Israeli Planes Reportedly Hit Iranian Targets In Central Syria

Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned to London in March when she was released along with another dual national after Britain repaid a historic debt.

It was the first time she had met Johnson, who in 2017 erroneously said she had been teaching people journalism before her arrest in April 2016. His comment contradicted statements made by Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her employer, who said she had been on holiday visiting family.

She was subsequently convicted of plotting to overthrow the clerical regime.

Johnson later apologized and retracted any suggestion that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was there in a professional capacity.

Her local member of parliament, who attended the meeting, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe had told Johnson to his face about the problems his mistake had caused.

"I had to say the prime minister looked quite shocked," Tulip Siddiq told reporters.

It is not clear if Iran would have released Zaghari-Ratcliffe earlier if Johnson had not made the mistake.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said Johnson did not explicitly apologize for his error, but the encounter had not been "abrasive".

"It was an honor to welcome Nazanin, Richard and Gabriella to Downing Street today," Johnson wrote on Twitter, but he did not address his mistaken comment in 2017.

"We discussed the UK’s work to secure the release of unfairly detained nationals in Iran and I commended Nazanin for her incredible bravery during her ordeal."

Reporting by Reuters

In a Thursday letter, led by the representative Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik joined by seven of their colleagues, lawmakers urged the world’s richest man and incoming interim CEO of Twitter to ensure it complies with US law, while restoring it as a platform that protects and champions free speech.

“It is unacceptable that US designated foreign entities freely use Twitter, despite laws and regulations that prohibit the provision of goods and services to them,” the letter said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and others sanctions by the US still use many accounts on Twitter.

They added, “The Iranian Regime uses Twitter to upend free societies and threaten violence, which is exactly why the regime has been designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism and why many of its officials are on the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals) list today".

Tenney and her House colleagues emphasized, “Allowing designated individuals and entities to continue using Twitter to incite violence against American officials and citizens, call for the eradication of the Jewish State (Israel) and its people, and promote its terrorist proxies, in in flagrant violation not only of Twitter's longstanding policies, but most importantly of US law."

Iran Diplomacy, a website close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry says Russian forces' withdrawal from Syria, and the possibility of Iranian forces replacing them could be an indication that Moscow is trying to keep Iran in its camp.

This comes while many Iranian observers had suggested during the past two months after the invasion of Ukraine that Iran should distance itself from Moscow and charged that Russia is using Iran as a pawn in its relations with the West and at the same time bars Iran from benefitting in the new situation of world energy markets after sanctions on Russian energy exports.

Earlier this week, Syrian President Bashar Assad's visit to Tehran was interpreted by some Iran analysts as a move to invite Iran to get involved in Syria to replace Russia in both war efforts and reconstruction projects in Syria. However, the visit by Assad could have been an attempt by Syria to balance its newly built relations with Persian Gulf states.

Other Iranian analysts have said that Moscow is taking revenge from Israel for Israeli officials' offending comments about Russia's war in Ukraine. They say Moscow is creating trouble for Tel Aviv by placing Iranian forces in larger contingents in Syria.

Iran's last ambassador to the Soviet Union and its first envoy to Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nematollah Izadi, says all that could be true as none of these statements are mutually exclusive. These hypotheses can complement each other, he said.

Izadi added that Russia's war next door in Ukraine has overshadowed the importance of its expedition to Syria. Russia is not that active in the Caucasus region either, he said. He added that Israel has annoyed Moscow by not supporting its position on Ukraine. Tel Aviv eventually took side with Ukraine, and this gave the idea to Putin to strike a different balance at the borders with Israel.

However, Izadi observed that Russia's withdrawal from Syria has eliminated the the political and military buffer between Iran and Israel, so Israel is in a better position to attack Iranian forces, and this justifies Iran's desire to reinforce its positions in Syria. He said Iran's extended presence in Syria does not necessarily pose a new threat to Israel. This can only create a new military equilibrium in the region, Izadi said.

