US Sanctions 3 Men For Financial Fraud To Help Iran-Backed Hezbollah
Lebanese Hezbollah militia marching in Beirut.
The United States has sanctioned three individuals and their company with links to Iran-backed Hezbollah for exploiting Lebanon's economic resources for the benefit of the militant group.
The Treasury Department said in a statement on Tuesday that it has sanctioned Adel Diab, Ali Mohamad Daoun, and Jihad Salem Alame, as well as their Travel and Tourism company Dar Al Salam.
The Treasury added that all property owned by the three men and their business that is in the United States is blocked and that any transaction related to them is prohibited.
"Through businessmen like those designated today, Hezbollah gains access to material and financial support through the legitimate commercial sector to fund its acts of terrorism and attempts to destabilize Lebanon's political institutions," read the statement.
Earlier, the UAE asked the US to reclassify another Iran-backed group in the region as a terrorist group.
In a phone call with Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed requested that the Houthi movement - officially called Ansar Allah - be added to the list of terrorist organizations.
President Joe Biden reversed the Trump administration's decision to designate Houthis as terrorists less than a month after taking office, saying it hampered humanitarian aid to the Yemenis.
The UAE also vowed punishment for the Houthi missile and drone strike on key targets in the country that killed three and injured several others.
An Iranian lawmaker has said that the Islamic Republic should emulate China’s “success” in creating a unique national intranet to control the cyberspace.
Iran’s hardliner parliament has been discussing ways to intensify Internet censorship by establishing an intranet that would essentially ban foreign social media networks which allow Iranians to receive uncensored information and communicate with others.
The government has blocked thousands of websites in Iran for nearly 20 years both for ideological and political reasons. Almost all news and political websites not controlled by the government are inaccessible except by special software people need to use to get around the filtering.
Ali Yazdikhah, representing the capital Tehran, said on Tuesday that Iran should learn from China and Russia in restricting access to the Internet. His remarks came as Iran has signed a 25-year cooperation agreement with China and is expected to expand cooperation in many areas.
Facebook, You Tube and Twitter are also blocked. Instagram is the only major international platform still accessible, which Iranians use extensively to conduct ecommerce. This is one major impediment to parliament’s plan for shutting down all foreign social media networks.
Yazdikhah mentioned that plans call for free domestic intranet for users who have to pay to have access to foreign sites and platforms “without restriction”, but this is highly unlikely given the sensitivity of the clerical regime.
Iran has signed a deal with Romanian company to export technical and engineering services for the gas industry to the European Union member country.
IRNA said on Tuesday that a memorandum of understanding was signed by the head of Iran Gas Engineering and Development Company, Reza Noshadi, and Mihai Tănăsescu from the Romanian company Gaz Vest.
Under the agreement, Iran will cooperate with the Romanian company in construction of gas pipelines and pressure boosting facilities as well as building gas storage reservoirs.
According to Noshadi, the two countries are trying to find other cooperation opportunities, including joint ventures and building refineries or power plants, while a joint working group is also formed so that they can share their technical know-how and experience.
Romania is the first European country that is importing technical and engineering services from the Islamic Republic.
Earlier in January, the head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Masoud Khansari, said Iran’s export of technical and engineering services has plummeted to about $200 to $300 million from about $5 to $6 billion in the past few years.
Last week, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said that Iran’s oil exports have increased by 40 percent and Tehran pursues a dual-track policy of circumventing US sanctions and working for their removal.
Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign relations advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has said the United States would not dare to attack Iran.
"Iran's regional power is on the rise,” Velayati said in an interview with hardliner Kayhan newspaper published Tuesday. “Iran has never been as strong during the Islamic Republic era and has substantial power and influence in the region and internationally now. Americans confess that they have to deal with three powerful countries, [namely] Iran, China and Russia.”
The interview focused on Velayati’s defense of a "looking East" tilt in foreign policy with President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) due in Moscow Wednesday. Velayati, who was foreign minister 1981-97, said Iran's power had grown so much that its enemies, "particularly Americans," realized they could not attack without serious “consequences.”
