Sunni Leader Condemns Militants’ Deadly Attack On Police Station

Danish Shipping company Maersk announced it would pause all container shipments through the Red Sea until further notice. German container line Hapag Lloyd said it was considering a similar move.

Houthis have been attacking international shipping since mid-November, as retaliation for the Israeli military operation in Gaza after Iran called for disrupting shipping to Israel. Houthis recently extended their threat to all shipping instead of targeting vessels destined for Israeli ports.

A projectile, believed to be a drone, struck one of two Liberian-flagged vessels, the German-owned Al Jasrah, causing a fire but no injuries, a US official was quoted as saying.

Two ballistic missiles were fired in the second attack, one of which struck a vessel, causing a fire which the crew was working to extinguish, the official said.

A US Navy destroyer was on its way to aid the vessel, the official said, without naming the vessel.

Meanwhile, the United States was reportedly in talks with 12 countries to form a naval coalition to protect international shipping in the Red Sea. It was expected that Washington would make an announcement on Friday. Iran’s defense minister Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani slammed the US effort saying that the Red Sea is “our region” and warned that “nobody can make a move in a region where we have predominance.”

The Houthis said in a statement that they had fired missiles at two ships - the MSC Alanya and MSC Palatium III. Their statement made no mention of Al Jasrah.

An MSC spokesperson said there had been no attack on the Alanya. Asked about the Houthi claim of an attack on the Palatium III, the spokesperson provided no further comment.

The Houthis said both vessels had been heading to Israel.

However, Alanya and Palatium III both listed Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as their destination, according to data from ship tracking and maritime analytics provider MarineTraffic.

"We will continue to prevent all ships heading to Israeli ports until the food and medicine our people need in the Gaza Strip is brought in," the Houthi statement said.

"We assure all ships heading to all ports of the world apart from Israeli ports that they will suffer no harm and they must keep their identification device on," it said.

Iranian proxy groups in Iraq and Syria have also been targeting US military bases in the two countries since mid-October in retaliation to Washington’s support for Israel after the Hamas terror attack that killed more than 1,000 civilians.

Iran has avoided direct military involvement in support its ally Hamas, despite threatening Israel with destruction for decades. It has also repeatedly said it had no role in the October 7 Hamas operation. However, its proxies, including the Houthis, have launched attacks against US and Israeli targets and international shipping.

Critics of the Biden administration have argued that US deterrence against Iran has failed, and Washington should retaliate against Iranian interests to stop its proxies.

US National Security spokesman John Kirby took Iran to task last week for destabilizing the region by providing financial and military assistance to extremist militant groups, such as Yemeni Houthis.

“We know that the Houthis are supported by Iran, not just politically and philosophically but, of course, with weapon systems,” he stressed.

The group has developed new malware downloaders and recently deployed them against Israeli healthcare institutions, manufacturing firms and local government, according to cybersecurity news website Recorded Future News.

ESET, a Slovakia-based company, has linked the newly discovered downloaders to the Iranian hacking group OilRig, also known as APT34.

OilRig is using well-known cloud service providers as a veil for its activities when communicating with its command-and-control servers, according to ESET.

This strategy enables malicious downloaders to blend their activities more easily into the normal stream of network traffic, the researchers said.

Numerous reports have been made of the same group targeting Middle Eastern organizations since at least 2014 in countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Their main focus has been on government organizations and businesses within the financial, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries.

Iranian-backed hackers have recently expanded their targets beyond the Middle East to target any trace of Israeli ties abroad.

An Iranian-linked hacker attacked a water facility in County Mayo in Ireland earlier this month, leaving residents without water for two days.

The pro-Iran cyber attack group targeted the facility because it used Unitronics Vision Series programmable logic controllers (PLCs), an Israeli product.

The statement by MP Mohammad Vahidi comes after President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he plans to open Russian schools in the Islamic Republic.

Last week, Iran's parliament approved a deal to maintain “cooperation between the government of Iran and Russia through cultural centers”.

On Friday, Vahidi insisted that the move is “not relevant to the Ministry of Education”, but rather to the “institutions that act as cultural advisors for the two countries”.

