Edited By: Fern Sidman
President Trump overruled his Pentagon chief on Sunday and ordered the US warship Nimitz be kept in the Persian Gulf after the aircraft carrier was told to return home to Washington State, according to a new report, as was reported by the NY Post.
The Post reported that Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller reversed course on Sunday night after publicly announcing the redeployment of the Nimitz on Friday, citing “recent threats issued by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other US government officials.”
“The USS Nimitz will now remain on station in the US central command area of operations. No one should doubt the resolve of the United States of America,” he said in a statement.
World Israel News reported that Iran launched a large-scale drone combat exercise Tuesday as the United States reversed an order for one of its aircraft carriers to return home from the region.
The Iranian military said a major military exercise would involve hundreds of UAVs used by its ground, air and naval forces “in real combat conditions,” Iran’s Mehr news agency reported as tensions in the region remain high.
“The flight of naval drones from a vessel in southern waters of the country, long-range flight of pinpointing suicide drones to destroy sensitive and vital targets in depths of enemy’s land and territory will be one of the drone combat exercise plans,” said Deputy Chief of Operations, Admiral Mahmoud Mousavi.
The Nimitz has been patrolling Gulf waters since late November. In a statement issued on December 31st, Miller, had ordered the vessel to “transit directly home to complete a nearly 10-month deployment, “ according to a report in the Guardian of the UK. Iran flew surveillance drone over US aircraft carrier near Persian Gulf.
Miller’s statement came one year after a US drone strike in Baghdad killed the Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, as was reported by the Guardian.
World Israel News reported that a Defense Department official told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the Nimitz will take the lead in military drills “with its regional partners” in an area of the U.S. Fifth Fleet that is based in Bahrain. Regional partners usually refers to the Gulf Arab states close to Iran where the U.S. military operates ground, air and naval bases.
The Post reported that the head of Iran’s judiciary threatened revenge against Trump and military leaders for Soleimani’s death on Friday.
“Do not presume that someone, as the president of America, who appeared as a murderer or ordered a murder, may be immune from justice being carried out. Never,” Ebrahim Raisi, said at a gathering to commemorate the anniversary.
Thousands of Iraqi protesters chanted “revenge” and “no to America” on Sunday. The anniversary of the Baghdad drone strike was also marked across Iran and by supporters in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, according to the UK publication.
Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the Obama initiated nuclear deal with Iran and world powers in 2018 and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran, reimposing and reinforcing sanctions. The two countries have twice come to the brink of war since June 2019, most acutely after the killing of Soleimani, according to the Guardian report.
Days after the Suleimani assassination, Iran launched a volley of missiles at Iraqi bases housing US and other coalition troops. The US refrained from any further military response.
In terms of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Tazpit Press Service reported that Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated that the Islamic Republic’s decision to enrich uranium to 20% at its plant in Fordo “should serve as a wake-up call to all those who advocate for appeasement towards Iran. They also demanded that the international community act.
“I call on the international community not to tolerate Iran’s defiant acts and to view this step as a red line that requires a decisive and immediate response,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said. “Israel will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Iranian Government Spokesman Ali Rabiei announced Monday that Iran has started enriching uranium to the 20% purity level at the underground Fordo nuclear facility, according to the TPS report.
“The government had announced earlier that the parliament’s ratification is a binding law which should be abided by the government,” Rabiei stated.
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) stipulates that Iran can enrich uranium to the level of 3.67%.
TPS reported that Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated in response that Iran has “again breached its international obligations.”
It noted that according to the archive of Iran’s Amad Project to develop nuclear weapons that was exposed by Israel, the facility in Fordo was built with the goal of enriching uranium for a nuclear weapon program, as was reported by TPS.
“The use of this facility for enrichment purposes clearly indicates Iran’s intentions,” the Foreign Ministry underscored.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated during the Cabinet meeting on Monday that Iran’s announcement “is a gross and total violation of its commitments. There is no other explanation except for the continued realization of Iran’s intention to manufacture nuclear weapons. I reiterate: Israel will not allow Iran to manufacture nuclear weapons,” he said, according to the TPS report.
Iran’s move to increase uranium enrichment appeared aimed at pressuring the U.S. in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration, which withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, and ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he’d be willing to re-enter the accord, as was reported by the AP.
