Iran Plays A Role In Arab-Kurdish Conflicts Emerging In Iraq And Syria

Citing information from an intelligence source within the Ministry of Sports and Youth, IranWire disclosed that Abolfazl Ameri Shahrabi, the Deputy Prosecutor of Arak, and Majid Abbaszadeh, a member of the intelligence organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were sent abroad to boxing event under the guise of international referees.

According to the report, Ameri Shahrabi's involvement in the world of boxing dates back to his participation in the national boxing team's camps between 1995 and 1998. He transitioned into refereeing the sport during the early 2010s. The report further revealed ongoing discussions about the potential transfer of Ameri Shahrabi to Tehran to assume a new position in one of Tehran's sensitive judicial centers.

Ameri Shahrabi is the same judicial official who filed charges against Sadrollah Fazeli Zarei and Yousef Mehrdad, who were executed in May 2023on accusations of blasphemy and insulting religious and Islamic sanctities on social media.

On a related note, Majid Abbaszadeh, a boxing referee and a member of the intelligence protection organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, assumed the position of the head of the Tehran Boxing Association in July of this year.

This disclosure of the overseas travels of these two individuals with judicial and intelligence affiliations to European and American countries comes at a time when Western nations have imposed sanctions on numerous officials of the Islamic Republic.

During a meeting of foreign military attaches stationed in Tehran, Brigadier General Alireza Sabahifard said that Iran is prepared to expand various forms of military cooperation, which include planning joint exercises and exchanging technical and operational expertise, as well as holding regular bilateral meetings.

As reported by the Fars News Agency, Sabahifard also emphasized the army’s need to exchange knowledge and experience with allies, as well as share new scientific developments and the strategic aims.

Prioritizing equipment reliability and operational performance enhancement, he disclosed ongoing efforts to carry out necessary maintenance and repairs, aligning with standard practices adopted by military forces around the world.

The announcement comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the region. In recent weeks, the United States has increased its military presence in response to Iran's actions aimed at disrupting maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and the surrounding waters.

The Pentagon's response included the deployment of additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, along with a warship to the Middle East. These measures were taken to monitor crucial waterways in the region following Iran's seizure and harassment of commercial shipping vessels.

Incidents involving shipping in Persian Gulf waters have occurred since 2019 during times of escalated tensions between the United States and Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world's crude oil and oil products pass, remains a strategically vital maritime choke point.

The Danube has become Ukraine's main route for exporting grain since July, when Russia quit a UN and Turkey-brokered deal that had given safe passage to Kyiv's exports of grains, oilseeds and vegetables oils via the Black Sea.

Sunday's attack took place the day before Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan are due to hold talks in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. Turkey has been pressing to revive the grain deal.

Ukraine's South Military Command said on social media that at least two civilians were injured in the early morning attack on what it called "civil infrastructure of the Danube".

The Ukrainian Air Force said air defence systems shot down 22 of the 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia.

Iran has been supplying hundreds of its Shahed drones to Russia since mid-2022 but denies there were delivered to be used for attacks on Ukraine. The Western alliance supporting Ukraine has imposed sanctions on individuals and companies involved in supplying the drones.

The military said a fire that resulted from the attack at one facility was quickly extinguished.

The Russian Defense Ministry was quoted by Interfax as saying that a group of Russian drones successfully struck fuel depots at the Reni port used by the Ukrainian military.

"Russian terrorists continue to attack port infrastructure in the hope of provoking a food crisis and famine in the world," the Ukrainian president's chief of staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.

According to police and security sources, four Kurds were shot dead and 15 people were wounded during the clashes in the city, controlled by the Iraqi government and home to diverse groups of people including Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs.

Amir Shwani, a spokesman for Kirkuk police, said in a statement that a curfew had been lifted and vehicles were moving normally in the city on Sunday, but security forces had deployed additional troops to "prevent violence and protect civilians."

The city has been a point of contention, witnessing disputes between Kurdish forces and the Iraqi government. Iranian-backed militias have recently escalated aggression in the region, firing rockets to target gas fields on the road to Sulaymaniyah, a large city in the Kurdistan autonomous region about 100 kilometers west of Kirkuk.

The clashes followed days of tensions over a building in Kirkuk that was once the headquarters for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) but was used by the Iraqi army as a base since 2017. Iraq's federal supreme court issued an urgent ruling on Sunday obliging the government to delay procedures regarding the handover of the building to the KDP.

Kirkuk, an oil-rich province in northern Iraq along the fault lines between the Kurdish autonomous region and areas controlled by Iraq's Shiite-dominated central government, has been the focus of some of the country's worst post-Islamic State violence. Arab residents and minority groups, who say they suffered under Kurdish rule, have protested the KDP's return to the city.

“Dozens of protesters, mainly members of the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia and their supporters, have set up tents near the JOC headquarters since Sunday evening in protest to the potential return of the KDP. They have blocked access to the highway and vowed to continue their demonstration until [Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani retracts his decision,” Rudaw Kurdish news agency reported reported.

Similar clashes are also happening between Kurdish-led forces and groups of Islamic militias and tribes in eastern Syria. The violence has killed 49 fighters from both sides and eight civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

The involvement of the pro-Iran militias also has another dimension. Late in August, Iran and Iraq formalized an agreement to dismantle Iranian Kurdish dissident factions stationed in the northern reaches of Iraq and relocate them from their bases.

Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said the Iraqi government had undertaken the commitment "to disarm the armed terrorist groups stationed in Iraq's territory by September 19, and subsequently, evacuate and transfer them from their military bases to camps designated by the Iraqi government."

Historically, Iran has intermittently executed targeted operations against the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iran (KDPI) and other Iranian Kurdish dissident elements operating within Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, adjacent to Iran's borders.

Various Iranian dissident factions in Iraq have aligned their allegiances with the two principal Iraqi Kurdish parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party, headquartered in Erbil, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, with its stronghold in Suleimaniyah.

Hundreds gathered in southern Syria on Friday capping nearly two weeks of demonstrations that erupted over poor living conditions but have spiraled into renewed calls for political change.

"Bashar out, Syria free!" shouted a large crowd in the southern Druze city of Sweida. "Syria is not a farm, we are not sheep," read another poster.

Dozens also gathered on Friday in the province of Daraa, where the 2011 protests kicked off. They carried the three-star flag emblematic of Syria's uprising, as well as signs criticising the role of Iran, which has supplied troops, weapons and money to Assad since 2011.

Syria is in a deep economic crisis that saw its currency plunge to a record 15,500 Syrian pounds to the dollar last month in a rapidly accelerating free-fall. It traded at 47 pounds to the dollar at the start of the conflict 12 years ago.

Demonstrations broke out in Sweida in August over the removal of fuel subsidies. Home province of most of Syria's Druze community, Sweida remained in government hands throughout the war.

Open criticism of the government remained rare in the areas it controls but as the economic situation grew worse, the discontent has gone public.

Residents of other government-held parts of Syria - where restrictions are tighter - have made more discrete gestures of protest to avoid detection by government forces.

In the coastal province of Tartus on Thursday, some residents held up small postcards reading "Syria belongs to us, not to the (ruling) Ba'ath party", according to photographs posted on activists' social media pages.

Reporting by Reuters