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Obama Admin Engaged in Secret Talks to Pay Iran Nearly $2 Billion

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The Obama administration has spent three years engaged in secret talks with Iran that resulted in the payment of nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to the Islamic Republic, with more payouts likely to come in the future, according to a recent letter issued by the State Department and obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.

The administration’s disclosure came in response to an inquiry launched in January by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), who was seeking further information about the Obama administration’s payment of $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to Iran, which many viewed as a “ransom payment” for Iran’s release that month of several U.S. hostages.

The administration’s official response to Pompeo was sent earlier this week, just days after a Free Beacon report detailing a months-long State Department effort to stall the lawmaker’s inquiry.

“We apologize for the delay in responding,” Julia Frifield, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs, states in the letter’s opening.

Obama administration officials first began talks to settle a number of outstanding legal claims leveled against the United States by Iran in 2014. The administration predicts that more taxpayer-funded payments are likely to be granted to the Islamic Republic in the future, according to the letter. (Read more from “Obama Admin Engaged in Secret Talks to Pay Iran Nearly $2 Billion” HERE)

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Washington Made It Easy for Iran to Fire Its Ballistic Missiles

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D5LAUNCHIranian officials spent the frantic final weeks before last year’s nuclear agreement pushing Washington to eliminate a long-standing U.N. prohibition on its ballistic missile program. They didn’t get the ban scrapped, but they did get it softened.

Now, eight months later, a recent series of Iranian missile tests has many in Washington angrily calling for new sanctions on Tehran. But Obama administration officials shouldn’t be surprised by Iran’s decision to test its standing on the international stage to fire the missiles: To the contrary, the nuclear deal may have made the missile launches inevitable.

Before the July 2015 nuclear pact, Iran was expressly prohibited by U.N. resolutions from launching ballistic missiles capable of developing nuclear weapons. U.N. Security Council resolution 1929 states that the 15-nation body “decides that Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” In U.N. legal parlance, invoking the word “decides” places an unambiguous legal obligation on all states to comply.

But in exchange for Iran’s signature on the landmark nuclear accord, the United States granted Tehran greater wiggle room to advance its ballistic missile program. Last July’s U.N. Security Council resolution 2231 — which endorsed the nuclear pact — replaced the prohibition with more permissive language: “Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” (Read more from “Washington Made It Easy for Iran to Fire Its Ballistic Missiles” HERE)

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Missiles From Iran-Allied Territory Intercepted on Way to US

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This is an interesting, but still very much developing story.

Serbia’s authorities are investigating reports that a cargo package bound for the U.S. containing two missiles with explosive warheads was found on a passenger flight from Lebanon to Serbia.

N1 television said the package with two guided armor-piercing missiles was discovered Saturday by a sniffer dog after an Air Serbia flight from Beirut landed at Belgrade airport.

Serbian media say documents listed the final destination for the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles as Portland, Oregon.

The Lebanon origin is what makes this story somewhat different because the country is currently dominated by Iran and its Shiite terrorist allies. So if this was a terrorist plot, which we don’t know that it was, it appears likelier to have originated from Iran than from ISIS. Portland however was the site of a more conventional Sunni Islamic terror plot. But Shiites also have a presence there.

Another twist was the recently “misplaced” Hellfire that ended up in Cuba.

But where would Iran have gotten hellfire missiles? Like most of the US equipment in the hands of Shiite terrorists, Iraq. The US has sold plenty of hellfires to Iraq. And Iraq’s government and military these days is controlled by Iran’s Shiite puppets. (For more from the author of “Missiles From Iran-Allied Territory Intercepted on Way to US” please click HERE)

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House Churches Multiplying Inside Iran Despite Persecution

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Christianity is spreading swiftly inside Iran despite a government crackdown against house churches.

Some Christians argue the actions of the Islamic Republic’s have actually created an opposite effect.

A London-based organization that trains Iranian Christians reports hundreds of thousands of new Christians–former Muslims–are worshipping secretly in a rapidly accelerating house church movement inside the Islamic Republic.

According to The Christian Post, a source affiliated with the Pars Theological Centre said the rapid church growth will eventually change Iranian society.

