Iran says 28 Daesh members held over bomb plot timed with anniversary of Mahsa Amini protests

Iran's police forces walk on a street in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2023. (REUTERS)
Iran's police forces walk on a street in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2023. (REUTERS)
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Updated 25 September 2023
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Iran says 28 Daesh members held over bomb plot timed with anniversary of Mahsa Amini protests

Iran's police forces walk on a street in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2023. (REUTERS)
  • Iran's intelligence ministry says 30 bombs meant to explode simultaneously were defused 
  • The explosions in Tehran were timed during the anniversary of last year’s Mahsa Amini protests

TEHRAN: Iranian authorities have arrested 28 people linked to the Daesh group for plotting to target Tehran during the anniversary of last year’s protests, the intelligence ministry said on Sunday.

The protests erupted after the death in custody on September 16, 2022, of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd arrested for allegedly flouting the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

“In recent days, during a series of simultaneous operations in Tehran, Alborz and West Azerbaijan provinces, several terrorist bases and team houses were attacked, and 28 members of the said terrorist network were arrested,” the ministry said on its website.

“These elements are affiliated to the professional crime group of Daesh (Daesh group) and some of them have a history of accompanying takfiris in Syria or being active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Kurdistan region of Iraq,” it added.

In Shiite-dominated Iran, the term “takfiri” generally refers to jihadists or proponents of radical Sunni Islam.

The intelligence ministry said two security personnel were wounded during the arrest operations, and a number of bombs, firearms, suicide vests and communications devices were seized.

It said it had neutralized a plot to “carry out 30 simultaneous terrorist explosions in densely populated centers of Tehran to undermine security and incite riots and protests on the anniversary of last year’s riots.”

The months-long demonstrations saw hundreds of people killed, including dozens of security personnel, in what Tehran called “riots” fomented by foreign governments and “hostile media.”

On Thursday, a court sentenced to death a Tajik Daesh member convicted over a deadly gun attack on a Shiite Muslim shrine last month.

The attack on the Shah Cheragh mausoleum in Shiraz, capital of Fars province in the south, came less than a year after a mass shooting at the same site that was later claimed by the Daesh group.
 


Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
Updated 23 sec ago
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Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
NAHARIYA, Israel: In the seaside haven of Nahariya, the shock still lingers on Daniel Bussidan’s face. A recent rocket attack killed his friend’s father, and now this Israeli beach town, the closest to Lebanon, stands on edge.
“I’m scared from the attack,” said the 26-year-old who works in his father’s pastry shop on the Mediterranean resort’s eucalyptus-lined main street.
His friend’s father was killed when a rocket struck his farm while he was working, Bussidan told AFP.
“He died on the spot,” Bussidan said.
In peacetime, visitors flock to the town to enjoy its pleasant climate and good surfing.
But for over two months, residents have been living under the threat of near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed Shiite group says it entered the fray in support of Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian militants launched their attack in Israel which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Aiming to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a military offensive that the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza says has killed 17,490 people, mostly women and children, and left the Palestinian territory in ruins.
In northern Israel, residents fear a wider conflict emerging along the border with Lebanon, which snakes along a hill in the distance from Nahariya.
More than 120 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border since October 7, mostly Hezbollah fighters and more than a dozen civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says six of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed in the area, and Lebanon lost its first soldier in the exchanges on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah that if it “chooses to start a global war, then it will turn Beirut and South Lebanon... into Gaza and Khan Yunis with its own hands.”
Business has slumped along the Nahariya seafront, and many more rifles have appeared, slung over people’s shoulders.
Resident Nathalie Betito, 44, believes Hezbollah fighters could infiltrate the border. But she made a point of celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, with around 100 people at the central synagogue this week.
She and her husband Arie, 47, immigrated from France five years ago. Nahariya represents an attractive destination, with special tax breaks due to its exposed position.
Arie, who now helps new arrivals at the town hall, said residents were nonetheless living in peril.
Hezbollah has thousands of “missiles pointed at us,” he said, stressing that he did not believe in escalating the conflict into a “total” war.
“The price to pay would be huge,” he said. “Neither side wants that.”
But people in Nahariya are preparing for the worst. Efi Dayan, 60, said he “knows there’s going to be a war here.”
“We’re getting ready with food, clothes. We’re waiting for it,” he said calmly under the winter sun.
But the military job in Gaza needs to be completed first, said Bussidan, a former soldier himself.
“We have to finish Hamas and take care of all civilians on both sides,” he said.

