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Top NewsA rocket attack targeting U.S. personnel housed at a base in Iraq’s western desert injured several American troops late on Monday, according to U.S. defense officials. Initial reports were that at least five people were injured in Monday’s attack and that the wounded included both U.S. troops and contractors. Those Iraqi militants have typically attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and targeted Israel using longer-range rockets. The chief goal of Iran-backed groups in Iraq is to force the U.S. troops to leave the country entirely. There are about 2,500 American troops in Iraq, as well as 900 in Syria, where the Islamic State has once again become active.
Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Fuad Shukr, Israel, Haniyeh’s, Biden, Kamala D, Harris, Asad, Organizations: Asad, Asad Air Base, U.S, Hamas, Mr, Iraqi, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Revolutionary Guard, Al Asad, Al Asad Air Base, Pentagon, Islamic Locations: Ain, Asad Air, Iran, Gaza, U.S, Syria, Israel, Tehran, Beirut, Yemen, Iraq, Damascus, Al Asad Air, Islamic State, Jurf al, Baghdad
When Iraq’s prime minister traveled to Washington in the spring, he hoped to negotiate a much-needed economic development package and discuss shared strategic interests with the United States, one of his country’s most important international allies. Both the United States and Iran have long held sway in Iraq. But since the war between the U.S. ally Israel and the Iran-backed Hamas broke out in Gaza almost 10 months ago, they are increasingly at odds. With regards to Iraq, one of the most contentious issues is the continued presence of 2,500 American troops on Iraqi soil. Over the past 20 months, Iran has used its considerable influence to try to persuade the Iraqis to push those forces out, and if it succeeds, it would give Tehran even more say over Iraqi policies.
Persons: Mohammed Shia, Israel Locations: Washington, United States, Iran, Israel, Tehran, Iraq, Gaza
Tensions were running high on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border on Monday in anticipation of an escalation in hostilities, after Israel’s security cabinet authorized its leaders to decide on the nature and timing of an Israeli military response to a deadly rocket attack from Lebanon last weekend. The Israeli military said overnight that its aerial defense systems successfully intercepted an unmanned aircraft that crossed from Lebanon into northwestern Israel. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on those attacks. Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the rocket attack Saturday that struck a soccer field in Majdal Shams. But the Israeli military said the type of rocket used in the attack is Iranian-made and carries more than 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives.
Persons: Majdal Shams, Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Antony J, Blinken, Isaac Herzog, , Matthew Miller, Adrienne Watson, Gallant, , Mohamed Awada, Hwaida Saad, Edward Wong, Gabby Sobelman, Myra Noveck Organizations: Hezbollah, Israel’s, United, State Department, U.S . National Security Council, Lufthansa Group, East Airlines, Lebanon’s Locations: Lebanon, Majdal, Golan, Israel, Iran, United States, Gaza, Tokyo, Majdal Shams, Iranian, Beirut’s, Beirut, Jerusalem
In the working-class neighborhood of Tehran surrounding Imam Hussein Square, the side streets and alleys are lined with secondhand stores and small repair shops for refurbishing all manner of household goods. But with little to do, most shopkeepers idle in front of their stores. A 60-year-old man named Abbas and his son Asgar, 32, lounged in two of the secondhand, faux brocaded armchairs that they sell. Asked about their business, Abbas, who did not want his surname used for fear of drawing the government’s attention, looked incredulous. there are no customers, people are economically weak now, they don’t have money.”After years of crippling U.S. sanctions that generated chronic inflation, made worse by Iran’s economic mismanagement and corruption, Iranians increasingly feel trapped in a downward economic spiral.
Persons: Abbas, Asgar, Locations: Tehran
Except for the fraying posters of Iran’s presidential candidates plastered on highway overpasses, there were few signs this weekend that the country had held a presidential election on Friday and was heading to a runoff. There were scarcely any rallies to applaud the two top vote-getters who are from opposite ends of the political spectrum and whom Iranians will decide between on July 5. Even from the government’s official numbers, it was evident that the real winner of Friday’s election was Iran’s silent majority that either left their ballot blank or cast no vote at all. Some 60 percent of eligible voters did not cast a vote or opted to cast a blank one. That was because there was no point in voting, said Bita Irani, 40, a housewife in Tehran, Iran’s capital: “We had a choice between bad and worse,” she said.