In yet another development in the Persian Gulf region, AP reported that armed Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops stormed a South Korean tanker and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran, the vessel’s owner said Tuesday. It is the latest maritime seizure by Tehran amid heightened tensions with the West over its nuclear program.
The military raid on Monday on the MT Hankuk Chemi was at odds with Iranian explanations that they stopped the vessel for polluting the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, according to the AP story. Instead, it appeared the Islamic Republic sought to increase its leverage over Seoul ahead of negotiations over billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks amid a U.S. pressure campaign targeting Iran, as was reported by the AP.
An official at DM Shipping Co. Ltd. of Busan, South Korea, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to talk to journalists, offered details of the Hankuk Chemi’s seizure. The vessel had been traveling from Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when Iranian forces reached the ship and said they would board it.
Initially, Iranian forces said they wanted to run an unspecified check on the ship, the official said. As the vessel’s captain spoke to company security officials back in South Korea, armed Iranian troops stormed the tanker as an Iranian helicopter flew overhead, the official said. The troops demanded the captain sail the tanker into Iranian waters over an unspecified investigation and refused to explain themselves, the official added, as was reported by the AP.
The U.S. Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet routinely patrols the area along with an American-led coalition monitoring the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil passes. A separate European-led effort also operates there as well, according to the AP report.
AP also reported that in past months Iran has sought to escalate pressure on South Korea to unlock some $7 billion in frozen assets from oil sales earned before the Trump administration tightened sanctions on the country’s oil exports.
The head of Iran’s central bank recently announced that the country was seeking to use funds tied up in a South Korean bank to purchase coronavirus vaccines through COVAX, an international program designed to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to participating countries.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry demanded the ship’s release, saying in a statement that its crew was safe. The crew included sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam, according to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it was sending its anti-piracy unit to near the Strait of Hormuz — a 4,400-ton-class destroyer with about 300 troops.
The AP reported that the State Department called for the tanker’s immediate release, accusing Iran of threatening “navigational rights and freedoms” in the Persian Gulf in order to “extort the international community into relieving the pressure of sanctions.”
Last year, Iran similarly seized a British-flagged oil tanker and held it for months after one of its tankers was held off Gibraltar.
Last week, sailors discovered a limpet mine stuck on a tanker in the Persian Gulf off Iraq, near the Iranian border, as it prepared to transfer fuel to another tanker owned by a company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, according to the AP report. No one has claimed responsibility for placing the mine, though it comes after similar attacks in 2019 near the Strait of Hormuz that the U.S. Navy blamed on Iran. Tehran denied involvement.
In other regional developments, World Israel News reported that an Iranian terror squad was broken up by UAE intelligence in the capital of Abu Dhabi and its most populous city, Dubai, according to media reports.
Israelis have visited the UAE in the thousands since the signing of the Abraham Accords on the White House Lawn on Sept. 15, 2020. From Iran’s point-of-view, they make a soft target and one easily reached, according to the WIN report.
Israel’s National Security Council had also warned in late November of security threats to Israeli tourists in Dubai. But Israelis have largely ignored the warnings.
Dubai has been a prime location for carrying out kidnappings.
In 2000, a reserve colonel in the IDF, Elhanan Tannenbaum, was kidnapped in Dubai and held for more than three years by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Although Tannenbaum was a shady character who had gone to Dubai to complete a drug deal, the IDF decided to do what it could to get him back given that he was privy to IDF information as part of his reserve service. He was returned as part of a prisoner swap in Jan. 2004, according to the WIN report.
In July 2020, Iran kidnapped a California man for being part of an Iranian dissident group. Jamshid Sharmahd was staying in Dubai, according to the WIN report.
“We’re seeking support from any democratic country, any free country,” his son Shayan Sharmahd told the AP. “It is a violation of human rights. You can’t just pick someone up in a third country and drag them into your country.”
Even the man portrayed in the 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda,” Paul Rusesabagina, was seized in Dubai in September 2020. It appears he was nabbed on an arrest warrant by the Rwandan government. His daughter described it as a kidnapping, according to the WIN report.
WIN also reported that Israel’s defense forces are bracing for an attack by Iran or its terror proxies as the Islamic Republic ratchets up their threats against Western targets.
