Tag: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Tightrope: Jordan’s balancing act between Iran and Israel | Israel War on Gaza News

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is caught between two regional powers and could face serious social, political and economic repercussions should regional tensions continue to intensify.

Jordan’s tenuous position means that any regional action – an intensification of hostilities between Iran and Israel or an Israeli invasion of Rafah – can have incendiary repercussions domestically.

“Any imminent Iranian-Israeli war is going to put Jordan on a tightrope,” Sean Yom, an expert on Jordan at Temple University and the author of From Resilience to Revolution, told Al Jazeera. “Publicly, it has to stay out of the fray; it cannot side with any combatant.”

Jordan has pushed for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza and publicised its aid distribution efforts in the besieged enclave.

But that has done little to appease the scores of protesters who have rallied outside the US and Israeli embassies. Among their demands are ending relations with Israel and the United States.

Since October 7, protests in Jordan have ebbed and flowed as Israel’s campaign in Gaza killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.

Analysts say the monarchy has tried to press the US and Israelis for a ceasefire and an increase in aid entering Gaza, but those efforts have had little impact.

A more recent incident has enraged people further.

‘A matter of principle’

Overnight on Saturday, April 13, the Royal Jordanian Air Force took to the skies to intercept and shoot down dozens of Iranian drones as they flew over Jordan’s territory on their way to Israel.

Iran had fired more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for an alleged Israeli strike on Iran’s consular building in Damascus. A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was killed in the attack along with other commanders.

The Jordanian government said it was defending its national borders.

“There was imminent danger of drones or missiles falling in Jordan, and the Jordanian armed forces dealt with this danger in the appropriate manner,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said.

“We will not permit anyone to jeopardise the security of Jordan and the Jordanians … This is a matter of principle and these are steps we have taken in the past. We took them yesterday and we will take them in the future, whether the source of the threat is Israel, Iran or any [other] element.”

Jordanians have strong sympathy for Palestinians. Including an estimated three million Palestinian refugees, more than half the population in Jordan is of Palestinian origin and native Jordanians have a strong solidarity with Palestine.

Some accounts on social media labelled Jordan’s King Abdullah “a traitor” for his country’s role in shooting down Iran’s drones.

Iranian demonstrators react after the IRGC attack on Israel, in front of the United Kingdom’s embassy in Tehran, Iran, April 14, 2024 [Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters]

Jordan’s actions also initially brought the ire of Iran. Fars News Agency, which the IRGC manages, said Iran’s armed forces threatened that Jordan could be a future target if they interfere with Iran’s military operations against Israel.

“The Iranians actually went after the Jordanians and the king and his family very aggressively,” Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University in the US, told Al Jazeera.

The two parties quickly buried the hatchet, with Iran’s Mehr News saying Safadi told Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian by phone that Israel would not “abuse its airspace”.

“On Sunday [April 14], the Revolutionary Guard proclaimed Jordan as a potential target as it saw the Hashemite Kingdom as collaborating with Israel, but on Monday [April 15], the Iranian Foreign Ministry smoothed over any ruffled feathers, calling Jordan a diplomatic partner and an ordinary state which had normal relations with Iran,” Yom said.

In fact, this incident could lead to warmer relations between Jordan and Iran. The two have discussed normalisation in the past and Nasr believes this incident may have acted as an accelerant.

“I think the Jordanians, much like the Saudis, will come to the conclusion that ultimately having zero relations with Iran does not really defend their interest,” he said.

Jordan’s tight spot

“Jordan may suffer collateral damage [in the event of a wider war],” Yom said. “It could suffer physical destruction, as well as economic injury from the loss of tourism revenues and potential trade flows.”

In the early hours of April 19, US officials claimed that an attack inside Iran had been carried out by Israel.

Explosions were heard in Isfahan and Iranian authorities said three drones had been downed but gave no credence to it being an external attack, saying only that an investigation would be launched. Israel did not claim responsibility.

