US Asks To Seize Boeing 747 In Argentina Linked To Iran's IRGC

“The exercise is a bilateral training event between US 5th Fleet and Israeli naval forces that focuses on mission planning, maritime interdiction and other drills at sea,” the US fleet said on Monday, about a month after Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned that Tehran’s maritime activity in the area was the “most significant” in a decade.

The USS Nitze – a small destroyer with a crew of about 400 with cruise missiles for long-range land attacks and torpedoes -- the USS Lewis B Puller military cargo ship, and the USNS Matthew Perry logistical support ship are involved in the exercise. 

The Israeli warships involved in the drill, the Saar 5 Class Corvette INS Eilat and the Sa’ar 4.5 Class Missile Ship INS Keshet, would “participate in a variety of missions alongside [US 5th Fleet] ships and a refueling tanker,” read a statement by the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel has held several naval exercises with the 5th Fleet since last November in the Red Sea, some alongside the UAE and Bahrain. 

The US 5th Fleet -- headquartered in Manama, Bahrain -- includes maritime forces operating in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea, parts of the Indian Ocean and three critical choke points at the Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal and Bab al-Mandeb.

In July, Iran-backed Houthis of Yemen said Sana’a will not allow the Red Sea to become an “Israeli lake.”

In a speech in Tehran Salami said that Lebanon’s “Hezbollah youth have their fingers on triggers” and their leader Hassan Nasrallah with “determination is standing against the Zionists.”

According to IRGC-linked Fars website, Salami speaking to 6,000 Basij members on the occasion of the religious month of Muharram and the approaching Shiite holy day of Ashura, praised the voice “of Islamic resistance” from Lebanon and Syria to Yemen, including “around the artificial borders of the Zionist regime.”

The Islamic Republic uses the term “resistance” to refer to its proxy groups throughout the Middle East. Salami in his speech, however, went further telling the paramilitary Basij that they are past of a “global” Islamic resistance force.

He went on to praise Islamic Republic’s offensive operations in the region, mentioning confrontations at sea, “firing missiles at the enemy’s bases”, capturing enemy vessels as examples of “Islam’s power”.

Iranian proxy militias in Iraq and Syria have repeatedly attacked US bases with rockets and drones in recent years, and the IRGC has seized commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf.

The IRGC commander claiming that the enemy, meaning the United States, has been defeated, said that now it tries to win in a war of propaganda in cyberspace.
He was referring to anti-regime content by activists and ordinary Iranians on social media, which authorities cannot stop and blame on the US.

China has been Iran’s top trading partner in recent years and has helped with its overt and covert oil purchases since 2018 when the United States withdrew from nuclear deal known as JCPOA and imposed crippling sanctions on Iran.

The head of Iran-China chamber of commerce in Tehran, Majidreza Hariri told the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) in an interview that although China has taken a public stance against US sanctions, “but economic relations have their own characteristics and Iran should have its own special plans for neutralizing sanctions.”

Hariri in the past one year has repeatedly hinted at the economic benefits of lifting US sanctions, without commenting directly on the nuclear talks that have dragged on for 16 months without a result, keeping sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and international banking.

In April, the business leader said that if US sanctions are lifted, annual trade with China could top $60 billion. Last November he warned that Iran’s economy was at a dangerous juncture, with high inflation and a host of other problems. Since then, the national currency has lost more value and inflation has climbed to an annual rate of 54 percent.

Hariri also said that Iran would need eight years once sanctions are lifted to regain the same economic footing it had in 2010, when first international sanctions were imposed for its nuclear program.

Hariri told ISNA, “Despite many slogans, the economy was never a priority for Iran’s economic decision makers, and this has made current conditions so difficult.” He pointed out that while Iran’s oil and petrochemical products in the past had a strong market in China, now it has lost its position to others.

As an example of how sanctions impact ties with China, Hariri said that when a large Chinese operator of ports has 18 ventures in different countries, it cannot risk being targeted by secondary US sanctions. Nevertheless, he added, “China has shown cooperation with Iran for many years.”

Asked if a nuclear agreement is the only salvation for the economy, the businessman said that any agreement needs a 50-50 compromise and talks should continue to fruition, however Iranian officials in charge of the economy should also pursue other avenues to “neutralize sanctions,” to be able to emerge from the current “deadlock”.

Officials, particularly the followers of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s hardline policies, who are currently in charge, often speak of “defeating sanctions” but in essence their efforts have marginal results. Most countries and international corporation shun business with Iran, which for more than a decade has attracted little foreign investment or large joint projects.

Russia on paper has promised many investments, or Iranian officials have claimed, but nothing significant has materialized. Recently, Moscow’s ambassador in Tehran complained that Iran owes Russia more than $700 million.

Iran last year signed a 25-year “strategic cooperation” agreement with China, which includes no specific provision for projects or investments. Officials in Tehran have said that the document is a framework based on which specific deals can be reached, but so far there is no sign of any large Chinese investments that Iran needs.

Federal judge Federico Villena authorized Monday the departure of 12 of the 19 people who were onboard, ordering four Iranians and three Venezuelans to be retained in Argentina. 

He said there are still elements to be investigated regarding the Iranian pilot Gholamrez Ghasemi, designated by the Argentine intelligence service as a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. 

Registered as a Venezuelan cargo plane, the aircraft was used by the Iranian company Mahan Air and transported a group of Iranian officials, including Ghasemi, a senior executive of the airline Qeshm Fars Air, who is a member of the IRGC and a former board member of Fars Air Qeshm who stands accused of transporting weapons for Hezbollah during the civil war in Syria.

The Boeing 747 in question arrived in Argentina from Mexico on June 6, with 14 Venezuelans and five Iranians on board, before trying to fly to Uruguay two days later, where it was refused entry following a formal warning from Paraguayan intelligence.”

In July, Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez said one of the crew had travelled to Cuba for plastic surgery to “change his face.”

In June, Gerardo Milman, an Argentine lawmaker, told Iran International that Iranians aboard the Venezuelan plane planned “attacks on human targets.” Contrary to Iran’s claim June 13 that the plane was not owned by an Iranian company, Milman said the pilot was “a senior official of Qods (Quds) force,” Tehran’s extraterritorial intelligence and secret ops outfit listed as a terrorist organization by the United States.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Tuesday that “In response to the new US sanctions, we started pumping gas into hundreds of new generation centrifuges. We acted based on the decision made. The Americans shouldn’t think they can get concessions from Iran at the negotiating table with these measures.”

He described it as startling that the US proposed a resolution in the International Atomic Energy Agency while “we repeatedly received goodwill messages from US President Joe Biden through mediators.” 

On Monday, August 1, the US Treasury sanctioned several companies it said were involved in the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals.

Announcing Tehran’s latest steps beyond the limits of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Monday that Iran has started pumping uranium gas into hundreds of IR-1s & IR-6 centrifuges as part of its plan to reach uranium enrichment capacity of at least 190,000 SWU (separative work units), a measurement of efficiency in enrichment. Under the JCPOA Iran was allowed only 6,104 SWU and no IR-6s.

Amir-Abdollahian added that Tehran is reviewing the recent proposals by the European Union to take forward talks over renewing the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The US State Department spokesman has said Washington also is reviewing proposals made by Joseph Borrell, the European Union foreign policy chief.