DUBAI: An Iranian court issued a $312.9 million judgment against the United States over a 2017 Daesh-claimed attack on Tehran, authorities said Wednesday, the latest judicial action between the nations amid their decades-long enmity.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, in reporting the decision, offered no direct evidence to support the court’s allegation that American officials had any part in the June 2017 attack that killed at least 18 people and wounded 50 others. The assault saw gunmen attack Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum and the country’s parliament, starting an hours-long siege.
However, the court ruling comes after the United Nations’ highest court in March rejected Tehran’s legal bid to free up some $2 billion in Iranian Central Bank assets frozen by US authorities. Meanwhile, US judges have issued rulings that call for billions of dollars to be paid by Iran over attacks linked to Tehran, as well as those detained by Iran and used as pawns in negotiations between the countries.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The IRNA report described those named in the lawsuit as including the US government, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the CIA, the American military’s Central Command, the Treasury and others. It said the case before Branch 55 of the Tehran Court of Justice came from the families of three people killed in the June 2017 attack.
“The reasons for attributing these crimes to the United States ... is based on the central and main role of the government and officials of this country in organizing and directing terrorist groups,” the IRNA report said. It cited “reliable news” and unidentified speeches by American officials as its evidence.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump described Obama as the “founder” of the Daesh group. While later calling his comments “sarcasm” based on Obama’s decision to earlier withdraw troops from Iraq, conspiracy theorists across the Middle East, including Iran’s supreme leader, seized on the remarks.
The Daesh group, an extremist group born out of Al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Iraq, declared itself a caliphate across the vast territory it held in Iraq and Syria in 2014. A US-led coalition and separately Iran-allied Shiite forces ultimately dislodged the extremists, who became notorious for their gruesome killings of prisoners and attacks abroad.
The June 2017 attack in Tehran marked the first time the Daesh extremists could penetrate tightly controlled Iran and carry out of a massive assault. The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the years-long tumult surrounding the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran a year later executed eight men sentenced to death over the attack.
Since the revolution, a series of US court cases have been filed against Iran, particularly over attacks like the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people. A 1996 US law allows Americans to sue nations identified by the US government as sponsoring terrorism, like Iran, for damages suffered in militant acts linked back to them. Others have sued for being wrongfully imprisoned by Tehran, like Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian.
The court decision announced Wednesday comes as tensions between Iran and the US remain high over Tehran’s nuclear program enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels under reduced oversight from international inspectors.
Iran court issues $312.9 million judgment against US amid tensions
https://arab.news/yectq
Iran court issues $312.9 million judgment against US amid tensions
- The June 2017 attack killed at least 18 people and wounded 50 others
- Attack in Tehran marked the first time the Daesh extremists penetrated tightly controlled Iran
Israel military says sirens sounded in several areas in central Israel following projectile launched from Yemen
CAIRO: The Israel military said in a statement early on Tuesday that sirens sounded in several areas in central Israel following a projectile launched from Yemen.
Iraq says to eliminate pollutant gas flaring by end of 2027
- The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities on Monday announced that the energy-rich country would eliminate the polluting practice of gas flaring by the end of 2027, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Gas flaring during the production or processing of crude is intended to convert excess methane to carbon dioxide, but the process is often incomplete, resulting in further methane release.
Iraq has the third highest global rate of gas flaring, after Russia and Iran, having flared about 18 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023, according to the World Bank.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country.
The office said that the current rate of elimination stood at 67 percent, with the aim of raising that rate to 80 percent by the end of 2025.
It added that the country aims to fully eliminate gas flaring by the end of 2027, compared to the previous administration’s target of 2030.
In 2017, Iraq joined a World Bank-led initiative aiming to end gas flaring globally by 2030.
Gas flaring is cheaper than capturing the associated gas, processing and marketing it.
In an April report, Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa said gas flaring “produces a number of cancer-linked pollutants including benzene.”
Iraq is considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.
In recent years, it has suffered increasingly from droughts and further desertification, with the country gripped by dust storms much of the year.
Defense minister acknowledges Israel killed Hamas leader in Iran
- The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh
- Katz said the Houthis leadership would meet a similar fate to that of Haniyeh
JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister has confirmed that Israel assassinated Hamas’ top leader last summer and is threatening to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi group in Yemen.
The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh, who died in an explosion in Iran in July.
Israel was widely believed to be behind the blast, and leaders have previously hinted at its involvement.