Persons: getters, Bita Irani, Locations: Tehran, Iran’s
A second round of voting, which will pit the reformist, Masoud Pezeshkian, against Saeed Jalili, an ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator, will take place on July 5. The runoff was in part the result of low voter turnout and a crowded field of four candidates, three of whom competed for the conservative vote. Iranian law requires a winner to receive more than 50 percent of all votes cast. Iran’s economy is cratering under punishing Western sanctions, its citizens’ freedoms are increasingly curtailed and its foreign policy is largely shaped by hard-line leaders. In speeches, televised debates and round-table discussions, the candidates criticized government policies and ridiculed rosy official assessments of Iran’s economic prospects as harmful delusions.
Persons: Masoud Pezeshkian, Saeed Jalili,
After a testy campaign that featured strong attacks on the government by virtually all the candidates over the economy, internet restrictions and harsh enforcement of the hijab law on women, Iran was holding elections on Friday to pick a president. The vote comes at a perilous time for the country, with the incoming president facing a cascade of challenges, including discontent and divisions at home, an ailing economy and a volatile region that has taken Iran to the brink of war twice this year. With the race coming down to a three-way battle between two conservative candidates and a reformist, many analysts predict that none of them will achieve the necessary 50 percent of the votes, necessitating a runoff on July 5 between the reformist candidate and the leading conservative. That outcome may be avoided if one of the leading conservative candidates withdraws from the race, but in a bitter public feud, neither Gen. Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, a former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and a pragmatic technocrat, nor Saeed Jalili, a hard-liner, has budged.
Persons: Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, Saeed Jalili Organizations: Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Locations: Iran
On Today’s Episode:Six Takeaways From the First Presidential Debate, by Shane Goldmacher and Jonathan SwanSchools Police Chief Indicted in Uvalde Shooting Response, by J. David Goodman and Edgar SandovalOklahoma’s State Superintendent Requires Public Schools to Teach the Bible, by Sarah Mervosh and Elizabeth DiasAfter a Testy Campaign in Tense Times, Iranians Vote for President, by Farnaz Fassihi and Alissa J. Rubin
Persons: Shane Goldmacher, Jonathan, J, David Goodman, Edgar Sandoval Oklahoma’s, Sarah Mervosh, Elizabeth Dias, Farnaz Fassihi, Rubin Organizations: Jonathan Swan Schools Police, Schools, Times
‘We Have Been Going Backward’
  + stars: | 2024-06-27 | by ( Alissa J. Rubin | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +1 min
Iranians will head to the polls in a special election to choose the successor to former President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May. The election comes at a critical moment for Iran’s leadership. The economy has been weakened by years of sanctions, and under Mr. Raisi’s ultra-conservative leadership, personal freedoms and expressions of dissent have been increasingly quashed. It may be a challenge, after years of voter boycotts and apathy, and judging from a small sample of interviews in recent days. Conversations with more than a dozen government workers, students, businesspeople and other ordinary men and women revealed a degree of weariness, even skepticism, despite the risks of speaking freely in Iran.
Persons: Ebrahim Raisi Locations: Tehran, Iran
Iran’s election for its next president will take place a year early, on June 28, after President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash last month. The vote will usher the Islamic republic into new leadership amid domestic discontent, voter apathy and regional turmoil. While the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has the final say on all state matters, the Iranian president sets domestic policy and has some influence over foreign policy.
Persons: Ebrahim Raisi, Ali Khamenei
Iraqis have known the bitter taste of war so intimately and frequently over the past 40 years that they say they can feel viscerally the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. They remember the dreaded whistling of a shell before impact, the fear of a knock at the door bringing word of a loved one’s loss, the stench of blood drying on concrete. Those memories initially prompted thousands of people to join demonstrations on the streets of Iraq’s cities to show their solidarity with the Palestinian cause. But as the war in Gaza dragged on, those displays of support faded. “You want to help,” said Yasmine Salih, a 25-year old dental student, referring to the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, “but you can’t because your own bucket of troubles is full.”
Persons: , Yasmine Salih Locations: Gaza
Those groups — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, multiple militias in Iraq and Hamas in the Palestinian territories — are central to Iran’s ability to wield influence far beyond its borders despite being under strict economic sanctions for decades. Iran works with these groups through the Quds Force, a division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. answers directly to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not to the government run by the president. On Tuesday morning, Iran-linked groups in Iraq announced that they had launched a strike at a base in Israel. It was as if Iran’s allies were signaling that it was business as usual by making the kinds of attacks that have become commonplace in recent months.
Persons: Ali Khamenei, Ebrahim Raisi, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, , Parsi Organizations: Quds Force, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iraq, Quincy Institute, Responsible Locations: Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanese, Israel
With the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, becomes acting president. Mr. Mokhber is a conservative political operative with a long history of involvement in large business conglomerates closely tied to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Khamenei said that Mr. Mokhber must work with the heads of the legislature and judiciary to hold elections for a new president within 50 days. Vice presidents in Iran are typically low profile, operating more as players within the government than as public figures. “Iran’s vice presidents have traditionally not been contenders to succeed their bosses,” said Robin Wright, a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Wilson Center in Washington.
Persons: Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s, Mohammad Mokhber, Mokhber, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khamenei, , , Robin Wright Organizations: U.S . Institute of Peace, Wilson Center Locations: Iran, Washington
It took less than 46 seconds for the helmeted assassin to pull over his motorcycle, walk to the driver’s side of the S.U.V., yank open the door and fire his handgun four times, killing one of Iraq’s most prominent TikTok personalities, a 30-year-old woman whose name on social media was Um Fahad. The Iraqi Interior Ministry, which released the video, said it had formed a committee to investigate her death. The victim, whose real name was Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi, had become popular on social media sites, especially TikTok and Instagram, where her videos showed her wearing tight or revealing clothing, or singing and cuddling her young son. They won her some 460,000 followers, but also drew the ire of conservatives in Iraqi society and in the government. At one point, officials ordered Ms. Sawadi jailed for 90 days, reprimanding her for a post that showed her dancing at her 6-year old son’s birthday party.
Persons: yank, Fahad, Mahdi Sawadi, cuddling, Sawadi, reprimanding Organizations: Iraqi Interior Ministry Locations: Baghdad
Some Democrats are fine sending defensive weapons to Israel, but want to see some limits on offensive weapons, which could be used against civilians in Gaza. But progressive Democrats estimated that 40 to 60 members of their party may oppose it on the House floor on Saturday. The legislation would allocate $5 billion to Israel’s defense capabilities and $9 billion for “worldwide humanitarian aid,” including for civilians in Gaza. “To give Netanyahu more offensive weapons at this stage, I believe, is to condone the destruction of Gaza that we’ve seen in the last six months. But they see a “no” vote as part of a strategy to pressure Mr. Biden to condition aid and halt future offensive weapons transfers.
Persons: Biden, , Pramila Jayapal, Joaquin Castro, We’re, Mr, Benjamin Netanyahu’s, , Ro Khanna, Netanyahu, Nancy Pelosi, Mike Johnson, , Becca Balint, , it’s, Lloyd Doggett, Doggett, Ms, Balint, Dan Kildee, Greg Casar Organizations: Democrats, Democratic, , Congressional Progressive Caucus, , Democrat, Israel, Democratic Party, Republican, Republicans, Texas Democrat, White House, Michigan Democrat Locations: Israel, Gaza, Iraq, Washington, Texas, Ukraine, Taiwan, United States, Rafah, Iran, California, Yemen, Louisiana, Vermont, U.S, American
Arab countries, from the United Arab Emirates and Oman to Jordan and Egypt, have tried for months to tamp down the conflict between Israel and Hamas, especially after it widened to include armed groups backed by Iran and embedded deep within the Arab world. Some of them, like the Houthis, threaten Arab governments as well. But the Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel over the weekend, which put the entire region on alert, made the new reality unavoidable: Unlike past Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, and even those involving Israel and Lebanon or Syria, this one keeps expanding. “Part of why these wars were contained was that they were not a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. “But now we are entering this era where a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran — that could drag the region into the conflict and that could drag the U.S. in — now that prospect of a regional war is going to be on the table all the time.”For the moment, the only countervailing force is the desire of both the United States and its longtime foe Iran to avoid a widening of the conflict, said Joost Hiltermann, the International Crisis Group's program director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Persons: , Randa Slim, Joost Hiltermann Organizations: United Arab, East Institute Locations: United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Washington, , United States, East, North Africa
Power by Proxy: How Iran Shapes the Mideast
  + stars: | 2024-04-06 | by ( Alissa J. Rubin | Lazaro Gamio | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +2 min
Power by Proxy: How Iran Shapes the MideastTURKEY Militias in Syria and Iraq SYRIA LEBANON Iran Hezbollah ISRAEL IRAQ Hamas Egypt Saudi Arabia OMAN The Houthis Sudan YEMEN 500 miles TURKEY Militias in Syria and Iraq LEBANON SYRIA Iran Hezbollah IRAQ ISRAEL Hamas Egypt Saudi Arabia The Houthis Sudan YEMEN 500 miles The New York TimesFor years, Iran has been the outsider. Yet Iran has succeeded in projecting its military power across a large swath of the Middle East. Its reach equals — if not eclipses — that of traditional power centers like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Altogether, Iran now supports more than 20 groups in the Middle East, directly or indirectly, with a combination of arms, training and financial aid. Here is a look at the most prominent of the armed groups backed by Iran.
