Khamenei’s protege Jalili edges ahead in tight Iran presidential race – Arab News

Updated 29 June 2024

Reuters

June 29, 2024 02:12

DUBAI: Unidentified gunmen attacked a vehicle carrying election boxes in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province and killed two security force members, Iran’s state media reported on Saturday.

• International scrutiny of Israel’s military operation in Gaza has intensified as the Palestinian death toll from the war has exceeded 37,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the coastal enclave in ruins

Updated 29 June 2024

Reuters

June 29, 2024 00:15

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has sent to Israel large numbers of munitions, including more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles, since the start of the war in Gaza, said two US officials briefed on an updated list of weapons shipments.
Between the war’s start last October and recent days, the United States has transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
While the officials didn’t give a timeline for the shipments, the totals suggest there has been no significant drop-off in US military support for its ally, despite international calls to limit weapons supplies and a recent administration decision to pause a shipment of powerful bombs.
Experts said the contents of the shipments appear consistent with what Israel would need to replenish supplies used in this eight-month intense military campaign in Gaza, which it launched after the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants who killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
“While these numbers could be expended relatively quickly in a major conflict, this list clearly reflects a substantial level of support from the United States for our Israeli allies,” said Tom Karako, a weapons expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding that the listed munitions were the type Israel would use in its fight against Hamas or in a potential conflict with Hezbollah.
The delivery numbers, which have not been previously reported, provide the most up-to-date and extensive tally of munitions shipped to Israel since the Gaza war began.
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since the start of the Gaza war, and concern is rising that an all-out war could break out between the two sides.
The White House declined to comment. Israel’s Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The shipments are part of a bigger list of weapons sent to Israel since the Gaza conflict began, one of the US officials said. A senior Biden administration official on Wednesday told reporters that Washington has since Oct. 7 sent $6.5 billion worth of weapons to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks claimed that Washington was withholding weapons, a suggestion US officials have repeatedly denied even though they acknowledged some “bottlenecks.”
The Biden administration has paused one shipment of the 2,000-pound bomb, citing concern over the impact it could have in densely populated areas in Gaza, but US officials insist that all other arms deliveries continue as normal. One 2,000-pound bomb can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.
Reuters reported on Thursday that the United States is discussing with Israel the release of a shipment of large bombs that was suspended in May over worries about the military operation in Rafah.
International scrutiny of Israel’s military operation in Gaza has intensified as the Palestinian death toll from the war has exceeded 37,000, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the coastal enclave in ruins.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to its longtime ally. While Biden has warned that he would place conditions on military aid if Israel fails to protect civilians and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, he has not done so beyond delaying the May shipment.
Biden’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas has emerged as a political liability, particularly among young Democrats, as he runs for re-election this year. It fueled a wave of “uncommitted” protest votes in primaries and has driven pro-Palestinian protests at US universities.
While the United States provides detailed descriptions and quantities of military aid sent to Ukraine as it fights a full-scale invasion of Russia, the administration has revealed few details about the full extent of US weapons and munitions sent to Israel.
The shipments are also hard to track because some of the weapons are shipped as part of arms sales approved by Congress years ago but only now being fulfilled.
One of the US officials said the Pentagon has sufficient quantities of weapons in its own stocks and had been liaising with US industry partners who make the weapons, such as Boeing Co. and General Dynamics, as the companies work to manufacture more.

• The IPC said that nearly 26 million people — half of Sudan’s population — were facing acute food insecurity with the 755,000 in catastrophic conditions

