Two Iranian fighter jet pilots were killed on Tuesday when their ejector seats activated before take-off, smashing them into the hangar roof.
State broadcaster reported the F-5 fighter jet had a ‘technical problem’ that killed both the pilots, identified as Kianoush Basati and Hossein Namni.
The report said the incident unfolded at Dezful Vahdati Air Force Base, approximately 270 miles south of the capital Tehran, and near the Iraq border.
The accident happened before the F-5 plane they were in took off from the base in Dezful, the city’s governor Ali Farahmandpour was quoted as saying by state news agency.
The airbase was closed off and the cause of the accident, initially described as “technical”, was being investigated, he added.
Farahmandpour said there was no “air accident or crash” and that further details on what happened would be made public after the investigation, according to state television’s website.
Iran’s armed forces still mainly use aircraft purchased before the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, with years of international sanctions making it increasingly difficult to purchase parts for maintenance.
A documentary about the persecuted Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh shows her courage and her symbolic importance to the resistance movement
This clandestinely shot documentary about Iranian human-rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh reveals what superheroism looks like in the real world. As significant as the tireless work in lawyer’s cabinets, drab constitutional courts and prison visiting rooms is her symbolic importance: her sinewy persistence and true courage in standing up to Iran’s dogmatic regime have the potential to ignite such qualities in others, and unlock the collective action needed to shift this sclerotic society.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has adopted a resolution demanding Israel to stop atrocious attacks on innocent Palestinian civilians in violation of international law and United Nations resolutions.
The resolution was adopted by the Virtual Open-Ended Extraordinary Meeting of OIC’s Executive Committee at Level of Foreign Ministers on Sunday.
The 57-nation league warned that the continuation of barbaric attacks by Israel would put regional stability at risk.
The OIC asked Israel to respect Muslims’ access to Al Aqsa Mosque and stop settlers from forcibly evicting Palestinian families from their homes.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud opened the meeting by urging the global community to end the escalation in violence and revive peace negotiations based on a two-state solution.
He urged the world to play its part for a peaceful solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict.
The United Nations Security Council came under fire for not playing due role to restore peace to the region.
“De-escalation and the highest degree of restraint are important to avoid dragging the region to new levels of instability,” said UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem al-Hashimy.
“The massacre of Palestinian children today follows the purported normalization,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said. “This criminal and the genocidal regime has once again proven that friendly gestures only aggravate its atrocities.”
Zarif accused Israel of genocide and crimes against humanity.
“Make no mistake: Israel only understands the language of resistance and the people of Palestine are fully entitled to their right to defend themselves,” Zarif said.
“The plight of the Palestinian people is the bleeding wound of the Islamic world today,” Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar said.
Reportedly, more than 180 Palestinians have so far killed in Gaza with 1,230 people wounded in Israeli attacks.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called for an international protection mechanism for Palestinian civilians and told the OIC that Israel should be held accountable for war crimes and that the International Criminal Court could play a role.
The OIC reiterated its rejection and condemnation of the ongoing Israeli settlement colonization of occupied Palestinian land, including East Jerusalem and the establishment of a racial segregation system there.
Man who took turn steering boat ‘because he didn’t want to die’ freed, with case opening way for others to appeal their sentences
An asylum seeker jailed on smuggling charges for helping to steer a boat filled with migrants from France to England has had his conviction overturned at a retrial after spending 17 months in jail.
Lawyers and campaigners say the verdict could lead to other migrants currently in jail on smuggling charges being freed, allowing the Home Office policy of prosecuting asylum seekers who play a role in piloting boats across the Channel to be challenged more widely.
His name was Alireza Fazeli Monfared and he was only 20 years old.
Fazeli Monfared was homosexual and due to the difficulties he faced because of his sexual orientation, was about to flee his native Iran for Turkey.
But he was reportedly killed by his family members before he could leave the southwestern province of Khuzestan after they accused him of dishonoring the family.
Fazeli Monfared’s killing has put the plight of Iran’s LGBT community in the spotlight amid concerns that this will not be the last suspected case of so-called honor killings of homosexuals in the Islamic republic.
“There’s no guarantee that this won’t happen again until our society becomes educated and informed,” Arsham Parsi, a Toronto-based, Iranian gay-rights activist and head of the International Railroad for Queer Refugees, told RFE/RL.
Killed For Being Gay
Fazeli Monfared was reportedly killed on May 4 by his half-brother and cousins who, according to some reports, beheaded him and dumped his body under a tree near the provincial capital of Ahvaz. They reportedly called his mother to tell her where to find him.
The Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network 6rang said in a May 7 statement that Fazeli Monfared’s half-brother learned about his sexual orientation after seeing his military service exemption card. In Iran, homosexuals are allowed to skip military duty due to “mental disorders.”
Even before he was killed, Fazeli Monfared had complained to friends about threats from his relatives due to his sexual orientation.
In an audio recording obtained by the BBC, Fazeli Monfared said that his family had threatened to kill him and that he was planning to flee Iran to seek asylum in Norway or Sweden.
Fazeli Monfared’s partner, activist Aghil Abyat, told RFE/RL that he was due to travel to Turkey on May 8 to join him.
“He had told me that he had been threatened by his half-brother,” he said.
‘Lively’ And ‘Very Happy’ Man
Abyat described Fazeli Monfared as a “lively” and “very happy” young man who liked to travel, listen to music, and post videos on TikTok. His Instagram posts also suggest an interest in fashion.
Parsi, who had in recent weeks interacted with Fazeli Monfared on Clubhouse, said the young man had complained about family pressure and intolerance in society.
“He didn’t clearly say that he had been threatened with murder because if he had done so I would have contacted him privately since we take these issues very seriously, but he spoke about his family not accepting him and the pressure families put on homosexuals,” Parsi told RFE/RL.
Monfared had complained about family pressure and intolerance in the weeks leading up to his death.
Members of Iran’s gay community are forced to hide their sexual orientation, often leading double lives due to fear of persecution by the state, which criminalizes homosexual acts, while society views homosexuality as a disease.
Many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community are shunned by their families who view them as a stain on the family’s honor.
Homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran but proving that a sexual act has taken place is not easy and requires the testimony of four adult men.
Horrific Punishments, Abuse
Parsi said the LGBT community is “extremely vulnerable” while being exposed to horrific punishment and harassment.
“On the one hand, the establishment has laws that includes the death penalty and stoning for homosexuals, on the other hand their families do not accept them, neither does the society,” he said. “If something happens to them at work or school, if they get abused or raped, they don’t have anywhere to turn to.”
Fazeli Monfared’s murder has sent a chilling message to Iran’s gay community, reminding them of the dire threats they face.
“Today, I received the 86th message from [a homosexual inside Iran] who said this could have been us,” said Parsi, adding that “the fear homosexuals experience is real and must be taken seriously.”
Berlin-based human rights activist Kaveh Kermanshahi said the killing has shocked many.
“Whoever has gone through similar problems can relate and go through the trauma again, they have been reminded of their hardships,” said Kermanshahi, who came out only after leaving Iran several years ago.
“The reasons for not coming out are many more than those in favor of coming out,” he said.
“I was politically active, I was active in the human rights sphere, I was also a journalist faced with the risk of arrest, which happened. Due to of all these issues I had decided that [my sexuality] should not be revealed,” Kermanshahi added.
Honor Killings Often Unreported
Both Kermanshahi and Parsi believe that a large number of killings in Iran due to someone’s sexual orientation go unreported.
