#Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps

[trendynewsnow]

Iran's Diplomatic Shift: From Aggression to Cease-fire Negotiations

Shifting Dynamics in Iranian Diplomacy In mid-November, Iran took a notable diplomatic step by sending a high-ranking official to Beirut, urging Hezbollah to consider a cease-fire with Israel. This development coincided with a meeting between Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations and tech mogul Elon Musk, signaling a potential outreach to the inner circle of President-elect Donald J. Trump.…

[thequietabsolute]

The bravest people on the planet today are a select group of Iranian women. This woman in Tehran, threatened by the Morality Police for not wearing a hijab, removed her clothing and walked the streets of the Iranian capital in an act of rebellion.

She has now been arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, designating her as ‘suffering from a severe mental disorder’, and have taken her to a mental institution for what they call ‘treatment’.

[weemietime]

Y'all are stupid if you don't understand that the IRGC are directly responsible for a significant portion of current anti-Israel sentiment in the West. And their goal, in case you don't understand this, is to increase support for radical Islam.

The IRGC itself took over Iran and forced its citizens to adopt Islam, and it's so insidious that people to this day who cry about Israeli "colonialism" actively call Iran an Arab country.

I will give a shit about your Israeli "colonialism" when you give equal air space to Arab and Islamic imperialism and actual colonialism which is why Hamas openly says that their goal is to destroy Israel and replace it with yet another Arab and Islamic ethnostate.

People use the term ethnostate to apply to Israel when Israel is the single most diverse and liberal country in the Middle East while ignoring that every single Arab country around it is an ethnostate that rejects those who aren't Arab or Islamic.

I will give your arguments weight when you can point to a country in the Middle East other than Israel who have a 20% Jewish population with equal rights as the Arab citizens. I'll bring some popcorn and then starve to fucking death before you are able to do so.

The Houthis perpetrated a genocide of 200,000 people and the IRGC actively encourages Westoid idiots to make Tik Toks saying shit like "based Houthis," and then "I oppose genocide" lmfao, gooooooooo fuck yourselves.

Zero Jews in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. All Jews ethnically cleansed or murdered. Israel has a 20% Arab population with equal rights as its Jewish civilians but Israel is the ethnostate, and y'all don't even realize that this rhetoric you are spewing comes from an Islamic imperialist state who actively work to destroy Iranian and Persian culture.

NEW IRAN. WOMEN, FREEDOM, LIFE.

[nelc]

IRIS Shahid Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, Iranian missile corvette

[workersolidarity]

[📹 Scenes of Iranian missiles flying into Israeli cities tonight after Iran launches a major combined drone and missile strike and several targets in occupied Palestine, coinciding with rockets launched from southern Lebanon.]

🇮🇷⚔️🇮🇱 🚀🚀🚀 🚨

IRAN LAUNCHES MASSIVE COMBINED MISSILE AND DRONE STRIKES ON ISRAEL, US INTERCEPTS OVER 100 DRONES

Israeli media is reporting the arrival of dozens of missiles and drones fired from Iran, most of which they claim were intercepted.

According to the Zionist media, while no one was killed in the Iranian strikes, at least one young girl was wounded by shrapnel from an intercepted drone and was taken to a nearby hospital.

Already, Israeli officials are calling for counterstrikes, while the American media refuses to acknowledge the attack on the consulate building of the Iranian embassy that led to the current round of attacks.

The strikes represented the first time Iran has launched direct strikes on "Israel".

Occupation authorities claim that none of drones launched by the Iranians made it through the occupation's air defenses, some missiles succeeded in hitting their targets, while at least 20 missiles never made it to the borders of occupied Palestine.

According to one Israeli official, more than 200 drones and missiles were fired into the occupied Palestinian territories in all.

For now, while the Biden administration continues to reaffirm public support for the Israeli occupation, privately, the President has told Netanyahu he won't back an Israeli counter to the counterstrikes.

#source1

#source2

#source3

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[eretzyisrael]

by Corey Walker

The head of the the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pushed a baseless conspiracy theory suggesting that Israel was behind a suspected Iranian plot to assassinate former US President Donald Trump.

“Are you sure this is not an Israeli plot to ignite another war between the US and other countries in the Middle East at its behest?” tweeted Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive director of CAIR.

Awad was responding to a new CNN report that intelligence officials increased US Secret Service security for Trump after learning of Iran’s plans to murder the former president. There is no indication that the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday, when he was shot in the ear but survived without major injuries during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, was connected to the suspected Iranian plot.

Iran has denied association with any plot to murder the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani saying that the regime “strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack on Trump or claims about Iran’s intention for such an action.”

