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Iran’s Intercepted Weapons Shipment Unloaded in Israel – YouTube – 3/9/2014.
Related: Who is the elite Iranian force behind arms transfers? – Israel News, Ynetnews – 3/7/2014.
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Bill of lading: 40 M-302 rockets, 180 mortar shells, 400,000 7.62 (NATO) rounds.
Iran’s Weapons Shipment Safely in Israel’s Hands • IDF Blog | The Official Blog of the Israel Defense Forces – 3/9/2014.
Related: #IranFail: Iran’s History of Unsuccessful Weapons Smuggling – 3/5/2014.
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On one hand, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani continues to engage the international community in a diplomatic process over Tehran’s nuclear program. He has achieved many successes in a charm offensive designed to rebrand his country as a reasonable and more moderate international player.
Simultaneously, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and its overseas special operation unit, the Quds Force, are strengthening, financing, and arming terrorist organizations all over the Middle East.
Iran’s Two-faced Regime Exposed Again, but is Anyone Paying Attention? (Gatestone)
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Iran, at a glance, has been sewing conflict around the middle east, building its own energy industry, establishing itself as a nuclear power — well, no one has yet stalled that ambition or dampened the regime’s enthusiasm for achieving it — and it illustrates its efforts in blood, or else why release Hezbollah to defend and sustain the brutality of the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad? Against that sweeping influence in regional payola and arms shipments, Israel’s recent interdiction of arms intended for Gaza provides but a glimpse of Ayatollah Khamenei’s greater ambitions as the middle east’s greatest Lord of War.
Additional Reference
Israel to show long-range rockets from ‘Iran arms ship’ – Daily News Egypt
Israel says confiscated rockets had 100-mile range | Fox News
Blog: Giving peace a chance the Iranian way
‘Rows of Iranian rockets’ said found on seized ship | The Times of Israel – 3/9/2014.
Iranian influence, Iraq: US, Iranian influence evolves in Iraq – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 11/28/2013; Ten years after Iraq war began, Iran reaps the gains – Los Angeles Times – 3/28/2013.
Iranian influence, Lebanon: Iran Gloats over Ashes of American Influence « Commentary Magazine – 1/3/2014; Iran Uses Lebanese to Project Its Regional Power | Foundation for Defense of Democracies – 4/11/2013.
Iranian influence, Syria: Iranian Strategy in Syria | Institute for the Study of War – May 2013; Will Iran Use its Political Influence in Syria to Halt the Violence? | Majid Rafizadeh – 1/25/2014; Iran, Syria: Smuggling Weapons to Gain Influence in the West Bank | Stratfor – 8/9/2013; It’s Iran, Stupid – Foreign Policy – 2/12/2014.
Nuclear Deal Only Strengthens Iran As Regional Power | Anav Silverman – 11/25/2013.
Iran nuclear deal may be start of new era in Persian Gulf – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East – 12/1/2013.
Iran’s Flourishing Regional Influence | Science & Diplomacy – 7/15/2013.
Iran Rallies To Salvage Iraq’s Al Maliki Government – 6/4/2012; Iran opposition charges Iraq’s Al Maliki allowing open attacks on Camp Liberty | World Tribune – 2/2/2014: “LONDON ― Iraq has been accused of giving the Teheran regime a free hand to attack the exiled Iranian opposition. / The National Council of Resistance of Iran said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki was allowing Iran to strike the exiled opposition community around Baghdad.” —>
Iraq – 26.12.2013 Missile attack on Iranian dissident Camp Liberty – YouTube – 12/27/2013:
At 21:15 local time Iraq, on December 26, 2013, Camp Liberty was targeted by dozens of missiles of different types. In the early hours 3 members of the Iranian resistance were slain and more than 50 were reported injured, some in critical condition.
This is the fourth missile attack on Iranian dissidents in Camp Liberty (Iraq) in 2013, while the Iraqi government has not yet delivered the bodies of those massacred during the September 1, 2013 attack on Camp Ashraf, to Liberty residents for burial.
While American President Barrak Obama gives diplomacy and peace a chance over Iran’s developing nuclear weapons building potential, Ayatollah Khamenei’s efforts to produce influence and obtain it throughout the region has been also developing unobstructed. With that in mind, Israel’s interception of a lone arms shipment doubtless intended to arm Hamas for the destruction of the Jewish-majority state represents but a small interruption in the Ayatollah’s efforts to turn a large wheel, a wheel that, in fact, has turned.
Related: The Troika: Putin, Khamenei and Assad | Michael Ledeen – 9/11/2013; Ayatollah Khamenei and Vladimir Putin – The Daily Beast – 9/26/2011.
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