Posted tagged ‘Iranian proxies’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Kerry Negotiating Ceasefire W/Death to America Terrorists After They Attack US Ships

October 14, 2016

Kerry Negotiating Ceasefire W/Death to America Terrorists After They Attack US Ships, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield

kerry_whitehousegov-1

John Kerry never changes. Whatever happens, he can always be found rushing to appease the enemies of this country. After Iranian backed Houthi Islamic Jihadists attacked a US ship, Kerry has jumped into action to do his usual thing

As the U.S. launched missile attacks Thursday on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, behind the scenes Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to negotiate a temporary cease-fire and reinvigorate a political process to end the country’s civil war.

The conflict has dragged on for over two years now, since the Shiite rebels seized control of the capital of Sanaa in September of 2014. The conflict escalated in March 2015 and since then over 4,000 civilians have been killed, the U.N. has said.

“What the Secretary has been pushing hard for is to get back … to a cessation of hostilities, a 72-hour cessation of hostilities which can at least then create some kind of climate where a political dialogue or a dialogue can begin again,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said Thursday.

Here’s whom Kerry wants a dialogue with. The Houthis are not “rebels”, they’re Islamic Jihadists, backed by Iran. Their slogan is, “Allah Akbar, Death to America, Death to Israel, A curse upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

But part of that is Kerry and Obama’s slogan too. Meanwhile Obama’s NSC put out a statement warning the Saudis about further attacks on the Houthis.

U.S. security cooperation with Saudi Arabia is not a blank check. Even as we assist Saudi Arabia regarding the defense of their territorial integrity, we have and will continue to express our serious concerns about the conflict in Yemen and how it has been waged. In light of this and other recent incidents, we have initiated an immediate review of our already significantly reduced support to the Saudi-led Coalition and are prepared to adjust our support so as to better align with U.S. principles, values and interests, including achieving an immediate and durable end to Yemen’s tragic conflict. We call upon the Saudi-led Coalition, the Yemeni government, the Houthis and the Saleh-aligned forces to commit publicly to an immediate cessation of hostilities and implement this cessation based on the April 10th terms.

Maybe Kerry and the Houthis can bond over their mutual hatred of America.

Categories: Houthi, Houthi attack on U.S. Navy ships, Iranian proxies, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Column One: From Yemen to Turtle Bay

October 14, 2016

Column One: From Yemen to Turtle Bay, Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick, October 13, 2016

sana-yemen

 

As far as Obama is concerned, Iran is a partner, not an adversary.

****************************

Off the coast of Yemen and at the UN Security Council we are seeing the strategic endgame of Barack Obama’s administration. And it isn’t pretty.

Since Sunday, Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen have attacked US naval craft three times in the Bab al-Mandab, the narrow straits at the mouth of the Red Sea. The Bab al-Mandab controls maritime traffic in the Red Sea, and ultimately controls the Suez Canal.

Whether the Iranians directed these assaults or simply green-lighted them is really beside the point. The point is that these are Iranian strikes on the US. The Houthis would never have exposed themselves to US military retaliation if they hadn’t been ordered to do so by their Iranian overlords.

The question is why has Iran chosen to open up an assault on the US? The simple answer is that Iran has challenged US power at the mouth of the Red Sea because it believes that doing so advances its strategic aims in the region.

Iran’s game is clear enough. It wishes to replace the US as the regional hegemon, at the US’s expense.

Since Obama entered office nearly eight years ago, Iran’s record in advancing its aims has been one of uninterrupted success.

Iran used the US withdrawal from Iraq as a means to exert its full control over the Iraqi government. It has used Obama’s strategic vertigo in Syria as a means to exert full control over the Assad regime and undertake the demographic transformation of Syria from a Sunni majority state to a Shi’ite plurality state.

In both cases, rather than oppose Iran’s power grabs, the Obama administration has welcomed them. As far as Obama is concerned, Iran is a partner, not an adversary.

Since like the US, Iran opposes al-Qaida and ISIS, Obama argues that the US has nothing to fear from the fact that Iranian-controlled Shiite militias are running the US-trained Iraqi military.

So, too, he has made clear that the US is content to stand by as the mullahs become the face of Syria.

In Yemen, the US position has been more ambivalent. In late 2014, Houthi rebel forces took over the capital city of Sanaa. In March 2015, the Saudis led a Sunni campaign to overthrow the Houthi government. In a bid to secure Saudi support for the nuclear agreement it was negotiating with the Iranians, the Obama administration agreed to support the Saudi campaign. To this end, the US military has provided intelligence, command and control guidance, and armaments to the Saudis.

Iran’s decision to openly assault US targets then amounts to a gamble on Tehran’s part that in the twilight of the Obama administration, the time is ripe to move in for the kill in Yemen. The Iranians are betting that at this point, with just three months to go in the White House, Obama will abandon the Saudis, and so transfer control over Arab oil to Iran.

For with the Strait of Hormuz on the one hand, and the Bab al-Mandab on the other, Iran will exercise effective control over all maritime oil flows from the Arab world.

It’s not a bad bet for the Iranians, given Obama’s consistent strategy in the Middle East.

Obama has never discussed that strategy.

Indeed, he has deliberately concealed it. But to understand the game he has been playing all along, the only thing you need to do listen to his foreign policy soul mate.

According to a New York Times profile published in May, Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes is the president’s alter ego. The two men’s minds have “melded.”

Rhodes’s first foreign policy position came in the course of his work for former congressman Lee Hamilton.

In 2006, then-president George W. Bush appointed former secretary of state James Baker and Hamilton to lead the Iraq Study Group. Bush tasked the group with offering a new strategy for winning the war in Iraq. The group released its report in late 2006.

The Iraq Study Group’s report contained two basic recommendations. First, it called for the administration to abandon Iraq to the Iranians.

The group argued that due to Iran’s opposition to al-Qaida, the Iranians would fight al-Qaida for the US.

The report’s second recommendation related to Israel. Baker, Hamilton and their colleagues argued that after turning Iraq over to Iran, the US would have to appease its Sunni allies.

The US, the Iraq Study Group report argued, should simultaneously placate the Sunnis and convince the Iranians of its sincerity by sticking it to Israel. To this end, the US should pressure Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria and give Judea and Samaria to the PLO.

Bush rejected the Iraq Study Group report. Instead he opted to win the war in Iraq by adopting the surge counterinsurgency strategy.

But once Bush was gone, and Rhodes’s intellectual twin replaced him, the Iraq Study Group recommendations became the unstated US strategy in the Middle East.

After taking office, Obama insisted that the US’s only enemy was al-Qaida. In 2014, Obama grudgingly expanded the list to include ISIS.

Obama has consistently justified empowering Iran in Iraq and Syria on the basis of this narrow definition of US enemies. Since Iran is also opposed to ISIS and al-Qaida, the US can leave the job of defeating them both to the Iranians, he has argued.

Obviously, Iran won’t do the US’s dirty work for free. So Obama has paid the mullahs off by giving them an open road to nuclear weapons through his nuclear deal, by abandoning sanctions against them, and by turning his back on their ballistic missile development.

Obama has also said nothing about the atrocities that Iranian-controlled militia have carried out against Sunnis in Iraq and has stopped operations against Hezbollah.

