Syrians Revolting Against Assad And Iran’s Influence

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met the Syrian leader, a close ally to Iran, on Thursday during a two-day visit to the country. The Iranian FM praised the thawing of Iran-Saudi relations as mutually beneficial and regionally significant.

The minister also extended an invitation on behalf of President Ebrahim Raisi, for Assad to visit Tehran whilst expressing satisfaction at the renewed engagement of Syria within the Arab League and the enhancement of Syrian-Arab relations.

This takes place against the backdrop of ongoing reports concerning attacks attributed to Israel on positions affiliated with quasi-military groups linked to the Islamic Republic within Syrian territory.

After Damascus, Amir-Abdollahian will travel to Lebanon for discussions with the leadership of Hezbollah, a proxy militant group associated with Iran.

Amid speculation about potential moves by US forces in Iraq and Syria to address vulnerabilities along the Syrian-Iraqi border, which enables Tehran to transport weapons and fighters through Iraq into Syria, Amir-Abdollahian responded to questions during a press conference by urging US troops to depart from the region. He confidently said, "No party is capable of blocking historic transportation routes."

Furthermore, Amir-Abdollahian slammed Israeli airstrikes targeting sites in Syria and cautioned that such actions would inevitably invite retaliation.

Thursday night, Iran’s government-controlled media announced that a major security announcement would be made in hours, but nothing was announced. Finally, on Friday Iran released a video and a short report showing hundreds of parts said to have been defective and discovered due to the vigilance of intelligence entities.

However, Iranian journalists abroad pointed out that if the parts were indeed defective and reached Iran it means the Islamic Republic spent huge sums to acquire the fake or defective black-market parts, and now wanted to turn the fiasco into an intelligence success story.

"The intelligence unit of the Defense Ministry thwarted one of the largest sabotage plots targeting Iran's missile, aviation and airspace military industry," Iranian state TV said.

"This sabotage was carried out under the guidance of the Zionist intelligence services and their agents."

There was no immediate response from Israel. There have been reports in the past of foreign intelligence organizations succeeding in supplying defective dual-use parts to Iran. In 2010, a malicious computer worm dubbed Stuxnet was discovered in Iran that worked to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program by targeting supervisory control and data acquisition. It was believed that the bug was developer by Israeli and US intelligence services.

An unnamed Iranian defense ministry official was quoted by state media as saying a network of agents sought to introduce defective parts into the production of advanced missiles.

The Iranian foreign minister began a two-day visit to Syria, its close ally on Wednesday and will probably travel on to Lebanon to meet with the leadership of Hezbollah, its proxy militant group.

Unconfirmed reports earlier this month spoke of movements by US forces in Iraq and Syria possibly aimed at plugging holes on the Syrian-Iraqi border that allow Tehran to send weapons and fighters through Iraq into Syria.

Despite denials by Iraqi armed forces and the prime minister’s office, three unnamed Iraqi officials, including a leader of an armed faction stationed in northwestern Iraq, told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the US was repositioning its troops in the region, possibly preparing for a military operation outside Iraq. Another Iraqi government official told Asharq Al-Awsat that the alleged movements “are limited to locations outside the Iraqi border.”

Amir-Abdollahian’s call for US troops to leave the region was in response to a question during the press conference about these reports. “No party is capable of blocking historic transportation routes,” he retorted.

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Amir-Abdollahian also condemned Israeli air strikes on targets in Syria and warned that these attacks would eventually face retaliation.

“I would like to strongly condemn the miserable attacks of the fake Israeli entity against Aleppo international airport and civilian areas in Syria and I confirm that the criminal practices by the Zionist entity in the region will not remain without retaliation.”

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations. Often the strikes target Iranian-backed armed groups and concentrations of Iranian weapons transferred to Syria.

Tehran has militarily and financially backed Bashar al-Assad’s government since 2011 when the Syrian civil war erupted. It has deployed its own military personnel, the Lebanese Hezbollah and thousands of militias from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to provide the manpower Assad lacked to fight against opponents.

Regarding Amir-Abdollahian’s possible visit to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a Tehran-based analyst close to the regime told ILNA news website that Iran’s renewed ties with Saudi Arabia is a topic of interest to the militant group. Massoud Assadollahi said that Hezbollah needs to coordinate its policies with Tehran amid media reports that the Islamic Republic might “abandon” its allies in the region as a concession to Riyadh. It is important for Hezbollah not to be affected by “psychological warfare,” he underlined.

The Iranian pundit also pointed out that this is a critical time for Hezbollah amid heightened tensions with Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threatsagainst militant Palestinian and Hezbollah leaders.

The Iranian foreign minister’s visit to Beirut would enhance mutual understanding with Hezbollah in face-to-face discussions, he argued, and added that when Amir-Abdollahian travelled to Saudi Arabia earlier in August, an Iranian foreign ministry official also visited the Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

Assadollahi also linked the foreign minister’s trip to Syria to his earlier travel to Saudi Arabia. “After some time elapsed from Amir-Abdollahian’s trip to Saudi Arabia, he travelled to Syria to inform the leaders of that country about the latest developments…” including the release of Iran’s frozen funds by the United States.

