PARIS: France has banned flights in and out of the country by Iran’s Mahan Air, accusing it of transporting military equipment and personnel to Syria and other Middle East war zones, diplomats said on Monday, after heavy US pressure on Paris to act.
The decision to revoke Mahan’s license to operate in France was made after Germany banned the airline in January.
Paris had considered revoking its license more than two years ago under the presidency of Francois Hollande, but had backed down because it feared it could harm relations just after a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was signed in 2015.
The United States imposed sanctions on Mahan Air in 2011, saying it provided financial and other support to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and Washington has been pressing its European allies to follow suit.
“We knew of their activities from our own intelligence services and after the German move it was a question of credibility,” said a French diplomatic source.
The French ban on the airline, which had four flights a week to Paris from Tehran, takes effect from April 1. The airline’s website is no longer taking reservations and calls to its offices in Paris were not answered.
Tensions between Paris and Tehran have grown in recent months as President Emmanuel Macron and his government have become increasingly frustrated with Iran’s ballistic missile tests, regional activities and a foiled attack on an Iranian exile group in France, which Paris says Iranian intelligence was behind.
Both countries only reappointed ambassadors to each other’s capitals last month after more than six months without envoys.
There are no plans at this stage to ban another airline — Iran Air — said one diplomat.
Mahan Air, established in 1992 as Iran’s first private airline, has the country’s largest fleet of aircraft and has flights to a number of European countries, including France, Italy, Spain and Greece.
European countries have been under sustained US pressure to reimpose sanctions on Iran since President Donald Trump last year pulled Washington out of an international nuclear non-proliferation treaty reached with Tehran under his predecessor Barack Obama.
Along with Iran, the other signatories to the deal — Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China — are still trying to keep it alive and set up in January a mechanism to allow trade with Tehran and circumvent US sanctions.
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France bans Iran’s Mahan Air for flying arms, troops to Syria, elsewhere
France bans Iran’s Mahan Air for flying arms, troops to Syria, elsewhere
- The ban will become effective starting April 1
- The airlines were also banned by Germany since January
FBI fires more agents who worked on Trump classified document investigation
WASHINGTON: The FBI has fired additional agents who worked on an investigation into President Donald Trump, this time terminating employees who participated in the probe into the Republican’s hoarding of classified documents, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
The firings are part of a broader personnel purge under the leadership of Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee who, over the last year, has pushed out dozens of employees who either contributed to investigations of the president or who were perceived as not in alignment with the administration’s agenda. The Justice Department has engaged in similarly sweeping firings of prosecutors since Trump took office last year.
The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings as unlawful and endangering national security.
“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals — ultimately putting the nation at greater risk,” the association said in a statement.
The latest round of terminations included employees who helped investigate Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, a case that involved a high-profile FBI search of the Florida property and resulted in a federal prosecution charging the now-president with holding onto top-secret records from his first term in office and obstructing government efforts to get them back.
The firings were confirmed to The Associated Press by multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on anonymity because they could not publicly discuss the personnel moves. Several of the people said a total of 10 employees were fired, and one said at least 10 were fired.
The FBI has also fired agents who participated in a separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That investigation also led to criminal charges, but like the Mar-a-Lago case, was abandoned by special counsel Jack Smith after Trump won the White House in November 2024 because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
The firings were revealed on the same day that Patel was quoted as telling Reuters the FBI during the Biden administration had subpoenaed his phone records and those of current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Patel said the action had occurred in 2022 and 2023 when they were private citizens.
Patel was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in 2022 to testify before a grand jury in Washington in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and appeared after being given immunity, the AP has previously reported.
The firings are part of a broader personnel purge under the leadership of Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee who, over the last year, has pushed out dozens of employees who either contributed to investigations of the president or who were perceived as not in alignment with the administration’s agenda. The Justice Department has engaged in similarly sweeping firings of prosecutors since Trump took office last year.
The FBI Agents Association condemned the firings as unlawful and endangering national security.
“These actions weaken the Bureau by stripping away critical expertise and destabilizing the workforce, undermining trust in leadership and jeopardizing the Bureau’s ability to meet its recruitment goals — ultimately putting the nation at greater risk,” the association said in a statement.
The latest round of terminations included employees who helped investigate Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, a case that involved a high-profile FBI search of the Florida property and resulted in a federal prosecution charging the now-president with holding onto top-secret records from his first term in office and obstructing government efforts to get them back.
The firings were confirmed to The Associated Press by multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on anonymity because they could not publicly discuss the personnel moves. Several of the people said a total of 10 employees were fired, and one said at least 10 were fired.
The FBI has also fired agents who participated in a separate investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That investigation also led to criminal charges, but like the Mar-a-Lago case, was abandoned by special counsel Jack Smith after Trump won the White House in November 2024 because of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
The firings were revealed on the same day that Patel was quoted as telling Reuters the FBI during the Biden administration had subpoenaed his phone records and those of current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Patel said the action had occurred in 2022 and 2023 when they were private citizens.
Patel was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors in 2022 to testify before a grand jury in Washington in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and appeared after being given immunity, the AP has previously reported.
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