Iranian Court Orders US To Pay $50bn For Soleimani Killing

Iran caught between Israel’s military operation in Gaza that has squeezed Tehran’s ally Hamas and Israeli air strikes in Syria, appears to be trying to defend its reputation and military credibility. Fars wrote that foreign media claim “Israel has been serially attacking Iranian positions in Syria. However, these assertions are far from reality. Israel has no intention or audacity to launch a deliberate attack on Iranian forces." 

Fars’ claim contradicts the history of Israeli attacks on Iran-related targets in Syria that have been routinely taking place since early 2017. Hundreds of attacks have been carried out by Israel targeting weapons depots, forward positions, and Syrian airports that Iran uses to transport its weapons into the country. At least twenty such attacks took place in 12 months from April 2022 to April 2023. According to Israeli sources 100 attacks took place before 2017, and by the end of 2018, the number had already climbed to 200.

Iran became involved in the Syria civil war in 2011 and started to send military personnel to the country. It also deployed Afghan, Iraqi and other militias to fight on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s forces, but its main fighting force was considered to be the Lebanese Hezbollah. However, Iran also began shipping weapons solely for Hezbollah to store in Lebanon for possible use against Israel.

The air attacks often targeted these shipments, whether in warehouses in Syria or en route to Lebanon.

However, Fars dismisses hundreds of Israeli attacks and claims that only a few air strikes took place and Iran so far has had a handful of casualties. Moreover, the IRGC mouthpiece says that these attacks and casualties were errors by Israel, who did not intend to hit Iranian targets.

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"The attacks have mostly occurred either due to the lack of information on the part of the Zionists about the presence of Iranian forces, or are conveyed through intermediaries, such as the Russians, and Iranian forces are martyred solely due to some miscoordination," Fars claimed. 

The latest Israeli attack took place last week, and Iran admitted that two of its high-ranking officers were killed in Syria, vowing retaliation.

While supporting Hamas financially and militarily, Tehran has decided not to become directly involved in the Gaza war to defend its ally, Hamas. This is apparently seen by the IRGC as a potential domestic and regional embarrassment, after decades of threats that it can wipe Israel off the map with its ballistic missiles.

Since the war started on October 7, IRGC generals have been frequently making claims of fielding new weapons systems, and issuing warnings against any power that would dare to challenge them. Meanwhile, the United States sent a naval strike group led by the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower into the Persian Gulf last week with the United Kingdom also dispatching an additional warship.

One way in which IRGC has tried to compensate for its lack of direct action to defend Hamas has been frequent attacks by Iranian proxies against US bases in Iraq and Syria as well as escalating attacks on vessels in the Red Sea by Yemeni Houthi forces. But Tehran has tried to disavow any role in these attacks, insisting that “resistance” forces are acting on their own in defense of Hamas.

After the killing of Amir-Reza Aghaei last Thursday, public demonstrations took place on Friday, as residents of Meybod urged the government to deport Afghan immigrants who have no legal status. Of the 90,000 population in Meybod, around 12,000 are believed to be Afghans.

Two teenagers were stabbed on Thursday and subsequently rushed to hospital. One succumbed to his injuries, and the other, Amirhossein Rahimi, was transferred to a hospital in Yazd for urgent surgery where his condition remains critical.

Speaking to Etemad, Amir-Reza's uncle demanded the harshest punishment for the attackers. ChamaranBaharloui, the prosecutor of Meybod, announced that two suspects have been identified and arrested in connection with the murder case.

The incident adds fuel to the ongoing debate surrounding the Afghan population in Iran, estimated to have possibly reached ten million since the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021.

The rapid growth of the Afghan population has sparked controversy, with some media and politicians suggesting that authorities are encouraging the growth, citing concerns about potential threats to national security.

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy told Iran International that the focus of the military offensive is “fighting the terror monsters who perpetrated the October 7 massacre,” not expanding into a regional conflict. 

He stressed that in spite of heightening tensions on its northern border with Lebanon, Israel is not interested in fighting a war on two fronts, he added that they have “put up serious deterrence against Hezbollah in the north with a massive buildup of reserves.” 

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He emphasized that Lebanon’s Hezbollah “will be making the mistake of a lifetime” if it enters war as the consequences will be severe for both the Iran-backed militant group and the poverty-stricken state of Lebanon. 

Levy also addressed the rising tensions in the West Bank. “Hamas launched the massacre with a grand vision... to spark a regional conflict,” he said, Hamas “calling on Palestinians in the West Bank to grab guns and knives and join the fighting."  

