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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Iranian - Israeli War News roundup for June 15th,2025

2025-06-16

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. All from regnum.ru
Iran launches retaliatory missile strikes on Haifa, Tel Aviv and Ashkelon
Iran launched missile strikes on Tel Aviv. This was reported on June 15 by Iranian state television IRIB.

Ashkelon and Haifa were also hit. Iran is reported to have launched ballistic missiles at Israel. Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ashkelon and dozens of populated areas. Israelis were urged to seek shelter as soon as possible.

Iran launched a missile strike on Tel Aviv for the first time since the start of the day, the Iranian agency JahanNews reported.

As reported by Regnum News Agency, on the night of June 13, Israel attacked Iran, using hundreds of drones and aircraft. The Israeli leadership explained this by saying that, fearing Iran would use nuclear weapons, it decided to launch a “preemptive strike” on facilities related to Iranian nuclear development. Several high-ranking Iranian military personnel, a group of key specialists involved in the nuclear program, and civilians, including children, were killed.

The two countries exchanged several blows. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the Iranian army's actions self-defense. Tehran called on Tel Aviv to stop the aggression.

Russia has condemned Israeli aggression. Russian President Vladimir Putin held telephone talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 13. The Russian leader said the situation must be resolved peacefully.

Israel Attacks Iranian Foreign Ministry Building, Casualties Reported
Israeli military attacked one of the buildings of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, several civilians were injured. This was stated on June 15 by Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran Saeed Khatibzadeh, the Iranian Tasnim agency writes.

"The Israeli regime carried out a brutal attack on one of the buildings of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, located opposite the Institute for Political and International Studies in Tehran," Khatibzadeh said.

The Iranian deputy foreign minister added that several civilians, including ministry employees, were injured as a result of Israel's attack on the foreign ministry building. All the injured were taken to hospital.

Iran admits conflict with Israel could last several weeks
The conflict between Iran and Israel will continue for the next few weeks, Mohsen Rezaei, a member of the Iranian Expediency Discernment Council, saidon Iranian state television.

"This war will continue in the coming weeks... The scale of the war may become more serious," Rezai said.

A day earlier, the American television channel CNN, citing officials from Israel and the United States, reported that Israel's military operation against Iran could last several weeks, not days, while the United States did not object to such a duration. The Israeli source noted that the duration of the conflict would depend on Iran's reaction.

In private conversations, the Donald Trump administration did not criticize the protracted nature of the operation. The American official emphasized that the United States supports Israel's right to self-defense, but does not intend to dictate specific actions. It is also reported that the Trump administration believes it is possible to resolve the situation through further negotiations with the United States.

IRGC confirms death of corps intelligence chief Mohammad Kazemi
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed that the head of the IRGC's intelligence, Mohammad Kazemi, was killed in Israeli strikes.

According to the statement, two of his associates, high-ranking intelligence officers Hassan Mohakak and Mohsen Bagheri, were killed along with him.

Mohammad Kazemi is an Iranian military figure, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Until 2022, he served as the head of the IRGC's counterintelligence department, having significant experience in security and intelligence matters. In June 2022, IRGC commander Major General Hossein Salami, who was also killed in the Israeli attack on June 13, appointed him head of the IRGC's intelligence organization, replacing Hossein Tayeb. Kazemi led IRGC intelligence until his death.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Friendship is secret and open. What support does Hamas receive from Iran?

2023-10-09

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Mikhail Zakharov

[REGNUM] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington could not currently confirm that Iran was behind the attack on Israel. “We have not yet seen any evidence that Iran directed or was behind this attack, ” Blinken said in an interview with CNN. At the same time, Blinken added that the Hamas group, which carried out the largest attack on Israel in many years on Saturday, would not have gained so much strength if not for the support of Iran in recent years. “Iran and Hamas have a long-standing relationship. In fact, Hamas would not exist in the form it does without the support it has received from Iran over the years,” he said.

Earlier, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alexander Ben Zvi said that Iran also bears responsibility for the actions of the Palestinian Hamas movement: “Other forces are behind this. For example, Iran, which finances such terrorist organizations. They are always sorry that our relations with various Arab countries are improving."

