Iran Eyes Large Russian Gas Imports Amid Falling Output

The so-called Amude-Derbesiye provincial leader of the PKK/YPG, Yusif Mehmud Rebani (Youssef Rabbani), code-named Rezan Cavit, was killed in a drone strike in the Syrian city of Qamishli by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) on August 6, Turkish media announced on Friday. 

The drone struck his car and killed at least four other people, including Mazlum Esat, code-named Ruhaz Amude, and wounded two more. 

"Commander Youssef Rabbani who was in Qamishil for a visit was confirmed dead in the attack," Hamrin Ali, the co-president of the local council of the Jazira region in the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) said.

He joined the PKK in the 1990s, and in 2010 was part of the "Coordination Committee", the highest executive body of the Iranian branch of the organization, PJAK. MIT claimed he had also ordered the attacks against the Turkish armed forces during the period when the PKK was in charge of the Haftanin province. 

Generally, the Kurdish parties in Iran − including Komala and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) − favor Kurdish autonomy within a federal Iran. Pejak (the Free Life Party of Kurdistan), an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), formed in Turkey but also based in northern Iraq, has generally favored a unified, independent Kurdistan uniting Kurds in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran.

According to a document obtained by Iran International, the Swiss embassy in Tehran which represents US interests has officially informed the Iranian government of the lawsuit.

In June, Canada also announced that it has notified Iran of Ontario's Superior Court of Justice’s ruling that IRGC’s downing of Ukraine Airlines Flight PS752 was intentional.

In May 2021, some family members filed a civil lawsuit against Iran and senior officials they believe were to blame for the incident. Canada’s Ontario Court ruled that the downing of the plane was an intentional act of terrorism and on December 31, 2021, awarded compensation to be shared by the estates of the six victims.

In June, Canada's international human rights parliamentary subcommittee criticized the government's “passive” approach toward Iran’s widespread human rights abuses in a House of Commons subcommittee meeting attended by several political and human rights activists – including the spokesman of the Association of Victims' Families, Hamed Esmaeilion.

The airliner was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC on January 8, 2020, as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. All 176 passengers and crew, including 63 Canadians and 10 from Sweden, as well as 82 Iranian citizens on the plane died in the disaster.

US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel reiterated during a phone briefing that Russian officials had conducted training on drones in Iran "in the last several weeks."

He said Washington would "vigorously enforce" its sanctions on both Russian and Iranian weapons trading as the transfers of drones between the two countries was "potentially sanctionable under numerous authorities," noting that "We remain incredibly concerned about Iran's use and proliferation of UAVs. They have been used to attack US forces, our partners in the region, and international shipping entities.”

Since last month, US officials have repeatedly said that Washington had information that Iran was preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred drones, including some that are weapons capable, and that Russian officials had visited Iran to view attack-capable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)

Iran has been supplying drones to its allies in the Middle East for a long time but selling drones to Russia to for its war in Ukraine has raised serious international concerns.

Iran's foreign minister denied the claim, including in a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart but late In July, an Iranian lawmaker said the military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow has upset the political equations of the global order, confirming Russia’s request to buy Iranian drones.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned twice in July that Moscow appears to be looking at buying Iranian drones and Russian officers even visited a drone base in Iran’s Kashan to review their options.

An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky told Iran International on July 25 that Russia and Iran are allies in the Ukraine war and it won’t be a surprise if Tehran supplies drones to Moscow.

In an interview with Iran International on Thursday, Reza Younesi said that his brother Ali Younesi and another student Amir Hossein Moradi were repeatedly threatened to be killed or raped by agents while they were incarcerated in solitary confinement.

Reza, who is based in Sweden, referred to a report by the Amnesty International released on August 4 that disclosed new details about the two, saying even their families were not aware of their situation and the ill-treatment because they were held in solitary confinement for nearly 60 days without any contacts with their families and lawyers.

According to an informed source cited by the Amnesty International, they “confessed” under the threat of death and sexual violence after being transferred out of Section 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison to a location outside prison, where Ministry of Intelligence agents warned them prison regulations did not apply.

Amnesty International also said that after Branch 36 of the Appeals Court upheld their convictions and sentences on June 6, 2022, Ministry of Intelligence agents visited Amirhossein Moradi’s father and made vague promises about the possibility of his son’s release in exchange for agreeing to a “friendly” interview with state TV and publicly criticizing dissidents, which Amirhossein Moradi refused.

The two Sharif University award-winning science students were arrested in April 2020, with a judiciary spokesman announcing that explosive devices had been found in their homes and that they had links to “counter-revolutionary groups.”

After a grossly unfair trial, a Revolutionary Court in Iran sentenced the duo to 16 years in prison on April 25, 2022, over spurious national security charges such as “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security”, “spreading propaganda against the system [regime]” and “destruction of public property” for their participation in peaceful protests in January 2020 and their families’ real or perceived ties to exiled Albania-based opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK). Their convictions were based on “confessions” which both men retracted in court and said were obtained under torture and other ill-treatment.

“The authorities violated their [Moradi and Younesi] right to be presumed innocent by publicly accusing them of ties to ‘counterrevolutionary’ groups apparently based on their families’ real or perceived association” with the opposition group MEK, Amnesty wrote in November 2021.

In a letter in January, several Nobel Laureates and leading academics asked United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet to petition Iran over Moradi and Younesi. In May 2021, more than 170 professors and students at Sharif University wrote a letter to the Iranian authorities demanding their release. Younesi won the gold medal in the International Astronomy Olympiad in 2018 in China, and Moradi was an award-winning physics student.

Security Minister Fernandez Anibal said on Wednesday that the four were arrested Monday night at the Ezeiza international airport as they tried to board a plane with false documents. The individuals intended to travel to the Netherlands on a KLM airline flight. 

Some reports said the two couples were of Iranian origin but it was not confirmed by any Argentinian official. The suspects were later identified as Iraqi Kurds, and members of the Yazidi religion who fled Iraq with the aim of establishing themselves in Germany via Amsterdam. 

He added their case is being investigated by the same federal judge in charge of the Iranian plane grounded in Argentina, Federico Villena. 

Villena is the same magistrate who is investigating the 14 Venezuelans and five Iranians who arrived in this capital in June on a plane from the Venezuelan state company Emtrasur, a subsidiary of Conviasa, grounded over links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. 

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

Registered as a Venezuelan cargo plane, the aircraft was used by the Iranian company Mahan Air and transported a group of Iranian officials, including pilot Gholamrez 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.