Berlin Confirms Iran Arrested Another German Citizen

Mehrzad Zarei, father of 17-year-old Arad who died in the shootdown, who had started his symbolic 400-kilometer march from his son's grave in Richmond Hill, Ontario, arrived in Ottawa Thursday hoping to personally deliver his protest letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

With Trudeau out of town, Zarei held a meeting with parliamentary secretary to the prime minister Greg Fergus instead. Family members of other victims from Flight 752 who held photos of their loved ones and remained outside the Prime Minister's Office.

"Today's message, we say, enough is enough," Zarei told reporters before the meeting, and went on to read his letter addressed to Trudeau.

Criticizing a lack of justice for the victims of the incident, he demands that Canada designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, as was stipulated by a Canadian parliament's resolution in 2018. Other demands include Canadian sanctions on Iranian authorities and for the case to be pursued at the International Court of Justice, and The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Having planned a sit-in in front of the parliament, the family members will return to Ottawa on October 4 to mark 1,000 days since the flight was shot down and to renew their calls for justice.

The airliner was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC on January 8, 2020, as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Only hours earlier, the IRGC had fired more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US and coalition troops in retaliation for the killing of the IRGC Qods Force Commander Ghasem Soleimani who was killed in Baghdad by a US drone strike just five days earlier.

Justice for Iran, a London-based non-governmental human rights organization, filed its complaint against Iranian politician and author Ataollah Mohajerani for incitement to terrorism in a 1989 book, Critique of the Satanic Verses Conspiracy, and for defending a death fatwa for blasphemy against Rushdie by Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“Almost all Muslim schools of jurisprudence share the view that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed. His repentance cannot be accepted,” Mohajerani, who was also a cleric in Iran, wrote in his book in which he called the Indian born British writer an “apostate”.

The complaint was filed with the counterterrorism unit of UK police on August 16 against Mohajerani, a British citizen who resides in London, Shadi Sadr, human rights lawyer and one of the Co-founders of Justice for Iran told Iran international Thursday [August 25].

British officials have not yet commented about the complaint filed against Mohajerani.

Some Iranian public figures have alleged that western governments’ “forbearance of the Islamic Republic’s terrorist activities and hatemongering” paved the way for the recent knife attack on Rushdie in the United States while others have accused Mohajerani of defending Khomeini’s fatwa and being an apologist for the Islamic Republic.

“How is it possible that the British government allows a former official of the Islamic Republic of Iran to live in the UK and call for the murder of a British citizen. Mohajerani still defending the fatwa against Salman Rushdie,” Masih Alinejad US-based activist Masih tweeted August 15.

In a series of tweets after Rushdie's stabbing, Mohajerani, a former vice-president and minister of culture and Islamic guidance, implicitly defended writing the book in praise and justification of Khomeini’s fatwa, describing the royalties from the book’s sales as “legitimate and sweet”. Mr. Mohajerani has refused talking to Iran International and other foreign based Persian language media.

Mohajerani later tweeted to deny that he approves of the attack on Rushdi and called the attempt on his life a ‘tragic incident’ but also said he hopes that the British author will cease “insulting prophets and religions during the rest of his life”.

He has responded to the possibility of being investigated by the British authorities and a trial by saying that this will provide him with a “golden opportunity” that he is ready to exploit.

Sadr told Iran International that her organization consulted a group of expert British lawyers about the case before filing its complaint. “The British lawyers said Mohajerani’s writings are evidence of “incitement of terrorism” and “sharing terrorist content”, she said.

Sadr added that the lawyers who were provided with the English translation of Mohajerani’s writings and recent tweets on the attempt on Rushdie’s life in New York in August filed the complaint with the British authorities on behalf of Justice for Iran.

Iran's hardliner media doubled down on praise for the attack on Rushdie as many condemned the stabbing by a man allegedly sympathetic to Shiite extremism.

Khomeini's death fatwa against Rushdie resulted in several failed assassination attempts against him as well as his publishers and translators. Satanic Verses’ Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was killed, its Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was seriously injured in a stabbing attack, itsNorwegian publisher,William Nygaard, was shot, and an arson attack by a fundamentalist mob against its Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin, at a hotel in Sivas, Turkey, in 1993 led to the death of 37 people. Nesin narrowly escaped.

