According to Arab paper, former leader’s comments against Rouhani government amid rallies have led authorities to seek to place him under house arrest
Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been arrested by authorities for allegedly inciting unrest against the government, the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Saturday, citing “reliable sources in Tehran.”
The newspaper said that Ahmadinejad, during a visit to the western city of Bushehr on December 28, said, “Some of the current leaders live detached from the problems and concerns of the people, and do not know anything about the reality of society.”
He supposedly added that Iran was suffering from “mismanagement” and that the government of President Hassan Rouhani “believes that they own the land and that the people are an ignorant society.”
According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Ahmadinejad’s comments, which came as anti-government protests over the economy were heating up, led to his arrest.
The newspaper said authorities now seek to impose house arrest on the former president.
The Times of Israel could not independently confirm the report.
Iran’s state TV on Saturday showed pro-government rallies in several cities, starting with Amol, in the northern province of Mazandaram, with hundreds of people waving the Iranian flag and chanting slogans against the US and Israel.
Iranian worshippers chant slogans during a rally against anti-government protestors after the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, on January 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
State TV described the rally as a “response to rioters and supporters of the riots.” Other pro-government demonstrations were held in Shahin Dezh, in West Azarbaijan province bordering Turkey; the city of Semnan, in the northern Semnan Province; and Shadegan, in the southern Khouzestan Province near Iraq.
The rallies are meant to be a show of force against anti-government protests that broke out in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city, on December 28, and have since spread to several other cities and towns. The protests were sparked by a hike in food prices amid soaring unemployment. Some demonstrators have called for the government’s overthrow.
At least 21 people have been killed, and hundreds have been arrested. Large pro-government rallies have been held in response, and officials have blamed the anti-government unrest on foreign meddling.
BETHLEHEM (AFP) — Palestinians protesting church land sales to Israelis scuffled with Palestinian police in Bethlehem Saturday as they tried to block the arrival of the Holy Land’s Greek Orthodox patriarch for Christmas celebrations.
Demonstrators scuffled with club-wielding Palestinian security forces and banged on the sides of police escort vehicles but patriarch Theophilos III passed safely in his black limousine to the Church of the Nativity for the traditional Orthodox Christmas eve observance.]
Official Palestinian news agency WAFA said he joined heads of the Syrian and Coptic Orthodox churches in the ancient church, which Christians believe marks the birthplace of Jesus.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s office told AFP he would attend midnight mass celebrated by Theophilos at the church on Saturday and would present him with a model of Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre church as a Christmas gift.
The Bethlehem, Beit Sahour, and Beit Jala municipalities in the West Bank had called for a boycott over the Greek Orthodox church allegedly allowing controversial sales of its property in mainly Palestinian East Jerusalem to groups aiding Jewish settlement there.
They had urged the public to stay away but it was not immediately known if there was a significant drop in attendance compared to previous days or what effect driving rain in Bethlehem may have had.
At least some official invitees were at the church to welcome Theophilos, WAFA said on its English-language website.
Palestinian policemen push away protesters from the convoy of Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox patriarch Theophilos III in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on January 6, 2018 ahead of a Christmas service according to the Eastern Orthodox calendar. (AFP PHOTO / Musa AL SHAER)
“He was received by Palestinian officials, including the governor of Bethlehem Jibrin Bakri and Minister of Tourism Rola Mayaya among others,” it wrote.
The mayor of the Christian town of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, earlier said he wanted Theophilos removed from his post over the controversial land sales.
“Our move today is a protest against the patriarch over the sale of land of the Orthodox,” mayor Nicola Khamis told AFP.
The church elected Theophilos in 2005 after dismissing his predecessor Irineos over an alleged multi-million-dollar sale of church land to Jewish buyers.
But Khamis says the practice continues.
“Theophilos ignored all the demands and continued selling this land even if the [Christian] majority is against it,” he said.
“Today we are taking a stand to say the patriarch must stop the selling of the land.”
Property transactions with Jewish buyers anger Palestinians, who see East Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.
In August, Theophilos himself denounced an Israeli court ruling upholding deals made before his appointment between the church and Israeli pro-settlement organization Ateret Cohanim for two hotel properties near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem.
