Iran’s intelligence and interior ministries pledged on Monday to hold perpetrators accountable for the fatal attack on the Rask police station in Sistan and Baluchistan province last week.
Fridya’s attack was claimed by “Jaish al-Adl”. It left Iranian police officers dead and critically wounded eight others.
Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib said on Monday that security agencies would bring the perpetrators to justice.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said on the sidelines of the meeting of provincial governors in Iran that authorities were “seriously” pursuing the perpetrators of the Rask attack.
Vahidi said investigations indicated the attackers had entered Iranian territory from neighboring Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held a phone call with his Pakistani counterpart Khalil Abbas Jilani on Monday. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has asked Islamabad to identify the perpetrators of the attack, Iranian news firm Mehr reported.
Jalani strongly condemned the attack, expressing Pakistan’s firm commitment to working closely with Iran in confronting terrorism, which is a challenge to regional peace and security.
On Sunday, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the country stands in full solidarity with the government and the people of Iran in the tragedy.
A day after the attack, the Iranian government executed a prisoner convicted of spying for Israel’s Mossad intelligence service in Sistan and Baluchistan. He did not give any major details about the prisoner’s identity or the date of his arrest.
Western powers, as part of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, on Monday accused Tehran of developing ballistic missiles, moving drone payloads to Russia and enriching uranium to an unprecedented 60% for a country without a nuclear weapons program, all in violation. of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. A UN solution that underpins the deal.
Iran and its ally Russia have rejected accusations by Britain, France and Germany, heavily subsidized by the United States, that they withdrew from the agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018.
The six-party agreement was aimed at ensuring that Iran could not develop atomic weapons. Under the accord, Tehran agreed to limit enrichment of uranium to levels necessary for the peaceful use of nuclear power in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
These lively exchanges positioned the Security Council’s biannual assembly on the implementation of its solution underpinning the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Iravani, and Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, blamed the stalemate on the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, Western sanctions and an “anti-Iranian” stance.
Iravani said Iran is allowed to enrich uranium for nonviolent purposes under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and Nebenzia rejected alleged evidence that Iranian drones were in Ukraine.
Then-President Donald Trump said when he unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 that he would negotiate a stronger deal, but that didn’t happen. Iran began to break those situations a year later and its enrichment to 60% is close to weapons. grade levels, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U. N. ‘s nuclear watchdog.
Formal talks aimed at seeking a roadmap to revive the JCPOA failed in August 2022.
At Monday’s council meeting, U. N. political leader Rosemary DiCarlo came under pressure because U. N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres still considers the JCPOA to be “the most productive option to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program remains exclusively peaceful. “
She suggested that Iran back down, as did the three European countries that issued a joint statement quoting the IAEA as saying that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now 22 times the JCPOA limit.
“There is no credible civilian justification for the state of Iran’s nuclear program,” the UK, France and Germany said. “The current trajectory only brings Iran closer to weapons-related capabilities.”
European and U. S. adviser John Kelley said they would use all means to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Looking ahead, Kelley told the council, “Iran will take steps to build foreign confidence and ease tensions and stop its nuclear provocations that pose serious proliferation risks. “
“The United States is fully committed to resolving the international community’s concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear program through diplomacy,” he said. “Unfortunately, Iran’s actions suggest this goal is not its priority.”
Iran’s Iravani said Tehran “has worked persistently to revive the JCPOA” and “is in a position to resume the full implementation of its JCPOA-related commitment once it is revived. “to put into force its obligations as well as “genuine political attention,” he said.
Nebenzia said: “The Russian Federation firmly believes that there is no option for the JCPOA. “
An overnight earthquake killed at least 118 other people in a cold, mountainous region of northwestern China, the country’s state media reported on Tuesday.
Search and rescue operations were underway in Gansu and neighboring Qinghai provinces. The quake injured more than 500 people, severely injured homes and roads, and destroyed lines of force and communication, according to media reports.
The magnitude-6. 2 quake struck near the border between the two provinces, with a relatively low intensity of 10 kilometers (six miles) shortly before Monday, the China Earthquake Network Center said. The U. S. Geological Survey measured the magnitude at 5. 9.
