Conflicting Reports Surround Raid Into Iranian Exiled Group’s Camp

Lahbib especially is under scrutiny for having approved visas requests while Iran and Russia are under international sanctions and only three weeks after Belgian NGO worker Olivier Vandecasteele was released from an Iranian jail. He was exchanged in a controversial move with a former Iranian diplomat convicted in a Belgian court of leading a terror plot in Europe and serving a long prison sentence.

De Croo and Lahbib said they didn't want to risk a diplomatic row with Iran close to the release of Vandecasteele and three other Europeans, but lawmakers from opposition as well as coalition parties contest that reasoning.

When in Brussels, the Iranian delegation filmed Belgo-Iranian lawmaker Darya Safai and Iranian opposition members, Belgian national broadcaster RTBF reported.

Safai, who was a prominent activist in Iran before fleeing to Belgium in 2000, said she no longer felt safe in Belgium.

Tehran' mayor, Alireza Zakani, is known as a hardline Iranian politician, who was a member of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij militia.

The opposition has called for Lahbib's resignation, while extreme-right opposition party Vlaams Belang also asked for De Croo's resignation.

State secretary for external relations of the Brussels government Pascal Smet resigned on Sunday over the all-expenses paid trip.

Reporting by Reuters

The bipartisan bill called Solidifying Iran Sanctions Act of 2023, has the potential to make the 1996 sanctions against Iran – or several other measures -- permanent by deleting the 'sunset clause' in any action against the Islamic Republic, a provision that provides an expiry date for a measure. 

The bill, now heading to a full vote on the House floor, strikes a section from the 1996 legislation that set 2026 as the sunset date, making permanent sanctions against the regime that are designed to slow down research and development of nuclear and biological weapons as well as preventing terrorist actions against Washington and its allies. 

The 1996 law requires the imposition of sanctions with respect to Iran’s illicit weapons programs, conventional weapons and ballistic missile development, and support for terrorism, including Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, read part of the bill. 

"This bill takes the long overdue step of striking the arbitrary sunset from the Iran Sanctions Act, so that sanctions against the regime will only be lifted if Iran stops its threatening behavior," the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said. Representatives Michelle Steel (R-CA) and Susie Lee (D-NV) helped bring political support for the Solidifying Iran Sanctions Act (SISA). 

"By making these sanctions permanent, the US is signaling to Iran that we won't tolerate their continued aggression and to our allies that they must also increase their pressure on the [rogue] nation," Steel said. 

"Iran’s evil regime has proven they cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith," Steel told Fox news, adding, "Only through strength can we show the path to peace, end their brutal attacks on their own people, and prevent a nuclear Iran."

Lee said the bipartisan bill "is one step closer to becoming law and keeping Iran in check," adding, "Regardless of political party, Congress must stand firm against the Iranian regime’s brutal repression of its own people, its funding of terrorism abroad, and its reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons."

The 1996 sanctions are distinct from a series of sanctions that the Trump administration imposed in 2018 and 2019 against Iran's oil exports and international banking. However, Trump based his sanctions partly on the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996. Whether this can potentially hinder any attempts by the Biden administration to reduce the more recent sanctions in a deal with Iran is not clear.

In an interview with Iran International’s Arash Alaei, Representative Keith Self (R-TX) said, "We must deter Iran, first of all, in their nuclear program, as a nuclear war is not something you can even contemplate. And second, we must encourage the Iranian people to rise up against the regime."

Alaei says that Democrats are reluctant to comment on the measures against the Islamic Republic due to a lack of comprehensive Iran policy by the Biden administration. 

Criticizing the Biden administration, Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Alaei that reports about impending deals to unfreeze the regime’s assets in Iraq or South Korea indicate that the administration is following a policy of appeasement with Iran, and “all the bad actors” like China, North Korea and Russia. 

“What we shouldn’t do is weaken our position with Iran... we should we projecting strength,” he said. 

With Russia using hundreds of Iranian-made suicide drones in Ukraine since October 2022, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was grilled in parliament about the report by the Jewish Chronicle earlier this month.

“We take all allegations of breaches of export controls seriously and my understanding is that officials in the Department for Business and Trade are currently now investigating the allegations made in the recent press article cited,” Sunak said.

“We will not accept collaborations which compromise our national security,” he said, pointing to stepped-up controls on academic collaborations in technology.

Alicia Kearns MP, chair of the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs had earlier said: “This is a horrifying collaboration, one that I fear risks breaching sanctions in place around sensitive and dual-use technologies.”

According to the Jewish Chronicle, Tehran funded researchers in Britain working on improving drone engines in a project that boosted altitude, speed, and range.

In addition to its ban on military and "dual-use" technologies being exported to Iran, the UK has recently imposed new sanctions against Iranians supplying Russia with kamikaze drones that are being used in Ukraine.

At least 11 British universities, including Cambridge, Cranfield, Glasgow and Imperial College London, were named by the Jewish Chronicle as taking part in studies with potential Iranian military applications.

The killing happened near the West Bank settlement, Eli, in what Hamas called a response to a major Israeli operation in nearby Jenin.

Emergency services reported that four other people were wounded, including a minor, when the gunmen opened fire at a roadside restaurant and a gas station near Eli settlement.

After the attack, Israel said it was beefing up its forces’ presence in the West Bank.

Authorities said the two gunmen belonged to Hamas' armed wing. One was killed by a civilian at the scene and the other by Israeli security forces.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and has a network of fighters across the West Bank, described the attack as a "heroic" response to Monday's Israeli operation in Jenin and said it may be followed by more actions against Israelis "that will shatter their fragile state and turn the lives of their soldiers and settlers into a nightmare".

Israel blamed Iran for a large-scale military confrontation in early April when Palestinian groups aligned with the Islamic Republic launched hundreds of rockets against Israel from Gaza and Lebanon.

The Iranian regime as a Shiite Muslim political force has limited appeal with Sunni Muslims and its reach is mainly among Shiites in Middle Eastern countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon. However, it directs billions of dollars a year to finance an array of militia forces and their political networks.

Andriy Yermak said on Tuesday he was hoping Ukraine would receive Israeli technology to counter Iranian drones used by Russia during its 16-month invasion.

“Nobody but Israel can provide equipment to combat attacks by Iranian drones,” said Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff.

He further expressed frustration that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly supported Ukraine and suggested that Israel join the war if Russia and Iran made weapons deals.

“We can see the Kremlin dictator [Russian President Vladimir Putin] taking family photos with Iranian leaders and then this Iranian weaponry is being used against us and against you,” Yermak addressed the Israeli reporters from the Office of the Ukrainian President.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Israel expressed moral and humanitarian solidarity with the embattled country but refused to provide weapons, retaining a neutral stance between the two sides, primarily to ensure the safeguarding of the Jewish populations on both sides.

Forces of the Russian Federation began using Iran-made kamikaze drones in their attacks against Ukraine's infrastructure last fall, temporarily depriving millions of Ukrainians of heating, water and electricity during the winter.

Iran first denied it had supplied drones to Russia but in early November foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian admitted the deliveries, while claiming they were sent before the Russian invasion.

Iran’s supply of drones to Russia for use in its war on Ukraine has been condemned by the US and its NATO allies and met with sanctions by the US, European Union and other states.