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A U.S. Navy surveillance ship was harassed by an Iranian fast attack craft while entering the Persian Gulf on Saturday, a defense official confirmed to USNI News on Monday. USNS Invincible (T-AGM-24) was transiting the Strait of Hormuz in the early morning on March 4 with three other coalition ships when the ships were approached by several Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy fast attack craft, the official told USNI News. One of the IRGCN craft maneuvered 600 yards in front of the 2,300-ton Invincible and “went dead in the water,” the official said.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering a proposal that could lead to potentially designating Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The officials said several U.S. government agencies have been consulted about such a proposal, which if implemented would add to measures the United States has already imposed on individuals and entities linked to the IRGC. The IRGC is by far Iran’s most powerful security entity, which also has control over large stakes in Iran’s economy and huge influence in its political system.

Donald Trump promised during the campaign to get tough on radical Islamic terror groups as well as force Iran to renegotiate terms on Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. The next executive orders from the president may address both pledges — and create more controversy. According to Reuters, Trump will designate the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), expanding current sanctions applied at the moment to only its Quds Force: A designation of the entire IRGC as a terrorist group would potentially have much broader implications, including for the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and...

“I do not fear Trump. We must thank the new American president because he showed the real face of America and because he exposed what we have been saying for decades about the political, moral and economic corruption in it.” This is the recent statement made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against the newly-elected US administration. Yes, we’re passing through a new phase. There has been a major transformation following the reactive years of isolationism which show the depth of the roots that America has returned to in terms of engaging with world crises and contributing to managing...

Iranian-supplied rockets killed as many as 15 U.S. troops per month in Iraq in the summer of 2011, and Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis had a plan to retaliate. The Obama administration denied his request. Six U.S. soldiers were killed in a single such attack in early June of 2011, with another three killed just weeks later. Mattis, then the commander of U.S. Central Command, had had enough and decided the U.S. must strike back before the Iranian rockets caused further bloodshed. In conjunction with then Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey, Mattis proposed a strike inside Iranian territory, according to...

Tehran, Dec 28 (ANI): al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri were spotted in Iran's Najamabad city two months ago, The News reported on Sunday while quoting a British daily. The daily attributed the story to a source having links with the Revolutionary Guards. The report said: "A man with links to Iran's intelligence services and hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC) has told the daily that he saw the al-Qaeda leader in Iran two months ago. He saw him arrive at an RGC guesthouse close to the small town of Najmabad on 23 October." The Al-Qaeda leader,...

An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials. Shahram Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, went missing last June three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, according to the Iranian government. The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, "an intelligence coup" in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran's nuclear program. A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment....

Istanbul, Turkey (AP) - Syria handed over 22 suspects to Turkey on Sunday in connection with four deadly suicide bombings in Istanbul, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, all Turks, reportedly fled the country after the attacks, which targeted two synagogues in near-simultaneous bombings Nov. 15 and the British consulate and a British bank in twin attacks five days later. A total of 61 people were killed. Citing a statement from paramilitary police, Anatolia said the suspects included Hilmi Tuglaoglu, a close associate of Azat Ekinci, a central suspect in the blasts. News reports have named Ekinci as...

A U.S. Navy patrol coastal ship was harassed by seven Iranian vessels on Sunday and narrowly avoided colliding with one, in the latest in a string of incidents in the Persian Gulf. Seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) fast in-shore attack craft (FIAC) approached USS Firebolt (PC-10) while it was operating in international waters in the central Persian Gulf on Sept. 4, a defense official told USNI News. Three of the FIACs maneuvered close to Firebolt, mirroring the ship’s course and speed at a distance of about 500 yards for about eight minutes before leaving. Another FIAC then sped...

(CNN)The four-star commander of the U.S. Central Command got an unexpected, up close and personal look Monday at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy when a U.S. Navy warship he was on was approached by five armed Iranian craft in the Arabian Gulf. Gen. Joseph Votel was on board the USS New Orleans on a southbound transit in the Strait of Hormuz when the Iranian ships came within about 500 yards of the U.S. ship, according to U.S. defense officials. A U.S. defense official said there were two separate encounters with the Iranian boats. The first was with a Houdong...

Iran is using a commercial airliner with ties to the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to ferry fighters and weapons to Syria. Sanctioned by the United States for its support of terrorism, Mahan Air operates regular flights from Tehran to Dusseldorf and Munich. But now German politicians are seeking to ban the airline for its alleged ties to Iran's regime. With a fleet of over 50 aircraft, Mahan Air has been making secret trips to Syria since August 2015 and has been delivering weapons and fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon to support and reinforce Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s...

They have absolutely no fear of America under Obama’s leadership. In a recent TV interview, IRGC Navy Commander Ali Fadavi said: “The Americans are aware that if they make even the slightest mistake, their naval vessels will be sunk in the Persian Gulf, the Hormuz Strait, and the Sea of Oman.” He further claimed that Iran’s vessels would emerge from “undersea tunnels,” in which “no force will be able to harm our naval vessels.” In the interview, which aired on IRINN TV on May 10, Fadavi maintained that the crew of U.S. vessels is now obliged to speak Farsi in...

Beirut / Baghdad -- One of the most powerful men in Iraq isn't an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat. He's an Iranian general, and at times he's more influential than all of them. Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani (51) ( pictured) commands the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, an elite paramilitary and espionage organization whose mission is to expand Iran's influence in the Middle East . As Tehran's point man on Iraq , he funnels military and financial support to various Iraqi factions, frustrating U.S. attempts to...

Revolutionary Guards Quds Force's notorious chief Qassem Suleimani severely injured in clashes south of Aleppo For nearly 5 years the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force’s notorious chief Qassem Suleimani has been spearheading Iran’s full-pledged support for the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. This shadowy figure has been the symbol of Tehran’s infamous plots in Syria, and reports have also indicated Suleimani was running the show and issuing orders to senior Syrian generals and political officials, and at times, even Assad himself. Enjoying the full support of and reporting only to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Suleimani had unimaginable authority in Syria. That...

"An act of God" was responsible for U.S. Navy sailors entering Iranian waters, leading to their arrest at gunpoint, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday told Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members who detained the Americans. "Your job was excellent, interesting and timely and, in fact, we must consider this incident as an act of God, who brought Americans into our waters so they would be arrested through your timely action and in that manner with their hands held above their heads," Khamenei told the group in a face-to-face meeting, according to a report on the supreme leader's...

TEHRAN, Jan. 13 (MNA) – Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said IRGC Navy will decide about detained US marines who illegally entered Iran waters once chain of command passes down its orders. “All vessels must give prior notice if they want to sail through another country’s waters, especially if they are military,” said Ali Fadavi, Commander of the IRGC (the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps) Navy, referring to the two American riverine command boats that had illegally crossed into Iranian territorial waters around Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf. “In the world of international relations, there is only one instance of innocent...

Iranian troops retreating from Syria, Western officials say Special to WorldTribune.com With scant few battlefield victories and the deaths of key military leaders, Iran appears ready to cut its losses and withdraw from Syria, Western officials say. The failed Russian-initiated offensive to retake Idlib province from anti-Assad rebels supported by the West and Gulf Arab states has led to the retreat of large numbers of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) troops, officials say. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said at the recent Saban Forum in Washington that Russia had planned to seize Idlib and other rebel-controlled areas within three months....

It hasn't made much noise worldwide, but Iran's rapidly deteriorating relationships with several African countries is huge news across the continent. On February 16, the Nigerian Federal High Court in Lagos began the prosecution of an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Azim Aghajani, and a Nigerian associate, Usman Abbas Jega. They are accused of arms smuggling. This video link is in Arabic, but is very self-explanatory. It is of the opening day of the court proceedings.The story is a classic, just one of many on the Dark Continent nowadays: In late October 2010, Nigerian intelligence officials...

BEIRUT – The former head of an elite unit in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as another top general have been killed in Syria, days after one of the country’s leading officers was killed in the war-torn country. “General Farshad Hasounizad, defender of the Sayyeda Zeinab Shrine and former commander of the Saberin Brigade, was killed in Syria,” a reporter in the state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) wrote in a post on his Instagram account Tuesday afternoon. The Saberin Brigade is a special forces unit of the IRGC formed in 1998 to serve as a...

EMET praises legislation by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a recognized, foreign terrorist organization. (Washington, DC, October 8, 2015) – Today, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) strongly endorsed Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) legislation, S. 2094, which urges the U.S. State Department to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization. Similar legislation was proposed in the U.S. House by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX). The passage of this legislation would limit the benefits the IRGC is set to receive from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA)...