleep the nights in their farm fields without any shelter,” a reported wired by the semi-official ISNA news agency reads.

Instead of focusing measures to rush aid for the victims, Iran’s regime imposedmartial law in Sarpol-e Zahab, the epicenter of the earthquake.

Was such a catastrophe preventable? Is Iran the only country prone to earthquakes?

Japan has a history of earthquakes and thanks to technological advances we no longer witness skyrocketing number of casualties and damages.

Australia also experienced a powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Tuesday that resulted in tsunami warnings. No casualties or major damages were reported.

Preventing quake damage is nothing out of the ordinary or impossible. A truly popular government allocating the necessary manpower, means and budget can do the job. Here is exactly where the problem lies in Iran.

On August 13th members of the Iran’s parliament unanimously adopted a 16-article bill providing around $600 million to further develop Iran’s ballistic missile program and additionally fund the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), especially the extraterritorial unit known as the Quds Force.

Iran’s five military entities enjoy a budget of $13.5 billion for the current Persian calendar year (March 2017 to March 2018), of which $7.4 billion belongs to the IRGC. This is a 24 percent increase from the last calendar year.

It is worth noting that the Iranian regime has a nearly $7 billion budget deficit, equaling to nearly half of its military budget.

Proper now would be to evaluate the money sent by the Iranian regime to Lebanon. There is actually no figure of Tehran’s financial support for the Lebanese Hezbollah.

While recent reports have placed this value at over $800 million, back in 2011 Al Arabiya Farsi shed further light in this regard.

“Hezbollah used to receive $350 million each year from Iran. In addition to Hezbollah’s own activities, this budget was used to provide for members’ salaries, the families of killed Hezbollah members, various projects in southern Lebanon and Beqaa, and bribing Lebanese political figures to back Hezbollah.”

 One such $400 million construction project in Lebanon, including parks, was paid for completely by Iran. All the while millions in Iran remain under poor living conditions.

“As long as there is money in Iran, we will have money,” said Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, making it crystal clear how the terrorist-designated group’s entire budget is bankrolled by Tehran.

Parallel to Lebanon, Iran is known for its belligerence in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond.

Deprived of this budget, 40 percent of the Iranian people are living in complete poverty. 13 million homeless in city outskirt slums. 14 million literally cannot pay for their daily meals.

State-affiliated websites in Iran report nearly 20,000 homes were completely destroyed in the recent quake. Whereas in Japan, simple homes made with a budget of $10,000 each, have proven to be earthquake-resistant.

 

 A picture taken on November 15, 2017 shows an Iranian woman gesturing next to the rubble of her home in Kouik village near to Sarpol-e Zahab, two days after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Iran's western Kermanshah province near the border with Iraq, leaving hundreds killed and thousands homeless. Iranian authorities scramble to help tens of thousands of people left homeless by a major quake on the border with Iraq that killed more than 400 people as anger mounts among residents at what they see as a slow response

If we take into consideration just the abovementioned $600 million, Iran’s government could have provided 60,000 such homes for victims of the past three major quakes across the country.

This includes 20,000 in Kermanshah province, the site of the recent quake designated as the most powerful in 2017 so far; another 20,000 for the victims of the 2012 East Azerbaijan quake in northeast Iran; and 20,000 more for the victims of the 2003 Bam quake that left tens of thousands of innocent people killed.

This is all aside from sitting on an ocean of 125 billion barrels of oil, 227 trillion cubic meters of gas and a daily revenue of $200 million from exporting oil.

The point is the solutions are out there. Iran, however, is ruled by a regime that could care less about its populace. For those sitting in Tehran, this is a recipe for disaster.

Mohammad Biranvand, another member of Iran’s parliament said, “Do you know that the people now trust athletes and celebrities more than they trust government institutions? All this indicates that the earthquake of distrust will be far more destructive than the recent earthquake.”

