TOP STORIES
US, UK Stage Multiple Airstrikes Against Iran-Backed Houthi Militants In Yemen | ABC News
The U.S. and U.K. on Monday staged airstrikes against eight targets in Yemen aimed at stopping Iran-backed Houthi militants from attacking ships in the Red Sea. The White House has insisted the retaliatory airstrikes -- seven rounds so far -- have been effective despite repeated Houthi attacks. "Today, the militaries of the United States and United Kingdom, at the direction of their respective governments with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, conducted an additional round of proportionate and necessary strikes against 8 Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis' continued attacks against international and commercial shipping as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea," said a joint statement released by the nations involved in Monday's airstrikes."These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent mariners, and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi actions since our coalition strikes on January 11, including anti-ship ballistic missile and unmanned aerial system attacks that struck two U.S.-owned merchant vessels," the statement added.
Iran is “directly involved” in Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, a top US Navy official said Monday — two days after an Iranian-backed attack on an air base in Iraq injured at least two US servicemen. So far nearly 70 US military personnel have suffered injuries in the 151 attacks that have occurred on American troops in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17, American officials say. Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the US Navy’s chief Mideast commander and head of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, said Monday that Tehran is doing everything it can to specifically support Yemen’s Houthi terror attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which have included targets on US shipping carriers and destroyers.
Iran Executes Protester With Mental Health Condition, Judiciary Says | CNN
An Iranian protester with a mental health condition has been executed over the death of a local official during mass demonstrations that rocked the country in 2022, the Iranian judiciary’s news agency reported on Tuesday. “The death sentence of Mohammad Ghobadlou for the crime of intentional murder of Farid Karampour Hassanvand was executed this morning after 487 days of judicial review of the case,” the Mizan news agency said. Iranian authorities allege Ghobadlou ran over the official during a protest in Robat Karim, Tehran province, in September 2022, according to rights group Amnesty International. He was sentenced to death by judge Abolqasem Salavati – who has been sanctioned by the United States for the notoriously harsh sentences he issued to activists, journalists and political prisoners, CNN previously reported.
UANI IN THE NEWS
UK Officials Probe Iran Generals' Antisemitic Talks To Students | BBC News
… In one recording - an Instagram Live from Iran in September 2020 which has been viewed about 1,500 times - IRGC commander Hossein Yekta said universities had become "the battlefront" and urged the students listening to become "soft-war officers". Kasra Aarabi - director of IRGC research at the US-based campaign group United Against Nuclear Iran, and who shared the videos with the BBC - said "soft-war officers" is a term used by Iran to describe recruits to its ideological battle with the West. He said it was coined by a branch of the IRGC, "which today is proactively conducting terror plots on British soil".
“The United States and the UK have launched another round of joint air strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. This is the eighth strike by the US against Houthi targets in Yemen. The strikes on Monday night targeted an underground storage site and Houthi missile and surveillance capability. The Houthis have been targeting ships they say are linked to Israel and the West that travel through the Red Sea, which is an important trade route. The US and UK say they are trying to protect the "free flow of commerce". The Houthis are backed by Iran, and it's been reported the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are helping to co-ordinate the Houthis' attacks. Newsday asked Jason Brodsky - the policy director of a lobbying organisation called United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) - whether the military strike will achieve the political objectives?”
"… I don’t think we should be waiting for Americans to be killed,” the policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, Jason Brodsky, tells the Sun. Unless deterrence against Iran’s proxies and Tehran itself is reestablished, he says, “our troops are sitting ducks” across the Mideast. “You can be assured that we are taking this extremely seriously,” the White House deputy national security adviser, Jon Finer, told ABC News on Sunday, referring to the Al-Asad base attack. America, he added, will respond “to establish deterrence in these situations, and to hold these groups accountable that continue to attack us.”
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
US Aims At Iran Links With Sanctions On Hamas Financial Networks, Iraqi Airline | Reuters
The United States imposed sanctions on Monday on Hamas-affiliated financial exchanges in Gaza, an Iraqi airline and backers of Iranian-linked militias in Iraq, accusing all of working with Iran's elite military and intelligence unit. The U.S. Treasury said it had imposed sanctions on Hamas-linked financial networks in Gaza, particularly financial facilitators instrumental in transferring funds, including cryptocurrency, from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) to Hamas, which carried out the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, and to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another Palestinian militant group. The sanctions were coordinated with Australia and Britain, the Treasury said. Britain and Washington both targeted Gaza-based money changer Zuheir Shamlakh, whom they accused of facilitating transfers worth tens of millions of dollars from Iran to Hamas.
