Israeli Minister Warns Of A New Flare-Up During Ramadan

The State Department said that “Iran continues to deny al-Qaeda’s presence in the country, despite their knowledge of al-Qaeda leadership figures’ activities there," the relationship dating back to as early as 2009. 

The State Department also confirmed remarks by James Rubin, the US special coordinator for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, who recently talked of “a new partnership between Iran and al-Qaeda" in a briefing in London, saying that Iran is harboring al-Qaeda leaders inside its soil. 

The department also emphasized that “Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, facilitating a wide range of terrorist activities and other illicit activities around the world -- in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, through militant groups and terrorists such as Hezbollah and Hamas.”

They branded Iran "a primary driver of instability across the Middle East" since the Islamic regime was established in 1979.

Late in January, the United Nations released a report disclosing eight new al-Qaeda training camps and other infrastructure inside Afghanistan as well as five madrasas, or religious schools to teach jihadi ideology. An al-Qaeda leader known as Hakim al-Masri “is responsible for the training camps and conducting suicide bomber training for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” the Pakistani branch of the outfit. Al Qaeda has also established a new base “to stockpile weaponry” in the central province of Panjshir. 

The report cited several UN Security Council member states as saying that the key al-Qaeda figures are travelling to provide liaison between the terrorist group’s de facto leader, Saif al-Adel, who resides in Iran, and senior al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan, including Abdul Rahman al-Ghamdi. Al-Ghamdi is one of the suspects in the September 11 attacks, who was unable to participate for unknown reasons. 

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Seif al-Adel, a former Egyptian special forces officer and a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda with a $10 million US bounty on his head, became the "uncontested" leader of the militant group following the July 2022 death of Ayman al-Zawahiri in a US missile strike in Kabul. 

The Taliban has not formally declared him "emir" because of sensitivity to the concerns of the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, who haven't wanted to acknowledge that Zawahiri was killed by a US rocket in a home in Kabul, another big blow to the group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Another UN report said that the Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda is also sensitive to the issue of Adel residing in largely Shiite Iran.

The latest UN report highlighted that “The group maintains safe houses to facilitate the movement between Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Provinces of Herat, Farah and Helmand, with additional safe house locations in Kabul.” 

In February 2023, then State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, “Our assessment aligns with that of the UN… offering safe haven to al-Qaeda is another example of Iran’s wide-ranging support for terrorism, its destabilizing activities in the Middle East and beyond.”

A day after Washington aligned itself with the UN statement locating Adel in Iran, the regime’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, denied he is based in the country. "I advise the officials of the White House to stop the failed game of Iran-phobia, making news about the leader of al-Qaeda and linking him to Iran is laughable," he said. 

According to the US State Department’s Rewards for Justice program, Adel moved to southeastern Iran after bomb attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others in 1998. He reportedly lived under the protection of Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), but in April 2003, Iran placed him and other al-Qaeda leaders under house arrest. In September 2015, Adel and four other senior al-Qaeda leaders were released from Iranian custody in exchange for an Iranian diplomat kidnapped by al-Qaeda in Yemen. They stayed in Iran after their release.

The UN report also confirmed that “the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda remains close, and the latter maintains a holding pattern in Afghanistan under Taliban patronage.” Expressing concerns about the presence of al-Qaeda senior figures in Afghanistan, the UN team said, “the group continues to pose a threat in the region, and potentially beyond.” The report noted that Taliban tries to “reduce the visibility” of its ties with al-Qaeda.

In addition to harboring al-Qaeda leaders, Tehran is also bolstering its relations with Taliban, which agreed not to allow al-Qaeda to operate in areas under their control days after the takeover of Kabul in August 2021. Al-Qaeda is bound to the Taliban by a pledge of allegiance first offered in the 1990s by Osama Bin Laden to his Taliban counterpart Mullah Omar. The pledge has been renewed several times since, although it has not always been publicly acknowledged by the Taliban.

Among the list of designations is the Deputy Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh (Fallahzadeh), and Houthi member Ibrahim al-Nashiri. Falahzadeh has been a key figure for the Quds (Qods) Force in Syria and managed projects worth tens of billions of dollars for the Iranian regime abroad.