“Queers who have been in contact with these people fear reporting or investigating the cases because they can be outed in the society therefore these cases often happen in silence,” Kermanshahi said.
“When it comes to uxoricide, we have women’s rights activists who highlight these cases,” he said. “But in Iran we don’t have the possibility of queer activists working actively therefore it is possible that other cases — like [Fazeli Monfared’s] murder and [gay suicides] — are not being reported.”
In 2017, 6rang reported that a 23-year-old transsexual identified as Siavash was killed in Khorramabad in western Iran by his father who, according to the report, committed suicide afterward.
“Apparently the sexual identity of Siavash was not acceptable to the family at all,” 6rang said.
Parsi said in 2004 that a local newspaper reported the killing of a member of Iran’s gay community by his father in a northern Iranian village.
“It never became clear whether the father was arrested and punished,” he said.
According to a 2020 poll published by the 6rang advocacy group, 62 percent of LGBT members surveyed had said that they had experienced one or more forms of violence by their immediate family. Nearly 30 percent of them complained of sexual violence, while 77 percent said they had been subjected to physical violence.
The pressure and persecution force many members of Iran’s LGBT community to flee the country, while many others undergo gender-reassignment surgery.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is accusing a U.S. Coast Guard vessel of “provocation” after Washington said the ship fired warning shots against approaching Iranian military boats in the Persian Gulf.
The IRGC said on May 11 its boats had encountered the U.S. ships the previous day, and accused them of “unprofessional behavior, such as flying helicopters, firing flares, and aimless and provocative shooting.”
According to the Pentagon, the U.S. Coast Guard ship Maui fired about 30 warning shots after 13 fast boats from the IRGC’s navy came close to it and other U.S. vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Spokesman John Kirby said the warning shots were fired after the fast boats came as close as 150 meters from six U.S. military vessels that were escorting the guided-missile submarine Georgia.
The Iranian boats had been acting “very aggressively,” Kirby said.
It was the second time over the past month that U.S. military vessels had to fire warning shots because of what they said was unsafe behavior by Iranian vessels in the region, after a relative lull in such interactions over the past year.
The latest incident came as world powers and Iran seek to speed up efforts to bring Washington and Tehran back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
Four rounds of indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Vienna on reviving the agreement have yet to make major progress.
Based on reporting by AFP, Reuters, and RFE/RL’s Radio Farda
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is urging the Iranian parliament to reject a bill that it says would “help further erode Iran’s increasingly vulnerable press freedom” ahead of next month’s presidential election.
In a statement on May 10, the Paris-based media-freedom watchdog says the proposed law would ban U.S. and British journalists from entering Iran and would ban the Iranian media from reporting anything published by the U.S. and British media.
Violations of the proposed law would be punishable by five to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to 360 million rials ($16,340).
“This proposed law is ridiculous as well as lacking any legitimacy,” said Reza Moini, the head of RSF’s Iran-Afghanistan desk.
“The media it targets are an integral part of the world in which we live and of which the Islamic republic is part, regardless of what it says,” he added.
“Furthermore, the Persian-language sections of certain international media are the main sources of freely and independently reported news and information for Iranians.”
The proposed law, submitted by 41 parliament members on April 18, says the two prohibitions are justified because the U.S. and British media and their journalists are responsible for “many actions against national interests and against the Islamic republic,” according to RSF.
The group notes that the international media coverage of the June presidential poll “is unlikely to please the regime because it is clear that the electoral process is just a smokescreen for the future president’s designation” by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran is ranked 174th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
Upon arrival in Iran, foreign journalists are currently placed under “close surveillance” by the authorities and “their journalism is subjected to a form of censorship in which, if they fail to toe the official line, they can end up having to leave,” RSF says.
Meanwhile, “Iranian journalists — and sometimes their family members as well — have for years been subjected to harassment, arrest, and long prisons sentences.”
Iran has opened registration for potential candidates in next month’s presidential election amid continued high tensions with the West and uncertainty over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers.
The registration process kicked off on May 11 and will last five days, after which entrants will be screened for their qualifications by the Guardians Council, a hard-line constitutional watchdog that has in the past disqualified many moderate would-be candidates.
The council is to announce a final list of candidates by May 27, triggering a 20-day campaign season ahead of the June 18 vote.
President Hassan Rohani, a relative moderate whose government is taking part in talks to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, cannot seek reelection after having served two consecutive four-year terms.
Turnout could be hit by rising discontent over steep rises in consumer prices and high unemployment as the Iranian economy has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and U.S. economic sanctions reimposed after Washington in 2018 pulled out of the nuclear accord, which lifted international sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Iran responded to the U.S. moves by stepping up its violations of the accord by enriching uranium to a greater purity, stockpiling more than allowed, and introducing more advanced centrifuges.
Several rounds of talks with world powers in Vienna on reviving the nuclear accord have yet to make major progress.
Iranian hard-liners took control of parliament last year in polls that saw 42.5 percent turnout, the lowest turnout since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought a clerical regime to power.
A U.S. Coast Guard ship fired some 30 warning shots after 13 boats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) came close to it and other American Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the Pentagon said on May 10.
It was the second time over the past month that U.S. military vessels had to fire warning shots because of what they said was unsafe behavior by Iranian vessels in the region, after a relative lull in such interactions over the past year.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the warning shots were fired after the Iranian fast boats came as close as 150 meters from six U.S. military vessels, including the USS Monterey, which were escorting the guided-missile submarine Georgia.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Maui fired the warning shots from a .50-caliber machine gun before the Iranian vessels left, Kirby said.
“It’s significant… and they were acting very aggressively,” he said, adding that there had been more Iranian vessels involved this time than in other incidents in the recent past.
Last month, a U.S. military ship fired warning shots after three Iranian vessels came close to it and another American patrol boat in the Gulf.
A 20-year-old Iranian man has reportedly been murdered by family members in the country’s southwest because of his sexual orientation.
Reports from Iran say Alireza Monfared was killed by his brother and cousins earlier this month after they discovered that he had been exempted from military service due to his homosexuality. Some reports suggested he had been beheaded.
Up to three people were said to have been arrested in connection with the killing, which reportedly took place on May 4 near Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan Province.
Monfared’s partner, Aghil Abyat, told RFE/RL that Monfared had been due to travel to Turkey on May 8 to join him.
The BBC reported it had received audio recordings of Monfared saying he was in danger from family members and that he was planning to flee Iran.
Homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran, where sexual minorities have to hide their orientation.
Earlier this year, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran expressed concern over reports that the country has subjected lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) children to “torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.”
Iran has for the first time confirmed that it is holding talks with its bitter regional rival Saudi Arabia, saying that de-escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf is in the interest of both nations and the region.
“There have been talks and they have been about bilateral and regional issues,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said at news conference on May 10.
Khatibzadeh said it was “too soon” to discuss the results, insisting that Tehran has always welcomed talks with the Saudis “in any form and at any level.”
Iraqi President Barham Salih on May 5 said his country had hosted at least two rounds of talks between Iranian and Saudi representatives, calling the discussions “important and significant.”
The talks, said to have taken place in Baghdad last month, were the first high-level meeting between the two sides since Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2016.
Last week, the head of policy planning at Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry told Reuters that it was too early to judge the outcome of the process, which he said was aimed at reducing regional tensions.