As for Israel, since his first days in office, Obama has been advancing the Iraq Study Group’s recommendations. His consistent, and ever escalating condemnations of Israel, his repeated moves to pick fights with Jerusalem are all of a piece with the group’s recommended course of action. And there is every reason to believe that Obama intends to make good on his threats to cause an open rupture in the US alliance with Israel in his final days in office.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s phone call with Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday night made this clear enough. In the course of their conversation, Netanyahu reportedly asked Kerry if Obama intended to enable an anti-Israel resolution to pass in the UN Security Council after the presidential election next month. By refusing to rule out the possibility, Kerry all but admitted that this is in fact Obama’s intention.

And this brings us back to Iran’s assaults on US ships along the coast of Yemen.

Early on Sunday morning, the US responded to the Houthi/Iranian missile assaults by attacking three radar stations in Houthi-controlled territory. The nature of the US moves gives credence to the fear that the US will surrender Yemen to Iran.

This is so for three reasons. First, the administration did not allow the USS Mason destroyer to respond to the sources of the missile attack against it immediately. Instead, the response was delayed until Obama himself could determine how best to “send a message.”

That is, he denied US forces the right to defend themselves.

Second, it is far from clear that destroying the radar stations will inhibit the Houthis/Iranians.

It is not apparent that radar stations are necessary for them to continue to assault US naval craft operating in the area.

Finally, the State Department responded to the attack by reaching out to the Houthis. In other words, the administration is continuing to view the Iranian proxy is a legitimate actor rather than an enemy despite its unprovoked missile assaults on the US Navy.

Then there is the New York Times’ position on Yemen.

The Times has repeatedly allowed the administration to use it as an advocate of policies the administration itself wishes to adopt. Last week for instance, the Times called for the US to turn on Israel at the Security Council.

On Tuesday, the Times published an editorial calling for the administration to end its military support for the Saudi campaign against the Houthis/Iran in Yemen.

Whereas the Iranian strategy makes sense, Obama’s strategy is nothing less than disastrous.

Although the Iraq Study Group, like Obama, is right that Iran also opposes ISIS, and to a degree, al-Qaida, they both ignored the hard reality that Iran also views the US as its enemy. Indeed, the regime’s entire identity is tied up in its hatred for the US and its strategic aim of destroying America.

Obama is not the only US president who has sought to convince the Iranians to abandon their hatred for America. Every president since 1979 has tried to convince the mullahs to abandon their hostility. And just like all of his predecessors, Obama has failed to convince them.

What distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is that he has based US policy on a deliberate denial of the basic reality of Iranian hostility. Not surprisingly, the Iranians have returned his favor by escalating their aggression against America.

The worst part about Obama’s strategy is that it is far from clear that his successor will be able to improve the situation.

If Hillary Clinton succeeds him, his successor is unlikely to even try. Not only has Clinton embraced Obama’s policies toward Iran.

Her senior advisers are almost all Obama administration alumni. Wendy Sherman, the leading candidate to serve as her secretary of state, was Obama’s chief negotiator with the Iranians.

If Donald Trump triumphs next month, assuming he wishes to reassert US power in the region, he won’t have an easy time undoing the damage that Obama has caused.

Time has not stood still as the US has engaged in strategic dementia. Not only has Iran been massively empowered, Russia has entered the Middle East as a strategic spoiler.

Moreover, since 2001, the US has spent more than a trillion dollars on its failed wars in the Middle East. That investment came in lieu of spending on weapons development. Today Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft missiles in Syria reportedly neutralize the US’s air force.

US naval craft in the Bab al-Mandab have little means to defend themselves against missile strikes.

The US’s trillion-dollar investment in the F-35 fighter jet has tethered its air wings to a plane that has yet to prove its capabilities, and may never live up to expectations.

Israel is justifiably worried about the implications of Obama’s intention to harm it at the UN.

But the harm Israel will absorb at the UN is nothing in comparison to the long-term damage that Obama’s embrace of the Iraq Study Group’s disastrous strategic framework has and will continue to cause Israel, the US and the entire Middle East.

Categories: Houthi, Iran - world power, Iran and Israel, Iran in Yemen, Iranian proxies, Israeli security, Middle East, Obama and Iran, Obama and Israel, Obama and Russia, Obama and Yemen, Obama's foreign failures, Saudi Arabia, UN Security Council, Yemen
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

US Tomahawks destroy Iran’s radar bases in Yemen

October 13, 2016

US Tomahawks destroy Iran’s radar bases in Yemen, DEBKAfile, October 13, 2016

uss_mason_fires__9-10-16_an_sm-2-1

Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by US Navy destroyer USS Nitze early Thursday, Oct. 13, destroyed three Iranian-Yemeni coastal radar stations, after C-802 anti-ship missiles supplied by Iran to Yemeni Houthi rebels were fired at US naval vessels off the Yemeni coast. The stations were built and  operated  by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) for their Yemeni proxies to back up a threat to blockade the Red Sea.

From Oct. 9, the new missiles four times targeted the US flotilla shortly after it arrived to patrol the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Neither the US nor Iran has acknowledged their mounting confrontation over control of these strategic waters, which Tehran is waging through its Yemeni proxy.

DEBKAfile was first to disclose this confrontation in a special report Wednesday. (see below)

Iran’s Guards are repeating the mode of operation they employed a decade ago at another Middle East flashpoint. On July 14, 2006, Hizballah used an earlier version of the C-802 to attack and cripple the Israeli Hanit missile ship on the day this Iranian Lebanese proxy launched the Second Lebanese War against Israel. Rev Guards seized control of Lebanese shore radar station to guide their aim.

A highly advanced radar installation is required for the use of the C-802. Two radar stations set up outside Yemen’s two principal Red Sea ports, Mokha and Hudaydah earlier this month were operated by Rev. Guards missile and radar teams until they were destroyed Thursday, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. The third station was added for triangulation. The destruction of all three by a US Tomahawk has knocked out the Houthis’ ability to use C-802 missiles and Iran’s threat to blockade the Red Sea.

To drive this lesson home, the US Pentagon issued the following statement:

“Destroying these radar sites will degrade their ability to track and target ships in the future. These radars were active during previous attacks and attempted attacks on ships in the Red Sea, including last week’s attack on the USA-flagged vessel “Swift-2”, and during attempted attacks on USS Mason and other ships as recently as yesterday.

The official was referring to the United Arab Emirates US-flagged transport ship that was badly damaged last week in the Bab al-Mandeb strait by a Houthi missile..

DEBKAfile reported earlier:

Contrary to Tehran’s assurance to Washington in August that Iranian arms supplies to Yemeni Houthi rebels had been suspended, the rebels took delivery last week of the largest consignment of Iranian weapons to date.

According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the shipment included highly sophisticated Scud D surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 800km; and C-802 anti-ship missiles (an upgraded version of the Chinese YJ-8 NATO-named CSS-N-8 and renamed by Iran Saccade).

They came with Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers and radar systems to fine-tune the targeting of these missiles by Iran’s Yemeni proxies.

The Scuds were given to the Houthi forces fighting in northern Yemen on the Saudi border, while the C-802s were delivered to the Houthis’ Ansar Allah faction, which is under direct Iranian Rev Guards command.

The missiles were posted at special launch bases constructed by Iran outside Yemen’s two principal Red Sea ports of Mokha and Hudaydah.

