U.S. SANCTIONS IRAN SAT-ROCKET LAUNCH ‘Tehran rules out halt to tests’
Iran, US trade blame over new naval incident in Gulf
TEHRAN, July 29, (Agencies): A defiant Iran vowed on Saturday to press ahead with its missile programme and condemned new US sanctions, as tensions rise after the West hardened its tone against the Islamic republic.
In the latest incident on the ground, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the US Navy had approached their patrol vessels in the Gulf and fired flares.
“At 4 pm (1130 GMT) on Friday, the supercarrier USS Nimitz and its accompanying warship, while being monitored by the Guards’ frigates, flew a helicopter near the Resalat oil and gas platform and approached the force’s ships,” the paramilitary force said.
“The Americans in a provocative and unprofessional move, sent a warning message to the frigates and fired flares,” it said. The Guards “ignored the unconventional move by the US ships and continued their mission.”
Three days earlier, a US Navy patrol ship fired warning shots at a Guards boat in the Gulf as it closed in on the American vessel, according to US officials.
The Guards denied approaching the US ship in Tuesday’s incident and said it was the American vessel that had been at fault.
There have been a string of close encounters between US ships and Iranian vessels in the Gulf in recent months. On the political battlefield, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told state broadcaster IRIB that Tehran condemned new US sanctions against its missile programme, which President Donald Trump is set to sign into law, and vowed to press on.
“We will continue with full power our missile programme,” he said. “We consider the action by the US as hostile, reprehensible and unacceptable, and it’s ultimately an effort to weaken the nuclear deal.”
Ghasemi was referring to a 2015 agreement between Iran and US-led world powers that lifted some sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs on the country’s nuclear programme.
“The military and missile fields ... are our domestic policies and others have no right to intervene or comment on them,” the spokesman said.
The sanctions bill, which also targets Russia and North Korea, was passed by the US Senate on Thursday, two days after being approved by the House of Representatives.
Separately on Friday, Washington imposed new sanctions targeting Iran’s missile programme, one day after Tehran tested a satellite-launch rocket.
Iranian state television broadcast footage of the takeoff from the Imam Khomeini space centre in Semnan province in the east of the country.
The launch vehicle was capable of propelling a satellite weighing 550 pounds (250 kgs) into orbit at an altitude of 300 miles (500 kms), it said.
Develop
Western governments suspect Iran of trying to develop the technology for longer-range missiles with conventional or nuclear payloads, a charge denied by Tehran, which insists its space programme has purely peaceful aims.
In a joint statement, Britain, France, Germany and the US condemned Tehran’s “destabilising” action, saying the test was in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the nuclear deal.
“We call on Iran not to conduct any further ballistic missile launches and related activities,” they said.
Resolution 2231 called on Iran not to test ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and an arms embargo has remained in place.
The United States has had no diplomatic ties with Iran since 1980, and Trump has halted the direct contacts initiated by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Tensions have mounted between Washington and Tehran since Trump took office six months ago vowing to be the best friend of Israel.
At UN headquarters in New York on Friday, US envoy Nikki Haley expressed mistrust of Iran.
“Iran’s widespread support for terrorists tells us we can’t trust them. Iran’s breaking its obligation on missile testing tells us we can’t trust them. Yesterday’s launch proves that yet again,” she said.
Despite his electoral promise to tear apart what he once called “the worst deal ever”, Trump has so far respected the nuclear agreement.
The joint US-European statement said that Iran’s latest test features technology related to “ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons”.
Iran insists it has “proven its compliance with the nuclear deal” as repeatedly confirmed
RIYADH, July 29, (Agencies): A ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels was shot down late Thursday close to Makkah in Saudi Arabia, a month before the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site, the Arab military coalition fighting in Yemen said.
The missile was intercepted 69 kilometres (43 miles) south of the city in western Saudi Arabia, the coalition said in a statement, calling it “a desperate attempt by Shiite Houthi rebels to disrupt Hajj”, which begins at the end of August.
