DUBAI: Iran on Tuesday identified the five prisoners it hopes to see freed in the United States in exchange for five Iranian-Americans now held in Tehran and billions in assets once held by South Korea.
The acknowledgment by the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York comes as the Biden administration has issued a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money from South Korea to Qatar without fear of US sanctions.
The moves by both Tehran and Washington appear to signal the prisoner swap is progressing as the money once held in South Korean won is converted into euros and moved to Qatar, where Iran will be able to use it for humanitarian purposes.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Ali Karimi Magham, a spokesman for the Iranian mission, confirmed the list of prisoners that Tehran wants released.
The five sought by the Iranians are:
— Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, an Iranian charged in 2021 with allegedly failing to register as a foreign agent on Iran’s behalf while lobbying US officials on issues like nuclear policy;
— Mehrdad Ansari, an Iranian sentenced to 63 months in prison in 2021 for obtaining equipment that could be used in missiles, electronic warfare, nuclear weapons and other military gear;
— Amin Hasanzadeh, an Iranian and permanent resident of the United States whom prosecutors charged in 2019 with allegedly stealing engineering plans from his employer to send to Iran;
— Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, an Iranian charged in 2021 over allegedly unlawfully exporting laboratory equipment to Iran; and
— Kambiz Attar Kashani, an Iranian-American sentenced in February to 30 months in prison for purchasing “sophisticated, top-tier US electronic equipment and software” through front companies in the United Arab Emirates.
The US State Department declined to comment, citing “the sensitivity of this ongoing process.”
The news website Al-Monitor, relying on a statement from the Iranian mission, first reported the Iranians’ identities on Monday.
On the US side, Washington seeks the release of Siamak Namazi, who was detained in Iran in 2015 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on internationally criticized spying charges; Emad Sharghi, a venture capitalist sentenced to 10 years; and Morad Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who was arrested in 2018 and also received a 10-year sentence.
The fourth and fifth prisoners were not identified. All five are under house arrest at a hotel in Tehran.
US Republicans have criticized the possibility of an exchange, which is under discussion amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West over its nuclear program, as well as a series of ship seizures and attacks attributed to Tehran.
The Pentagon is considering a plan to put US troops on board commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of all oil shipments pass moving out of the Arabian Gulf.
A major deployment of US sailors and Marines, alongside F-35s, F-16s and other military aircraft, is also underway in the region. Meanwhile, Iran supplies Russia with the bomb-carrying drones Moscow uses to target sites during its war in Ukraine.
Iran identifies 5 prisoners it wants from US in swap for Iranian-Americans
https://arab.news/jzbvy
Iran identifies 5 prisoners it wants from US in swap for Iranian-Americans
- Biden administration issued blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money
- Tehran and Washington appear to signal the prisoner swap is progressing
New strikes light up the night in Tehran as Israel vows ‘many surprises’
DUBAI: The Iran war exploded further late Saturday as pillars of flame rose above an oil storage facility in Tehran, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “many surprises” for the next phase of the week-old conflict.
Israel’s military confirmed that it hit the fuel storage facilities in Tehran. Associated Press video showed the horizon glowing against the night sky above Tehran.
It appeared to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war. State media blamed “an attack from the US and the Zionist regime” at the facility that supplies the capital and neighboring provinces in the north.
Meanwhile, Israeli air strikes killed eight people in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese Health Ministry said, and local media reported that an Israeli drone hit a hotel in Beirut, killing four and wounding 10 others.
The Israeli military said early Sunday that it targeted commanders of the Lebanese branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force in Beirut. The deaths come on top of at least 47 others killed in Saturday’s Israeli strikes.
Strikes and drone attacks in Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia also caused havoc and some additional deaths.
Earlier in the day, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian apologized for attacks on “neighboring countries,” even as his country’s missiles and drones flew toward Gulf Arab states and hard-liners asserted that Tehran’s war strategy would not change.
