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Current Affairs Iran
- Thread starter Spadge Vernacular
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Tennessee Blue Mike
Player Valuation: £50m
Iran is really asking for it. Might be on Biden’s Watch. Pakistan, Israel and Isis are lining up as well.
Yarrgh
Player Valuation: £80m
Unfortunately for a lot of innocent Iranians this looks ever more likely.
There will however be consequences and I'm sure the various intelligence agencies of those likely to be involved are aware of this and prepared for it. There will be plenty of innocent westerners also being impacted too.
I'm far more concerned about this conflict and Israel than any other of the hotshots at the moment and hope it de-escalates rather than throwing more military action at the area.
Spadge Vernacular
Player Valuation: £70m
The IRGC giving talks to UK muslim student members of Islamic Students Associations of Britain is clearly a security risk, especially when IRGC Commanders are telling these students that they have to become war officers, as per the report below.
www.bbc.co.uk
UK officials probe Iran generals' antisemitic talks to students
A watchdog is investigating videos of online speeches urging students to join an "apocalyptic war".
www.bbc.co.uk
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
The IRGC giving talks to UK muslim student members of Islamic Students Associations of Britain is clearly a security risk, especially when IRGC Commanders are telling these students that they have to become war officers, as per the report below.
UK officials probe Iran generals' antisemitic talks to students
A watchdog is investigating videos of online speeches urging students to join an "apocalyptic war".
That is just recycled stories from some time ago, but with an added “corrupting the youth!” spin:
Charity commission investigates UK foundation linked to Iranian leaders
Commission confirms 'ongoing compliance case into the Al-Tawheed (TUCF) Charitable Trust in relation to serious concerns regarding events held at its premises'
www.jewishnews.co.uk
I also found the timing rather convenient. Almost like preparation for something that'll snowball into something much larger.That is just recycled stories from some time ago, but with an added “corrupting the youth!” spin:
Charity commission investigates UK foundation linked to Iranian leaders
Commission confirms 'ongoing compliance case into the Al-Tawheed (TUCF) Charitable Trust in relation to serious concerns regarding events held at its premises'
Spadge Vernacular
Player Valuation: £70m
That is one way of looking at it.That is just recycled stories from some time ago, but with an added “corrupting the youth!” spin:
Charity commission investigates UK foundation linked to Iranian leaders
Commission confirms 'ongoing compliance case into the Al-Tawheed (TUCF) Charitable Trust in relation to serious concerns regarding events held at its premises'
The other being that the danger posed by Iran has never been quite so clear as it is right now.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
It’s an attempt to recruit pro-Iranian regime, Farsi-speaking Shia students - yes, it should be looked at but the scale of it is relatively minor. What’s happening in Gaza is going to recruit many more people than this sort of activity ever would.
Spadge Vernacular
Player Valuation: £70m
Indeed
Spadge Vernacular
Player Valuation: £70m
ISW Iran Update, January 23, 2024
Key Takeaways:
www.understandingwar.org
Key Takeaways:
- Northern Gaza Strip: Palestinian militias claimed attacks in areas of the northern Gaza Strip where Israeli forces previously conducted clearing operations. The claimed attacks are consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment that Hamas and other Palestinian militias are likely in the early stages of reconstituting their governance and military capabilities in the northern Gaza Strip.
- Central Gaza Strip: Hamas’ military wing conducted a complex attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers in the deadliest single attack since Israeli ground operations began. The IDF Chief of Staff said that the fallen soldiers were conducting a defensive activity that will allow Israeli residents to return to their homes surrounding the Gaza Strip.
- Southern Gaza Strip: Israeli forces located an underground weapons production facility that the IDF said is the largest it has found to date. Palestinian militias are continuing to execute a deliberate defense against Israeli operations in western Khan Younis.
- Political Negotiations: Israel proposed a two-month pause in fighting in exchange for Hamas releasing over several phases the remaining hostages held in the Gaza Strip. An anonymous Egyptian official told the Associated Press that Hamas rejected the proposal.
