DUBAI: Iran is acknowledging for the first time it has an open case before its Revolutionary Court over the 2007 disappearance of a former FBI agent on an unauthorized CIA mission to the country, renewing questions over what happened to him.
In a filing to the United Nations, Iran said the case over Robert Levinson was “on going,” without elaborating.
It wasn’t immediately clear how long the case had been open, nor the circumstances by which it started. However, it comes amid a renewed push to find him with an offer of $20 million for information from the Trump administration amid heightened tensions between Iran and the US over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers. That’s in addition to $5 million earlier offered by the FBI.
The Associated Press on Saturday obtained the text of Iran’s filing to the UN’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
“According to the last statement of Tehran’s Justice Department, Mr. Robert Alan Levinson has an on going case in the Public Prosecution and Revolutionary Court of Tehran,” the filing said.
It did not elaborate. Iran’s Revolutionary Court typically handles espionage cases and others involving smuggling, blasphemy and attempts to overthrow its Islamic government. Westerners and Iranian dual nationals with ties to the West often find themselves tried and convicted in closed-door trials in these courts, only later to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations.
Iran’s mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment and its state media has not acknowledged the case.
The Washington Post first reported on the ongoing case.
Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. For years, US officials would only say that Levinson, a meticulous FBI investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was working for a private firm on his trip.
In December 2013, the AP revealed Levinson in fact had been on a mission for CIA analysts who had no authority to run spy operations. Levinson’s family had received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others.
Since his disappearance, the only photos and video of Levinson emerged in 2010 and 2011. He appeared gaunt and bearded with long hair, and was wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by detainees at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay.
The video, with a Pashtun wedding song popular in Afghanistan playing in the background, showed Levinson complaining of poor health.
Rumors about him have circulated for years, with one account claiming he was locked up in a Tehran prison run by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and US officials suggesting he may not be in Iran at all. Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive living in Iran who is wanted for the assassination of a former Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980, is the last known person to have seen Levinson before his disappearance. Iran has offered a series of contradictory statements about Levinson in the time since. It asked the UN group to close its investigation into Levinson in February, saying “no proof has been presented by the claimant in this case to prove the presence of the aforesaid in Iran’s detention centers.”
Iran: Case ongoing over missing former FBI agent on unsanctioned CIA job
Iran: Case ongoing over missing former FBI agent on unsanctioned CIA job
- Iran says the case over Robert Levinson is ‘on going,’ without elaborating
- Robert Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007
Tunisia sets sights on becoming world’s top seawater therapy spot
- Thalassotherapy is an “ancestral heritage” for Tunisians, “since hydrotherapy has existed in Tunisia since antiquity, at the time of the Carthaginians and the Romans,” Shahnez Guizani, the head of the National Office of Thermalism (ONTH), told AFP
KORBOUS, Tunisia: With a Mediterranean coastline, natural thermal springs, clement weather and affordability, Tunisia has become the world’s second-largest destination for seawater-based treatments known as thalassotherapy.
Now, it is setting its sights on overtaking France to claim the top spot.
“The main advantage of Tunisia is its coast and thalassotherapy,” compared with neighboring countries, said Mario Paolo, an Italian, at the Korbous thermal spa, perched on a hill an hour’s drive from the capital, Tunis.
A 78-year-old retiree who has lived in Tunisia for the past five years, Paolo said he frequently visits Tunisian thalassotherapy centers “to get back in shape.”
“Enjoying sea water and natural springs is not just leisure but also a therapy,” Paolo said after a thyme and rosemary oil massage.
Korbous, a coastal town on the Cap Bon peninsula, has historically been one of Tunisia’s hot spots for the therapy, which uses sea water and other marine resources.
Thalassotherapy is an “ancestral heritage” for Tunisians, “since hydrotherapy has existed in Tunisia since antiquity, at the time of the Carthaginians and the Romans,” Shahnez Guizani, the head of the National Office of Thermalism (ONTH), told AFP.
