Radiofarda – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has reiterated that Washington is committed to providing security help for the Persian Gulf Arab countries in the face of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s increasing missile capability. Responding to a question during a briefing for foreign reporters July 9, Pompeo stressed that Washington is working in “more than one way” with …

RFL/RE – There is growing support among outside security experts for the notion that an “incident” at Iran’s main nuclear-enrichment facility last week was an act of sabotage in a shadow war aimed at setting back Tehran’s nuclear activities.Many analysts believe that a foreign state, possibly Israel, was behind the July 2 fire at the Natanz facility in Iran’s central …

Radiofarda – In highly charged comments the Islamic Republic health minister barraged top Iranian officials with criticism on Wednesday, July 8, accusing them of “negligence,” having no economic plan, and “losing control” over the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in the country. The president, intelligence agents, and security forces should “think about people’s livelihoods and how to prevent an “insurrection,” …

Al-Arabia – A United States federal court has ordered Iran to pay $879 million to the survivors of the 1996 terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, where US forces lived, according to a law firm press release. An image of a report on the 1996 Khobar bombing in pan Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat next to an image …

Al-Arabia – An explosion was heard in western Tehran early on June 10, Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB and the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported, citing social media. However, officials denied there was any blast in that part of the Iranian capital. IRIB said power was cut in the area of the city suburbs where the blast allegedly occurred. The report …

RFL/RE – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has defended a U.S. drone strike that killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq early this year, after a UN expert deemed it as “unlawful.” In a statement on July 9, Pompeo rejected the conclusions of Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, as “spurious.” He …

Iran-HRM – A revolutionary court in Tehran has sentenced seven political activists to prison.The verdict was issued by the Branch 29 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court headed by judge Seyyed Ali Mazloum. Farangis Masloumi was sentenced to 6 years, after being charged with “assembly and collusion to commit a crime through contacting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)” and …

VOA – Hundreds of Iranian Kurdish members of a Muslim sect seeking to attend the funeral of their leader in neighboring Iraq have forced their way through a crossing into Iraqi territory, exposing a weakness in Iranian and Iraqi border controls aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. Video clips widely shared on social media showed the Iranian followers …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – At least 123 people were executed in different parts of Iran in the first six months of 2020. One of the executions recorded was carried out in public and another shot by a firing squad in front of a number of civilians in prison. Of the executions, only 36 were announced by local media and officials. …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A prisoner was executed in Mashhad Central Prison for drinking alcohol yesterday. Once again, Iran Human Rights calls on the international community to pay more attention to the human rights abuses, and in particular, the execution of death sentences in Iran. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of IHR said: “with this execution, the Islamic Republic’s judicial system has …