However, Kanaani stated that Iran will continue to seek retribution against Trump after the US during his presidency killed Qassem Soleimani — a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization — in a drone strike. Soleimani was as the head of the IRGC’s elite Quds force branch, which is responsible for Iran’s proxies and terror operations abroad. He is revered by the Islamic Republic as a martyr and is commemorated across the country.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to pursue legal action against Trump for his direct role in the crime of assassinating Martyr General Qassem Soleimani,” Kanaani said. 

Beyond Trump, Iran has been accused of plotting to kill several former Trump administration officials.

[jloisse]

Islamic Republic Will always Humiliate the Enemy

Ayatollah Khomeini

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ellen Ioanes at Vox:

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died Sunday in a helicopter crash, a shocking turn of events that immediately raised questions about the Islamic Republic’s future.  In the short term, Raisi’s passing is unlikely to alter the direction of Iran’s politics. But it does remove one possible successor to 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In the long term, Raisi’s unexpected death may prove more consequential. The question of Khamenei’s succession is increasingly urgent because of his advanced age. Though Iran’s president can be influential in setting policy, the Supreme Leader is the real seat of power, controlling the judiciary, foreign policy, and elections. Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian’s helicopter made a hard landing sometime on Sunday in Iran’s mountainous northwest, where weather conditions made travel difficult and dangerous. Iranian state media announced the deaths of the two politicians and six others onboard, including three crew members, on Monday after rescue teams finally reached the crash site. The deaths of both Raisi and Amirabdollahian come at a time of internal and external challenges for the Iranian regime. A harsh crackdown after the widespread protests of 2022 and significant economic problems domestically have eroded the regime’s credibility with the Iranian people. Internationally, Iran is embroiled in a bitter regional conflict with Israel as well as a protracted fight with the US over its nuclear program.

In the near term, the first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, will be the acting president as the country prepares to hold elections within the next 50 days as dictated by its constitution. (The Iranian government includes vice presidencies overseeing different government agencies, similar to US Cabinet-level secretaries; the first vice president is roughly equivalent to the US vice president.) Raisi was considered a potential successor to Khamenei, having already been vetted by the ruling clerics during his 2021 presidential run and having been committed to the regime’s conservative policies. With his death, amid one of the regime’s most challenging periods, Iran’s long-term future is a little less certain.

Within Iran, succession is the biggest question 

A hardline conservative cleric, Raisi always wore a black turban symbolizing his descent from the prophet Muhammad. His close relationship with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fueled speculation that he could succeed Khamenei. The paramilitary force exerts significant sway over internal politics and also wields influence throughout the broader region through aligned groups and proxy forces in Iraq and Syria, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza.  Raisi was initially elected in 2021 with 62 percent of the vote, though turnout was only 49 percent — the lowest ever in the history of the Islamic Republic, evidence of the crisis of legitimacy in which the government increasingly finds itself. “People don’t want to legitimate the government by participating in what they consider either fraudulent or just non-representative political outcomes,” Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Walter H. Annenberg professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, told Vox. 

Throughout his judicial career, Raisi is alleged to be responsible for or implicated in some of the government’s most brutal repression and human rights abuses since the 1979 revolution, including serving on the so-called Death Committee, which was tasked with carrying out thousands of extrajudicial executions of political prisoners in the 1980s. During and after the Iran-Iraq war, there were a number of groups opposed to the regime, as well as supporters of the Iraqi position and even an attempt to attack Iran from Iraq. In order to preserve the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered a sweeping purge of the opposition; many of the dissidents who were arrested were chosen for execution arbitrarily.

Following the disputed 2009 election — which birthed the Green Movement, the most significant threat to the regime in decades — Raisi, then a high-level member of the judiciary, called for the punishment and even execution of people involved in the movement. And as president, he helped oversee the violent backlash to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement that erupted following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman arrested by the morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. Raisi’s unpopularity due to his repressive past and worsening living standards for ordinary Iranians had helped further erode the government’s legitimacy, which may affect the upcoming presidential contest.

With the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi via a plane crash, it could have long-term effects, as Ayatollah Ali Khameini could be nearing the doorstep of death and succession plans to succeed him have been thrown into chaos.

[warningsine]

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. fighter jets launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against U.S. bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.

The strikes reflect the Biden administration’s determination to maintain a delicate balance. The U.S. wants to hit Iranian-backed groups suspected of targeting the U.S. as strongly as possible to deter future aggression, possibly fueled by Israel’s war against Hamas, while also working to avoid inflaming the region and provoking a wider conflict.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that the strikes near Boukamal by F-16 and F-15 fighter aircraft targeted a weapons storage facility and ammunition storage facility used by the IRGC and affiliated groups. “Both facilities were destroyed,” he said. “We currently assess there were no casualties in the strikes.”

