The grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, has been excluded from running for a seat on the Assembly of Experts, the group that will select a successor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Reuters reported Tuesday. The 12-member Guardian Council, which vets candidates for public...

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U.S. intelligence officials are disputing the Obama administration’s claim that Iran was not involved in the kidnapping of three American contractors in Iraq earlier this month, Jay Solomon of The Wall Street Journal reported (Google link) Tuesday. The three contractors were abducted in Baghdad on January 16, the same day that...

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Leading Syrian opposition figures have accused Secretary of State John Kerry of threatening to cut aid to forces fighting dictator Bashar al-Assad unless they agreed to attend peace talks on terms dictated by Assad’s backers, Iran and Russia. Mohamad Alloush, a member of the Syrian opposition’s High Negotiating Committee (HNC), told...

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the capture of ten American sailors “God’s deed” in a tweet posted Sunday. God’s deed; IRGC’s timely job; Americans with hands on heads pic.twitter.com/b4XkdOdWoF — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 24, 2016 Khamenei’s comment was part of a a series of tweets praising Iran’s Islamic...

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There are growing concerns that the $1.7 billion payment the United States released to Iran last week amounted to a ransom for the freedom of American hostages held by the Islamic Republic, The Wall Street Journal reported (Google link) Thursday. According to the Journal, the money was wired to Tehran...

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Despite efforts by some politicians in Iran to reach out to the country’s Jewish community, “antisemitic propaganda distributed by official or semi-official media as well as high-ranking clerics” continues to influence Iranian public discourse, Raz Zimmt wrote in a report published Thursday for the Institute for the Study of Global...

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Former congressman and U.S. ambassador to Tanzania Mark Green called on the international community to pay greater attention to Iran’s ongoing human rights violations in an op-ed published Thursday in The Hill. Green argued that Iran will never be able to “realize its full potential” in the wake of the nuclear deal...

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The commander of Iran’s Basij militia said that the $1.7 billion the United States agreed to pay Iran to settle outstanding debts was a ransom for the release of five American hostages over the weekend, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday. “This money was returned for the freedom of...

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Israeli authorities announced that they dismantled a cell of the Iran-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah, which was operating in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem under the direction of Jawad Nasrallah, son of the terrorist group’s leader, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. The ringleader of the cell was...

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As the Syrian village of Madaya continues to be under siege by the forces of Iran-backed dictator Bashar al-Assad, with nearly two dozen people dead from starvation, the hunger problems continue to worsen throughout the country. One in three Syrians doesn’t have adequate access to food, NPR reported Tuesday. This food insecurity is caused by civilians surrounded...

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