Iran: Where the regime opposes women’s rights

Women are gathering to mourn their dead at Tehrans cemetery

 Every year, the day November 25 comes as a grim reminder that we have a long way to go for achieving gender parity. There are still many countries in the world where women cannot fully exercise the right to shape their own destiny. Violence against women is another detestable vestige of the mostly patriarchal societies inherited by our generation.
It may seem that we have come a long way since the Dark Ages, but there are still some countries in the world that have made little progress in according equal rights to women and men. There is even a country where misogyny is the order of the day and where women have no legal rights.
It may come as a shock to many, but Iran continues to run in this way. The Iranian regime may keep up pretences in public on issues related to women’s rights, but in practice women remain second class citizens in that country.
Subhuman treatment of women
It is not difficult to prove that Iranian theocrats are opposed to the idea of gender equality. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been quoted as saying: “Gender equality is ‘Zionist plot’ aimed at corrupting the role of women in society.” In Iran’s version of religious law, women are considered property.
Their inheritance is half of what men receive and women are not allowed to leave the country without their husband’s consent. They are also forced to observe a very strict dress code. There are several security measures in place in Iran to impose these laws. The most repressive one is the infamous ‘morality police’ that roams around cities arresting young women for not observing the dress code.
There are gruesome videos on YouTube and other social media showing how women are treated in Iran for what they wear. In a recent incident, a 14-year-old girl was beaten and detained for wearing ripped jeans in Iran (one of many such cases of police brutality against women). After her arrest by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Coups (IRGC) unit, she said: “I still carry the bruises sustained from their beatings on my face ... my ribs still hurt.”
Women in Iran are also banned from entering sports stadiums. In a recently reported case by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a woman named Mina tried to get under the radar of security forces to watch a volleyball match in 2016. Despite her attempt to watch the match from the roof top of a café near a volleyball stadium, she and a few other women were caught by IRGC and were evicted from their vantage point.
Irrespective of their position in society, women in Iran have no right to travel without the consent of their husband or father. Hassan Rouhani and his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had once made bogus promises of giving women more rights in order to garner their votes. In May this year, Rouhani had spread the word that he might appoint a women minster in his cabinet. But soon after his sham election he did not include any woman in his cabinet.
Women in Iran are legally required to wear a hijab in public and this law is strictly enforced by morality police. (Photo courtesy: Iran Human Rights)
Iranian women defy repression
However, Iranian women seize every opportunity to show their resistance against their ill-treatment by the regime. After Khamenei’s ridiculous fatwa banning women from riding a bike in public last year, women in Iran came out in droves riding their bikes in defiance. According to the state-run media, Khamenei issued a decree on 10 September 2016 wherein he said: “Riding a bicycle often attracts the attention of men and exposes the society to corruption, and as contravenes women’s chastity so it must be abandoned”.
Since the first day of the installation of the regime, Iranian women have resisted their attempts at oppression. Back in the day, Iran like other countries of the Middle East could hardly imagine any role for women other than staying at home and taking care of children.
One woman took the lead in this struggle for freedom which was no longer about just freeing Iranian women but the entire Iranian society, which was taken hostage by the regime. Maryam Rajavi , president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ), an educated woman has done the impossible and instilled thousands of Iranian men and women with the idea that all citizens in the country can struggle for a common cause: Freedom.
She has proven through her leadership role that the same deprived and underprivileged woman is no different than her male counterpart in struggling for a free and democratic society. She has built a blueprint for building a better Iran with her 10-point plan, wherein women are deemed fully equal to men in all spheres of social activity.
There would be no limits for women in this new Iran. Filling the highest political positions will no longer be just a dream for women. The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — the biggest Iranian opposition group and a member of the NCRI — has followed her teachings for years and is now led by her.
Violence against women in Iran is institutionalized simply because half of the society is treated as crippled and in need of guidance from men; be it the male head of the family or males in the state itself. Thus, the status of women will never change in Iran as long as the present regime is in power. 
______________________
Reza Shafiee (@shafiee_shafiee) is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Iran signs agreement with Bashar al-Assad to establish weapons factories, expand IRGC presence in Syria

Iran, Syria expand military cooperation

According to reports received from the inside the mullahs’ regime, IRGC Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the head of the Iranian regime’s Armed Forces, has pursued the urgent purposes for the Velayat-e faqih system during his sudden visit to Syria on October 17, 2017.

