Iran Focus
London, 07 Mar – A senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said that the country’s missile production has increased three-fold.
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh is in charge of the IRGC’s aerospace division. He said on Wednesday that Iran has previously had to justify its missile production but the situation has changed and production has increased. He did not give a time-scale explaining how long the increase has taken.
Iran Focus
London, 07 Mar – It may be easy for some to underestimate Iran’s cyber threat to the US, given that most analyses describe Iran’s offensive cyber capabilities as fractured, decentralized, and inferior to other states, but make no mistake, what Iran lacks in technique it makes up for in persistence.
In a recent report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, entitled Iran’s Cyber Threat: Espionage, Sabotage, and Revenge, they assess that the majority of Iran’s espionage and sabotage campaigns have been against “soft” foreign targets, but that Iran will “strategically engage in disruptive and destructive attacks”.
Iran Focus
London, 06 Mar – The former Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will face trial on charges that she covered up the Iranian Regime’s role in the 1994 bombing at a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires that killed dozens, according to judicial authorities said.
In a ruling released on March 5, Argentinean judge Claudio Bonadio referred Fernandez, who was president from 2007 to 2015, and 11 senior members of her administration to a higher court for public trial on charges of cover-up and abuse of power.
Iran Focus
London, 06 Mar – A new report from the United Nations has criticised Iran for a systematic pattern of abuse in its prisons and denial of basic rights across the country.
The report published on March 5 notes an overall crackdown on freedom of expression and access to information, as well as the torture and rape of detainees.
Iran Focus
London, 05 Mar – The leaders of Friday prayers in Tehran has slammed the Iranian Regime for what they saw as a “soft” approach to the feminist anti- obligatory hijab protests, that have formed part of the nationwide anti-regime protests that have been going on since early January.
Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami was the harshest critic, claiming that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was implicitly leading the hijab-less protests and claiming that anti-obligatory hijab protesters were European proxies.
Iran Focus
London, 05 Mar – The White House has condemned the Syrian slaughter inside Eastern Ghouta, saying in a statement released on Sunday that the Syria, which was backed by the Iran and Russia, are killing “innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations.”
Eastern Ghouta, an area held by the Syrian Resistance forces, has been under siege from the Syria since 2013 and daily bombardments for months now.
Over the past two weeks, over 600 civilians from the city have been killed; a huge percentage of the 400,000 residents. On top of that, the United Nations reports that 15,000 people have been forced to leave their homes since January, with the majority staying in shelters and basements around Ghouta.
Iran Focus
London, 05 Mar – The French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, has arrived in Iran to talk with the country’s president Hassan Rouhani, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, according to Iranian state TV.
Talks are expected to focus on Iran’s involvement in the Syrian Civil war and Iran’s ballistic missile program, which both Le Drian and French President Emmanuel Macron have criticized Iran’s missile program in recent weeks, with Le Drian stating that Iran’s ballistic missile capacity worried France “enormously”.
Iran Focus
London, 05 Mar – A member of the Gonabadi dervishes (religious group) has died in prison in Iran, the latest of several suspicious deaths in custody in 2018.
The death of Mohammad Raji, who was arrested on Tuesday, February 20, was confirmed by his daughter Tayyebeh.
Tayyebeh reported on Sunday, March 4, that the Iranian authorities had told her that her father had fallen into a coma after being hit, but expressed doubts about the truthfulness of that statement.
Iran Focus
London, 04 Mar – Russia vetoed the resolution put forth by The Security Council. The resolution would prevent Iran from providing the Houthis with weapons.
“I hope that GCC countries will deal seriously with this Russian decision. It is time to link our economic strength with our security interests, either by suspending our business deals, or by canceling them. What is important is that the international community should know that we will not accept what undermines our security,” writes Bahraini writer and journalist Sawsan Al Shaer in an article for Al Arabiya.
Iran Focus
London, 03 Mar – In a shocking speech at the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee’s February 22nd meeting in Brussels, Portuguese Socialist MEP Ana Gomes criticized the Iranian opposition.
“I met with relatives of the victims of a terrorist organization called MEK,” she said in the meeting. She added, “We cannot continue to allow some members of this parliament, possibly out of naiveté, to continue to abet some of the members of this organization.”