By mid-morning, another 105 people had been killed in Gansu and 397 injured, in addition to 16 in critical condition, Han Shujun, spokesman for the provincial emergency control department, told a news conference. Another 13 people were killed and 182 wounded in Gansu. Qinghai, in a domain north of the epicenter, according to state media. Another 20 people are missing in Qinghai after being buried by a landslide, the China News Service reported.
The quake was felt across much of the surrounding area, adding Lanzhou, the provincial capital of Gansu, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of the epicenter. Photos and videos posted by a student at Lanzhou University showed students running out of an outdoor dormitory and status wearing long puffer jackets over their pajamas.
“The earthquake was too intense,” said Wang Xi, the student who posted the images. “My legs got weak, especially when we ran down from the dormitory. “
The quake struck in Gansu’s Jishishan county, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the provincial boundary with Qinghai. The epicenter was about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) southwest of Beijing, the Chinese capital. There were nine aftershocks by 10 a.m., about 10 hours after the initial earthquake, the largest one registering a magnitude of 4.1, a Gansu official said.
The remote and mountainous region is home to several ethnic groups, mostly Muslim and close to some Tibetan communities. Geographically, it is located in central China, the region is commonly referred to as the northwest as it lies on the northwestern edge of China’s most populous plains.
Tents, folding beds and quilts were being sent to the disaster area, state broadcaster CCTV said. It quoted Chinese leader Xi Jinping as calling for an all-out search and rescue effort to minimize the casualties. The overnight low in the area was minus 15 to minus 9 degrees Celsius (5 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit), the China Meteorological Administration said.
At least 4,000 firefighters and police have been dispatched to the rescue, and the People’s Liberation Army’s Western Theater has established a command post to direct their work.
Han, a spokesman for Gansu, said relief operations were proceeding in an orderly manner and called on others to travel to quake-hit areas to avoid traffic jams that could hamper efforts.
A video posted by the Ministry of Emergency Management showed emergency workers in orange uniforms using rods to try to move heavy pieces of what looked like concrete debris at night. Other nighttime videos distributed by state media showed workers lifting out a victim and helping a slightly stumbling person to walk in an area covered with light snow.
Ma Shijun, a high school student, ran out of his dormitory barefoot, even putting on a coat, according to a report via Xinhua. He added that the strong shaking left his hands a little numb and that teachers temporarily accommodated students on the playground.
CCTV reported that there was damage to water and electricity lines, as well as transportation and communications infrastructure.
Earthquakes are not unusual in the mountainous region of western China that rises to shape the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
In September last year, at least another 74 people were killed in a 6. 8 magnitude earthquake that struck southwestern China’s Sichuan province, triggering landslides and shaking buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where another 21 million people were locked down due to COVID. -19.
China’s deadliest earthquake in recent years was a magnitude 7. 9 in 2008, killing an estimated 90,000 more people in Sichuan. The quake devastated towns, schools and rural communities on the outskirts of Chengdu, and required years of effort to rebuild with more powerful materials.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened “more offensive actions” to repel what he called increasing United States-led military threats after he supervised the third test of his country’s most advanced missile designed to strike the mainland US, state media reported Tuesday.
Kim suggests that he is confident in his developing missile arsenal and will likely continue his weapons-testing activities ahead of the 2024 U. S. presidential election. But many observers say North Korea still wants to conduct more significant tests to prove it has functional missiles. targeting the continental United States.
After witnessing the launch of the Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile on Monday, Kim said the check showed how North Korea might react if the United States took “the resolution that opposes it,” according to the official news agency. Korean.
Kim stressed the need to “never overlook all the reckless and irresponsible military threats of the enemies … and to strongly counter them with more offensive actions,” KCNA said.
The Hwasong-18 ICBM is a developmental, solid-fueled ICBM that is considered North Korea’s most powerful weapon. Its built-in solid propellant makes launches harder for outsiders to detect than liquid-fueled missiles, which must be fueled before liftoffs. But many foreign experts say North Korea still has some other technological hurdles to master to acquire reliable nuclear-tipped ICBMs, such as one to protect warheads from the harsh conditions of atmospheric reentry.