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
Updated 09 December 2023
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New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
  • New crossing will allow trucks from Jordan into Gaza

CAIRO: A new process for inspecting aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing is being tested, but efforts to get permission for trucks to enter through the crossing and ramp up relief are still ongoing, a senior UN official told Reuters on Saturday.
Under the new system, trucks would come to the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt for the first time from Jordan, before entering Gaza from Rafah, about 3 km (1.86 miles) away.
But the trucks would need to be allowed to enter Gaza directly through Kerem Shalom to alleviate an increasingly desperate situation in the coastal enclave, said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Programme.
Israel has so far rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and others to open Kerem Shalom, but they both signalled on Thursday that Kerem Shalom could soon help process delivery of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Until now, limited quantities of aid have been delivered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which is ill-equipped to process large numbers of trucks.
Trucks have been driving more than 40 km (24.85 miles) south to Egypt’s border with Israel before returning to Rafah, leading to bottlenecks and delays.
A process to test the inspection system at Kerem Shalom for trucks arriving from Jordan is underway, said Skau, who visited Gaza on Friday.
“It’s good, it’s useful because it would also be the first time that we can then bring in a pipeline from Jordan. But we need that entry point as well because that would make all the difference,” he said in an interview.
“If you get that open, then it’s just a matter of how much is available and how much can be absorbed on the other side in an orderly fashion, but then certainly that capacity would not be the issue,” he added.
“We have front-loaded with our internal resources so that we have food available in Egypt and in Jordan to reach some 1,000,000 people in one month. We are ready to roll. The trucks are ready to move.”
Skau said the situation inside Gaza was increasingly chaotic as people grabbed what they could from aid distribution points, with larger numbers of people displaced southwards close to the border with Egypt and aid trucks at risk of being stopped by desperate residents if they even slow down at an intersection.
“There is a question for how long this can continue, because the humanitarian operation is collapsing,” he said.
“Half of the population are starving, nine out of 10 are not eating every day. Obviously the needs are massive.”


US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas

US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas
Updated 09 December 2023
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US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas

US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas
  • Abbas said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers

Ramallah/Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Saturday that the United States was “responsible for the bloodshed” of children in the Gaza Strip after it vetoed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian territory at a special meeting of the UN Security Council.
“The president has described the American position as aggressive and immoral, a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles and values, and holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip,” said a statement from Abbas’s office.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and an international peace conference to work out a lasting political solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Ramallah, Abbas, 87, said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers.
Besides Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, he said Israeli forces have intensified their attacks everywhere in the occupied West Bank over the past year with settlers escalating violence against Palestinian towns.
He reiterated his longstanding position in favor of negotiation rather than armed resistance to end the longstanding occupation.
“I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said.
Abbas was speaking as Israel increased its strikes on Gaza. In two months of warfare, it has killed more than 17,000 people, wounded 46,000 and forced the displacement of around 1.9 million people, over half of them now sheltering in areas in central Gaza or close to the Egyptian border.
A senior US official said the idea of an international conference had been discussed among different partners but the proposal was still at a very preliminary stage.
“It’s one of many options on the table that we and others would consider with an open mind, but no decision has been made about that,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Israel launched its campaign to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules Gaza after Hamas fighters went on a rampage through Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Abbas said that based on a binding international agreement, he would revive the weakened Palestinian Authority, implement long-awaited reforms and hold presidential and parliamentary elections, which were suspended after Hamas won in 2006 and later pushed the PA out of Gaza.
He said the PA had abided by all the peace deals signed with Israel since the 1993 Oslo Accord and the understandings that followed over the years but that Israel had reneged on its pledges to end the occupation.

