Radiofarda – The U.S. Special Representative for Iran on January 2 told the BBC Radio 4’s Today Program that in “an act of desperation” Iran organized the demonstration in front of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad this week. “The Iranian regime organized these protesters, I think, in an act of desperation to try to drive a wedge between the United …

Radiofarda – Speaking at the 18th Congress of Mardomsalari Party on December 2, an influential reformist politician said members of the Iran’s Expediency Council are under immense pressure to reject the bills that will allow Iran to join UN anti-money laundering conventions. Ansari claimed that powerful circles which oppose joining, presumably the Revolutionary Guards whose international financial dealings will have …

Radiofarda – Israeli leaders consider U.S strikes on Iran-backed Iraqi militia as a “potential turning point” in the campaign against Tehran which they had claimed earlier they were fighting “alone”. Speaking at a conference hosted by the Calcalist financial newspaper Israeli Air Force chief Major General Amikam Norkin said the current situation in the region due to the threats posed …

Al-Arabia – The Pentagon warned Thursday that the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah group that stormed the US embassy in Baghdad would carry out more attacks on US facilities – and would regret it. “The provocative behavior has been out there for months… So do I think they may do something? Yes. And they will likely regret it,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper …

Iran-HRM – An Iranian court on Sunday sentenced a Kurd political prisoner to death. Houshmand Alipour was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court of Sanandaj, capital of the Kurdistan Province in western Iran. Houshmand Alipour and Mohammad Ostadghader, both from Iran’s Kurdish minority, were arrested on August 3, 2018, on suspicion of taking part in an armed attack against …

Iran-HRM – Iran social media users in the past few weeks have shared shocking news on suspicious deaths of individuals who were arrested or reported missing during the November protests and found later dead. Reports also indicate that some of the prisoners have already died under torture and others have been forcefully “disappeared” by the regime. In a recent case, …

Iran-HRM – Prison authorities have blocked political prisoner Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee from contact with her jailed husband, Arash Sadeghi. Political prisoner Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, currently detained in Qarchak Prison in Varamin, is denied to visit and call her husband, Arash Sadeghi, also a political prisoner in Raja’i Shahr Prison in Karaj.Iraee, who had been serving a six-year prison sentence since …

RFL/RE – Iranian military leaders have warned Washington against threatening military action after U.S. President Donald Trump said Tehran would be held responsible for anti-U.S. protests in Iraq. “We are not leading the country to war, but we are not afraid of any war and we tell America to speak correctly with the Iranian nation,” Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the …

VOA – An Iraqi activist was shot dead overnight in Baghdad, a police source told AFP on Thursday, as anti-government rallies carried on despite a separate day-long siege of the U.S. embassy. The activist, Saadoun al-Luhaybi, was shot in the head in a southwestern neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, the police source said. He had been taking part in youth-led …

VOA – An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 shook northeastern Iran Thursday, but there was little damage and no casualties, state television reported. The quake was centered on an area near Sangan, a town of about 10,000 people near the border with Afghanistan, at a shallow depth of 8 km (5 miles). “Our near-final report is that about 14 villages have …