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Iran showcases drones amid growing tension with South Korea
Just days after the anniversary of the US killing of a top Iranian general in a drone strike in Iraq, Iran itself launched exercises featuring a wide array of domestically produced drones, Iranian media reported.
Iran and the regional forces it backs have increasingly relied in recent years on drones in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, Reuters reported.
Iran’s armed forces are to test combat drones used as bombers, interceptors and in reconnaissance missions in the two-day exercises in central Semnan province, the semi-official Fars news agency said.
Beyond surveillance, Iranian drones can drop munitions and also carry out a “kamikaze” flight when loaded with explosives and flown into a target, according to a US official who spoke to Reuters.
Iran has developed a large domestic arms industry in the face of international sanctions and embargoes that bar it from importing many weapons.
The exercises coincided with increased tensions between Iran and the United States, two days after the first anniversary of the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport, and two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
Biden aims to revive the nuclear agreement, though diplomacy is expected to be tricky, Reuters reported.
On Monday Iranian forces meanwhile seized a South Korean tanker in the Gulf, and Tehran also announced plans to increase uranium enrichment.
South Korea says it will dispatch a government delegation to Iran “at the earliest possible date” to try to secure the release of the tanker seized by Iran amid tensions over Iranian funds frozen in Seoul because of US sanctions.
According to South Korean media, a Foreign Ministry spokesman made the announcement on Tuesday, a day after the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) seized the tanker and detained its crew of 20 near the Strait of Hormuz over pollution violations — an allegation rejected by the ship’s operator.
The spokesman also said that South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun will go ahead with a previously planned trip to Tehran early next week, as Iranian officials seek the release of billions of dollars frozen in South Korean banks.
South Korean News Net reported that the frozen assets stem from oil sales earned before Washington tightened sanctions on Iran following the US withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
In Tehran, an Iranian government spokesman rejected allegations that Iran’s seizure of the tanker amounted to hostage taking, the news portal reported.
“If anybody is to be called a hostage taker, it is the South Korean government that has taken our more than $7 billion hostage under a futile pretext,” Ali Rabiei told reporters.
Earlier, the US 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 economic sanctions.
Meanwhile, the South Korean Defense Ministry announced that a destroyer carrying members of South Korea’s anti-piracy unit arrived in waters near the Strait of Hormuz — through which 20 percent of all oil traded passes — and was “carrying out a mission to ensure the safety of our nationals.”
The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Friday that the country has allocated $19.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Japanese Embassy said it hopes the aid will help bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable Afghans.
According to the statement, the assistance will cover the basic humanitarian needs of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan.
The embassy added that the aid will be delivered through United Nations agencies, international organizations, and Japanese non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Japan’s total assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021 has reached more than $549 million.
Security forces at the Islam Qala border in Herat province prevented hundreds of young Afghans from illegally entering Iran.
Officials from the 207 Al-Farooq Army Corps said that around 530 people attempted over the past two days to illegally enter Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district in Herat, but border forces detained them and transferred them back to their original areas.
Meanwhile, officials in the local administration of Herat said that due to severe cold along the illegal migration route to Iran, three Afghan migrants have lost their lives in the Kohsan district of the province, and a shepherd has also died there for the same reason.
Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, spokesperson for the Herat governor’s office, said that some statistics and images shared on social media regarding the incident are not reliable.
According to him, further investigations are underway to determine whether any individuals have died on the other side of the border.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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