Palestinian sources claim about 240 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas operation while over 550 terror attacks have been launched by Palestinians, according to the IDF, many waged by Hamas.

Iran claims it did not play any role in the Hamas attacks of October 7 terror attack that triggered the current crisis, in spite of its having supported the militants financially and militarily for years, along with many others around the region from Iraq to Yemen.

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The war, which followed the Hamas invasion on October 7 when thousands of militia killed at least 1,200 mostly civilians and took an additional 240 hostage, has also seen over 15,000 killed in retaliatory attacks in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands displaced. Israel pounded the enclave to uproot the Islamist group, which has made the war exceedingly bloody, hiding deep among the civilian population and in a vast underground tunnel network stretching around 500kms. 

Israeli forces have begun operating in the southern area of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, where the population has been swollen by around one million refugees from northern areas and has faced heavy international pressure, including from Washington, to limit civilian casualties.

"We are going to continue with our campaign to destroy Hamas, a campaign that the United States sees eye to eye with us about the strategic objectives of this war, that this war cannot end with Hamas still standing," Levy said. 

"We're moving ahead with the second stage now. A second stage that is going to be difficult militarily," noting that "We didn't pick the battlefield, Hamas picked the battlefield." 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced the planned visits of the Russian president on Tuesday, adding that the agenda for Ebrahim Raisi's Moscow visit is not finalized yet but discussions will likely include the Gaza war. 

Although not very frequently held, Raisi’s meeting with Putin is not unexpected as Tehran and Moscow are partners in crime, particularly since Iran is supplying Russia with drones and missiles for the invasion of Ukraine. 

Putin’s outreach to the Arab states of the Persian Gulf aligns with his broader strategy to foster global alliances outside the Western sphere, aimed at projecting the failure of US and its allies’ attempts to isolate Russia through sanctions. Aligning with the two most powerful Persian Gulf states helps give Putin a degree of credibility more than the allegiance with Iran, as the world views Russia, like Iran, as a rogue state.

The visit comes after OPEC+ agreed to voluntary supply cuts totaling about 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd), including an extension of existing Saudi and Russian voluntary cuts of 1.3 million bpd. Russia cooperates with all three countries in the OPEC+ group of oil producers, which last week announced new voluntary production cuts that were greeted skeptically by the oil market because of doubts as to whether they would be fully implemented. 

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The visits by Putin and Raisi come as Russia is also hosting the littoral countries of the Caspian Sea, in a cooperation framework that Moscow says strengthens security in Eurasia. “The joint work of the Caspian countries makes a significant contribution to ensuring security, stability and sustainable development on the Eurasian continent,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a meeting with his Azerbaijani, Iranian, Kazakh and Turkmen counterparts in Moscow on Tuesday. 

Lavrov proposed the creation of “the Caspian Council -- a forum for cooperation and dialogue without any bureaucratic schemes,” emphasizing the need for enhanced international legal foundations and cooperation among Caspian countries. He expressed hope for further collaboration based on the outcomes of the upcoming Third Caspian Economic Forum in Tehran. 

The Russian foreign minister also highlighted that deepening practical cooperation across the region is also significant in a broader sense, namely in the context of the formation of a multipolar world order. Last month, hundreds of military leaders, lawmakers, diplomats and scholars convened in Canada’s 2023 Halifax International Security Forum to discuss the alignment of Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea as a substantial threat to the established world order. 

Leaders of these countries, including Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei, have repeatedly talked of a new global order not based on Western values.

It is a rare foreign visit for Putin who now has an ICC arrest warrant on his head for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. While it may limit his travels to most of the world, there remain some who still welcome him. 

The Houthis are one of several Iran-backed militant groups in the Middle East. They have been effectively in a state of war with Saudi Arabia since 2015 and have claimed support for Palestinians since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7.

The British government has attributed the drone and missile attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea to Iran, but Nasser Kanaani, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday "As we have clearly stated before, resistance groups are not taking orders from Tehran to confront the war crimes and genocide committed by Israel."

The United States, on the other hand, has also placed blame on Iran for a series of attacks in Middle Eastern waters by Houthis. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, asserted in a Monday briefing with reporters that there is "every reason to believe that the attacks, while launched by the Houthis in Yemen, are fully enabled by Iran."

Recently, the Houthis confirmed launching drone and missile attacks on what they claimed were two Israeli vessels, Unity Explorer and Number 9. The attacks, according to the Houthis, were carried out "in response to the Yemeni people's demand and Muslim states' calls to stand with the Palestinian people."