June 24th, 20190WASHINGTON — President Trump announced on Monday that he was imposing new sanctions on Iran, further squeezing the Iranian economy in retaliation for what the United States says are recent "aggressive" acts by Tehran, but the response to the penalties targeting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were "is that all you got?"
This...
June 20th, 20190DUBAI - Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have shot down a U.S. “spy” drone in the southern province of Hormozgan, the Guards’ news website Sepah News said on Thursday.
State news agency IRNA carried the same report, identifying the drone as an “RQ-4 Global Hawk."
“It was shot down when it entered Iran’s airspace near...
June 7th, 20190Tehran — Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Tehran has no plans to give up its missile program and be deceived by President Trump's offer of negotiations.
Trump has condemned the nuclear deal between Iran and global powers signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Washington pulled out of this deal...
May 31st, 20190MECCA — Saudi Arabia’s king told an emergency Arab summit on Thursday that decisive action was needed to stop Iranian “escalations” in the region following attacks on Gulf oil assets, as American officials said a U.S. military deployment had deterred Tehran.
King Salman had opened an earlier meeting of Arab Gulf leaders with a...
May 24th, 20190LONDON — Iran will not surrender to U.S. pressure and will not abandon its goals even if it is bombed, President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday, stepping up the war of words between the Islamic Republic and the United States.
Earlier in the day, Iran’s top military chief said the standoff between Tehran and Washington was a...
May 24th, 20190NEW YORK — Half of all Americans believe that the United States will go to war with Iran “within the next few years”, according to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll released on Tuesday amid increased tensions between the two countries.
While Americans are more concerned about Iran as a security threat to the United States now...
May 17th, 20190WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump said on Thursday he hoped the United States was not heading to war with Iran as he met with Swiss President Ueli Maurer, whose nation has served as a diplomatic conduit between the two countries.
Asked by reporters if Washington was going to war with Tehran, Trump responded, “Hope not” as he...
May 10th, 20190WASHINGTON, DC — On Thursday, President Trump urged Iran’s leadership to sit down and talk with him about giving up Tehran’s nuclear program and said he could not rule out a military confrontation given the heightened tensions between the two countries.
At an impromptu news conference at the White House, Trump declined to say...
May 6th, 20190WASHINGTON, DC - The Trump administration is deploying a carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East in response to troubling “indications and warnings” from Iran and to show the United States will retaliate with “unrelenting force” to any attack, national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday. Though Bolton cited...
May 3rd, 20190LONDON — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signed a bill into law on Tuesday declaring all U.S. forces in the Middle East terrorists and calling the U.S. government a sponsor of terrorism.
The bill was passed by parliament last week in retaliation against President Trump’s decision this month to designate Iran’s elite...
April 29th, 20190NEW YORK — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif does not believe President Trump wants war with Iran, but he told Reuters on Wednesday that Trump could be lured into a conflict.
“I don’t think he wants war,” Zarif said in an interview at the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York. “But that doesn’t...
April 12th, 20190RIYADH/WASHINGTON, DC — Egypt has pulled out of the U.S. effort to forge an “Arab NATO” with key Arab allies, according to four sources familiar with the decision, in a blow to the Trump administration’s strategy to contain Iranian power.
Egypt conveyed its decision to the United States and other participants in the proposed...
January 28th, 20190TEHRAN - A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander on Monday threatened Israel with destruction if it attacks Iran, state media reported.
The comments by Brigadier General Hossein Salami, deputy head of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, came after an Israeli attack on Iranian targets in Syria last week - the...
January 26th, 20190BEIRUT — Hezbollah has “for years” been able to enter Israel, the Lebanese group’s leader said on Saturday, responding for the first time to Israel’s discovery of tunnels dug into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
Israel’s unveiling of what it called Hezbollah “attack tunnels” last month, and Lebanon’s accusation that...
January 21st, 20190The head of Iran’s air force said on Monday the country was impatient to fight Israel and destroy it, a state-linked news website said.
“The young people in the air force are fully ready and impatient to confront the Zionist regime and eliminate it from the Earth,” Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh was quoted as saying by the...
January 18th, 20190The game is afoot. Israel, believe it or not, is demanding that seven Arab countries and Iran pay $250 billion as compensation for what it claims was the forceful exodus of Jews from Arab countries during the late 1940s.
The events that Israel is citing allegedly occurred at a time when Zionist Jewish militias were actively uprooting...
January 3rd, 20190Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected a U.S. warning against carrying out space vehicle launches and missile tests, saying on Thursday they did not violate a U.N. resolution.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a pre-emptive warning to Iran earlier on Thursday against pursuing three planned space rocket...
December 21st, 20180TEL AVIV — Israel will escalate its attacks against Iranian-aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Some Israeli officials have said President Trump’s move, announced on Wednesday, could help Iran by removing a U.S. garrison that...
December 21st, 20180WASHINGTON — President Trump has begun what will be a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, declaring on Wednesday they have succeeded in their mission to defeat ISIS and were no longer needed in the country.
A decision to pull out completely, confirmed by U.S. officials, coincides with the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops finishing...
November 4th, 20180The next round of economic sanctions on Iran, which will start going into effect on Nov.4, will mainly target the country’s oil and gas industries. These sanctions were eased after the 2015 signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, but are being phased back in following...
October 16th, 20180The disappearance and possible murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has cast a long shadow over Saudi Arabia’s global image. If the Saudi government did in fact kill or kidnap him, the crime would have significant implications for Middle East politics.
Turkish authorities believe he has been killed and his body, possibly...
September 17th, 20180AMMAN — A Syrian rebel commander said on Thursday rare military exercises with U.S. Marines in southern Syria sent a strong message to Russia and Iran that the Americans and the rebels intend to stay and confront any threats to their presence.
Colonel Muhanad al Talaa, commander of the Pentagon-backed Maghawir al Thawra group, told...
August 26th, 20180British Airways and Air France said on Thursday they would halt flights to Iran from September for business reasons, months after President Trump announced he would re-impose sanctions on Tehran.
British Airways said it was suspending its London to Tehran service “as the operation is currently not commercially viable.”
BA,...
August 22nd, 20180Iran warned on Wednesday that it would hit U.S. and Israeli targets if it were attacked by the United States after President Trump’s security adviser said Washington would exert maximum pressure on Tehran going beyond economic sanctions.
A U.S.-Iranian war of words has escalated since Trump withdrew Washington from the world...
August 13th, 20180Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyed Khamenei on Monday rejected President Trump’s offer of unconditional talks to improve bilateral ties and he also accused the Iranian government of economic mismanagement in the face of reimposed U.S. sanctions.
The Trump administration reimposed the sanctions last week after pulling out of a 2015...
August 6th, 20180Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed a U.S. call for talks on Tuesday, the eve of the imposition of new sanctions that follows Washington’s decision to pull out of an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program.
The United States is due to impose new sanctions against Iran on Tuesday intended to cripple its economy, implementing...
August 4th, 20180MOSCOW — Russia will deploy its military police on the Golan Heights frontier between Syria and Israel, its defense ministry said on Thursday, after weeks of mounting volatility in the area.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s sweeping away of rebels in southwestern Syria has worried Israel, which believes it could allow his...
July 31st, 20180TEHRAN - The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Tuesday dismissed President Trump’s tentative offer of talks with Tehran, saying the Islamic Republic was not North Korea.
Trump said on Monday he would be willing to meet Iran’s leader without preconditions to discuss how to improve ties after he pulled the United States out...
