50 Iranian drones conduct massive ‘way to Jerusalem’ exercise – report

A military vehicle carrying Iranian Zoobin smart bomb (L) and Sagheb missile under pictures of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) and Late Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during a parade to commemorate the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), in Tehran September 22, 2011.. (photo credit: REUTERS/STRINGER)

 

The point of the drill is to showcase Iran’s military prowess. It comes in the wake of a large naval drill in February and frequent new tests of ballistic missiles.

Iran’s Defense Ministry announced on Thursday that it had launched a massive exercise involving 50 drones that are based on a US Sentinel drone the Iranians captured in 2011. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was the strongest exercise of its kind to date.

Assad in Tehran: Soleimani’s goons snatched him to swear allegiance to Khamenei. Putin retaliates

 

Al Qods Brigades, the Iranian Rev Guards’ external wing, “brought” Syrian ruler Bashar Assad to Tehran on Feb. 27, for an audience with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This was revealed on Wednesday, March 6, by Al Qods deputy chief Brig.-Gen Esmaeil Qaani in an interview with Iranian media. Assad arrived alone without aides – a sign that he did not come voluntarily. And, indeed, Qaani also admitted that “his men accompanied Assad” all the way to Tehran, another sign that he was virtually snatched for the trip. DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources, who followed this revelation, discovered that Assad was bundled onto an Iranian plane and flown directly to a Revolutionary Guards air base in western Tehran. The only official on hand to receive the Syrian president was Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who never left his side throughout the visit.

Mystery surrounds Mohammad Javad Zarif’s ‘resignation’

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. (photo credit: REUTERS/KHALID AL MOUSILY)

 

According to a report, there are other diplomats who will resign if Zarif indeed leaves the foreign ministry.

A day after Mohammad Javad Zarif announced his resignation on Instagram, the foreign minister of Iran is receiving support from members of parliament amid calls for the president not to accept his decision.

Iran lays out 16-point war plan for the supreme goal of toppling Netanyahu

 

Iran’s National Security Adviser Ali Shamkhani Saturday, Feb. 23, unveiled a plan to overthrow the prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu by a full-scale war from Syria and other “resistance fronts.” Tehran’s overt intervention in Israel’s April 9 election named the Israeli prime minister’s removal as the strategic goal of the “resistance axis.”

A day earlier, a senior IRGC general Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh claimed that Iran had hacked and seized control of half a dozen US drones over Syria and Iraq.

Video: Iran Hacks Into CENTCOM, Crashes MQ-9 Reaper Drone

 

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh revealed on Thursday that several American unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) flying above Syria and Iraq were remotely commandeered by the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

“Seven to eight drones that had constant flights over Syria and Iraq were brought under our control and their intel was monitored by us and we could gain their first-hand intel,” General Hajizadeh said in the Western Iranian city of Hamedan on Thursday.

Iran Claims Infiltration of U.S. Command Center, Commandeers Drones

Getty Images

 

Iranian military leaders disclosed on Thursday that their intelligence operatives had infiltrated a U.S. Army Command Center and commandeered control of several American drones flying through Syria and Iraq.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force, released information and photographic evidence that Iran claims as proof it was able to take control of several U.S. drones.

US says ex-intel official defected to Iran, revealed secrets

This image provided by the FBI shows part of the wanted poster for Monica Elfriede Witt. The former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran despite warnings from the FBI has been charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government, including the code name and secret mission of a Pentagon program, prosecutors said Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019. (FBI via AP)

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran despite warnings from the FBI has been charged with revealing classified information to the Tehran government, including the code name and secret mission of a Pentagon program, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Justice Department also accused Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, of betraying former colleagues in the U.S. intelligence community by feeding details about their personal and professional lives to Iran. Four hackers linked to the Iranian government, charged in the same indictment, used that information to target the intelligence workers online, prosecutors said.

Iran Films “Underground City” Of Ballistic Missiles In Provocative Snub Of US And EU

 

Late last week Iran’s Revolutionary Guard unveiled a new surface-to-surface ballistic missile that Iran’s military touts as possessing a range of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), according to the elite force’s Sepah News.

