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Ex-Iranian Diplomat Blames Israel for the Oil Tanker Attacks

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By Breitbart. A former Iranian diplomat claimed that Israel [was] responsible for Thursday’s attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, an Iranian media outlet reported.

Without offering any evidence, Hamid Reza Asefi, who served as Iran’s ambassador to France and Foreign Ministry spokesman, claimed the motive behind the attack was “clear.”

“I think the directing of such incidents in the region are done by the Zionist regime and this has no hidden dimensions,” Asefi told Iran Online in an interview cited by the Tehran Times.

srael benefits the most from accusations against Iran, Asefi theorized, and therefore “logically the Zionist regime is the agent of this incident.”

He added that Israel seeks to drag the Islamic Republic into turmoil with the rest of the world. (Read more from “Ex-Iranian Diplomat Blames Israel for the Oil Tanker Attacks” HERE)

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Oil Prices Rise After Tanker Attacks Stoke Middle East Tensions

By Reuters. Oil prices rose on Monday after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington will take all actions necessary to guarantee safe navigation in the Middle East, as tensions mounted following attacks on tankers last week.

Brent futures had climbed 26 cents, or 0.4%, to $62.27 a barrel by 0314 GMT. They gained 1.1% on Friday.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 17 cents, or 0.3%, at $52.68 a barrel. They rose 0.4% in the previous session.

Prices had jumped as much as 4.5% on Thursday after the attacks on two oil tankers near Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

It was the second time in a month tankers have been attacked in the world’s most important zone for oil supplies as tensions increase between the United States and Iran. Washington blamed Iran for Thursday’s attacks, prompting a denial and criticism from Tehran. (Read more from “Oil Prices Rise After Tanker Attacks Stoke Middle East Tensions” HERE)

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Top Obama Adviser Downplays Iran Attacks — Dan Crenshaw Hits Back with Stinging Fact Check

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. . .On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly blamed Iran for attacking two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

“This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication,” Pompeo said.

In response, Rhodes — one of former President Barack Obama’s most trusted advisers, who also architected the failed Iran nuclear deal — downplayed the significance of Pompeo’s announcement.

“This definitely feels like the kind of incident where you’d want an international investigation to establish what happened,” Rhodes said. “Huge risk of escalation.” . . .

In response to Rhodes’ comments, Crenshaw hit back on Friday with a fact check and brief history lesson, calling Rhodes “not really a trusted source to weigh in on Iran.”

(Read more from “Top Obama Adviser Downplays Iran Attacks — Dan Crenshaw Hits Back with Stinging Fact Check” HERE)

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Mike Pompeo: Iran Is Responsible for Oil Attacks

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Iran is responsible for the attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared on Thursday. He came to that conclusion “based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation,” recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, etc.

Pompeo took a hard line on Iran and said the U.S. will defend its forces, interests and stand with our partners and allies. Yet, the secretary also hoped they could bring Iran “back to the negotiating table.”

(Read more from “Mike Pompeo: Iran Is Responsible for Oil Attacks” HERE)

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Hamas ADMITS It Receives Money from Iran’s Terrorist Regime

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In an unusually stark and blunt admission this week, Yahya Sinwar, chieftain of the Sunni sharia supremacist death cult Hamas, which was democratically elected to govern the Gaza Strip following Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the area, openly admitted that the jihadist group takes funding from the terrorist Shiite sharia supremacist regime in Iran. . .

Iran is mainly known for funding Hamas rival Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is a fellow terrorist group also operating in the Gaza Strip. Sunni nations Qatar and Turkey, by contrast, have emerged over the past decade as the chief benefactors of Hamas.