It is not officially announced whether Russia has begun flying the drones against Ukrainian targets, but the drones appear to be operational and ready to use, said the officials, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

The reported shipment marks the latest sign of what appears to be closer military cooperation between the longtime allies, which are also broadening their relations in other sectors such as space programs, aviation and automotive industry. 

It also underscores warnings from critics of the ongoing negotiations with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal that the United States left in 2018. An agreement, which would grant Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear program, is inching forward.

In mid-August, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard confirmed that it held joint drone exercises with Russia at the Kashan Air Base, adding that Belarus and Armenia were also partaking in the drills.

Earlier in the month, US-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War quoted advisor to the Ukrainian President’s Office, Oleksiy Arestovych, as saying that Iran handed 46 drones over to Russia and that the Ukrainian government has already noted the use of these drones in combat in Ukraine. 

Late In July, an Iranian lawmaker said military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow has upset the political equations of the global order, confirming Russia’s request to buy Iranian drones.

The first strike took place on August 23 against a facility “used by militia groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that have been involved in a series of unmanned aerial vehicle, rocket, and mortar attacks against United States personnel and facilities in Syria,“ Biden said in his letter.

The militia under Iranian command launched a new attack on Wednewsday and the United States had to again react, launching new strikes. The scenario repeated itself on Thursday, killing four militiamen.

Biden wrote to the leaders of the House of Representative and the US Senate "consistent with the War Powers Act“. But it he directly said this was a message to Tehran.

"I directed the August 23 strikes," Biden wrote, "to deter the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iran-backed militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities."

Iranian government media and officials remained silent on Thursday, ignoring the events publicly. But on Friday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani rejected President Biden’s argument that the US is responding to threats against American forces. Kanaani tweeted, “Fact: The very presence of occupier America in Syria and its transgressions against the defenders of Syria’s independence and territorial integrity is illegal and condemned.”

Knaani on Wednesday had denied any links between Iran and the militia forces in Syria, a claim few would také seriously, given Iran’s 11-year involvement in the Syrian civil war and hundreds of casualties among its forces and those of its militia.

At the same time, Biden used wording in his letter to emphasize the "discrete" and "proportionate" nature of the military action, amid highly sensitive indirect negotiations with Tehran to restoire the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA.

Iran has received the latest US response to a European Union draft proposal on bridging the remaining gaps and it announced Thursday that its experts and deecision makers are carefully examining the text.

Biden, however, faces strong domestic opposition for trying to restore the JCPOA and lift economic sanctions imposed on Iran. The attaks in Syria can help paint a picture of the President as a man ready to stand up to Tehran.

The initial incident that let to the first US strike against Iran-affiliated forces on Tuesday was an attack on US forces on August 15, the same day that Iran had responded to the EU proposal. While Iran appears serious about continuing nuclear talks, it is not clear why forces under its command in Syria would provoke the United States.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his hardliner supporters have long called for all American forces to leave the Middle East, meaning primarily Iraq and Syria. At he same time, Washington and its allies in the region have long accused Iran of "malign activities" by organizing and supporting militant Shiite groups to carve out zones of Iranian influence all the way to the Mediterranean.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and its affiliated entities have been sanctioned by the United States partly for this reason, and their sanctioned status became part of the nuclear negotiations this year. The US rejected Iranian demands to remove the sanctions and Tehran appears to have backed off.

According to local military sources, at least three members of an Iran-aligned militia were killed when they were targeted by a US helicopter as they were about to prepare a rocket launcher in the town. 

Iranian militias have a strong presence in the town and have repeatedly targeted the nearby Al Omar oilfield on the eastern bank of the Euphrates where the US coalition has its biggest base in Syria.

The base also known as Green Village was targeted on Wednesday night in a second consecutive day of violence between the US military and Iran-backed militants that injured at least one US service member and killed up to four militants. 

According to CENTCOM, Iran-affiliated militants in the area were struck by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships, and M777 artillery. “We will respond appropriately and proportionally to attacks on our servicemembers. No group will strike at our troops with impunity. We will take all necessary measures to defend our people,” said Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command. 

Military tensions escalated between US forces and Iranian militia in Syria as nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington seemed to be making some progress.

Earlier in the week, Iran’s state-run media said a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Ground Force was killed in Syria in the early hours of August 22, claiming that the general was killed as he was serving as a "military advisor" in the country.

Later on Thursday, Syrian media reported loud explosions near Masyaf and Tartous, in Western Syria. According to the Syrian observatory for human rights, it was an Israeli air strike.