The Sunni-ruled kingdom and Shi’ite majority Iran have been locked in a rivalry that has played out in proxy conflicts across the region, from Yemen to Syria.
However, Saudi and Iranian officials have recently softened their language and said they were prepared for reconciliation.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has said Riyadh sought a “good and special relationship” with Tehran if Tehran ended its “negative behavior.”
Analyst say Saudi Arabia appears to be shifting its regional policies in response to the change of administration in Washington, which has brought renewed criticism of Riyadh’s human rights record and regional policies.
Former President Donald Trump pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and generally supported Saudi policies.
But his successor, President Joe Biden, is seeking to revive the international nuclear deal with Iran abandoned by his predecessor, and has signaled impatience with the Saudi-led war in Yemen against Iran-aligned Huthi rebels.
Tehran says it “strongly condemns” a weekend attack on the Iranian Consulate in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala following the killing of a prominent activist.
A “letter of protest” has been handed over to the Iraqi Embassy in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters on May 10.
“It is the international duty of the Iraqi government to protect diplomatic facilities in the country,” Khatibzadeh said, adding that this duty had not met in Karbala on May 9.
That day, dozens of protesters gathered outside the consulate, setting fire to the perimeter wall, a gate, and trailers outside, amid anger over the killing of Ehab Wazni by unknown assailants overnight on May 8 — the latest in a series of attacks on Iraqi activists that protesters blame on pro-Iranian militias.
Security forces reportedly fired live ammunition to disperse the demonstrators gathered at the consulate, leaving at least 10 people wounded.
Wazni was an organizer of anti-government protests that shook Iraq in October 2019. He was also an outspoken anti-corruption activist, as well as an opponent of the influence of Iran-linked militia and Tehran’s influence in Iraq.
Aside from Karbala, his assassination sparked protests elsewhere in the predominately Shi’ite south of Iraq, including in Basra, Nasiriyah, and Najaf.
The popular protests that erupted in October 2019 and lasted for months demanded a complete overhaul of the country’s political structure, an end to endemic corruption, and improved public services. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the protest movement has abated.
The cross-sectarian protest movement also directed its frustration at neighboring Iran and the powerful Iraqi Shi’ite militias tied to it, with protesters attacking the Iranian consulates in Najaf and Karbala.
Iran and Iraq have had close relations since the toppling of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The U.S. Navy said it has seized an arms shipment hidden aboard a vessel in the Arabian Sea.
The U.S. Navy has previously seized weapons in the Arabian Sea believed to be from Iran and intended for Huthi rebels in Yemen.
In a statement on May 9, the U.S. Navy said the source and intended destination of the weapons was under investigation.
“The cache of weapons included dozens of advanced Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles, thousands of Chinese Type 56 assault rifles, and hundreds of PKM machine guns, sniper rifles, and rocket-propelled grenades launchers,” the statement added.
It said the weapons were seized aboard a stateless dhow sailing vessel during a maritime interdiction operation on May 6-7.
Yemen is overflowing with small arms that have been smuggled into poorly controlled ports since the country was plunged into a grinding civil war in 2015.
The conflict pits the Iranian-backed Huthis, who control the capital Sana’a and much of the north and west, against the Saudi-backed government and southern secessionists, which are also locked in competition for power.
The fourth round of talks aimed at reviving the Iran nuclear deal kicked off in Vienna on Friday. Iran’s top negotiator said he believes the US is “serious” about returning to the agreement but that it has not yet offered adequate sanctions relief.
“The information transferred to us from the US side is that they are also serious on returning to the nuclear deal and they have so far declared their readiness to lift a great part of their sanctions,” Iranian negotiator Abbas Araqchi said.
“But this is not adequate from our point of view and therefore the discussions will continue until we get to all our demands,” Araqhi added.
Over in Washington, President Biden was asked if he believed the Iranian side was serious about reviving the JCPOA.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is urging Iranian authorities to release from prison three journalists who it said are being denied appropriate medical care after “almost certainly” catching COVID-19 while in detention.
Baktash Abtin, Reza Khandan Mahabadi, and Kayvan Samimi Behbahani “must be freed at once,” the Paris-based media freedom watchdog said on May 7.
Abtin and Mahabadi are members of the Association of Iranian Writers, which has come under pressure by authorities who have summoned, threatened, and jailed its members.
The three are serving sentences ranging from three to six years in prison on charges including anti-state propaganda and acting against Iran’s security.
The 48-year-old Abtin was transferred to the infirmary of Tehran’s Evin prison on April 4 with a serious pulmonary condition that was confirmed by X-ray, according to RSF.
It said Mahabadi, 59, and Behbahani, 72, also have COVID-19 symptoms and “their condition is also very worrying.”
Behbahani already served six years in prison after a previous arrest in 2009.
Tehran, Iran – On April 25, the Saudi-funded and U.K.-backed “Iran International” released a leaked audio recording of Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, in conversation with Iranian economist Saeed Laylaz for what appeared to be an oral history project. Immediately, the three-hour-plus conversation generated a great deal of controversy in Iran and plenty of commentary abroad. In the course of the conversation, Zarif spoke about his diplomatic posts, before and during the Rouhani administration, and his future political ambitions (or lack thereof). He ruminated on his relationship with President Hassan Rouhani, the late General Qasim Soleimani, and the leader of the Islamic Republic, Sayyid Ali Khamenei. He also highlighted his political philosophy on Iranian sovereignty and on international relations, as he discussed relations with the U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia, among other nations.
The United States has laid out all the concessions it’s prepared to make in order to rejoin the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, a senior administration official said on the eve of a fourth round of talks on bringing Washington and Tehran back into full compliance with the deal.
The official, who spoke to reporters on a conference call on May 6, said Iran shouldn’t expect major new concessions, and success or failure now depends on Iran making the political decision to accept those concessions and to return to compliance with the accord.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview it was unclear whether Iran is prepared to make the decisions necessary to return to full compliance with the agreement.
“They unfortunately have been continuing to take steps that are restarting dangerous parts of their program that the nuclear agreement stopped. And the jury is out on whether they’re prepared to do what’s necessary,” he said in an interview broadcast on May 6 on NBC.
The talks, which are taking place in Vienna, are focused on creating a road map for Washington to lift sanctions on Iran and for Tehran to reinstate restrictions on its nuclear program that were laid out in the original deal.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the head of Iran’s delegation, said after the third round of talks ended on May 1 that Tehran stands by its demand for the United States to lift sanctions across a range of sectors, including oil, banking, and most individuals and institutions.
Araqchi told Iranian media there was progress despite the differences, but European diplomats from the so-called E3 — France, Britain, and Germany — said the talks had moved very slowly.
The talks began last month with senior officials from China, Germany, France, Russia, Britain, and Iran — the remaining parties to the deal – taking part. The United States does not have a representative at the table because it left the deal, but European diplomats are acting as intermediaries between the Iranian and U.S. delegations in Vienna.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he wants the United States to rejoin the deal, which former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, reimposing sanctions against Tehran. Iran responded as of 2019 by breaching many of the deal’s limits on its nuclear activities.
In parallel with the nuclear talks, Iranian media reported last weekend that there was an agreement between Tehran and Washington for the release of prisoners held by each side.
Washington and London have dismissed or downplayed the reports, as well as others that have said the United States is considering unfreezing some Iranian assets.
The latest report on the unfreezing of assets came on May 6 when CNN reported that $1 billion in Iranian funds could be unfrozen for use in humanitarian relief.
