Iran Digest Week of January 20- January 27
/AIC’s Iran digest project covers the latest developments and news stories published in Iranian and international media outlets. This weekly digest is compiled by associate Samuel Howell. Please note that the news and views expressed in the articles below do not necessarily reflect those of AIC.
US-Iran Relations
Justice Dept. Announces More Arrests in Plot to Kill Iranian Writer
The Justice Department said on Friday that it had charged three men in a plot hatched in Iran to assassinate Masih Alinejad, an American human-rights activist in Brooklyn who has criticized the country’s repression of women.
The men, Rafat Amirov, of Iran, Polad Omarov, of the Czech Republic, and Khalid Mehdiyev, an Azerbaijani man living in Yonkers, were charged with murder-for-hire and money-laundering conspiracy counts, according to an indictment unsealed in Manhattan. The three men are members of an Eastern European criminal organization, known by its members as Thieves-in-Law, which has ties to Iran and last year was tasked with carrying out Ms. Alinejad’s killing, the indictment says.
Mr. Mehdiyev, 24, was arrested in July, after he was found with a loaded AK-47-style assault rifle outside Ms. Alinejad’s house. Mr. Mehdiyev, at the direction of the two other men, “was preparing imminently to execute the attack,” the indictment says.
Nuclear Accord
Iran has enough enriched uraniam to build ‘several’ nuclear weapons, UN says
Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to build “several” nuclear weapons if it chooses, the United Nations’ top nuclear official is now warning. But diplomatic efforts aimed at again limiting its atomic program seem more unlikely than ever before as Tehran arms Russia in its war on Ukraine and as unrest shakes the Islamic Republic.
The warning from Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in response to questions from European lawmakers this week, shows just how high the stakes have become over Iran’s nuclear program. Even at the height of previous tensions between the West and Iran under hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran never enriched uranium as high as it does now.
For months, nonproliferation experts have suggested Iran had enough uranium enriched up to 60 percent to build at least one nuclear weapon — though Tehran long has insisted its program is for peaceful purposes. While offering a caveat on Tuesday that “we need to be extremely careful” in describing Iran’s program, Grossi bluntly acknowledged just how large Tehran’s high-enriched uranium stockpile had grown.
(PBS)
Women of Iran
‘It just didn’t feel right’: top Iran chess player on why she removed headscarf
The routine played out each time Iran’s Sara Khadem travelled abroad for chess tournaments – between contemplating openings and sizing up her opponents, the top-ranked chess player kept a constant eye on the cameras that roamed the hall, pulling off her headscarf as soon as they stopped rolling.
But when the invite arrived for a tournament in Kazakhstan in December – Khadem’s first in three years – the 25-year-old knew she no longer wanted to keep up the pretence.
“It felt, let’s say, unfaithful to people if I had gone with the headscarf,” she said. “It just didn’t feel right.”
Health
Iran, Tajikistan sign agreement on pharmaceutical co-op
The agreement was inked in the presence of the Iranian deputy science minister for international affairs Mohammad-Hossein Nicknam and the Tajik ambassador to Iran Nizomiddin Zohidi, IRNA reported.
The Tajik delegation paid several visits and held negotiations with officials in the Food and Drug Administration, which led to a memorandum of understanding that was signed, Nicknam said.
Tajikistan is one of the countries that has always been a priority for the Islamic Republic of Iran because both countries have a lot in common culturally, historically, and socially, he highlighted.
Economy
New Cryptocurrency Unlikely To Help Russia And Iran Evade Sanctions
Iran and Russia are now reportedly in talks to jointly issue a stablecoin, backed by gold, for use in foreign trade in an attempt to circumvent the aggressive economic sanctions plaguing both regimes.
As the partnership between these two nations expands from military drones to cryptocurrency, is it time to start talking about an “axis of evil” again? That phrase, coined by President George W. Bush in his January 29, 2002, State of the Union address, less than five months after the 9/11 attacks, originally referred to Iran, Iraq and North Korea. However, today U.S. policy makers could attach the oft-used turn of phrase to Iran and Russia - two countries bedeviled by a barrage of U.S. and international sanctions and now turning to each other to seek shelter from the economic storm.
