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Russia has every right to sell arms to Iran, its defense minister said on Wednesday, responding to mounting criticism of a $1 billion deal announced last week. The United States, calling Iran a "state sponsor of terror", said selling weapons to the Islamic Republic did not help the Middle East. "This deal, this contract is absolutely legitimate. Like it or not, it's our affair. There are plenty of things we don't like either," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said in comments shown on NTV television.

Iran and Russia signed an agreement Tuesday to expand military ties in a visit to Tehran by the Russian defense minister. Sergei Shoigu, in remarks carried by Russian news agencies, said Moscow wants to develop a "long-term and multifaceted" military relationship with Iran. He said that the new agreement includes expanded counter-terrorism cooperation, exchanges of military personnel for training purposes and an understanding for each country's navy to more frequently use the other's ports. Iran's Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan urged greater cooperation as a means of opposing American ambitions in the region. Moscow and Tehran have staunchly supported Syrian President...

BEHIND THE LINES: The US administration appears to fail to notice the broader alliance taking shape behind these forces, and the interconnectedness of the current assault on the West. The statement by US President Donald Trump that Iran would be held responsible for continued attacks by the Yemeni Houthi movement on shipping in the Red Sea sharply raises the temperature in the ongoing escalation between US forces and the Yemeni Shi’ite Islamist movement in that area. “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership...

Russian President Vladimir Putin scolded the West on Thursday for playing what he cast as a "dangerous, bloody and dirty" geopolitical game, but said the United States and its allies would ultimately have to talk to Russia. "Power over the world is what the so-called West has put on the line in its game - but the game is dangerous, bloody and I would say dirty," Putin told the Valdai Discussion Club. "The sower of the wind, as they say, will reap the storm."

Gore's, Talbott's Red Russian roots How they 'Hammer'-ed out Washington-Moscow policy Posted: October 3, 2000 Loutchansky's name surfaced again last year, when the Washington Post revealed that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's two brothers, Tony Rodham and Hugh Rodham, were involved in a $118 million scheme to grow and export hazelnuts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Their partner in the venture was Aslan Abashidze, who said his financial adviser was Loutchansky. Abashidze is a reputed member of a Russian organized crime family.The Rodham brothers at first balked and then agreed to national security adviser Sandy Berger's request that...

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was a "true friend" to Russia and was admired both at home and abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a message on Monday, after it was confirmed that Raisi died in a helicopter crash a day earlier. Raisi "was rightly highly respected by his compatriots and enjoyed great prestige abroad," Putin said in a condolence message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that was released by the Kremlin. "As a true friend of Russia, he made an invaluable personal contribution to the development of good neighbourly relations between our countries and made great efforts...

Russian President Vladimir Putin phoned Iran's new interim president on Monday as Moscow made clear its desire to preserve and build on its deepening relationship with Tehran despite the sudden death of President Ebrahim Raisi. The Kremlin said Putin expressed his condolences to interim president Mohammad Mokhber and to the whole Iranian people over Raisi's death in a helicopter crash, describing Raisi as a "reliable partner who made an invaluable personal contribution" to bilateral relations. "Both sides emphasised their mutual desire to further consistently strengthen comprehensive Russian-Iranian interaction for the benefit of the peoples of the two countries," the Kremlin...

In a conversation with the First Vice President, the special assistant to the Russian President stated that, by Putin's order, two advanced aircrafts with special helicopters and 50 professional mountain rescue personnel will be dispatched to Tabriz, Iranian media reported on Sunday overnight.

An Israeli missile attack that killed a senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force in Syria last week has sparked criticism of the military partnership between Russia and Iran. On 25 December, Seyyed Reza Mousavi, a key figure in shaping Iran's military presence in Syria, was killed in a missile strike on his residence in the Zainabiyah neighbourhood of Damascus. Although it wasn't the first time that Israel had targeted Iranian forces in Syria, this incident has drawn attention to Russia's failure to deploy its advanced S-300 anti-missile defence system in support of Iran, its primary...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a number of serious counterintelligence failures over the years. Last month, Iran and Russia, a close ally of the Islamic regime, signed a pact that should assist it as it attempts to reform its counterintelligence. The Islamic Republic of Iran has an extensive and complex intelligence apparatus. Its two most important intelligence institutions are the Ministry of Intelligence (MOI) and the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). A third key intelligence organization is the IRGC’s Intelligence Protection Organization, which operates independently of the Corps’s intelligence arm and deals...