The funds would be allocated to the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement, which was set up last year to allow humanitarian to be sent to Iran without violating U.S. sanctions, the report said.
The Iranian funds have been frozen in accounts in the United States and their release could serve as a goodwill gesture, according to sources quoted by CNN. But the plan is facing opposition from some members of Congress who view unfreezing Iranian funds as diminishing U.S. leverage.
It was one of the most sophisticated digital fraud operations in the history of the Internet, by some accounts scamming between $10 million and $30 million over the roughly four years it existed.
Dubbed “Methbot” by security researchers, the operation used thousands of infected computers around the world to falsely inflate web traffic to dummy websites and defraud advertisers. A related, overlapping scam, dubbed “3ev,” used infected residential computers linked to real human users.
This week in a U.S. federal court in New York City, the Russian man accused by U.S. authorities of being a ringleader of the group, Aleksandr Zhukov, went on trial for wire fraud, money laundering, and other charges.
One cybercrime researcher described the setup used to run the Methbot network as “the most costly botnet fraud in history.”
Extradited to the United States after being arrested in Bulgaria in November 2018, Zhukov has pleaded innocent. Seven other people, mainly Russians, have also been indicted.
“The cybercrime in my indictment is just [the] imagination of [the] FBI, and I wish to go to jury,” Zhukov told the U.S. court in April 2019.
The case is the latest example of U.S. law enforcement going after alleged Russian cybercriminals around the world, a trend that has infuriated the Kremlin, which has accused the United States of hunting Russian citizens.
But written into the code of the Methbot case, there’s also technical intrigue: The network of servers that was allegedly used by the hackers has been under scrutiny to determine whether it was used by Russian state-backed hackers, or intelligence agencies, to hack into U.S. political parties
“Differentiating between what is ‘cybercrime’ and what is nation-state activity, such as espionage, is getting increasingly difficult, especially concerning Russia,” Mathew Schwartz, executive editor of the industry journal DataBreachToday, told RFE/RL. “In part, this is because some individuals who have day jobs as government hackers — or contractors — seem to hack the West in their spare time — for fun, patriotism or profit.”
‘Are You Gangsters? No, We Are Russians’
According to U.S. court records, the Methbot scam first took form in September 2014, when Zhukov and five other men from Russia and Kazakhstan allegedly rented more than 1,900 computer servers at commercial data centers in Texas and elsewhere and used them to simulate humans viewing ads on fabricated webpages.
Eventually, the scam grew to include more than 850,000 Internet addresses, supported by hundreds of dedicated servers located in the United States and in Europe, mainly in the Netherlands.
In a September 2014 text message obtained by U.S. investigators and published by prosecutors, Zhukov, who had moved to Bulgaria in 2010, allegedly bragged about the scope of the scheme to another man who was part of the effort: “You bet! King of fraud!”
“Are you gangsters? No, we are Russians,” the other man responds, according to a U.S. transcript.
In December 2016, White Ops, a U.S. cybersecurity company that specializes in digital ad fraud and botnets, published a report that pinpointed much of the technical information about the operation and its financial damages. Those findings were later corroborated by researchers at Google.
Differentiating between what is ‘cybercrime’ and what is nation-state activity, such as espionage, is getting increasingly difficult, especially concerning Russia.”
Methbot, White Ops concluded, “was the largest and most profitable advertising fraud operation to strike digital advertising to date.”
On November 6, 2018, Bulgarian police raided the apartment in the Black Sea port of Varna where Zhukov was living and, with U.S. law enforcement present, questioned, then arrested, Zhukov, seizing his computer hardware and cell phones. U.S. authorities unsealed a 13-count indictment against him and seven other Russian and Kazakh nationals later that month.
Zhukov was extradited to the United States two months later, in January 2019.
Another key player was a Kazakh man named Sergei Ovysannikov, who allegedly was involved in the overlapping botnet scheme called 3ve. The scheme was tied to at least $29 million in fraud and allegedly involved more than 1.7 million infected computers. Because the infected computers were in homes, they were linked to real human beings, making it harder to detect.
“However you want to look at it, from an illicit profit-generating perspective, that counts as super lucrative,” Schwartz said.
Ovysannikov was arrested on a U.S. warrant in Malaysia in October 2018. He later pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court.
Yevgeny Timchenko, another Kazakh national who was also allegedly linked to the 3ve scheme, was arrested in Estonia the same month as Zhukov and later extradited. The other men named in the indictment are still at large, according to U.S. officials.
The Steele Dossier
Though the fraud allegedly committed in the Methbot and 3ve schemes was lucrative, the underlying technologies and infrastructure used have interested security researchers and experts tracking state-sponsored hacking efforts, particularly those involving Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and other countries with developed hacking capabilities.
The complicated setup used to run the Methbot network was extensive and expensive, according to one cybercrime researcher, who described it as “the most costly botnet fraud in history.”
A sizable number of the servers that the Methbot operation rented and utilized were owned and maintained by companies affiliated with XBT Holding S.A., which is owned by a Russian venture capitalist named Aleksei Gubarev.
Russian tech entrepreneur Aleksei Gubarev arrives at the High Court in London in July 2020.
That holding includes a group of web-hosting businesses also known as Webzilla, which has operations in Dallas, Texas, as well as in Russia, and which has specialized in services aimed at Internet advertisers, gaming companies, software developers, and e-commerce businesses. Among its web-hosting domains are DDoS.com, 1-800-HOSTING, and SecureVPN.com.
A series of reports by the McClatchy newspaper network and the Miami Herald documented how major web viruses have spread via XBT’s infrastructure.
While known within the tech industry, Gubarev’s name and his companies burst into wider public view in January 2017 with the publication of a collection of memos written by a former British spy named Christopher Steele.
The memos, which were written in 2016, included salacious, unverified allegations against then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump. It later emerged that the work was commissioned by a Washington law firm on behalf of the Democratic Party.
The collected memos, which had circulated among reporters in Washington but were published first by BuzzFeed, were known as the Steele Dossier.
One memo alleged that XBT/Webzilla and affiliated companies played a key role in the hack of Democratic Party computers in the spring of 2016, which resulted in the leak of e-mails that many believe helped harm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Trump. The memo also alleged Gubarev had been coerced into providing services to Russia’s main domestic security agency, known as the FSB.
Subsequent U.S. intelligence reports and law enforcement indictments blamed the hack on Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the GRU. Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, called the SVR, has been implicated both in that hack and the more recent SolarWinds intrusion of U.S. government and corporate servers.
Gubarev has denied the allegations and sued BuzzFeed in U.S. court for publishing the Steele Dossier. That lawsuit was ultimately thrown out, but during the process, a technical expert who had served as chief of staff of the FBI’s Cyber Division in Washington, D.C., testified on behalf of BuzzFeed’s lawyers.
The expert, Anthony Ferrante, said that Russian cyberespionage groups had used XBT servers to conduct “spear-phishing” campaigns against Democratic politicians, and XBT-owned infrastructure had been used to support Russian state-sponsored cybercampaigns.
Ferrante asserted that the size of the Methbot operation, and the fact that a large number of IP addresses were first added to XBT-affiliated servers in late 2015 and then suddenly shut off in December 2016, meant an XBT employee would have had to do that manually.
That, he said, pointed to the likelihood that XBT managers knew the company’s infrastructure was being used for illegal activity.
“Additionally, the operation was a large scale ‘botnet,’ which is consistent with statements made in the [Steele] Dossier,” Ferrante wrote.
‘Unsung Heroes’
A press spokesman for Ferrante’s Boston-based consulting company declined to comment further on the case.
Gubarev, who reportedly lives in Cyprus, could not be immediately located for comment.
In an e-mail to RFE/RL, however, his U.S. lawyer confirmed that XBT had hosted some of the Methbot operation. But, he said, Gubarev and XBT executives were in fact “unsung heroes” because, he said, they canceled the account and preserved hard drives as evidence.
“The reason that the government is able to make its case now is because of the fast action by Mr. Gubarev and Webzilla,” Val Gurvits, a lawyer based in the Boston suburb of Newton, told RFE/RL.
Gurvits also said that while “bad actors” misused Webzilla’s network, “not a single reputable source found that Webzilla was at fault for any such misuse.”
“The truth is that my clients have always taken extraordinary measures to ensure that its networks are not misused,” he said.
Schwartz, of DataBreachToday, said the Methbot case shows how blurred the line has become between run-of-the-mill online criminal activity and state-sponsored cybercampaigns of the sort used not only by Russian intelligence, but also the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. National Security Agency, and intelligence agencies around the world.
He also said agencies are increasingly using commonly available malware, and even criminal-run infrastructure, as part of “the cybercrime-as-service ecosystem.”
“For spies, using infrastructure built by — and for — criminals makes sense, because it’s more difficult for victims or foreign intelligence agencies to tell if any given activity is criminal or government run,” he said.
Iraqi President Barham Salih says his country has hosted multiple rounds of talks between Saudi and Iranian officials, confirming reports of diplomacy to defuse tensions between the Middle Eastern rivals.
Talks were held “more than once,” Salih told an online discussion by the Beirut Institute think tank on May 5.
He added the discussions were “important and significant,” but provided no further details.
The confirmation of the talks from Salih, a Kurdish politician known to have friendly ties with both the United States and Iran, comes after Saudi and Iranian officials had recently softened their language and said they were prepared for reconciliation.
Analysts say Saudi Arabia appears to be shifting its regional policies in response to the change of administration in Washington, which has brought renewed criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record and regional policies.
Former President Donald Trump pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and generally supported Saudi policies.
But President Joe Biden is seeking to revive the international nuclear deal with Iran abandoned by his predecessor, and has signaled impatience with the Saudi-led war in Yemen against Iran-aligned Huthi rebels.
Iraq has long tried to balance its close economic, political, and security ties with Iran, while expanding relations with Tehran’s Persian Gulf rivals, led by Saudi Arabia.
Baghdad has also sought to avoid becoming a battleground between Iran and the United States, especially after the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. air strike in Baghdad in January 2020 brought the region close to war.
Pakistan on Monday decided to temporarily ban the entry of people from Afghanistan and Iran to Pakistan via land routes, reported local news TV channel.
The ban would be imposed for 16 days from tomorrow May 5 at 6pm to May 20 and no one passenger could be entered in Pakistani territories from Iran and Afghan borders.
Therefore, Pakistani passenger could move from Pakistan to Afghanistan or Iran through the land routes as there would not be a ban on passengers traveling from Pakistan to Iran and Afghanistan.
An Iranian diplomat’s 20-year prison sentence in Belgium for plotting to bomb an opposition rally outside Paris has been confirmed after he dropped plans to appeal.
The confirmation of the sentence came after Vienna-based diplomat Assadolah Assadi dropped his appeal, his lawyers said on May 5.
Assadi was found guilty on February 4 of attempted terrorism after a plot to bomb a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled opposition group, near Paris in June 2018.
Three other defendants also received jail sentences.
The planned attack on the rally was thwarted by a coordinated operation between French, German, and Belgian security services.
The sentence was strongly condemned by the Iranian government, which repeatedly dismissed the charges, saying the allegations by the NCRI, which Tehran considers a terrorist group, are false.
The NCRI is the political wing of the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled opposition group that is seeking to overthrow the Islamic republic.
Prosecution lawyer Georges-Henri Beauthier said in Antwerp on May 5 that there were guarantees from the Belgium state that there would be no swap of Assadi for Western prisoners in Iran. Beauthier cited a separation of powers between justice and political decisions.
“The Belgian government will not discuss [a prisoner swap],” he said.
Assadi’s trial was the first time an Iranian official had been tried for suspected terrorism in Europe since Iran’s 1979 revolution.
Assadi was arrested in Germany before being transferred to Belgium for trial. In its ruling, the Belgium court said he was running an Iranian state intelligence network and was acting on orders from Tehran.
Six United Nations rights experts are calling for the immediate release of imprisoned dissident Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad, who they say is reportedly so ill he risks “serious complications and possible death.”
“We are seriously concerned at the mistreatment of Mohammad Nourizad and his continued imprisonment for expressing his opinion,” the independent UN experts said in a joint statement issued on May 4.
“It is clear that Mohammad Nourizad is not in a medical state to remain in prison,” they said, adding that his continued detention and the denial of adequate medical care “may amount to torture.”
The outspoken Nourizad, who has written and directed several films, has since 2019 been serving a prison sentence totaling over 17 years on charges of allegedly insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Amnesty International.
Nourizad, who has been arrested several times in the past, is among activists who have publicly called for the resignation of Khamenei.
The experts who signed up to the joint statement included the UN special rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Iran; on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of expression; on rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; on the right to physical and mental health; and on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions.
They pointed out that Nourizad had gone on hunger strikes in detention and refused to take medications to protest his imprisonment and his family’s mistreatment by the authorities.
“He has also reportedly attempted suicide in prison, and began to self-harm as a form of protest on February 19,” according to the statement.
This was particularly worrying, it said, since he has been diagnosed with a heart condition and has repeatedly lost consciousness in detention.
He also suffers from diabetes, according to Amnesty International, which last month warned that Iranian authorities were “cruelly toying with the life” of Nourizad.
The UN experts said the filmmaker was transferred to Loghman Hakim Educational Hospital in Tehran on April 14 after fainting, and was injected with a substance he did not know the content of and had not consented to.
They added that the Iranian judiciary’s own legal medical organization and other medical professionals had reportedly found he should be released.
“The Iranian authorities must release him immediately in line with these medical opinions and give him free access to the required medical care and treatment,” they said.
The experts said Nourizad’s treatment reflected that of many detained in Iran for “merely exercising their right to freedom of expression,” including some who have reportedly died due to denial of adequate medical treatment.
“His case is emblematic of the situation many Iranian political activists face in detention,” they said.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry (FDFA) says an employee at its embassy in Iran has died in an accident, which Iranian news agencies said was a fall from a high-rise building just outside of Tehran.
“The FDFA and its head Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis are shocked by the tragic death and express their deepest condolences to the family,” the ministry said in a statement on May 4.
The ministry did not identify the victim, nor did it give details on what happened.
Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi as saying that the victim was the first secretary at the Swiss Embassy, who was found dead after falling from a high-rise building where she lived in Kamranieh, an affluent suburb on the northern edge of the capital, Tehran.
Khaledi said the diplomat’s body was found by a gardener after an employee who arrived at her apartment early on May 4 noticed she was missing.
“The cause of her fall has yet to be determined,” Khaledi told Fars.
The diplomat was 51, the semiofficial news agency ISNA reported. Other reports put her age at 52.