Safadi took to social media the same day, posting: “We warn against the danger of regional escalation. We condemn all actions that threaten dragging the region into war…  Israeli-Iranian retaliations must end… The focus of the world must remain on ending the catastrophic aggression on Gaza.”

But for the Jordanian government, attempts at reaching some sort of calm in the region have not yielded much.

“[T]here is considerable frustration that allies like the US support Jordan’s national defence, but continually counter its policy preferences and its advice, by failing to secure a ceasefire, failing to prevent regional escalation, failing to get more aid to Palestinians suffering in Gaza, and then even being the sole veto in the vote for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations,” Curtis Ryan, author of three books about Jordan, told Al Jazeera.

“The king finds Netanyahu an impossible interlocutor,” said Jose Ciro Martinez, an expert on Jordan at York University in the United Kingdom.

Middle East direct talks
King Abdullah II of Jordan, right, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, centre, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, left, at the White House on September 1, 2010 [File: Chris Kleponis/AFP Photo]

Domestic troubles

“I think most Jordanians are upset that the kingdom is caught in the crossfire of regional conflict – one they didn’t ask for and one they don’t want to escalate,” Yom said.

A Jordanian researcher, who monitored the protests and requested anonymity, said most people were not surprised by their state’s reaction to the Iranian response, considering the close security ties with the US and Israel.

Some have even started selling missile fragments on an online marketplace.

Protesters did not flock to the streets over the downing of Iranian drones. While some criticised the government on social media, most of the frustration was directed elsewhere.

“Some criticised the government for cooperating with the US and Israel in shooting down the Iranian missiles and drones,” Yom said.

“But publicly, most lay the blame on Netanyahu’s government since the Israeli state is the actor that bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, not to mention the genocide in Gaza.”

Still, Jordan’s domestic situation will have the monarchy on edge. Even before October 7, the country was facing numerous challenges on its borders and domestically.

The economy, which took a major dive during the COVID-19 pandemic and had been slowly rebounding, was hit “massively” by the recent war, Ibrahim Saif, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and former Jordanian minister, told Al Jazeera.

“We have witnessed severe slowdown in some economic activities that impact Jordan directly and indirectly,” he said, mentioning tourism and the ambiguity surrounding the private sector.

“Now you can add the threats to cutting [funding for] UNRWA [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] which serves at least one million people in Jordan. All of that has resulted in huge pressure on the Jordanian economy that also translates to politics.”

All eyes will now be on Rafah in Gaza, where residents fear a ground invasion by the Israeli army may be imminent.

Should that come to pass, protesters could descend to the streets again.

While protesters peacefully took to the streets in front of the Israeli embassy on Friday in solidarity with the people and resistance of Gaza, the energy of protests, particularly during Ramadan, has subsided, analysts and observers said.

Occasionally violent crackdowns and arrests, paired with what some analysts called protest fatigue or despair, may have discouraged them.

“Normally, if the protests are domestic, the king will replace a prime minister. But he can’t offer the protesters anything this time,” Martinez said. “When [the monarchy] has nothing to offer is when they start to arrest people.”

Jordan’s security forces have experience in managing protests. The use of arrests and occasional violence has taken the wind out of some of the demonstrations in the past, and the longer protests carry on, security forces will hope that participants will lose hope and go home. That, analysts and observers say, has started to happen.

“Protest fatigue has set in, as authorities have tolerated relentless popular mobilisation for months,” Yom said. “Many activists are resigned with a profound sense of despair that their actions are not going to change the situation.”

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

What does Israel want to do after Iran’s drone and missile attacks? | Israel War on Gaza News

Israel is reportedly unable to agree on a response to an overnight barrage of more than 300 Iranian drones and missiles, launched in response to Israel’s own strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1.

According to the Israeli army, 99 percent of the projectiles were intercepted by its jets and those of its allies, including the United States and Jordan. Others were stopped by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system, acquired and operated with US help.

While Western diplomats and US President Joe Biden have reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu they will not support further retaliation, some analysts suggest that last night’s strikes may be part of a wider ploy to draw the US, Israel’s close ally, into a broader regional war.

Laying the foundation on April 1?

In determining how Israel may respond to the overnight attack, analysts have focused on Israel’s own attack on the Iranian consulate on April 1.

That strike, which killed two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals and five officers, was carried out with scant regard to Israel’s allies, who were only notified shortly ahead of the attack, according to at least one analyst Al Jazeera spoke to.

Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at SWP Berlin, outlined two scenarios, both resting upon the motivations behind the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate.

In the first scenario, the Israeli strike occurred with little or no thought given to the consequences. In the second, the strike was a deliberate attempt to draw Iran into regional war and shift US and Western focus away from Israel’s war on Gaza and towards the regional bogeyman, Iran.

In both scenarios, US involvement would be critical.

Despite its status as a regional superpower, Israel – overstretched by six months of war on Gaza – would stand little chance against Iran’s standing army of at least 580,000, supplemented by some 200,000 trained reserve personnel, divided among the army and the IRGC.

“Netanyahu’s plan is clear, to distract attention from the war in Gaza and to drag the US and other Western allies back into the Middle East,”  Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an associate fellow at Chatham House, said.

“Given the close relationship between Israel and the US and Israel’s dependency on US aid, Israel should have informed the US that it was planning to attack the Iranian consulate building where the IRGC is based.

“By not doing so, Israel crossed a red line. Israel’s motives … need to be questioned. An attack on a foreign consulate constitutes a strike on foreign soil under international law, and it is clear that Netanyahu knew he was crossing the line and that Iran would respond with force,” she said.

Passions ran high in Iran after the assassination of seven IRGC members in Syria. Shown here is the funeral procession for them in Tehran on April 5, 2024 [Atta Kenare/AFP]

For years, Iran has maintained steady pressure on Israel through its proxies, not least Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has maintained an exchange of fire with Israel dating back from before October 7.

Eyes on the prize

Netanyahu’s motivations for attempting to claw the US into the war likely run deeper than Israel’s interests alone, analysts say, and likely speak to concerns closer to his heart.

Polls in Israel show the prime minister’s popularity to be at a critical low. After Netanyahu built his reputation upon claims that only he and his Likud Party stood between Israelis and oblivion, the surprise attack by Hamas-led fighters on October 7 has severely damaged his standing.

“Israel’s options are most impacted by how Netanyahu, who is embattled domestically and internationally, will choose to take advantage of Western sympathy for Tel Aviv following Iran’s highly telegraphed attack,” said HA Hellyer, an authority on Middle East security at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Royal United Services Institute.

In the months leading up to October, popular discontent with Netanyahu was growing after his extreme right-wing government attempted to force through changes that would hobble Israel’s independent judiciary.

In the months since October 7, protests have been growing against his handling of the war on Gaza as he is perceived to be less than interested in securing the release of the remaining captives taken from Israel in the attack.

The protests, in addition to swelling, have developed into demonstrations against him and his rule.

 

Even the US seemed to have lost patience with Netanyahu, with a highly publicised invitation issued to Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, to visit Washington, DC for talks.

Netanyahu has worked to regain lost ground, using every opportunity to position himself at the forefront of a surge of nationalism that makes many people in Israel reluctant to call for an end to the war.

‘A tipping point’

However, irrespective of how Israel chooses to portray itself in this latest clash, it is the US staging the play.

“What we have heard so far is that the US has no interest in a war and are signalling that there will be a unified diplomatic response to Iran from the West, while at the same time calling for restraint,” Azizi said.

With the US’s signalling, Netanyahu’s gambit looks in jeopardy.

“We are at a tipping point and the only solution is diplomatic,” Bar-Yaacov said. “A harsh military response risks dragging the region into further turmoil.”

Diplomatically, Israel’s response to the attack has mirrored that of its reaction to the earlier one, with its ambassador to the United Nations calling for a UN Security Council meeting on the matter, once again trying to marshall international opinion behind Israel, despite this latest strike being a response to Israel’s own.

Moreover, with Iran looking less likely to suffer any cost for its strike upon Israel, he risks widening the divisions in both his own cabinet and in Israeli society if no action is taken.