Updated 29 June 2024

AFP

June 29, 2024 01:35

WASHINGTON: Aid groups are warning that Sudan’s “man-made famine” could be even worse than feared, with the most catastrophic death toll the world has seen in decades, without more global pressure on warring generals.
A UN-backed study said Thursday that 755,000 people are on the brink of starvation in Sudan, a death toll not seen since the 1980s when famine in Ethiopia shocked the world.
Barrett Alexander, the director of programs in Sudan for Mercy Corps, said even that figure could be an underestimate as the conflict has displaced farmers in the country’s agricultural areas, raising fears for the next harvest.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a little bit higher than that number,” he said of the projection by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification initiative, or IPC.
“We’re seeing a man-made likely famine happen in front of our eyes that’s primarily conflict-induced,” Alexander, who is based in Port Sudan, told AFP on a visit to Washington.
The IPC said that nearly 26 million people — half of Sudan’s population — were facing acute food insecurity with the 755,000 in catastrophic conditions, including around the capital Khartoum and Darfur, the scene of a scorched-earth military campaign two decades ago.
Fighting erupted in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces after a plan to integrate them failed, with the warring generals seizing territory.
Alexander said that both sides have imposed cumbersome levels of bureaucracy, including requiring permits of aid workers.
“Getting across the frontlines is nearly impossible,” he said.

Eatizaz Yousif, Sudan country director for the International Rescue Committee, said there have already been accounts of people resorting to eating grass in South Kordofan state.
“Definitely we will be seeing very soon people dying from a lack of food in different parts of the country,” said Yousif, who was also in Washington.
She said that the belligerents have looted food warehouses and harassed or killed humanitarian workers.
“It’s definitely a man-made hunger crisis because we don’t have a problem with the level of grain at this time,” she said.
The United States has been seeking to bring the warring sides back to the negotiating table but has seen little interest, with diplomats saying both sides believe they can win on the battlefield.
The two sides “must negotiate an immediate ceasefire to facilitate predictable and sustained humanitarian access to all Sudanese and remain at the negotiating table to end this conflict,” Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development, said in a statement.
Regional players have increasingly been involved in Sudan, with the United Arab Emirates accused of funneling military support to the Rapid Support Forces, whose fighters helped the wealthy Gulf country in Yemen.
The paramilitaries have also allegedly received support from Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, while Egypt, Turkiye and reportedly Iran have backed the army.
With multiple conflicts in the world, donors have provided only 17 percent of the $2.7 billion sought by the United Nations to help Sudan.
“Compare Sudan with crises like Gaza and Ukraine — maybe they are more important in the geopolitical arena,” Yousif said.
“If you see the number of displaced and the number of humans suffering, Sudan should be on the top of humanitarian attention,” she said.

Updated 29 June 2024

Reuters

June 29, 2024 01:16

DUBAI: Iranians will choose between mostly hard-line candidates in an early presidential election on Friday following the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.
Only six candidates from over 80 hopefuls survived screening by the hard-line Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists which is overseen by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state. Two hard-line candidates dropped out of the race ahead of the election.
The president, who runs the government day-to-day and has a particular responsibility for Iran’s struggling economy, ultimately answers to the Supreme Leader.
Following are brief sketches of three hard-liners and one moderate candidate for the upcoming election:

MOHAMMAD BAQER QALIBAF
A former Iran Revolutionary Guards commander and ally of Khamenei, Qalibaf is the current speaker of the hard-line-dominated parliament. He previously ran unsuccessfully for president twice and was compelled to withdraw from a third bid in 2017 to prevent a divided hard-line vote in Raisi’s initial failed presidential attempt.
In 2005, Qalibaf resigned from the Guards to run for president. Following his unsuccessful campaign, he assumed the position of Tehran mayor with the supreme leader’s endorsement, a role he occupied for 12 years.
In 2009, Qalibaf took credit as Tehran mayor for helping suppress months of bloody unrest that rocked the establishment after a presidential vote that opposition candidates said was rigged to secure hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
To civil rights activists, he is known as someone who crushed protests as national police chief, personally beating demonstrators in 1999, and also played an active role in repressing unrest in 2003. Qalibaf did not reply to a request for comment on those allegations.