At the same time, deputies of the Iranian parliament on October 7 expressed their support for the military operation of the Hamas movement against Israel, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the Iranian Tasnim agency. “Parliament members, at the beginning of their evening meeting on the occasion of the unprecedented operation of Palestinian resistance groups, declared their support for this action of the Palestinian Mujahideen,” the report said.

It is no coincidence that the degree of Iran's involvement in the actions of Hamas greatly worries Tel Aviv, Western countries and Arab states against the background of the escalation of the military conflict in Israel. Israel has long accused Iran of threatening its own security, considers it its enemy and has repeatedly threatened Tehran, including with a military strike.

Iran, in turn, which calls Israel “the little Satan,” also does not hide its hostile attitude towards Tel Aviv, actively escalating anti-Israeli rhetoric and supporting military groups attacking Israel like Hezbollah, Iran’s paramilitary proxy unit and Hamas ally.

"UNCONFIRMED INFORMATION"
Yes, on the one hand, the Hamas movement has repeatedly reported that Iran provides it with significant support. Back in 2012, Hamas Politburo member Izzat al-Reshek said that Tehran is the main sponsor of the group's government in the Gaza Strip. In 2021, the British publication The Telegraph confirmed this information, talking about multimillion-dollar Iranian tranches and quoting a representative of the movement in Lebanon that “Iran is the only country that supports the resistance with money and weapons.”

In the same year, the head of the Hamas Politburo, Ismail Hani, admitted that he had received financial and military-technical assistance from Iran. “Our relationship with Iran is strategic and forms a very important pillar of the resistance project,” he said. “It is no secret that Iran provides political, material, military and technical support to the resistance in Palestine.”

There have been more than one occasion when the Israeli military intercepted ships going to the Gaza Strip with weapons destined for local groups. Thus, in 2014, a container ship was detained in the Red Sea , on board of which 40 M-302 missiles, mortar shells and cartridges were found. Then UN experts confirmed the Iranian origin of the cargo.

Moreover, CBS NEWS previously reported, citing the words of Secretary of the Council of Political Expediency of Iran Mohsen Rezaei, that Hamas is capable of firing missiles at Israel because Tehran provided the group with the necessary technology. According to him, this was done so that the Palestinians could create weapons under the blockade and defend themselves.

Tehran then denied accusations of supplying weapons to the Palestinian group, and it does not openly admit this today. Most likely, Iranian support comes down to political and diplomatic methods, but it is possible that unofficially Tehran may also provide military assistance to the Palestinian group, says Boris Dolgov, senior researcher at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for Regnum.

“As for specific support, this support is primarily political and, so to speak, moral, political and diplomatic,” notes Dolgov. “But there is support, according to various sources, not officially confirmed, and in terms of providing some weapons and, perhaps, military advisers are involved. This is unconfirmed information."

"TÜRKIYE AND QATAR ARE JEALOUS"
It should be noted that Iran’s influence on Hamas should not be exaggerated. Of course, on the one hand, Iran is ready to cooperate with various forces if they oppose Israel. On the other hand, religious and political contradictions are not so easy to overcome. Hamas belongs to the Sunni branch of Islam, and Iran is a Shiite country. Religious differences between Sunnis and Shiites, as well as difficult relations between Arabs and Persians, limit Iran's influence.

Hamas and Iran, by the way, have already experienced difficulties in relations, in particular, after the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, when Iran supported the government of Bashar al-Assad , and Hamas sided with the militants. “Aid (to Iran - editor's note) has been stopped - both military aid to Hamas and civilian aid to the population of Gaza. Because of this, the movement has difficulties , ” Musa Abu Marzuk, deputy head of the Hamas Politburo, complained then about the cessation of funding from Tehran.

In addition, Turkey and Qatar have considerable influence, financial and ideological, on Hamas. Their relations with Tehran in terms of influence on the Palestinian group can also hardly be called cloudless, explains political scientist Said Gafurov for Regnum news agency . “Hamas is much closer ideologically to Qatar and Turkey,” the expert says. “These countries are jealous and, in general, are trying to keep the Iranians away from Hamas.”