Switzerland has represented U.S. diplomatic interests in Iran since Washington and Tehran cut ties in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab are expected to discuss issues related to Iran during their bilateral meeting on May 3 ahead of the start of a G7 ministers meeting in London.
The United Kingdom currently chairs the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrial countries and is involved in ongoing multilateral efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement that curbed Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
The Blinken and Raab face-to-face meeting also comes amid disputed reports that prisoner swaps and the unfreezing of billions of dollars in assets might be under negotiation between the United States, Britain, and Iran.
Both Washington and London have acknowledged their ongoing efforts to seek the release of nationals held in Iran but avoided linking them to other topics, including mutually held nationals.
The British Foreign Office downplayed Iranian reports on May 2 that a deal had been reached to exchange disputed assets for the release of dual British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in Iran since 2016.
British officials on May 3 suggested the leaked reports were “disinformation” and sought to avoid linking a 400 million-pound ($550 million) historical debt to prerevolutionary Iran to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case.
But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged, “We of course make sure that we do everything we can to look after the interests of Nazanin and all the very difficult dual-national cases we have in Tehran.”
The U.S. State Department on May 2 rejected as “not true” unsourced Iranian reports claiming a deal on a prisoner swap and $7 billion in frozen Iranian assets had been agreed.
Iran is known to be holding at least four Americans: father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi, environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, and entrepreneur Emad Shargi.
The Iranian reports suggested Iranian nationals jailed in the United States might also be part of a deal.
The UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany wrapped up a third round of high-level talks on May 1 focused on bringing the United States and Iran back into full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018.
Prisoner swaps were a feature of the JCPOA nearly six years ago.
Britain has accused Iranian authorities of abuse that “amounts to torture” of a dual national held by Iran for five years, while the United States has rejected an unsourced report that a prisoner swap had been agreed for Westerners held in Iran.
The renewed focus on Westerners held in Iran emerged a day after the parties to a 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran wrapped up a third round of tense talks on May 1 focused on bringing the United States and Iran back into full compliance with the deal.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on May 2 said that dual British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held in Iran since 2016, is being held “unlawfully” and “being treated in the most abusive” way.
“I think it amounts to torture the way she’s being treated, and there is a very clear, unequivocal obligation on the Iranians to release her,” Raab told BBC television on May 2.
Raab spoke by telephone with former charity worker Zaghari-Ratcliffe on April 28, days after her lawyer announced that she had been sentenced to another year in prison in Iran for spreading “propaganda against the system.”
Zaghari-Ratcliffe was already serving a five-year sentence for plotting the overthrow of Iran’s government, a charge that she, her supporters, and rights groups deny.
Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has accused Tehran of holding Zaghari-Ratcliffe as a diplomatic ploy.
Iranian state TV on May 2 quoted an anonymous source as saying a deal had been agreed for the United Kingdom to pay hundreds of millions of pounds for the release of Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
The claims of a prisoner swap came in the hours before a nationally broadcast speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in which he made no mention of such a deal.
The U.S. State Department denied Iranian reports suggesting a deal including a prisoner swap had been made between Washington and Tehran.
“Reports that a prisoner swap deal has been reached are not true,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “As we have said, we always raise the cases of Americans detained or missing in Iran. We will not stop until we are able to reunite them with their families.”
The unsourced reports said four Iranians and “four American spies who have served part of their sentences” would be traded and $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds released.
Iran is known to be holding at least four Americans: father and son Baquer and Siamak Namazi, environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, and entrepreneur Emad Shargi.
Hawks in Iran and the West have opposed U.S. President Joe Biden’s stated aim of rejoining the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal his predecessor Donald Trump abandoned in 2018 to reimpose sanctions on Iran.
Long persecuted by Iran’s Islamic regime, followers of the Baha’i faith in Tehran have now been told they must bury their dead upon the mass graves of political prisoners.
The Baha’i community in the Iranian capital has for years buried its dead in a special section of Tehran’s Khavaran cemetery, near the resting place for hundreds or even thousands of political prisoners who were victims of mass executions in the late 1980s.
Cemetery officials have in recent days reportedly told Baha’is that they are no longer allowed to bury their dead in that section of the cemetery.
Instead, they have been given two choices: they can bury their dead in the narrow space between existing Baha’i graves or use the area where the mass graves are located, says Simin Fahandej, the Baha’i International Community representative to the United Nations in Geneva.
Baha’is find the order unacceptable and want to be able to bury their dead with dignity and according to their religious rules. “With the destruction of many Baha’i cemeteries in the past four decades, Baha’is have experienced the pain caused by disrespect to the deceased and they don’t want others to experience the same pain,” Fahandej said in an interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.
He added that this new pressure from the authorities is part of more than 40 years of state repression and discrimination that Baha’is have faced in Iran since the creation of the Islamic republic.
Victims’ families attend a remembrance ceremony in Khavaran cemetery in Tehran.
History Of Persecution
Baha’is — who number some 300,000 in Iran and have an estimated 5 million followers worldwide — have faced systematic persecution in Iran, where their faith is not officially recognized in the country’s constitution.
Since the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, hundreds of Baha’is have been arrested and jailed for their beliefs. At least 200 have been executed or were arrested and never heard from again — that includes all the members of three National Spiritual Assemblies from 1980 to 1984.
Thousands more have been banned from higher education or had their property confiscated. The community has long had its cemeteries desecrated and its loved ones’ gravestones destroyed.
The latest restriction put on Baha’i burials in Tehran, where most of Iran’s Baha’is live, has also upset the families of the executed political prisoners. They even wrote in an open letter dated April 25 complaining that several new graves had appeared near the site of the mass burials at Khavaran.
“On Friday April 23, while visiting the nameless land of our loved ones, we saw something that was shocking to believe: graves were dug in the mass graves’ site of our loved ones and two Baha’is were also buried in those graves,” said the letter, which was signed by 79 family members of the executed political prisoners.
“It is our right to know the exact burial place of our loved ones,” the letter said, adding that “after being deprived of this right for 40 years, we demand that there won’t be any changes and invasion at this cemetery.”
They also urged the Iranian authorities to refrain from forcing Baha’is to bury their loved ones on the area where the mass graves are located. “Don’t rub salt in our old wounds,” said the letter, addressed to Iranian President Hassan Rohani and Tehran Mayor Piruz Hanachi.
‘Salt In Our Wounds’
In a separate statement, some of the children of the executed prisoners said they opposed “any changes” at Khavaran, calling on the Baha’is not to submit to the order telling them where to bury their dead. “This is not the first time that the Islamic republic has attempted to cover up the remains of its crimes,” the statement said.
Several photos of the purported new graves at Khavaran, including two that had signs and flowers laid on them, have been posted online. The images appeared also to show white lines drawn in the dirt apparently as marks for new graves. RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the images. Reports suggest about 10 new graves have appeared recently at Khavaran’s mass graves’ section.
Amnesty International said in a statement on April 29 that the Iranian authorities had attempted for years to destroy the mass-grave sites of the victims of the 1988 prison executions “in a bid to eliminate crucial evidence of crimes against humanity, denying truth, justice, and reparations to the families of those forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed in secret.”
“As well as causing further pain and anguish to the already persecuted Baha’i minority by depriving them of their rights to give their loves ones a dignified burial in line with their religious beliefs, Iran’s authorities are willfully destroying a crime scene,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The executions of political prisoners were carried out in the last days of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, after the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared that apostates and those who had taken up arms against the Islamic republic were “waging war against God” and should be sentenced to death.
