Houthis Confirm They Seized UAE Vessel In Red Sea

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said after the meeting in Amman that the two sides “discussed the destabilizing Iranian role in the security and stability of the region and the world, and its support for militias. We also stressed the importance of intensifying efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and make the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.”

Iran’s arch-rival Sunni Muslim state, however, sounded a reconciliatory note. “However, our hands, as Arabs, are extended to our brothers in Iran if they respond to addressing these Arab concerns regarding the security and stability of the region."

Jordanian foreign minister Ayman al-Safadi condemned “all terrorist attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” and pledged Jordan’s support for Riyadh’s efforts to protect its security.

Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen regularly launch drone and missile attacks against Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh and Tehran held talks last year to reduce tensions with the aim of restoring diplomatic ties broken since January 2016. So far, the talks have been exploratory with no tangible results.

"If Trump and (former Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo are not tried in a fair court for the criminal act of assassinating General Soleimani, Muslims will take our martyr's revenge," Raisi said in a televised speech on Monday.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also vowed revenge in a speech on January 1, saying, “Trump and others like him will be forgotten and lost in the dustbin of history, of course after paying for their crimes in the world.”

Soleimani, who was Iran’s top military and intelligence operator outside its borders, was in charge of supporting and organizing militant proxy forces, including the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraq Shiite militia groups that have repeatedly attacked US forces. He was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad airport in January 2020.

Iran is engaged in indirect talks with the United States to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement abandoned by Trump in 2018. Critics say that restoring restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program is not sufficient and sanctions should continue until it is willing to limit its ballistic missile program and alter its regional policies.

A report by Tasnim news agencypublished on Monday said that over 45 million cellphones have been imported from March 21, 2019, to December 21, 2021.

According to Tasnim’s data, around one quarter of the money, or about $2.3 billion was spent on importing just two million luxury phones – mainly from the American brand Apple. This is less than five percent of the total number of phones bought by the people.

The report added that despite the government raising import duties for these luxury items from five to 12 percent this year, buyers spent more money to grab the expensive models. In the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (starting on March 21, 2021), about $940 million was spent on high-priced phones, while the figure was $670 million for the previous year.

Buying such cellphones is too extravagant for most Iranians with ordinary nine-to-five jobs who are paid about $100 to $200 per month. However, there are a lot of Iranian officials and their family members who own the flagship models of Apple and Samsung, whose prices range from at least $1,000 to $2,400 in the Iranian market with the current exchange rate. With official government salaries, no official or Islamic Republic politician would be able to afford an expensive phone.

In comparison to the $9 billion of foreign currency spent on importing cell phones, the Iranian government spent around $15 billion during the same period to give cheap dollars to importers of food and medicines. President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration has decided to stop the indirect subsidy to save precious US dollars, but the rich and government officials keep spending more than $2 billion on expensive phones.

After the killing of Qasem Soleimani by a US drone strike at Baghdad airport in January 2020, many Iranian officials issued statements and messages on social media from their iPhones, demanding the United States leave the region. Soleimani’s daughter Zeinab Hassan also owns an iPhone 13, which costs at least over $2,000 in Iran today.

A selfie she published over the weekend was picked up by Iranian social media users who began reposting it to make the point that the phone the daughter of the former Qods (Quds) force commander uses to demand retribution for the United States, is an iPhone – not a Chinese-made phone.

The Jerusalem Post’s website and Maariv’s Twitter account were targeted.

Hackers put a photo of a model of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant being blown up while a hand is shooting down a missile from an agate stone ring, something Soleimani was known to be wearing all the time.

A threatening sentence attributed to the IRGC Qods (Quds) force commander was also placed on the photo in English and Hebrew that said, “We are close to you where you do not think about it". It is from one of Soleimani’s speeches that addressed former US president Donald Trump about a year before his killing.

According to the Jerusalem Post, it cannot be verified if the source of the cyberattack was from Iran or from outside the country or if they were state sponsored.

In May 2020, hackers replaced the site's homepage with an illustration of Tel Aviv burning as then-Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was swimming for a life preserver with a text saying, "Be ready for a big surprise."

Iranian officials have often threatened retribution against American and Israeli officials that they have listed as having been involved in ordering, planning and carrying out the drone strike that killed Soleimani.

In an advisory issued at 2150 GMT, the UKMTO - part of Britain's Royal Navy - advised mariners to exercise extreme caution in the area.

It put the vessel's position at approximately 23 nautical miles west of Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea.

The last shipping incident near Ras Isa was in late 2019 when Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement briefly seized a Saudi-flagged ship and two South Korean vessels.

Saudi Arabia is leading a military coalition that has been battling the Houthis for more than six years.

The alliance has accused the Houthis of attacking shipping in the Red Sea, one of the world's busiest maritime lanes leading up to the Suez Canal.

Similar incidents have taken place in the Persian Gulf region and the Arabian Sea. Iran has seized several vessels since 2019.