Category Archives: Iran

Trump’s killing of Qassem Suleimani led to fall of Assad, says Tugendhat

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Ex-security minister says assassination ordered by Trump set off chain of events that led to revolution in Syria

Donald Trump’s decision to sanction the assassination of an elite Iranian commander triggered a chain of events that has revealed Iran as a paper tiger and led to the overthrow of Basher al-Assad, a former UK security minister has said.

Tom Tugendhat, now on the Conservative backbenches and intending to focus on foreign policy, also predicted the Iranian regime would collapse in a few years. He said that if handled properly, Syria could become the economic powerhouse of the Middle East within a decade.

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Italian journalist’s arrest in Iran alleged to be reprisal for detention of suspected arms dealer

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Cecilia Sala, 29, was detained in Tehran three days after US warrant used to hold Swiss-Iranian businessman in Milan

The arrest of a renowned Italian journalist in Iran is reportedly in retaliation for the detention of a Swiss-Iranian businessman and suspected arms dealer in Italy three days earlier, according to media reports quoting the US state department.

Cecilia Sala, 29, a war correspondent and reporter who works for the Italian newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained on 19 December while reporting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and held in solitary confinement for a week.

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Italian journalist arrested and held in solitary confinement in Iran

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Il Foglio war correspondent Cecilia Sala taken in by police while reporting in Tehran, says Italy’s foreign ministry

An Italian journalist has been arrested while reporting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and held in solitary confinement for a week, according to Italy’s foreign ministry.

Cecilia Sala, 29, a war correspondent and reporter who works for the newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained on 19 December, the ministry said, but her arrest was only made public on Friday.

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Iran releases Nobel peace laureate Mohammadi on medical leave, says lawyer

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Temporary release is inadequate, activist’s family and supporters say, urging her unconditional release

Iran has released the Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi, jailed since November 2021, for three weeks on medical grounds, her lawyer posted on social media.

“Based on the advice of the examining doctor, the public prosecutor suspended the jail sentence against Narges Mohammadi for three weeks and she was released from prison,” Mostafa Nili said on X.

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Seizure of Aleppo threatens Moscow’s foothold in Syria – and the wider region

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Assault on Syria’s second-largest city by Islamist militants may tarnish Russia’s reputation as a global player

The walls of the military office in Aleppo were adorned with pictures of the Kremlin, flanked by Russian and Syrian flags hanging side by side. On the desks, documents detailing the cooperation between the two nations lay abandoned – telltale signs of Bashar al-Assad’s forces’ hasty retreat as rebels closed in on Syria’s second-biggest city over the weekend.

The short clip circulating online was recorded in the office of Russian advisers at Aleppo’s military academy after it was taken by rebels in a surprise offensive. It highlights the escalating threat to the Assad regime and, by extension, to Moscow’s strategic foothold in Syria and the broader region.

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Airstrikes hit hospitals in Syria’s Idlib region as insurgents fight Assad forces

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White Helmets say at least 18 people killed in strikes on five healthcare facilities including maternity hospital

A wave of airstrikes has pummelled hospitals and neighbourhoods in the rebel-held region of Idlib in northern Syria as Islamist insurgents continued to battle forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad after the militants’ lightning assault on Aleppo.

White Helmets civil defence forces based in Idlib, from where the insurgents had launched their attack, said Russian airstrikes had struck five healthcare facilities including a maternity hospital. At least 18 people were killed and 35 injured, they said, adding that they feared numbers could rise.

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Syria crisis due to Assad’s refusal to engage with opposition, says Turkish minister

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Iran’s foreign minister blamed Israel’s intervention instead, but emergency talks in Ankara said to be ‘constructive’

The crisis in Syria is the result of President Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to engage in political dialogue with the opposition, and not external interventions, the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said after meeting his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, for emergency talks in Ankara.

Araghchi, by contrast, blamed intervention by Israel for the crisis. But the two sides appeared to agree on the need to convene an urgent summit between Turkey, Iran and Russia, the three main external powers inside Syria.

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Iran frees rapper Toomaj Salehi jailed for supporting protests

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Rapper who spoke up for Woman, Life, Freedom movement is released five months after death sentence overturned

The Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was sentenced to death in April for his support of anti-regime protests, has been released from prison by the Iranian authorities.

Salehi was sentenced by a revolutionary court in April for backing the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who died in police custody.

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Middle East crisis: Two killed as Lebanon accuses Israel of multiple ceasefire violations – as it happened

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The speaker of the Lebanese parliament accuses Israel of more than 50 violations of deal

Israeli media reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give testimony in his corruption trial not in Jerusalem as originally planned, but in a fortified bunker in Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu’s lawyers have sought to delay him giving testimony, arguing that conducting the war has deprived him of the opportunity to prepare his defence, and the security implications of having him appear at a known time and public location.

We all have come to the conclusion that any sort of insecurity in Syria won’t be limited to Syria alone. We are all aware of the fact that terrorism would not be concentrated in a single place and spreads to other areas.

Our Turkish friends are as much concerned as we are about the course of developments in Syria. It is clear that one of the reasons for … terrorism in Syria has been the occupation by the American military forces.

