Iran’ Intelligence Chief Issues Veiled Threat Against UK

Joe Biden renewed the emergency with respect to Iran, pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Biden said on Tuesday that “Our relations with Iran have not yet normalized, and the process of implementing the agreements with Iran, dated January 19, 1981, is ongoing. Biden said in a statement published on the White House website, “For this reason, the national emergency declared on November 14, 1979, and the measures adopted on that date to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond November 14, 2022.”

The national emergency was announced when radical students in Tehran seized the US embassy and took hostage dozens of diplomats, staff and guards.

The decision by then-president Jimmy Carter was meant “to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted by the situation in Iran.”

The extension of the state of emergency in relation to Iran comes at a time when negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement have stalled, with the White House saying it is no longer focused on that.

The suppression of the current antigovernment protests in Iran as well as regime’s deployment of drones to Russia to be used in Ukraine war have also triggered a new wave of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

The source says eight tankers were targeted and two of them caught fire, forcing the convoy to stop moving. However, Iran claims still 14 tankers are in the Iraqi territory.

Iran's state broadcaster had earlier announced that American warplanes had launched airstrikes against a convoy carrying logistics along the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Sabereen News, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard says 25 fighters have been killed and 21 others injured so far but provided no details about the nationality of the military personnel. It says the fuel shipment was supposed to be delivered to Lebanon.

According to AFP, a spokeswoman for the US-led coalitionfighting the remnants of the ISIS in Iraq and Syria said that the strike was not carried out by the United States or any other coalition country.

Meanwhile, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated the strike hit a convoy of “fuel tankers and trucks loaded with weapons and most of those killed were militiamen.”

Pro-Iran militias have long been present near the Iraq-Syria border in Deir ez-Zor province and for several times Iran and the US launched reciprocal attacks there.

The strike comes a day after a US citizen, Stephen Edward Troell, was killed in Baghdad. No group claimed responsibility for the killing but Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani on Monday ordered an investigation. The US embassy in Baghdad confirmed Troell’s death, adding that they were closely monitoring the investigation.

Russia's Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin met with Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Russian state news agencies said.

Nour News Agency, affiliated with the Iranian Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), announced in an English tweet that Patrushev was invited by Shamkhani, adding that he will also hold meetings with other high-ranking Iranians to discuss cooperation between Tehran and Moscow.

Alongside Ukraine, the two discussed "information security, as well as measures to counter interference in the internal affairs of both countries by Western special services," the TASS news agency reported, citing a readout from the Russian Security Council press service.

"The economic potential of Russia and Iran and building foreign trade relations in the face of sanctions pressure was emphasized," it added.

Patrushev’s trip to Iran has raised considerable speculations that he might discuss the sale of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia, which has already used Iranian suicide drones in Ukraine against civilian targets.

The Islamic Republic on Saturday finally admitted it has provided drones to Russia claiming that they were supplied months before the Ukrainian war.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran provided Moscow with a limited number of drones months before the war, but if it is proven that Russia has used them against Ukraine, the Islamic Republic will not be indifferent to it.

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After 18 months of talks to revive the JCPOA, an Obama-era nuclear accord with the United States, Iran presented demands in August that were unacceptable to Washington and negotiations broke down. Already in July the US had announced that Iran was preparing to supply drones to Russia.

Petrushev’s visit comes amid some criticism in Tehran of military aid to Moscow. The well-known conservative editor of a government newspaper asked the government on Monday why it did not ban Russia from using Iranian drones against Ukraine. Massih Mohajeri, the editor of Jomhouri Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper said the government must admit its mistake.

Some believe Iran publicly announced Patrushev’s arrival in Tehran to tell the world that the mutual ties between the Islamic Republic and Russia is deepening, and implicitly emphasize that a powerful Russian official turned to Iran for help in Ukraine.

However, the clerical regime is likely to boast of its strategic relations with Russia, signaling to its regional adversaries that the Kremlin is a constant powerful ally, although in fact it faces a possible defeat in Ukraine, with its military reputation in tatters.

Some others speculate the Iranian autocratic rulers are seeking Russian assistance to suppress the antigovernment protests that have swept the country since mid-September.