Ankara and Doha patronize the movement, providing it with significant financial assistance, researchers note . It is unlikely that they will voluntarily completely hand over to Iran such an expensive and important instrument of influence on the balance of power in the Middle East region.

"IRAN IS IN NO HURRy"
Tehran's support for Hamas today is more of a media and ideological nature, and Iran is in no hurry to interfere more strongly in what is happening, experts say. This is happening both because of the threat of new sanctions from the West and because of the reluctance to provoke an intensification of the conflict (and the escalation of assistance to Hamas will not go unnoticed), which is fraught with unpredictable consequences for Tehran.

“Tehran will be more active in the ideological sphere, showing the maliciousness of Israel’s policies, the support that Israel is currently receiving from the United States and from European countries too. Everything will be around this. Some more stringent methods of influencing the situation are not yet visible,” notes Andrey Baklanov, a professor at the Department of Foreign Regional Studies at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and advisor to the Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, in a conversation with IA Regnum.

The expert notes that Tehran understands the seriousness and inevitability of the results of its possible intervention in the current conflict. “Iran is not interested in aggravating the sanctions pressure, the sanctions regime. Of course, everyone is watching what is happening on this piece of land (in the Gaza Strip - editor's note), and with elements of some kind of supply, logistics or some other, there will be serious claims against Iran, says Baklanov. “Iran can’t afford this; it will have serious consequences for it.”

On the other hand, Boris Dolgov notes, much will depend on the development of the current escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip. In his opinion, in the current scenario, Tehran intends to continue its usual policy, and its assistance will be mainly diplomatic, political and humanitarian. “But, perhaps, if Israel’s actions against Hamas develop more harshly, the conflict will become more severe, and support, so to speak, by sending weapons, sending advisers, is also possible. But it is unlikely that Iran or any Arab countries will directly intervene militarily ,” the expert sums up.

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Argentina asks Qatar to arrest Iran official for alleged role in 1994 AMIA bombing

2022-10-20

[IsraelTimes] Judge calls for former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezaei’s arrest for ’proven participation’ planning attack that killed 85 and maimed hundreds.

Argentina
...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita...
has asked Qatar

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Caribbean-Latin America

Argentina fumes after Iranian AMIA bomb suspect spotted at Nicaragua ceremony

2022-01-12

[IsraelTimes] Mohsen Rezaei, one of five Iranians accused of being behind deadly 1994 bombing, attends Managua swearing-in for president Daniel Ortega, accused of rampant human rights
...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you...
violations.

The presence of a senior Iranian official at the investiture of Nicaragua’s president has angered Argentina

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Ayatolloah's protege wins Iran presidency in questionable election

2021-06-19

[FoxNews] Iran’s hard-line judiciary chief won the country’s presidential election in a landslide victory Saturday, propelling the supreme leader’s protege into Tehran’s highest civilian position in a vote that appeared to see the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.

Initial results showed Ebrahim Raisi won 17.8 million votes in the contest, dwarfing those of the race’s sole moderate candidate. However, Raisi dominated the election only after a panel under the watch of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei disqualified his strongest competition.

His candidacy, and the sense the election served more as a coronation for him, sparked widespread apathy among eligible voters in the Islamic Republic, which has held up turnout as a sign of support for the theocracy since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Some, including former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for a boycott.

In initial results, former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei won 3.3 million votes and moderate Abdolnasser Hemmati got 2.4 million, said Jamal Orf, the head of Iran’s Interior Ministry election headquarters. The race’s fourth candidate, Amirhossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, had around 1 million votes, Orf said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran: election candidate threatens to try rival for treason during TV debate

2021-06-06

[Guardian] Iran’s presidential election candidates have engaged in a fiery and bruising first television debate, during which one promised to put another, the former governor of the central bank, on trial for treason and ban him and other members of the government from leaving the country.
Good. Let's you and him go fight.
The threat to put Abdolnaser Hemmati on trial was made on Saturday by the former leader of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaei, currently secretary of the Expediency Council. He claimed the Iranian currency had been devalued so much by Hemmati that "the train of the revolution has turned into a scooter".

