Firebrand Cleric In Tehran Demands Removal Of All US Sanctions

In an interview with the Arabic-language al-Alam television channel Thursday, Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, said no foreign country would dare to enter Iran’s territorial waters. Irani said there was no justification for the regional presence of navies from further afield.

Both Iran’s traditional army (Artesh) and the Revolutionay Guard (IRGC) have naval forces.

The commander described the northern Indian Ocean as the “main waterway to connect the continents,” and that if Iran did not have an “effective presence, governments that don’t have the right will come and approach our territorial waters.” Irani said Iran’s fleet would appear “wherever we feel threatened.”

Iran has since 2019 carried out naval exercises with Russia and China and has looked to expand its presence beyond the Red Sea and north-west Indian Ocean. The last major clash between Iran and the United States, whose Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, was quickly resolved diplomatically in 2016 after two American small boats adrift were seized by Iran’s navy after entering Iranian waters.

“We escort our ships in all the waters across the globe to guarantee security… Our presence offers security to the region and the entire world," Irani said.

In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a bomb killed at least 20 worshippers in the Seh Dokan Shiite mosque, in the second major attack on Afghanistan’s Shiite community, mostly Hazara, in a week. The Islamic State group (Isis/Daesh) claimed responsibility. Fifty-eight people were injured, 32 seriously.

Hazaras – who are an ethnic and religious minority making up around 20 percent of Afghanistan’s population – have been frequently targeted by Sunni extremists who regard them as heretics. The Mazar-i-Sharif bombing came two days after blasts tore through a Shiite high school in western Kabul, killing at least six people and wounding 11.

There was some confusion over whether Isis-Daesh claimed responsibility for a second explosion Thursday near a police station in Kunduz that killed four and injured 18.

In a third attack, a Taliban vehicle was hit by a roadside mine in eastern Nangarhar province, killing four Taliban members and wounding a fifth. The fourth explosion, caused by a mine planted in the Niaz Beyk area of Kabul, wounded two children.

Like other Afghan neighbors, Iran has not formally recognized the Taliban authorities that took over when the United States last summer ended its 20-year military presence. Tehran has called for a broad-based government.

Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) extra-territorial Quds Force, was killed in Baghdad along with nine others in 2020 by a drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump.

"They constantly send messages saying they will offer rewards and remove certain sanctions if we give up seeking revenge for Soleimani," Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, commander of IRGC naval forces, said Wednesday. "But this is wishful thinking. The Supreme Leader [Ali Khamenei] stresses taking revenge, and the IRGC commander has said that revenge is inevitable. We will, however, decide the time and place for it.”

With Iran’s talks with world powers over renewing the 2015 nuclear deal on hold, the strike on Soleimani has become tangled up in arguments over Trump’s 2019 listing of the IRGC as a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ (FTO).

US state department spokesman Ned Price said Monday the US was not prepared to remove the IRGC from its list as a condition for renewing the 2015 deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) as it was "outside the purview" of the 2015 agreement. Price argued that if the US were to delist the IRGC then Iran should be prepared to negotiate other issues which are important for Washington, presumably Iran's aggressive regional policies and support for militant groups, which are also outside the JCPOA purview.

The pause in Vienna talks between Iran and world powers to revive the JCPOA has given opportunity for opponents of the agreement in both Washington and Tehran to express dissent, including within the US Democrat Party.

Iran is reportedly insisting on removing the IRGC from the FTO list, which is the only example of a sovereign state’s armed forces to be included. But in a letter to President Biden dated April 14, 900 ‘Gold Star’ families urged Biden not to lift the designation, which they said would widen the IRGC's access to resources and "fuel increased terror activities.”

A Gold Star Family is the immediate family member(s) of a fallen US service member who died while serving in a time of conflict.

Risky decision

In a statement released Thursday 40 former government officials and leading non-proliferation experts said that not restoring the JCPOA would “increase the danger that Iran would become a threshold nuclear-weapon state.” While not addressing the FTO listing, the statement noted that “some in Congress are threatening to block…steps necessary to bring Iran back under the nuclear limits set by the JCPOA.”

Some in Iran have blamed Biden for the impasse in the nuclear talks for being "weak" in the face of domestic opposition and failing to risk a political decision over delisting the IRGC.

The Qods Force − which takes its name from al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem − under Soleimani became deeply involved in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. Trump claimed that the general, who was Iran’s main operative in the Middle East was killed because he was planning attacks on US troops but never offered evidence.

Days before Soleimani’s killing, Iraqi Shiite militia supported by Iran attacked the US embassy in Baghdad after repeated rocket attacks on US targets in 2019.

On April 8 the State Department said Bidenconsidered the Qods Force a ‘terrorist’ group, which some pundits took as a suggestion that the US might keep the Qods Force on the FTO list while removing the IRGC. With or without the FTO designation, the IRGC is subject to a range of US sanctions.

Brig. Gen. Shlomi Binder was quoted by Haaretz on Thursday as saying that constant vigilance is needed at the northern front, as the army cannot just rely on intelligence to know about its opponent’s possible surprise moves.

He said that in recent years, Hezbollah has moved its special forces known as Radwan unit to the Israeli border region and has expanded its firepower, with more ability to conduct large offensive operations. In other words, Hezbollah has become more of an army than a guerilla force. Binder said.

Radwan forces have a long experience fighting in the Syrian civil war and played a major role in capturing Aleppo in 201602017.

Iran’s Fars news website affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard on Thursday picked up on Israeli media’s reporting and splashed a headline that “The Zionists confess they are scared of Rezvan units,” meaning Radwan, as the Persian pronunciation differs from the Arabic version.

General Binder also claimed that Hezbollah faces political pushback in Lebanon as the country enters its third year of a severe economic crisis and widespread poverty. However, he said, Iran continues its financial assistance to the group, whose fighters earn much more than Lebanese army soldiers and officiers.

Iran’s financial support for Hezbollah and other militant group comes despite its own economic crisis partly due to American sanctions.

The statement published late on Wednesday only said these individuals were involved “in the dissemination of classified information and documents", adding they were "arrested by a court order".

The statement didn’t provide any further information about what these individuals did or how they were arrested.

The Islamic Republic periodically announces it has busted “terrorist” or spying networks, but it rarely provides any follow-up news or concrete information and almost never holds public trials. In some cases, individuals convicted of ties with Israel have been executed.

In October, Iran announced that ten people were arrested for “links with intelligence services” of regional “adversaries” without disclosing which intelligence service had established the alleged network inside the country.

The use of the term ‘regional adversary’ could refer to Israel which is suspected of conducting spectacular sabotage acts against Iran’s nuclear, military and strategic economic targets since July 2020, or it could mean Saudi Arabia.

In March, Iran also announced its security forces had dismantled two foreign-backed terrorist teams, alleging plotting to assassinate several foreign nationals working on infrastructure projects in Sistan-Baluchestan province.

Tensions have risen between Israel and Iran as the Biden administration has tried to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement, which Israel considers a dangerous move.