President Donald Trump has been criticized by the media and by Beltway politicians of both parties for his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday. But the summit has already produced a very significant win: namely, agreement to avoid a war in the Middle East by restraining Iran in Syria. As Breitbart News columnist Caroline Glick noted last month, it was crucial that Trump confront Putin over Syria, because Russia was about to allow Iranian and Hezbollah soldiers, dressed in Syrian uniforms, to move into southwestern Syria along the border with Israel and Jordan.

That is what makes a real tragedy of then-FBI director Mueller's apparent willful blindness in allowing his FBI to be slow-rolled in making a case against Russian criminals who were moving yellow-cake uranium (U1) out of U.S. control and safeguards. The radioactive half-life of uranium products being processed into reactor rods is four million years. Breathe it in and die. So when Robert Mueller was selected as special counsel, he knew what he had done -- even if the yellowcake crimes had not yet been made public. An honorable man would have turned down the assignment. Furthermore, his connection to...

Under the terms of the Iranian nuclear sellout, the United Nations Security Council must approve the sale of certain conventional weapons to Iran. Since the United States has a veto in the Security Council, this means that the United States can veto such sales. It was recently announced that Iran intends to purchase the latest Sukhoi-30 warplanes from Russia. Those warplanes would need to be approved by the Security Council under the terms of the nuclear sellout. But under questioning before the House Foreign Affairs Committee by Representative Brad Sherman (D-Ca) on Thursday, Secretary of State Kerry refused to...

Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan arrived in Moscow this week at the head of a large military delegation and laid before President Vladimir Putin and his Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu a $14 billion check. Now, make our Revolutionary Guards Corps and regular forces into an up-to-the-minute war machine, he said. The plan to make over and upgrade Iran’s military was first approved by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is to be paid for with funds released by newly lifted sanctions against the Islamic Republic. The ayatollah aspires to rebuild the two branches – the IRGC with...

BEIRUT – The former head of an elite unit in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as another top general have been killed in Syria, days after one of the country’s leading officers was killed in the war-torn country. “General Farshad Hasounizad, defender of the Sayyeda Zeinab Shrine and former commander of the Saberin Brigade, was killed in Syria,” a reporter in the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) wrote in a post on his Instagram account Tuesday afternoon. The Saberin Brigade is a special forces unit of the IRGC formed in 1998 to serve as a...

The Orthodox Christian Church, which is reclaiming its traditional role in post-Soviet Russia, has described its government’s fight against the Islamic State and other jihadi groups in Syria as a “holy war.”According to Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Church’s Public Affairs Department, The fight with terrorism is a holy battle and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it. The Russian Federation has made a responsible decision on the use of armed forces to defend the People of Syria from the sorrows caused by the arbitrariness of terrorists. Christians are suffering in the region...

We attempted to cut through all of the Western and Russian media propaganda on the way to describing what Moscow’s involvement in Syria actually portends for the global balance of power. Here are a few excerpts that summarize what’s taking shape in the Middle East: Putin looks to have viewed this as the ultimate geopolitical win-win. That is, Russia gets to i) expand its influence in the Middle East in defiance of Washington and its allies, a move that also helps to protect Russian energy interests and preserves the Mediterranean port at Tartus, and ii) support its allies in Tehran...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday said he supported Russian efforts to fight Islamic State militants in the Middle East, including Syria.</p>

Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. "The Russians are no longer advising, but co-leading the war in Syria," one intelligence official said. The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran's proxies throughout the Middle East including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Intelligence sources told Fox News that -- in addition to the previously reported arrival of nearly 50 Russian marines, 100 housing units and armored vehicles...

MOSCOW (AP) — Iran has granted permission for Russian planes to fly over its territory en route to Syria, Russian news agencies said Wednesday, a bypass needed after Bulgaria refused overflights amid signs of a Russian military buildup in Syria that has concerned the U.S. and NATO. The news agencies quoted Maxim Suslov, spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Tehran, as saying it has received Iranian permission for Syria-bound flights. After Bulgaria rejected Moscow's overflight request for Sept. 1-24, a path via Iran and Iraq appeared to be the only one left, as Russia apparently sought to avoid flying over...