The new president will replace Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist
Either the Twelfth Imam has appeared or he hasn't
who twice won landslide votes against hardline opponents after campaigning to open up Iran’s economy to the world. Rouhani had only limited success, after the US abandoned a nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions.
So what did he do with all our cash?
The narrow focus on the state of the economy had the effect of putting Hemmati on the back foot as five conservative-inclined candidates ganged up on him to portray him as the incumbent and blame him for his stewardship, especially for high inflation and the collapse of the exchange rate.

Hemmati hit back by saying most of the other candidates were simply cover for Raisi and dared them to give an undertaking they would not pull out of the race before polling day. He said he was proud he had not allowed Iran to go the way of Venezuela, adding he was standing to prevent the country’s economy becoming the same as North Korea’s, a reference to the heavy emphasis on state planning in his rival’s proposals.
Wait. I thought being like Venezuela was a good thing. Ask Bernie.
He ridiculed Rezaei’s remarks that the country’s foreign exchange earnings could be boosted by taking western soldiers hostage.
There's a guy who's thinking outside of the box. But why not Chinese soldiers, I wonder, or Russians?

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Twitter suspends the account of Mohsen Rezaei, a former IRGC commander and the current secretary of an advisory council to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei

2020-11-10

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Twitter suspends the account of Mohsen Rezaei, a former IRGC commander and the current secretary of an advisory council to #Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.https://t.co/31ZT6pZCgk
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) November 10, 2020

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Haifa and Israeli military centers to be included in Tehran's retaliation over killing of Soleimani

2020-01-06

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

A former chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Sunday the Israeli city of Haifa and Israeli military centers would be included in Tehran's retaliation over the killing of Iran's pre-eminent military commander Qassem Soleimani.
— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) January 5, 2020

Was it Israel that just invested in rocket-killing lasers or was it us? It’s so hard to keep track of all the non-vapour ware Iran’s enemies are producing nowadays.

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Iraq

Iraq’s Hashd announces formation of Air Force

2019-09-09

[ALMASDARNEWS] The Iraqi Hashd, Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), said it is now forming its own ’Air Force’ in order to respond to hostile air strikes.

The group’s deputy chief, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, said he had ordered to establish the air force directorate for the Hashd; naming Salah Mahdi Hantoush as its caretaker.

Update at 2:31 p.m. Mountain Time: For future searching purposes, Iraqi News spells his name Salah Mahdi Hantous.

This comes a few weeks after suspicious ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
<del>Arclight</del> airstrike

...KABOOM!...
s targeted the group’s positions in Baghdad and other provinces of Iraq.

A senior US official said that Israel conducted "several strikes in recent days" in Iraq, including the July 19 attack north of Baghdad which targeted a base allegedly used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "to transfer weapons to Syria".

The claims come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at his country’s involvement in the latest attacks on ammunition depots in Iraq belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) composed of mostly Shia Moslem groups.

The Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council (EC) Mohsen Rezaei said on Sunday that both Iraq and Syria would respond to the latest Israeli attacks on their soil.

"Measures that Israel and America are jointly implementing in Syria and Iraq are against the international rules. And Syrian and Iraqi defenders will soon respond to them," Rezaie told ILNA on Sunday on the sideline of an event in Qazvin province.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Revolutionary Guards commander denies Iranian targets hit in Syria air strikes

2019-08-26

[DAWN] A senior Revolutionary Guards commander denied on Sunday that Iranian targets had been hit in Israeli air strikes in Syria, the semi-official ILNA news agency reported.

An Israeli military spokesperson had said on Saturday that an Israeli aircraft on Saturday struck Iranian forces near Damascus that had been planning to launch “killer drones” at targets in Israel.

