US Air Force Mideast Commander Warns Of Attacks By Iran-Backed Militias

Asked by Iran International correspondent Arash Aalaei about Islamic Republic’s ruler, Ali Khamenei praising Vladimir Putin’s “initiative” to invade Ukraine, Pelosi said, “Tyrants find their friends and there’s no surprise in any of that. I don’t think anybody has ever recognized Khamenei as a respecter of boundaries or people.”

During Putin’s trip to Tehran July 19, Khamenei lauded the Russian leader’s initiative in attacking Ukraine, saying that NATO would have launched a war sooner or later in Ukraine.

Pelosi added, “To me what Khamenei said was practically irrelevant, but what is relevant is the weapons he may supply Russia with.”

The United States has warned that Russia is preparing to receive Iranian military drones to use in Ukraine and has even sent teams to Iran to review its options. Iran has half-heartedly denied the accusation, but Khamenei’s strong endorsement of the invasion is a signal that Tehran would have little hesitation in supplying the drones.

Pelosi sounded resigned that Iran will cooperate with Russia. “It’s tyrant-to tyrant; doesn’t matter what any of us think; it’s what they will do,” she said.

Iran International has obtained video footage of the interrogation in which a man introducing himself as Yadollah Khedmati, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Logistics, says he regrets his involvement in shipping weapons to Iran’s proxy groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen and urges other IRGC officials to avoid engagement in such activities.

According to a source, Khedmati served as the deputy of Brigadier General Ali Asghar Nowrouzi, the IRGC’s Logistics commander who is known as a close associate of the former commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, Ghasem Soleimani. Soleimani was assassinated by the US in Baghdad in January 2020.

Khedmati also tells his interrogators about Nowrouzi’s connections with Fars Air Qeshm cargo airline. The airline has been accused of transporting weapons for Hezbollah during the civil war in Syria.

The source who spoke to Iran International on condition of anonymity said Mossad agents had released Khedmati unharmed after the several-hour-long interrogation at an unspecified time and place.

Nowrouzi has been responsible for sending weapons to Iran’s proxy groups in the region including Syria as well as securing funds for the operations of the Qods Force through the IRGC’s Cooperatives Foundation of which he's a board member, the source claimed.

On June 14th Iran’s state-run television (IRIB) in a report showed several men in prison outfits claiming they were recruited by a Mossad agent who went by the alias Sirous to abduct Iranian officials and carry out assassinations on Iranian soil on behalf of the Mossad.

The report called these individuals “thugs and hooligans” and claimed they were involved in a wide range of criminal activities including human and weapons trafficking before being recruited by Israeli agents.

Sirous, the men said, contacted them through social media, prepared them for their future mission which ranged from arson to murdering humans, in online group sessions, and paid them in US dollars.

According to the Iranian TV report, the recruited “thugs and hooligans” abducted “a Jihadi official linked to the IRGC” and took him to a mud hut in a field in an unknown location in the suburbs of Tehran where they forced him “to make false confessions” on camera under threat and torture about things “not related to his specialized field of work”.

The report said the Mossad agent behind the abduction was also arrested by the IRGC's intelligence (SAS) with the help of the intelligence ministry.

This is the second time evidence emerges of Israeli agents detaining an IRGC operative inside Iran and taping confessions. A short audio recording was published by Israeli media in May with a photo of a man introduced as Iranian national Mansour Rasouli, 52. In the audio recording, Rasouli said he was sent to Turkey by the IRGC to establish an operational network to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Istanbul, a Germany-based US general, and a journalist in France.

Israeli television channels including Channel 12 which broadcast the recording, without providing a source according to The Times of Israel, claimed the video was made by Mossad operatives posing as Iranian secret service at Rasouli's home in Tehran. Channel 12 news added, also without citing a source, that the Shin Bet security agency — which generally operates within Israel — also participated in the detention in Iran.

Iranian, Israeli, and Turkish officials never made any comments about the reports of the alleged assassination plots but a week after the original audio recording emerged, the man in the photo published by Israeli media released a denial video on social media, possibly recorded and released by Iranian intelligence, in which he said he had been coerced by his abductors to make false confessions.

The Worldwide Baha’i Community said in a statement published on July 20 that Tehran has intensified its systematic campaign to suppress the religious minority in recent weeks. The persecuted Baha’is in July were citizens of Shiraz, Tehran, Yazd and Bojnurd, it said. 

According to the community, at least 44 Baha'is were detained, summoned to court, put on trial or given prison sentences, or had their homes searched in June.

Earlier in June, Radio Farda reported that 26 followers of the Baha'i faith, all of whom residing in the city of Shiraz in the southwestern province of Fars, were sentenced to 2-5 year in prison on charges of "conspiracy to disrupt internal and external security." 

The 1979 constitution of the Islamic Republic recognizes only Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Baha'ism, established as a new religion in Iran in 1863 by Baha'ullah, has always been deemed heretical by the Shia establishment and subject to intermittent bouts of political persecution.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has on several occasions called the Baha'i faith a cult and in a religious fatwa in 2018 forbade contact, including business dealings, with followers of the faith.

Baha'is, who number around 300,000 in Iran, say their rights are systematically violated and they are often harassed, forced to leave their homes and businesses, and are deprived of government jobs and university education.

State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said on Wednesday that “it was... striking to hear the supreme leader, in really no uncertain terms, essentially endorsing President Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.”

He said, “It was especially striking because Iran all this time had attempted to maintain a veil of neutrality," pretending to be opposed to the war. “It’s now clear that was entirely hollow.”

Price also said that Russia having to seek out UAV technology from Iran means that it does not have the indigenous ability to produce it because of the export controls and other measures that the US imposed, which indicates its isolation. “The fact that President Putin would need to run into the arms of one of the most heavily sanctioned, one of the most isolated countries in the world, I think, speaks to the dire straits Moscow currently finds itself in.”

Iran has a choice. It can continue to opt for a position of relative dependency on a country like Russia, or it can choose the path of diplomacy, and specifically it can choose to take up the deal that’s been on the table for some time now, to have an economic relationship with other countries around the world, Price said. 

Earlier on Wednesday, US defense officials as well as the head of US Central Intelligence Agency warned Iran against providing military drones to Russia.

Two days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s summit in Tehran with his Russian and Iranian counterparts during which both Moscow and Tehran urged Turkey against a new military operation in northern Syria, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, "We exchanged ideas, but we never asked and we never ask permission for our military operations."

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Erdogan that a new Turkish offensive would be “detrimental” to the region.

Highlighting Turkey’s disagreements with Iran and Russia over Syria, Çavuşoğlu said the two countries' support for the Syrian regime is unacceptable to Turkey. “What we say is important, what our president says is important," Çavuşoğlu said. 

He said Turkey had paused operations against the YPG/PKK in the east of the Euphrates because both the US and Russia had committed to clear them from this region, adding that “Since this has not happened so far, these terrorists have started to increase attacks against our own lands from there, as well as continuing the attacks against the Syrians, the opposition, our soldiers, and our police. What would the US do in such a situation now? What would Russia do?"

Turkey refuted Iraqi claims Wednesday that it had attacked a mountain resort in Zakho in northern Dohuk province, killing eight and wounding another 23 people. 

Turkey regularly carries out air strikes in northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives as part of a long-running campaign against outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militias. Ankara regards both as terrorist groups.