Houthis Warn Maritime Coalition: Red Sea Will Be Your Graveyard

Jordan’s State broadcaster said the army blew up a vehicle laden with explosives as it resisted the biggest armed cross-border operation to smuggle weapons and drugs in recent years.

The army earlier said the infiltrators had fled back across the border after injuring several army personnel in the latest of several major incursions since the start of the month that has left one Jordanian soldier and at least a dozen smugglers dead.

Intelligence sources said Jordanian jets launched rare raids into its northern neighbor Syria against hideouts of Iranian-backed drug smugglers in retaliation against the smuggling operation. Iran controls thousands of fighters in Syria for more than a decade, when it got involved in the country’s civil war to support the Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

They said the bombing targeted homes of leading drug dealers and farms that intelligence showed were safe houses for the heavily armed traffickers who have also used drones to drop their hauls.

Earlier officials had said the Jordanian army was considering conducting pre-emptive strikes inside Syria against those militias linked to the drug trade and their facilities in a bid to stem what they say is an alarming rise in cross-border incursions.

Jordanian officials, like their Western allies, say that Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group and pro-Iranian militias who control much of southern Syria were behind a surge in drug and weapons smuggling.

"Jordan knows the country that stands behind this. It's Iran that is sponsoring these militias. These are hostile military actions against Jordan on its territory," said Samih Maayteh, a former minister briefed by officials on developments.

Iran and Hezbollah say the allegations are part of Western plots against the country. Syria denies complicity with Iranian-backed militias linked to its army and security forces.

UN experts and US and European officials say the illicit drug trade finances a proliferation of pro-Iranian militias and pro-government paramilitary forces created by more than a decade of conflict in Syria.

War-torn Syria has become the region's main site for a multi-billion-dollar drug trade, with Jordan being a key transit route to the oil-rich Gulf states for a Syrian-made amphetamine known as captagon, Western anti-narcotics officials and Washington say.

The army which said it had seized nearly five million pills of captagon on Monday in one of the largest hauls in recent years, warned it would "continue to track these armed groups and prevent any attempt to undermine the kingdom's national security".

"The last few days have seen a spike in these operations that are changing from infiltration attempts and smuggling to armed clashes with the goal of crossing the border by force and targeting border guards," the army statement added.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi last week told Iran's Foreign Minister Hossien Amir-Abdollahian during a meeting in Geneva that Tehran should do more to rein in militias it finances that are active along the Syrian-Jordanian border, officials say.

The raids by Jordanian jets come as the monarch, a staunch US ally, discussed bolstering the country's defenses with the top US commander, General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Jordan has been promised more US military aid to improve security on the border, where Washington has given around $1 billion to establish border posts since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, Jordanian officials say.

Report by Reuters

In an interview with the conservative Khabar Online, excerpts of which were published Monday, Abdolreza Davari alleged that the Secretary General of Paydari, Sadegh Mahsouli, in a recent interview, has signaled to the regime that Ahmadinejad is prepared to backtrack from his controversial behavior in recent years if he is given a share in power.

The former president began criticizing the regime after he was not allowed to run again in 2017 and his defiance gradually increased to the point of attacking Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei directly for multiple crises in the country. However, he has been silent for more than a year, keeping a low profile.

“They want to revive and restore the status of Mr. Ahmadinejad within their organization,” Davari who once served as an advisor to Ahmadinejad but has completely distanced himself from him in the past few years, said. He went on the say that Paydari is the only politic al force engaged in reviving Ahmadinejad’s political status.

These comments were made a week after in an interview with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Fars News Agency, Mahsouli praised Ahmadinejad, calling him “charismatic” and a person with “innate management capabilities” and a good command of many things including the economy and diplomacy.

At the same time, Mahsouli who says he has not had any contact with Ahmadinejad in twelve years, showered some praise on Raisi and his administration but claimed that his party does not have anyone in the government. Contrary to this assertion, it is a well-known fact in Iran that Paydari’s ultraconservative members hold many positions in the Raisi administration.

Mahsouli who has led the Paydari Party in the past three years is a former Revolutionary Guard officer and a business tycoon who served as minister of interior and minister of welfare and social security under Ahmadinejad.

Political rivals and critics such as Afshar Soleimani, a former diplomat, allege that he amassed his wealth when Ahmadinejad allowed him to control the oil swap business with the Republic of Azerbaijan in the early 2000s, when he was a governor.

Soleimani also alleged in an interview last week that Mahsouli and Ahmadinejad only pretend to be not on good terms and pointed out that neither has ever spoken seriously ill of the other and will stand together again unless something drastic happens.

The Paydari (Steadfastness) Party has its appendages in all government institutions including the parliament where their members form a very influential minority that often takes a leading role amid the weak presence of established conservative and reformist parties.

Many believe Mahsouli, then interior minister, was the man behind the alleged rigging of the 2009 elections which secured a second term for the incumbent Ahmadinejad.

Both men were strongly supported by Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, ultra-hardliners’ spiritual father, who withdrew his support from Ahmadinejad after his fall from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s grace in May 2011.

In another interview a year ago, Davari claimed that around eighty percent of high-ranking officials in the Raisi administration were picked from among those serving in high positions in Ahmadinejad’s government.