But Israel has been concerned since Syrian rebels were defeated in the civil war with Russian support and Iran began entrenching itself near the Israeli border. Israel has launched hundreds of air attacks against Iranian bases in Syria to prevent further entrenchment and flow of weapons to Tehran’s proxy, the Hezbollah, and other militia armed and backed by Iran.

The spokesperson made the remarks on Thursday against the backdrop of visits to Tehran by the European Union’s coordinator of the nuclear talks, Enrique Mora, and Qatar’s ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. “The administration, along with our Allies, is preparing equally for scenarios with and without a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA.”

About the trips by Mora and Al-Thani, the spokesman said Washington is in close contact with the EU coordinator, who continues to convey messages back and forth, and appreciated “the constructive role Qatar has played in our efforts to achieve diplomatic resolutions of important and difficult issues between the US and Iran, including the unjust detention of US citizens and our effort to achieve a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA”.

In response to a question about Iran’s demand to remove the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organization, the spokesperson said that "if Iran wants sanctions lifting that goes beyond the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), they will need to address concerns of ours beyond the JCPOA”.

The official added, “Conversely, if they do not want to use these talks to resolve other bilateral issues beyond the JCPOA, then we are confident that we can very quickly reach an understanding on the JCPOA and begin reimplementing the deal”.

On Friday, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Mora’s trip has unblocked the negotiations, expressing hope for the prospect of reaching an agreement.

In the ‘Worldwide Threat Assessment” report presented this week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Iran was probably “planning covert actions against US officials to retaliate” for Soleimani’s death “while attempting to maintain plausible deniability and minimize escalation.” General Soleimani, commander of Iran’s extra-territorial Al-Qods Force (QF), was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

Berrier’s report, submitted May 10, suggests Iran wants to avoid “an escalation in regional tensions or full-scale conflict” and therefore “probably calibrates its attacks to pressure adversaries and proportionally retaliate for real or perceived transgressions…”

Iran’s approach to Soleimani’s demise, Berrier argues, reflects its wider military strategy “based on deterrence and retaliation,” including “the region’s largest arsenal of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones]” and missiles, favored for cost and sometimes plausible deniability.

Iran has also gained “strategic depth,” the report says, through supporting “partner and proxy networks in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen” that facilitate attacks on US and allied interests in line with Iran’s aim of “attempting to force a US military drawdown” from the region, a goal inherited by Soleimani’s successor as QF commander Esmail Ghani.

Capable partners, fiscal pressures

The report highlights Hezbollah as Iran’s “most important and capable substate partner” whose strategic interests “rarely diverge.” It notes the 2021 first use in Iraq by Iran-allied militias of UAVs against US targets, and by Iranian forces in Syria deploying UAVs “in the most sophisticated attack against a US military base in the country to date, reportedly in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike...”

In Yemen, Iranian advisers and weapons – including in the past year the supply of the relatively advanced Shahed-136 – had enabled Ansar Allah, or Houthis, with “long-range strike capacities” whose use is on hold since mid-April with the de facto truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition.

The report suggests Iran’s military expenditure, despite a rising defense budget, had been curtailed by the fiscal consequences of US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions since 2018 impeding “Tehran’s access to traditional government funding streams, including oil exports.”

The report says little about Tehran’s nuclear program other than noting its attempts to gain “leverage” by diminishing adherence to the 2015 deal (the JCPOA, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which the US left in 2018 and which world powers have been struggling to revive for over a year.

Looking ahead, Berrier anticipates a year in which Iran’s response to US and allied “operations…probably would seek to demonstrate strength, reduce Western regional influence, and reestablish deterrence following repeated attacks on Iranian interests in Iran and Syria.” This would likely involve deniable attacks, including cyberoperations, while Tehran sought to avoid “escalation it expects would undermine JCPOA negotiations or impede its goal of compelling a US withdrawal from the region.”