Iranwire – The mother of a young man killed in Iran’s 2009 pro-democracy protests has gone public about a recent raid on her home by as-yet unidentified security forces. Shahnaz Akmali, whose son Mostafa Karimbeigi was shot dead on the streets of Tehran on December 27 that year, said in a short video message that four male officers and one …

Iranwire – Thirteen years ago, a 24-year-old man appeared on Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s Glass Triangle program alongside his father and talked about his work as a “freelance” professional. The young man in question was Hossein Shamkhani: his father, the Iranian military general, ex-IRGC naval commander and sitting secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani. In the same interview, …

Iranwire – A little over a month ago, Mohsen Rezaei, Iran’s current Vice President of Economic Affairs and one of several officials accused of having orchestrated the 1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina in 1994, walked with his head held high as part of a delegation to Nicaragua. Rezaei was attending the swearing-in of the Sandinista dictator Daniel Ortega, and did so while subject …

RFL/RE – Iran’s Foreign Ministry said talks in Vienna on reviving Tehran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers have made “significant progress,” although there are still unresolved issues. Under the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tehran agreed to curb sensitive nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Former President Donald Trump pulled the United …

Al-Monitor — The rented home where the now-defunct Iraqi Islamic State (IS) leader known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi was either blown up or blew himself up during a Feb. 3 US Special Forces raid in Syria seemed one for a family of very modest means, judging by photos later released. IS, however, still has significant financial assets to draw on, as …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, on a trip to Qatar, said on Monday the United States should prove its will to lift sanctions in indirect talks to salvage a 2015 nuclear pact. Raisi’s trip to Doha comes amid progress in Vienna toward reviving the deal between Iran and world powers, that Washington quit in 2018, in talks being closely …

Iranwire – President Ebrahim Raisi and cabinet have appointed Mohammad Hassan Nami as the new head of Iran’s Crisis Management Organization. A Brigadier General and former senior advisor to the Iranian military, Nami will replace Esmail Najjar, who has led the organization since March 2014.   Nami briefly served as Minister of Communications under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2013. He has …

Iranwire – The Iranian Ministry of Health reports that 16,967 more people tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, February 2022 while 242 were known to have died: a 30 percent rise on the previous day, and likely a fraction of the total due to low testing capabilities in Iran. For the time being the Iranian government still holds that the …

timesofisrael – Foreign Minister Yair Lapid indicated on Monday that the Biden administration may be open to delisting the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, and called on international actors to convince the White House to reject this Iranian demand. “Everyone in his right mind should talk to the administration about this and tell them, ‘This is just …

VOA — An Iranian fighter jet crashed Monday in a residential area of the northwestern city of Tabriz killing three people, including two crew, state television reported. The head of the local Red Crescent organization said the plane smashed into a school and that one of the dead was a resident of the neighborhood. Local official Mohammad-Bagher Honarvar told state …