Late last month, the White House expressed concerns that Russia may be advising Tehran on best practices to suppress the ongoing protests in Iran.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during joint press briefing with Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in the White House John Kirby that Moscow may be helping the Islamic Republic, drawing on its own experience in suppressing open demonstrations.

Patrushev’s visit comes amid international outcry over the Islamic Republic’s supply of drones and ballistic missiles to Moscow. Kiev said earlier that Tehran plans to ship even more arms to Russia. Ukrainian intelligence agencies claimed the Islamic Republic is set to deliver more than 200 Shahed-136 and Arash-2 kamikaze drones, and Mohajer-6 reconnaissance and combat UAVs later in November.

With reporting by Reuters

"British-Iranian reporters who are now sited in the UK have been issued with credible information by the police that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatens their lives. What more does IRGC have to do before we proscribe them in their entirety?" Conservative British MP Bob Blackman said in a House of Commons meeting on Tuesday. 

In a statement on Monday, Volant Media -- the parent company of Iran International – said that two of their journalists have recently been notified of the threats. “The Metropolitan Police have now formally notified both journalists that these threats represent an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families. Other members of our staff have also been informed directly by the Metropolitan Police of separate threats," read the statement. 

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Urging the UK foreign ministry to ban the IRGC, Blackman said that “Thousands of Iranians have been arrested for just demonstrating their support for people who have been murdered. I have been supplied with a long list of people who have been sentenced to death just for protesting.”

Labor MP John Spellar said, "Today we've had members on both sides of the UK House raising this question to follow our allies in the US and to ban IRGC who are protectors of the Iranian cleric-fascist regime," throwing his party’s support for the designation. 

David Rutley, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, also describing the death of Mahsa Amini – the 22-year-old girl who was killed in custody of hijab police and ignited the ongoing wave of protests – as well as all protesters killed standing up to the authorities as a “tragedy that shows the regime’s shocking disregard for the rights of the Iranian people.” 

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He added that the UK has robustly condemned Iran’s actions, including at the UN Human Rights Council, noting that the country has sanctioned the morality police and several other officials responsible for human rights violations. “The list of proscribed organizations is kept under constant review, but we do not routinely comment on whether an organization is or is not under consideration for proscription,” he said. 

In reaction to the threats to the lives of Iran International’s journalists, Michelle Stanistreet, the general secretary of National Union of Journalists -- a trade union for journalists in the UK and Ireland – said, “It is shocking and outrageous that journalists carrying out their work in London are being targeted and facing credible death threats that are clearly emanating from the Iranian state."

"The stress and pressure this has placed journalists and their families under is despicable and is clearly designed to instill fear and have a chilling effect on media freedom,” she noted, expressing support and vowing to continue to press internationally and via the UN to force the Islamic Republic to desist. 

Stressing the threat from the Islamic Republic, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged on Monday to improve relations with Persian Gulf Arab states beyond “defense cooperation.” Sunak met UAE president Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the sidelines of the COP27 United Nations climate gathering in Egypt.

In an interview with Al-Arabiya Macron said, “We must change the way we deal with the Iranian threat in the world,” adding that sanctions against the clerical government should not harm its people.

Macron, who had traveled to Egypt to participate in the COP27 United Nations climate gathering, said “We must cooperate in an organized manner to counter Iran's threats.”

Earlier, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on the sidelines of the same gathering considered the actions of the Islamic Republic to be the cause of instability in the Middle East region.

He said in a meeting with UAE president Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan that the situation in Iran has become complicated with the repression of the protesters after death of Mahsa Amini in September.

Previously, Britain announced it had sanctioned the “morality police” because of “several decades of threats, arrests and violence” against Iranian women.

Also, on Monday, the German government announced that the European Union will decide on the inclusion of the Revolutionary Guard in the new package of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Ties between the Islamic Republic and the West are increasingly strained with Germany being among the first that started evacuating the families of the personnel of its embassy in Tehran and the teachers of German-run schools.

In mid-October, the EU sanctioned eleven Iranian individuals and four organizations for their role in the death of Mahsa Amini and the crackdown on the ongoing protests.