A senior U.S. military official said there had been Iranian-aligned militia and IRGC personnel on the base and no civilians. The official would not say how many munitions were launched by the jets.

A senior defense official said the sites were chosen because the IRGC stores the types of munitions there that were used in the strikes against U.S. bases and troops. The two officials briefed reporters after the strikes on condition of anonymity to provide details on the mission that had not yet been made public.

Syrian opposition activists confirmed the U.S. strikes in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour. Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, said the main target was an area known as “the farms” outside the town of Mayadeen. He said it is an important transit site where weapons from Iran are stored before being shipped to Lebanon.

He said the second strike hit an area known as the “green belt” in the Boukamal area that borders Iraq. According to Abu Layla, some people were evacuated before the strikes because the retaliation was expected. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said ambulances were seen rushing to the area but it wasn’t clear if there were casualties.

Meanwhile Friday, an Iranian semiofficial news agency, Tasnim, said gunmen in east Syria fired 10 rockets on a base housing American troops in retaliation for the U.S. airstrikes. A U.S. official confirmed the rocket attack and said there were no reported casualties.

And the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group for several Iran-backed groups, said fighters attacked al-Assad airbase in western Iraq with a suicide drone. U.S. officials said it was shot down a few kilometers away and did not hit the base.

According to the Pentagon, as of Friday there had been at least 20 attacks on U.S. bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17. Ryder said 21 U.S. personnel were injured in two of those assaults when drones targeted al-Assad airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf garrison in Syria.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the “precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17.”

In a letter sent Friday to congressional leaders, President Joe Biden wrote: “The strikes were intended to establish deterrence and were conducted in a manner to limit the risk of escalation and avoid civilian casualties. I directed the strikes in order to protect and defend our personnel, to degrade and disrupt the ongoing series of attacks against the United States and our partners, and to deter Iran and Iran-backed militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities.”

The senior defense official told reporters that the airstrikes will have a significant impact on the ability of Iranian proxy groups to continue to attack U.S. forces. Asked what groups were targeted, the official said there are several that can have different names, but the U.S. holds Tehran responsible for funding, arming, equipping and directing the proxies. The official said the airstrikes were not designed to expand the conflict in the region, but to compel Iran to direct the militia groups to cease the attacks on American bases and personnel.

The Biden administration has not accused Iran of having a direct role in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and has said it appears so far that Tehran was not aware of it beforehand. But the U.S. has noted that Iran has long supported Hamas and has raised concerns that Iran and its proxies could turn the conflict into a wider war.

Austin said the U.S. does not seek a broader conflict, but if Iranian proxy groups continue, the U.S. won’t hesitate to take additional action to protect its forces.

According to the Pentagon, all the U.S. personnel hurt in the militant attacks received minor injuries and all returned to duty. In addition, a contractor suffered a cardiac arrest and died while seeking shelter from a possible drone attack.

The retaliatory strikes came as no surprise. Officials at the Pentagon and the White House have made it clear for the past week that the U.S. would respond, with Ryder saying again Thursday that it would be “at the time and place of our choosing.”

The latest spate of strikes by the Iranian-linked groups came in the wake of a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital, triggering protests in a number of Muslim nations. The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for the devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel nearly three weeks ago, but Israel has denied responsibility for the al-Ahli hospital blast and the U.S. has said its intelligence assessment found that Tel Aviv was not to blame.

The U.S., including the Pentagon, has repeatedly said any strike response by America would be directly tied to the attacks on the troops, who are focused on the fight against Islamic State militants in the region. They said the strikes are not connected to the war between Israel and Hamas.

Such retaliation and strikes against Iranian targets in Syria after similar attacks on U.S. bases are routine.

In March, for example, the U.S. struck sites in Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard after an Iranian-linked attack killed a U.S. contractor and wounded seven other Americans in northeast Syria. American F-15 fighter jets flying out of al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar struck several locations around Deir el-Zour.

U.S. officials have not publicly tied the recent string of attacks in Syria and Iraq to the violence in Gaza, but Iranian officials have openly criticized the U.S. for providing weapons to Israel that have been used to strike Gaza, resulting in civilian death.

[sayruq]

It's actually crazy talking to friends and relatives about what's going on because very few of them know that this is a retaliatory attack. I keep seeing people online call the attack unprovoked too.

So those who don't know, on April 1st Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's consulate in Damascus. The attack killed 7 of Iran’s military advisers including 3 senior commanders.