Last October, as Iranian-made drones struck Ukraine’s capital, Russia and Iran, both chafing from Western sanctions and bound only by a mutual enemy in the United States, sought ways to work more closely together. The New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar called this burgeoning partnership the “Moscow-Tehran alliance.”
(Forbes)
Inside Iran
Gunman Attacks Azerbaijan Embassy in Tehran, Killing the Head of Security
An armed man stormed the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran on Friday, shooting dead the chief of security and wounding two guards, according to Iranian and Azerbaijani officials.
While Iranian officials blamed the assault by the man, who was armed with an assault rifle, on “personal motivations,” President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan called it a “terrorist act” and demanded a swift investigation. He identified the Azerbaijani man killed as First Lt. Orkhan Rivan.
A suspect, who was not identified, was arrested by the Iranian police after the attack.
(The New York Times)
Protests In Iran Continue Mostly In Sunni Majority Regions
Security forces opened fire on protesters in the Iranian city of Zahedan who held rallies for the 17th consecutive Friday since protests broke out in September.
According to videos published on social media, the regime’s security forces also used teargas to disperse the residents of Zahedan who were chanting antigovernment slogans after they left the Makki Mosque, where they attended the Friday prayers led by the outspoken Sunni cleric Mowlavi Abdolhamid.
People in other cities of Baluch and Sunni majority Sistan-Baluchestan province, such as Rask and Khash also poured onto the streets to renew their opposition to the Islamic Republic. Similar rallies by Iranian Sunni Muslims in the city of Galikash, in the northern Golestan province, were also held outside the home of the city’s Sunni cleric Mowlvi Mohammad Hossein Gorgij, the deposed Friday Imam of Azadshahr. Meanwhile, in the southwestern city of Izeh, in Khuzestan province, a memorial ceremony was held for Hossein Saeedi, a protester who was killed in the city 40 days ago.
New Law In Iran To Criminalize Critical Public Comments
A newspaper in Iran says the parliament's plan to add two new articles to the 'Islamic Penal Code' could further restrict civil liberties and freedom of speech.
According to Etemad newspaper, based on the new legislation, making any comment about the state of affairs in the country can land people in trouble, particularly politicians, political activists and celebrities.
The newspaper said that lawmakers at the Judiciary Committee wish to make sure that all public comments are identical with official version of developments. The headline of Etemad's report said: "Watch your mouth, you might be punished if what you say is different from the official reading!"
Global Relations
For the 2nd year in a row, Iran is sailing its biggest warship around the world to show off its growing navy
Iran's biggest warship and one of its frigates are sailing across the Pacific in a first-of-its-kind journey likely meant to show off Tehran's growing naval force to friends and foes alike.
The two ships appear to be the frigate IRIS Dena and the forward base ship IRINS Makran. They were spotted by the French and Australian navies in early January as they sailed through the South Pacific. The ships have been granted permission to dock in Rio de Janeiro, reportedly arriving on January 23.
Rear Adm. Shahram Irani, Iran's navy chief, said in December that the two warships, which departed Iran in September, will circumnavigate the globe to "show the authority of the dear people of Iran to the whole world."
Analysis
Why Saudi Arabia Doesn’t Want Iran’s Regime to Fall
By: Talal Mohammad
On Sept. 16, 2022, a young Kurdish Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly. Protests have rocked the country ever since. Initially centered on demands to abolish the compulsory hijab and disband the morality police, the popular movement has in recent months broadened its scope to seek minority rights and, in some cases, independent states for Kurdish, Baloch, Azeri, and Arab groups in Iran. Amini’s death gave a common platform to these minorities’ long-festering grievances and led some Iranian opposition groups to call for regime change that could give way to a post-Islamic Republic Iran.
In heavily Kurdish regions of Iran, there have been armed confrontations between Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Kurdish separatist groups. Tehran has targeted Kurdish separatist bases in neighboring Iraq and accused these groups of seeking to secede from Iran. The Iranian regime has also accused the Saudi government of influencing, funding, and masterminding separatist activity within Iran.
