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DUBAI: The US Navy seized over 2,100 assault rifles from a ship in the Gulf of Oman it believes came from Iran and were bound for Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, a Navy spokesman said Tuesday. It was the latest capture of weapons allegedly heading to the Arab world’s poorest country.The seizure last Friday happened after a team from the USS Chinook, a Cyclone-class coastal patrol boat, boarded a traditional wooden sailing vessel known as a dhow. They discovered the Kalashnikov-style rifles individually wrapped in green tarps aboard the ship, said Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet.The Chinook, along with the patrol boat USS Monsoon and the guided missile destroyer USS The Sullivans, took possession of the weapons. They resembled other assault rifles previously seized by the Navy, suspected to be from Iran and heading to Yemen.“When we intercepted the vessel, it was on a route historically used to traffic illicit cargo to the Houthis in Yemen,” Hawkins told The Associated Press. “The Yemeni crew corroborated the origin.”The Yemeni crew, Hawkins added, will be repatriated back to a government-controlled part of Yemen.A United Nations arms embargo has prohibited weapons transfers to the Houthis since 2014, when Yemen’s civil war erupted.Iran has long denied arming the Houthis even as it has been transferring rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and other weaponry to the Yemeni militia using sea routes. Independent experts, Western nations and UN experts have traced components seized aboard other detained vessels back to Iran.Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition armed with US weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in March 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting has pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.A six-month cease-fire in Yemen’s war, the longest of the conflict, expired in October despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. That’s led to fears the fighting could again escalate. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen during the conflict, including over 14,500 civilians.There have been sporadic attacks since the cease-fire expired, though international negotiators are trying to find a political solution to the war.In November, the Navy found 70 tons of a missile fuel component hidden among bags of fertilizer, also allegedly from Iran and bound to Yemen.
TEHRAN: Iran’s judiciary has ordered police to “firmly punish” people who violate the country’s hijab law, a news agency reported Tuesday, after nearly four months of deadly protests against the measures. Demonstrations have swept Iran since the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic Kurd, after her arrest in Tehran for allegedly failing to adhere to the law. Since the outbreak of the protests, the morality police unit charged with enforcing the hijab rules has been less visible and women have taken to the streets without mandatory headscarves. But authorities signalled less tolerance since the start of the year, with police warning that women must wear headscarves even in cars. On Tuesday, Mehr news agency reported that the prosecutor general had issued a directive in which “police were ordered to firmly punish any hijab violations.” “Courts must sentence the violators, as well as fine them, to additional penalties such as exile, bans on practicing certain professions and closing workplaces,” it quoted the judiciary as saying. Iran has executed four people over the protests sparked by Amini’s death in the custody of the morality police. Another 13 have been sentenced to death, and six have been granted retrials. Authorities say hundreds of people, including security personnel, have been killed and thousands arrested in connection with the protests, which they generally describe as “riots.” In recent weeks the judiciary has closed several cafes and restaurants for serving bare-headed women.
GENEVA: The UN human rights chief said that the death penalty was being weaponized by Iran’s government to strike fear into the population and stamp out dissent, saying the executions amounted to “state sanctioned killing.” “The weaponization of criminal procedures to punish people for exercising their basic rights – such as those participating in or organizing demonstrations — amounts to state sanctioned killing,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement, saying the executions violated international human rights law. Iran hanged two men on Saturday for allegedly killing a member of the security forces during nationwide protests and more have since been sentenced to death. The UN Human Rights office has received information that two further executions are imminent, the statement said.
ABU DHABI: South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol will visit the UAE on Saturday, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported. During the visit, the South Korean President will meet his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to discuss bilateral relations and ways to enhance cooperation. “The two leaders will also review regional and international issues of common interest,” read the WAM statement. Yoon Suk Yeol will attend the World Future Energy Summit as part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and visit key development projects during his trip. He will also hold talks with several UAE state officials, reported WAM.
DUBAI: The activist daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been sentenced to five years in prison, her lawyer said on Tuesday. The lawyer did not give detail of the charges against Faezeh Hashemi. But Tehran’s public prosecutor indicted Hashemi last year on charges of “propaganda against the system,” according to the semi-official ISNA news agency. State media in September reported she had been arrested for “inciting riots” in Tehran during protests triggered by the death of a young Kurdish woman in police custody. The demonstrations have posed one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s clerical rulers since the 1979 revolution.
“Following the arrest of Ms. Faezeh Hashemi, she was sentenced to five years in prison but the sentence is not final,” defense lawyer Neda Shams wrote on her Twitter account. In 2012, Faezeh Hashemi was sentenced to jail and banned from political activities for “anti state propaganda” dating back to the 2009 disputed presidential election. Her father died in 2017. Former president Rafsanjani’s pragmatic policies of economic liberalization and better relations with the West attracted fierce supporters and equally fierce critics during his life. He was one of the founders of the Islamic Republic.LONDON: Pope Francis has called for the preservation of the historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem, the Palestinian News and Information Agency has reported.
During his annual meeting with the diplomatic corps accredited to Vatican City on Monday, Pope Francis expressed concern about the rise in violence in Jerusalem.
He said that Jerusalem belongs to the three monotheistic religions — Islam, Judaism and Christianity — and noted that it should be a forum for peace rather than a theater of conflict.
He hoped that the Palestinian and Israeli sides would resume direct talks to realize the two-state vision, in line with international law and relevant UN resolutions.
Palestine’s Ambassador to the Holy See, Issa Kassissieh, conveyed President Mahmoud Abbas’ greetings to the pope during the meeting, and urged him to continue praying for justice and peace in Jerusalem, as well as the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