In a speech Monday, Katz said the Houthis would meet a similar fate as the other members of an Iranian-led alliance in the region, including Haniyeh.
He also noted that Israel has killed other leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, helped topple Syria’s Bashar Assad, and destroyed Iran’s anti-aircraft systems.
“We will strike (the Houthis’) strategic infrastructure and cut off the head of the leadership,” he said.
“Just like we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do in Hodeida and Sanaa,” he said, referring to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders killed in previous Israeli attacks.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have launched scores of missiles and drones at Israel throughout the war, including a missile that landed in Tel Aviv on Saturday and wounded at least 16 people.
Israel has carried out three sets of airstrikes in Yemen during the war and vowed to step up the pressure on the militant group until the missile attacks stop.
New conflict in northeast Syria could bring ‘dramatic consequences’, UN envoy says
- Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union
BEIRUT: Tensions in northeast Syria between Kurdish-led authorities and Turkish-backed groups should be resolved politically or risk “dramatic consequences” for all of Syria, the United Nations envoy for the country Geir Pedersen told Reuters on Monday. Hostilities have escalated between Syrian rebels backed by Ankara and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast since Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8.
Syrian armed groups seized the city of Manbij from the SDF on Dec. 9 and could be preparing to attack the key city of Kobani, or Ayn Al-Arab, on the northern border with Turkiye.
“If the situation in the northeast is not handled correctly, it could be a very bad omen for the whole of Syria,” Pedersen said by phone, adding that “if we fail here, it would have dramatic consequences when it comes to new displacement.” The SDF — which is spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG — has proposed to withdraw its forces from the area in exchange for a complete truce. But Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Syria’s de facto new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Sunday in Damascus, said the YPG should disband totally.
Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Pedersen said a political solution “would require serious, serious compromises” and should be part of the “transitional phase” led by Syria’s new authorities in Damascus. Fidan said he had discussed the YPG presence with the new Syrian administration and believed Damascus would take steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday the country will remain in close dialogue with Sharaa. Kurdish groups have had autonomy across much of the northeast since Syria’s war began in 2011, but now fear it could be wiped out by the country’s new Islamist rule. Thousands of women rallied on Monday in a northeast city to condemn Turkiye and demand their rights be respected.
Pedersen said Sharaa had told him in meetings in Damascus last week that they were committed to “transitional arrangements that will be inclusive of all.”
But he said resolving tensions in the northeast would be a test for a new Syria after more than a half-century of Assad family rule.
“The whole question of creating a new, free Syria would be off to a very, extremely ... to put it diplomatically, difficult start,” he said.
Rights groups say evidence of Assad abuses must be protected
- The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Three rights group on Monday appealed to Syria’s new rulers to urgently preserve evidence of atrocities committed under former president Bashar Assad.
Such evidence — including government and intelligence documents as well as mass graves — will be essential for establishing the fate of tens of thousands of people forcibly disappeared, and for prosecuting those responsible for crimes under international law, the groups said.
“The transitional Syrian authorities should urgently take steps to secure and preserve evidence of atrocities committed under the government of former president Bashar Assad,” said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP).
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
“Every additional minute of inaction heightens the risk that a family may never discover the fate of their missing loved one, and an official responsible for horrific crimes may never be brought to justice,” Shadi Haroun, ADMSP program manager, said in a statement issued by Amnesty.
The statement said investigators from the three organizations visited detention facilities, mass graves and the military court after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad on December 8.
“In all of the detention facilities visited, researchers observed that official documents were often left unprotected, with significant portions looted or destroyed,” the groups said.
They said they gathered testimony that security and intelligence personnel burned some material before they fled, but in other cases the armed groups who took control of the facilities, or newly-freed prisoners, also burned and looted material.
The researchers said they themselves saw ordinary people and some journalists “take some documents.”
“These documents may contain vital information,” the watchdogs said, calling on the new authorities to coordinate with fact-finding bodies created by the United Nations, “after urgently securing these locations and ensuring that the remaining evidence is not tampered with.”
The rights groups said they also underscored to Syria’s new authorities “the importance of securing the sites of the mass graves across the country,” having seen “local residents and families of the disappeared try to dig up some of the remains.”
They said officials from Syria’s new administration had promised the visiting researchers that they would “strengthen security around key facilities.”
On Sunday Robert Petit, the visiting head of a UN investigative body for Syria, said it was possible to find “more than enough” evidence to convict people of crimes under international law, but there was an immediate need to secure and preserve it.
