Category: Iran

Iranian Regime Acknowledges ‘Tens of Thousands’ Detained in Protests

Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday reportedly ordered an amnesty or reduction in prison sentences for “tens of thousands” of people detained amid nationwide anti-government protests shaking the country, acknowledging for the first time the scale of the rebellion. The decree by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, part of a yearly pardoning the supreme leader does before the…


Microsoft: Iran Unit Behind Charlie Hebdo Hack-and-Leak Op

After the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo launched a cartoon contest to mock Iran’s ruling cleric, a state-backed Iranian cyber unit struck back with a hack-and-leak campaign that was designed to provoke fear with the claimed pilfering of a big subscriber database, Microsoft security researchers say. The FBI blames the same Iranian cyber operators, Emennet…


Iran Blames Israel for Isfahan Drone Strike, Claims ‘Legitimate Right’ to Respond

Tehran has officially blamed Israel for a drone strike last week that damaged a military facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan. “Preliminary investigations suggest that the Israeli regime was responsible for this attempted act of aggression,” Saeed Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Feb. 2. In a statement delivered to the…


US, France Intercept Thousands of Assault Rifles, Anti-Tank Missiles From Iran

The U.S. Navy helped French naval forces intercept and seize thousands of assault rifles and half a million rounds of ammunition coming from Iran and heading to Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, officials said on Feb. 1. In a statement, the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said the seizure occurred on Jan. 15 in the Gulf of Oman along routes “historically…


UK Conservative MP Calls Belgian Offer to Swap Iranian Terrorist ‘Shocking Development’

LONDON—A British MP who escaped death when an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, was intercepted before he could bomb a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Paris in 2018 has described it as “worrying” that Belgium was considering swapping Assadi for a Belgian citizen in an Iranian jail. Earlier this month…


Iran Says It Thwarted Drone Attack on Military Site

Bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan overnight, causing some damage at the plant, Iran’s leadership said early Sunday. The Iranian Defense Ministry offered no information on who it suspected carried out the attack. Details on the Isfahan attack, which happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, remained scarce. A Defense…


Strong Earthquake Strikes Turkey-Iran Border

DUBAI—An earthquake with a magnitude of up to 5.9 struck the Turkey-Iran border region on Saturday, destroying houses in a main provincial city in Iran, Iranian media and the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) reported. “The amount of destruction of some houses and buildings in the city of Khoy city is relatively high,” Iranian emergency…


Azerbaijan Strongly Protests to Iran After Fatal Embassy Shooting

BAKU—A gunman shot dead a security guard and wounded two other people at Azerbaijan’s embassy in Iran on Friday, in an attack Baku branded an “act of terrorism” that it said was the result of Tehran failing to heed its calls for improved security. Police in Tehran said they had arrested a suspect and Iranian…


Iran Sanctions Europeans Over Criticism of Protest Crackdown

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Iran on Wednesday announced sanctions targeting more than 30 European individuals and entities, portraying the move as a response to recent European sanctions against officials linked to a crackdown on nationwide protests. Those targeted with sanctions include Britain’s attorney general and army chief of staff, several European parliamentarians, and European military officials….


Iran Grapples With Winter Gas Shortages Despite Having World’s Second Largest Gas Reserves

For the past month, Iranian officials have been struggling with gas shortages and outages in the north and other parts of the country, where demand for energy is at high records due to unusually cold weather. Iran, which has the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves, is struggling to meet domestic demand, especially in winter months…