“If [Netanyahu] thinks DC will reject backing an assault on Iran itself, then attacks on scores of proxies simultaneously could be an alternative option,” Hellyer said.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Mexico to Iran, why are attacks on embassies so controversial? | Politics News

EXPLAINER

International law decrees that embassies are ‘inviolable’. Recent attacks on embassies have breached that understanding, prompting anger.

Mexico and Ecuador are locked in a diplomatic spat after Ecuadorian police raided the Mexican embassy in Quito on Friday to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas.

Glas had been seeking political asylum in the Mexican embassy since December and was convicted twice of corruption.

But the Ecuadorian police assault on the Mexican embassy was not the only attack on a diplomatic mission in recent days. On April 1, Iran’s consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus, was destroyed in a suspected Israeli missile attack. Several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military advisers were present at the consulate when the attack took place, and seven were killed according to an IRGC statement.

These incidents have sparked a wave of condemnation that has gone beyond traditional allies of Mexico and Iran. So why is it that attacks on diplomatic missions are such a big deal, and how have Mexico and Iran reacted?

How have Mexico and Iran responded?

Following the attack on the embassy in Quito, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote in an X post that the incident constituted an “authoritarian act” and “a flagrant violation of international law and sovereignty of Mexico”.

Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena said on X that Mexican diplomatic personnel would immediately leave Ecuador. On Monday, Mexico said it planned to take the case against Ecuador to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Iran, meanwhile, has pledged a response to the attack on its mission in Damascus and is weighing its options.

In a statement, Nasser Kanani, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Iran “reserves the right to carry out a reaction and will decide on the type of response and the punishment of the aggressor”.

Hossein Akbari, the Iranian ambassador to Syria, said Tehran’s response would be “decisive”.

The options before Iran range from overt action against Israel such as unclaimed drone strikes to attacks on Israeli diplomatic facilities. After the Damascus incident, Israel temporarily shuttered 28 embassies globally as a precautionary measure.

Why are attacks on embassies such a big deal?

The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is an international treaty signed in 1963, governing consular relations between sovereign states. It was signed following a UN Conference on Consular Relations.

The Vienna Convention decrees that embassies are inviolable and local law enforcement agencies of host countries are not allowed to enter the premises. They can enter only with the consent of the head of the mission.

Under international law, embassies of countries are treated as their sovereign territories — not those of the country hosting them.

Diplomats also have diplomatic or consular immunity, which means they can be exempt from some of the laws of the host country and are protected from arrest or detention.

However, they can be declared persona non grata by the host country, which means the host country is allowed to send a foreign consular staff member back to the home country.

In effect, this means that the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus was — under international law — at par with an attack on Iranian soil. The Ecuadorian police action in Quito, likewise, was tantamount to its officers entering Mexico to arrest someone without the Mexican government’s approval.

Times when embassies or consulates have sheltered dissidents

The decision by Mexico to offer refuge to Glas follows a centuries-old tradition when many embassies have sheltered dissidents or political asylum seekers who fear arrest, violence or even death in their own countries. Here are some prominent instances from recent decades.

  • In late March, the office of Argentina’s President Javier Milei announced that members of Venezuela’s opposition coalition had sought refuge in the Argentinian embassy in Caracas.
  • WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was born in Australia, found asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London between 2012 and 2019 amid a legal battle with British and US authorities. He entered the embassy after a London court ordered Assange to be extradited to Sweden over rape allegations and his appeal was rejected. Ecuador revoked his asylum in 2019.
  • Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed sought shelter at the Indian High Commission in Male amid reports of threats to his life after a court issued an arrest warrant. He finally left after India brokered a deal for his freedom.
  • Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng fled from house arrest in 2012 and sought asylum at the United States embassy in Beijing.
  • Former Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah sought shelter at the compound of the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan after he was removed by armed groups in 1992. When the Taliban took over Kabul, they killed Najibullah in 1996 while he was still sheltering.
  • Erich Honecker, the former leader of East Germany was indicted in Germany for the deaths of East Germans who tried to cross the Berlin Wall. In 1991, he sought refuge in the Chilean embassy in Moscow.

