Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry has announced that 39 people were arrested in connection to an Iranian "espionage network" after previous reports saying that seven suspects were detained.
The Azerbaijani news agency APAquoted the ministry on Wednesday that 39 people have been detained as part of a special operation to uncover subversive activities in the country “under the guise of religion”.
According to the ministry, the detainees, "posing as believers, made propaganda for Iran on social networks and abused the freedom of religion in the country, carrying out the assignments of the Iranian special services."
Meanwhile, ministry also said Wednesday that "it will use all relevant international platforms to widely condemn the terror act against its embassy and punish the perpetrators."
Tensions between the countries haveincreased following an armed attack last week on Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran that left an Azerbaijani security official dead and wounded two others.
The ministry also stated that the Islamic Republic has tried to prevent the terror attack from being widely exposed at the international level.
Azerbaijan says the armed attack on its embassy was a "terrorist" act, but the Islamic Republic says the gunman appeared to have had a personal, not a political, motive.
On Tuesday, the Republic of Azerbaijan asked its citizens not to travel to Iran.
The missile dubbed Al-Saqr or falcon in Arabic, is a loitering weapon developed to counter drones and helicopters, Tasnim claims in a detailed article on Wednesday. It says that the weapon is also known as Missile-358.
Tasnim has also published photos of the weapon as it was displayed at a Houthi parade in Yemen, implying that the technology could have been provided by Iran.
The report says Al-Saqr is 2.7 meters long, weighing 58 kilograms and a diameter of 15 centimeters carrying a ten-kilogram warhead. It can reach an altitude of 28,000 feet but is designed against low-flying drones.
Tasnim claims that the weapon is equipped with both optical and heat-seeking capabilities. The warhead is equipped with proximity fuses and has been able to destroy three Saudi drones.
It is not clear why the IRGC-affiliated website would advertise a Houthi weapon and imply that the technology is Iranian, except to show that the Islamic Republic can play a disruptive role in the region.
Tasnim also describes Al-Saqr as a loitering munition that is equipped with a “microjet” engine but uses a rocket booster at the launch stage, which separates from the missile after reaching a certain altitude.
The report also said that the Yemeni weapon can be a sign that Iran has developed low-altitude air defense capabilities against drones. It added that Houthis have deployed many weapon systems similar to what Iran has in its arsenal.
Former head of Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Heshmatollah Falahatpish told local media: "If it were not for the issue of sending Iranian drones to Russia to be used in the war in Ukraine, Europe was highly unlikely to ratify a resolution against Iran."
Falahatpisheh, who is one of the few domestic critics still allowed to speak to print media, further said he is worried that Iran might become the second front in Russia's war against Ukraine.
The conservative pundit explained that Europe and the United States had agreed [in March 2022] on two matters – Iran upholding its nuclear commitments and the West reducing sanctions imposed, but at the last moment Russian negotiator Mikhail Ulyanov said that Russia cannot take part in implementing the agreement because of US sanctions on Moscow.
"Later Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia would sign the agreement only if all of Russia's nuclear, trade, and military dealings with Iran are exempted from the sanctions. This led to an impasse and the talks were suspended," Falahatpisheh said.
Meanwhile, in an interview with moderate proreform Rouydad24 website, Falahatpisheh charged that some Iranian officials behave in a way as if they are paid to speak against Iran's national interests.
He added that "Statements made by a group of people who have no knowledge of foreign policy have only led to a catalogue of threats against Iran." He was probably referring to individuals such as ultraconservative presidential aide Saeed Jalili and his likeminded allies in the parliament particularly ultraconservative Paydary Party members who staunchly oppose the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal or effectively any agreement with the United States.
Meanwhile, accusing the Islamic Republic of weakening the political elites, Falahatpisheh charged that "Some of Iran's politicians have no proper definition of the government and mainly believe in running the country's affairs like a militia. They have no understanding of the concepts of government, development, international relations, détente, international economy and other political concepts. They do not care what will happen to the next generation of Iranians as a result of Iran's isolation. And that is dangerous."