Russia And Iran Finalize 20-Year Deal That Will Change The Middle East Forever | Oil Price
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, gave his official approval on 18 January to a new 20-year comprehensive cooperation deal between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia, according to a senior energy source in Iran and a senior source in the European Union’s (E.U.) energy security complex, exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com last week. The 20-year deal – ‘The Treaty on the Basis of Mutual Relations and Principles of Cooperation between Iran and Russia’ - was presented for his consideration on 11 December 2023. It will replace the 10-year-deal signed in March 2001 (extended twice by five years) and has been expanded not only in duration but also in scope and scale, particularly in the defense and energy sectors. In several respects, the new deal additionally complements key elements of the all-encompassing ‘Iran-China 25-Year Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement’, as first revealed anywhere in the world in my 3 September 2019 article on the subject and analysed in full in my new book on the new global oil market order.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
Khamenei Calls On Islamic Countries To Cut Off Israel's 'Lifelines' | Iran International
Islamic countries should cut off the vital lifelines to Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told a group of his regime supporters in Tehran on Tuesday. “Sometimes, the positions and statements of officials from Islamic countries are mistaken because they talk about issues like the Gaza ceasefire that are beyond their authority and are in the hands of the sinister Zionist enemy. Islamic countries' officials should take action on matters that are within their purview,” the 84-year-old authoritarian ruler said. Khamenei, a long-time supporter of Hamas and a strong opponent of Israel’s existence, repeated his earlier calls to boycott and blockade Israel. “The matter that is within the reach of officials of Islamic countries is cutting the vital lifelines to the Zionist regime. Islamic countries should sever their political and economic ties with the Zionist regime and refrain from assisting this regime,” he said.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Kurdish Prisoner Faces Imminent Execution In Iran | Iran Wire
The Islamic Republic's security and judicial institutions have summoned the family of a Kurdish prisoner on death row to meet him, raising concerns about his imminent execution, IranWire reports. On January 21, Farhad Salimi’s relatives traveled from Saqqez, in western Kurdistan province, to Ghezelhesar prison in Karaj, near Tehran, to visit their loved ones. Salimi, who has been incarcerated for 14 years, was transferred to the solitary cell of prison at the weekend. In the past two months, the authorities executed three men sentenced to death in the same case – Davoud Abdollahi, Ghasem Abesteh and Ayoub Karimi.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Iran Integrates New Drones Into Army | Iran International
Iran has announced the integration of a significant number of combat, reconnaissance, destructive, and radar drones into its army. According to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency, the ceremony marking the integration was attended by Army Commander-in-Chief Abdol-Rahim Mousavi and Defense Minister Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani on Tuesday. The report detailed the integration of various multipurpose strategic drones, including Ababil-4 and Ababil-5, designed for a range of missions such as reconnaissance, surveillance, electronic warfare, and combat operations. Additionally, “the Arash and Bavar drones, known for their long-range and precision strike capabilities, along with the jet drone Karrar, capable of performing various interception missions,” were also added to the army's arsenal.
U.S. Identifies Navy Seals Who Died Attempting To Seize Iranian Arms | Washington Post
Two Navy SEALs declared dead over the weekend after a mishap in the Arabian Sea earlier this month were identified Monday as Christopher J. Chambers, 37, and Nathan Gage Ingram, 27. The pair went missing in rough seas during a nighttime ship-boarding mission that, despite the tragedy, resulted in a seizure of Iranian-made missile components, U.S. military officials have said. The weapons, according to U.S. Central Command, were intended to resupply Yemen’s Houthi movement. Since November, the group has attacked dozens of merchant vessels off the Arabian peninsula, significantly disrupting commercial shipping in the region, and setting off an aggressive campaign by the United States and other countries to thwart the assaults and degrade the Houthis’ arsenal. Officials have said Tehran, which arms the group and appears to be providing some help with targeting, is complicit in the violence.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran Holds Funerals For Guards Killed In Israeli Strike | The New Arab
Hundreds of mourners gathered Monday in Tehran for the funerals of Revolutionary Guards killed in Syria in an Israeli strike. It was the latest incident adding to regional tensions and fears of wider conflagration during the Israeli war on Gaza. The strike in Damascus on Saturday killed five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the military force said. Iranian media later reported the victims included the group's intelligence chief for Syria, and his deputy. Mourners carried aloft coffins bearing some of the victims, draped in colours of the Iranian flag, before a stage bearing pictures of IRGC General Qassem Soleimani who was killed four years ago by the United States.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Russia's Lavrov Talks Middle East With Iran, Turkey, Lebanon | Reuters
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his counterparts from Iran, Turkey and Lebanon ahead of the United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday due to discuss the Middle East, the Russian foreign ministry said. The bilateral meetings focused on the Gaza Strip, Syria and "the tense situation" in the Red Sea, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday. The meetings took place in New York on Monday. The ministry said Lavrov and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian agreed on the need for a swift ceasefire in Gaza and conditions for providing humanitarian assistance to civilians. "General concern was expressed about the tense situation in the Red Sea, which has sharply degraded," it said. On Monday, the United States and Britain carried out an additional round of strikes against Yemen's Houthis over their targeting of Red Sea shipping, the Pentagon said.