- West Bank: Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters twice in the West Bank. The IDF detained eight wanted individuals and confiscated weapons.
- Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah claimed three attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. Israeli media reported that the IDF Air Force destroyed an unspecified military asset used by Hezbollah but operated by Iran.
- Iraq: The Shia Coordination Framework—a loose coalition of Iranian-backed Shia political factions—discussed Iranian-backed militia efforts to “provoke” US self-defense strikes in a meeting.
- Syria: Israel likely conducted two airstrikes targeting an IRGC weapons storage facility and an Iranian-backed militia truck transporting weapons around Albu Kamal, Syria.
- Yemen: US and UK forces conducted combined strikes on eight Houthi military targets in Yemen. The Houthis are harassing UN operations and personnel in Yemen.
- Iran: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei criticized Islamic countries for not demanding a ceasefire for the Israel-Hamas war during a meeting with the Tehran branch of the Martyrs’ Commemoration National Congress.
Institute for the Study of War
Israel proposed a two-month pause in fighting in exchange for Hamas releasing over several phases the remaining hostages held in the Gaza Strip. The first phase would have Hamas return women, men over 60 years old, and hostages in critical medical
Spadge Vernacular
Player Valuation: £70m
Also of note from ISW
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and Palestinian National Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al Maliki as part of efforts to deepen Russian relations with Middle Eastern actors. Lavrov met with Abdollahian and emphasized strengthening mutually beneficial Russian-Iranian cooperation.[22] Both officials reiterated their support for an “early ceasefire” in Gaza.[23] Lavrov and Abdollahian discussed unspecified agreements that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi made during Raisi’s December 2023 visit to Moscow.[24] Lavrov also reiterated Russian support for an “early end to the bloodshed” and “the resumption of the Middle East settlement process” in a meeting with al Maliki.[25]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and Palestinian National Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al Maliki as part of efforts to deepen Russian relations with Middle Eastern actors. Lavrov met with Abdollahian and emphasized strengthening mutually beneficial Russian-Iranian cooperation.[22] Both officials reiterated their support for an “early ceasefire” in Gaza.[23] Lavrov and Abdollahian discussed unspecified agreements that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi made during Raisi’s December 2023 visit to Moscow.[24] Lavrov also reiterated Russian support for an “early end to the bloodshed” and “the resumption of the Middle East settlement process” in a meeting with al Maliki.[25]
Spadge Vernacular
Player Valuation: £70m
The tory PR machine pushing the Iran agenda
Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR23 January 2024 • 7:55pm
Foreign Office officials have warned that proscribing the IRGC could lead to Britain losing its embassy in Tehran CREDIT: AFP
Lord Polak, president of Conservative Friends of Israel, used an event hosted by the group and attended by 19 Cabinet ministers to make the demand.
He issued the plea on stage directly to the Prime Minister after Mr Sunak had delivered his speech at a lunch in the Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane in London.
Lord Polak told The Telegraph: “If you are proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah, they are the children. The parent body is the IRGC who are supporting the Houthis. We are missing the main target.
“I used the opportunity to remind the Prime Minister and the 19 members of the Cabinet who were there including the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary.
“They should do it. It is the right thing and is supported across the House, Labour and Conservative. Unless there are things that we don’t know, it is one of those things that we have to do.”
The Foreign Office has resisted such a move with suggestions that MI6 has warned that banning the IRGC would hamper its intelligence-gathering capability in Tehran and the wider Middle East.
Foreign Office officials have also warned that proscribing the IRGC could lead to Britain losing its embassy in Tehran, which would damage the “protection of UK interests”.
Lord Polak is among a number of senior Tories who have called for proscription. Dr Liam Fox, Conservative former defence secretary, warned that while Hamas had its “fingers on the trigger” of the violence in Israel and Palestine, the “strings being pulled” are from Tehran.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative chairman of the foreign affairs committee, and Bob Blackman, a joint secretary of the backbench 1922 committee, have also called on the Government to proscribe the IRGC.
The US has also reportedly called on Britain to designate the IRGC as terrorists in the wake of Tehran’s “complicity” in Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 people in Israel.
