May
3, 2023
Tehran,
Iran – Iran has seized an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz in what is the
second such incident in the region in a week, as tension with the United States
continues.
The
Middle East-based US 5th Fleet and Iranian media confirmed on Wednesday that
the naval force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stopped a
tanker in the busy waterway.
A
video released by the 5th Fleet appeared to show about a dozen fast-attack IRGC
vessels approaching a tanker that was identified as the Panama-flagged Niovi.
The US said the tanker was forced to reverse course into Iranian territorial
waters during the “unlawful seizure”.
Iran’s
state-run IRNA news agency confirmed that the vessel had been seized by the
IRGC, but did not add further details.
The
Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported that the Tehran prosecutor has
said the seizure was the result of a judicial order, following a complaint by a
plaintiff.
The
IRGC did not immediately confirm the name of the vessel or why it was stopped.
A
few days before, the naval force of the Iranian army seized another oil tanker
in the Gulf of Oman last Thursday in what the 5th Fleet branded a violation of
international law and a “threat to maritime security and global economy”.
Iran,
however, said the Turkish-operated, Chinese-owned tanker named Advantage Sweet,
which was bound for Houston, Texas carrying Kuwaiti crude oil for US energy
firm Chevron Corp, had collided with an Iranian vessel, leaving several crewmen
missing and injured.
Iran
had also said the Advantage Sweet, which had about two dozen Indian crew
members, had moved through the Strait of Hormuz and fled the scene despite
repeated warnings.
However,
Western media reported that the seizure of the vessel had come as a response to
the confiscation of an oil tanker by the US days earlier in an effort to
enforce its unilateral sanctions on Tehran.
Tehran
and Washington have engaged in such tit-for-tat moves before, with the US
trying to confiscate a cargo of Iranian oil near Greece last year, prompting
Iran to seize two Greek tankers and hold them for months. The supreme court in
Greece ultimately ordered the cargo returned to Iran, and the Greek vessels
were also released.
The
US has imposed its harshest-ever sanctions on Iran since 2018, when it
unilaterally abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that put curbs on
Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions.
The
seizure on Wednesday came as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in
Damascus for a two-day trip and met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in what
Tehran hailed as a “strategic victory” in the region amid US political
failures.
Alireza Akbari: The Iranian defense official who provided the
West with nuclear intel
May
2, 2023
Iran
in January executed a British-Iranian national who once served as its deputy
defense minister, its judiciary said, defying calls from London and Washington
for his release after he was handed the death sentence on charges of spying for
Britain.
Britain,
which had declared the case against Alireza Akbari politically motivated,
condemned the execution, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling it "a
callous and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime."
According
to a May 1 report from the New York Times, Akbari provided Western powers with
critical intelligence proving that Iran was pursuing nuclear weaponry. The
Times' report posited, based on interviews with American, British, German,
Israeli and Iranian intelligence and security officials, that Akbari's
contribution to intelligence over the course of several years directly led to
the sanctions imposed on Iran's nuclear program today.
Akbrai,
per the Times, lived a "double life" for 15 years, from 2004 until
2019 when Iran discovered his activities with the help of Russian intelligence
officials.
The
assassination of Mohnsen Fakhrizadeh
Aside
from handing over nuclear secrets, Akbari also disclosed the identity and
activities of over 100 officials, most significantly Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the
chief nuclear scientist whom Israel reportedly assassinated in 2020.
Fakhrizadeh
was widely seen by Western intelligence as the mastermind of clandestine
Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
Documents
revealed by Israel in 2018 showed that Fakhrizadeh led Project Amad, Iran's
secret nuclear program which the country denied existed when it entered the
JCPOA nuclear deal in 2015. Then prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that
Fakhrizadeh continued work on nuclear weapons in the SPND, an organization
inside Iran's Defense Ministry.
Akbari's
illustrious spy career
According
to the recent Times report, in 2004, amid growing suspicions in Israel and the
West that Iran was secretly developing a nuclear weapons program, Akbari
convinced key embassies in Tehran that it was not, while meeting regularly with
the ambassadors of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
He
was recruited by Britain later in 2004 and Iran has claimed that MI6 paid
Akbari nearly $2.4 million. He created front businesses in Austria, Spain and
Britain to provide cover for meetings with his handlers, according to the
Times. He officially retired from his position in 2008 but continued to serve
as an adviser to Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali
Shamkhani as well as British Foreign Ministry officials. He was reportedly the
source of the 2008 Fordo leak, when Western powers became aware of Iran's
secret nuclear enrichment plant in Fordo, Iran.
“The
discovery of Fordo radically altered the attitude of the international
community toward Iran,” Norman Roule, the former national intelligence manager
for Iran at the CIA told the Times. He added that it helped the West convince
China and Russia that Iran had been dishonest about its nuclear capabilities
and drove the push for more sanctions.
Over
the years, Akbari traveled back and forth between London and Tehran, eventually
obtaining British citizenship and bringing his wife and daughters to London
with him.
He
was arrested in 2019 after returning to Tehran and finding out from Samkhani
that Iranian authorities had heard tell of his dealings with MI6. He was
eventually imprisoned, during which time he was required to maintain a
connection with his British contacts to deliberately mislead them, according to
the Times' report. His arrest was kept secret for the duration of his
imprisonment.
After
three years of detainment, amid widespread anti-government protests, Iran
announced that Akbari was a spy and executed him shortly thereafter.
“We
could have never imagined this, and I don’t understand the politics behind it,”
said Akbari’s wife, Maryam Samadi told the Times.
Reuters
and Tzvi Joffre contributed to this report.
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