CHINA & IRAN
High Stakes For China Amid Simmering Iran-Pakistan Tensions | Radio Free Europe
Air strikes and diplomatic sparring between Iran and Pakistan have raised difficult questions for China and its influence in the region amid growing fears the upheaval sweeping across the Middle East could spread. Since the tit-for-tat strikes on January 16 and 18 against militant and separatist groups, Islamabad and Tehran have signaled they want to de-escalate the situation and that their foreign ministers will hold talks in Pakistan on January 29. But the attacks have exposed the fine line between peace and conflict in the region and put the spotlight on China, a close partner of both countries, to see if it can use its sway to ramp down tensions and avoid a conflict that would jeopardize Beijing's economic and geopolitical interests in the region. "For China, the stakes are high and they really can't afford for things to get any worse between Iran and Pakistan," Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told RFE/RL.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
U.S. Warns Iran To Stop Giving The Houthis Weapons | CBS News
The U.S. is warning Iran to stop providing weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen, who continue to attack commercial ships in the Red Sea. Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Mark Cancian joins CBS News to discuss the U.S.'s strikes on Houthi targets.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iran-Backed Militants Claim Rocket Attacks On US Base In Syria | Iran International
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group representing several Iran-backed factions, has claimed responsibility for launching two rocket attacks on US forces in Syria on Monday. The attack on the Conoco Base in Deir Ezzor marks the 164th attack on US facilities and personnel in Syria and Iraq in the past 96 days, escalating since October 7 when Iran-backed Hamas invaded Israel. Iran's proxies have since launched attacks on the US in response to the country's support of Israel's right to defend itself in the face of the Hamas attacks which killed 1,200 mostly civilians and saw over 250 more taken hostage to Gaza. “In adherence to our continuous resistance policy against American forces in Iraq and the region, and in response to the Zionist regime's actions against the people of Gaza, our fighters launched multiple rockets at the American base in the Conoco oil field in eastern Deir Ezzor," the group said.
Protests Erupt In Iraqi Kurdistan After IRGC Missile Attack | Iran International
Thousands took to the streets in the Kurdistan region of Iraq on Sunday to denounce the IRGC missile attack on Erbil which killed four civilians and injured six others. The IRGC launched ballistic missiles on Erbil last Monday citing the destruction of alleged "spy headquarters" and the dispersal of "anti-Iranian groups" as its objectives, causing a diplomatic furore in its wake. Iraq summoned Tehran’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad to condemn the move and withdrew its ambassador from Tehran. Hassan Hassanzadeh, the commander of the IRGC in Tehran, declared that the strikes were executed under the orders of Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Pakistan, Iran Agree To Resume Full Diplomatic Ties | Voice Of America
Envoys of Pakistan and Iran will return to their posts by the end of this week, Pakistan and Iran announced Monday. The latest sign of de-escalation comes almost a week after Iran struck alleged terror targets inside Pakistan and Islamabad responded with counterstrikes against purported terror hideouts across the border. The strikes killed at least 11 civilians, 9 in Iran and 2 in Pakistan. Amid unprecedented tensions Islamabad recalled its ambassador from Tehran last Wednesday and told the Iranian envoy, who was on a trip to his home country, to not return. Islamabad also suspended all high-level visits between the two countries. Monday’s press release, issued jointly by the foreign ministries of both the countries, said Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian will visit Pakistan on January 29 at his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani’s invitation. In a phone call Friday, the top diplomats of both countries agreed to defuse tensions and reestablish full diplomatic ties.