Joe Biden’s administration is publicly urging its allies to “designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation” over the Iranian state security body’s link to terror across the globe.
In addition to criminalising association with the group, proscription would also make it easier to seize the organisation’s assets because they can be categorised as terrorist property.
Proscribing the IRGC would need legislation but Labour has said it will back the move, having previously called for the group to be designated terrorists.
www.telegraph.co.uk
Ban Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Lord Polak tells Rishi Sunak
Senior Tory peer says ‘we are missing the main target’ after proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organisationsCharles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR23 January 2024 • 7:55pm
Foreign Office officials have warned that proscribing the IRGC could lead to Britain losing its embassy in Tehran CREDIT: AFP
Lord Polak, president of Conservative Friends of Israel, used an event hosted by the group and attended by 19 Cabinet ministers to make the demand.
He issued the plea on stage directly to the Prime Minister after Mr Sunak had delivered his speech at a lunch in the Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane in London.
Lord Polak told The Telegraph: “If you are proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah, they are the children. The parent body is the IRGC who are supporting the Houthis. We are missing the main target.
“I used the opportunity to remind the Prime Minister and the 19 members of the Cabinet who were there including the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary.
“They should do it. It is the right thing and is supported across the House, Labour and Conservative. Unless there are things that we don’t know, it is one of those things that we have to do.”
Foreign Office resists ban
Banning the IRGC would make it illegal to be a member of or support the group in the UK, putting it on a par with Islamic State and al-Qaeda, with a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail.The Foreign Office has resisted such a move with suggestions that MI6 has warned that banning the IRGC would hamper its intelligence-gathering capability in Tehran and the wider Middle East.
Foreign Office officials have also warned that proscribing the IRGC could lead to Britain losing its embassy in Tehran, which would damage the “protection of UK interests”.
Lord Polak is among a number of senior Tories who have called for proscription. Dr Liam Fox, Conservative former defence secretary, warned that while Hamas had its “fingers on the trigger” of the violence in Israel and Palestine, the “strings being pulled” are from Tehran.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative chairman of the foreign affairs committee, and Bob Blackman, a joint secretary of the backbench 1922 committee, have also called on the Government to proscribe the IRGC.
The US has also reportedly called on Britain to designate the IRGC as terrorists in the wake of Tehran’s “complicity” in Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 people in Israel.
Joe Biden’s administration is publicly urging its allies to “designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation” over the Iranian state security body’s link to terror across the globe.
In addition to criminalising association with the group, proscription would also make it easier to seize the organisation’s assets because they can be categorised as terrorist property.
Proscribing the IRGC would need legislation but Labour has said it will back the move, having previously called for the group to be designated terrorists.
Ban Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Lord Polak tells Rishi Sunak
Senior Tory peer says ‘we are missing the main target’ after proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations
www.telegraph.co.uk
Spadge Vernacular
Player Valuation: £70m
Iran is now a ‘legitimate target’ for Israeli missile strikes, senior minister says
Nir Barkat tells the Telegraph Israel can afford to keep fighting and that as ‘big as the crisis is, it is also a really big opportunity’Robert Mendick, CHIEF REPORTER, IN TEL AVIV24 January 2024 • 5:22pm
Nir Barkat, the Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry CREDIT: JULIAN SIMMONDS
Iran is now a “legitimate target” for Israeli missile strikes, one of the country’s most senior ministers has told the Telegraph, raising the prospect of an all out war with Tehran.
In a wide-ranging interview, Nir Barkat, Israel’s economy minister, also said Palestinians from the West Bank would never be allowed to work in the country again and will be replaced by more than a quarter of a million imported foreign workers.
He also complained that the war in Gaza had not been fought aggressively enough.
Mr Barkat, who is favourite to succeed Benjamin Netanyahu as leader of the ruling Likud party, said Israel can afford to keep fighting and open up a new front with Lebanon despite the billion shekel (£200m) a day cost of the conflict.
He said that as “big as the crisis is, it is also a really big opportunity”, with governments around the world needing Israel’s technical expertise to combat global jihadism.
‘The head of the snake is Tehran’
The risk of the war spreading to Lebanon and as far as Iran will alarm Western leaders with Mr Barkat becoming increasingly influential in the ruling party.Polls suggest the economy minister would win five more seats than Mr Netanyahu if he replaced him as Likud’s leader.
Mr Barkat, 64, said: “Iran is a legitimate target for Israel. They will not get away with it. The head of the snake is Tehran. My recommendation is to adopt the strategy that President Kennedy used in the Cuban missile crisis. What he basically said then was a missile from Cuba will be answered with a missile to Moscow.
“And we should very very clearly make sure the Iranians understand that they will not get away with using proxies against Israel and sleep good at night if we don’t sleep good at night.”
He said Israel had “an open bill” with Iran, drawing on a reference from his successful business career to warn the Islamic regime, which funds Hamas and Hezbollah, that it had a debt that needed repaying.
“Iran will not get away with it,” said Mr Barkat: “We believe them when they say they want to destroy Israel. If anything, what we have learned from October 7 is believe our enemies and the wickedness in their evil, their goals, thoughts and actions and we are not going to allow another Holocaust.
‘Hezbollah must be eliminated’
“Jihadists want to kill all non-Muslims. We may be first in line but we are all in the same line. They call Israel Little Satan and Big Satan is the US and everyone else is in the middle.”Israel is edging towards a full-blown war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, having evacuated the north of the country. Mr Barkat said a second war was affordable while “the threat of Hezbollah must be eliminated”.
“Whatever it takes,” he said, pointing out that Israel had shown “really good numbers” prior to the October 7 attack on the country by Hamas fighters.
The economy is expected to grow by two per cent this year, down from five per cent forecast prior to the war.
He said Israelis evacuated from the South should now be returned home “swiftly” but that those displaced from the North needed to be able to live there “securely” before adding: “Even so, it should be faster.”
As the country lurches to the right in the aftermath of October 7 and with Mr Netanyahu’s personal ratings plummeting, Mr Barkat appears to be making a play to replace the prime minister as party leader.
A hugely successful high-tech entrepreneur – his fortune has been estimated at half a billion shekels or £100m – he has taken a token one shekel salary for the past 20 years working in both local and national politics.
The economy minister is a former paratrooper who was wounded in combat in Lebanon and was also the Mayor of Jerusalem for a decade.
‘They teach their children to kill Jews’
Mr Barkat rejected any suggestion that Palestinian labourers, who previously came into Israel daily to work in the construction and other industries, would be allowed to return. Daily crossings for labourers into Israel from the West Bank have been on hold since October 7.He likened the Palestinian Authority running the West Bank to the Hamas leadership in Gaza.
“You know what the difference is? Nothing,” said Mr Barkat. “Hamas had an opportunity and took it and the Palestinian Authority would use the opportunity if they had it.
“They teach their children to kill Jews in school and kindergarten. They have the same textbooks as Hamas and they pay for anybody to kill a Jew.
“They get a million dollars for killing Jews,” he added in reference to a Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund that pays out to families of Palestinians killed or injured whilst carrying out attacks against Israel.
The fund has been called “Pay for Slay” by its critics.
Israel has long been reliant on workers coming into the country from Gaza and the West Bank, but Mr Barkat, whose ministry is responsible for the construction industry, said: “We are done with Palestinian employees. The rationale behind it is very simple: we only want foreign employees from peaceful countries. We don’t want employees from enemies.
“Unfortunately for Palestinians, 80 per cent of them support October 7. How the hell do you expect us to give jobs to somebody who supports October 7 and gets a million dollars if they kill Jews? We will only bring foreign labour from peaceful, loving companies. I am aggressively pursuing that.”
He said Israel was currently home to 130,000 foreign workers, most of them with five-year work and residency permits, but he was looking to increase that to 300,000 “as soon as possible”.
‘Naiveness has gone’
India is the likeliest target for a recruitment drive with the promise of wages seven to ten times higher than at home. “Everybody wins,” said Mr Barkat.“If you don’t do what I proposed, it’s as if we didn’t learn the lessons of October 7.”