Also designated is Iranian Said Al Jamal, a financier who heads a network of front companies and vessels that generate revenue for the Houthis, funding advanced weaponry such as unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles. He was first designated in 2021 for supporting the IRGC-QF.

Senior Houthi figure, Ali Hussein Badr Al Din Al-Houthi, the commander of the security forces, has also been sanctioned along with IRGC Quds Force Unit 190, in charge of transferring and smuggling weapons to organisations, groups and states that are allied with Iran.

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IRGC Qods Force Unit 6000, in charge of operations on the Arabian Peninsula with personnel on the ground in Yemen supporting Houthi military activity, and IRGC Qods Force Unit 340, in charge of research and development and providing training and technical support to groups backed by Iran were also on the list.

In November, the Houthis began a naval blockade of the critical international trade route in support of Hamas in Gaza, at war with Israel in the wake of the US and UK-designated terror group’s attacks on southern Israeli communities on October 7. Trade has been disrupted with container costs to some UK businesses alone soaring 300 percent since the blockade began. 

The US Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E. Nelson, said: “As the Houthis persistently threaten the security of peaceful international commerce, the United States and the United Kingdom will continue to disrupt the funding streams that enable these destabilizing activities.”

On behalf of Tehran, the IRGC-QF has provided the Houthis with an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of weapons and the training to deploy these weapons against commercial shipping and civilian infrastructure in the region, though they continue to deny involvement, claiming the Houthis are acting independently.

Iranian military officials have also provided intelligence support to target vessels transiting the region, providing key support to enable the Houthis’ maritime attacks against international shipping.

Since mid-November 2023, the Houthis have attempted dozens of strikes targeting vessels in the region after Iran's ruler Ali Khamenei called on Muslims to blockade Israel.

Initially claiming to only target Israel-linked vessels, the Houthis last week announced they would now be targeting the US and UK linked vessels in retaliation for their support of Israel.

As the blockade gets ever more global, Denmark's shipping and logistics company, Maersk, one of the world’s largest, released a statement on Tuesday warning clients they should prepare for disruptions to last into the second half of the year and to build longer transit times into their supply chain planning.

Major container shipping companies have switched Suez Canal-bound ships to the longer route around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. “Know your best alternative to entering the North American market and be ready to have mitigations in place," Maersk's head of North America, Charles van der Steene, said in a statement.

"Start quantifying and preparing to mitigate shifts in your supply chain costs," he added.

Maersk has added about 6% more vessel capacity to offset delays due to longer transit times around Africa, it said.

The UK foreign office released a statement saying: “Today, we are sanctioning key figures supporting the Houthis, who continue their attacks in the Red Sea. We will not stand by as the Houthis put innocent lives at risk, threaten regional stability and harm the global economy.”

The UK already has more than 400 sanctions designations in place on Iranian individuals and entities, most of which sit under the UK’s new Iran sanctions regime, which came into effect in December 2023 and provides new powers to hold Iran and its proxies to account.

In addition to this, one designation also sits under the Yemen sanctions regime. Introduced as autonomous regulations in the UK in 2020, it enables the UK to hold individuals or entities to account where they threaten peace, security or stability in Yemen.

Last month, the UK and US sanctioned key Houthi figures amid joint strikes from the two allies on on key Houthi sites in Yemen in a series of defensive attacks against the Yemeni militia. It was the first time UK sanctions had been issued against the Houthis since the attacks in the Red Sea began in November.

During his Monday briefing, he said Iran's continued production of highly enriched uranium remains a major policy concern. The statements came as two confidential reports from the UN's nuclear watchdog were distributed to member states on Monday, providing a grim assessment of Iran's nuclear program.

Persistent obstacles to thorough inspection procedures continue to obscure the true nature of Iran's activities, heightening concerns about the intentions of the Tehran regime.

IAEA head Rafael Grossi said that "public statements made in Iran regarding its technical capabilities to produce nuclear weapons" have only increased "concerns about the correctness and completeness of Iran's safeguards declarations".