In the same interview he dubbed the Raisi administration as “Ahmadinejad’s third government”. He has also previously alleged that in the past few years the former controversial president has been of the belief that the Islamic Republic is doomed to collapse and when it does, he wants to be Iran's Boris Yeltsin “and commandeer all power in one go”.

According to Fars News Agency, a government official revealed on Monday that the smugglers were condemned to pay around 200,000 dollars.

The case was exposed while according to officials and experts the country's aviation industry faces a serious crisis due to the grounding of more than 500 aircraft that need sanctioned parts.

Experts have cautioned that Iran's aviation fleet needs a minimum of four hundred new aircraft, but US economic sanctions resulting from Iran's controversial nuclear program have hindered the purchase of new aircraft, as well as the refurbishment and modernization of the fleet.

Without specifying details about the Airbus aircraft engine smuggling case or the importing company, an official mentioned, "The said company, as the first-row defendant, has been sentenced to a two-year suspension of activities. Additionally, considering the financial loss, they are obligated to pay a fine of nearly $155,000."

The CEO of the company has been sentenced to pay around $45,000 and has been prohibited from establishing an office and engaging in legal and business activities for three years.

Akbar Nasrollahi, the spokesperson for the Judiciary's Political and Media Crimes Courts, stated that the charges against Rahmanian involve the "dissemination of false information," based on the complaint filed by the Tehran Prosecutor regarding the "misleading headline" of an 84% opposition to compelling women to observe hijab, dated October 25, 2023.

On October 24, Shargh reported the results of its survey, reporting an 84% opposition among the public to mandatory hijab for women. The survey involved the participation of over 12,300 individuals.

The survey was released following the approval of a bill titled Chastity and Hijab by the Iranian parliament, indicating intentions to tighten restrictions in this regard.

Following the court session, addressing the complaint of the Supervisory Board of Press against Rahmanian, Nasrollahi noted that a verdict would be issued subsequently.

Simultaneously, the results of the survey were removed from Shargh's website.

Despite four decades of implementing the policy of compulsory hijab, Iranian women, especially after the recent nationwide protests in Iran, have openly opposed the policy by publicly removing their mandatory headscarves.

Iran has been severely affected from water shortages and prolonged droughts for two decades, while grappling with a substantial electricity deficit in summers and gas shortage in winter.

ISNA reported on Sunday, December 17, that the statistics on the operation of the country's reservoir dams indicate that the water volume in the reservoirs is only 40% full.

Official statistics detail that while the volume of water inflow into the dams increased by 7% compared to the same period last year, the water outflow from the dams increased by 22%. Consequently, their water reserves have decreased by one billion cubic meters.

None of the government statistics or official statements explain why the Ebrahim Raisi Administration allowed a 22% increase in the discharge of dam water. However, details from the Ministry of Energy's data on power generation show that the government has compensated for some of the summer electricity shortage by significantly and urgently increasing hydroelectric power production from dams.

In recent years, Iran has been unable to achieve its electricity generation growth targets, leading to a deepening of the country's electricity shortfall.

In the first seven months of the current fiscal year, started on March 22, Iran launched around a 1,000 megawatts of new power plants, with only 35 megawatts being from solar and wind, and 116 megawatts from "combined cycle" with relatively high efficiency.

This is despite the Raisi Administration’s plan to launch over 6,000 megawatts of new power plants this year, with half of them being renewables.

The latest report from the Ministry of Energy shows that the hydroelectric power generation from the country's dams has experienced a 57% jump in the current Iranian year (beginning March 21) compared to the same period last year, reaching over 17 trillion watt-hours.

This significant increase in hydroelectric power generation comes while the water inflow into the dams this year has only grown by 7% compared to last year. As a result, the government has emptied the reservoirs of the dams to solve part of the summer electricity deficit, exacerbating the country's water crisis.

The monthly report from the Ministry of Energy also indicates that while the government had targeted the launch of 6,000 megawatts of new power plants, only 15% of that has been achieved in the eight months of the current Iranian year, with almost all new power plants being thermal and operating with low efficiency, using natural gas, Mazut, and diesel.

In recent weeks, the highly use of mazut in power plants has led to severe air pollution in the country, especially capital Tehran. This is a dirty fuel banned in most countries.

According to a confidential report, prepared by the oil ministry and obtained by Iran International, Iran used 45 million liters per day of mazut and 117 million liters of diesel in last winter due to gas shortages.

For this year, the government had targeted the launch of over 2,600 megawatts of solar and wind power plants, but only 1% of that has been realized in the eight months of this year.

While Iran boasts 300 sunny days annually, the contribution of solar and wind energy to the country's electricity production remains at approximately half a percent, with atomic energy making up just over one percent.

Deputy Minister of Energy Mahmoud Kamani's announcement on December 15 highlighted an electricity imbalance of 12,000 megawatts this summer, predicting a further 5% increase next year.

For comparison, Turkey surpasses Iran, with 35 times more solar and wind power production and renewable electricity generation capacity 22 times greater than the Iran’s nuclear power plant. Over a quarter of Turkey's electricity is derived from water sources, while this figure for Iran is 6%.

Iran's electricity issue, causing dam water supplies to drop below half, signals a serious problem. The intricate relationship between water resource management and energy production exacerbates the scarcity of both vital resources.