He added: “There is a huge shift to the right in Israel in public opinion. Naiveness has gone.”
On the conduct of the war in Gaza and in the face of international condemnation of Israel’s tactics, Mr Barkat said: “Israel is being very cautious. If you compare what we have done in Gaza to the way the armies of the west took down Nazi Germany it is fundamentally different.
“We warn citizens to move out before we move in. No other place in the world has such ethical standards. But once we move in we have to make sure our soldiers are secure. The reality is at certain points in time I prefer a much more aggressive approach.”
He has called for greater air support to protect soldiers on the ground. On the day he was interviewed by the Telegraph, he had already attended the funerals of two reservists, who were among 21 soldiers killed in Gaza when a rocket-propelled grenade detonated at an explosives-rigged building.
When Mr Barkat arrived at the funeral of one of the men, he realised he was friends of one of the grieving fathers.
“It is difficult for Israel,” he said, “But we remember what happened to the six million Jews killed by Nazis and we won’t let that happen again… This is a religious war.”
Iran is now a ‘legitimate target’ for Israeli missile strikes, senior minister says
Nir Barkat tells the Telegraph Israel can afford to keep fighting and that as ‘big as the crisis is, it is also a really big opportunity’
www.telegraph.co.uk
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
The tory PR machine pushing the Iran agenda
Ban Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Lord Polak tells Rishi Sunak
Senior Tory peer says ‘we are missing the main target’ after proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations
Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR23 January 2024 • 7:55pm
Foreign Office officials have warned that proscribing the IRGC could lead to Britain losing its embassy in Tehran CREDIT: AFP
Lord Polak, president of Conservative Friends of Israel, used an event hosted by the group and attended by 19 Cabinet ministers to make the demand.
He issued the plea on stage directly to the Prime Minister after Mr Sunak had delivered his speech at a lunch in the Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane in London.
Lord Polak told The Telegraph: “If you are proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah, they are the children. The parent body is the IRGC who are supporting the Houthis. We are missing the main target.
“I used the opportunity to remind the Prime Minister and the 19 members of the Cabinet who were there including the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary.
“They should do it. It is the right thing and is supported across the House, Labour and Conservative. Unless there are things that we don’t know, it is one of those things that we have to do.”
Foreign Office resists ban
Banning the IRGC would make it illegal to be a member of or support the group in the UK, putting it on a par with Islamic State and al-Qaeda, with a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail.
The Foreign Office has resisted such a move with suggestions that MI6 has warned that banning the IRGC would hamper its intelligence-gathering capability in Tehran and the wider Middle East.
Foreign Office officials have also warned that proscribing the IRGC could lead to Britain losing its embassy in Tehran, which would damage the “protection of UK interests”.
Lord Polak is among a number of senior Tories who have called for proscription. Dr Liam Fox, Conservative former defence secretary, warned that while Hamas had its “fingers on the trigger” of the violence in Israel and Palestine, the “strings being pulled” are from Tehran.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative chairman of the foreign affairs committee, and Bob Blackman, a joint secretary of the backbench 1922 committee, have also called on the Government to proscribe the IRGC.
The US has also reportedly called on Britain to designate the IRGC as terrorists in the wake of Tehran’s “complicity” in Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 people in Israel.
Joe Biden’s administration is publicly urging its allies to “designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation” over the Iranian state security body’s link to terror across the globe.
In addition to criminalising association with the group, proscription would also make it easier to seize the organisation’s assets because they can be categorised as terrorist property.
Proscribing the IRGC would need legislation but Labour has said it will back the move, having previously called for the group to be designated terrorists.
Ban Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Lord Polak tells Rishi Sunak
Senior Tory peer says ‘we are missing the main target’ after proscribing Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations
Lord Polak described as "a senior Tory" really does my head in. He has never held or stood for elected office, never held office within the party itself, he just runs CFI. The man is a lobbyist for another country and should be described as such.
spectateur
Player Valuation: £30m
These people need to be called out.
Where do their loyalties really lie.
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