The United States said Monday it was issuing waivers to allow the continuation of a nuclear deal with Iran, after declaring the agreement a disaster and slapping sweeping sanctions.
Iran greeted the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Monday with air defense drills and an acknowledgement from President Hassan Rouhani the nation faces a ‘war situation,’ raising Mideast tensions as America’s maximalist approach to the Islamic Republic takes hold.
British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Monday he would push for new action at the United Nations Security Council to try to end hostilities in Yemen and find a political solution to the war there.
The Trump administration on Friday restored U.S. sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, but carved out exemptions for eight countries that can still import oil from the Islamic Republic without penalty.
Iranians chanting ‘Death to America’ rallied on Sunday to mark both the anniversary of the seizure of the US Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the imminent re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran’s key oil sector.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday praised US President Donald Trump for reenacting all sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.
Despite regional turmoil, President Trump’s grand Middle East strategy to unite Israel with the Saudis and other Gulf Arab powers against Iran and lay the groundwork for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is making unexpected progress away from the limelight.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling Iran the ‘most potent force of militant Islam’ and is warning Europe of possible Iranian attacks on its soil.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps recently held a military foot drill depicting the White House with a Star of David protruding from its roof, with soldiers shouting slogans against the United States and Israel.
Iranian infrastructure and strategic networks have come under attack in the last few days by a computer virus similar to Stuxnet but ‘more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated,’ and Israeli officials are refusing to discuss what role, if any, they may have had in the operation, an Israeli TV report said Wednesday.
Defense Secretary James Mattis made a forceful call for all parties involved in the brutal war in Yemen to come to the negotiation table within the next month, to bring to an end to a conflict pushed by a Saudi Arabian-led coalition that has devolved into a military stalemate that has produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Israel has attacked targets in Syria since the downing of the Russian intelligence plane on September 18, a senior Israeli official said on Monday.
US military officials have voiced their concerns that the ‘aggressive military campaign’ Israel is waging in Syria against Iran-backed militia groups might cause the Islamic republic to attack American targets in Syria and Iraq in retaliation, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Iran reportedly delivered GPS components to Hezbollah in Lebanon that will allow the group to transform rudimentary projectiles into precision-guided missiles, thereby increasing the threat to Israel. Western intelligence services believe Tehran has shifted its strategy by increasingly shipping weaponry directly to its proxy in Beirut, with a view to evading Israeli air strikes.
American and western intelligence sources believe Iran has been increasing its shipments of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah, deliveries that now include Global Positioning System (GPS) components to make previously unguided rockets into precision guided-missiles, increasing the threat to Israel.
Moscow has transferred three advanced S-300PM anti-aircraft batteries to the Syrian regime, Russian news outlet Izvestia reported on Friday.
Israeli stealth planes reached Iran and returned without anyone noticing, Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Jarida reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources.
The Islamic State remains ‘far from defeated,’ one of the nation’s top generals warned Tuesday, seeming to break with President Trump’s assertion that the terrorist group was ’99 percent’ beaten after four years of U.S.-led military action in Syria and Iraq.
The United Nations is warning that 13 million people in Yemen are facing starvation.
The U.S. State Department recently published an unprecedented report detailing the financial resources Iran invests in destabilizing the Middle East.