Since no more than 62km of Red Sea water divides the Saudi and African coasts, the Iranian missiles are well able to block shipping and tanker traffic plying to and from the Gulf of Suez and the Persian Gulf. Therefore, the threat of blockade hangs imminently over one-third of Saudi and Gulf Emirate oil exports.

The same threat hangs over Israeli civilian and naval shipping from its southern port of Eilat through the Gulf of Aden and out to the Indian Ocean.

One of the most troubling aspects of this pivotal new menace to an international waterway was that US, Saudi, Egyptian and Israeli intelligence agencies missed the huge consignment of Iranian missiles as it headed towards Yemen. Neither did they pick up on the construction by Iranian military engineers of three ballistic missile bases – one facing Saudi Arabia and two Red Sea traffic.

Tehran’s Yemeni proxies moreover landed large-scale military strength on Perim island in the mouth of the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the chokepoint for ingress and egress from the Red Sea.

Since the strait is just 20km wide, control of this island empowers this force to regulate shipping movements through this strategic strait.
Tehran wasted no time after all its assets were in place to begin using them:

1. On Oct. 1, Iran’s Houthi surrogates launched C-8-1 missiles against a United Arab Emirates transport HSV-2 Swift logistics catamaran as it was about to pass through the strait. The ship, on lease from the US Navy, was badly damaged. No information was released about casualties.

uae_hsv-2_1-1-16-1

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources discerned that the aim of this attack was to choke off the movements of UAE warships from the southern Yemeni port of Aden, where large Emirate and Saudi forces are concentrated, to the Eritrean port of Assab, where the UAE has established a large naval base.

This attack did finally evoke a US response. The guided missile destroyers, USS Mason and USS Nitze, were dispatched to the Red Sea, along with the USS Ponceafloat forward staging base, to patrol the strait opposite the Yemeni coast

2. This did not deter Tehran or its Yemeni pawns: On Oct. 9, they fired an additional barrage of C-802 at the American flotilla, which according to a US spokesman, missed aim.

The Mason hit back with two Standard Missile-2s and a single Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missile.

There has been no official word about whether these weapons destroyed a Yemeni launching site. But the event itself was a landmark as the first direct Iranian-Houthi attack of its kind on an American naval vessel.

3. That same day, the Houthis fired Scud-D missiles at the Saudi town of Ta’if, 700 km from the Yemeni border and only 70km from the Muslim shrine city Mecca. This was meant as a direct assault on the Saudi royal house and its claim to legitimacy, by virtue of its role as Guardian of the Holy Places of Islam.

In America’s heated presidential campaign, the Democratic contender Hillary Clinton boasts repeatedly that as Secretary of State she helped “put the lid on Iran’s nuclear program without firing a single shot.”

That is factually true. America did not fire a single shot. Iran did the shooting and still does, constantly upgrading its arsenal with sophisticated ballistic missiles.

Categories: Houthi, Iran in Yemen, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, U.S. Military, Yemen
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Miami: Three Hizballah operatives busted for laundering $500,000 of cocaine money for Colombian cartel

October 13, 2016

Miami: Three Hizballah operatives busted for laundering $500,000 of cocaine money for Colombian cartel, Jihad Watch, , October 13, 2o16

(Please see also, Venezuela, Iran, USA and Narco-Terrorism. — DM

Hizballah is a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran has repeatedly declared its intention to destroy the United States, as you can read about in detail in my book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran (Regnery). Hizballah working with the drug cartel kills two birds with one stone: drugs weaken and destroy Americans, and sap American resources in largely futile anti-drug efforts, and the cash Hizballah earns in working with the drug cartel goes for more jihad against the U.S.

People watch Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as he appears on a screen during a live broadcast to speak to his supporters at an event marking Resistance and Liberation Day, in Bekaa valley May 25, 2016. The event is to commemorate the 16th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. REUTERS/Hassan Abdallah - RTSFWSN

People watch Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as he appears on a screen during a live broadcast to speak to his supporters at an event marking Resistance and Liberation Day, in Bekaa valley May 25, 2016. The event is to commemorate the 16th anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon. REUTERS/Hassan Abdallah – RTSFWSN

“State: Hezbollah-linked group laundered drug money through Miami banks,” by David Ovalle, Miami Herald, October 11, 2016:

Three men suspected of laundering cocaine money for the Colombian cartel have been busted after agents say they illegally moved $500,000 into Miami banks through a series of complicated financial transactions stretching from Australia to Europe.

That’s not uncommon in Miami, but the trio’s background is: They are suspected associates of the Middle Eastern terror group Hezbollah.

The main player is Mohammad Ahmad Ammar, 31, who was living in Medellín, Colombia. He was quietly booked into a Miami-Dade jail last week to face state felony money laundering charges in a case that underscores increased law-enforcement scrutiny on the role of Middle Eastern terror groups who use financial networks in Latin America to earn untold millions off drug profits.

Along with Ammar, two other Hezbollah associates are facing charges charges in the same case. One of them is in custody in Paris, while the other is on the lam, possibly in Lebanon or Nigeria.

The DEA investigated the case along with the the South Florida Money-Laundering Strike Force, a group of federal and state investigators that recently helped bust 22 people suspected in a large run connected to Mexican kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

“Drug dealers, potential terrorists and money launderers should all get the message that Miami-Dade County is not the place to do your dirty business,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.

The involvement of radical Islamic terrorist groups in Latin American is not new but has increased in recent years, according to federal law enforcement and security experts.

In November 2012, a congressional report on border security noted that Latin America has “become a money laundering and major fundraising center” for Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim group classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The group, based in Lebanon, has been a key ally of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in the bloody war that has decimated the country for the past five years.

“The notion of terrorist groups, especially Islamists using Latin America as place for money laundering, drug trafficking and other nefarious trades — it’s been known for some time now,” Jerry Haar, a Latin America expert at Florida International University, said in an interview.

In February, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced a “significant enforcement activity” against people connected with Hezbollah, The DEA’s efforts in “Operation Cassandra” came after the U.S. Department of Treasury announced sanctions against Hezbollah’s financiers, whom they the believe are capable of earning $400 million a year from drug trafficking and money laundering.

Exactly how much of money generated from laundering drug money is used directly to fund terror attacks is unknown. Many of those business associates such as Ammar “are more concerned with generating cash than religious or political doctrine” — though they readily send money back to their handlers in the Middle East, according to an arrest warrant.

Hezbollah-related arrests stemming from Latin American have popped up before in South Florida.

In 2008, a Lebanese man named Chekri Harb was arrested and convicted as part of a large-scale Colombian cocaine ring. U.S. authorities did not name Hezbollah in charging documents, but Colombian security officials described him as having links to the group.

Federal agents in 2010 arrested three South Florida businessmen accused of exporting video games and other electronic products to a shopping mall in Paraguay that allegedly served as a front to Hezbollah. They wound up being convicted of non-terrorism-related charges.

The lawless area at the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina has long been identified by the U.S. as a hotspot for money launderers who send their money back to the Middle East.

The latest Miami case was a spinoff from the DEA investigation into Colombian cocaine operations that netted dozens of trafficking and money-laundering arrests. In custody in Miami is Ammar, described in court documents as a Hezbollah associate whose job was to launder money for the Colombian cocaine operation known as La Oficina, or The Office, an off-shoot of the notorious Medellín cartel.