Velayati also argued that closer relations with China and Russia offered Iran a way to “lift” and “neutralize” US sanctions, which have expanded and tightened since the US in 2018 left the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Russia in particular has been supportive of some Iranian demands during Vienna talks aimed at reviving the JCPOA.
Critics of the Raisi government, which took office in August, and many in the Iranian public, are wary of Iran's closer relationships with China and Russia. Some social media posts claim Raisi’s government has tipped the balance in its foreign relations completely in favor of the two eastern powers and is “selling out” the country.
Political analyst Ali Bigdeli has alleged that China and Russia might sacrifice Iran’s interests, including its nuclear program, to secure their own interests in Ukraine and Taiwan. "They may strike a secret deal [with the US]," Bigdeli was quoted as saying by Aftab-e Yazd newspaper Tuesday.
But the aim of the previous government under President Hassan Rouhani to use the JCPOA as a stepping stone to attract European investment, especially in energy, was undermined by US ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions, which threaten punitive action against any third party buying Iran’s oil or dealing with its financial sector.
Commenting on the chances of an agreement over restoring the JCPOA, Fereydoun Abbasi, lawmaker and former head of the Energy Organization of Iran Agency told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) Tuesday that an agreement would be viable only if Iran "maintains its power in the region" and puts pressure on Israel.
Abbasi argued Iran needed to extend its "trenches against the enemy outside the borders of Syria,” to “put pressure on the Zionist regime,” which he said was lobbying against Iran. Abbasi suggested that a desirable result in the nuclear talks was linked to strengthening ties with allies across the Middle East, with the aim of lifting the Israeli and Egyptian “siege on Gaza” and freeing Syria’s Golan region, which has been occupied and settled by Israel since 1967.
"We should negotiate [with world powers] but we will not achieve our country's desired result in the talks as long as there is not pressure on the Zionist regime,” Abbasi said.
The Russian Pacific Fleet says it will take part in joint naval war games with Iran and China in without announcing the exact date and location for the drills.
The fleet’s press service said Tuesdaythat a delegation of Navy personnel has traveled to Iran’s southeastern port city of Chabahar for a planning session and preliminary coordination.
A detachment of warships from Russia’s Pacific Fleet, including large sea tanker Boris Butoma and Russian destroyer Admiral Tributs as well as missile cruisers Varyag and Guards Order of the Nakhimov, will join the Iranian and Chinese fleets for the drills.
The unit set out on a voyage from the southern port of Vladivostok in Far East Russia a few days before the 2022 New Year and anchored near Chabahar port on the Sea of Oman earlier in the week.
In August 2020, the Russian ambassador in Tehran, Levan Dzhagaryan, had said that joint naval exercisesin the Persian Gulf would take place at the end of 2021 or early 2022.
He had also said that the main focus of the exercises was to ensure safe navigation in international shipping lanes and anti-piracy operations.
Announcing the formation of Marine Security Belt -- also known as the portmanteau CHIRU -- China, Russia and Iran held their first joint naval drills in the region in the very last days of 2019.
Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar says the United States has sought to have a communication channel with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.
According to al-Akhbar on Tuesday, the US government has delivered a message to Hezbollah via mediators, asking for a way to discuss various issues regarding Lebanon.
The report said Hezbollah informed the mediators that they reject any form of communication with the Americans.
Hashim Safi Al Din, a senior Hezbollah official -- and a maternal cousin of Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah – has reportedly confirmed the claim, saying that Americans tried to communicate with the Hezbollah leadership.
He said that a mediator carried the message, expressing Washington’s readiness to negotiate over any issue, but Hezbollah refusedwithout any discussion whatsoever.
Although such claims may be plausible, they are rarely officially reported and cannot be independently verified.
Recently, Israeli media reported that a deal was secretly signed with Beirut to supply natural gas to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria, adding that the agreement was brokered by Washington’s special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs Amos Hochstein and also coordinated with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Lebanese government and the US state department later denied the existence of such an agreement.