Iran's enriched uranium stockpile has now exceeded 5.5 tons, representing an increase of one ton since October. Within the stockpile are 712.2 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 20 percent and 121.5 kilograms enriched up to 60 percent. Notably, the latter category has seen a decrease of approximately 7 kilograms over the past hundred days.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran has decided to reduce its stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium over the last three and a half months "by deliberately diluting the material by mixing it with low-grade 2 percent material", noting that it is the first time the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported a quarterly drop in Tehran's highly enriched stockpile since Iran started production.

According to definitions established by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran would require a minimum of 42 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent to produce a nuclear bomb.

Iranian authorities have consistently asserted that Iran's nuclear program is solely intended for peaceful purposes. However, nuclear experts overwhelmingly argue that the levels and quantities of enrichment undertaken by Iran since 2021 cannot be justified in the absence of a weapons program.

Central Command, via its official X account, announced the operations, saying, “CENTCOM forces identified the USVs and missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, as well as the UAV over the Red Sea, and determined that they presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the US Navy ships in the region.”

Iran's longstanding support for the Houthis has come into focus once again. Despite Iranian assertions of the Houthi group's autonomy, recent events suggest Tehran wields substantial influence over their actions.

Analysts point to parallels between the relative decrease in conflicts in Syria and Iraq following targeted attacks on high-ranking Iranian commanders and US airstrikes. This suggests Iran's adeptness in controlling its proxies when deemed necessary.

Despite a temporary hiatus in Houthi attacks earlier in February, recent incidents indicate a resurgence in targeting commercial vessels, including those of British and American origin.

President Biden's warnings over the past three months have failed to deter the intensifying attacks, with the Houthi group expanding its blockade to include ships from the US and the UK, in addition to those linked with Israel, in allegiance with Hamas in its war against Israel.

Iran-backed Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, spamming a Tehran fueled proxy war.

The mission is also scheduled to release its preliminary report on the International Day of Women (March 8).

In his address to the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on Monday, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian accused the UN of double standards and criticized it for setting up the fact-finding mission for Iran but not taking any serious action on Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza.

“We will not forget the outcries in this place months ago under the pretext of an Iranian girl’s death and the formation of a so-called fact-finding mission,” he said.

In her address to the same meeting Monday, the German Foreign Minister Anna Baerbock called for extending the mission’s mandate. “I want to be crystal-clear to those who claim that calling out violations is an interference in internal affairs: Human rights are universal. A life is a life,” she said.

Mahmoud Amiri-Moghadam, director of Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization, told Iran International on Monday that it is the outcome of the mission’s investigations that is of great significance and expressed hope that its mandate would be extended for another year.

“The Islamic Republic has always accused human rights organizations and the UN rights bodies of being politically motivated and has never been accountable to them, he said. “But the mission’s report will be a very important message to [Iranian] people who will know the world has heard them …, especially if the mission concludes that [the regime’s actions] were crimes against humanity,” he added.

The UN Human Rights Council voted November 24, 2022, to launch an independent investigation into Iran's deadly repression of peaceful anti-government protests during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The motion to form the mission passed with 25 votes in favor, six opposed and 16 countries abstaining from the vote. The following month, members of the mission were announced.

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 in the custody of the morality police unleashed a wave of protests across Iran that lasted until February 2023.

During the protests, security forces killed more than 550 civilians including tens of children. Security forces also blinded scores of protesters with shotgun pellet aimed directly at their faces, and tortured many of the tens of thousands of protesters that were arrested. Many of the victims also claim to have been sexually assaulted during interrogations and in prison.

In the past year Iran has also hanged nine protesters despite widespread pleas at home and abroad not to carry out the death sentences after sham trials held behind closed doors and without due process.

Despite these documented atrocities, Tehran almost immediately announced that it did not recognize the fact-finding mission and would not cooperate with it and summoned the German envoy Hans-Udo Muzel to the foreign ministry to protest Berlin’s key role in urging a special Human Rights Council meeting and the formation of the mission.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran Javaid Rehman said in November 2023 that the mandate of the mission goes beyond Iran’s human rights violations during 2022 protest crackdown and even extends into the mass execution of political prisoners in 1980s as well as violations of minority rights.

Members of the mission have not been allowed to visit Iran to collect evidence and speak to victims of the violence or their families. The Islamic Republic has also refused to allow UN special rapporteurs on human rights to visit the country since 1992.