Princeton University faculty member Hossein Mousavian, who made headlines last year for bragging about the regime’s revenge against American officials over the targeted killing of IRGC's Quds Commander Qasem Soleimani, delivered a speech at the US Strategic Command’s Deterrence Symposium earlier in August. The US and EU-designated Soleimani coordinated Iran's proxy militant groups throughout the region to attack Israeli and US interests.

The Pro-Tehran pundit served as a key figure in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the international community until 2005 and currently is a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton. Oddly enough, he used to be the editor-in-chief of the regime-affiliated daily Tehran Times, which recently published a “sensitive” US government memo purportedly sent to US Iran envoy Robert Malley informing him of his security access suspension.

Mousavian’s appearance at the mid-August high-level event, which came to light on Monday, drew criticism from former US officials and Iran analysts as well as Iranian dissidents, who questioned why America’s premier military outfit would host someone who maintains close ties to the Islamic Republic and has even indirectly lauded the regime’s efforts to assassinate American leaders.

In January 2022, his remarks in a documentary made in Iran to mark Qassem Soleimani’s second death anniversary led to controversy when he gloated about how Iran’s threat to avenge Soleimani killing frightened the wife of Brian Hook, Washington’s special envoy for Iran at the time. “An American told me that Brian Hook’s wife had not slept for several days and that she was shaking and crying. That’s how afraid they were” Mousavian said gleefully in the documentary.

Reacting to Mousavian’s presence at the event, Omri Ceren -- a journalist and the national security advisor for US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) -- pointed out that there are many US officials sympathetic to the Iranian regime.

"Mousavian helped lead the murderous Iranian regime’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons so it could threaten the United States and our allies with annihilation," said Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "Now he’s in semi-retirement at Princeton as a full-time propagandist for the IRGC. Inviting him to spread lies at a US military seminar is insanity."

The former regime official started his speech at STRATCOM’s Deterrence Symposium 2023 noting that he was arrested in 2007 in Iran over charges of espionage for the US and was banned to hold any diplomatic post. However, former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, one of the main architects of the 2015 nuclear deal, described him as an official committed to the regime who "continues to work hard" for Tehran’s interests while working at Princeton.

Mousavian, who traveled to Iran to attend Soleimani's funeral, was Tehran’s ambassador to Germany when four Iranian dissidents were assassinated at Berlin's Mykonos restaurant in 1992. In December 2021, an American academic who was imprisoned in Iran for 1,216 days, said Mousavian is sympathetic to the Iranian regime, claiming that he stymied efforts to free him from prison.

Gabriel Noronha, a former Iran adviser at the State Department, told the Washington Free Beacon, "The decision to invite former Iranian ambassador Mousavian to speak to STRATCOM is unimaginably foolish.

He is a pawn and propaganda agent of the Iranian regime, Noronha added. "Congress should investigate the decision-making process that led to this entirely inappropriate speaking invitation."

Alireza Nader, a US-based Iran scholar, said it is "outrageous and dangerous that US STRATCOM invited a former regime official connected to the assassination of Iranian dissidents to be a speaker at its symposium, providing him access to America’s most senior military officials."

During his remarks at the STRATCOM event, Mousavian thanked Gen. Anthony Cotton – the commander of the US Strategic Command -- for inviting him to the event and said he would present an "Iranian perspective" on the current threat landscape within the Middle East. The United States must "rewrite their policy in the Middle East," he added.

He went on to criticize what he called American acts of aggression towards Iran, highlighting former President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal. What he said was somehow the repetition of his views summarized in an article he penned for the Middle East Eye in 2020: Biden needs to revive the JCPOA, remove Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from the US terror list, and lift the sanctions against regime’s senior officials.

Describing him as “an agent of the Iranian regime,” Advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) called on Princeton last year “to dismiss him from any association or affiliation with the university without delay”, noting that “Mousavian’s affiliation with Princeton is a stain on the university’s reputation and credibility”.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down all 28 incoming missiles and 15 of the 16 drones in the overnight attack, which also targeted the Black Sea region of Odesa, said General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's armed forces.

Russia uses long-range Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones to attack Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets. The drones are also used in concert with missiles to confuse and exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses.

The United States and its European allies have imposed sanctions on individuals and entities involved in Iran’s drone production and transfer of hundreds of the weapons to Russia. They have also repeatedly warned Tehran not to expand its military cooperation with Moscow.

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Russia has conducted regular, but smaller, air strikes on Kyiv this summer, and hit the capital with large-scale aerial attacks in May.

The latest attack began with drones heading towards Kyiv from different directions and was followed by a salvo of missiles launched by Tu-95 strategic bombers.

It was not immediately clear what had been hit by the single drone that was not shot down.

"Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring. The enemy launched a massive, combined attack using drones and missiles," Serhiy Popko, the head of the city's military administration said on Telegram.

The bodies of two people were found in a non-residential building, mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.