He was known to launder money through Holland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia and Africa, according to an arrest warrant. Ammar is charged with eight felonies, including money laundering and conspiracy to launder money; court records do not list a defense attorney.

According to court documents, his father is a well-connected Hezbollah associate living in Los Angeles, where the younger Ammar was arrested last month.

Also facing charges is Ghassan Diab, another purported Hezbollah associate based in Nigeria. According to court documents, Diab is related to a “high-ranking member of Hezbollah who has access to numerous international bank accounts.” He remains on the loose, possibly in Nigeria or Lebanon.

The third man facing charges is Hassan Mohsen Mansour, another Hezbollah associate with dual Lebanese and Canadian citizenship. He is in custody in Paris, and is facing a separate but similar federal money-laundering prosecution in South Florida.

The 42-page arrest warrant reads like a plot out of a international spy thriller, detailing a complicated web of encrypted communications between players in far-flung countries — some of them secretly working as informants — and murky financial transactions on six different continents.

A confidential source first tipped of Miami DEA agents to Ammar in early 2014, introducing him a second confidential informant who secretly recorded their meetings.

The second informant eventually asked Ammar to help him launder $250,000 worth of Australian dollars that was netted from cocaine sales. The task: Move the money to banks in Miami, where it could be moved later to Colombia or used by Colombian traffickers in South Florida.

Ammar was not aware, however, that the money was actually DEA cash and the Miami accounts were set up by the feds.

Using encrypted communications, Ammar enlisted the help of Mansour in Paris, who contacted a source in Australia (who by coincidence, happened to be an informant for the police there) to pick up the cash.

The money was deposited into an account in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates — where the anything-goes banking system remains out of reach of U.S. authorities. It was then then broken up and moved through a sham company called Al Haitham Exhibition and Conference Organizers, which purports to organize events but authorities believe is simply a front for money laundering.

From there, the money was cashed out and disappeared, according to an arrest warrant by DEA agent Kenneth Martin and state prosecutor Jared Nixon.

Back in Miami, the bank accounts set up by the DEA soon began receiving the money in chunks from obscure companies with names like “Tropical Trading” and “Khofo International.” To make them look like legitimate business, phony invoices were sent by Diab for nebulous goods or “payment for shipment.”

After the first deal went through successfully, Ammar soon admitted to the DEA informant that he was working with La Oficina, the chief cartel in Medellin, the warrant said.

In September 2014, another deal to launder $250,000 was struck. The Australian cash was sent to the events company in Dubai, with a note that it was for the purchase of a four-carat diamond ring head for Majorca, Spain. Through more bogus companies, some of the money was eventually transferred into the DEA’s Miami bank accounts; one transaction was disguised as payment for 50-kilogram bags of white rice.

Throughout the undercover operation, Ammar made admissions of interest to investigators, according to the warrant, including that he knew two brothers who worked for Avianca airlines who could smuggle in cocaine to Miami.

He also boasted that his family was well connected with Hezbollah, and inquired if the informant would be interested in helping smuggle 150 kilograms of cocaine from Costa Rica to the Netherlands.

Categories: Hezbollah, Iran in Latin America, Iranian proxies, Narco terrorism, Obama and Iran, Obama's America
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Which Nation is (Still) the Number One Sponsor of Terrorism?

October 3, 2016

Which Nation is (Still) the Number One Sponsor of Terrorism? Gatestone Institute, Peter Huessy, October 3, 2016

The June State Department report also lists 58 “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” of which over a dozen are allied with Iran. One Iranian Al Qaeda agent was specifically sanctioned by the US Treasury for distributing cash to the same al-Nusra Front the Iranian Foreign Minister complains is a terrorist organization.

Even more chilling has been Iran’s joint missile and technology cooperation with North Korea, making the potential use of weapons of mass destruction against the US a growing possibility.

On September 14, the Iranian Foreign Minister wrote in the New York Times that, “coordinated action at the United Nations to cut off the funding for ideologies of hate and extremism” is needed along with “a willingness from the international community to investigate the channels that supply the cash and the arms” to terrorists. He concluded with an appeal to “join hands with the rest of the community of nations to eliminate the scourge of terrorism and violence that threatens us all.”

Given that in 2015 alone there were some 11,774 terrorist attacks in 92 countries, killing 28,300 people, one can agree that such action is needed. The irony, of course, is that the US Department of State released its annual report in June on state sponsors of terrorism, and Iran was the gold medalist for the world’s number one terrorist nation — an honor it has held since 1984. Only two other countries were listed as state sponsors of terror: Syria and Sudan.

Having Iran’s Foreign Minister call for an end to terrorism is like having Bonnie and Clyde call for law and order.

The report makes clear, along with other available evidence, that much of the terrorism in the world is Iran’s handiwork — especially the terrorism directed at America.

The report emphasized that Iran “remained the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2015, providing a range of support, including financial, training, and equipment, to [terror] groups around the world.” Iran provided arms and cash to terrorist groups and to nearly 30 Shia terrorist militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, especially Hezbollah, as well as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Shia militias in Bahrain.

On September 13, 2015, the US Central Command officially reported that Iran is specifically responsible for killing at least 500 American soldiers through the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And the current defense minister in Iran, appointed by President Rouhani, orchestrated the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 American soldiers.

Overall, the State Department report lists 13 “terrorist safe havens” around the world where “terrorists are able to organize, plan, raise funds, communicate, recruit, train, transit and operate.” These safe havens include remote areas in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America, virtually all of which have seen terrorist related activity by Iran and its IRGC. In just the Americas, this includes, says the Clarion Project, intelligence and terrorist networks in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Columbia, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname.

The State Department report also lists 58 “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” of which over a dozen are allied with Iran. One Iranian al-Qaeda agent was specifically sanctioned by the US Treasury for distributing cash to the same al-Nusra Front the Iranian Foreign Minister complains is a terrorist organization.

1323-2The current defense minister in Iran, appointed by President Hassan Rouhani (left), orchestrated the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 American soldiers. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (right) complains the al-Nusra Front is a terrorist organization, even as an Iranian al-Qaeda agent was specifically sanctioned by the US Treasury for distributing cash to the organization.

Iran has evidently harbored senior Al Qaeda operatives since 9/11, including facilitating the flow of fighters and funds to al-Qaeda through Iran — a kind of jihadi pipeline. In the mid-1990s, reported the Clarion Project, Iran negotiated an agreement with Osama Bin Laden to allow al-Qaeda terrorists to freely transit Iran.

And, of course, Tehran’s senior leadership financed and facilitated, along with Hezbollah, the training of the 9/11 hijackers that killed nearly three thousand people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. According to a December 2011 decision by Judge George B. Daniels “Iran and Hezbollah materially and directly supported Al Qaeda in the September 11, 2001 attacks.”

But 9/11 was not Iran’s first terror attack against the United States. The Iranian government also financed the attack on the Pan Am flight that blew up over Scotland in December 1988, and was also responsible for the 1996 terror attacks against Americans at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 1983 bombings of our Marine barracks and embassy in Lebanon.

A number of American courts, upon hearing the evidence of Iranian government support for terrorism, found Iran guilty of terrorist attacks against the United States and its citizens, culminating in at least $56 billion in damages, which included being found guilty complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

Even more chilling has been Iran’s joint missile and technology cooperation with North Korea, making the potential use of weapons of mass destruction against the US a growing possibility.

