Iran Dismisses UN Human Rights Assessment As 'Biased Report'

General Kenneth McKenzie told a House Armed Services Committee Hearing on Middle East Security Challenges on Thursday that reducing the number of American troops and capabilities in the region contributed to the perceptionof a “wavering United States commitment to the security and stability”.

“The greatest single day-to-day threat to regional security and stability remains Iran, which challenges the US and its allies by pursuing regional hegemony, breaching its Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) commitments, and posing a conventional threat to partner nations while facilitating and conducting coercive and malign activities”, he said.

McKenzie added, “Deterring Iran and its threat network depends on capabilities that provide a credible threat of a robust and timely response to Iranian aggression paired with flexible deterrent and response options that impose high costs on Iran, thereby altering its decision calculus.”

Describing the Houthis as the “least restrained and most destabilizing of all of Iran’s affiliates in the region”, McKenzie said they can escalate the crisis in the region “using whatever means the Iranians put at their disposal, even at the risk of inflicting mass civilian casualties and threatening American forces.”

He said, “Iranian-aligned militia groups are likely to continue sectarian criminal, and anti-US activities that destabilize Iraq.”

“Iran will continue to use Syrian (and likely Iraqi) territory as a critical hub and resupply route for maintaining its campaign against Israel”, McKenzie added.

Colonel Mohammed al-Bazi of the provincial police said the attack on Balad had caused no casualties but that three of the rockets had hit one of the base’s buildings, leaving minor damage, while the fourth landed in an open area. The base hosts Iraqi F-16 jets, while United States security contactors have reportedly left what was once the major hub for in-coming US munitions.

The Iraqi Security Media Cell, which calls itself a counter to the propaganda of Daesh, the Islamic state group, claimed the rockets were launched from Khalis district, some 20-25km away, in neighboring Diyala province.

The cell blamed this “cowardly terrorist act” on “gangs that do not want stability for Iraq” who it said would be “put behind bars…under the judgment of the law.”

No group has claimed responsibility. The Kurdish news agency Rudaw notedthat “similar attacks on international targets in Iraq are blamed on Iran-backed Iraqi militias who want to force American forces to withdraw from the country.” Rudaw said such attacks “increased after the US assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad in January 2020.”

On Sunday, Iran fired 12 ballistic missiles at Erbil, northern Iraq, after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed two Iranian soldiers. A villa, Iran alleged was used by Israeli intelligence, was damaged but there were no casualties.

In his lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, DC, Michael White alleged that he suffered “prolonged and continuous” torture in Iran to pressure him to falsely confess that he was a spy for the US government, AP reported on Friday.

In a 156-page manuscript that he wrote behind bars, he described in detail how he was beaten and punched, whipped on his feet, and deprived of food and drink.

In a 31-page complaint, the lawsuit said he was lured to travel to Iran in the summer of 2018 by a woman he considered his girlfriend, then he was kidnapped by Iranian agents and put in prison.

He was charged with insulting the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and cooperating with the US government against Iran and sentenced to 10 years in prison without a trial. The lawsuit says the charges were fabricated.

If Iran does not respond to the allegations, a judge could enter a default judgment on White’s behalf, enabling him to collect damages from a fund set up for victims of acts of state-sponsored terrorism.

He was released in June 2020 after 683 days of incarceration.

Although US and Iranian officials repeatedly denied claims about a prisoner exchange, just a day before White’s release, an Iranian professor who was arrested in the US for violating sanctions on Iran was acquitted and returned to Iran.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh insisted that the funds have been put at the disposal of Iran and Tehran has full control of it. "It is only Iran and not any other party including the UK that can determine how the money is going to be spent."

The British side has offered a different account about the payment. According to a statement by the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, "The IMS debt has been settled in full compliance with UK and international sanctions and all legal obligations. These funds will be ring-fenced solely for the purchase of humanitarian goods."

The Guardian had earlier reported that that the sum will be spent under the supervision of Switzerland.

But Russ also said: "Last December I met Omani Foreign Minister Badr to secure Oman’s diplomatic assistance. We are grateful to our friends in Oman for their support in securing the return of our nationals."

Meanwhile, other sources in London told Iran International TV that the sum is at the disposal of the Central Bank of Oman as a credit line and will be paid for purchases made by Iran and verified as being spent for humanitarian needs.

Yet another source told the IITV, that the US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has played a constructive role in facilitating the payment for humanitarian reasons while Iran is being sanctioned by the United States.

The release of dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori has been hotly debated in Iran, with hardliner media claiming victory for forcing the UK to pay and their opponents questioning the detention of the dual nationals.

IRGC-linked Fars and Tasnim news agencies as well as other conservative media outlets including Mehr news agency reported on Wednesday that the prisoners were released only after the United Kingdom made the payment to Iran. But Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdolahian has said that that there was no link between the release of the detainees and the money paid.

Amir-Abdollahian also reiterated in an interview with IRNA that money changed hands between the UK and Iran a few days prior to the prisoners' release and although the payment and the release of prisoners took place within a short period, the two events were not connected.

On Thursday, hardline daily Kayhan ruled out the Iranian Foreign Minister's statement and wrote that the UK was "forced" to pay back its $530 million debt.

The official news agency IRNA insisted that the release of the two prisoners was based on humanitarian reasons and a decision made just before the Iranian New Year (Nowruz) and the birthday of the 12th Shiite Imam.

However, former lawmaker Ali Motahari wrote in a tweet that "If Iranian officials are telling the truth about releasing Zaghari-Ratcliffe for humanitarian reasons, and her imprisonment and release had nothing to do with the UK's debt to Iran, they should explain what she had done to deserve spending 6 years in jail in Tehran."

Some Iranian news outlets including Etemad Online reported that a third British Iranian prisoner Morad Tahbaz was also granted furlough and that he is out of jail and with his family in Tehran. The furlough was reportedly part of the deal that led to the release of the other two prisoners. Why the UK did not demand full freedom for all detainees, having paid hundreds of million of dollars, is not clear.

In an interview with Yemeni TV channel Al Masirah on Thursday, IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif claimed that Israel used one of its bases in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq for the mid-February attack that reportedly destroyed hundreds of drones at a base in the Iranian province of Kermanshah.

Iran launched ballistic missiles on Sunday at Erbil claiming there was an Israeli base in the the northern Iraq Kurdish region.

He cited the Iranian ambassador in Iraq as saying that the Iraqi Kurds have been repeatedly warned about the base that was targeted this week, as well as two other bases.

He warned of more attacks if Iraq does not get rid of the other Israeli bases, saying that it is a "natural right" to destroy any base from which Iran’s security is threatened.

Iran's foreign ministry warned Iraqi authorities on Monday that Tehran would not tolerate the use of Iraqi soil by third parties for attacks against Iran, noting that “Iraqi territory was used several times in the past against Iran by third parties including terrorist groups such as Kurdish militants, the United States and the Zionist entity”.

The US mission to the United Nations this week called for a UN Security Council discussion “to condemn Iran’s missile attack”, saying the “the attack struck a civilian residence in Erbil and was an outrageous violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.