Analysis

William F. Wechsler has joined the Middle East Institute as a senior fellow on national security and counterterrorism. Wechsler previously served at the U.S. Department of Defense as deputy assistant secretary for special operations and combating terrorism, and before that as deputy assistant secretary for counternarcotics and global threats.

On Tuesday, a senior Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) official refuted claims by Saudi Arabia that it had detained three I.R.G.C. members plotting attacks against the kingdom. “The claim lacks any value … and looks more like a joke,” General Rassoul Sanaeerad, the deputy I.R.G.C. head for political affairs, said in an interview with Tasnim News Agency. He claimed Riyadh was fabricating the allegations for psychological warfare purposes against Iran.

An American aircraft today shot down an Iranian-made armed drone approaching U.S.-led coalition forces in southern Syria, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to boost its relations with African countries, President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday in a meeting with Benin’s new ambassador to Tehran Naim A

On Sunday, the Iranian military said it had launched six missiles at Islamic State positions in Syria in retaliation for the June 7 attacks in Tehran claimed by the terrorist group. A statement by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) confirmed that it fired medium-range missiles from bases in the western Iranian provinces of Kermanshah and Kurdistan and killed a “large number” of Islamic State terrorists in Syria’s Deir Az Zour province.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Charles Lister, Alex Vatanka, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and Gerald Feierstein provide analysis on eastern Syria as a new hotbed of geopolitical competition, Iranian responses to the Islamic State attack, additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and renewed Saudi succession speculation.

Read the full article on Foreign Policy.

The Iranian Parliament said in a statement today that the missile strikes

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) announced today that its ground forces have killed the ringleader of a Sunni militant group in Iran’s restive province of Sistan and Baluchestan.

Russia’s claim to have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike in Raqqa on May 28 should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. At the time in question, the U.S.-led Syrian Democratic Forces (S.D.F.) were only days away from launching their final assault on the city and there’s no logical reason imaginable why Baghdadi would have risked staying in a surrounded, sitting target. Notwithstanding justified doubts surrounding Baghdadi’s then presence in Raqqa, Russia’s statement also says its strike killed another 330 ISIS fighters – which is almost certainly an absurd claim.

Iranian-supported Shiite militia forces in Iraq and Syria have finally linked up along the shared border between the two countries, Fars News Agency reports.

Iranian officials on Friday reacted angrily to the latest U.S. Senate decision to impose new sanctions against Iran. Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said the Senate bill was a violation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – the nuclear accord Iran signed with the United States and five other world powers in July 2015. “The U.S.

Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, has strongly criticized U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comments about a peaceful transition of power in Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said new U.S. sanctions would not force Tehran to halt its missile program. The ministry’s spokesman argued that Iran’s missile program does not violate the 2015 nuclear deal or the U.N. resolution that endorsed the agreement.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian war, Turkey has become a critical conduit for international humanitarian operations and life-saving economic support to approximately three million Syrian refugees. Turkey’s decision to restrict various international NGOs from operating within its territory is now disrupting crucial provisions to those in both northern Syria, and inside its own borders.