Iran Focus

London, 13 Oct – Nazanin Ratcliffe is a British citizen who worked as a project manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s charitable section. As she attempted to board a plane to return home after a visit with her family in Iran, she and her infant daughter had their passports confiscated by Iranian authorities.

Ratcliffe is now in prison on charges such of orchestrating a “soft overthrow” of the Iranian government. Her trial was conducted without due and fair process.

The number of Westerners imprisoned in Iran has increased since the nuclear deal. The US State Department has acknowledged the increasing threat against Americans, and issued a travel warning in March, “Iran has continued to harass, arrest, and detain US citizens, in particular dual nationals.”

Iran Focus

London, 13 Oct – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are watching from the sidelines as U.S. President Trump prepares to make his announcement regarding U.S. policy toward Tehran and the fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This is because, reportedly, Trump is also expected to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

While individuals and entities associated with the IRGC are already on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO), the IRGC itself is not.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, said on October 8th, “If the news is correct about the stupidity of the American government in considering the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group, then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American Army to be like Islamic State all around the world.”

Iran Focus

London, 13 Oct – A relationship between al-Qaeda and Iran is an unlikely one considering the very volatile Sunni – Shia problems and differences. However, when aims coincide, these differences can be put to one side. The Iranian regime has been working with al-Qaeda ever since the beginning of the nineties in Sudan.

Later, in Afghanistan, the two worked together and cooperation continued after the 9/11 attacks in New York. It was not until years later, in 2011, that Iran and al-Qaeda were formally accused of having links and co-conspiring in the 9/11 attacks.