Palestinian protesters shout slogans as the convoy of Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox patriarch Theophilos III arrives in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on January 6, 2018 ahead of a Christmas service according to the Eastern Orthodox calendar. (AFP PHOTO / Musa AL SHAER
He said the church would appeal to Israel’s supreme court over the ruling.
According to Hebrew media, the 2004 agreements were for 99-year leases on hotel properties near Jaffa Gate.
The church went to court against Ateret Cohanim, claiming the deals were signed illegally and without its authorization.
The Greek Orthodox Church is the largest and wealthiest Christian Church in Israel.
Its Jerusalem patriarchate commands massive wealth, largely in land portfolios in Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan.
Most Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7, while those in the West observe it on December 25 because of differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.
Grappling with tens of millions of dollars of debt, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem has managed to balance its books by selling and leasing plots to a number of overseas companies all headed by Jewish investors, senior figures in the Greek Orthodox Church told The Times of Israel recently.
They are upset at corruption but remember Obama gave this government billions.
Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.
Police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars said.
The outbreak of unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern about the Islamic Republic’s costly involvement in regional conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.
An official said a few protesters had been arrested in Tehran, and footage posted on social media showed a heavy police presence in the capital and some other cities.
Washington condemned the arrests. “The Iranian government should respect their people’s rights, including their right to express themselves,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
The U.S. State Department in a separate statement urged “all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.”
About 300 demonstrators gathered in Kermanshah after what Fars said was a “call by the anti-revolution.” They shouted: “Political prisoners should be freed” and “Freedom or death”, and some public property was destroyed. Fars did not name any opposition groups.
The protests in Kermanshah, the main city in a region where an earthquake killed over 600 people in November, took place a day after hundreds rallied in Iran’s second largest city Mashhad to protest at high prices and shout anti-government slogans.
Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators yelling, “The people are begging, the clerics act like God.”
Fars said there were protests in the cities of Sari and Rasht in the north, Qazvin west of Tehran and Qom south of the capital, and also in Hamadan in western Iran. It said many marchers who wanted to raise economic demands left the rallies after demonstrators shouted political slogans.
State television said annual nationwide rallies and events were scheduled for Saturday to commemorate pro-government demonstrations held in 2009 to counter protests by reformists.
The Revolutionary Guards, which along with its Basij militia spearheaded a crackdown against the protesters in 2009, said in a statement carried by state media that there were efforts to repeat that year’s unrest but added: “The Iranian nation … will not allow the country to be hurt.”
Mohsen Nasj Hamadani, deputy security chief in Tehran province, said about 50 people had rallied in a square but most had left after being asked to by police, while a few who refused were “temporarily detained,” the ILNA news agency reported.
Where are the feminist to protect these woman in Iran?
In the central city of Isfahan, a resident said protesters had joined a rally held by factory workers demanding back-pay.
“The slogans quickly changed from the economy to those against (President Hassan) Rouhani and the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei),” the resident said by telephone.
In Qom, a stronghold of the Shi‘ite clergy, footage posted on social media showed protesters attacking Ayatollah Khamenei by name. “Seyyed Ali should be ashamed and leave the country alone,” they chanted.
Protests were held also in the town of Quchan near the Turkmen border, and in Ahvaz, capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province, social media and Iranian news websites reported.
Police arrested 52 people in Thursday’s protests, Fars quoted a judicial official as saying in Mashhad, one of the holiest places in Shi‘ite Islam.
In social media footage, which could not be authenticated, riot police were seen using water cannon and tear gas to disperse crowds.
Openly political protests are rare in Iran, where security services are omnipresent.
The last unrest of national significance occurred in 2009 when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election as president ignited eight months of street protests. Pro-reform rivals said the vote was rigged.
However, demonstrations are often held by workers over lay-offs or non-payment of salaries and by people who hold deposits in non-regulated, bankrupt financial institutions.
Prominent conservative cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda called earlier for tough action against the protests.
“If the security and law enforcement agencies leave the rioters to themselves, enemies will publish films and pictures in their media and say that the Islamic Republic system has lost its revolutionary base in Mashhad,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Alamolhoda as saying.