Times when embassies or consulates have been attacked

Despite protections under international law, diplomatic missions have often come under attack — though usually not from host governments directly. Here are some instances from recent decades.

  • In September 2023, an assailant attacked the Cuban embassy in the US capital of Washington, DC with two Molotov cocktails, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla announced on social media.
  • In July 2023, protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad over what was supposed to be the second burning of a Quran in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm. Shortly after this, Iraq expelled Sweden’s ambassador.
  • In September 2022, a suicide bombing took place near the entrance of the Russian embassy in Kabul. Two of the six casualties were employees of the embassy.
  • In July 2021, the Cuban embassy in Paris was attacked with petrol bombs, causing serious damage but no injuries.
  • In 2012, the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya was attacked, killing the US ambassador and three others.
  • A suicide car bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul killed 58 people in July 2008, injuring more than 140 others.
  • On August 7, 1998, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam were attacked in truck bombings that killed more than 220 people.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

US sanctions shipping firm accused of links to Iran, Yemen’s Houthis | Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps News

The measures come as Washington tries to curb the Yemeni group’s attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes amid the war on Gaza.

Washington, DC – The United States has imposed sanctions on a shipping company it accused of facilitating the transfer of Iranian commodities linked to a Houthi official to China.

The US Department of the Treasury announced the measures against the firm Vishnu Inc, registered in the Marshall Islands, on Wednesday, saying that one of its vessels is involved in “illicit shipments”.

It said the cargo was “in support of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) and Houthi financial facilitator Sa’id al-Jamal, who is sanctioned under US counterterrorism authorities”.

“We remain committed to disrupting the IRGC-QF and the Houthis’ attempts to evade US sanctions and fund additional terrorist attacks,” Treasury official Brian Nelson said in a statement.

“The United States will continue to target the key funding streams that threaten civilians and peaceful international trade.”

The sanctions come as the US pushes to curb Houthi attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea. The Yemeni group says it has been targeting Israel-linked ships to help bring an end to the war on Gaza.

The administration of US President Joe Biden labelled the Houthis as “specially designated global terrorists” in January in response to the attacks, enabling strict financial restrictions against the group.

Washington has also led a bombing campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen over the past three months, but the group’s attacks in the Red Sea have persisted.

Monday’s sanctions appear to target both the Houthis and their Iranian allies.

According to the Treasury, Lady Sofia, a Vishnu Inc-owned ship, received a cargo of Iranian commodities from a vessel called Mehle, which is tied to an already sanctioned company linked to al-Jamal.

The Treasury did not specify the nature of the shipment, but Iranian oil and petrochemicals are under heavy US sanctions.

The ship is currently travelling to China, according to the Treasury. The US statement did not say who owns the cargo beyond its Iranian origins and Mehle’s links to al-Jamal.

The sanctions freeze the company’s assets in the US and make it largely illegal for US citizens to do business with the firm.

The US and Iran have seen heightened tensions since 2018, when former US President Donald Trump nixed a multilateral deal that saw Tehran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against its economy.

Biden came into office in early 2021 promising to revive the Iran nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

But as several rounds of indirect negotiations failed to restore the pact, Washington continued to enforce its sanctions regime against Tehran and piled on more penalties.

JCPOA talks were eventually put on hold, and attempts to revive them were complicated by Iran’s crackdown on anti-government protesters at home in 2022, as well as accusations that Tehran was providing Moscow with drones for use in Ukraine.

Still, the two countries struck a prisoner swap deal last year that led to the release of five US citizens detained in Iran and the unfreezing of $6bn in Iranian assets, to be used for humanitarian purposes.

After Hamas’s October 7 attack in southern Israel, Biden faced bipartisan calls in the US Congress to re-freeze the Iranian funds.

Since then, the war on Gaza — which has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians — has pushed the Iran nuclear file to the back-burner in Washington. Iran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon.

Check out our Latest News and Follow us at Facebook

Original Source

Exit mobile version