America-Iran

US Launches Airstrikes Against Iran-Backed Militia in Iraq

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has said that President Trump had given him the “authority to do what we need to do consistent with his guidance if that becomes the case.”

The US on Thursday launched airstrikes in Iraq on five weapons storage facilities connected to the Iran-backed Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah. The group is believed to be responsible for the attacks on the Taji military base in Iraq a day earlier, the Pentagon said.

“The United States conducted defensive precision strikes against Kataib Hezbollah facilities across Iraq,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “These weapons storage facilities include facilities that housed weapons used to target the US and coalition troops.”

Three personnel from the US-led coalition in the country were killed in the rocket attacks on Wednesday.

According to an Iraqi military statement, the strikes hit four different locations of the country’s paramilitary forces, police and army around 1:15 am local time.

Also read: Three to Tango: With the US Looming Large, India-Iran Ties Over the Years

The areas hit included Jurf al-Sakher, Al-Musayib, Najaf and Alexandria, where the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Units, as well as emergency regiments and commandos of the Iraqi army, are stationed.

An airstrike also hit an airport that was under construction in Karbala, an airport official told Reuters.

Earlier on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that President Donald Trump had given him the “authority to do what we need to do consistent with his guidance if that becomes the case.”

“The United States will not tolerate attacks against our people, our interests, or our allies,” Esper said. “As we have demonstrated in recent months, we will take any action necessary to protect our forces in Iraq and the region.”

The article first appeared on DW. Read the original here.

In Next Nuclear Steps, Iran Threatens to Restart Centrifuges, Ramp Up Enrichment

Washington has imposed sanctions that eliminate any of the benefits Iran was meant to receive in return for agreeing to curbs on its nuclear programme under the 2015 deal with world powers.

Geneva/Dubai: Iran threatened on Monday to restart deactivated centrifuges and sharply step up its enrichment of uranium to 20% purity as its next potential big moves away from a 2015 nuclear agreement that Washington abandoned last year.

The threats, made by the spokesman for Iran‘s nuclear agency, would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken in the past week to nudge its stocks of fissile material just beyond limits in the nuclear pact.

That could raise serious questions about whether the agreement, intended to block Iran from making a nuclear weapon, is still viable.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran‘s Atomic Energy Organisation, confirmed an announcement that Tehran had enriched uranium beyond the 3.67% purity that the deal allows, passing 4.5%, according to the student’s news agency ISNA. That followed an announcement a week ago that it had amassed a greater quantity of low-enriched uranium than permitted.

Iran has said it will take another, third step away from the deal within 60 days but has so far held back from formally announcing what that next step would entail.

A display featuring missiles and a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is seen at Baharestan Square in Tehran, Iran September 27, 2017. Picture taken September 27, 2017. Photo: Nazanin Tabatabaee Yazdi/TIMA via Reuters/Files

Kamalvandi said the authorities were discussing options that included the prospect of enriching uranium to 20% purity or beyond, and restarting centrifuges that were dismantled as one of the deal’s core aims.

“There is the 20% option and there are options even higher than that but each in its own place,” Kamalvandi said, according to state television. Restarting IR-2 and IR-2 M centrifuges was an option, he said.

Such threats will put new pressure on European countries, which insist Iran must continue to comply with the agreement even though the US is no longer doing so.

Centrifuges

Washington has imposed sanctions that eliminate any of the benefits Iran was meant to receive in return for agreeing to curbs on its nuclear programme under the 2015 deal with world powers. The confrontation has brought the US and Iran close to the brink of conflict, with President Donald Trump calling off air strikes last month minutes before impact.

Enriching uranium up to 20% purity would be a dramatic move, since that was the level Iran had achieved before the deal was put in place. It is considered an important intermediate stage on the path to obtaining the 90% pure fissile uranium needed to make a bomb.

One of the main achievements of the deal was Iran‘s agreement to dismantle its advanced IR-2M centrifuges, which are used to purify uranium. Iran had 1,000 of them installed at its large enrichment site at Natanz before the deal was reached. Under the deal, it is allowed to operate only up to two for mechanical testing.

Still, the threatened measures also appear intended to be sufficiently ambiguous to hold back from fully repudiating the deal. Kamalvandi did not specify how much uranium Iran might purify to the higher level, nor how many centrifuges it would consider restarting. He did not mention other more advanced centrifuges, including the most advanced, the IR-8.

The nuclear diplomacy is only one aspect of a wider confrontation between Washington and Tehran that has threatened to spiral into open conflict since the US sharply tightened sanctions on Iran from the start of May.

Last month, President Donald Trump ordered US air strikes on Iran, only to call them off minutes before impact. Washington’s European allies have been warning that a small mistake on either side could lead to war.

European dilemma

The nuclear agreement guaranteed Iran access to world trade in return for accepting curbs on its nuclear programme. Iran says the deal allows it to respond to the US breach by reducing its compliance, and it will do so every 60 days.

Also read: Iran Says Talks With US Depend on Khamenei’s Permission, Lifting of Sanctions

“If signatories of the deal, particularly Europeans, fail to fulfil their commitments in a serious way, the third step will be stronger, more decisive and a bit surprising,” foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Monday.

The new US measures in place since May are intended to bar Iran from all oil exports and have succeeded in effectively pushing Iran out of mainstream oil markets.

European countries do not directly support the U.S. sanctions, but have been unable to come up with ways to allow Iran to avert them. Britain, one of Washington’s main European allies, was drawn deeper into the confrontation last week when it seized an Iranian tanker it says was bound for Syria, in violation of separate EU sanctions on Syria.

Despite tough talk from Washington and Tehran, there are no signs that either side was prepared for a full-blown conflict.

“As repeatedly announced before, Iran doesn’t seek war against any country but it has well learned how to defend itself,” Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

(Reuters)

US Deploying Carrier, Bombers to Middle East in Warning to Iran: John Bolton

Amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran, Bolton said the decision was “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

Washington: The United States is deploying a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East to send a clear message to Iran that any attack on US interests or its allies will be met with “unrelenting force,” US national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday.

Amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran, Bolton said the decision was “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

“The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or regular Iranian forces,” Bolton said in a statement.

It marked the latest in a series of moves by President Donald Trump’s administration against Iran in recent weeks.

Washington has said it will stop waivers for countries buying Iranian oil, in an attempt to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero. It has also blacklisted Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Also read: The US-Iran Conflict Is Heading Towards a Point of No Return

The Trump administration’s efforts to impose political and economic isolation on Tehran began last year when it unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal it and other world powers negotiated with Iran in 2015.

“The United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the US Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” Bolton said.

Bolton, who has spearheaded an increasingly hawkish US policy on Iran, did not provide any other details.

A US official said the forces “have been ordered to the region as a deterrence to what has been seen as potential preparations by Iranian forces and its proxies that may indicate possible attacks on U.S. forces in the region.”

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States was not expecting any imminent attack on US forces.

(Reuters)