“DEATH TO DICTATOR”
Some social media videos showed demonstrators chanting “Death to Rouhani” and “Death to the dictator”. Protests were also held in at least two other northeastern cities.
Alamolhoda, the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei in Mashhad, said a few people had taken advantage of Thursday’s protests against rising prices to chant slogans against Iran’s role in regional conflicts.
Tehran backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war, Shi‘ite militias in Iraq, Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group.
“Some people had come to express their demands, but suddenly, in a crowd of hundreds, a small group that did not exceed 50 shouted deviant and horrendous slogans such as ‘Let go of Palestine’, ‘Not Gaza, not Lebanon, I’d give my life (only) for Iran’,” Alamolhoda said.
Social media videos also showed demonstrators chanting ”Leave Syria, think about us,” criticizing Iran’s military and financial support for Assad.
Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, a close Rouhani ally, suggested that hardline conservative opponents of the pragmatist president might have triggered the protests but lost control of them. “Those who are behind such events will burn their own fingers,” IRNA quoted Jahangiri as saying.
Rouhani’s leading achievement, a 2015 deal with world powers that curbed Iran’s disputed nuclear program in return for a lifting of most international sanctions, has yet to bring the broad economic benefits the government says are coming.
Unemployment stood at 12.4 percent in this fiscal year, according to the Statistical Centre of Iran, up 1.4 percent from the previous year. About 3.2 million Iranians are jobless, out of a total population of 80 million.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration “derailed” a DEA operation targeting Hezbollah’s multi-million-dollar drug trafficking activities in Latin America to secure approval of the controversial Iran nuclear deal, reports Politico.
Iran’s narco-terrorist proxy Hezbollah is involved in a plethora of criminal activities in Latin America, ranging from money laundering to massive drug trafficking.
“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” David Asher, a veteran Pentagon illicit finance expert deployed to combat the alleged Hezbollah criminal enterprise, told Politico, referring to the DEA operation, dubbed Project Cassandra. “They [Obama administration] serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”
For years, the U.S. military has been sounding the alarm on the threat against the United States posed by the presence of Iran and Hezbollah in America’s backyard — Latin America.
However, the Obama administration argued that Iran’s influence in the Western Hemisphere was “waning,” reported the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’ watchdog arm, in late September 2014, months before world powers and Iran approved the nuclear deal in July 2015.
In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation.
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), the chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, chastised the Obama administration for undermining the DEA operation.
In a statement, Pittenger, the vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing, declared:
The nexus between terrorists organizations, including Hezbollah, and Latin American drug cartels is a subversive alliance which provides hundreds of millions of dollars to global jihad. “The witnesses providing account of the Obama administration derailing and stonewalling the prosecution of this illicit funding investigation has resulted in the most serious consequences of the misguided and injudicious actions of President Obama and his team.”
In June 2016, Michael Braun, a former DEA agent, told lawmakers that Hezbollah is generating hundreds of millions from a “cocaine money laundering scheme” in Latin America that “provides a never-ending source of funding” for its terrorist operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Iran has deployed thousands of Hezbollah militants to fight on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a move that has allowed the ruthless leader to remain in power.
Both the U.S. military and State Department have warned against the menace that Hezbollah and Iran’s presence in Latin America represents.
Politico reveals:
As Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.
The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah’s high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested.
Soon after U.S.-led world powers and Iran approved the nuclear pact, Obama predicted that Iran would use sanction relief funds to boost its terrorist proxies, namely Hezbollah, saying in August 2015:
Let’s stipulate that some of that money will flow to activities that we object to … Iran supports terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. It supports proxy groups that threaten our interests and the interests of our allies — including proxy groups who killed our troops in Iraq.
A day after the deal’s approval, Obama also said:
Do we think that with the sanctions coming down, that Iran will have some additional resources for its military and for some of the activities in the region that are a threat to us and a threat to our allies? I think that is a likelihood that they’ve got some additional resources. Do I think it’s a game-changer for them? No.