“This is a lie and not true. [...] Israel and the United States do not have the power to attack Iran's various centres, and our (military) advisory centres have not been harmed,” said Revolutionary Guards Maj Gen Mohsen Rezaei, who is also the secretary of a powerful state body, ILNA reported.

An Nahar adds:

Israeli air strikes near the Syrian capital overnight killed two fighters of the Lebanese group Hizbullah, an Iranian combatant and two unidentified fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Sunday.

The Observatory said the Israeli raids targeted "Iranian and Hizbullah posts" in the southeast of Damascus.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iranian commander issues stern warning to US to stay away from IRGC Navy

2019-04-11

[ALMASDARNEWS] Mohsen Rezaei, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), has warned the US Navy to keep its vessels, including an aircraft carrier, at a distance from IRGC speed boats in Gulf waters.

“Mr Trump, tell your warships not to pass near the Revolutionary Guards boats”, the ISNA news agency cited Rezaei as saying on Tuesday.

The remarks came a day after Washington designated the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, in what Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described as a move rooted in America’s “rancour” against the IRGC.

“The IRGC is the vanguard both on the field confronting the enemy on [Iranian] borders and even several thousand kilometres away [in Syria] as well as on the political battleground against the enemy”, Khamenei pointed out.

Referring to the US’ move to blacklist the IRGC, Khamenei said that “such malice will lead nowhere” and that “with the their deceit rebounding back to themselves, the Islamic Republic’s enemies — such as Trump and the idiots […] in the US government — are moving toward rock bottom”.

IRGC head Mohammad Ali Jafari, in turn, dismissed Washington’s designation, which he said “was quite laughable since the Revolutionary Guards are in people’s hearts”.

Jafari also pledged that “the Revolutionary Guards will increase its defensive and offensive capabilities in coming year”.

Earlier, Iran’s Supreme Security Council reportedly designated the US CENTCOM and related forces as a terrorist organisation.

“As a retaliatory measure to the US illegal decision [to recognize the IRGC as a terrorist organization], Iran declares the US regime a ‘state that supports terrorism’ and the CENTCOM and forces that are linked to it a ‘terrorist group’”, the security council’s statement, quoted by the Islamic Republic of Iranian Broadcasting state media outlet, read.

Announcing the decision to blacklist the IRGC on Monday, US President Donald Trump boasted that this “unprecedented” move “recognises the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft”.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iranian commander issues stern warning to US about staying away from IRGC Navy

2019-04-10

[ALMASDARNEWS] Mohsen Rezaei, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), has warned the US Navy to keep its vessels, including an aircraft carrier, at a distance from IRGC speed boats in Gulf waters.

"Mr Trump, tell your warships not to pass near the Revolutionary Guards ~~bumps~~ boats", the ISNA news agency cited Rezaei as saying on Tuesday.

The remarks came a day after Washington designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization, in what Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described as a move rooted in America’s "rancour" against the IRGC.

"The IRGC is the vanguard both on the field confronting the enemy on [Iranian] borders and even several thousand kilometres away [in Syria] as well as on the political battleground against the enemy", Khamenei pointed out.

Referring to the US’ move to blacklist the IRGC, Khamenei said that "such malice will lead nowhere" and that "with the their deceit rebounding back to themselves, the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s enemies ‐ such as Trump and the idiots [...] in the US government ‐ are moving toward rock bottom".

IRGC head Mohammad Ali Jafari, in turn, dismissed Washington’s designation, which he said "was quite laughable since the Revolutionary Guards are in people’s hearts".

Jafari also pledged that "the Revolutionary Guards will increase its defensive and offensive capabilities in coming year".

Earlier, Iran’s Supreme Security Council reportedly designated the US CENTCOM and related forces as a terrorist organization.

"As a retaliatory measure to the US illegal decision [to recognize the IRGC as a terrorist organization], Iran declares the US regime a ’state that supports terrorism’ and the CENTCOM and forces that are linked to it a ’terrorist group’", the security council’s statement, quoted by the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iranian Broadcasting state media outlet, read.

Announcing the decision to blacklist the IRGC on Monday, US President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
boasted that this "unprecedented" move "recognises the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft".

Link

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