Other popular thalassotherapy destinations in the country include Sousse, Hammamet, Monastir, and Djerba, which Tunisian news agency TAP said was named the Mediterranean thalassotherapy capital in 2014 by the World Federation of Hydrotherapy and Climatotherapy.
Rouaa Machat, 22, said she traveled from France to Korbous for a three-day wellness retreat.
“I’m here to enjoy the types of water this beautiful town offers,” she said, referring to the use of seawater, spring water, and desalinated water for therapy.
“But I am also here for this,” she added, grinning and pointing to the Korbous sea and mountains.
Customers mainly come for the quality of spring water, said Raja Haddad, a doctor who heads the thalassotherapy center at the Royal Tulip Korbous Bay hotel.
Today, Tunisia boasts 60 thalassotherapy centers and 390 spas, 84 percent of which are located in hotels, according to the ONTH.
Tourism accounts for seven percent of the country’s GDP and provides nearly half a million jobs, according to official figures.
The sector has seen a decade of setbacks due to terrorist attacks and later the COVID-19 pandemic.
But it has been recovering again as the number of foreign visitors exceeded 10 million last year — a record for the country of 12 million people.
Guizani said thalassotherapy on its own draws about 1.2 million foreign visitors a year, with “70 percent coming from Europe, including 40 percent from France.”
The industry generates approximately 200 million dinars ($63 million, 60 million euros) per year, she added.
That compares with a French thalassotherapy market valued at around 100 million euros last year, according to market research firm Businesscoot.
At a luxury hotel near Monastir, a thalassotherapy center buzzes with customers despite the cold winter season.
Visitors have come from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, among other countries.
“As soon as you arrive, you find palm trees and the sun,” said Monique Dicrocco, a 65-year-old French tourist. “It’s pure happiness, and it’s also worth your money.”
“Here the therapy is much cheaper than in France, with 1,000 euros a week all inclusive instead of 3,000,” she added.
Jean-Pierre Ferrante, 64, from Cannes, said he found “the quality of the water and the facilities just as good as in France.”
Kaouther Meddeb, head of the thalassotherapy and spa center at the Royal Elyssa Hotel in Monastir, said the number of clients has been growing lately.
Yet despite meeting international standards, the sector remains underappreciated in Tunisia, she said.
“There’s a lack of communication and promotion,” she added.
Experts say more investment is needed in infrastructure. This includes road improvements and air services, they say, as there are few low-cost flights.
But plans are already underway to develop eco-friendly thermal resorts in regions like Beni M’tir, a mountainous village in the northwest, and near Lake Ichkeul south of Bizerte, said Guizani.
“With all the advantages it has, Tunisia is poised to become the world leader in thalassotherapy,” she added.
After Gaza hostage release, Israeli family demand ‘answers’ on wife, sons
- The boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage whose second birthday fell in January, and his five-year-old brother Ariel — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal
RAMAT GAN, Israel: Relatives of an Israeli hostage freed in the latest Gaza ceasefire swap made an emotional plea Monday for answers from Israeli authorities on the fate of his wife and sons.
Yarden Bibas, 35, was released by Gaza militants on Saturday, after being held captive in the Palestinian territory for more than 15 months.
Together with his wife Shiri and their two sons Ariel and Kfir, they were all seized by militants during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war.
Hamas has previously declared that Shiri Bibas and the two children had been killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023, but Israel has not confirmed their deaths.
“We will no longer accept uncertainty. We demand answers. We demand them back,” Shiri Bibas’s sister, Dana Silberman-Sitton, told reporters at the Sheba hospital in central Israel.
“The state failed to protect them. The state has been failing for almost 16 months to bring them home.”
“It’s the responsibility of the government and the state to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, to Yarden, to me and our entire family, and to all the citizens of Israel,” she added, her voice breaking.
Gal Hirsch, the government’s hostage coordinator, said on Saturday that “we have been searching for them for a long time” and demanding “information about their condition from the mediators.”
Footage filmed by Hamas militants during their attack showed Shiri Bibas clutching her two red-haired boys outside their home near the Gaza border.
The boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage whose second birthday fell in January, and his five-year-old brother Ariel — have become symbols of the hostages’ ordeal.
During the Hamas attack, militants took 251 hostages, 76 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.
Shiri Bibas’ parents, Yossi and Margit Silberman, died in a fire in their home in Nir Oz kibbutz, in southern Israel, when it came under attack on October 7, 2023.
Since the first, 42-day phase of Gaza ceasefire began on January 19, militants have so far freed 18 hostages, in four hostage-prisoner swaps.
During the current phase a total of 33 hostages are to be freed in return for some 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli army maneuvers on Lebanese border amid claims of dismantling Hezbollah military structures
- Lebanon interior minister: New checkpoints at Beirut Airport to control all incoming items
BEIRUT: Security authorities at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport effectively fulfill their responsibilities, caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said on Monday.
Mawlawi’s assurance followed his meeting with the Central Security Council.
In response to Israeli claims that Hezbollah was receiving cash through the airport, Mawlawi emphasized that the council had set up new checkpoints to inspect all items entering through the airport.
He stressed that the Lebanese army was fulfilling its duties to control the Lebanese border with the Syrian Arab Republic “despite the challenges” and urged increased cooperation from Syrian authorities.
Syria’s Ministry of Interior announced on Sunday that it had seized shipments of weapons intended for smuggling into Lebanon through land routes in the Talkalakh area of Homs.
On Jan. 26, Syrian security forces reportedly discovered a missile depot at a former regime site in Homs. They also seized a weapon shipment that was “intended for Hezbollah.”
There are six official border crossings between the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon and numerous illegal crossings along a 375-km border.
On Monday, the Israeli army said that it was continuing its “defensive operations” in southern Lebanon, under agreements with Lebanon, to maintain the operational gains in the region.
Recently, the Israeli army said it conducted extensive operations to eliminate threats in the region, “dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure, and prevent any potential dangers to Israel and its citizens.”
The announcement came a day after Defense Minister Israel Katz toured Israeli military positions in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces continue to violate the ceasefire agreement.
The ceasefire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah was extended at Israel’s request through US mediation until Feb. 18.
Israel is exerting pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah and eliminate its military presence south of the Litani line. Israeli threats to disarm Hezbollah extend beyond this region to areas north of the Litani and even to the Lebanese border with Syria.
Since the ceasefire began, Israeli airstrikes have repeatedly targeted vehicles transporting weapons and ammunition, as well as storage facilities for stockpiling arms.
In its statement, the Israeli army clarified that during a survey operation in the border area, troops from the 769th Brigade discovered weapons storage facilities. These facilities contained mortar shells, rockets, explosives, firearms, and a significant amount of military equipment. All the weapons were confiscated, and the storage sites were dismantled.
The statement indicated that Israeli soldiers “eliminated several Hezbollah members in the area and apprehended suspects who posed a threat to Israeli forces.”
The Israeli army announced it was conducting a military exercise on Monday in the Upper Galilee region, which has remained in a state of tension following months of military operations against Hezbollah.
The Israeli army issued a warning against civilian entry into areas expected to see “increased military activity.”
Israeli media reports indicate that residents of northern settlements in Israel have begun repairing their homes after damage caused by “fire from Hezbollah.”
The Israeli military has withdrawn from the western region of southern Lebanon and from certain villages in the central area while still maintaining its presence in other towns.
At the same time, it is engaged in bulldozing and demolition activities in the eastern sector, where it has not retreated from any villages.
It seems likely that the military will continue to occupy strategic positions in southern Lebanon.
Former MP Mustafa Alloush stated that Israel’s release of information about the significance of maintaining control over strategic heights and five key points overlooking the southern territories, as well as a substantial portion of occupied Palestine, was quite plausible.
He stated that Hezbollah was giving Israel reasons to justify its actions, evident both in the deployment of drones and in the group’s insistence on maintaining resistance without disarming.
Additionally, remarks from Hezbollah’s leadership, including statements made by its secretary-general, ministers, and MPs, emphasized that the resistance was regaining its strength and readiness.