Since its unilateral withdrawal in 2005, Israel has been forced into three full-scale wars with Hamas, which routinely bludgeons Israeli civilians and metropolitan areas with indiscriminately fired terrorist rockets. In a March Daily Wire op-ed, I laid out the case for Israel to utterly destroy Hamas once and for all:

Try as the Israel Defense Forces might to keep on “mowing the grass” when the “infidel”-loathing jihadists of Hamas flare up in impulsive paroxysms of “anti-Zionism” Jew-hatred, the status quo in Gaza is completely unsustainable. No other sovereign country on Earth would deal so passively with such a cancerous threat living on its border — with its biggest civilian centers under constant fear of city-wide sirens signaling the incoming threat of crude Iran-manufactured rockets fired haphazardly from a bordering terroristic death cult. Indeed, no sovereign country on Earth should have to deal with such a threat. If the Sinaloa Cartel or Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion ever decided to shoot terrorist rockets at Texan or Arizonan ranchers, the United States would (rightfully) send in M1 Abrams tanks across the Rio Grande tomorrow. …

(Read more from “Hamas ADMITS It Receives Money from Iran’s Terrorist Regime” HERE)

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Obama Officials Collude with Iran to Thwart U.S. Foreign Policy

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By Jordan Schachtel. The Daily Beast has published a disturbing piece revealing that senior Obama administration officials are actively attempting to undermine the Trump administration’s foreign policy. And worse, they are collaborating with the terrorist regime that rules Iran to do so.

The publication has offered anonymity to the select Obama administration officials, breaking journalistic standards and allowing them to be quoted at length while cloaked in anonymity, about their plans to collude with Iran and thwart the elected president’s agenda.

The leftist writers of the piece do their best to attempt to write off this endeavor as a normal occurrence. But make no mistake, attempting to run a shadow government and colluding with America’s enemies, to the detriment of the American people, is anything but normal. (Read more from “Obama Officials Collude with Iran to Thwart U.S. Foreign Policy” HERE)

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U.S. Cuts Funds for ‘Anti-Propaganda’ Iran Group That Trolled Activists

By The Guardian. The US state department has cut off funding to a group that purported to combat Iranian propaganda, after it was found to be trolling US journalists, human rights activists and academics it deemed to be insufficiently hostile to the government in Tehran.

The Iran Disinformation Project was funded by the state department’s global engagement centre which was created to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation. In recent weeks however, the group’s Twitter account @IranDisinfo targeted BBC journalists, thinktank experts and civil society advocates, denouncing them as being “mouthpieces” and supporters of the Iranian government.

In one case they singled out a researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), Tara Sepehri Far, because she had looked into the human rights impact of sanctions on ordinary Iranians. (Read more from “U.S. Cuts Funds for ‘Anti-Propaganda’ Iran Group That Trolled Activists” HERE)

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Iran Has Reportedly Quadrupled Its Production of Enriched Uranium

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Iranian nuclear officials are claiming that the country is quadrupling its production of enriched uranium.

The state-run IRNA news agency in Iran is claiming that Iran is increasing its uranium production and that the International Atomic Energy Agency had been alerted to this development. The Independent cited Iranian officials who insisted that the uranium would only be enriched to 3.67 percent purity. In order to be used in an atomic bomb, uranium purity needs to be at 90 percent.

At this increased rate of production, it won’t be long before Iran has a larger stockpile of enriched uranium than is permitted under the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration. While the United States pulled out of this deal in 2018, other signatories have tried to keep it going.

James Clapper, former President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, dismissed the announcement, telling the BBC that he did not think it was “necessary to go into panic mode yet.”

This announcement from Iran comes just two days after President Donald Trump tweeted, “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called Trump’s comments “genocidal taunts.”

National security adviser John Bolton also announced that the U.S. was sending a carrier strike group to the region “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

Bolton said that this was “[i]n response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran. (For more from the author of “Iran Has Reportedly Quadrupled Its Production of Enriched Uranium” please click HERE)

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Trump Issues Big Warning to Iran

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Days after the Trump administration ordered American diplomatic personnel to leave the United States’ embassy in Baghdad, a rocket attacked the very area they were in on Sunday, The Washington Times reported. The area that was attacked was the Green Zone in the Iraq capital. It’s where the U.S. embassy and the main headquarters for combating the Islamic State sat.

As of now, no casualties have been reported and no group or person has taken responsibility for the attack. Iraqi officials did, however, confirm that one rocket landed inside the diplomatic compound. Eyewitnesses say a second rocket landed inside the Green Zone but that has not been officially confirmed.

British Major General Chris Ghika, the deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS publicly disagreed with America’s assessment earlier this week, saying there was no increased threat. . .

Although the U.S. wants to negotiate with Iran, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to make a stark warning: come after America and you will be defeated.

(Read more from “Trump Issues Big Warning to Iran” HERE)

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Signs Point to Iran Behind Gulf Ship Attacks

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By Jordan Schachtel. Assessment: Iran’s IRGC likely organized Gulf oil tanker attacks

Reuters reports that Iran is the likely culprit behind recent attacks on vessels belonging to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

According to the report:

“A confidential assessment issued this week by the Norwegian Shipowners’ Mutual War Risks Insurance Association (DNK) concluded that the attack was likely to have been carried out by a surface vessel operating close by that despatched underwater drones carrying 30-50 kg (65-110 lb) of high-grade explosives to detonate on impact.”

The U.S. has sent more military resources into the region to protect our interests and allies. Iran has repeatedly threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is transported. (For more from the author of “Signs Point to Iran Behind Gulf Ship Attacks” please click HERE)

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Insurer Says Iran’s Guards Likely to Have Organized Tanker Attacks

By Reuters. Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) are “highly likely” to have facilitated attacks last Sunday on four tankers including two Saudi ships off Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, according to a Norwegian insurers’ report seen by Reuters.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Norway are investigating the attacks, which also hit a UAE- and a Norwegian-flagged vessel. . .

The attacks took place against a backdrop of U.S.-Iranian tension following Washington’s decision this month to try to cut Tehran’s oil exports to zero and beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it called Iranian threats. (Read more from “Insurer Says Iran’s Guards Likely to Have Organized Tanker Attacks” HERE)

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Watch: President Trump Asked About War With Iran, Here’s How He Responded

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President Donald Trump indicated that the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is skating on very thin ice with its recent provocations in the Middle East and that if Iran does “anything, they will suffer greatly.”

“Are we going to war with Iran?” a reporter asked the president in the White House. “Are you seeking regime change?”

“We’ll see what happens with Iran,” Trump responded. “If they do anything it will be a very bad mistake, if they do anything. I’m hearing little stories about Iran. If they do anything, they will suffer greatly. We’ll see what happens with Iran.” . . .

“There was no immediate indication as to who may have been responsible or why the damage was inflicted, but the incidents occurred at the same time and place off the coast of the United Arab Emirates only days after the United States has dispatched warships and bombers to the area to deter alleged threats from Iran,” The Washington Post reported. “The location is near a sea lane critical to the world’s supply of oil, and the incidents followed a warning by U.S. maritime authorities that Iran might seek to disrupt commercial shipping in the area.” (Read more from “Watch: President Trump Asked About War With Iran, Here’s How He Responded” HERE)

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Trump Sends ‘Clear and Unmistakable’ Message to Iran

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By Daily Wire. The Trump administration is sending a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East to send a “clear and unmistakable message” in response to “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

“The deployment comes less than a month after the Trump administration designated Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization,” Fox News reported. “The deployment also comes amid the bloodiest fighting in five years between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.”

“In response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings, the United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” Bolton said. “The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.”

Former Israeli national security adviser Yaakov Amidror said on Sunday that Iran was behind the increasing escalation in Gaza.

“What made Friday’s shooting on the IDF patrol interesting, Amidror said, was that it took place precisely when Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders were in Cairo putting the finishing touches on an agreement drawn up by Egypt that was designed to ease the tension in the South,” The Jerusalem Post reported. “But while its leaders were in Cairo, Islamic Jihad fired on the soldiers. At first, the organization tried to deny responsibility for the attack.” (Read more from “Trump Sends ‘Clear and Unmistakable’ Message to Iran” HERE)

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Trump Sending Navy Strike Group to Middle East to Send ‘Message’ to Iran

By Washington Examiner. The United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East region in response to “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from the Iranian government. . .

The latest move continues to ratchet up tensions between Washington and Tehran. Last month, in a bid to put further pressure on the Iranian government, the Trump administration announced that it would stop providing waivers to countries that import Iranian oil. Also last month, the U.S. designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a foreign terrorist organization. Iran has since labeled the entire U.S. military as “terrorist.” (Read more from “Trump Sending Navy Strike Group to Middle East to Send ‘Message’ to Iran” HERE)

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