CEO OF Quasi-Public Firm In Iran Pocketed 230k Euros For Business Trips

Qatar is the world's largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and may divert supplies to Europe if the Ukraine conflict disrupts Russian gas deliveries to the continent. Russia supplies about one-third of Europe’s gas.

President Joe Biden's agenda for the Oval Office meeting with Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will also include the Iran nuclear talks and relations with Afghanistan, where Washington's interests are now represented by the small Gulf country.

Qatar’s foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani visited Tehran on January 27 and held talks with senior officials. Iran denied that the visit was related to facilitating direct talks between Tehran and Washington, as some media had reported.

Qatar has maintained friendly ties with Iran despite serious tensions other Arab Gulf states have with Tehran.

Tamim will also meet separately with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and discuss arms sales and other military issues with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, an official told reporters.

Biden said in a statement on Sunday that “The Taliban must immediately release Mark before it can expect any consideration of its aspirations for legitimacy”.

He said, “Threatening the safety of Americans or any innocent civilians is always unacceptable, and hostage-taking is an act of particular cruelty and cowardice”.

He addressed all the Americans being held hostage and wrongfully detained overseas, and their families and friends, saying, “Know that my administration will continue to work steadfastly until every American being unjustly held against their will comes home”.

However, Biden did not mention several hostages who are being held by the Islamic Republic of Iran despite calls by human rights organizations on the Biden Administration to press Tehran for their release during the Vienna nuclear negotiations.

Earlier in January, two former Iran hostages staged a hunger strike at the venue of the talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, hoping that their campaign can stop the United States from concluding a deal with Iran until the hostages are freed.

The US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley met with Barry Rosen, a US diplomat who was held hostage in the US embassy takeover in the early 1980s and stressed the importance of the release of four American-Iranians held in Iran but stopped short of saying their freedom was a precondition for Washington for reaching a nuclear deal with Iran.

UAE defense ministry said on Monday that the attack, 20 minutes past midnight was intercepted. There was no news of any missile hitting a target, but debris fell on an uninhabited area.

Yemen's Houthi group said on Monday it had fired a number of ballistic missiles at Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, and had also fired several drones at Dubai, the regional business hub.

A senior official described the attacks as "useless" provocations that would be dealt with to safeguard national security and sovereignty. "Those who test the UAE are mistaken," the official, Anwar Gargash, said in a Twitter post.

The attack followed reports in Iranian media affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) on Sunday. Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported quoting Houthi officials that the Yemeni rebels were planning large attacks against the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

"Future strikes on the UAE will be more effective and more powerful than before and the UAE may lose its capability to run the country," Lieutenant-General Abed Al-Thour the Deputy Chief of the Ideological Department of the Houthi armed forces told Tasnim in an exclusive interview. He added that the Houthi military is determined to "go deep inside the UAE to achieve its military goals".

The spokesman of the State Department reacted to the attack in a tweet, saying, “We condemn the latest Houthi missile attack on Abu Dhabi. While Israel’s president is visiting the UAE to build bridges and promote stability across the region, the Houthis continue to launch attacks that threaten civilians.”

The Biden Administration lifted the terrorist designation for Houthis as soon as it assumed office last year, a move questioned by critics as an attempt to encourage the group to accept peace proposals. Houthis have refused to take any conciliatory step, such as agreeing to ceasefire.

Herzog, who was on a historic trip to UAE less than two years after establishing full relations, spent the night in Abu Dhabi. He discussed security and bilateral relations with the UAE’s de facto ruler Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, commenting on Herzog’s visit to the UAE said, “Those who normalize relations [with Israel] should know…that the first victims would be” themselves.

"We are determined in our strategic vision and goals to help build a stable and prosperous region for all and provoking us is useless," said Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president.

The UAE's defense ministry said coalition warplanes had destroyed missile launchers that were located in Yemen.

The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been battling the Houthis for nearly seven years in a conflict largely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Houthis, who have repeatedly launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, have warned they would continue targeting the UAE unless it stopped "interfering" in Yemen.