Alloush claimed that Israel was leveraging this situation to conduct its daily airstrikes, which have targeted areas from Nabatieh and the Bekaa to northern Lebanon.
The Israeli army still holds El-Hamames Hill, located at the southwestern entrance to the town of Khiam.
This strategic hill overlooks the entire town of Khiam and the Hasbaya region, all the way to Ebel Al-Saqi.
It also holds the strategic Awida Hill, between Adaisseh and Taybeh, in the Marjeyoun district.
It overlooks the entire western sector up to Tyre and the whole central sector up to the Litani River and the western Bekaa from the direction of Jezzine.
The Israeli army also holds the hill of Khallet Wardeh, a strategic point located southwest of the town of Aita Al-Shaab in the Bint Jbeil district and overlooking the southern coast from Tyre to Naqoura and the western sector up to Tayr Harfa and Al-Jbein.
Israeli forces are still penetrating the strategic Shebaa and Kfar Shuba hills, which overlook the entire Arqoub region and the western Bekaa to the north, Hasbaya and Marjeyoun to the west, and Mount Hermon and Syrian lands to the west.
Syrian president says elections could take up to five years
- Ahmed Al-Sharaa said infrastructure for the vote needs rebuilding
- A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1
DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Monday that organizing elections could take up to five years, the week after he was appointed interim president and less than two months after ousting Bashar Assad.
“My estimate is that the period of time will be approximately between four and five years until the elections,” Sharaa said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on a private Syrian television channel.
In late December, he told Al Arabiya TV the election process could take four years.
The infrastructure for the vote “needs to be re-established, and this takes time,” Sharaa added on Monday.
He also promised “a law regulating political parties,” adding that Syria would be “a republic with a parliament and an executive government.”
Military commanders last Wednesday appointed Sharaa interim president, after opposition factions toppled Assad on December 8, ending more than five decades of the family’s iron-fisted rule.
Sharaa’s appointment has been welcomed by key regional players Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia.
Sharaa was also tasked with forming an interim legislature, and the Assad-era parliament was dissolved, along with the Baath party, which ruled Syria for decades.
Syria’s constitution was also repealed, and the Assad-era army and security forces were dissolved, as were armed groups, including Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1.
Russia tells Hamas to ‘keep promises’ on hostage release
- Russia has called for the release of dual Russian-Israeli citizen Alexander Trufanov and Maxim Herkin, an Israeli man from Donbas area of Ukraine with Russian relatives
MOSCOW: A deputy Russian foreign minister met Monday with a senior Hamas official in Moscow and urged Hamas to keep “promises” to release a Russian hostage, the ministry said.
Mikhail Bogdanov, who is also President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on the Middle East, met with Musa Abu Marzuk, a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau.
Russia has called for the release of dual Russian-Israeli citizen Alexander Trufanov and Maxim Herkin, an Israeli man from the Donbas area of Ukraine with Russian relatives.
At their talks, Bogdanov “again placed particular stress on the necessity of carrying out the promises given by Hamas’s leadership on releasing from imprisonment Russian citizen Trufanov and other hostages,” the ministry said.
Trufanov, known as Sasha, was abducted on October 7, 2023, with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
His father was killed in the attack and his mother and grandmother were abducted and released in November 2023. The family had emigrated to Israel from Russia in the late 1990s.
Islamic Jihad, a militant group allied with Hamas, published undated clips of Trufanov in November 2024.
Herkin emigrated to Israel from Ukraine with his mother and was taken from the Supernova rave music festival.
Marzuk told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency Monday that “Trufanov will definitely be released in the near future. He will be released despite the fact that he is a soldier but the decision was taken to release him in the first stage of the deal.”
“That is our answering gesture to Russia’s position on the Palestinian question,” Marzuk was quoted as saying in translated comments.
Talks on releasing Herkin will be held at a “second stage,” he added.
The Russian ministry said the two also discussed “the progress of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, with the stress on the importance of increasing humanitarian aid to the suffering Palestinian population.”
