Threatened By Israel-Azerbaijan Ties, Iran Urges Clarification On Partnership

According to the latest official figures, the annual inflation rate reached 47.7 percent in February-March, while point to point inflation is estimated to be at 64 percent in the same period.

According to Khabar online this level of inflation is unprecedented during the past 50 years, adding that some government officials' wishful thinking about the possibility of reducing inflation to 30 and even 20 percent is a "dream."

Last week, when President Ebrahim Raisi called on government officials to offer their solutions for lowering the inflation rate, former Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati sarcastically said: "Don’t you believe it is a bit too late after 1.5 years in office as President?"

Nonetheless, the new Central Bank Governor Mohammad Reza Farzin promised to lower inflation to 20 to 30 percent but did not say how. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has called the new Iranian year "the year of controlling inflation and boosting production." However, experts say that it is unlikely for any government to be able to bring the inflation rate to the level of a decade ago when it was between 16 to 22 percent.

Inflation began to rise when the United States withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear accord with Iran and imposed crippling sanction in 2018.

Massopud Mirkazemi, the chairman of Iran's Planning and Budget Organization has also said that lowering inflation to 30 percent is feasible. He said this can be done by introducing monetary discipline in all government offices.

Economist Saeed Mesgari told Khabar Online that "the best any government can do is to reduce the current inflation rate by only 10 percent, but I cannot see the will to do that in this government." He added that an inflation rate between 40 to 50 percent will linger in Iran as long as the government refuses to bring about economic reform.

The economy, he said is suffering from accumulated challenges which have brought inflation to a new level.

Meanwhile, Khabar Online wrote in another report that hard-line political figure Yaser Jebraili, and Mohsen Rezaei who happens to be the vice president for economic affairs, have started a move to take over the government's economic team. Apart from Rezaei, the team includes Economy Minister Ehsan Khanduzi, budget chief Mirkazemi and Vice President Mohammad Mokhber.

The report added that the brother of President Ebrahim Raisi’s son-in-law, Meysam Nili has teamed up with Rezaei and Jebraili to pursue this goal. Rezaei who has been sidelined in the government economic team, has always claimed that he has the definite solution for Iran's economic crisis but has never offered a clear plan other than suggesting to make money by taking US soldiers in the Persian Gulf region hostage and demanding ransom before releasing them!

In the absence of government measures to control rising prices, some clerics have come up with rather funny solutions. Davoud Mehdizadegan, a cleric in charge of compiling university textbooks has said that a serious campaign against women who remove their hijab can help solve the country's economic problems!

While the pressure of increasing prices have been mounting, some pro-government officials' suggestion to increase the price of gasoline has caused more worries among the public. Such suggestions come although throughout Iran's modern history, any increase in the price of gasoline has had a dramatic domino effect on other prices and has led to unrest.

According to Aftab News, some experts have even warned the government that there is a limit to price increases that the nation can tolerate. During the past months many commentators in Iran have warned that further price hikes are likely to trigger another round of protests.

In November 2019, a sudden government decision to double the gasoline price led to protests in more than a hundred Iranian cities which left at least 1,500 dead.

Countering Transnational Terrorism Forum (CTTF) was established as a global forum in 2019 during the Trump administration to “improve international awareness and coordination on Iran’s terrorist and other illicit activities,” a State Department statement issued March 30 said.

It did not provide details about the discussions during the conference or a list of participants, but said, “Governments and organizations from around the world, including from the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, participated in this session.”

The Biden Administration has toughened its position toward Iran since last September when talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal reached an impasse and Iran launched a deadly crackdown against antigovernment protesters.

The meeting that was organized by the department of State and Justice “discussed how Iran continues to engage in brazen terrorist plotting across the globe, including through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force, and how Iran continues to use a variety of mechanisms to evade international terrorism sanctions. “

Last week militia forces controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched at least two attacks on US forces stationed in Syria, killing one contractor and injuring at least 12 US servicemen.

The statement went on to say that “Participants discussed how Iran continues to engage in brazen terrorist plotting across the globe, including through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force, and how Iran continues to use a variety of mechanisms to evade international terrorism sanctions.”

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has announced the martyrdom of guardsman Milad Haydari, one of the IRGC's military advisers and officers, in the criminal attack of the Zionist regime on the outskirts of Damascus at dawn today," the media quoted an IRGC statement, which also threatened revenge.

Israel carried out an air strike near the Syrian capital early Friday the second attack near Damascus in the last two days.

Citing a military source, state media reported that Israel fired "sprays of missiles" just after midnight.

"Syrian air defenses intercepted the missiles and shot down a number of them," the source said, saying the attack caused some material damage. There are no reports about casualties from independent sources.

The source said the attack hit "a site in the Damascus countryside" but did not provide further details.

There was no immediate statement from Israel, which usually declines to comment on reports of strikes in Syria.

Israel has for years been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that began in 2011.

Iranian-backed groups, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, and Iraqi paramilitary groups have entrenched positions around the capital and in the country's north, east and south. Israel has been regularly attacking targets in and around Damascus airport and suburbs.

There have been at least six strikes in March alone, according to a tally by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor with sources on the ground.

In the video, which seems like an interrogation, or a confession session, an officer of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry’s 853 unit named Hamidreza Abraheh reveals the Islamic Republic’s efforts to recruit agents for a clandestine network from Africa's Baluch minority for terrorist operations. 

Abraheh, who worked under the alias Hamid Salari, said that the Islamic Republic is trying to infiltrate the African country under the cover of economic cooperation. He stated that this is the new strategy of the regime’s intelligence operations in many other countries.

He was arrested and interrogated in Dar es Salaam -- the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania -- in December 2022 and was deported to Iran. Abraheh had been granted a visa to live in Tanzania after he misled the Immigration Department and forged documents to prove that he married a Tanzanian citizen in the country.

Abraheh claimed that he had been sent to the country to recruit local Baluch people and train them for terror plots and infiltrating into local governments, adding that the regime’s operations also included plots to kidnap or kill Western targets in Africa.

There is a small but historic Baluch community in East Africa, left over from when the Sultanate of Muscat ruled over Zanzibar and the Swahili Coast. According to some accounts, Tanzania -- along with Kenya and Uganda -- is home to 30,000 Baluchis, who migrated to the African country 300 years ago. The migrants were largely from Iran’s Baluchistan region, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast.

Abraheh is originally from the city of Zabol in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province and is reportedly from a Shiite Muslim family but introduced himself as a Sunni in order to better assimilate among Tanzania’s Sunni Baluch population. 

"Two offices in Chabahar and Zahedan support us” in the operations in Tanzania, Abraheh says in the video, adding that he asked the offices “to find Baluch-speaking Iranian or Pakistani people who have some knowledge of Tanzania and are willing to stay here for a while."

Abraheh also explains that his network was free to operate as it pleased according to five and ten-year plans and that he was tasked with recruiting, vetting, and training operatives.

In the video Abraheh elaborates on different departments of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and their responsibilities. He says the Foreign Intelligence department is mainly focused on Israel, the US, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Azerbaijan.

His confessions also shed light on a fierce competition between Iran's Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC's Intelligence Organization, so much so that, according to Abraheh, they express pleasure with the other one's failures. 

In November 2021, ADF – a military magazine published quarterly by US Africa Command – reported the arrest of five people recruited by IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds force in Ghana, Senegal and Tanzania. Israel's Channel 12 reported at the time that the five people, who had African passports, were arrested by “local intelligence in these countries,” after Israel’s Mossad had thwarted multiple Iranian “plots” against Israeli tourists and businessmen in the three countries. The channel claimed the five had been trained in Lebanon and returned to Africa posing as religious students to identify Israeli targets for attacks, including tourists on safari in Tanzania.

Earlier in 2021, American and Israeli officials said Iran was behind a thwarted operation against the United Arab Emirates embassy in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, and that a cell of 15 had been arrested in Ethiopia and Sudan. In September 2021, Cyprus also said it had arrested an Azerbaijani national over an Iranian plot to attack Israeli businessmen there.

In January 2022, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita claimed that the Islamic Republic wants to infiltrate Africa and expand Shiite ideology on the continent. "Iran plans to enter West Africa and to spread the Shia doctrine in the region," he said, vowing to stop Tehran’s attempts to spread its influence on the continent.

About a week after the Russian striker Nikolay Komlichenko criticized the low quality of conditions in Tehran, two other Russian footballers also expressed dissatisfaction on Wednesday with the team's stay in the Iranian capital. 

This has upset many Iranians, including well-known figures in the world of soccer.

Russia, which was banned from Euro 2024 by UEFA following the invasion of Ukraine, drew 1-1 with Iran in the international friendly in Tehran last Thursday, March 23. Russia’s Anton Miranchuk scored from the penalty spot in the 29th minute and Mehdi Taremi equalized the match from the spot in the 47th minute.

Danil Prutsev, the midfielder of the Russian national team and Spartak Moscow club, bemoaned about his trip to Iran, saying "there were internet problems, and it was difficult to communicate with our family."

Also on Wednesday, Dynamo Moscow club Striker Konstantin Tyukavin said in an interview with Sport24 that he was uncomfortable in Iran.

“To be honest, all the time that we spent there, I was somehow uncomfortable… The internet didn't work. I was using my mobile network because nothing was loading from the local Wi-Fi. In order to enter the Telegram (messaging app), you had to download a certain VPN. In fact, we spent three days without the Internet,” he said. “The weather was strange and always foggy,” he added. 

Their remarks echoed similar ones by their teammate Nikolai Komlichenko, who described the standard of living in Tehran as much lower than that of Uzbekistan.

“I didn’t really like it in terms of everyday life. Everything was at a very low level, to be honest, compared to Tashkent, where we played our last match against Uzbekistan. There was a higher level of comfort there.”

Also criticizing the internet quality, he said that the signal was so bad that he could not access the internet from his hotel room. “I had to sit in the corridor in order to connect somewhere. Just like 10 years ago in Russia, if you remember, when in some places you also had to go somewhere to access the Internet.”

These statements drew many reactions from Iranians. Alireza Mansourian, the head coach of the Foulad Khuzestan club, said in a press conference Wednesday that "The Russian player was crazy! Or he was told to express such statements. As far as I know, they went from the hotel to the stadium and from there to the airport. I don't know how this rascal found out how we live in Iran!”

Mansourian also hit back saying that it was so strange how Komlichenko came to the conclusion that Iran is worse than Uzbekistan.

The Russian footballer also criticized the quality of food in Tehran, saying “We have a far better quality of food in Russia.” 

For Iranians it is a real insult to say their food is bad.

“When no team plays against you, you should be honored to come to our country. 25 years ago, when we went to their country, they were killing people for [to snatch] a hundred dollars,” added Mansourian.

Following their long suspension from European and FIFA tournaments over the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been invited to compete in the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) Championship in June, amid speculation over a switch to the Asian confederation (AFC) as the country seeks a return to international competition. Most international sports federations have excluded athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus since the invasion of Ukraine, but some are now starting to allow them back into competition.