If any UN action is taken to stop terrorism, it should start with shutting down the number one source of state-sponsored terrorism in the world — the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Categories: Iran and terror, Iranian proxies
Tags: ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Column One: The New Middle East

September 29, 2016

Column One: The New Middle East, Jerusalem Post, Caroline B. Glick, September 29, 2016

aleppo-messA RED CRESCENT aid worker inspects scattered medical supplies after an air strike on a medical depot in Aleppo on Saturday.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

So Obama let Syria burn. He let Iran and Hezbollah transform the country into their colony. And he let Putin transform the Mediterranean into a Russian lake.

A new Syria is emerging. And with it, a new Middle East and world are presenting themselves. Our new world is not a peaceful or stable one. It is a harsh place.

The new Syria is being born in the rubble of Aleppo.

The eastern side of the city, which has been under the control of US-supported rebel groups since 2012, is being bombed into the Stone Age by Russian and Syrian aircraft.

All avenues of escape have been blocked. A UN aid convoy was bombed in violation of a fantasy cease-fire.

Medical facilities and personnel are being targeted by Russia and Syrian missiles and barrel bombs to make survival impossible.

It is hard to assess how long the siege of eastern Aleppo by Russia, its Iranian and Hezbollah partners and its Syrian regime puppet will last. But what is an all but foregone conclusion now is that eastern Aleppo will fall. And with its fall, the Russian-Iranian-Hezbollah-Assad axis will consolidate its control over all of western Syria.

For four years, the Iranians, Hezbollah and Bashar Assad played a cat and mouse game with the rebel militias.

Fighting a guerrilla war with the help of the Sunni population, the anti-regime militias were able to fight from and hide from within the civilian population. Consequently, they were all but impossible to defeat.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to join the fight, he and his generals soon recognized that this manner of fighting ensured perpetual war. So they changed tactics. The new strategy involves speeding up the depopulation and ethnic cleansing of rebel-held areas. The massive refugee flows from Syria over the past year are a testament to the success of the barbaric war plan. The idea is to defeat the rebel forces by to destroying the sheltering civilian populations.

Since the Syrian war began some five years ago, half of the pre-war population of 23 million has been displaced.

Sunnis, who before the war comprised 75% of the population, are being targeted for death and exile. More than 4 million predominantly Sunni Syrians are living in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. More than a million have entered Europe. Millions more have been internally displaced. Assad has made clear that they will never be coming home.

At the same time, the regime and its Iranian and Hezbollah masters have been importing Shi’ites from Iran, Iraq and beyond. The process actually began before the war started. In the lead-up to the war some half million Shi’ites reportedly relocated to Syria from surrounding countries.

This means that at least as far as western Syria is concerned, once Aleppo is destroyed, and the 250,000 civilians trapped in the eastern part of what was once Syria’s commercial capital are forced from their homes and property, the Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah and their Syrian fig leaf Assad will enjoy relative peace in their areas of control.

By adopting a strategy of total war, Putin has ensured that far from becoming the quagmire that President Barack Obama warned him Syria would become, the war in Syria has instead become a means to transform Russia into the dominant superpower in the Mediterranean, at the US’s expense.

In exchange for saving Assad’s neck and enabling Iran and Hezbollah to control Syria, Russia has received the capacity to successfully challenge US power. Last month Putin brought an agreement with Assad before the Duma for ratification. The agreement permits – indeed invites – Russia to set up a permanent air base in Khmeimim, outside the civilian airport in Latakia.

Russian politicians, media and security experts have boasted that the base will be able to check the power of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet and challenge NATO’s southern flank in the Mediterranean basin for the first time. The Russians have also decided to turn their naval station at Tartus into something approaching a fullscale naval base.

With Russia’s recent rapprochement with Turkish President Recip Erdogan, NATO’s future ability to check Russian power through the Incirlik air base is in question.

Even Israel’s ability to permit the US access to its air bases is no longer assured. Russia has deployed air assets to Syria that have canceled Israel’s regional air superiority.

Under these circumstances, in a hypothetical Russian-US confrontation, Israel may be unwilling to risk Russian retaliation for a decision to permit the US to use its air bases against Russia.

America’s loss of control over the eastern Mediterranean is a self-induced disaster.

For four years, as Putin stood on the sidelines and hedged his bets, Obama did nothing. As Iran and Hezbollah devoted massive financial and military assets to maintaining their puppet Assad in power, the Obama administration squandered chance after chance to bring down the regime and stem Iran’s regional imperial advance.

For his refusal to take action when such action could have easily been taken, Obama shares the responsibility for what Syria has become. This state of affairs is all the more infuriating because the hard truth is that it wouldn’t have been hard for the US to defeat the Iranian- Hezbollah axis. The fact that even without US help the anti-regime forces managed to hold on for four years shows how weak the challenge posed by Iran and Hezbollah actually was.

Russia only went into Syria when Putin was absolutely convinced that Obama would do nothing to stop him from dislodging America as the premier global power in the region.

As Michael Ledeen recalled earlier this week, Obama chose to stand on the sidelines in Syria because he wanted to make friends with Iran. Obama began his secret courtship of the mullahs even before he officially took office eight years ago.

After the war broke out in Syria, midway through his first term and in the following years, the Russians and the Iranians told the obsessed American president that if he took action against Assad, as strategic rationality dictated, he would get no nuclear deal, and no rapprochement with Tehran.

So Obama let Syria burn. He let Iran and Hezbollah transform the country into their colony. And he let Putin transform the Mediterranean into a Russian lake. Obama enabled the ethnic cleansing of Syria’s Sunni majority, and in turn facilitated the refugee crisis that is changing the face not only of the Middle East but of Europe as well.

And as it turns out, the deal with Iran that Obama willingly sacrificed US control of the Mediterranean to achieve has not ushered in a new era of regional moderation and stability through appeasement as Obama foresaw. It has weakened US credibility with its spurned Sunni allies. It has undermined the strategic position of Israel, the US’s only stable and reliable regional ally. It has financially and strategically fueled Iran’s hegemonic rise throughout the region. And it has facilitated Iran’s development of a nuclear arsenal.

Far from causing the Iranian to become more moderate, the nuclear deal has radicalized the regime still further.

On Wednesday Ray Takeyh wrote in The Washington Post that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is now grooming Ibrahim Raisi, a fanatic who makes Khamenei look moderate, to succeed him in power.

On Monday night, for the first time, Israel Air Force jets flying over Syria were shot at by Syrian anti-aircraft ordnance.

Air force sources told the media that the aircraft were never in danger and the munitions were only shot off after the aircraft had returned to Israel and were in the process off landing.

The fact that no one was hurt is of course reassuring.

But the fact that Russia targeted the planes makes clear that Putin has decided to send Israel a very clear and menacing message.

He is now the protector of the Iranian-Hezbollah colony on our northern border. If Israel decides to preemptively attack targets belong to that colony, Russia will not stand by and watch. And with the US no longer well-positioned to challenge Russian power in the region, Israel will have to deal with Russia on its own.

To face this challenge, Israel needs to look beyond its traditional reliance on air power.

There are two parts of the challenge. The first part is Iran.

As far as Israel is concerned, the problem with the Russian- Iranian takeover of Syria is not Putin.

