Loyalists Back Iran's Compulsory Hijab, Days After Women's Campaign

The White House released a report on Saturday as President Joe Biden was about to hold a meeting with the leaders of six Persian Gulf countries, plus Egypt, Jordan and Iraq in a regional summit.

Iran began showcasing the Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 drones – both capable of carrying precision-guided missiles -- to Russia at Kashan Airfield south of Tehran in June. 

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan disclosed satellite photos of drones in flight during the Russians' visit as Iran was showcasing its weapons-capable UAVs. “This suggests ongoing Russian interest in acquiring Iranian attack-capable UAVs," he said. 

On July 11, Sullivan revealed that Iran is preparing to train Russian personnel to use its drones perhaps as early as this month, adding, “Our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline.”

Yevheniia Kravchuk, an official of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s political party, told Iran International on July 12 that the news has shocked Ukrainian officials, noting that Tehran’s decision would lead to the death of more Ukrainian civilians.

Fars News highlighted Friday a phone conversation between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Ukrainian counterpart Dymytro Kuleba, in which the Iranian dismissed claims that Tehran was preparing to send drones to Moscow to help its military effort.

On Friday, the French foreign ministry specifically named the three Iranian award-winning filmmakers who were arrested on July 8 and 11 – namely Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad.

Earlier in the week, the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlinale, the European Film Academy and the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk also called for the immediate release of the prominent filmmakers.

Panahi, who has won numerous awards, including the Golden Leopard at Locarno Festival, the Golden Lion in Venice, and the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, was arrested July 11 as he was protesting the detention of two other award-winning filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Alehahmad.

Rasoulof – another prominent filmmaker with several international awards such as the Golden Bear – and Alehahmad – who is known in international film galas for his short works -- were arrested July 8 as part of the Iranian crackdown on the signatories of a collective statement titled “Lay down the gun” issued by more than 100 film industry personalities in the end of May.

The statement called on military and security forces who “have become tools for cracking down on the people,” not to suppress protesters during a wave of protests across Iran that were triggered when a 10-story building collapsed in Abadan, leaving at least 40 people dead and dozens missing.

In a long piece, the agency used the term “attack” for Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, rather than referring to a “crisis” as state-owned media has generally done. Fars also stressed Amir-Abdollahian had dismissed Monday’s claim from United States National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that Tehran was preparing to send drones, some armed, to Moscow to help its military effort.

UPDATE - Later, the White House released satellite photos and information that Russian military officials visited an Iranian drone base in Kerman to review military UAVs.

This was the fourth phone conversation between the two men, Fars explained, during the crisis, the first before hostilities began in February and three since then.

The agency suggested Amir-Abdollahian had played a mediating role conveying messages between the two sides, including during his trip to Moscow in mid-March and at the meeting of Afghanistan’s neighbors in China, which was March 30-31.

In Friday’s call, Fars reported, Amir-Abdollahian expressed “opposition to Russia’s attack on Ukraine” and reiterated that Iran had “tried to stop this war” and facilitate diplomacy between the two sides. This was in line, the foreign minister had explained, with Iran’s opposition to wars in Afghanistan, Yemen and Palestine.

The foreign minister pointed out that Sullivan’s claims about drones had coincided with “Biden’s trip to occupied Palestine” and said they had been made “simply for political ends.” Fars noted that Iran’s foreign ministry had already stated that while Tehran had “different areas of cooperation with Russia, including defense,” it would take military side and had also made clear its belief that the war in Ukraine should end with a ceasefire.

‘Nato tools,’ grain supplies

Fars also noted the interests of arms producers in “some western countries, trying to sell products,” and reminded readers that at his joint press conference in Tehran June 22-3 with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov Amir-Abdollahian had condemned the US “using Nato tools” as one of the roots of the conflict, a reference to the alliance’s expansion in eastern Europe since 1999.

While Iran has far more imports from Russia than from Ukraine, like many other countries it is feeling the inflationary pinch of disruption in supplies. Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji told the semi-official Iranian news agency the Young Journalists Club in May that Iran expected to import 5 million tonnes of grain, including some wheat, from Russia in the Iranian year ending March 2023. Tehran’s domestic wheat production is being hampered by low rainfall.

It was also noteworthy that Fars made no mention of the disputween the two countries over the Ukrainian airliner shot down in 2020 over Tehran by two missiles fired by the IRGC. Ukrain had been pursuing the case for a full accounting by Tehran and compensation before the Russian invasion.

An early end to the Ukraine war would not only ease pressure on the Iranian economy but placate those Iranians who have taken up the Ukrainian case, with some gathering outside the Russian embassy in Tehran back in February to chant “death to Putin.” The conservative Jomhouri Eslami newspaper has been firm in backing Ukraine’s cause and condemning Moscow.

The first UAV carrier flotilla of Iran’s Army, comprised of surface and subsurface units equipped with various types of combat, reconnaissance and kamikaze drones, was unveiled by the southern fleet of the Navy in a ceremony attended by Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Major general Abdolrahim Mousavi and Commander of the Iranian Navy Commodore Shahram Irani. 

According to state media, the drones that were displayed on Friday included the Pelican, Arash, Homa, Chamrosh, Jubin, Ababil-4 and Bavar-5, but it was not clear how many vessels or drones were included in each unit, only that one ship carried 50 drones.

Mousavi said the reconnaissance drones have increased the intelligence sway of Iran’s vessels to hundreds of kilometers beyond the borders of the country, adding that the Navy’s suicide and combat drones have leveled up Iran’s deterrence power. 

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Monday said that Russia wants to obtain hundreds of drones from Iran, both for surveillance and attack, to use in its war in Ukraine, adding that Iran is “preparing to train Russian forces to use these UAVs with initial training sessions slated to begin as soon as early July.”

Iran is known to have supplied UAVs to its proxies in several countries across the Middle East.

“The Americans and Zionists (Israel) know very well the price of using the word 'force' against Iran,” Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for the Iranian armed forces, was quoted as saying by Iranian media on Friday.

In reaction to the landmark decision of Stockholm’s District Court to sentence Hamid Nouri to life in prison, the rights group said in a Thursday statement that is "an unprecedented step towards justice.” 

His conviction and sentence “sends an unequivocal, and long overdue, message to the Iranian authorities that those responsible for crimes against humanity in Iran will not escape justice,” Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said.

She said the world finally witnessed an Iranian official held to account, adding that “For more than three decades, survivors and relatives of thousands of political dissidents extrajudicially killed and forcibly disappeared in Iran’s 1988 prison massacres, have struggled for truth and justice.”

Eltahawy also called on all states to exercise universal jurisdiction to criminally investigate all other former and current officials against whom there is evidence of involvement in past and ongoing crimes against humanity, including President Ebrahim Raisi, emphasizing that “This critical ruling must serve as a wake-up call to the international community to tackle the crisis of impunity that prevails in Iran.”

Sweden arrested Nouri, now 61, upon his arrival in Sweden at Stockholm Airport in 2019 and in 2021 put him on trial over the mass execution and torture of prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in July and August 1988.