The prisoners were sent to their deaths following very brief interrogations by a small group of state officials, dubbed by prisoners as “death commissions.”
The Iranian establishment has rarely acknowledged the executions while also enforcing a news blackout on the issue. They have also repeatedly harassed family members of the victims who seek answers about their loved ones.
The Baha’i faith is a monotheistic religion whose central figure is Sayyed Ali Muhammad Shirazi, better known as Bab, who was executed in Tabriz by the Persian authorities in 1850. Based on the teachings of Persian religious leader Bahaullah, it considers the founders of various faiths — including Buddha, Jesus Christ, and the Prophet Muhammad — as expressions of God.
The central tenet of Baha’is is to promote a “oneness of humankind” that treats people of different nationalities, races, and classes equally.
Elahe Ravanshad of RFE/RL’s Radio Farda contributed to this story
Embattled Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has apologized for comments he made in a recording that was leaked last week in which he criticized the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the powerful late General Qasem Soleimani.
Zarif wrote on Instagram on May 2 that he hoped Soleimani’s family and the Iranian people would forgive him for the controversial comments.
The leaked recordings have touched off a firestorm in Iran less than two months ahead of a presidential election. On the recording, Zarif criticizes the IRGC’s involvement in diplomacy and charges that Soleimani maintained separate relations with Russia.
He also criticized his lack of influence within the country’s theocratic political system, saying that he was often left in the dark on important foreign-policy decisions.
Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad in 2020 and, since then, has been lionized in Iran as a martyr. Prosecutors in Tehran have launched a criminal investigation into the leak, while hard-liners have accused Zarif of “betrayal” and the “defamation” of Soleimani.
The leaked audio was from an interview with Zarif that was recorded on February 24 as part of an “oral history” series, the interviewer, prominent economist Saeed Laylaz, said in an audio file that was posted online.
Zarif can be heard repeatedly saying his comments are not for publication.
After the disclosure, the Foreign Ministry said the most controversial excerpts were taken out of context from a seven-hour conversation.
Zarif has said he does not plan to participate in the June presidential election. In the past he has been often mentioned as a possible challenger to the hard-line faction.
Russia has long been one of Iran’s closest allies and has consistently supported Tehran at the United Nations. Moscow called the assassination of Soleimani a “reckless step” that threatened regional stability.
On April 28, Zarif posted on Instagram a video of himself visiting the memorial to his “longtime friend” Soleimani in Baghdad. He wrote that he favored a “smart adjustment” between the diplomatic and military spheres in Tehran.
Aggression, in international politics, is commonly defined as the use of armed force against another sovereign state, not justified by self-defense or international authority. Any state being described as aggressive in foreign or international reporting, therefore, is almost by definition in the wrong.
It’s a word that seems easy to apply to the United States, which launched 81 foreign interventions between 1946 and 2000 alone. In the 21st century, the United States has attacked, invaded or occupied the sovereign states of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Despite the US record, Western corporate media overwhelmingly reserve the word “aggression” for official enemy nations—whether or not it’s warranted. In contrast, US behavior is almost never categorized as aggressive, thereby giving readers a misleading picture of the world.
Perhaps the most notable internationally aggressive act in recent memory was the Trump administration’s assassination of Iranian general and political leader Qassem Soleimani last year. Yet in its long and detailed report on the event, the Washington Post (1/4/20) managed to present Iran as the aggressor. The US was merely “choos[ing] this moment to explore an operation against the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, after tolerating Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf for months,” in the Post’s words.
It also gave space to senior US officials to falsely claim Soleimani was aiming to carry out an “imminent” attack on hundreds of Americans. In fact, he was in Iraq for peace talks designed to bring an end to war between states in the region. The Iraqi prime minister revealed that he had invited Soleimani personally, and had asked for and received Washington’s blessing to host him. Trump instead used that information to kill him.
For months, media had been awash with stories, based on US officials’ proclamations, that Iranian aggression was just around the corner (e.g., Yahoo! News, 1/2/20; Reuters, 4/12/19; New York Times, 11/23/19; Washington Post, 6/22/19). The Hill (10/3/19) gave a retired general space to demand that we must “defend ourselves” by carrying out a “serious response” against Iran, who is “test[ing] our resolve with aggressive actions.”
Russia is another country constantly portrayed as aggressive. The New York Times (11/12/20) described a US fishing boat’s mix up with the Russian navy off the coast of Kamchatka as typical Russian aggression, complete with the headline, “Are We Getting Invaded?” The Military Times (6/26/20) worried that any reduction in US troops in Germany could “embolden Russian aggression.” And a headline from the Hill (11/14/19) claimed that “Putin’s Aggression Exposes Russia’s Decline.” In the same sentence that publicized a report advocating that NATO expand to take on China directly, the Wall Street Journal (12/1/20) warned of “Russian aggression.” Suffice to say, tooling up for an intercontinental war against another nuclear power was not framed as Western warmongering.
Other enemy states, such as China (New York Times, 10/6/20; CNBC, 8/3/20; Forbes, 3/26/21), North Korea (Atlantic, 11/23/10; CNN, 8/9/17; Associated Press, 3/8/21) and Venezuela (Wall Street Journal, 11/18/05; Fox News, 3/10/14; Daily Express, 9/30/19) are also routinely accused of or denounced for “aggression.”
Corporate media even present the Taliban’s actions in their own country against Western occupation troops as “aggression” (Guardian7/26/06; CBS News, 11/27/13; Reuters, 3/26/21). The New York Times (11/24/20) recently worried about the Taliban’s “aggression on the battlefield,” while presenting the US—a country that invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and still has not left—as supposedly committed to the “peace process.”
Even as the US has been flying squadrons of nuclear bombers from North Dakota to Iran and back, each time in effect simulating dropping atomic bombs on the country, media have framed this as a “defensive move” (Politico, 12/30/20) meant to stop “Iranian aggression” (Defense One, 1/27/20) by “deter[ring] Iran from attacking American troops in the region” (New York Times, 12/30/20).
In February, President Joe Biden ordered an airstrike on a Syrian village against what the White House claimed were Iran-backed forces. The Department of Defense absurdly insisted that the attack was meant to “deescalate” the situation, a claim that was lamentably uncritically repeated in corporate media, with Politico (2/25/21) writing that “the strike was defensive in nature” and a response to previous attacks on US troops in Iraq. Needless to say, it did not question the legitimacy of American troops being stationed across the Middle East.
That the US, by definition, is always acting defensively and never aggressively is close to an iron law of journalism. The US attack on Southeast Asia is arguably the worst international crime since the end of World War II, causing some 3.8 million Vietnamese deaths alone. Yet in their seminal study of the media, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (Extra!, 12/87) were unable to find a single mention of a US “attack” on Vietnam. Instead, the war was commonly framed as the “defense” of South Vietnam from the Communist North.
Even decades later, US actions in Vietnam are still often described as a “defense” (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 4/29/05; Christian Science Monitor, 1/22/07; Politico, 10/10/15; Foreign Policy, 9/27/17). In a 2018 autopsy of the conflict headlined “What Went Wrong in Vietnam,” New Yorker staff writer Louis Menand (2/26/18) wrote that “our policy was to enable South Vietnam to defend itself” as the US “tried to prevent Vietnam from becoming a Communist state.” “Millions died in that struggle,” he adds, as if the perpetrators of the violence were unknown.