“This is not a political movement at all, but it will have political implications because it is touching the core foundations of society. This is battling prostitution and drug addiction. If you want to live in a country that doesn’t fund terrorists, you have to develop the values of the grassroots,” the source said. (Read more from “House Churches Multiplying Inside Iran Despite Persecution” HERE)

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Ahead of Election, Iran’s Leader Warns of Western ‘Plot’

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By Samia Nakhoul. Iran’s top leader warned voters on Wednesday the West was plotting to influence elections pitting centrists close to President Hassan Rouhani against conservative hardliners in a contest that could shape the Islamic Republic for years to come.

In remarks reflecting an abiding mistrust of Rouhani’s rapprochement with the West, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he was confident Iranians would vote in favor of keeping Iran’s anti-Western stance on Friday in the first elections since last year’s nuclear accord with world powers.

Rouhani’s allies, who hope the deal will hasten Iran’s opening up to the world after years of sanctions, have come under increasing pressure in the election campaign from hardliners who accuse them of links to Western powers including the United States and Britain.

Those accusations seek to tap into Iranians’ wariness of Western motives and memories of a 1953 coup against nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh that was orchestrated by the United States and Britain and strengthened the Shah’s rule. (Read more from “Ahead of Election, Iran’s Leader Warns of Western ‘Plot'” HERE)

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Iran Arrests Elderly Father of Jailed U.S. Citizen

By Yeganeh Torbati. Iranian authorities this week arrested the elderly father of an American jailed in Iran since October, the man’s family said on Wednesday.

Siamak Namazi, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, was detained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in October while in Iran visiting family. Officials have yet to announce charges against him.

Baquer Namazi, Siamak’s father, was arrested late on Monday in Tehran, his wife Effie Namazi said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. The 80-year-old Namazi, also a dual Iranian-American citizen, was taken to Evin Prison, where his son is also being held, she said.

Asked at a Senate hearing about the elder Namazi’s arrest, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “I am very familiar with this and I am engaged on it specifically, but I am not permitted due to privacy reasons to go into details here.” (Read more from ” Iran Arrests Elderly Father of Jailed U.S. Citizen” HERE)

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Iran Publishes Pictures of Captured U.S. Sailors Crying

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Iran has released new photographs in which at least one of the recently captured U.S. sailors is crying, according to a series of the pictures posted on social media.

The pictures, as well as an accompanying video, were released by Iranian state-controlled news outlets and disseminated on Twitter by Iranian reporters early Wednesday.

The new photographs come on the heels of another set of pictures that showed Iranian military forces detaining the U.S. sailors at gun point and forcing them to place their hands upon their heads while kneeling on a ship.

(Read more from “Iran Publishes Pictures of Captured U.S. Sailors Crying” HERE)

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Iranian-Backed Militia Seen With US Tank in Iraq [+video]

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Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuhada (KSS), an Iranian-backed Shia militia which operates in both Syria and Iraq, has been spotted using a US-made M1 Abrams tank in a recently released video. The video, which is a montage of different militias within the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU’s), a Shia-led collection of militias in Iraq, has been shared on several PMU social media outlets.

Around the 16 second mark of the video, a KSS flag can clearly be seen atop an Abrams. It is unclear exactly where the militia is located during this clip, but it is likely within Iraq’s central Salahadin province, where KSS has done a considerable amount of fighting against the Islamic State. It is also unclear when the footage was taken, however, the footage is likely recent since the montage was released two days ago. It is also likely the tank is from the Iraqi Army, as the militias operate with and alongside the Iraqi security forces.

KSS is not the first Shiite militia to publicize its use of an M1 Abrams. The Hezbollah Brigades, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, showed an Abrams flying the Hezbollah Brigades flag earlier last year. Additionally, the group has also published two videos from Iraq’s Anbar province in which several US-made vehicles are used by its forces. [See LWJ report, Video shows Hezbollah Brigades convoy transporting American M1 tank, and Threat Matrix report, Hezbollah Brigades flaunts US equipment in Anbar operation.] (Read more from “Iranian-Backed Militia Seen With US Tank in Iraq” HERE)

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Iran Wants Euro Payment for New and Outstanding Oil Sales – Source

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Iran wants to recover tens of billions of dollars it is owed by India and other buyers of its oil in euros and is billing new crude sales in euros, too, looking to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar following last month’s sanctions relief.

