Iran will be boosting its military budget using the $1.7 billion it received in January from the U.S. Treasury Department, Foundation for Defense of Democracies associate fellow Saeed Ghasseminejad wrote in a policy brief Thursday, citing Iranian media reports. The process of allocating the funds, which the White House has said was to settle...

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei continued making incendiary remarks about the United States at a military exhibit this week, emphasizing that the Islamic Republic should boost its offensive capabilities and “avoid negotiating” with Washington, The Times of Israel reported on Thursday. To preserve Iran’s future, “in addition to defensive capability, offensive capability should be...

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The United States and its negotiating partners secretly granted Iran exemptions from some of its responsibilities under last year’s nuclear deal, which Tehran would have otherwise failed to fulfill in time to receive nuclear-related sanctions relief on Implementation Day, according to a report (.pdf) published Thursday by the Institute for Science and International Security....

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Iran announced on Wednesday that it arrested another American-Iranian visitor, the same day that a parliamentary committee investigated whether dual nationals are being recruited as spies, Reuters reported. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps detained the individual in the Golestan province in late July. The American-Iranian was charged with “cooperation with countries hostile to Iran, acting against...

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The United Nations’ top investigator into Iran’s human rights record blasted Tehran’s recent “illegal” execution of twelve people in a statement released on Monday. Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed condemned the August 27 killing of Alireza Madadpour and eleven others on drug-related charges. Shaheed had asked Iranian authorities not to proceed with the executions the day...

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A Canadian academic detained by Iranian authorities for nearly three months has been hospitalized due to her declining health, The Guardian reported on Tuesday. According to a statement released by her family, Homa Hoodfar, an anthropologist at Montreal’s Concordia University, suffers from the rare neurological disease myasthenia gravis, which causes muscle fatigue and requires special care. She...

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Germany on Tuesday reiterated its refusal to normalize relations with Iran until the Islamic Republic recognizes Israel, Benjamin Weinthal reported in The Jerusalem Post. “There cannot be normalized, complete relations with Iran so long as Iran does not recognize Israel’s right to exist,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration said in a letter to German parliamentarian Volker Beck, the...

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Iran’s recent establishment of a United Shi’a Liberation Army is raising concerns that Tehran will further stoke sectarian violence across the Middle East in its pursuit of regional dominance, Radio Free Europe reported on Tuesday. Iran’s August 25 announcement of the formation of a new fighting force with a Shi’ite identifier in its name “will inflame sectarian tensions...

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A new propaganda video produced by Iran’s Organization of Islamic Information, which is controlled by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, portrays a group of Iranian men confronting and destroying an American naval fleet. A translation of the video was released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on Tuesday. The opening scene of...

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Iran’s installation of the Russian-built S-300 surface-to-air missile system outside the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility is “of concern” to the United States, a State Department spokesman told reporters on Monday. “We’ve seen the reports of this deployment,” Spokesman John Kirby said. “Obviously, that’s of concern to us because we have long objected to...

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