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Syrian and Russian airstrikes hit Aleppo and Idlib after insurgents advance

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Assad regime seeks to repel Islamist rebels in north as Iran’s top diplomat visits Damascus in show of support

Syrian and Russian airstrikes have pummelled areas of northern Syria as Iran’s top diplomat arrived in Damascus in a show of support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime after Islamist insurgents made a sudden advance and seized control of Aleppo.

As the regime attempted to repel the strongest challenge to its authority in years, state media in Damascus shared images of airstrikes across opposition-controlled areas, claiming they were targeting enemy command centres and positions. Syria’s military said they struck close to a stadium in Aleppo in a joint operation with Russia.

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Rebels behind Aleppo’s surprise fall took advantage of Russian and Iranian distraction

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Forces only took three days to take the city from Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but the Middle East’s newest conflict looks set to last

It was not Kyiv that fell in three days, but Aleppo. A surprise offensive launched by Syrian rebels from the north west of the country last week has reignited a dormant conflict – and revealed a change in the balance of power caused not by one but two nearby wars, in Ukraine and Lebanon and the Middle East.

Aleppo was the scene of fierce and destructive fighting between 2012 and 2016 when the Syrian civil war was at its height. Rebel groups were forced out as Syrian government forces supporting the president, Bashar al-Assad, were able to capture the country’s second city, with the help of Russia and its air force.

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Syrian rebels enter Aleppo three days into surprise offensive

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Insurgents had recaptured territory around Syria’s second city with civilians including children killed in fighting

Islamist insurgents have entered Syria’s second city of Aleppo in a shock assault, eight years after forces loyal to Damascus seized control of the city.

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began a major offensive earlier this week from their base in the Idlib countryside, a slim strip of land in Syria’s north-west. It took only three days for the fighting to reach Aleppo, with insurgents capturing territory around the city’s outskirts for the first time in four years as Syrian government forces pummelled rebel-held areas.

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Iran and Europe seek to break nuclear impasse before return of Trump

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Talks held in Geneva as Iran looks to avoid potential snapback of UN sanctions over nuclear programme

Iran and the so-called E3 grouping of the UK, France and Germany have agreed to continue holding talks in the near future in an attempt to find a way out of an impasse over Tehran’s nuclear programme, in what may be the last chance of a breakthrough before Donald Trump takes up the US presidency again.

Trump, who pursued a policy of “maximum economic pressure” against Iran during his first term, returns to the White House on 20 January.

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Iran says it could end ban on possessing nuclear weapons if sanctions reimposed

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Comments made after nuclear inspectorate board passed motion censuring Iran for building uranium stockpile

The nuclear debate inside Iran is likely to shift towards the possession of its own weapons if the west goes ahead with a threat to reimpose all UN sanctions, the country’s foreign minister has said.

Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in an interview that Iran already had the capability and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, but said they did not form part of its security strategy. He also said Tehran was prepared to keep supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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Rabbi in UAE killed in ‘antisemitic terror incident’, says Israel

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UAE says it has arrested three people over the killing of Zvi Kogan, who worked for an Orthodox Jewish group

Israel has said that an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement about the death of Zvi Kogan, who worked in the UAE for an Orthodox Jewish group called Chabad and had not been seen since Thursday.

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Iranian minister to meet European counterparts after nuclear offer rejected

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Meeting comes amid fears Middle East tensions will lead Iran to redouble its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, will meet his European counterparts in Geneva on Friday after the collapse of a deal last week under which Iran would have limited its uranium enrichment to 60% purity, just below the threshold to make nuclear weapons.

The offer was regarded by Iran as a first step to rebuilding confidence between it and the west over what it insists is its civilian nuclear programme. There are growing fears that wider tensions in the Middle East could result in Tehran redoubling efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon and trying to declare it necessary for its national self-defence.

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Iran has offered to keep uranium below purity levels for a bomb, IAEA confirms

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UN inspectorate chief calls Tehran’s move a ‘concrete step in the right direction’, amid threat of restored sanctions

Iran has offered to keep its stock of uranium enriched up to 60% – below the purity levels required to make a nuclear bomb – the head of the UN nuclear inspectorate, Rafael Grossi, has confirmed amid the threat of restored European sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear activities.

“I think this is … a concrete step in the right direction. We have a fact which has been verified by us. It is the first time Iran has agreed to take a different path,” Grossi said in Vienna on Tuesday.

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Canada reportedly foils Iranian plot to kill former justice minister Irwin Cotler

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Tehran alleged to have targeted retired politician, 84, who is also human rights activist and critic of Iran

Canadian authorities foiled an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate a former justice minister and rights activist who has been a strong critic of Tehran, the Globe and Mail newspaper has reported.

The 84-year-old was justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2015 but has remained active with many associations that campaign for human rights around the world.

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Elon Musk meets with Iran’s UN ambassador – report

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Contact was reportedly at Trump-allied billionaire’s request and could be significant for dismal US-Iranian relations

Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.

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Israeli strikes intensify on three fronts as Lebanon talks reach critical stage

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IDF hits Gaza, Syria and Beirut suburbs, as analysts say raids could be aimed at forcing hand of Hezbollah in negotiations

Israel has intensified its air offensives on three fronts, launching dozens of new strikes in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria as negotiations for a ceasefire on its northern border reach a critical point.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said about 30 targets had been struck in the southern suburbs of Beirut in 48 hours and described continuing efforts to “dismantle and degrade” the military capabilities of the militant Islamist organisation.

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