The UAE largely ended its military presence on the ground in 2019 but holds sway through Yemeni forces it arms and trains and which recently joined battles against the Houthis in key energy-producing regions.

With reporting by Reuters

"Future strikes on the UAE will be more effective and more powerful than before and the UAE may lose its capability to run the country," Lieutenant-General Abed Al-Thour the Deputy Chief of the Ideological Department of the Houthi armed forces told Tasnim in an exclusive interview published Sunday. He added that the Houthi military is determined to "go deep inside the UAE to achieve its military goals".

Al-Thour said the Houthis' recent attacks on Abu Dhabi, dubbed Yemeni Storm 2, was a message to Mohamed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, that his country will pay a high price for his "efforts to appease Israel".

The Iran-backed Houthi military official said the Houthi army has reached "the military expansion and industrialization stage" and "self-sufficiency in military industries".

Al-Thour also threatened Saudi Arabia and said the Houthis are prepared for bigger operations "deep inside Saudi Arabia".

Iran has been arming and training the Houthi rebels for years, with United Nations experts verifying that drones and missiles used against Saudi Arabia having Iranian origin.

In 2019 Al-Thour made similar threats against the UAE. "I am telling you that the UAE – Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Al-Ain, Fujairah, and all those emirates – will lose everything they have," he said, adding that with its aerial strikes and missile force, Yemen will "send the UAE back to a time before its foundation" and that despite not having a border with the UAE, their air force and missile force could reach the country to strike its trade and economic capabilities.

On Sunday Fars, another IRGC-linked news agency in a report quoted the Houthi Al-Khabar Al-Yemeni news website as saying Houthis are planning to implement widespread operations against 50 economic and military targets across the Emirates.

Al-Khabar said on Sunday that sources in the Houthi military intelligence have said that “approximately 300 drones, 50 ballistic missiles and 46 cruise missiles" will be used in the operation dubbed "Al-Aram Flood" to “paralyze the UAE economy".

The Yemeni website quoted the Houthi Minister of Defense Mohamed al-Atifi as saying a few days after the attack on Abu Dhabi that "painful and terrifying strikes" were to be expected in the "strategic, military and economic depth of the coalition countries.”

The Saudi-led Coalition that backs Yemen's internationally recognized government said January 13 that the Iran-backed Houthi rebels had targeted a key oil facility in Abu Dhabi and the UAE capital's international airport with explosive-laden drones launched from Sana'a airport.

In 2019 the UAE, a member of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting Iran-backed Houthi forces for over seven years, scaled down its military presence in Yemen amid heightened regional tensions with Iran but the Houthis.

A few days after the attack on Abu Dhabi, the Houthi information minister Zeifollah al-Shami was interviewed by Tasnim news agency who said the attack was meant to tell the UAE that there would be retaliation if they continued to attack Houthi forces.

Fars said in a report entitled "The Reason for the Yemeni Attack on Abu Dhabi Today" called it the "biggest strike on the UAE in the country's 50-year history."

In a statement on Sunday, the EU also expressed concern over her poor health, stressing that enforcing the sentence “is against the universal principles of human rights and the rule of law”.

“The EU calls on Iran to comply with its obligations under international law and urgently release Ms. Mohammadi, taking also into account her deteriorating health condition,” a spokesperson said.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch also slammedher arrest, saying that the Islamic Republic is committed to crush any grassroots effort to protect human rights and urged world powers to press Tehran to stop the crackdown.

The rights group said that the recent heavy sentence meted out against Mohammadi shows that Iran’s revolutionary courts are criminalizing human rights activism.

On January 15, Branch 26 of Tehran’s revolutionary court gave her the harsh sentence in a five-minute summary trial that was held behind closed doors while she was denied access to a lawyer.

In a letter from the notorious Gharchak (Qarchak) Prison, obtained by Iran International, Mohammadi said the court stated her nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize as evidence of her criminality.

Mohammadi was arrested in mid-November at the death anniversary of a citizen, Ebrahim Ketabdar, who was shot dead by security forces during the November 2019 protests.