Minister’s Boast About Radars Irks Iranians Fuming Over Downed Plane

According to security officials, at least four people were killed in the center of Basra, Iraq's main oil-producing center, in the latest bout of violence as the country is struggling with a political crisis that pits followers of the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr against Iran-aligned parties and paramilitary groups.

According to Iran International’s correspondent, among those killed overnight was an Iraqi army commander who was shot dead by the militias of the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq forces, affiliated with the Islamic Republic.

Urging the Iran-backed group to control their forces, Sadr’s spokesman warned Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq against reckless behavior.

Violence erupted in Iraq this week as armed supporters of Sadr fought with security forces and Iran-aligned gunmen in Baghdad in the fiercest street battles the capital has seen for years. Relative calm had been restored after Sadr urged all his supporters to leave the streets following the clashes that killed about 30 people. The unrest initially broke out on Monday, August 29, hours after Sadr announced he was quitting politics.

An intractable political deadlock between the two rival Shiite camps has left Iraq without a government since an October election, in which the Sadrist bloc won the most seats but was unable to gain its share of political power after months of haggling that has failed to produce a new administration. The Sadrists withdrew from parliament June 13, prompting supporters to storm the building in July and remain encamped outside ever since.

Raisi offered debatable statistics in a meeting with Ali Khamenei on Tuesday to prove his achievements after one year in office. He had presented the same statistics in a press conference a day earlier.

Among other things, Raisi, who was handpicked by Khamenei to become president last year, was harshly criticized for fabricating inflation figures. He told Khamenei on Tuesday that his government brought down the 60 percent inflation rate in 2021 to 35 percent after one year.

While Raisi was criticized by traditional media including national newspapers, criticism of Khamenei was limited to social media as challenging the Supreme Leader is a no-go area for the press in Iran.

Iranian cleric Mohammad Ranani quoted Khamenei in an tweet August 31 as saying: "The most important success of this government is reviving the people's hope and trust in the government." Ranani added: "With skyrocketing prices and the difficulties the people have in making ends meet, I rule out that claim. The Supreme Leader is probably fed wrong statistics. God knows the truth."

Khamenei in turn praised the government for not complaining about lack of power, the same way former presidents often did.

Fereshteh Sadeghi, a former producer who has worked for international media, wrote in an August 31 tweet: "It is obvious why he has not heard that because…all of its members come from offices under Khamenei's supervision. What should they say?"

Wednesday's newspapers lashed out at Raisi for the figures he gave to the public and Khamenei. Reformist daily Arman Emrooz wrote in a commentary that the figures were in sharp contrast with the realities on the ground. These included his comments about reducing the rate of inflation, the realization of his promise about building four million homes, the improvement in the livelihood of teachers and nurses, the boost in fuel production and other forms of energy and so on.

Arman Emrooz also pointed out that Raisi's claim of sorting out the hefty budget deficit last year as well as his claim about not borrowing from the Central Bank were not true either. The daily quoted Raisi’s own officials as having said that it owes some 3,590 trillion rials to the bank, or at least $15 billion depending what currency exchange rate is used to calculate the astronomical number.

Referring to Raisi's boast about providing COVID vaccines for the nation, the daily reminded that key individuals [meaning Khamenei] and organizations [meaning offices under Khamenei's supervision] prevented the importing of vaccines by the previous government.

The daily also pointed out that Raisi's claims about the abundance of essential commodities, ending power cuts, and supplying water to underprivileged areas were not true.

Some newspapers such as Ebteklar highlighted parts of Khamenei's speech during the meeting with Raisi and his cabinet ministers that in fact showed Raisi's failure. The main headline on Ebtekar on Wednesday quoted Khamenei as saying: "The high cost of housing has made life difficult for the people."

Although Khamenei reminded Raisi and his government during the meeting on Tuesday to be realistic in terms of what they promise to the people, Entekhab quoted a senior foreign ministry official as saying on Wednesday: "We are very close to becoming a superpower."

Syria’s state news agency (SANA) reported material damage at the airport, saying, "At around 20:00 hours (17:00 GMT), the Israeli enemy targeted Aleppo International Airport with missile fire, causing material damage at the heart of the facility.” 

The UK-based war monitor, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that four Israeli missiles had targeted the runway and depots at the airport.

According to Syrian military sources, air defense systems near Latakia, located southwest of Aleppo, were activated in an attempt to intercept the missiles headed towards Aleppo. Shortly after the strike in Aleppo, Israeli airstrikes targeted sites near Damascus International Airport and other targets south of Damascus, with Syrian air defenses downing “a number of missiles.”

Sabereen News, a channel close to Iran-backed forces in Syria reported that Israel targeted Aleppo airport to prevent a US sanctioned Iranian plane – belonging to the Yas Air cargo airline -- from landing as it appeared to be descending, adding that the plane changed course to Damascus so the Israeli aircraft returned and bombed Damascus airport. 

Pouya Air – also known as Yas Air – is an Iranian cargo airline that has been owned by Pars Aviation Services Company (PASC), which the UN Security Council has identified as an entity affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC). According to the US Department of the Treasury, it has transported illicit cargo to Iranian proxies in the region on behalf of the IRGC Quds Force (IRGC-QF).

The Wednesday attack was the first alleged Israeli airstrike to target the Aleppo airport since 2019 and the second time Israel targeted a Syrian airport this year. On June 10, Israel bombed the Damascus International Airport, causing the airport to go completely out of service for a period of two weeks.

The airstrikes come less than a week after similar airstrikes targeted the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Masyaf, located southwest of Aleppo, reportedly destroying more than 1,000 Iranian-made missiles. The Observatory for Human Rights said the attack targeted a missile warehouse in the SSRC complex that stored thousands of medium-range, surface-to-surface missiles assembled under the supervision of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s “expert officers.”

The observatory added that 14 Syrian civilians sustained injuries with varying levels of severity during the Masyaf airstrike, in addition to casualties reported among Iranian-backed militias guarding the research center– which was heavily damaged during the attack.

In addition to the strikes attributed to Israel, the United States also engaged in a string of tit-for-tat attacks last week against Iranian militias in northern Syria who had targeted US forces with rockets and drones.

Iran-backed militias established a foothold in Syria while fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's civil war.

The airstrikes came just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke with US President Joe Biden about the continuing efforts by the US, EU and Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. During the conversation, Lapid also welcomed recent US strikes on Iran-backed militias in eastern Syria.

One of them said that he saw two people beating up a cleric he knew with metal pipes and when the attackers saw him looking from his car they started beating him too and broke his cars windows. The clerics are prayer imams at two mosques

The second cleric who has lighter injuries criticized the city’s police for showing up very late -- after about 40 minutes – and for not arresting the perpetrators despite the fact that they knew where they were hiding. 

It is not clear if the attackers knew the first victim and if they attacked him for a personal reason.

Several Iranian clerics have come under attack by angry Iranians recently as rising prices and constant protests have led to a tense environment in the country.

Late in July, a cleric named Mojtaba Hosseini was stabbed several times in his back during his sermon in the city of Karaj in Western Tehran. And earlier in July, a congregational prayer imam was injured in an assassination attempt by an assailant on a motorcycle in the city of Esfahan.

In early June, the representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader in the central city of Esfahan was also attacked by a young man carrying a knife. And in April, a man stabbed three clerics in Iran's largest Shiite shrine in Mashhad, killing two.

The calibre of the political figure and the media outlet that has interviewed him may be taken as a green light for Iran's embattled reformists to actively take part in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Conservatives loyal to Supreme Leaser Ali Khamenei coined the ‘seditionist’ label for those who protested Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in 2009.

The comment by Expediency Council member Mohammad Javad Bahonar came one day after friends and foes lashed out at President Ebrahim Raisi for giving a misleading report at a news conference about his success in tackling inflation. He had said that his economic policy reduced last year's 60 percent inflation rate to 35 percent.

Many critics, including government supporters reminded that same time last year the official annual inflation rate was around 42 percent, which remains almost the same despite claims of economic improvement.

Khamenei's advice to Raisi this week to follow a better and more convincing propaganda method was obliquely referring to the President's whitewashing of the failure of his economic team, after conservatives consolidated their power by taking over all three government branches and pushing aside ‘reformist’ politicians by barring them from elections.

Some reformists including former official and current political activist Ali Soufi were so disappointed by the situation marked by political barriers that they gave up running for any election. He said in his latest interview that "reformists no longer think of taking part in elections.”

Soufi complained that watchdogs including the conservative dominated Guardian Council that vets election candidates, tend to disqualify reformist figures and in such a situation competition is meaningless.

Pointing out the discriminatory situation Soufi said that while former president Hassan Rouhani had to submit the 2015 nuclear agreement for parliament’s approval, hardliners now say that their comrade, President Raisi does not need to do the same with the new nuclear deal. He pointed out that "the core of the Iranian pollical system simply does not trust anyone who is not a hardliner."

"The system even did not tolerate Iranian and US foreign ministers walking together during the negotiations," in 2015 he said. He also pointed out that many hardliners believe reformists are traitors only because they believe in dialogue and diplomatic relations. "Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader has said over and over that the West is not trustworthy," Soufi noted, adding that some hardliners characterize reformists as pro-Western elements.

He also noted that Iran's problem at the time being is that most Iranians, whether conservative, moderate or reformist, no longer trust the government and many evade the polls.

Nonetheless, the conservative figure Bahonar also criticized the current ultraconservative government "because many of their officials are not familiar with the way big jobs should be done." He added that the government makes ad-hoc problematic decisions such as announcing pay raise for workers that they cannot afford.

Assessing Iran's current political situation, Bahonar said that only less than 10 percent of Iranians are religious, revolutionary and follow the regime’s guidelines in every respect. He added that a lot of Iranians understand national interests and national security, but they are not interested in politics. They simply want to live. "I know many reformists who respect the Islamic revolution, the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader. Not all reformists are seditionists," he reiterated.