Putin is not inherently hostile to Israel, as his Soviet predecessors were. He is an opportunist. Obama gave him the opportunity to partner with Iran in asserting Russian dominance in the Middle East and he took it. Israel is threatened by the alliance because it is threatened by Iran, not by Putin. To neutralize the alliance’s threat to its own security, Israel then needs to degrade Iran’s power, and it needs to emphasize its own.

To accomplish these goals, Israel needs to operate in two completely separate arenas. To weaken Iran, Israel should take its cue from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and from its own past successful military ties to the Kurds of Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s.

Israel needs to deploy military trainers beyond its borders to work with other anti-Iranian forces. The goal of that cooperation must be to destabilize the regime, with the goal of overthrowing it. This may take time. But it must be done. The only way to neutralize the threat emanating from the new Syria is to change the nature of the Iranian regime that controls it.

As for Russia, Israel needs to demonstrate that it is a power that Putin can respect in its own right, and not a downgraded Washington’s sock puppet.

To this end, Israel should embark on a rapid expansion of its civilian presence along its eastern border with Syria and with Jordan. As Russia’s air base in Syria undermines Israel’s air superiority and reliance on air power, Israel needs to show that it will not be dislodged or allow its own territory to be threatened in any way. By doubling the Israeli population on the Golan Heights within five years, and vastly expanding its population in the Jordan Valley, Israel will accomplish two goals at once. It will demonstrate its independence from the US without harming US strategic interests. And it will reinforce its eastern border against expanded strategic threats from both the Golan Heights and the new Jordan with its bursting population of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

It is ironic that the new Middle East is coming into focus as Shimon Peres, the failed visionary of a fantasy- based new Middle East, is being laid to rest. But to survive in the real new Middle East, Israel must bury Peres’s belief that peace is built by appeasing enemies along with him. The world in which we live has a place for dreamers.

But dreams, unhinged from reality, lead to Aleppo, not to peace.

Categories: Aleppo Syria, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Iran - Middle East, Iranian military, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Israeli security, Middle East prospects, Obama and Middle East, Putin, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Obama Turns Blind Eye to Iranian Offenses in UN Speech

September 27, 2016

Obama Turns Blind Eye to Iranian Offenses in UN Speech, Clarion Project, Jennifer Breedon, September 27, 2016

obama-un-address-2016-hpU.S. President Barack Obama addresses the UN General Assembly on Sept. 20, 2016. (Photo: video screenshot)

The Iranian leader rightfully fears a future administration that may not be willing to tolerate a total disregard for international law or human rights, given that even President Obama’s positive nod to Iran at the UN was met with the label of “continued animosity.” 

****************************

In 2015, President Obama stated that Iran’s “support for terrorism” and “its use of proxies to destabilize parts of the Middle East” was problematic, despite the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the nuclear deal) that had been reached by that time that allowed Iran access to millions of previously frozen funds.

Yet, bafflingly, just five minutes after mentioning terror proxies in his 2016 UN address last week, President Obama seemed to turn a blind eye to Iran’s ongoing offenses by saying, “When Iran agrees to accept constraints on its nuclear program, that enhances global security and enhances Iran’s ability to work with other nations.”

Today, Iran is poised to move funds to its global terror proxies more easily due to the infusion of cash created by the unfreezing of their assets.  Even John Kerry admitted in 2015 that some of the money going back to Iran through sanctions relief would undoubtedly go to fund terrorism.

So, we all know it is happening and yet nothing is being done to stop them or to even state this obvious fact aloud before the very body that is designed to protect against such international violations.

The UN Convention that prohibits terrorism financing explicitly outlines the illegality of any government that commits such an offense when it

“directly or indirectly, unlawfully and willfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out . . . act(s) intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act” (Article 2(1)).  

Iran is guilty in spades of all of this.

Additionally, the Iranian government remains the U.S. State Department’s top proxy war and terror sponsor. Previous reports from the U.S. State Department note that Iran remains “unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qaeda (AQ) members [and has] previously allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran.”

The State Department has also highlighted Iran’s provision of “hundreds of millions of dollars in support of H[e]zballah in Lebanon and has trained thousands of its fighters . . . in direct support of the Assad regime in Syria” as well as terrorist groups in Palestine (Hamas), Yemen (Houthis) and “throughout the Middle East.”

President Obama’s appeals to the oppressive government of Iran have clearly fallen on deaf ears.  In a one-on-one with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd merely 24 hours after Obama’s UN speech, Iranian President Rouhani stated, “If the future administration of the United States wishes to continue animosity, it will receive the appropriate response.”

The Iranian leader rightfully fears a future administration that may not be willing to tolerate a total disregard for international law or human rights, given that even President Obama’s positive nod to Iran at the UN was met with the label of “continued animosity.”

No amount of vocal, material or financial appeasement can ease relations with the State Department’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.  Despite repeated efforts by President Obama, it will not get better until the Iranian regime abandons its practice of funding terrorism, inciting proxy wars throughout the Middle East, and oppressing their own people by using their resources to build and test weapons before providing the infrastructure needed to create a stable economy and free society for their people.

While Iranian civilians and citizens were in dire economic straits with very little government reprieve or resource allocation to ease their conditions prior to the Nuclear Deal sanctions relief, the Iranian regime was spending over $6 billion per year to support the Assad regime in Syria in its efforts to ensure a Shiite majority in the region.

The Iranian regime must be held accountable for its non-adherence to international law and its desire to finance terror globally in places like Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.

It must be held responsible for using funds to bankroll violence and oppression instead of providing basic necessities and freedoms for its own people.  As Obama said at the UN this year, Iran must “listen to voices of young people everywhere who call out for freedom, and dignity, and the opportunity to control their own lives.”

Rouhani made it clear that, despite all of the steps we’ve taken, including acknowledging them positively at the UN General Assembly, nothing the U.S. has done has thawed our relationship with Iran or helped to improve the security of people living in the areas ruled by Iran or its terror proxies.

Our leaders must continue to speak out against Iran’s human rights violations and the financing of terror if we ever hope to see change and remain a positive beacon of democracy and freedom.

 

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iran and international law, Iran and terror, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Obama and Iran, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Obama at the UN, Rouhani
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

FBI: 7,700 Terrorist Encounters in USA Last Year

September 26, 2016

FBI: 7,700 Terrorist Encounters in USA Last Year, Counter Jihad, September 26, 2016

us-mexico-border

Breitbart news has received a collection of leaked documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that show a massive number of terrorist encounters, especially in border states.  The documents are not classified, though they are marked sensitive.  7,712 terrorist encounters occurred from July 20, 2015 and the same date a year later — last year, in short.

Some of the documents pertain to the entire U.S., while others focus specifically on the state of Arizona.  The states with the highest encounters are all border states. Texas, California, and Arizona–all states with a shared border with Mexico–rank high in encounters…. Most significantly, the map shows that many of the encounters occurred near the border outside of ports-of-entry, indicating that persons were attempting to sneak into the U.S.

Page Six shows a pie chart indicating that the majority of encounters in Arizona were with Islamic known or suspected terrorists, both Sunni and Shi’a.

That last is surprising, as one would expect drug cartels to make up the majority of such encounters.  The leak comes at a time when the FBI’s crime reporting shows an increase in violent crime across the country.

The Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah has developed connections with the Latin American drug cartels because of its prominent role in heroin.  Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) controls the opium trade from the poppy fields in Afghanistan to the Levant, and they provide a great deal of opium to Hezbollah.  Hezbollah has a refining capacity in Lebanon that allows them to provide a substantial part of the world’s heroin.  They trade heroin to the Latin American drug cartels for other illegal money-making opportunities, forged documents, and access to the Americas.  Hezbollah’s operations produce between ten and twenty million dollars in revenue for its American operations, which are based out of a large Lebanese immigrant community in what is called the “Tri-border region,” an area between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina.

In addition to its money-making ventures, Hezbollah provides the cartels with military training.  As one of the world’s foremost guerrilla organizations, Hezbollah finds that its military trainers are sought after commodities.  They are able to parley those connections in order to perform operations in Mexico.  Their ability to infiltrate the United States, in order to conduct terrorist violence in service to Iran, is highlighted by these leaked FBI documents.

The role of Sunni groups is less fully understood, but it was a concern for the intelligence section of the United States military’s Southern Commandaccording to another set of leaks earlier this year.

Sunni extremists are infiltrating the United States with the help of alien smugglers in South America and are crossing U.S. borders with ease, according to a U.S. South Command intelligence report.  The Command’s J-2 intelligence directorate reported recently in internal channels that “special interest aliens” are working with a known alien smuggling network in Latin America to reach the United States….  Army Col. Lisa A. Garcia, a Southcom spokeswoman, did not address the intelligence report directly but said Sunni terrorist infiltration is a security concern.

“Networks that specialize in smuggling individuals from regions of terrorist concern, mainly from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, the Middle East, and East Africa, are indeed a concern for Southcom and other interagency security partners who support our country’s national security,” Garcia told theWashington Free Beacon….  “In 2015, we saw a total of 331,000 migrants enter the southwestern border between the U.S. and Mexico, of that we estimate more than 30,000 of those were from countries of terrorist concern,” she said….

[T]he Southcom intelligence report revealed that the threat of Islamist terror infiltration is no longer theoretical. “This makes the case for Trump’s wall,” said one American security official of the Southcom report. “These guys are doing whatever they want to get in the country.”

Here at CounterJihad, we reported on Southern Command’s commander, Admiral Kurt Tidd, and his testimony before Congress on the threat.  Tidd reported that a number of terrorists were transiting the region who had gone to Syria and fought for the Islamic State (ISIS) and other radical groups.  Their ability to return to Latin America was smooth, given that they actually had legal travel documents.

Whether they can then pass into the United States is an open question.  The leaked FBI documents only talk about actual law enforcement encounters with people on terrorist lists.  How many are infiltrating without encountering law enforcement?

Categories: FBI, Hezbollah, Iran and Latin America, Iran and terror, Iranian proxies, Opium trade, U.S. southern border
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Iran Sanctions Have Ended – and the Mass Executions Have Restarted

September 22, 2016

Iran Sanctions Have Ended – and the Mass Executions Have Restarted, American Thinker, Mansour Kashfi, September 22, 2016

The crippling global sanctions on Iran cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars and decimated the economy. Inflation rose to over 40 percent and unemployment levels reached 33 percent. Consequently, the majority of citizens experienced an astronomical cost of living and lack of government services. Therefore, news of negotiations and lifting of sanctions was very well received by Iranians and generated optimism for a life of less hardship after sanctions.

However, since the agreement ending sanctions was signed between the Islamic Republic (IR) and the international powers last January, nothing has improved regarding the everyday life of the Iranian people. Not even one of the critical civil issues that was promised by the so-called “moderate”, “pragmatic” president, Hassan Rouhani, to be addressed after sanctions ended, has been opened for discussion by the IR officials.

Regardless of the rather rapid increase in Iranian crude oil and petrochemical sales and the release of billions of dollars of frozen money by a number of international oil companies and foreign governments, the nation-wide tax in all categories remarkably increased, and a limited welfare to needy senior citizens has been discontinued.

Despite the rosy promises of the IR’s authorities, especially Hassan Rouhani, to bring justice for all and raise the standards of living of the people, amazingly nothing has been done to improve Iranians’ living conditions, and no social freedom and justice is on the horizon. On the contrary, tougher repression and mass executions are the only gift by the IR to the Iranian people after sanctions ended.

Release of Assets

US officials claimed that IR had more than $100 billion of frozen assets abroad during the sanctions era, the equivalent of 28 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, which has been returning to the IR after sanctions ended. A good portion of this money was balance payments of crude oil sold by IR to its customers during the sanction years, including Royal Dutch Shell, Italy’s Saras, Greece’s Hellenic, Emirates National Oil Company, the Indian Reliance and Essar oil refiner, the Netherlands and Japan. All unfrozen money has been transferring to IR’s Central Bank by way of the SWIFT global transactions network. President Hassan Rouhani announced last March that the government of IR has access to all unfrozen assets.

Further, according to the International Energy Agency, IR is currently exporting about 2.14 million barrels of crude and over 200,000 barrels of gas condensates daily. The IR’s oil ministry reported the oil revenues from 2016 until mid-July were about $20 billion.

During negotiations with the IR last year the Obama administration agreed to pay $400 million plus interest of $1.3 billion to settle a failed arms sale to Iran that was initiated during the monarchical government before 1979. The first payment equivalent of $400 million in cash in the form of Swiss francs and euros was airlifted from Geneva, Switzerland to Tehran on January 17, and in return four Iranian-American hostages in IR’s jail were released. Further, officials of the State and Treasury departments confirmed on September 6 that two remaining installments of the $1.3 billion were sent to Tehran in the same manner through Geneva on January 22 and February 5.

With all this windfall money nothing tangible in terms of infrastructure renovations, civil reform and the rise of standard of living has taken place in the country. On the contrary, poverty has increased, over one-third of Iranians presently live under the poverty line, and thousands of citizens escape the country everyday to find a safer place to live. Worst of all, in testimonies of various human rights advocates and organizations, the ignoring of human rights by the IR is always an ever-growing issue in Iran, particularly after the ending of sanctions.

Human Rights Issues

The level of repression inside Iran has increased since Hassan Rouhani took office as president in 2013. Since then, the number of executions has grown rapidly. In 2014, the number of death sentences in Iran reached the largest number of executions in the world except for China. In 2015, according to Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, the number exceeded 1,000.

The U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee passed a resolution last November that expressed its deepest concern about human rights violations by the Islamic regime. Amnesty International has also called on regime authorities to stop the hanging, particularly of juvenile offenders who are convicted on dubious evidence.  Amnesty International time and again has published reports on physical and psychological torture in Iran, saying that the number of torture and ill-treatment cases is increasing in Iran, making it clear that these violations of human rights not only continue in this time of a moderate President, but are noticeably becoming widespread and in most places systematic.

In January of 2016, finally the expected moment of change arrived, and sanctions were lifted. But immediately, political pressure and religious discrimination began increasing daily. The penalty for apostasy is still death. Any female regardless of age that does not wear veils is arrested and faces harsh punishments. Cultural dissidents, artists, and homosexuals on most occasions would receive capital punishment. Mass executions for political prisoners which were common practice for over a decade after the so-called revolution have now restarted primarily for non-Shi’a citizens.