The IRGC released footage of the new missile stored deep inside what state media called an “underground” ballistic missile production facility in what appears the latest provocative snub to US and European leaders, who’ve recently demanded Iran halt all missile development and tests, but which Tehran has said is for defensive reasons and therefore legal within the framework of the 2015 JCPOA. 

Iranian air freighters now routed to Beirut instead of Syrian air bases

 

Day by day at least one, if not two, Iranian transport aircraft, are landing at Beirut international airport in the past week, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Flights to Syrian air bases have all but ceased. On their return flights, they refuel at Damascus airport. Most of the incoming aircraft are Boeing 747s of Qeshm Fars Air, which serves Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Intelligence watchers, speculating about the reason for the accelerated Iranian air runs to Beirut and the nature of their cargoes, suggest that they are anxious to avoid encounters with the USAF aircraft circling Syrian skies (as DEBKAfile first revealed on Nov. 22). Another conjecture is that, since the Russian- S-300 air defense systems won’t be operational before the end of January, Iran and Russia agreed that it would be less hazardous for Iranian air deliveries to be routed to Beirut than to risk possible Israel air strikes over Syria.

Top Iranian Commander Identifies US Bases “Within Reach” Of Precision Missiles

 

Threats issued from Iranian officials against U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf are nothing new, however, it will be interesting to see the White House response to an elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commander specifically designating that American bases in Afghanistan, the UAE, Qatar, as well as U.S. aircraft carriers in the Gulf are within range of Iranian ballistic missiles.

Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC airspace division, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency, via Reuters:

They are within our reach, and we can hit them if they make a move… Our land-to-sea missiles have a range of 700 kilometers [450 miles]… and the US aircraft carriers are our targets.

Iran president warns of ‘war situation’ as sanctions resume

US President Donald Trump, left, on July 22, 2018, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on February 6, 2018. (AP Photo)

 

Rouhani vows defiantly that ‘Iran is able to sell its oil and it will sell,’ rejects prospect of mediation with Washington

Iran greeted the re-imposition of US sanctions on Monday with air defense drills and an acknowledgement from President Hassan Rouhani that the nation faces a “war situation,” raising Mideast tensions as America’s maximalist approach to the Islamic Republic takes hold.

The sanctions end all the economic benefits America granted Tehran under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, though Iran for now continues to abide by the accord that saw it limit its enrichment of uranium. While for now not threatening to resume higher enrichment, Iranian officials in recent months have made a point to threaten that could resume at any time faster than before.

Strategic breakthrough for Iran in unimpeded drone-missile attack on E. Syria

 

Neither Israel nor the US intervened when Iran broke new strategic ground on Monday, Oct. 1 by sending a squadron of 11 stealth UAVs to attack ISIS in E. Syria. DEBKAfile: The attack drones were greater cause for concern than the six surface missiles the Revolutionary Guards launched from their base in Kermanshah in western Iran. Like the missiles, the assault drones cut through Iraqi air space to their targets in Syria, without asking Baghdad for permission; but, unlike the missiles, they also returned to home base by the same route unhindered. Not a single Israeli or American aircraft took to the air stop them.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls Attack On Parade A “US Plot”; Tehran Summons Western Ambassadors

 

Iran’s top cleric and leader Ayatollah Khamenei has pointed the finger at the West for a terror attack on a military parade that took place early Saturday in the Southwest city of Ahvaz, which left 25 people dead and over 60 wounded.

Khamenei’s condemnation of “plots hatched by US stooges in the region” came simultaneous to Iran summoning the diplomatic envoys of Western countries including the Netherlands, Denmark and Great Britain, for harboring Iranian opposition groups in their countries. 

Iran Vows Strikes Outside Borders, ‘Beyond the Seas’

General Yahya Rahim Safavi / Getty Images

 

A top Iranian military leader warned on Monday that Iran is plotting strikes outside of its own borders and will even go “beyond the seas” to carry out attacks on those it perceives as enemies, statements that further highlight Iran’s clandestine operations inside the United States and in Europe.

Report: Iraq is ‘Teetering on the Brink’

(Photo Credit: Iraqi Social Media)

 

Iran’s meddling via Shi’a proxies is reaching a boiling point in its neighbor.

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The report published by OilPrice.com notes that political bickering between rivals Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over the formation of a leading parliamentary coalition could create a leadership vacuum in which a former nemesis rises from the ashes. It further states: