Saudi soldiers from an artillery unit fire shells towards Yemen from a post close to the Saudi-Yemeni border, in southwestern Saudi Arabia, on April 13, 2015 (AFP photo).
WW3
WW3 Middle East Update: Russia, Iran, Armenia, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Israel.
Iran, Russia Call for Unified Effort to Combat Terrorism
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called for a united front in the fight against terrorism. Zarif made the remark during a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in the Russian capital. The summit could be critical in solving some of the common regional threats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXuQ94kM6E0
FM Lavrov: Russia to deliver S-300 missiles to Iran soon
Russia says it will soon deliver S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran.
Sergei Lavrov says the delivery is being prepared and will happen shortly. The top Russian diplomat made the comments following a meeting with his visiting Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Moscow. Iran and Russia signed a nearly eight-hundred-million dollar contract for the delivery of five battalions of S-300 missile systems in 2007. But it was frozen following a UN Security Council resolution against Iran. Nearly two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order to lift the ban on the much-awaited delivery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZlRprSyX5g
Armenia to sell Iran gas pipeline to Gazprom
Armenia will sell its section of an Iranian gas export pipeline to Russia’s Gazprom, Deputy Energy Minister Ara Simonian has said.
The takeover of the 41-kilometer-long pipeline, however, will not allow Gazprom to “mess with” gas imports from neighboring Iran, Simonian said.
The decision leaves Moscow in full control of natural gas supply routes to Armenia. Gazprom delivers 2 billion cubic meters of gas a year to the ex-Soviet state and has a monopoly on supply and distribution in the country.
Iran’s 450 million cubic meters per year of gas exports to Armenia in exchange for electricity are just a quarter of Gazprom’s supplies.
For payment, Armenia provides Iran with three kilowatts per hour of electricity for every cubic meter of gas it receives.
In March, Energy Minister Armen Movsisian said Armenia planned to increase its imports of gas from Iran to 2 billion cubic meters per year, an increase of nearly 75 percent.
Gazprom, which controls Armenia’s entire gas pipeline system and furnishes most of the country’s gas, has not reacted to the announcement.
In 2007, the state-controlled Russian energy company forced Armenia to limit the diameter of the 140-kilometer-long gas pipeline from Iran to forestall the possibility of re-exports to Europe.
According to Iranian Ambassador to Yerevan Mohammad Raeesi, the price of gas offered by Iran to Armenia where one-third of the population of roughly 3 million people live in poverty is “incomparably low”.
Iran sits on the world’s second largest proven gas reserves after Russia, estimated above 41 trillion cubic meters.
The country exports 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year — 90% of which goes to Turkey under a 25-year agreement, with the rest swapped with Azerbaijan and Armenia for gas and electricity.
Iran currently produces about 166 billion cubic meters of gas per year, which is mostly used at home. To put it in perspective, Russia exports about 150 billion cubic meters of gas a year.
The country has also an agreement to export 35 million cubic meters per day of gas to Iraq which officials say is about to start.
Managing Director of the National Iranian Gas Company Hamid Reza Araqi has said the exports would begin this month.
There are further plans in the works to export Iranian natural gas to Oman and Kuwait.
Pres. Assad: Turkish govt. using terrorism as tool against Syrians
Syrian president Bashar Assad has accused his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using terrorism as a tool against Syrian people.
Assad made the accusation in a meeting with a visiting delegation of the Armenian-Syrian Friendship Group. He said the Turkish president QUOTE represents Ottomans who committed massacres against Armenians a hundred years ago. The Syrian president also warned against the spread of terrorism in the world. Assad stated that Damascus and Yerevan face the same challenges and dangers. Tachat Vadapetyan, who leads the delegation, said Armenian people stand by Syrians in their fight against terrorism. Media reports indicate that Turkey has provided patronage for ISIL terrorists infiltrating into the Syrian territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXCjatc_R9s
Syrian pres.: Turkish pres. represents Ottomans who massacred Armenians
Syrian president Bashar Assad has accused his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using terrorism as a tool against Syrian people.
Assad made the accusation in a meeting with a visiting delegation of the Armenian-Syrian Friendship Group. He said the Turkish president QUOTE represents Ottomans who committed massacres against Armenians a hundred years ago. The Syrian president also warned against the spread of terrorism in the world. Assad stated that Damascus and Yerevan face the same challenges and dangers. Tachat Vadapetyan, who leads the delegation, said Armenian people stand by Syrians in their fight against terrorism. Media reports indicate that Turkey has provided patronage for ISIL terrorists infiltrating into the Syrian territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWUqRJ4Oki8
Hezbollah recaptures Wadi Darb, Rahwe southwest of Lebanese town of Arsal
Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has made fresh gains against Takfiri terrorists along the Syrian border.
Hezbollah fighters recaptured the area of Wadi Darb and Rahwe checkpoint southwest of the Lebanese border town of Arsal. Wadi Darb was previously used by terrorists in Syria as a hub to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. Hezbollah also purged more than 15 positions from terrorists north and south of Arsal’s outskirts on Wednesday. The Lebanese resistance movement has been engaged in fierce battles against terrorists in the border areas with Syria since last year. Hezbollah Leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed that the offensive will continue until the country’s border is secure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYXNSuA7KWg
Iraqi airstrikes destroy 2 bomb factories used by ISIL
Iraqi army warplanes have targeted two bomb-making factories used by ISIL in the Western Anbar province.
Iraqi defense ministry says airstrikes destroyed the factories in the city of Hiit and killed dozens of Takfiri terrorists. In an operation in Salahuddin province, Iraqi joint forces secured routes linking to Baiji oil refinery. The army has stepped up fighting the terrorists in the provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin. It’s managed to inflict heavy losses on ISIL terrorists over the past few months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Saor7QnbfiQ
Dozens including civilians killed in US-led airstrikes in northern Iraq
Dozens of people including civilians have been killed in a recent airstrike by US-led forces in a town in northern Iraq.
Witnesses and security sources say around seventy people died on Tuesday in the air raid which flattened an entire neighborhood in Hawijah in Kirkuk province. The strike targeted an ISIL bomb-making workshop overnight. U-S-led airstrikes have in the past caused civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria. The US-led campaign has been widely criticized for failing to weaken ISIL. The terrorists recently captured Anbar’s provincial capital Ramadi. Critics say the U-S and its allies were unwilling to act to prevent its fall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ9G1ciIJR4
Yemenis demand punishment for Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is pressing ahead with its aerial bombardment of Yemen despite attempts by the UN for peace talks. Many in Yemen are now blaming Saudi Arabia for the current mess in their country and say Riyadh should be held accountable for its crimes there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr98mjFX-ZA
Yemen Army announces capture of Saudi forces
Yemen’s Army says it has captured a number of Saudi soldiers during border clashes as the Riyadh regime continues with its military camping against its impoverished southern neighbor, Press TV reports.
Army spokesman Sharaf Luqman made the announcement on Friday, saying the Saudi forces were captured in the course of military confrontation along Yemen-Saudi border. This is the first such announcement by the Yemeni Army since the beginning of the Saudi aggression against the impoverished country.
Meanwhile, according to Yemeni reports, fighters with the Popular Committees, including Houthi Ansarullah forces, also launched an attack on Saudi Arabia’s southwesternmost Jizan Region, killing at least two Saudi soldiers.
Saudi Arabia has intensified its aerial bombardment of different Yemeni cities ahead of the talks to take place in Geneva, Switzerland among Yemen’s political factions aimed at resolving the crisis in Yemen.
The Riyadh regime launched military aggression against Yemen on March 26. Saudi Arabia is trying to undermine the Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement, now in control of the capital city of Sana’a and several major provinces, and bring back to power Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
The Yemenis are due to hold a demonstration on Friday against Riyadh’s crimes against the civilians in Yemen.
Most recently, Saudi fighter targeted a university in the city of Dhamar in the country’s southwest several times. Attacks on a public hospital in the Dhamar Province also left three people dead and several others injured.
Six civilians lost their lives in a village in the Majz region of Sa’ada in northwestern Yemen on Thursday.
Saudi fighter jets also pounded Ansarullah and Army positions in two districts in the southern port city of Aden. Army installations in Sana’a’s Nahdain Mountain were also targeted.
Also on Thursday, Saudi air raids targeted the Wadhi Dhahir village northwest of the Yemeni capital Sana’a, only a day after Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of Ansarullah’s Supreme Revolutionary Council, voiced the movement’s readiness to take part in the peace talks, which are expected to kick off in the Swiss city on June 14.
The Yemeni army, backed by popular committees, has carried out several rocket attacks on Saudi military bases in response to the Riyadh regime’s deadly air raids against its neighbor.
At least 30 Saudis have been killed since the Yemenis started their rocket and mortar raids on Saudi border areas early in May. Several tanks and armored vehicles belonging to the Saudi army were also destroyed in the offensives.
Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen has not been endorsed by the UN. The world body has said that about 2,000 people have been killed and over 500,000 displaced as a result of the conflict in the Arab country since March 19.
Saudi warplanes bomb army compound in Sana’a
Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen continues to take lives; at least 52 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed in Saudi airstrikes since Wednesday.
Six civilians lost their lives in a village in Majz region in Sa’ada on Thursday. Fresh attacks on a public hospital in the central Dhamar province left three dead and several others injured. Saudi fighter jets also pounded Ansarullah and army positions in two districts in the southern port city of Aden. Army installations in Sana’a’s Nahdain Mountain were also targeted. Riyadh’s fresh offensive follows a day of fierce bombardment of civilian houses and infrastructure in the northern Sa’ada province, which left at least 42 people dead, many of them children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx2CfdHg-fw
“Saudi Arabia, Israel have held 5 secret meetings since 2014”
Saudi Arabia and Israel are engaged in a campaign of covert diplomacy against Iran.
According to media sources, Saudi and Israeli officials have held at least five secret meetings since the beginning of last year to discuss their mutual interests in the face of Iran. The covert campaign was revealed for the first time on Thursday when at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington. The rare public meeting was held between Dore Gold, the incoming director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Anwar Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and ex-adviser to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. Tel Aviv and Riyadh say they’re worried about what they call Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHnBGX2eDgo