Persons: Israel Organizations: TURKEY, New York Times, United Locations: Iran, Syria, Iraq SYRIA LEBANON Iran Hezbollah ISRAEL IRAQ Hamas Egypt Saudi Arabia OMAN, Sudan YEMEN, TURKEY, Iraq LEBANON SYRIA Iran, IRAQ ISRAEL Hamas Egypt Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Gaza, United States, Israel, Iranian Embassy, Tehran
For years, Iraq has managed to pull off an unlikely balancing act, allowing armed forces tied to both the United States and Iran, an American nemesis, to operate on its soil. When Washington, Tehran and Baghdad all wanted the same thing — the defeat of the Islamic State terrorist group — the relationships were fairly tenable, but in recent months, as the war in the Gaza Strip sends ripples across the region, American and Iranian-backed forces have clashed repeatedly in Iraq and Syria. A U.S. strike on one of those militias last week killed 16 Iraqis, and Iraq is saying it has had enough. “Our land and sovereign authority is not the right place for rival forces to send messages and show their strength.” the office of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement on Sunday. For many years, both Iran and the United States had their proponents within the Iraqi government, and the Iranian-backed armed groups and the American troops lived in a tolerable if uneasy balance.
Persons: Mohammed Shia, Sudani Organizations: Islamic State Locations: Iraq, United States, Iran, American, Washington, Tehran, Baghdad, Gaza, Syria, U.S
A U.S. retaliatory strike in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday killed a senior leader of a militia that U.S. officials blame for recent attacks on American personnel, the Pentagon said, following up on President Biden’s promise that the response to a slew of attacks by Shiite militias would continue. The Pentagon said the man was a leader of Kata’ib Hezbollah, the militia that officials have said was responsible for the drone attack in Jordan last month that killed three American service members and injured more than 40 more. A U.S. official said that the strike was a “dynamic” hit on the militia commander, whom American intelligence officials had been tracking for some time. A second official said the United States reserved the right to strike other Shiite militia leaders and commanders.
Persons: Biden’s, Kata’ib Organizations: Wednesday, Pentagon, Kata’ib Hezbollah, U.S Locations: Jordan, United States
His comment raised fears in Iraq about a possibly retaliatory U.S. attack on its territory. The militia, Kata’ib Hezbollah, or Brigades of the Party of God, is the largest and most established of the Iran-linked groups operating in Iraq. (Kata’ib Hezbollah is separate from the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.) The other two Iraqi groups that are believed to have been involved in strikes U.S. targets — Harakat al Nujaba and Sayyid Shuhada — have not announced they will halt attacks. Kata’ib Hezbollah and other groups had ignored the Iraqi government’s request to stand down, but once the attack in Jordan on Sunday took American lives, Mr. Sudani demanded a complete halt from Kata’ib Hezbollah.
Persons: Biden, Israel, , Nujaba, Sayyid Shuhada —, Kata’ib, Abu Hussein al, , Pat Ryder, , Mohammed Shia, Sudani, Hisham al, Sudani’s, Nuri al, Qais, Hadi, Esmail Qaani, Falih Hassan, Farnaz, Eric Schmitt Organizations: Pentagon, Hezbollah, Party of, Iraqi Army, Kurdish Syrian Defense, Islamic, Kata’ib Hezbollah, Defense Department, U.S, Sunday, Revolutionary Guards, Maliki, Quds Force Locations: Iran, Iraq, U.S, Jordan, Syria, Gaza, The U.S, Islamic State, Lebanon, Yemen, Islamic Republic of Iran, United States, Iraqi, Baghdad, New York, Washington ,
What Iran Really Wants
  + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Alissa J. Rubin | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +1 min
Iran has emerged as the chief architect in multiple conflicts strafing the Middle East, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. It trained and helped arm the Iraqi militias that killed three U.S. service members with a drone in Jordan this weekend. Why is Iran suddenly involved in so many conflicts? Since the 1979 takeover of Iran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the country’s Islamic revolutionary government has had one overriding ambition: to be the lead player shaping the future of the Middle East. Seen another way, it wants Israel weaker and the United States gone from the region after decades of primacy.