They are currently supporting Hezbollah, and there is a ceiling — a pace at which they could support Hezbollah even more, particularly in the chaos that’s taking place in Syria. So can they potentially try to get more assistance there? Yes.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Iran has dramatically increased its financial support to Hezbollah from $200 million to $800 million per year, two years after the nuclear deal was signed by Iran and world powers.
In 2010, John Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser and then CIA director, confirmed that former president’s administration was trying to build up “moderate elements” within Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,” Brennan told a Washington conference, saying it had evolved from “purely a terrorist organization” to a militia and, ultimately, a prominent Shiite political party in Lebanon, reported Reuters.
Netanyahu tells Saban Forum in D.C. that half of Middle East believes that their respective countries could benefit from Israel ties
WASHINGTON – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised concerns over the threat posed against Israel by Iran while addressing the Saban Forum taking place in Washington, D.C. via satellite from his office in Jerusalem.
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Iran has “ruthless commitment to terror” and “ruthless commitment to kill Jews,” much like Nazi Germany during World War II, the premier stressed while addressing the forum.
As the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu said he did not “have the luxury of discounting” threats to destroy the Jewish people, and for this reason he continues to speak about Iran.
skip – Netanyahu at Saban Forum
Netanyahu further echoed his statements from over the weekend, vowing to stop Iran from entrenching itself in Syria. On Friday, Israel allegedly struck an Iranian military base in Syria.
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He called for the policy community in Washington D.C. to take the opportunity set up by U.S. President Donald Trump to “erase the great flaws” of the Iran nuclear deal, as its current status allows Tehran to build up a nuclear arsenal.
Netanyahu added that Israel will be the first to restore relations with Iran once its current regime falls, and that in the future, Israel will be “embraced openly by its Arab neighbors, rather than in secret as it’s done today.”
He further added that “half of the public in the Middle Eastern countries that were surveyed appreciate Israel’s strengths and assets” and that “they believe that their country could benefit from having ties with Israel.”
Excerpts of his speech were published on Saturday night, in which he vowed to stop Iran from entrenching itself in Syria.
The Saban Forum is an annual conference on U.S. policy in the Middle East organized by the Brookings Institution.
>>Israeli attempts to kick Iran out of Syria could escalate into war | Analysis
Other Israeli speakers at the event this year included former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and the new leader of the Labor Party, Avi Gabbay. Topics discussed included the Iran deal and Saudi Arabia’s role in the Middle East.
Later on Sunday, Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will speak publicly for the first time about the Trump administration’s attempts to facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Kushner will talk about the administration’s peace efforts together with Haim Saban, the Israeli-born business mogul who funds the annual event.
It’s Time To Stop The Bullshit and Tear Up The Iran Deal! So Go To Hell UN Assembly!
President Donald Trump criticized the Iranian government and questioned the fortitude of the Iran nuclear deal during his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.
Trump called for the world to confront Iran, and painted a picture of the “reckless regime” whose chief exports he described as “violence, bloodshed, and chaos.”
“The longest suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are, in fact, its own people,” Trump said. “Rather than use its resources to improve Iranian lives, its oil profits go to fund Hezbollah and other terrorists that kill innocent Muslims and attack their peaceful Arab and Israeli neighbors.”
Trump specifically condemned Iran for “undermining peace” in the Middle East by sending support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
With widespread speculation as to whether the Trump administration would keep the Iran nuclear deal, which the Obama administration entered into, the president called the agreement an “embarrassment” and spoke out strongly against it.
“We cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program,” Trump said.
“The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into,” Trump said. “Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States and I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it, believe me.”
Trump called on Iran to free Americans and other foreigners being “unjustly detained” by the Iranian government, and said the Iranian regime is more frightened by its citizens than almost anything else in the world. Trump identified the “vast military power of the United States” as the one exception.
“This [the power of the people] is what causes the regime to restrict Internet access, tear down satellite dishes, shoot unarmed student protesters, and imprison political reformers,” Trump said. “Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the people will face a choice. Will they continue down the path of poverty, bloodshed, and terror? Or will the Iranian people return to the nation’s proud roots as a center of civilization, culture and wealth where their people can be healthy and prosperous once again?”