Falahatpisheh argued that many of the sanctions against Iran are the outcome of such a political approach. "While Iran owns two third of the Persian Gulf waterways and it should naturally attach high importance to the waterway's security, some members of parliament and others threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz. The current situation of Iran and its isolation is a legacy of this kind of grandstanding."
He also said that measures such as sending drones to Russia leads to the IRGC being listed as a terrorist organization in the West rather than the Russian army.
In a related development, Ahmad Bakhshayesh, another former member of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee said in similar remarks that "The Iranian government believes creating a foreign enemy will lead to solidarity inside the country.”
Referring to the recent drone attack on a military installation in Esfahan, Bakhshayesh said: "Benjamin Netanyahu creates foreign crises as a way of dealing with political divisions inside Israel." Meanwhile, he charged that "the attack was done by Israel from the Republic of Azerbaijan as part of Israel's confrontation with Iran as a country that harasses Israel by its presence in the Golan Heights and its support of the Lebanese Hizballah."
Bakhshayesh added that Iran has recently armed [its proxy groups] in the West Bank, in an area only 15 kilometers away from Israel. He characterized this action as "creating permanent tension" in that region.
According to the information, the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Iraq is also involved in the money laundering operations that aim to funnel the regime’s revenues from oil and gas exports to Iran. As per a repeatedly extended sanctions’ waiver by Washington, Tehran is only allowed to import medicine and some essential goods in exchange for its export to its neighboring country.
Iran International television revealed that Mohammad Tajan-Jari, the financial manager of the 400th unit of IRGC’s Quds Force, was in charge of transferring the funds to the unit’s account in a branch of Ansar Bank in the capital Tehran. The bank had been founded by the IRGC in 2010 and was officially merged into the IRGC’s official Bank Sepah. The IRGC had established several banks and credit institutions to help it in its money laundering operations and circumvent US sanctions but after they served their purpose and their affiliations were disclosed, all of them, including Ansar Bank, Mehr Eghtesad Bank, Hekmat Iranian Bank, Ghavamin Bank and Kowsar Credit Institution, were merged into Bank Sepah from 2018 to 2020.
In Iraq, the network is apparently managed by an old Quds Force operative identified as Mahmoud Hasanizadeh, who oversees the job with the help of two Iraqi citizens. Tajan-Jari's executive officer in Iraq is Mostafa Pakbatan, an employee of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic and a member of the Quds Force, who receives the dollars from exchange offices in Iraq. He is not the only employee of the embassy involved in the money laundering network. The current ambassador, Mohammad-Kazem Al-e Sadegh, who was appointed to the post less than a year ago was also a commander of the Quds force and one of the close aides to former chief Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in January 2020 in Baghdad.
About a year ago, during the tenure of Iraj Masjedi as the ambassador of the Islamic Republic, Al-Arabiya published a document that showed more than 60 billion Iraqi dinars (about $40 million) from the assets of Iranian energy companies were deposited into the account of the Iranian embassy in the Trade Bank of Iraq, which was supposed to be used for the expenses of the embassy. However, it ended up in the hands of Quds force officers.
This financial network is bypassing the US sanction regimes at the cost of the Iraqi economy. An informed source in Baghdad told Iran International late in December that Washington has received reports that Iraq is still conducting trade with Iran using US dollars despite sanctions.
According to a report by London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the decline in the value of Iraq’s national currency and the accompanying price increases for foodstuffs and imported goods can be traced back to remarkable change in the policy adopted by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The impact of US banking sanctions on Iran has affected neighboring Iraq, weakening its currency and leading to protests against the government.
The dinar went into a tailspin against the dollar after the New York Federal Reserve imposed tighter controls on international dollar transactions by commercial Iraqi banks in November to halt the illegal siphoning of dollars to Iran.
Under the curbs that took effect this month, Iraqi banks must use an online platform to reveal their transaction details. But most private banks have not registered on the platform and resorted to informal black markets in Baghdad to buy dollars.
This has created dollar shortages as demand has outstripped supply and accelerated the dinar's fall against the greenback. Last week, hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated near central bank headquarters in Baghdad to protest at the recent slide of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar that has triggered a rise in prices of imported consumer goods.
Following demonstrations a delegation of Iraqi officials is set to travel to Washington to resolve issues related to US banking restrictions.
