Iran Update, May 26, 2023
Saudi media reported Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) is preparing to target US forces in Syria, which likely misrepresents the threat LH poses.
Iran has increasingly engaged in prisoner exchanges with Western countries in recent weeks, likely to signal its willingness to resume nuclear negotiations. Iran could be signaling its interest in nuclear diplomacy to preempt US or Israeli military action against its nuclear facilities.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-may-26-2023
ISLAMISTS AGAINST ISLAMISTS Taliban attack Iran
Taliban fighters and Iranian border troops fought heavy fighting on the Iran-Afghan border near the city of Zabol on Saturday and Sunday.
Videos on social networks show Taliban fighters with assault rifles, pick-up trucks and attached machine guns. Under machine gun fire, the Taliban approach a fortified facility and shell the Iranian border posts entrenched there. They responded with mortar shells, among other things. There were reported deaths on both sides.
The province in the south-east of the country is one of the poorest in Iran. The population there suffers even more than in other parts of the country from the mismanagement of the mullahs’ regime. In order to alleviate the drought in eastern Iran, the regime is trying to claim more water from the Hilmend River: Tehran is referring to an agreement between the two countries from 1973, although the governments in Iran and Afghanistan have since been taken over by hostile Islamists. The dispute over the water from the Hilmend has led to mutual accusations between the Islamist regimes in Tehran and Kabul in recent weeks; last week the foreign ministers of both sides announced that the dispute had been settled.
For the Iranian mullah regime, not only the water supply in the region is a threat to its rule: a large part of the population in the border region are Sunni Baloch, who have been brutally oppressed by the ruling Shiite mullah regime for decades.
videos:
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1662745858004197376
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1662733238509481984
https://twitter.com/GeneralLinda8/status/1662678316313133056
Iran Update, May 30, 2023
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted airstrikes on at least two joint Syrian Arab Army-Lebanese Hezbollah positions in southwestern Syria on May 28, which is unlikely to prompt an Iranian-directed attack on US forces in Syria.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is preparing to launch artillery into Iraqi Kurdistan, likely as part of a short-term military conflict against perceived Israeli threats from the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.
Iranian and Afghan border guards engaged in a brief and lethal clash near the Malik-Zaranj border crossing on May 27, which Iran is unlikely to escalate to a larger armed conflict.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-may-30-2023