SAEED JALILI
Jalili is a hard-line diplomat who lost his right leg in the 1980s when fighting for the Guards in the Iran-Iraq war. Holder of a PhD in political science, Jalili has declared being a pious believer in Iran’s “velayat-e faqih,” or rule by supreme jurisprudence, a system of Islamic government that provides the basis for Khamenei’s position.
Appointed by Khamenei, Jalili served as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for five years from 2007, a position that automatically made him chief nuclear negotiator. Jalili also served for four years in Khamenei’s office and was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2013 presidential election.
A former deputy foreign minister, Jalili was appointed by Khamenei in 2013 as a member of the Expediency Council, a body that mediates in disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council.

MASSOUD PEZESHKIAN
An Iranian lawmaker of Azeri ethnicity, Pezeshkian is the only moderate candidate approved by the Guardian Council and backed by the pro-reform camp. His prospects depend on attracting millions of disillusioned voters who have stayed home in elections since 2020.
A physician by profession, Pezeshkian served as the health minister under reformist President Mohammad Khatami from 2001 to 2005 and has held a seat in parliament since 2008.
Pezeshkian has been vocal in his criticism of the Islamic Republic for its lack of transparency about the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman in 2022 that sparked several months of unrest.
Pezeshkian was barred from the 2021 presidential election.

MOSTAFA POURMOHAMMADI
The only cleric in the race, Pourmohammadi served as interior minister during the first term of hard-line former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from 2005 until 2008.
He was deputy intelligence minister from 1990 to 1999, and rights groups have alleged that he played a role in the assassinations inside Iran of several prominent dissident intellectuals in 1998. He has not commented on the allegations but an Intelligence Ministry statement in 1998 said: “A small number of irresponsible, deviant and rogue agents of the ministry who were most likely puppets of others committed these assassinations that were in the interest of foreigners.”
Human Rights Watch, in a 2005 report, documented Pourmohammadi’s alleged role in the execution of hundreds of political prisoners in the Iranian capital in 1988.
Pourmohammadi has never publicly addressed allegations about his role in a so-called “death committee” in 1988 comprising religious judges, prosecutors and intelligence ministry officials that oversaw the executions.

Updated 59 min 30 sec ago

Reuters AFP

June 28, 2024 23:25

DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi militant group on Friday claimed responsibility for attacking a Liberia-flagged vessel in the Red Sea that a maritime agency said had survived five missiles, while also saying they targeted three other vessels including two in the Mediterranean.
The Iran-aligned Houthis say their attacks on shipping lanes are in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and the militant Islamist group Hamas.
Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesperson, said in a televised statement that the group launched ballistic missiles at the Delonix, an oil tanker, and that it took a “direct hit.”
However, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) monitor said earlier in the day that the ship, which was targeted 150 nautical miles (172 miles) northwest of the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, reported no damage and was heading northward.
Saree also said the Houthis attacked the Ioannis ship in the Red Sea, as well as the Waler oil tanker and the Johannes Maersk vessel in the Mediterranean.
He said the Johannes Maersk, which is owned by Maersk , the world’s second-largest container carrier, was targeted because it belongs to “one of the most supportive companies for the Zionist entity and the most that violates ban decision of access to the ports of occupied Palestine.”

Also on Friday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said American forces operating in waters off Yemen have destroyed seven drones and a control station vehicle in Houthi-controlled areas over the past 24 hours.

The strikes were carried out because the drones and the vehicle “presented an imminent threat to US coalition forces, and merchant vessels in the region,” the US Central Command said in a statement on X.

The statement did not react to the Houthis’ claims. In a previous post on X dated June 24, CENTCOM reported that the Trans World Navigator, a Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk cargo carrier, was hit in a Houthi drone attack and the crew reported minor injuries.

The United States and Britain have carried out strikes in Yemen aimed at degrading the rebels’ ability to carry out attacks, while there is also an international military effort to intercept drones and missiles fired at ships.

“These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure,” CENTCOM said.

“This continued malign and reckless behavior by the Iranian-backed Houthis threatens regional stability and endangers the lives of mariners across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.”

International shipping has been disrupted since November by attacks in the region launched by the Houthis. Many vessels have opted to avoid the Red Sea route to the Suez Canal, taking the longer journey around the southern tip of Africa instead.