Putin had stressed the importance of "soft power" in improving Iranian-Russian relations, describing it as a means of promoting culture and education.

“Soft power in the kindest and best sense of this word, the promotion of our culture and our education systems. We will mull this over as well,” he added.

Political, trade and military ties between Russia and Iran have been developing in a relationship which is of growing concern to the US.

Earlier this week, Iran lifted visa requirements for visitors from 33 countries, including Russia.

Russia said on Tuesday that it's working on a major new agreement with Iran without revealing any details.

A rare meeting lasting five hours between President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi took place last week in the Kremlin during which the two pointed to the "start of a new chapter" in their bilateral relationship.

Tehran and Moscow have become particularly close allies since Iran began supplying Russia with drones and missiles as part of its invasion of Ukraine.

According to analysts, the ongoing Gaza war has helped Russia by diverting worldwide attention away from its war in Ukraine and by allowing it to align itself with nations in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

While Iran has denied any involvement in Hamas’s October 7 deadly assault on Israel, it has praised the militant group publicly. Additionally, its proxies have attacked Israel, including Hezbollah from the border of Lebanon.

Ahmad Alamolhoda, who is the father-in-law of President Ebrahim Raisi, said during his Friday prayer sermon that Iran should cut off all ties with the United States and Western countries, including in the areas of technological innovation and economic development.

In his remarks, the ultraconservative loyalist of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lauded the government's “recently developed economic ties with the East.”

Khamenei has been a staunch opponent of the West during his 34-year rule and since 2018 has proclaimed a policy of establishing closer ties with Russia and China.

Official propaganda by the regime heralds the ultimate weakening of the US and the downfall of the West.

There has been exponential growth in the Iran-Russia alliance since Moscow invaded Ukraine. Iran supplied hundreds of Kamikaze drones to Russia during the conflict to inflict massive damage on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets.

On Monday the EU brought sanctions against Iranians involved in the manufacture of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used by Russia in Ukraine.

Iran and Russia are strengthening their relationship at a time when the conflict in Gaza is likely to divert international attention from the war in Ukraine while at the same time weakening the military assistance provided by Western countries to Kyiv.

Last week during a meeting in the Kremlin Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin celebrated the "start of a new chapter" in their bilateral relationship.

The remarks by Dr. Mohammad Raeeszadeh follow repeated warnings from many figures in Iran, including lawmakers, that the ever-increasing desire of healthcare professionals to leave the country will cause the healthcare system to collapse.

“The figures for the immigration of doctors are not publicized because they will be misused. Even the departure of one member of the medical community is a loss for us; because we need their expertise,” Dr Raeeszadeh said.

There are no reliable official figures concerning emigration.

Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), on Tuesday dismissed the alarming reports about the mass emigration of doctors and nurses as “psychological warfare” and "negative propaganda and lies."

Earlier on December 7, Ali Fadavi, Acting IRGC Commander said the wave of migration by doctors and nurses is "planned by the enemy" and emphasized, "We are aware of each and every doctor and nurse who left. We know what hospital they go to and how much they get paid."

An Iranian parliament member, Masoud Pezeshkian, warned of an imminent shortage of healthcare professionals as a result of growing emigration. He emphasized that the primary reason for the exodus is financial.

A report released on Tuesday by Iran Open Data (IOD) revealed that the number of doctors who leave Iran to work in more prosperous countries outweighs the number of new doctors by 30% on an annual basis.
Officials attribute the exodus to poor economic condition, but there is also a political component of lack of freedoms and persecution.

In July, it was reported that Iran's Association of Medical Academic Societies had warned against the recent forced retirement and dismissal of over 100 doctors from residency admissions boards.

Reformist Ham-Mihan newspaper reported in July that most of the doctors who were forced to retire or were removed from boards had signed statements supporting protests.

During the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests last year, doctors and nurses condemned the use of ambulances for the transport of detainees by security forces, as well as their use of shotgun “birdshots” that blinded or injured hundreds of protesters.

Moreover, they stated that they could not comply with authorities' demands to deny services to women who defy hijab restrictions.