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS
Asked whether he would risk holding elections given the possibility that Hamas could win as it did in 2006, he said: “Whoever wins wins, these will be democratic elections.”
Abbas said he had planned to hold elections in April 2021 but the European Union envoy told him before the due date that Israel was objecting to voting in East Jerusalem so he was forced to call it off.
He insisted that there would not be elections without East Jerusalem, saying the PA held three rounds of elections in the past that included East Jerusalem before Israel imposed the ban.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed it, declaring the whole of the city as its capital, a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Abbas did not give a concrete vision of a post-war plan discussed with US officials under which the PA would take over control of the strip, home for 2.3 million people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not accept rule over Gaza by the Palestinian Authority as it stands.
“The United States tells us that it supports a two-state solution, that Israel is not allowed to occupy Gaza, to keep security control of Gaza or to expropriate land from Gaza,” he said in reference to a plan floated by Israel to establish a security zone in Gaza after the war.
“America doesn’t force Israel to implement what it says.”
He said the PA was still present in Gaza as an institution and still pays monthly salaries and expenses estimated at $140 million for employees, pensioners and for needy families. The PA still has three ministers present in Gaza, he added.
“We need rehabilitation, we need big support to return to Gaza,” Abbas said.
“Gaza today is not the Gaza that you know. Gaza was destroyed, its hospitals, its schools, its infrastructure, its buildings, its roads and mosques were destroyed. There is nothing left. When we return we need resources, Gaza needs reconstruction.”
“The United States which fully supports Israel bears the responsibility of what is happening in the enclave,” Abbas said.
“It is the only power that is capable of ordering Israel to stop the war and fulfil its obligations, but unfortunately it doesn’t. America is an accomplice of Israel.”


Mahsa Amini’s family blocked from leaving Iran for EU rights prize

Mahsa Amini’s family blocked from leaving Iran for EU rights prize
Updated 09 December 2023
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Mahsa Amini’s family blocked from leaving Iran for EU rights prize

Mahsa Amini’s family blocked from leaving Iran for EU rights prize
  • Amini died aged 22 while being held by Iran’s religious police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code

Paris: The family of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody, have been banned from traveling to France to collect a top rights prize awarded posthumously, their lawyer said Saturday.
Amini died aged 22 on September 16, 2022, while being held by Iran’s religious police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.
Her family and supporters say she was killed. Iranian authorities claim she died in custody from a previously undisclosed medical condition.
In October, the European Union awarded its top rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, to her and the global movement her death triggered.
On Saturday her family’s lawyer in France, Chirinne Ardakani, told AFP that Amini’s parents and brother had been “prohibited from boarding the flight that was to take them to France for the presentation of the Sakharov Prize.”
She said the family had been banned from leaving Iran despite having a valid visa, and their passports had been confiscated.
Ardakani said Iranian authorities “have never been so mobilized to prevent the families of the victims from speaking to the international community.”
Mahsa Amini’s death triggered mass protests in Iran.
It also generated a global movement known as “Woman, Life, Freedom,” calling for the end of Iran’s imposition of a headscarf on all women and an end to the Muslim cleric-led government in Tehran.
Iranian security forces have cracked down on the protests domestically, killing hundreds, and have executed dozens for allegedly participating in what officials have called “riots.”
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” campaign continues in cities around the world, with frequent demonstrations in which Amini’s photo is held aloft.
The Sakharov Prize, which comes with a 50,000-euro ($53,000) endowment, was to be handed over in a European Parliament ceremony on December 13.


Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting

Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting
Updated 09 December 2023
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Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting

Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee objects to US veto during Blinken meeting
  • Arab, Islamic foreign ministers renewed unified rejection of Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza during meeting with US counterpart Anthony Blinken

RIYADH: Foreign ministers of Arab and Islamic nations voiced their objection to the US veto that blocked international calls for the UN Security Council to demand ceasefire in Gaza, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

During a meeting with the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the Arab-Islamic Ministerial Committee reiterated calls for the US to assume its responsibilities and take the necessary measures to push Israel towards an immediate ceasefire.

The foreign ministers also renewed their unified rejection of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza, reiterating the necessity to end the hostilities, protect civilians and lift the siege hindering the access of humanitarian aid to the war-stricken enclave.

They voiced their rejection against attempts to displace Palestinians from Gaza, emphasizing on “creating a real political climate that leads to a two-state solution,” according to SPA statement.

Several minsters participated in the meeting, including Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Al-Safadi, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry, Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad Al-Maliki, and Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan.