Iran on Monday denounced as “illegitimate” new sanctions by the United States on its ballistic missile program, days after Tehran’s landmark nuclear deal with world powers came into effect.

“Iran’s missile program has never been designed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, according to the ISNA news agency.

He added that Tehran saw fresh economic sanctions as “illegitimate.”

The United States announced new penalties Sunday related to Iran’s ballistic missile program after the lifting of punishing measures aimed at its atomic activities.

“As previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran… responds with determination to such propaganda by accelerating its legal ballistic missile program and boosting defense capabilities,” Ansari said.

The Treasury Department said Sunday that it was imposing the penalties against 11 firms and individuals based in the United Arab Emirates that had helped provide secret materials to Iran to develop their ballistic missile program, against a United Nations Security Council resolution.

“Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to international sanctions,” said Treasury Undersecretary Adam J. Szubin, according to a statement from the department. “We have consistently made clear that the United States will vigorously press sanctions against Iranian activities outside of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — including those related to Iran’s support for terrorism, regional destabilization, human rights abuses, and ballistic missile program.”

The Treasury said it was imposing penalties against a network of six companies based in the UAE and China, as well as five Iranian individuals.

The network “obfuscated the end user of sensitive goods for missile proliferation by using front companies in third countries to deceive foreign suppliers,” according to a Treasury statement.

The moves came as the US, Iran and five other nations marked the end of years of negotiations with the implementation of the nuclear deal, which, proponents say, will keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, in exchange for sanctions relief.

In remarks shortly before the US announcement, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said that any new American sanctions would be “met by an appropriate response.”

Under the deal, though, the UN arms embargo on the country continues, as do ballistic missile restrictions.

However, Iran has test-launched ballistic missiles on at least one occasion since the nuclear deal was reached last July. Israel and other nations called on the US to take action against Iran after the tests, which broke a 2010 UN Security Council resolution, but the US hadn’t followed through on pledges to impose penalties. Washington also offered no response to an Iranian navy rocket fired near a US warship in the Strait of Hormuz.

The implementation of the nuclear deal is expected to pave the way for a new economic reality in Iran, now freed from harsh international sanctions.

More than $30 billion in assets overseas will become immediately available to the Islamic Republic. Iran’s Central Bank Governor, Valiollah Seif, was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying that Iran will not transfer the cash and instead will use it to import the goods it needs. Official Iranian reports have set the total amount of frozen Iranian assets overseas at $100 billion.

A European oil embargo on Iran will end. Already, some 38 million barrels of oil are in Iran’s floating reserves, ready to enter the market, according to the International Energy Agency.

timesofisrael.com

At least 20 people have been killed and 15 others injured in an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition on a building used by police in the capital of Yemen, security officials said.

The officials, who are loyal to anti-government Shiite rebels known as the Houthis, said another 30 people are believed to be still trapped under the debris of the badly damaged building in central Sanaa.

Police vehicles parked in the facility’s courtyard were destroyed and nearby homes suffered some damage, they said.

The dead and wounded were policemen and Houthi rebels, they said.

Security forces sealed off the area as earth-moving equipment arrived to help with the search for bodies and survivors under the debris.

The building was partially used as a gathering point for security forces and on occasion used by the Houthis as an assembly point for forces headed to deployment elsewhere in Yemen.

The air strike happened shortly before midnight on Sunday, according to the officials, who gave no further details. Reporters were barred from approaching the facility, they said.

The Saudi-led coalition began air strikes against the Houthis and their allies in March 2015, siding with the internationally recognised government.

Meanwhile, the Integrated Regional Information Networks (Irin), a Nairobi-based humanitarian news agency, has announced the death of one of its contributors in Yemen.

In a statement, it said 35-year-old Almigdad Mohammed Ali Mojalli was killed on Sunday just outside Sanaa in an “apparent” air strike.

Mojalli also contributed from Yemen to Western media outlets, including Voice of America and Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, said the statement.

The fighting in Yemen has, since last March, killed more than 5,800 people.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

The Islamic State (IS) is now selling the properties left by Christians in Mosul, attempting to cope with its financial crisis.

After the US-led coalition started targeting IS financial sources, including oil fields and banks, the jihadist group is facing new challenges to fund its military and administrative activities inside its territories.

According to the information obtained by BasNews, IS jihadists have lately put Christian’s properties on sale across several western neighbourhoods of Mosul, in Northern Iraq.

International news agencies revealed that 400 houses, 19 commercial buildings and 167 shops have so far been sold by the jihadist group.

After crossing the Syrian border into Iraq in June 2014 and taking control of Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul, IS insurgents forced non-Muslim residents of the city either to leave or pay the extremist group for s tax for living inside their territories.

However, hundreds of Christians and Yazidis were executed without having any other choice.

basnews.com

Supporters of Daesh militant group, who fled Daesh-occupied territories are among Syrian refugees in the camps near the Syrian-Jordanian border, Jordanian Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Mohammad Momani said.

On Sunday, Momani held a press conference regarding country’s policy toward accepting refugees. He was asked a question about the future of some 12,000 Syrian refugees from camps across the Syrian-Jordanian border.

“Jordan maintains its open door policy…[but] we do have security concerns, and this group specifically came from the far northeast of Syria, areas that are controlled by Daesh,” Momani said on Sunday, as quoted by The Jordan Times newspaper, adding that there were Daesh supporters and even members of the group among the refugees.

He added that Jordan took the issue of its security very seriously.

Syria has been engulfed in a civil war since 2011, with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting against opposition factions and extremist groups such as the Daesh, which is prohibited by many countries, including Russia and the United States.

The internal conflict have already made more than 4,6 million refugees flee Syria to neighbouring countries, including more than 630,000 of them to Jordan, according to UN data.

trend.az

With Iran on track to receiving access to about $30 billion of $100 billion in assets previously frozen by sanctions, Russian journalist and military analyst Alexander Sitnikov pondered just how much of the released funds may be spent on upgrading the country’s defense capability, including its tank forces.

An Iranian reform website accused the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution’s intelligence in Iran for preparing and directing the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

The website “Kalima” published that the planted agents accused by the authorities for standing behind the attacks, are actually affiliated to the Guardians leaders of the Islamic Revolution and the Basij.

The aforementioned website, marked out the attention towards web portals associated with the Guardians’ intelligence calling upon war against Saudi Arabia, only days before the attacks on the embassy took place, that, in addition to the Guardians’ media inciting against Saudi Arabia rallying the Iranian public opinion over the past couple of months.

According to “Kalima”, the government accusing the planted agents for standing behind internal events happening in Iran, is always promoted by those who wish to hide their partaking in the events.
On the other hand, the proceedings coincide with the government trying to lift the years-old economic sanctions, by closing in the deal on the nuclear agreement with Western countries.

However, drastic political parties and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard concur on refusing the agreement, but yet do not agree on the reasons, while the Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei keeps silent; choosing not to take sides.

Expert on Iranian affairs and PHD holder, Fathi al-Moraghi, sees that drastic parties in Iran and the Guardians refuse the agreement for different reasons. Drastic parties consider that Iran has been able to accomplish several achievements over the past decades, and thus must bear with the economic standing regardless of its severity.

As for the Guardians, right after the agreement with the West has reached the peak, it was published that Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Army of the Guardians, said that “some outlining parts have clearly breached red limits in the Islamic Republic, especially on what has to do with Iranian military powers, which is something we will never accept”.

aawsat.com

Islamic State militants have killed 300 people in an “appalling massacre” in eastern Syria.

Most of those killed in day-long attacks on Deir el-Zour were elderly people, women and children.

The killings are some of the worst carried out by the extremist group, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq.

Opposition activists also confirmed the killings. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents all sides of the Syria conflict through activists on the ground, said at least 135 people were killed.

It said around 80 of them were soldiers and pro-government militiamen, while the rest were civilians.

The group added that many of the victims were shot dead or beheaded.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Islamic state militants killed dozens of people execution style in attacks on government-held areas in Syria’s city of Deir al-Zor on Saturday, a source and a monitoring said.

Islamic State fighters killed at least 250 people, including pro-government fighters and their families when they attacked the neighbourhoods of Begayliya and Ayash in the city.

He said some of the casualties were beheaded.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the violence in the country through a wide network of local sources, said the militants killed dozens. “We have 60 people confirmed killed, but the number is big. The details are hard to get so far but the deaths are in dozens,” the Observatory’s head Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.

The Observatory said earlier that at least 35 soldiers and pro-government fighters were killed in the attacks.

A Syrian source said the group “committed a massacre among the civilians.”

He said the army repelled the attacks and killed a large number of the attackers.

“They sent six suicide bombers first and they tried to break into military positions but they failed.”

The Observatory said that the hardline group fighters had infiltrated the northwestern side of the city and carried out several attacks.

Islamic State group is in control of most of the eastern province while the government is holding parts of the city including a military airport.

Deir al-Zor province links Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa with territory controlled by the group in Iraq.

Government-held areas in the city had been under siege by Islamic State fighters for more than a year and more than 200,000 people there are living in dire conditions lacking food and medicine.

The Syrian source said that the group has been trying to attack the city almost on daily basis and on Saturday it carried out several assaults.”

Islamic state supporters on social media said the group had also captured an army weapons depot and seized tanks.

Reuters was unable to independently verify these reports.

The Observatory also said that unknown warplanes carried eight air strikes on the city of Raqqa killing at least 16 people and wounded 30 others.

reuters.com

Media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday the killing of the so-called ISIS Mufti in the area of al-Muhammadi, along with eight of his aides, during an aerial bombardment by the Iraqi Air Force in the province of Anbar.

The officials said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “Based on information by the Military Intelligence Directorate, the air force carried out an aerial strike resulting in the death of the so-called ISIS Mufti, Ahmed Jasim Hamadi al-Bilawi, along with eight of his aides, in the area of al-Muhammadi in Anbar Province.”

iraqinews.com