Reuters reporters at the site in the Mezzeh district of Damascus saw emergency workers clambering atop rubble of a destroyed building inside the diplomatic compound, adjacent to the main Iranian embassy building. Emergency vehicles were parked outside. An Iranian flag hung from a pole by the debris.

Iran's ambassador to Syria said the strike hit a consular building in the embassy compound and that his residence was on the top two floors. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement that seven Iranian military advisers died in the strike including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in its Quds Force, which is an elite foreign espionage and paramilitary arm.

This attack on the embassy is against international law. Embassies are protected sites. But instead of condemning the attack and putting pressure on Israel, the US has spent the past week and a half calling West Asian countries to put pressure on Iran, with Biden going as far as to warn Iran not to attack Israel and saying that his support for Israel is 'iron clad'.

The West, the UN, and UN Security Council have largely failed to condemn the attack which means Iran has no choice but to retaliate with force in order to prevent future attacks. Otherwise, the country will look vulnerable and weak, especially to the Israeli occupation government which has spent months bombing neighbouring countries like Syria and Lebanon

[trendynewsnow]

Plot Against Human-Rights Activist Masih Alinejad Uncovered

A Disturbing Plot Against a Human-Rights Activist In February, during a scheduled speaking engagement at Fairfield University in Connecticut, Brooklyn-based human-rights activist Masih Alinejad became the target of a sinister plot. Two men from New York were dispatched to the campus with the intent to assassinate her, according to federal prosecutors who revealed this shocking information last…

[nelc]

IRIS Shahid Nazira, Iranian patrol boat

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇷⚔️🇮🇱 🚀🚀🚀 🚨

WHAT WAS INVOLVED IN IRAN'S ASSAULT ON THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES?

What we know:

💣 85 tons of explosives fired into Israeli-occupied territory

🛩️ 170 Drones fired by the IRGC

🚀 10 Ballistic missiles penetrated the Israeli Iron Dome air defense system

☠️ No deaths resulted from the strikes

🚑 32 Israeli casualties in total

💰 Over $1.2 Billion in Israeli air defense interceptors were used

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[politicoscope]

Iran Morality Police Abolished

Iran Morality Police Abolished

The Guidance Patrol of Iran’s Law Enforcement Command will be shut down, the country’s prosecution authorities announced. This may be the first step leading to an even more important decision on lifting the mandatory wearing of hijab. Meanwhile, Tehran’s foreign policy, influenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, remains inconvenient for the US, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes. The current…

[jloisse]

🇮🇷 La République Islamique d’Iran s’est déjà relevé de moments difficiles :

⚫️ Le 30 Août 1981 un attentat tue le Président de la République Mohammad-Ali Radjai ainsi que son Premier Ministre Mohammad-Javad Bahonar.

⚫️ Le 28 Juin 1981 le numéro 2 du gouvernement Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, ainsi que 70 autres personnes dont 4 ministres et 27 députés périssent dans un attentat à la bombe.

[zvaigzdelasas]

President Joe Biden is weighing more US defenses in the Middle East as the US prepares for an Iranian retaliation against Israel that officials say could include an attack on American forces.

In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday, Biden said the US would “support Israel’s defense against threats,” which would include “new defensive US military deployments,” according to a readout of the call.[...]

The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which includes the aircraft carrier, destroyers and other warships, has been operating in the Gulf of Oman in recent weeks. The strike group could potentially move into the Gulf of Aden or the Red Sea, where Navy warships have intercepted dozens of Houthi launches over the past several months.

The USS Wasp amphibious assault ship and several other Navy vessels are currently operating in the Mediterranean Sea. The group includes a Marine expeditionary unit capable of carrying out an evacuation of American citizens from Lebanon if the US ordered such an evacuation.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) promised a “harsh” and “painful” response to the assassination. Israel has not commented on the killing.[...]

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that “international partners” have bolstered their forces in the region, though he did not specify which countries.

“We have very good defense systems,” he said of Israel’s own preparations for an attack, “and in addition we have international partners who have reinforced their forces [deployed] in the region, to help us counter the threats.”

A Defense Department spokesman said Thursday the Pentagon has no information to provide on the movement of US forces or changes to force condition at this time.[...]

A coalition of countries, including Jordan and other Arab states, came together in April to share intelligence and intercept the Iranian barrage. But officials say it’s unclear if such a coalition could be stood up again so quickly and whether all of the countries are willing to participate once again.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hinted that a coordinated attack on Israel could be in the works after Israel assassinated one of its top commanders in Beirut less than 24 hours before the killing of Haniyeh.

“Because they have picked a fight with everyone, they don’t know where the response will come from … the response will come separately or coordinated,” he said in a speech Thursday.

1 Aug 24