Iran Events
Iran’ian opposition coalition Iran_policy issues a statement revealing how senior regime leaders were all behind the recent terror plot targeting the FreeIran2018 convention.
#Iran'ian opposition coalition @iran_policy issues a statement revealing how senior regime leaders were all behind the recent terror plot targeting the #FreeIran2018 convention.https://t.co/HMHeweNMo7
— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) July 12, 2018
Khamenei, Rouhani Ordered Bomb Attach Against Free Iran 2018 Gathering in Paris
The German Federal Prosecutor announced in its statement on July 11 that German judiciary had ordered the arrest of Assadollah Assadi, a mullahs’ terrorist diplomat, on charges of espionage and collaboration for murder.
According to reliable intelligence from inside the regime, this terrorist act was decided months ago by Iran’s supreme leader, the president, foreign and intelligence ministers, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the Revolutionary Guards, the Quds Force, the IRGC’s intelligence Organization, and the deputy for political-security affairs of Khamenei’s office. The Ministry of Intelligence and Assadollah Assadi, the MOIS station chief in Austria, were assigned to carry out the operation. Since a few years ago, the MOIS station in Vienna had become the coordinator of the MOIS stations in Europe.
Argentina’s government voiced its frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration on Thursday, after Moscow ignored a formal request from an Argentine judge to arrest a senior visiting Iranian official implicated in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA in Buenos Aires.
Velayati was Iran’s foreign minister at the time of the AMIA atrocity on July 18, 1994, when 85 people died and hundreds more were wounded after a truck packed with explosives drove into the Jewish organization’s main building in the Argentine capital.
Velayati was also present at a meeting of top Iranian security officials in the city of Mashhad on August 14, 1993, where the decision to bomb the AMIA building is understood to have been made.
16% of Female Heads of Household in Iran Are Under 20
Female heads of household in Iran have become significantly younger, according to a women’s rights activist.
Zohreh Ashtiani, who is secretary of the Family Faction of the mullahs’ parliament (Majlis), admitted in an interview with the state-run Shahrvand newspaper on Tuesday that 16% of female heads of household are younger than 20.
However, this number could actually be even higher as this figure, from Iran’s Welfare Organization and the Relief Committee, only accounts for women “who have been identified or have introduced themselves to support centres”.
According to the statistics, there are just over 3 million female heads of household in Iran and about 500,000 of these women are under the age of 20. The number of female heads of household has risen by just over 600,000 in the past ten years, now equating to 12% of all household in Iran.
The main reason for the growth in female heads of households, particularly for younger women, is poverty according to Ashtiani.
India Cuts Oil Imports From Iran
The US State Department recently announced that the United States expects foreign countries to reduce their imports of Iranian regime’s oil to zero by later in the year. Some countries have already committed to do so; others are preparing to do so.
India – Iran regime’s second biggest oil client after China – is already starting to cut imports and Indian refiners have started to wean their plants off Iranian crude oil. The country is said to be taking the necessary steps to ensure that it does not get tangled up in sanctions imposed by the United States. Refiners in India have also said that they wish to comply with the limits set by the United States so that they do not lose access to the U.S. financial system.
US, UAE dismantle Iranian fund transfer racket
Dubai: The United States and the United Arab Emirates have broken up a network funneling illicit funds to Iran as Washington steps up a drive to restrict Iranian trade and access to hard currency in the region, a senior US official said yesterday.
US Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Sigal Mandelker said that they jointly disrupted a currency exchange network that was transferring millions of dollars to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force . She said the network was dismantled in May. Currency exchanges had used the UAE financial system to transfer cash out of Iran and convert it into US dollars for use by Iranian-supported proxy groups in the region, she said. The network, directed by senior officials of Iran’s central bank, forged documents and disguised its dealings behind front and shell companies, Mandelker told reporters.
Congress wants VOA to take hard line on Iran
At the center of the strategy is the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) Persian-language news services, Radio Farda and the Voice of America’s Persian News Network.
Lawmakers and administration officials from both parties have long accused the BBG of being dysfunctional and ineffective, with many viewing its Iran programming as particularly bad due to staff infighting motivated by political bias. With both parties agreeing that taxpayer-funded news outlets should do more to advance US interests, Republicans are zeroing in on Iran coverage, hoping to push for a more overtly anti-Tehran narrative.