KCNA said the Hwasong-18 missile, introduced at a higher angle toward neighboring countries, traveled a distance of 1,002 kilometers (622 miles) for 73. 5 minutes at a maximum altitude of 6,518 kilometers (4,050 miles) before landing in a domain off North Korea. frontier. Kim expressed “great satisfaction” with the launch, which once again confirmed the reliability of North Korea’s “toughest strategic means of attack. “
This is North Korea’s third Hwasong-18 missile. Their two previous releases took place in April and July.
“Based on his statement, it appears to have been a sign of exercise or developmental control,” said Ankit Panda, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “There’s nothing new here technically, as far as I know at the moment. “At an early stage, however, they are gaining confidence in their new solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile. “
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha University, said the North’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test is an indicator of advances in missile engine technology, but added that there were limits to what North Korea could receive from high-trajectory launches.
“Demonstrating the ailing and reentry functions of warheads would involve provocative launches at greater distances,” Easley said. “Most likely, in the new year, there will be more significant testing, whether technological or diplomatic. “
KCNA said a recent meeting between the United States and South Korea to discuss its nuclear deterrence plan brazenly revealed its goal of conducting joint exercises with a simulated nuclear strike against North Korea.
It referred to the second Nuclear Consultative Group meeting between senior US and South Korean officials Friday. During their meeting in Washington, the two countries agreed to update their nuclear deterrence and contingency strategies and incorporate nuclear operation scenarios in their combined military exercises in the summer, according to officials in Seoul.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol told a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that a “powerful and nuclear alliance between Korea and the United States” would soon be formed.
The Nuclear Advisory Framework is guilty of sharing data on plans for nuclear and strategic operations and joint operations, the United States will retain operational control of its nuclear weapons. The creation of the group was part of U. S. efforts to assuage South Korea’s concerns about North Korea’s provocations while preventing Seoul from preventing its own nuclear program.
Since 2022, North Korea has conducted more than a hundred ballistic missile tests in violation of United Nations bans as part of what foreign experts call an effort to modernize its nuclear arsenal and win greater concessions from the United States. additional foreign sanctions, as China and Russia have blocked efforts across the U. S. and other countries to tighten U. N. sanctions against the country.
The U. S. and South Korea have expanded their militaries and increased transient deployments of resilient U. S. military assets to South Korea.
On Tuesday, South Korea, the United States and Japan began establishing a real-time knowledge-sharing on missile warnings in North Korea and worked on the main points of their trilateral exercises in the coming years, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. The three countries will cooperate tripartitely to address challenging regional situations and promote peace in the region.
North Korea has viewed growing US-South Korea-Japan partnerships as a security threat and sought to boost its own ties with China and Russia in response. North Korea recently faced outside suspicions that it receives sophisticated weapons technologies from Russia in return for supplying conventional arms to support Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Allies’ justified moves of cooperation and data sharing will continue to be the main explanation for why the Kim regime will have more resources and power in its weapons program,” said so Kim, an expert at Virginia-based consulting firm LMI and a former CIA analyst.
“Kim (Jong Un) is clear-eyed about the regional divide between US allies and the trilateral relationship between North Korea, Russia and China,” he said. “So, as Kim continues to raise issues with the US-Japan-Korea trilateral, “He sees the price of forming alliances and expects Beijing and Moscow to serve as a thorn in our side and for his own security and interests. “
The U. N. special rapporteur on human rights in Russia on Monday expressed fear for the fate of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after his legal team and allies reported they had been unable to locate him since contacting him 13 days ago.
Navalny’s allies said he did not appear in court as scheduled on Monday and that they were still by his side in Russia’s vast criminal system.
Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Navalny had scheduled several hearings, some of which were suspended because the unknown whereabouts of the politician who is President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe prevented his participation in the user or video link.
Special rapporteur Mariana Katzarova, an independent expert who reports on human rights in Russia for the UN, said she was “very concerned that the Russian government is not disclosing Mr. Navalny’s whereabouts and what his state of health is after such a prolonged period of time. “
This amounts to an “enforced disappearance,” Katzarova said.
The whereabouts of Navalny, 47, have been unknown since his lawyers lost touch with him after Dec. 6. They believe he is deliberately being hidden after Putin announced his candidacy in Russia’s March presidential election, which the longtime leader is almost certain to win.