Some details are as follows:

1. The planning for the trip, during which Bagheri met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and the Minister of Defense and the head of Armed Forces of the Assad regime, was done only a few days ago and was carried out in an unusual and special manner.
2. On this trip, under the order of Khamenei and under his direct supervision, a formal military agreement with the government of Bashar al-Assad was signed for the continuation and expansion of the presence of the IRGC in Syria and the creation of a legal and international justification for this presence.
3. The other agreement that was made during the trip was the establishment of new weapons factories and the reconstruction of some of Bashar al-Assad's weapons factories by the IRGC inside Syria. In addition, the Bagheri promised on behalf of the mullahs’ regime to expedite the delivery of the weapons needed by the Assad army.
4. Another agreement signed between Bagheri and the Syrian government is planning to return the military costs spent by the Iranian regime in the Syrian war.
Bagheri, whose main name is Mohammad Hossein Afshordi, was appointed to the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of regime in July 2016 by Khamenei. He was a member of the so-called Student Followers of Imam’s Line, who occupied the US embassy in Tehran and held diplomats hostage. In 1980, he became a member of the IRGC and participated in the killing of the Kurdish people from the very beginning. From 1983 he was appointed to the head of the IRGC's ground force operations intelligence, and after the end of the Iran-Iraq war he was assigned to the head of IRGC operations intelligence. One of his criminal actions in this post was to design a terrorist operation against Iranian Kurdish opposition groups inside Iraqi soil in 1996. In 2008, Bagheri received his rank as Major General from Khamenei. Prior to his appointment to the head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, he served as its deputy.
The regime's intervention in Syria is being intensified at a time that the Third Committee of the United Nations adopted a resolution on November 16, 2017 calling for the withdrawal of 'the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards and the militias like Hezbollah from Syria'.
As the Iranian Resistance has repeatedly stated, the only way to achieve peace and tranquility in the region and end the Syrian crisis is to evict the mullahs’ regime from the region, and to expel the IRGC and militant mercenaries from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and to prevent the transfer of force and weapons by the mullahs regime to these countries.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament warns of dangers of Iran-backed Shia militias

Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament al-Jubouri said that Iraqi Prime Ministeral- Haider Abadi must disband the majority of the Iran-linked Shia groups that fought alongside the army against the ISIS

 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi must disband the majority of the Iran-linked Shia paramilitary groups that fought alongside the army against the Islamic State or risk sparking an outbreak of sectarian violence following the terror group’s looming defeat, one of Iraq’s leading Sunni politicians warned Thursday.
With the Islamic State nearly pushed out of the country, senior lawmakers and top leaders in the Abadi government face the task of knitting the often-feuding segments of Iraqi society back into a cohesive state, Salim al-Jubouri, speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, said on a visit to Washington.
“Our message is not to be desperate” for U.S. or international intervention to avoid renewed fighting between Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and other minorities, he told the Washington-based think tank U.S. Institute for Peace.
“The impetus is to build the national state of Iraq” and not open the door to a new round of sectarian violence, Mr. al-Jubouri said. Key to avoiding new sectarian conflict will be disbanding the Iranian-backed Shia militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces or PMFs, Mr. al-Jubouri said.
“We need to bring balance to the Iraqi military” and larger security forces, he said, noting that not all of the Shia paramilitary units organized underneath the PMF banner posed a threat to the country’s stability.

The PMF forces, many trained and armed by Iranian military advisers, cannot continue to operate under the Iraqi flag, he said. “Those factions must be dissolved,” he told the audience at USIP on Thursday.

