IRGC Bombards Iran’s Kurdish Regions Causing Fear Among Villagers

The US military's Central Command said 10 service members were evacuated to higher-level care facilities outside the region, without detailing the severity of the injuries.

Central Command, which oversees US troops in the Middle East, said no enemy fire was reported but added that the cause of the incident was under investigation.

There are about 900 US personnel deployed to Syria, most of them in the east, as part of a mission fighting the remnants of Islamic State. American troops there have come under repeated attacks in recent years by Iran-backed militia.

In March, 25 troops were wounded in strikes and counter-strikes in Syria, which also killed one US contractor and injured another.

While Islamic State is now a shadow of the group that ruled over a third of Syria and Iraq in a caliphate declared in 2014, hundreds of fighters are still camped in desolate areas where neither the US-led coalition nor the Syrian army, with support from Russia and Iranian-backed militias, exert full control.

Thousands of other Islamic State fighters are in detention facilities guarded by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, America's key ally in the country.

US officials say that Islamic State could still regenerate into a major threat.

The threats from Iran-backed militia to US forces are a reminder of the complex geopolitics of Syria, where Syrian President Bashar al-Assad counts on support from Iran and Russia and sees American troops as occupiers.

Reporting by Reuters

In an exclusive interview with the Persian Service of Radio Free Europe in Prague, Radio Farda this week, Éléonore Caroit stated that so far there were technical and judicial obstacles to proscribe the IRGC, but the preparations for the motion have already been made.

A group of lawyers including seven French and Iranian solicitors, said they have concluded with legal investigations that contradict EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell's claims that there are legal obstacles to designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

The group is now consulting with the French parliament and government to approve and implement the resolution.

On Sunday, Éléonore Caroit participated in a protest rally in Paris to condemn Europe’s relations with the ruling regime.

The European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution in January calling on the EU and member states to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group.

The resolution demanded that Iranian authorities end the crackdown on popular protests that started last September after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in morality police custody.

It also demanded that Europe sanction the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and its president Ebrahim Raisi.

"It is something that cannot be decided without a court decision first. You cannot say I consider you a terrorist because I don't like you," Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, told reporters in Brussels.

The 84-year-old authoritarian ruler told his top officials this week that a deal with the West on the nuclear issue can be accepted only if it does not adversely affect the country's nuclear infrastructure. 

Mehdi Zakerian, an outspoken academic and a critic of Iran's policies on nuclear negotiations, reiterated in an interview with Rouydad24 that "the behavior of successive governments in Iran have no impact on foreign policy" as those policies are determined elsewhere, meaning by Khamenei. He had said the same the night before in a debate with hardliner academic Foad Izadi on live state TV.

Meanwhile, he added in the interview that people should not pay any attention to allusions about "beggars’ diplomacy." The only person who had used that expression in reference to the Rouhani administration's more pragmatic approach to nuclear negotiations was no one other than Khamenei.

Zakerian argued that key decisions in Iran are made on case-by-case basis, despite lofty statements, and sometimes it seems the government undermines its own previous decisions. 

He said the government should acknowledge that the pressure of sanctions was the main reason why the Islamic Republic succumbed to a nuclear deal in the first place. He had said on TV that it was Iran's behavior that led former US President Donald Trump to withdraw from the JCPOA.

Zakerian made it clear that in the Iranian political structure major decisions are always made by Khamenei, and no Iranian official is entitled to make any decision or statement on his own on important issues.

He added that public opinion in Iran has a limited impact which was most clearly observed during the presidential elections in 2013 and 2017. Having elected the more pragmatic Hassan Rouhani, the outcome in the end was the same.

At the same time, referring to the country's difficult situation under President Ebrahim Raisi, conservative newspaper Jomhouri Eslami warned that Iran's political and economic situation is becoming increasingly similar to the last days of the Soviet Union where rich leaders had no idea what was happening to the poor nation.

The daily wrote in its editorial on Sunday that Iranian leaders should take a lesson from the fate of the Soviet Union, a system that had denied the people political freedom. The editorial pointed out the similarities between the Soviet Union that was founded based on the idea of equality but ended up being plagued by discriminations, and the Islamic Republic which was based on the idea of religion and social justice but created a social class of ‘nouveau riches’ managerial cadres. This new class, wrote the paper, undermines the constitution and benefits the insiders.

The daily warned that unlike North Korea, the people of Iran will not tolerate a closed system and a new social class of exceptionally and unjustifiably privileged minority who rule the nation.

Also speaking on the nuclear issue, lawmaker Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi told Khabar Online that the hard-line lawmakers who set fire to copies of the 2015 nuclear deal in the previous parliament should be put on trial for what they did. Jahanabadi described them as "a loud minority that create all sorts of trouble for the nation." He further asked Iran's moderates: "Why don't you stand up against this minority?"

However, Jahanabadi failed to observe that although the opponents of the JCPOA comprise a minority in Iran, they hold most seats in parliament. However, he warned that "The nation has lost its patience while moderate politicians are silently hoping for a miracle…They left no future for us or for our children.” 

An Iranian nuclear weapon would harm regional stability and threaten the entire world, Netanyahu told his counterpart on Monday.

The two sides also discussed expanding cooperation in innovation, cybertech, and artificial intelligence.

Back in May, Netanyahu said Iran is like "50 North Koreas," and if it could threaten every city in the US with nuclear extortion, it would change history.

“[Iran] is not merely a neighborhood bully, like the dynasty that rules North Korea. This is an ideological force that views us, Israel, as small Satan, and views you as the great Satan. And to have North Korea, or rather Iran, being able to threaten every city in the United States with nuclear blackmail, is a changing of history,” he added.

The prime minister made the remarks in a meeting with a bipartisan group led by US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael Turner.

Netanyahu told Iran International in March that Tehran is “dangerously moving forward” in its nuclear program and close to "red lines".

The issue of the Iranian regime’s nuclear program is “the quintessential heart of my foreign policy,” he said, adding, “I came back into government precisely to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear state,” vowing to do “everything possible to prevent it."

Netanyahu indirectly referred to recent confirmation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it found uranium particles enriched to 84-percent purity, which is very close to the 90-percent enriched fissile material needed for nuclear bombs. He said that Israel will not tolerate a “nuclear threshold” Iran.

The Ecoiran website quoted a Central Bank source last month who claimed inflation in the first Iranian month of the year (March 21-April 20) rose by 68.7%. Just in that one-month prices jumped 5.2 percent, with the previous month witnessing another substantial hike of 6.6 percent.

However, Mohammadreza Farzin, the Head of the Central Bank promised on Monday that inflation will have a noticeable decrease next month.

One year ago, the rial was trading at around 300,000 to the dollar, while in early May it dropped to as low as 550,000 but currently it stands at 490,000.

The rial’s catastrophic drop tells the story of inflation in Iran. The country must import a large part of its food, animal feed, medicines, raw materials, and finished goods it needs. As the local currency loses value, imports become more expensive and higher prices have to be passed on to consumers.

Although large-scale anti-regime protests in the fall of 2022 were driven by social and political oppression, the current economic crisis is also making hopeless young people restive. Also, labor unrest began to rise in 2023, as workers’ real incomes declined in value.

Price inflation is highest in the food sector, which even last year was estimated to have been between 70-100 percent. Recent reports have spoken of lower-income families cutting down on nutritious food and being unable to afford many types of fruits and vegetables.