“Alexei is Putin’s main opponent, although his call will not appear on the ballot,” Navalny’s spokesman, Yarmysh, told The Associated Press. “They will do everything they can to isolate him. “
Navalny’s team has launched a crusade to inspire Russians to boycott elections or vote for a candidate.
The allies said a defense lawyer said in court on Dec. 15 that Navalny had been transferred from the penal colony east of Moscow where he was serving a 19-year sentence for extremism, but the lawyer did not say where Navalny had been taken.
Yarmysh told the AP that Navalny’s team had written to more than 200 pretrial detention centers and special penal colonies and had checked all detention centers in Moscow to locate the opposition leader.
Although a ruling handed down on Monday suspended the judicial process indefinitely after Navalny could not be located, that does not mean the judicial government will locate him, Yarmysh said.
“The court has abdicated its duty to administer justice,” he said.
Navalny’s allies sounded the alarm after his lawyers were not let into Penal Colony No. 6, the prison about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of Moscow where he was serving his sentence, after Dec. 6. The lawyers also said that letters to him were not being delivered there and that Navalny was not appearing at scheduled court hearings via video link.
Yarmysh said earlier this month that those advances were because Navalny had recently fallen ill and fainted “from hunger. “He said he had been “deprived of food, kept on a mobile without ventilation and spent minimal time outdoors. “
He was due to be transferred to a “special security” penal colony, a facility with the highest security level in the Russian penitentiary system.
Russian prison transfers are notorious for taking a long time, sometimes weeks, during which there’s no access to prisoners, with information about their whereabouts limited or unavailable. Navalny could be transferred to any of a number of such penal colonies across Russia.
Navalny has been held in Russia since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin. Prior to his arrest, he had campaigned against official corruption and organized primary protests against the Kremlin.
Since then, he has been sentenced to three sentences and has spent months in solitary confinement in Penal Colony No. 6 for alleged misdemeanors. He has rejected all charges against him, calling them politically motivated.
President Joe Biden was there on Sunday night after a car collided with an SUV in the motorcade that was part of the president’s security service, a Reuters witness said.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden had just left his campaign headquarters when the collision occurred. Jill Biden was also safe following the incident, the witness said.
The Bidens had left the Biden-Harris 2024 headquarters in rainy downtown Wilmington at 8:07 p. m. (01:07 GMT) after eating with members of their re-election team at the time of the incident, at the White House press group. report.
Moments after Biden answered a reporter’s question, a silver sedan with Delaware license plates crashed into what appeared to be a motorcade SUV protecting the caravan at the intersection in front of the crusade headquarters, according to the group’s report.
Television showed Secret Service agents escorting Biden to his car after the impact.
The silver sedan, which had a broken bumper, was temporarily surrounded by security guards after it stopped. Officers cornered the car and pointed their guns at the driver, who raised his hands.
The Bidens returned safely to their home in Wilmington after the incident, the witness said.
A Syrian national was charged and jailed on Sunday as part of an investigation into a shipwreck in the English Channel last week that claimed the life of a migrant, prosecutors said.
The boy from Syrian Kurdistan, born in 1993, has been charged with murder, intentional endangerment and complicity in and illegal stay, Saint-Omer prosecutor Mehdi Benbouzid said.
He is suspected of piloting a boat carrying about 60 migrants, including children, an allegation he denies, AFP reported.
The second man, suspected of piloting the ship, is still being sought.
The boat left Oye-Plage, east of Calais, on Thursday night and capsized near the town of Gravelines.
One man died and two other passengers are missing, according to the regional maritime authority.
In another incident, the body of another migrant was discovered on Sangatte beach on Friday after a failed attempt to cross the English Channel.
According to the prosecutor’s office, a boat carrying about 70 other people put to sea before returning “after suffering damage to the engine. “
Around 40 other migrants who intended to join the group had remained on the beach at Sangatte.
Police were deployed to the beach and intervened, and a 33-year-old Iraqi man was arrested on Sunday as part of the investigation, according to regional prosecutors.
