Iran, Saudi Arabia Finally Hold Fifth Round Of Talks

Okaz cited informed sourcesas saying on Wednesday that the extra funds may be spent to finance the group’s activities for parliamentary elections in Lebanon, which will be held next month.

According to the unnamed sources, Hezbollah asked Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office to make its utmost efforts to secure a minimum amount of $25 million in addition to the annual budget it receives from Iran, noting that this amount will be allocated to finance media campaigns for personalities and parties allied with the Shiite group that wants to preserve its considerable influence in Lebanese politics.

The sources said Hezbollah understands the difficult economic situation in Iran as the nuclear agreement has not yet been signed and Iranian funds frozen in banks are not released but said that strengthening its own and Iran’s political position in Lebanon is worth the funding.

Lebanese media say the latest visit by Iran’s foreign minister to Beirut was also related to this request by Hezbollah.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian travelled to Lebanon late in March to bolster relations with senior Lebanese authorities.

During his visit, Amir-Abdollahian met with President Michel Aoun, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.

Late in 2021, a large group of Lebanese politicians established a new opposition group to end what they call Iranian occupation of Lebanon represented through Hezbollah.

Tasnim news agency close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said that apparently the disagreement between the two sides emerged when the Taliban wanted to build a road near the border crossing Dogharoon but denied reports about clashes. Tasnim said that Iranian forces and representatives of the Taliban were trying to defuse the situation.

However, the agency also said that cargos at Dogharoon crossing has been moved to a safer distance as precaution.

A video on social media shows an Iranian military vehicle seized by the Taliban as six Iranian border guards are seen standing nearby. A local Taliban official confirmed the seizure, saying the vehicle had entered Afghanistan, Tolo News in Kabul reported.

Some Afghan citizens reported on social media that the reason for the border tension was an attempt by Iran to build two observation posts and a road.

There have been some incidents at the border since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan last year. An Iranian foreign ministry official in January said that the reason for an earlier incident of clashes between Iranian forces and the Taliban was lack of professional conduct by the latter.

If confirmed by the Senate, Ratney, who was previously the charge d'affaires at the US Embassy in Jerusalem and the US special envoy for Syria, would be the first career diplomat to serve as ambassador to Riyadh in three decades.

US-Saudi ties have been strained by Biden's decisions last year to curtail US support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and to publish intelligence that the kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, approved an operation to capture or kill murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

The Saudi government has denied any involvement by the crown prince, who is known as MBS, in the murder of Khashoggi.

Relations between the United States and the world's largest oil exporter have also been frayed by Biden's efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which US allies in the Persian Gulf argue does too little to prevent Tehran from getting an atomic bomb.

Washington has also been trying, so far without success, to persuade Saudi Arabia to pump more oil beyond the small increase it has agreed within the OPEC+ production group to offset potential losses in Russian supplies after Moscow was sanctioned by the West over its invasion of Ukraine.

Ratney, whose official biography says he speaks Arabic and French, has previously been deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Doha.

Report by Reuters

Brigadier General Hossein Almassi, the commander of IRGC’ Brigade 100 in Sistan-Baluchistan province, was unhurt after the attack and the attackers were arrested according to authorities.

However, the Baluch Activists’ Campaign, a dissident group, claimed Almassi was wounded and taken to Zahedan’s Nabi Akram hospital. The group said his condition is critical.

Mahmoud Absalan, the bodyguard who was killed in the attack that occurred near a checkpoint near the provincial capital Zahedan, was the son of Almassi’s deputy. The attackers fired from a vehicle.

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Brigade 110 known as the Salman Farsi brigade during the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s was under the command of Qasem Soleimani, who later headed IRGC’s notorious Qods (Quds) Force and was killed in a targeted US air strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

The attack came on a night celebrated by many Shiite Iranians as the holiest, which this year coincided with events marking the anniversary of the Revolutionary Guards' establishment after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The predominantly Sunni Muslim Sistan-Baluchistan province near the Pakistani and Afghan borders has long been plagued by unrest from both drug smuggling gangs and Sunni Islamist militants fighting the country's Shi’ite authorities.

Many of Iran's Sunnis complain of discrimination, a charge denied by the state.

In 2009, a suicide bomber killed six senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and more than 29 other people in Sistan-Baluchistan, in one of the boldest attacks on Iran's most powerful military institution.

With reporting by Reuters

Rubio said in a tweet on Friday it’s four years that Sharghi remains unjustly detained in the notorious Evin Prison under false charges.

Senator Rubio called for the immediate release and safe reunification of the American-Iranian with his family, said his tweet.

In January 2021, Iran’s Young Journalists’ Club (YJC), which is affiliated with the state broadcaster, reported that the 56-year-old businessman was arrested on December 6.The report said he had been sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of espionage and collecting military intelligence but had attempted to flee while on bail awaiting the result of an appeal.

According to Iranian media, Sharghi served as the international deputy head of Sarava, a major Iranian holding company, but following the announcement of his arrest, Sarava said that Sharghi’s involvement had ended in May 2018.

Allegations that dual nationals are taken prisoner to swap them with Iranian prisoners held abroad, often serving sentences for violating US sanctions or on ‘terrorism’ charges, have been made in several cases of dual nationals detained in Iran.

Earlier in the week, families of two German and two Austrian citizens currently jailed in Iran called on the governments in Berlin and Vienna to demand their release as part of nuclear talks with Tehran.