There was a hanging of 20 innocent Sunni-Kurdish citizens in Karaj, a suburb of Tehran on August 3, 2016, the execution of an Iranian nuclear scientist on August 7, the hanging of 5 minority citizens in the western province of Azerbaijan on August 14, and another hanging of 3 minority citizens accused of exploding the oil pipeline in the southwest province of Khuzestan on August 16. Although U.N. Representative Ahmed Shaheed firmly requested the IR stop the systematic executions, 12 more allegedly accused of possession of illegal drugs were hanged in Karaj prison on August 27. There were a total of 41 executions officially of innocent citizens just in one month. In addition many young male and female citizens disappear every day, and their decomposed bodies are occasionally found in the remote parts of their hometowns. These systematic executions reveal that the nature of the Islamic regime has not changed at all, sanctions or no sanctions. IR claims they were executed for “purported terrorism and related activities” as reported by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Ed Royce, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced on September 6 a bill to censure President Obama for his rewarding a terrorist government for its hostage taking as IR presently still has three Iranian-Americans in prison.

It is inhuman for these executions to take place after an unfair trial, absent of any attorneys on behalf of defendants, and obviously based entirely on coerced confessions. In most cases such executions take place without any trial at all, and the Islamic regime has never allowed Ahmed Shaheed to visit Iran to make a precise assessment on human rights violations.

Iran as a member of the United Nations and other international human rights communities has systematically violated nearly every provision of these institutions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. IR’s officials have openly opted to ridicule the concept of universal human rights, and they brand the principle of human rights as a tool of the “Great Satan” and Western imperialism.

Where does the money go?

Evidently, the released money after sanctions ended was not intended for citizens’ welfare and the improvement of the living conditions in Iran. The IR officials have been apathetic since the welfare and health of the Iranian people is of the lowest priority in their eyes, considering the huge expense of their active terrorist groups in the Middle East. The money has already reached the IR’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for their efforts to export the Islamic revolution to neighboring countries and carry on the IR’s hostile engagements in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, arming and financially supporting terrorist groups around the world including Hamas in Gaza, Hezb’llah in Lebanon, Shi’a groups in Bahrain, Houthis in Yemen, and the drug traffickers in South America. The IRGC is the most powerful extralegal organization and richest entity in Iran. The associated IRGC units own over one-third of the listed companies of the Tehran Stock Exchange. Further, according to Bloomberg, the IR Supreme Leader Mullah Khamenei is the owner of an economic empire of about $95 billion.

Now we know where the money goes.

Categories: Iran - executions, Iran - human rights, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran scam, Iran's military spending, Iranian economy, Iranian proxies
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Obama Admin Seeks Pathway for Future ‘Ransom Payments’ to Iran

September 22, 2016

Obama Admin Seeks Pathway for Future ‘Ransom Payments’ to Iran, Washington Free Beacon, , September 21, 2016

US Secretary of State John Kerry addresses the United Nations Security Council during an open, high-level debate regarding the ongoing Syrian crisis, at UN Headquarters in New York, NY, USA on September 21, 2016. The meeting, presided over by New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key, comes amid growing hostility between the United States and Russia over allegations of military operations conducted in the region. (Photo by Albin Lohr-Jones) *** Please Use Credit from Credit Field ***

US Secretary of State John Kerry addresses the United Nations Security Council during an open, high-level debate regarding the ongoing Syrian crisis, at UN Headquarters in New York, NY, USA on September 21, 2016. (Credit Field)

The Obama administration is pushing a pathway to ensure it can continue sending Iran cash payments amid mounting accusations it laundered some $1.7 billion to the Islamic Republic as part of a “ransom payment” to free U.S. hostages earlier this year, according to statements by the White House and sources familiar with the matter.

The White House late Wednesday promised to veto new legislation—first disclosed by theWashington Free Beacon—that would bar the administration from making “future ransom payments to Iran,” prompting outrage from key members of Congress who have been investigating how U.S. officials delivered nearly $2 billion in cash to Iranian officials.

The administration’s veto threat comes as top lawmakers on a range of investigatory committees launch efforts to uncover details about the cash exchange still being hidden by the Obama administration.

Congressional sources who spoke to the Free Beacon raised questions as to why the Obama administration would threaten to veto the bill, given its insistence that the cash payments to Iran were not part of a ransom.

“President Obama’s veto threat on our ransom legislation puts the lives of U.S. citizens around the world at risk,” Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who helped spearhead the ransom legislation, told the Free Beacon.

“Instead of admitting wrongdoing, this administration is sticking to talking points. But selective noun use cannot explain away criminality, nor does it excuse eight months of lying to the American people,” Pompeo said. “It is unprecedented and reckless for the U.S. to be doling out billions to the Islamic Republic of Iran—under wraps and in cash—which is why our bill is necessary.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), a lead sponsor of the legislation to ban future payments to Iran, told theFree Beacon that he would continue to push the legislation, despite threats by the administration.

“This effort by the President to defend his ransom payments to Iran at all costs amounts to doubling down on ‎a policy that has made Americans less safe,” Rubio told the Free Beacon. “Democrats may be swayed by this threat, but I will continue to fight to prevent the U.S. government from sending taxpayer dollars to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.”

Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) told the Free Beacon Wednesday evening that the Obama administration is betraying U.S. victims of Iranian terrorism, who are owed billions under federal court rulings.

“Under U.S. court judgments, Iran owes $55.6 billion to American victims of Iranian terrorism,” Kirk told the Free Beacon. “The Administration should stop finding ways to send more cash to Iran, and start working to bring a measure of justice to American families whose loved ones were killed or injured due to Iran-backed terrorists.”

One source familiar with the matter said Iran prefers cash because it can more easily be used to fund terrorism.

“There is no credible reason for the administration to oppose this bill. We already know, contrary to what the president initially said, that the administration can in fact wire money to Iran,” the source said. “So why do we need the option to pay in cash? Simple. This money can fund terrorism, and there’s nothing we can do to know of stop it.”

The Obama administration maintains the legislation is “ill-advised” and would “undermine U.S. obligations” to Iran.

The bill is “an ill-advised attempt to respond to a problem—so-called ‘ransom’ payments to Iran—that does not exist, in a way that would undermine U.S. obligations and ultimately benefit Iran at the expense of the United States,” the White House said in a statement.

The administration said it plans to award Iran further payments, which would not be possible under the ransom legislation.

“This bill, while styled as prohibiting future purported ‘ransom payments,’ instead bars virtually any payment from the U.S. government to Iran, including those permitted or even required by law,” the administration said.

The $1.7 billion cash payment was given to Iran as part of an effort to resolve decades-old legal disputes, many of which are still outstanding. The administration said further payments could be made to Iran in order to settle these disputes.

“Specifically, this bill would effectively prevent the United States from paying out awards rendered by the Tribunal and, thus, risk putting the United States in violation of our obligations under the Algiers Accords—an agreement concluded by President Carter, endorsed by President Reagan and honored by every President since that time,” according to the White House.

Questions remain about why the administration chose to pay Iran in cash installments routed through the New York Federal Reserve and several European banks.

Lawmakers such as Pompeo and Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) have described the administration’s process as tantamount to a money laundering scheme.

UPDATE 8:40 P.M.: This piece was updated to include comments from Sens. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Mark Kirk (R., Ill.).

Categories: Iran - hostages, Iran - ransom payments, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran and terror, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Obama and Iran scam, Obama and ransom payments, U.S. Congress
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »