UK Sanctions Iranian Executives Over Drone Supply To Russia

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during his press briefing on Thursday that the US periodically reviews this waiver to allow the provision of satellite broadcast service to the IRIB under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or ITSO.

Trying to justify the decision by the administration, he said that "this waiver has been renewed by successive American administrations without any interruption since 2014. The waiver has been issued close to 20 times – some 18 or so times – in recent years.” 

Despite Price’s claim that Washington uses every single available tool to hold Iranian authorities accountable for their human rights abuses and for their censorship, the waiver seems to contradict repeated pledges to support the Iranians who for over five months have been protesting against the regime and its leaders. 

The sanctions waiver raises more questions as Price said, “We are and remain seriously concerned by the IRIB’s role in censoring the Iranian people’s access to information and its involvement in human rights abuses.” 

With a wording meant to minimize the effects of the waiver, Price said that “While this narrow waiver allows for the provision of satellite broadcast services to IRIB, IRIB and its senior leadership remain subject to US sanctions under various authorities, including for their involvement in censorship and human rights abuses.” He was referring to a series of recent sanctions on IRIB officials, including its president Peyman Jebelli and the chief of the world service Ahmad Norouzi. Two brothers of Jebelli, close to Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba, have recently defected and sought asylum in the US.

While the sanctions on leaders are important, the waiver for IRIB allows it to continue to broadcast regime propaganda and forced confessions of prisoners on international satellites.

Price dodged a direct answer about the reason behind the waiver, saying, “These are underlying conditions that we look at every time this waiver comes up for renewal. We ultimately are going to do what is in our interest but ultimately what we deem to be most effective to promote the aspirations of the Iranian people.”

Questioned to elaborate on these “national interests,” he only said that “these are complex issues involving our membership in the ITSO, involving a number of factors, but we look at this very carefully through every single lens.”

Defending the decision, he said, “we have made the judgment call, as have previous administrations multiple times over every 180 days, that waiving these sanctions are in our interest.” He continued, however, “We also believe it’s in the interest of our ability to protect, to promote the aspirations of the Iranian people.”

Amid measures targeting the Islamic Republic’s financial and energy sectors, under Executive Order 13846, by then President Donald Trump in 2018 after he withdrew the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement – US government departments are empowered to sanction entities implicated in “censorship or other activities with respect to Iran on or after June 12, 2009, that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression…or that limit access to print or broadcast media.” 

The US first designated IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) in 2013, and in 2018 reimposed the move in what then Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said was a part of “the maximum pressure exerted by the United States” after withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement.

One of these videos showing anti-aircraft tracer rounds soaring into the sky an explosion can also be seen on the ground, but no further information is available. There was no prior public notification of planned military exercises.

Some residents reported on social media that first a series of explosions were heard and then anti-aircraft guns began firing into the air.

Fars news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard reported Thursday night that the sound of guns firing and explosions were coming from drills by IRGC’s paramilitary Basij forces in Shahid Motahari military base near Karaj, about 30 km west of the capital.

Iran has been the scene of several suspected air attacks and sabotage operations since July 2020, largely ascribed to Israel. Any sound of aircraft or explosions usually jolts the population and leads to speculations of another attack taking place.

Serious acts of sabotage targeted Iran’s nuclear installations in 2020 and 2021 and several unexplained explosions occurred at military and naval bases.

The latest incident occurred on January 28 around midnight when a military manufacturing center in the city of Esfahan was attacked by drones.

The Wall Street Journal quoting unnamed US officials reported that the attack was carried out by Israel.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price responding to a question by Iran International’s reporter Samira Gharaei during his press briefing said, “We list the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, so the idea that we would be encouraging – actively encouraging other countries not to take an approach that we’ve taken doesn’t ring true to me…,” he said.

The Trump administration listed the IRGC as a terrorist group in 2019 after it withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Earlier Wednesday, The Telegraph reported, “Joe Biden’s diplomats are pressing the UK Government not to formally declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, despite the Home Office backing the move...The US State Department has argued that the UK can play a key role as interlocutors with Tehran which would be undercut by the designation, according to Whitehall insiders.”

Many politicians in Europe have been urging the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terror organization in the wake of bloody violence against protesters in Iran and IRGC’s other malign activities.

European Union officials, however, have delayed the move arguing that such a decision must be backed by a legal determination of a European court.

British police advised Iran International last week to relocate its broadcast operations from London to Washington DC because of real threats by IRGC agents against its journalists.

IRGC Commander-In-Chief Major General Hossein Salami said Wednesday that the threats against the Persian channel’s journalists, which forced the channel to stop its broadcasting in London and move to Washington DC, "show how far the Islamic Revolution's realm of power, field of infiltration and radius of influence has extended."

Iran International was warned by authorities in November that its journalists were under threat from Iranian agents and the Metropolitan Police took measures to strengthen security around the network’s office in the area. On February 18, the network announced that following the advice of UK anti-terrorism officials it decided to temporarily move its studio operations to the US.

The decision solicited condemnations of Iran’s malign activities and worldwide reactions. “At its sharpest, this has involved police and MI5 working together to foil 15 plots since the start of 2022 to either kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime,” said a senior official of UK counter terrorism police.

Despite the evident threats against Iran International’s journalists and UK’s acknowledgment of them, as well as several rallies by Iranian diaspora communities across Europe this month to push countries to list the IRGC as a terror outfit, European states are still hesitant. 

Economic embargoes and sanctions were among other measures the enemies used along with their entire intelligence and legal systems as well as international institutions and media powers to defeat the Islamic Republic, but they failed, Salami said, implying that the global community did not manage to designate IRGC as a terrorist organization or curb its destabilizing activities in the region and beyond. 

Western countries have strongly rebuked Tehran for its bloody crackdown on protests, its military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and lack of compromise over its highly disputed nuclear program. The IRGC is the most important arm of the regime, doing the heavy lifting of cracking down on Iranians and circumventing global sanctions to sell oil and funnel money to keep the regime afloat. 

Salami added that “the enemies” are disappointed by the failure of all their strategies and have reached out for help from opposition figures “who are not even worth mentioning.”

After a historic forum in Washington earlier this month by eight prominent dissident activists, they have been traveling to events around the world to make the voice of the Iranian opposition heard. Such events signal the emergence of a leadership council in the diaspora to campaign for international support in favor of Iran’s protest movement.

In an interview on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani, however, dismissed Iran International’s relocation as a win for the regime, rather a coordinated effort by Western intelligence services. 

Kanaani said that the Islamic Republic reserves the right to file a lawsuit against the US over the TV channel’s role in “inciting riots,” reiterating the regime’s propaganda line that blames foreign countries for over five months of antigovernment protests. 

“The developments surrounding the Iran International terrorist media indicate that the channel is being supported and managed by the intelligence services of a number of certain countries, including the UK,” the spokesman said. “From our viewpoint, even if the channel is relocated from London to the US, the responsibility will still lie with the governments sponsoring and hosting such quasi-media, particularly the UK government, in relation to its (the channel’s) terrorist, separatist and anti-Iranian activities,” he added.

On Monday, UK’s Security Minister Tom Tugendhat at the British Parliament voiced full support for Iran International TV, saying “The Home Secretary and I absolutely condemn this outrageous violation of our sovereignty, and the attempted violation of the human rights of those journalists.”

“Its operatives and affiliates will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence,” Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib said in November. “And from now on, any kind of connection with this terrorist organization will be considered to be tantamount to entering into terrorism and a threat to the national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

On Monday, an estimated crowd of about 20 to 30 thousand people held a rally in Brussels outside the European Council to call on EU countries to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Thousands of Iranians from all over Europe held a massive rally in Strasbourg in January for the same purpose.

Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's nearly 12-year conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power.

A source close to the Syrian government with knowledge of Sunday's strike and its target said it hit a gathering of Syrian and Iranian technical experts in drone manufacturing, though he said no top-level Iranian was killed.

"The strike hit the center where they were meeting as well as an apartment in a residential building. One Syrian engineer and one Iranian official - not high-ranking - were killed," the source told Reuters.

This rocket strike, along with others that Israel says target infrastructure of Syria's military and its allies, reflect an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict aimed at slowing down Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, according to Israeli military experts.

Syrian state media said at the time that Israel had carried out air strikes shortly after midnight on Sunday against several areas of the Syrian capital, causing five deaths and 15 injuries including civilians.

An Israeli military official declined to confirm or deny that Israel was behind the attack but said some of the casualties were caused by errant Syrian anti-aircraft fire.

The United States and Israel have been increasingly concerned about Iran’s drone manufacturing, and the possibility it would pass on those capabilities to regional proxies such as the heavily armed Hezbollah.

A second source, who spoke to Syrian security personnel briefed on the matter, said Iranians were attending the meeting of technical experts in a Iranian military installation in the basement of a residential building inside a security compound.

He said one of those killed was a Syrian army civil engineer who worked at Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre, which Western countries say is a military institution that has produced missiles and chemical weapons. Damascus denies this.

A regional security source said one Revolutionary Guards engineer involved in Iran’s missile program was seriously injured and transferred to a hospital in Tehran, while two other mid-ranking Guards members at the meeting were unharmed.

Another source, a regional intelligence official familiar with the strike, said the target was part of a covert guided missile production program run by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

A fifth, regional source with knowledge of the strike and its target, said officials from Iran and Hezbollah had been targeted. The Lebanese group has sent fighters to help Assad drive back rebels who once nearly encircled Damascus.

REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS LOGISTICS CENTRE HIT?

The targeted building was located in the Damascus neighborhood of Kafr Sousa, a heavily policed area where residents say several Iranian security agencies are located, along with an Iranian cultural centre.

Two Western intelligence sources said at the time the target was a logistics center run by the Revolutionary Guards.

Hezbollah's top commander Imad Moughniyeh was killed in 2008 in a bombing in the same neighborhood. Israel denied Hezbollah accusations that it was behind the assassination.

Although officials rarely acknowledge responsibility for specific operations, Israel has been carrying out air strikes on suspected Iranian-sponsored weapons transfers and personnel deployments in Syria for almost a decade.

Israel has also in recent months intensified strikes on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran's increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.

Exclusive report by Laila Bassam and Suleiman Al-Khalidi of Reuters