US Senators Urge Biden To Deny Iran's President Visa For UN Meeting

Senior researcher of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Behnam Ben Taleblu told Sky News on Tuesday that following the death of al-Zawahiri, “All eyes are on Iran’s eastern border.” “With the killing of al-Zawahiri, the next up – believed to be number two of al-Qaeda – is assumed to be in Iran.”

“So that may mean that the Iranian government – if that individual is still there – will have to decide what to do; to expel this person or to allegedly promote them or to basically facilitate the rise of Al-Qaeda’s next leader.

US President Joe Biden announced Monday, August 1, that al-Zawahiri had been killed in a US drone strike over the weekend after US intelligence officials tracked him to a house in downtown Kabul.

Earlier in the year, Tallha Abdulrazaq, an academic with expertise in Middle Eastern security affairs, said that Iran has provided shelter to numerous al-Qaeda operatives over the years. Bin Laden’s son Hamza is believed to be among those to have been harbored in Iran.

According to the 2019 US State Department’s terrorism report, Tehran allowed al-Qaeda to transfer money via Iran, as well as to transit personnel and resources across conflict zones such as Afghanistan and Syria.

In the past years, several US officials, including ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo, accused the Islamic Republic of having links with al-Qaeda, citing documents that were declassified. 

Senior al-Qaeda facilitator and financier Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, also known as Yasin al-Suri, is also allegedly based in Iran.

Ruhollah Latifi said that the biggest destination for Iran’s gasoline shipments was the United Arab Emirates that purchased 269,000 tons, followed by Afghanistan 59,000 and Iraq with 34,000 tons.

Despite cheap prices Iran is offering the exports seem quite modest due to sanctions by the United States, which create risk of secondary sanctions on buyers and payment difficulties. Iran’s refining capacity is also limited, and its extremely low domestic prices keep consumption high. Lately there has been talk in local media of Iran being forced to import gasoline.

Latifi said that Iran’s shipments were sold between 35-38 US cents per liter (around 94 cents per gallon), while bulk gasoline prices in the Persian Gulf are more than 70 cents per liter. Some observers in Iran have said that in fact gasoline is exported for 27 cents a liter, but Latifi disputed the claim.

Iran is also selling its crude oil at a discount to those willing to risk US sanctions. China is the biggest buyer and pays partly with goods instead of cash.

Latifi also said that the price does not include shipment cost and is a spot price as shipments leave customs. There is also gasoline smuggling from Iran due to low domestic prices but it is hard to quantify it.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said that the war veteran, identified as Khosro Yavari, committed suicide on Tuesday and succumbed to his burns after he was transferred to hospital. According to reports, it was the ninth case of self-immolation due to livelihood problems and vocational issues in the past 70 days. 

The most recent cases happened in the northern city of Lahijan and western city of Ilam due to financial hardships the victims faced.

The prosecutor of Lahijan, Ebrahim Ansari, said on Sunday that one of the workers of the city’s water and wastewater management company set himself on fire in protest to his suspension by the contracting company. Hengaw Organization for Human Rights also reported that a 30-year-old man, identified as Jamil Valibaygi, set himself on fire because of financial pressures. 

In June, two workers in Bandar-e Mahshahr in the southwestern province of Khuzestan also set themselves on fire in protest to their dismissal. They survived thanks to prompt intervention by their coworkers. Earlier, a worker in the city of Yasuj, the capital of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, set himself on fire over his inability to pay a debt of about 10 million tomans, or $300. 

Food prices have risen by more than 80 to 100 percent in recent months, on top of high inflation in the previous three years, while most wage earners get less than $200 a month.

The Tehran municipality’s Hamshahri newspaper said on Tuesday that the three have been transferred to the Tehran prosecutor’s office to prepare for the sentences to be carried out.

The woman had hurled acid at another woman in a 2011 dispute, causing her to lose an eye the paper said, adding that the supreme court has upheld the sentence of having her right eye gouged out, in addition to a jail term and a fine.

One of the men has been handed down the same sentence for causing his victim to lose an eye in a knife assault in 2017. 

In the other case, dating back to 2018, a man has been convicted for blinding a friend in the left eye with a hunting weapon. According to the paper the plaintiff has “insisted” that his assailant suffer the same fate.

The Islamic Republic applies the eye-for-an-eye law, called ‘qisas’ according to Quranic principles, at the request of victims or their families, unless they grant a pardon. Amnesty International and other rights groups condemn such punishment in Iran as cruel and tantamount to torture.

Many people are executed in Iran every month because of this law. Late in July, two human rights organizations said Iran has embarked on an execution spree at a “horrifying pace” with at least 251 cases between January 1 and June 30, 2022. 

Roscosmos said on Wednesday that the spacecraft, a remote sensing satellite called "Khayyam" after Persian polymath Omar Khayyam (1048 – 1131), will be sent into orbit by a Soyuz rocket.

"We plan to launch a Soyuz-2.1b rocket, equipped with a Fregat upper stage, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome [a spaceport in southern Kazakhstan leased to Russia] on August 9, 2022; it will take the Khayyam remote earth probing spacecraft into the orbit under an order of the Islamic Republic of Iran," the company said, highlighting that the spacecraft was designed and produced by Roscosmos enterprises.

It added that the rocket will also carry 16 smaller spacecrafts, designed in various colleges, commercial companies and non-profit organizations.

"Russian spacecraft are designed for scientific and technological research, including development of inter-satellite communications channels, measurement of electromagnetic radiation, remote earth probing and monitoring of ecological situation," Roscosmos claimed.

In July, Iran International reported that Iran’s satellite carrier rocket Zoljanah exploded after launch despite Tehran’s claim of its recent successful test-launch. The hybrid-propellant satellite launcher that was tested for the second time on June 26 did not even manage to cover half of its intended path to orbit, western sources said.

The three-stage Zoljanah (Zuljanah) satellite launch vehicle, which has two solid propulsion phases and a single liquid propulsion phase, was test-fired at a desert launch pad at Imam Khomeini Space Center southeast of Semnan, the site of frequent recent failed attempts.