Gulf and Arabian Peninsula

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.

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.

A senior advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has 

U.S. military officials said on Wednesday that three U.S. Navy ships and a Marine helicopter had an “unsafe and unprofessional” encounter with an Iranian Navy vessel in international waters in the Persian Gulf. The amphibious assault ship U.S.S.

U.S. Secretary Rex Tillerson’s yesterday remarks at a Congressional hearing have drawn angry reactions from Tehran. Tillerson told the House Foreign Relations Committee that the Trump administration has not yet finalized its Iran policy but emphasized that it is determined to counter Iran’s subversive activities in the Middle East. “Well, our Iranian policy is under development. It’s not yet been delivered to the president. But I would tell you that we certainly recognize Iran’s continued destabilizing [role] in the region.