“The suspect appears to have been preoccupied at the scene of the crossing, but also incited several immigrants to attack police upon returning from the boat,” prosecutors said.
The cause of the victim’s death has not yet been determined.
On Friday alone, 292 migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel on seven boats, according to the UK Home Office’s tally. On Saturday, the migrants arrived in the UK on a single boat.
By the end of November, more than 28,000 people had crossed the English Channel since the beginning of this year, according to British government statistics, up from almost 46,000 for all of last year.
A hacking organization that Iran accuses of having ties to Israel claimed to have carried out cyberattacks on Monday that hit fuel stations in Iran, Iranian state television and local Israeli media reported.
Oil Minister Javad Owji earlier told Iranian state TV that services had been disrupted at about 70% of Iran’s petrol stations and that outside interference was a possible cause.
Iran’s state TV news said the Predatory Sparrow group claimed it was behind the disruption. Israeli local media outlets also reported the claim.
“This cyberattack was carried out in a controlled manner to avoid possible damage to emergency services,” Predatory Sparrow said in its statement, according to Iranian media.
Iran’s civil defense agency, responsible for the country’s cybersecurity, said it was still investigating every conceivable reason for the disruptions during its investigation.
Iranian state media added that the hacker had in the past claimed responsibility for carrying out cyberattacks on Iranian fuel stations, railway networks and metallurgical plants.
Monday’s fuel shortage is the first such incident since 2021, when a primary cyberattack in Iran disrupted fuel sales, causing long lines at gas stations across the country. Gasoline costs at the pump in Iran are heavily subsidized. Iran has accused Israel and the U. S. Unidos. de being the attacks.
The outages began on Monday morning and were severe in Tehran, forcing many gas stations to operate manually, Iranian media reported.
“At least 30% of gas stations are operational, and the rest resolve service disruptions,” Owji said.
Reza Navar, a spokesman for the Iranian Gas Station Association, told the semi-official Fars news firm that the outage was due to a software issue.
“A software factor with the fuel formula has been shown at some stations across the country and lately experts are in the process of solving the problem,” Navar said.
Navar added that there is no shortage of fuel, although he called on drivers not to go to gas stations.
The oil ministry earlier told state TV that the disruption was not linked to plans to increase the price of fuel, a policy that caused widespread protests in 2019 and led to violent repression.
State TV said petrol stations were seeking to provide fuel manually and that it will take at least 6 to 7 hours to resolve the problems.
Israel has yet to comment on the cyberattack in Iran.
Israel’s Cyber Unit said Monday that Iran and Hezbollah attempted a cyberattack on a hospital in northern Israel about three weeks ago. The attack was foiled, but the hackers managed to recover “some sensitive data stored in the hospital’s data systems. “
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) claimed on Sunday that it had discovered non-operational espionage at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny.
In a speech by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
Following the discovery of the device, a criminal investigation was opened at the SSU.
The investigation was opened under an applicable article of the Ukrainian criminal code concerning the “illegal acquisition, sale or use of special technical means for downloading information,” it adds.
As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Zaluzhny is the one who makes the decision on the conduct of fighting on the front, under the command of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In months, Ukrainian and foreign media have reported an escalation of tensions between Zelensky and Zaluzhny after a failed counteroffensive through Ukrainian forces over the summer and the withdrawal of Western support.
Russian forces have introduced daily attacks on parts of Ukraine since Moscow introduced a military invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
The French Foreign Ministry said one of its workers died from wounds sustained in an Israeli attack in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The man was seeking refuge in the house of a colleague from the French consulate alongside two other co-workers and a number of their family members, the ministry statement issued late on Saturday said.
“The space was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday night, which seriously wounded our officer and killed a dozen more people,” he said, adding that he died from his injuries, Reuters reported.
France condemned the bombing of a residential building.
“We call on the Israeli government to address the cases of this attack as soon as possible,” he added.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry declined to provide additional details on the worker’s name, nationality and age.
“We’re waiting for clarification (from Israel),” said French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna shortly after meeting her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
He called for an “immediate truce” between Hamas and Israel to allow for a humanitarian ceasefire.
Israel says it seeks to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, according to international law, though critics and even its closest ally, the US, say it needs to do more.