A source at state-owned National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) told Reuters that Iran will charge in euros for its recently signed oil contracts with firms including French oil and gas major Total, Spanish refiner Cepsa and Litasco, the trading arm of Russia’s Lukoil.

“In our invoices we mention a clause that buyers of our oil will have to pay in euros, considering the exchange rate versus the dollar around the time of delivery,” the NIOC source said.

Lukoil and Total declined to comment, while Cepsa did not respond to a request for comment. (Read more from “Iran Wants Euro Payment for New and Outstanding Oil Sales – Source” HERE)

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Iran Warns US: We Have Even More Embarrassing Footage of Your Captured Sailors

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The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy said Monday that if the U.S. seeks to humiliate Iran, the IRGC would release footage of ten U.S. sailors detained last month that is much more embarrassing than images released earlier.

Addressing Iranian lawmakers a day after being awarded a medal by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the Jan. 12-13 incident in the Persian Gulf, Sardar Fadavi also said his personnel had obtained information from the U.S. sailors’ laptops and phones.

“We have extracted extensive information from their laptops and cell phones,” the state-owned Tasnim news agency quoted him as saying, adding that the material could be made public.

(Listen to an expert analysis of Iran’s action, starting at 6:08 below)

A U.S. Navy investigation is underway. Earlier, U.S. Central Command said that when Iran released the sailors and boats, “all weapons, ammunition and communication gear are accounted for minus two SIM cards that appear to have been removed from two handheld satellite phones.”

In his address in parliament, Fadavi also warned that the IRGC had much more footage of the incident than the material it released earlier – which showed the sailors kneeling on the deck at gunpoint, later relaxing and eating, and one of them apologizing for unintentionally entering Iranian waters. (Read more from “Iran Warns US: We Have Even More Embarrassing Footage of Your Captured Sailors” HERE)

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Doubts That the Holocaust Occurred

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By Jerusalem Post. Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday once again repeated provocative assertions about the Holocaust, defying the world on a day that it paused to remember the victims of the Nazi genocide in Europe.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei released a video in which he said America “assists the fake Zionist regime” and that when “they say in their slogans that they are opposed to terrorism and ISIS they are lying,” according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Of the Holocaust, Khamenei remarked: “It is not clear whether the core of this matter is a reality or not. Even if it is a reality, it is not clear how it happened…This is the ignorance that exists in today’s world. We should be awake. [Muslims] should know that we can stand up against the ignorance.” “Who assists the fake Zionist regime,” Khamenei says in the video. “Who supports them, who clears the road for them, who stands behind them.”

“It is Western powers headed by America that are doing so. This is while they say in their slogans that they are opposed to terrorism and ISIS.” (Read more from “Iran’s Supreme Leader Doubts That the Holocaust Occurred” HERE)

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Obama Says ‘We Are All Jews’

By Eric Cortellessa. US President Barack Obama joined members of the American Jewish community Wednesday night for a ceremony honoring four individuals who were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, an honorific bestowed by the State of Israel on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews in the Holocaust.

The ceremony at the Israeli Embassy in Washington was the first of its kind to be held in the United States, and thus the first to be addressed by a sitting US president. Held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Obama said the unusual gathering was to “make real the call to ‘never forget.’”

Mere months after a tumultuous showdown with Israel’s government over his signature foreign policy priority — an Iranian nuclear accord that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blasted as a “historic mistake” that poses an existential threat to Israel — Obama sought to showcase the US’s enduring ties with the Jewish state, undergirded by a genuine solicitude for the Jewish people.

“We are all Jews,” he said, paying homage to one of the four individuals being honored.

Americans Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tennessee; Lois Gunden of Goshen, Indiana; and Polish citizens Walery and Maryla Zbijewski of Warsaw were the four recognized by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust remembrance and education organization. (Read more from “Obama Says ‘We Are All Jews'” HERE)

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