His comments come less than a week after a top official in the Abadi government publicly questioned the loyalties of the Shia militias fighting as part of the PMFs.
“Some have no problems, some have affiliations and loyalty” to Iran and not the central government in Baghdad, Iraqi Vice President Osama al-Nujaifi, another leading Sunni politician, said last week.
“They have their own political aspirations, their own [political] agendas,” he said. Acting as a “parallel force” to the Iraqi military, “they are very dangerous to the future of Iraq,” Mr. al-Nujaifi added.
The warning comes as Iraq is preparing for critical parliamentary elections which could dramatically remake the country’s legislative body in May.
Despite deep skepticism among Iraq’s Sunni minority about the Shia militias, the prime minister may find it difficult to disassociate his regime from the PMFs and their patrons in Iran, which like Iraq has a Shia Muslim majority.
The militias played a key role in U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive in northern Iraq’s Nineveh Province against Islamic State, including the bloody offensive to liberate Mosul, once the country’s second largest city.
Most recently, Shia militias helped retake the governorates of Kirkuk and Sinjar from Kurdish forces, part of a larger clash to head off a drive for independence by the Kurds. Shia militias and Iraqi forces continue to mass along the borders of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, as Baghdad and Erbil seek a political solution to the standoff.
Kurdish parliamentarians ended their boycott of the national parliament Thursday, returning to Baghdad in an attempt to coax the Abadi government to the negotiation table over Kurdistan’s status. “We want to start dialogue with the central government,” Kurdish lawmaker Renas Jano told The Associated Press.
Kurdish lawmakers have stayed away since the parliament declared a Kurdish independence referendum vote unconstitutional in September. Erbil has offered “unconditional dialogue” with the Abadi regime, since Iraqi military forces recaptured Kirkuk and Sinjar, said Kurdish Regional Government Representative to the U.S. Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman.
“If there is a willingness for dialogue, we have opened the way,” Ms. Rahman said during a recent interview with The Washington Times. “We do not have any [diplomatic] dialogue … and that is not sustainable.”

Iran’s Immoderate ‘Moderate’

Rouhani

 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has now been in office for more than four years. Yet he hasn’t fulfilled any of the major domestic-reform pledges that got him elected in 2013 and re-elected earlier this year. Those pledges won him the decisive backing of urban, secular-minded, middle class Iranians–and plaudits in the West. Yet Iranians are no more free than they were four years ago, and the Islamic Republic is still the same security state that it was then.

Rouhani’s ballot-box triumph, then, was enough to give the regime a smiling, reasonable visage, and to reduce rising discontent, but not enough to effect any meaningful change.

The president’s apologists have a new theory to explain this mismatch between rhetoric and reality. Under pressure from some of his own allies, they claim, Rouhani has been trying to distance himself from the reformists inside the regime while seeking to appease its hard-line, or “principlist,” faction. Rouhani’s alleged “shift to the right,” according to this view, comes despite the president’s own reformist inclinations. But it is aimed at creating a new, moderate if also conservative, center in Iranian politics.

The Iranian journalist Saeid Jafari on Monday presented one version of this idea over at Al-Monitor, an online outlet that struggles to disguise its pro-Tehran sympathies. The reformists are unhappy, Jafari reported, over Rouhani’s “unfulfilled campaign promises, such as his pledge to give women a more prominent role in Iran’s political scene” and to “remove the security atmosphere that prevails over Iranian universities and create a more open environment.” Jafari quoted a former minister in the Khatami government (1997-2005): “Rouhani is smarter than to shift to the right, because he knows that if he does so, he will not gain anything. Instead he will lose the huge popular support behind him, and Rouhani should be careful of this.” But other voices, led by Rouhani chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi, have allegedly prevailed in the internal debate and persuaded the president to shun reform.

Nice try. The Rouhani-as-reluctant-hard-liner theory is belied by the man’s long record in the Islamic Republic. Try as they might, Rouhani’s apologists can’t elide the fact that he served as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council from 1989 to 2005, years during which Iran conducted a campaign of assassinations and “chain murders” targeting dissidents at home and abroad. Nor can revisionism undo Rouhani’s leading role in the crackdown against the 1999 student uprising, when he called on the regime’s security forces to“crush mercilessly and monumentally any move of these opportunist elements wherever it may occur.”

As Payam Fazlinejad, a leading ideologist with the regime’s hard-line faction and a researcher with the Kayhan newspaper (whose editor is the supreme leader’s representative to the Iranian media), told me: “Mr. Rouhani is a conservative personality and, indeed, is one of the founders of the conservatism in Iran. Therefore he is much closer to the right-wing and principlist currents in Iran” than he is to the reformers. Fazlinejad added: “Rouhani is part of the very reason that principlism enjoys such a hegemony in Iran.”

What does all this mean for the West? It means that the U.S. and its allies must finally come to terms with the Islamic Republic as it really is, rather than as they would wish it to be. Nearly four decades since its founding, the regime is much more ideologically cohesive and united than the appearance of factional wrangling among its elites would suggest. There are no liberal-minded, pro-Western friends on the inside. Too bad that in Washington and more so in Brussels, reformist hope springs eternal.