February 1, 2023
Iran said a foreign security service and Kurdish groups were behind a drone attack on an Iranian ammunition depot last weekend which has escalated tensions in the energy-rich Persian Gulf.
Iran didn’t identify which country the security service belonged to, but has blamed regional enemy Israel for similar attacks in the past. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Israel was responsible for the strike near the central city of Isfahan, citing unidentified US officials and people familiar with the operation.
The equipment and explosives were brought into Iran with the help of “Kurdish anti-revolutionary groups” in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan under orders by the foreign security service, Iran’s state-run Nour News reported.
Iran Says Iraqi Kurdish Groups Helped Plot Drone Attack on Isfahan
If confirmed as an Israeli operation, it would mark the first military attack conducted by Israel inside Iran since newly installed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last held office in 2021.
Gulf nations had been expecting an Israeli attack on Iran and see the strike as the start of renewed efforts to rein in the country’s nuclear and military ambitions, according to three people with knowledge of the issue from the region and a senior European diplomat in contact with Gulf governments.
The United Arab Emirates, which also has concerns about Iran and has ties with Israel that it established in 2020, is worried about the risks to stability of the Israeli actions, said the European diplomat and a fifth person in the region who’s familiar with the matter.
“These are pre-emptive efforts to deny Iran any advanced military capabilities,” said Riad Kahwagi, founder and CEO of INEGMA, a Dubai-based defense research group. “We should expect more.”
Iran has said three unmanned “suicide drones” targeted the Defense Ministry complex on Saturday. In the past Iran has retaliated for attacks by seizing ships in the region’s narrow shipping lane. Pointing the finger at Kurdish groups without naming the foreign country involved in the attack, though, may limit the response this time.
Iran has previously accused Kurdish groups in Iraq of instigating anti-government protests over the death of a Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody in Tehran in September.
Since the start of the unrest, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched several drone and missile attacks on what it calls “separatist terrorists” in northern Iraq. It’s framed these operations as retaliation for the protests or other attacks inside the country.
Israel has shifted its strategic doctrine from fighting Iran-backed groups like Hezbollah and Hamas on its own border to taking the fight directly to Tehran, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at an event in New York on Wednesday.
Israel has the means and will to stop an Iranian nuclear bomb militarily, he said.
Israeli officials have declined to comment and the Pentagon denied US involvement. The State Department declined to comment on whether the US had prior knowledge of the strikes.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Netanyahu said Monday that their countries are in agreement Iran must not have nuclear weapons and said they were working together to counter Tehran’s influence in the region.
The Iran attack comes after warnings from the United States about Tehran’s military support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine as well as aid in the opposite direction.
In December, Washington said Russia was providing “unprecedented” military backing to Iran, possibly including air defense systems, warplanes and attack helicopters, in return for Iranian supplies of drones for the Kremlin’s invasion. An Iranian lawmaker last month said Tehran expects a delivery of Su-35 fighter jets from Russia by mid-March.
Saturday’s attack may have targeted a ballistic-missile factory, said Major General Amos Yadlin, former head of Israeli military intelligence. “This is not deciding a war with Iran, it’s another operation in a huge and long campaign to reduce the capabilities of Iran, military and nuclear, without escalating to full-scale war,” he told reporters.
'Warning sign': Iran's military reportedly sending warships to Brazil, Panama Canal in challenge to US
January 31, 2023
The United States is tracking warlike announcements by Iran’s regime that it deployed two military ships to Brazil that are also headed for the Panama Canal, where Tehran declared it will establish a military presence.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Tuesday, "We are aware of these claims by Iran’s navy. We continue to monitor Iran’s attempts to have a military presence in the Western Hemisphere."
The Iranian regime-controlled news outlet Tehran Times reported Saturday that "Iran’s 86th flotilla warships is now sailing along the western shores of Latin America, the Navy second-in-command said."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital in a statement that "Iran’s growing presence in the Western Hemisphere should come as no surprise as the Biden Administration has a history of appeasement and engaging with authoritarian regimes. Tehran’s ability to expand its military presence in our hemisphere should be a warning sign, especially as it seeks to support the left-wing Marxist regimes that will undermine peace and stability throughout the region."
IRAN HOLDS TOP MILITARY DRILLS IN MAJOR OIL WATERWAY IN 'WAR BEFORE THE WAR'
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital, "Iran has been aggressively strengthening its ties to the Western Hemisphere through like-minded socialist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. They are also looking for opportunities elsewhere, and it’s no coincidence that Iranian ships are docking in Brazil just a month after a socialist retook power in the country."
She added, "Instead of supporting the Iran-friendly socialist and left-wing regimes in Latin America, the Biden administration should be strengthening political forces committed to keeping our hemisphere free of antisemitic terror."
Iran’s regime has been classified by successive administration's as the world’s worst state-sponsor of international terrorism.
In early January, the commander of the Islamic Republic’s navy, Rear Adm. Shahram Irani, told the Iranian regime-controlled Fars News, "We have been present in all the strategic straits of the world, and we have not been present in only two straits — in one of which we will be present this year, and we are planning to be present in the Panama Canal."
WHITE HOUSE ACCUSES IRAN OF GIFTING 'SEVERAL HUNDRED' DRONES TO RUSSIA
The clerical regime’s military interference in the vital Panama Canal shipping transport passage could damage U.S. trade and rattle the global economic market. A staggering 16 percent of the world’s shipping fleet is registered in Panama, according to deadweight tonnage.
The Tehran Times reported that Iranian Rear Adm. Hamzeh Ali Kaviani told the U.S.-sanctioned Iran news outlet Press TV that the flotilla of warships will dock in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Kaviani added that "Iran’s military might is increasing day to day despite all the pressures against the Islamic Republic over the past 43 years."
The Iranian regime paper added that Kaviani said the navy’s 86th flotilla includes the Dena and Makran and that Dena is a Mowj-class warship that has been part of Iran’s navy since June 2021: "The military vessel is reportedly equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles, torpedoes and naval cannons," wrote the news outlet. "Makran is a forward base ship weighing 121,000 tons. The warship can carry five helicopters and is employed for providing logistical support for the combat warships."
BIDEN LACKS COHERENT STRATEGY ON IRAN THAT IS 'WEEKS' FROM BUILDING NUCLEAR BOMB, AIDS RUSSIA: EXPERT
The same Western security source told Fox News Digital that Iran doesn't have a growing military presence in Central America. However, the same source said noted concern about Iran’s desire to project power into the Americas and that governments around the region need to be engaged regarding Iran’s destabilizing international role.
Mojtaba Babaei, a spokesperson for the Iran mission at the United Nations, told Fox News Digital that the "Iranian navy presence in international waters is in accordance with international laws and to gain knowledge, experience and increase capabilities, not against any country."
The Consul General of Panama in New York told Fox News Digital that the Fox News query was sent to the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a response. The Consul General of Panama sent Fox News Digital a link to a statement from Panama Foreign Minister Janaina Tewaney.
"It is not true that we support terrorism," Tewaney said in response to former Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush's opinion article in the Washington Post in January.
Bush, who is an advisory board member of United Against Nuclear Iran, wrote that Panama "has been instrumental in the [Iranian] regime’s continued survival" and that Panama is "strengthening Iran by helping it to circumvent sanctions." Bush also said Panama aids Iran’s in oil smuggling.
Fox News Digital sent numerous press queries to the Brazilian government regarding Iran's plans to dock warships in their ports, but as of press time no response was given.
The new Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, met with an Iranian delegation led by the country's vice president during his inauguration ceremony last month.
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