News Digest

December 5 Security: A Revolutionary Guards Navy patrol boat attempted to blind two U.S. Navy ships, sea base platform ship USS Lewis B. Puller and guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans, using a spotlight at night. The Iranian boat came within 150 yards of the ships in international waters in…
November 28 Human Rights: Iran “will have no cooperation” with a U.N. investigation into the crackdown on protesters, foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said. Member states had voted on November 24 to create the fact-finding mission, which Iran alleged was politicized. “We have specific…
November 21 Sports: Members of Iran’s national soccer team remained silent during their national anthem before their match against England’s team at the World Cup in Qatar. The move was widely interpreted as an act of solidarity with protestors in Iran. Team captain Ehsan Hajsafi had offered…
November 14 International: The Revolutionary Guards launched missile and drone attacks on Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in northern Iraq. Iran reportedly hit a Komala Party base near the city of Sulaimaniya as well as four Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan offices near Erbil. At…
November 7 International: Iran summoned Norway’s ambassador over “interventionist comments” by the Norwegian parliamentary speaker in support of Iranian demonstrators. International: London Metropolitan police reportedly warned two British-Iranian journalists of an assassination plot against them…
October 24 International: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that Russia had ordered 2,000 suicide drones from Iran. “The disgusting sound of Iranian drones is heard in our skies every night,” he said. “Iranian instructors came to teach Russians how to use drones.” #UPDATE President…
October 10 Economy: Britain sanctioned Iran’s morality police and several senior security officials involved in the bloody crackdown on protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. The new sanctions “send a clear message to the Iranian authorities — we will hold you to account for your repression…
October 3 Security: The Indian Air Force scrambled jet fighters to intercept an airliner operated by Iran’s Mahan Air headed to Guangzhou, China. The airliner pilot refused to divert to either Jaipur or Chandigarh, but the threat ended up being false. Domestic: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali…
September 19 International: During a hearing, Iran told the International Court of Justice that the United States violated international law by seizing $2 billion from Iranian government bank accounts to compensate 241 victims of the 1983 U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. Sports:…
September 12 Nuclear/Diplomacy: Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Iran’s latest response to the E.U. draft deal on restoring the 2015 nuclear deal was “clearly a step backwards and makes the prospects for an agreement in the near term — I would say — unlikely.” He said that Tehran had…