It was a similar story with the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, which was presented as a defense against “Soviet and Cuban aggression in the Western hemisphere” (San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/26/83).
There have only been three uses of the phrases “American aggression” or “US aggression” in the New York Times over the past year. All came in the mouths of Chinese officials, and in stories focusing on supposedly aggressive Chinese actions. For example, at the end of a long article warning about how China is “pressing its territorial claims aggressively” from the Himalayas to the South China Sea, in paragraph 28 the Times (6/26/20) noted that Beijing’s priority is “confronting what it considers American aggression in China’s neighborhood.” Meanwhile, two articles (10/5/20, 10/23/20) mention that Chinese disinformation calls the Korean War the “war to resist American aggression and aid Korea”. But these were written off as “visceral” and “pugnacious” “propaganda” by the Times.
Likewise, when the phrase “American aggression” appears at all in other leading publications, it is largely only in scare quotes or in the mouths of groups long demonized in corporate media, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen (Washington Post, 2/5/21), the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad (Associated Press, 2/26/21) or Saddam Hussein’s generals (CNN, 3/3/03).
The concept of US belligerence is simply not being discussed seriously in the corporate press, leading to the conclusion that the word “aggression” in newspeak means little more than “actions we don’t like carried out by enemy states.”
This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
Aggression, in international politics, is commonly defined as the use of armed force against another sovereign state, not justified by self-defense or international authority. Any state being described as aggressive in foreign or international reporting, therefore, is almost by definition in the wrong.
It’s a word that seems easy to apply to the United States, which launched 81 foreign interventions between 1946 and 2000 alone. In the 21st century, the United States has attacked, invaded or occupied the sovereign states of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Despite the US record, Western corporate media overwhelmingly reserve the word “aggression” for official enemy nations—whether or not it’s warranted. In contrast, US behavior is almost never categorized as aggressive, thereby giving readers a misleading picture of the world.
Perhaps the most notable internationally aggressive act in recent memory was the Trump administration’s assassination of Iranian general and political leader Qassem Soleimani last year. Yet in its long and detailed report on the event, the Washington Post (1/4/20) managed to present Iran as the aggressor. The US was merely “choos[ing] this moment to explore an operation against the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, after tolerating Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf for months,” in the Post’s words.
It also gave space to senior US officials to falsely claim Soleimani was aiming to carry out an “imminent” attack on hundreds of Americans. In fact, he was in Iraq for peace talks designed to bring an end to war between states in the region. The Iraqi prime minister revealed that he had invited Soleimani personally, and had asked for and received Washington’s blessing to host him. Trump instead used that information to kill him.
For months, media had been awash with stories, based on US officials’ proclamations, that Iranian aggression was just around the corner (e.g., Yahoo! News, 1/2/20; Reuters, 4/12/19; New York Times, 11/23/19; Washington Post, 6/22/19). The Hill (10/3/19) gave a retired general space to demand that we must “defend ourselves” by carrying out a “serious response” against Iran, who is “test[ing] our resolve with aggressive actions.”
Russia is another country constantly portrayed as aggressive. The New York Times (11/12/20) described a US fishing boat’s mix up with the Russian navy off the coast of Kamchatka as typical Russian aggression, complete with the headline, “Are We Getting Invaded?” The Military Times (6/26/20) worried that any reduction in US troops in Germany could “embolden Russian aggression.” And a headline from the Hill (11/14/19) claimed that “Putin’s Aggression Exposes Russia’s Decline.” In the same sentence that publicized a report advocating that NATO expand to take on China directly, the Wall Street Journal (12/1/20) warned of “Russian aggression.” Suffice to say, tooling up for an intercontinental war against another nuclear power was not framed as Western warmongering.
Other enemy states, such as China (New York Times, 10/6/20; CNBC, 8/3/20; Forbes, 3/26/21), North Korea (Atlantic, 11/23/10; CNN, 8/9/17; Associated Press, 3/8/21) and Venezuela (Wall Street Journal, 11/18/05; Fox News, 3/10/14; Daily Express, 9/30/19) are also routinely accused of or denounced for “aggression.”
Corporate media even present the Taliban’s actions in their own country against Western occupation troops as “aggression” (Guardian7/26/06; CBS News, 11/27/13; Reuters, 3/26/21). The New York Times (11/24/20) recently worried about the Taliban’s “aggression on the battlefield,” while presenting the US—a country that invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and still has not left—as supposedly committed to the “peace process.”
Even as the US has been flying squadrons of nuclear bombers from North Dakota to Iran and back, each time in effect simulating dropping atomic bombs on the country, media have framed this as a “defensive move” (Politico, 12/30/20) meant to stop “Iranian aggression” (Defense One, 1/27/20) by “deter[ring] Iran from attacking American troops in the region” (New York Times, 12/30/20).
In February, President Joe Biden ordered an airstrike on a Syrian village against what the White House claimed were Iran-backed forces. The Department of Defense absurdly insisted that the attack was meant to “deescalate” the situation, a claim that was lamentably uncritically repeated in corporate media, with Politico (2/25/21) writing that “the strike was defensive in nature” and a response to previous attacks on US troops in Iraq. Needless to say, it did not question the legitimacy of American troops being stationed across the Middle East.
That the US, by definition, is always acting defensively and never aggressively is close to an iron law of journalism. The US attack on Southeast Asia is arguably the worst international crime since the end of World War II, causing some 3.8 million Vietnamese deaths alone. Yet in their seminal study of the media, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (Extra!, 12/87) were unable to find a single mention of a US “attack” on Vietnam. Instead, the war was commonly framed as the “defense” of South Vietnam from the Communist North.
Even decades later, US actions in Vietnam are still often described as a “defense” (e.g., Wall Street Journal, 4/29/05; Christian Science Monitor, 1/22/07; Politico, 10/10/15; Foreign Policy, 9/27/17). In a 2018 autopsy of the conflict headlined “What Went Wrong in Vietnam,” New Yorker staff writer Louis Menand (2/26/18) wrote that “our policy was to enable South Vietnam to defend itself” as the US “tried to prevent Vietnam from becoming a Communist state.” “Millions died in that struggle,” he adds, as if the perpetrators of the violence were unknown.
It was a similar story with the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, which was presented as a defense against “Soviet and Cuban aggression in the Western hemisphere” (San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/26/83).
There have only been three uses of the phrases “American aggression” or “US aggression” in the New York Times over the past year. All came in the mouths of Chinese officials, and in stories focusing on supposedly aggressive Chinese actions. For example, at the end of a long article warning about how China is “pressing its territorial claims aggressively” from the Himalayas to the South China Sea, in paragraph 28 the Times (6/26/20) noted that Beijing’s priority is “confronting what it considers American aggression in China’s neighborhood.” Meanwhile, two articles (10/5/20, 10/23/20) mention that Chinese disinformation calls the Korean War the “war to resist American aggression and aid Korea”. But these were written off as “visceral” and “pugnacious” “propaganda” by the Times.
Likewise, when the phrase “American aggression” appears at all in other leading publications, it is largely only in scare quotes or in the mouths of groups long demonized in corporate media, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen (Washington Post, 2/5/21), the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad (Associated Press, 2/26/21) or Saddam Hussein’s generals (CNN, 3/3/03).
The concept of US belligerence is simply not being discussed seriously in the corporate press, leading to the conclusion that the word “aggression” in newspeak means little more than “actions we don’t like carried out by enemy states.”