A rift between politicians looking to de-escalate the war and others committed to battling the United States and Israel could complicate any diplomatic efforts. Conflicting Iranian statements came from two of the three members of the leadership council overseeing Iran since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the war’s opening airstrikes.
Pezeshkian, who is a member of the council, also dismissed US President Donald Trump’s call for Tehran to surrender unconditionally, saying: “That’s a dream that they should take to their grave.”
Trump threatened that Iran would be “hit very hard” and more “areas and groups of people” would become targets, without elaborating. Already, the conflict has rattled global markets and left Iran’s leadership weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.
“We’re not looking to settle,” Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One. “They’d like to settle. We’re not looking to settle.”
He described the ongoing US operations in Iran as an “excursion” and said issues such as rising gas prices and the safety of Americans would improve once the conflict ends.
Iran makes varying statements on attacks
Pezeshkian’s message, seemingly recorded in a hurry, underlined the limited powers exercised by the theocracy’s leaders over the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which controls the hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting Israel and other countries. It answered only to Khamenei and appears to be picking its own targets.
Pezeshkian’s statement said Iran’s leadership council had been in touch with the armed forces and “from now on, they should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them, unless we are attacked by those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy.”
The US strikes have not come from the Gulf Arab governments under attack, but from US bases and vessels in the region.
But hard-line judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, another member of the three-man leadership council, suggested that war strategy will not change.
“The geography of some countries in the region — both overtly and covertly — is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue,” he posted on X.
As long as US bases are present in the region, “the countries will not enjoy peace,” Iran’s Parliament speaker and a former Revolutionary Guard general, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on X.
Iran’s UN mission later suggested, without offering evidence, that strikes on nonmilitary sites “may have resulted from interception by US electronic defense systems.”
Late Saturday, top Iranian security official Ali Larijani asserted in an address carried by state media that “our leaders are united on this issue and have no disagreements with one another.”
He also said the leadership council has requested that “arrangements be made” to convene the Assembly of Experts to choose the next supreme leader, but did not say when.
Trump says the Kurds won’t be involved
Trump said he has ruled out having Kurds join the war, even though Kurdish fighters in the region are willing to assist in efforts to topple the Iranian government.
“The war is complicated enough without having ... the Kurds involved,” Trump told reporters.
Days ago, Kurdish officials told the AP that Kurdish-Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq were preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran and that the US had asked Iraqi Kurds to support them.
The US and Israel have targeted Iran’s military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. The war’s stated goals and timelines have repeatedly shifted as the US has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran’s government or elevate new leadership.
The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 290 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six US troops have been killed.
Incoming missiles from Iran had people heading to bomb shelters again across Israel, with no reports of casualties.
Missile lands at US Embassy compound in Iraq
Three Iraqi security officials said a missile landed on the helicopter landing pad in the US Embassy complex in Baghdad. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. An embassy spokesperson declined to comment. There were no reports of casualties.
It was the first reported strike to land in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone since the Iran war began. Iran and allied Iraqi militias have launched dozens of attacks on US military bases and other facilities in Iraq since then.
Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani called the embassy attack a “terrorist act” carried out by “rogue groups.”
Strikes target other Gulf countries
US allies in the Gulf have said the Trump administration did not give them adequate time to prepare for the war.
Hours after Pezeshkian’s apology, the United Arab Emirates said debris from an aerial interception fell onto a vehicle and killed a driver. Four people have now been killed in the UAE since the war began. Authorities have said all were foreign nationals.
Sirens sounded earlier Saturday in Bahrain as Iran targeted the island kingdom. Saudi Arabia said it destroyed drones headed toward its vast Shaybah oil field and shot down a ballistic missile launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts US forces.
In Kuwait, authorities said a wave of drones targeted critical infrastructure, including fuel tanks at Kuwait International Airport and a government building in Kuwait City. At least two people were killed by strikes in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