Occasional ballistic missile attacks, as September in Jordan turning the Jordanians, who shared their suffering and resistance, into tools for liberating Tel Aviv. They are not different from alQaeda, DAESH and Hezbollah. They raised the slogan on liberating Arabs from the ‘reactionary regimes’ under the pretext that the next step is restoring Palestine.
Yes, the people of Jerusalem ended the Al-Aqsa Mosque blockage alone, not in favor of the Iranian Jerusalem legion which they have been waiting for 38 years while the latter had been busy swirling terrorism in the Arab and Muslim world. It has not reached them and will never reach them.
Khamenei, who once said, “If all Muslims emptied buckets of water on Israel, they would have drowned it,” made his Mullah regime fill buckets with peanut deals with Israel; whereas the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard were fighting the enemies of Tel Aviv in their capitals under the guise of fighting for Jerusalem to mislead and camouflage their real action.
The slogans of Abdul Naser fell in 1967 and the resistance has been incorporated into the ‘strategic balance’ game and the ‘suitable response in time and place’ theory. It was disclosed lately that there were closed door negotiations in which the Palestinians did not participate.
After all of these, it is high time for Palestinians to be aware that no one in this world will rescue them and treat them justly as long as they make their organizations and blocs into guns for hire. They should know that their unity behind an internationally recognized leadership will relieve them of a lot of suffering.
When the people of Jerusalem took their decision, they were aware that “whoever covers himself with the quilt of others will get cold.” Therefore, they opened the doors of Al-Aqsa Mosque with their perseverance alone. They did not gamble on anyone. They gambled on themselves and they won. This is what all the people of Palestine should know, that on their own, they can get their rights from the Israeli occupiers, especially since there is a general conviction in the world that the conflict has become Palestine-Israel conflict.
For them to reach their goal, they need to get out of disagreement and division; such that Gaza does not remain a mortgaged country for Qatari-Iranian interests, Hamas will not be a tool for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Jihad Movement will not be an Iranian branch.
All Palestinian factions should be dissolved under the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian National Authority which alone can make them stronger. These factions should learn a lesson from the people of Jerusalem if they really want an independent State. well as more frequent short-range rocket fire over the southern border, have in the past been conducted after coalition air strikes against the rebels in Yemen and is not the first time rebels have fired in the direction of Makkah.
Nearly two million Yemeni children are “acutely malnourished” and a “vicious combination” of war, hunger and cholera have left the country in desperate need of aid, the United Nations warned this week.
The alarm was raised at the end of a two-day visit by the directors of the World Health Organization, the UN Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme to Yemen, which has seen more than 8,000 people killed and 44,500 wounded since March 2015.
“The missiles continue to be smuggled in due to a lack of controls at the port of Hodeida,” it said in the statement.
It said permits given by the Arab coalition for the delivery of humanitarian aid and commercial cargo were being abused at the port.
The Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s government said Shiite Houthi rebels on Saturday used a remote-controlled boat packed with explosives to attack the Red Sea port of Mokha, but without causing casualties.
“On Saturday at dawn, Houthi militiamen targeted the port of Mokha with a remotely guided vessel full of explosives,” a statement from the coalition said.
The statement, published by the official Saudi news agency SPA, said the boat exploded by the quayside, without causing any injuries or damage.
“In carrying out such criminal acts, the rebels are disrupting the flow of humanitarian aid to Yemen, in particular medicines used to fight the rampant cholera epidemic,” the statement said.
Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels said on Saturday they targeted a military ship belonging to the United Arab Emirates, part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting them in the country.
The ship, carrying military equipment, was arriving from Eritrea’s Assab port, according to Houthi officials. It is the third ship belonging to the coalition to be targeted off Yemen’s western coast since the beginning of 2017.
The Saudi Press Agency, citing a statement by the coalition, said that Houthis used an explosives-laden boat, which struck the pier close to a group of ships at the Red Sea port of Mocha. It added that there were no casualties or any substantial damage.
Also Saturday, Yemeni officials said that forces loyal to President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi took full control of a key military base, known as Khalid Ibn al-Walid, near Yemen’s west coast.
Clashes that raged over the base between forces loyal to Hadi and Houthis, who controlled it for more than two years, have killed dozens on both sides.