Persons: Ruhollah Khomeini Locations: Iran, Persian, Jordan, Israel, Pakistan, Yemen, Gaza, United States
The attack happened at a small outpost in northeast Jordan called Tower 22 near the Syria border where the troops were based. Other details were not immediately available from the Pentagon’s Central Command, which issued an initial bare-bones statement on Sunday. In 2016, the American military turned Al Tanf into a small base. The Rukban refugee camp, with some 8,000 residents, is near both Al Tanf and Tower 22. Troops at Al Tanf have come under fire before from Iran-backed militias.
Persons: Biden, , Mr, Al, Al Tanf, Syria’s, Alissa J, Rubin Organizations: U.S, Pentagon’s, Command, Resistance, Hezbollah, United, Operations, Pentagon, Navy, Sunday, American, Troops, The Defense Department, Al Asad, Al Asad Air Base Locations: Jordan, Iran, Gaza, Syria, Israel, Iraq, , Iranian, Lebanese, Yemen, Aden, United States, Azraq, Al Tanf, Islamic State, Red, U.S, Baghdad, Damascus, Tehran, Lebanon, Al, Al Asad Air
Israel and Iran have been locked in a shadow war for years, long before the latest war in Gaza began. They have traded covert attacks by land, sea and air, as well as online. Israel has conducted targeted killings of key Iranian figures and strikes aimed at crippling Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities. Syria is a close ally of Iran and a conduit for Iranian weapons shipments to its proxies, especially Hezbollah. Iran and Pakistan Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza Clashes along Israel-Lebanon border Qatar Iranian strike targeting militants Saudi Arabia U.A.E.
Persons: Israel, Ebrahim Raisi, Israel —, SANA, Hojatallah Omidvar, Haj Sadegh Omidzade, General Omidvar, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, Ronen Bergman, Victoria Kim Organizations: Guards, Quds Force, Islamic, Hamas, Revolutionary Guards, Human Rights, SYria AFghanistan IRAQ Israel Iran Clashes, West Bank, Qatar, Qatar INdia Saudi Arabia U.A.E, Red Sea, TURKEY U.S, EGYPT Qatar Saudi Arabia U.A.E, SYria IRAQ Iran Israel Clashes, West Bank KUWAIT PAK, Qatar Iranian, Saudi Arabia U.A.E, Quds Forces, Brig, Senior Locations: Iran, Damascus, Israel, Gaza, Syria, Islamic Republic of Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza . Israel, Syrian, Britain, East TURKMENISTAN Syria, Iraq TURKEY Iran, SYria AFghanistan IRAQ Israel Iran, West, Gaza PAKISTAN KUWAIT Iran, Pakistan EGYPT, Qatar INdia Saudi Arabia, OMAN Red, YEMEN Sudan, Red, Red Sea U.S, Iraq TURKMENISTAN Iran, TURKEY, Gaza Iran, Pakistan KUWAIT PAKISTAN, EGYPT Qatar Saudi Arabia, Sudan YEMEN U.S, SYria IRAQ Iran Israel, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, OMAN, YEMEN, Iranian, Gen, Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq, Israeli, United States
A deadly Iranian ballistic missile strike in northern Iraq on Tuesday drove a wedge — at least temporarily — between Baghdad and Tehran, adding to the already volatile and tense situation in the Middle East. The Iraqi government recalled its ambassador to Tehran and summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad to the Foreign Ministry after at least eight ballistic missiles launched by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck overnight in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, killing four civilians, including an 11-month-old girl. The strike came amid widespread fears that the devastating war in Israel could spiral into a more deadly confrontation. The war has already sparked a low-level regional conflict between Iranian proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and the United States and other Wester powers. The United States, France and Britain denounced the latest Iranian attack, which shook Erbil and set off sirens at the United States Consulate and at the airport, which was forced to suspend flights.
Persons: Iran’s chargé Organizations: Tuesday, Foreign, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, United States Consulate Locations: Iraq, Baghdad, Tehran, Iran’s chargé d’affaires, Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan, Israel, Syria, Yemen, United States, France, Britain
Some Iranian leaders initially appeared to blame Israel for the attack at the Suleimani memorial, though the Islamic State claimed responsibility for it. Direct attacks by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, while not new, have been far less frequent than those conducted by Iran’s proxies. Israel retaliated by bombarding the strip, killing more than 23,000 people and displacing millions, according to Gazan health officials. We’re not tracking damage to infrastructure or injuries at this time.”Erbil is the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq and is its most populous city. The Kurdish region’s security council called on the international community to condemn the Iranian attack, which it described as “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Kurdistan region and Iraq and the federal government.”
Persons: Israel, Organizations: Islamic State, Revolutionary, Mossad, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Consulate, American Locations: Erbil, Israel, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, U.S, ” Erbil, Kurdistan, Kurdish
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