Wrongly imprisoned American pastor Saeed Abedini was shackled by prison guards at an Iranian hospital and then refused potentially life saving surgery.
The American Center for Law and Justice, who has been trying to obtain Abedini’s release, said that while the pastor was awaiting surgery with an elderly relative, the guards came in and shackled him to the bed. His relative was then forcibly removed from the room by the Iranian guards.
Abedini has been in need of abdominal surgery because of multiple beatings during his time in Iranian prisons. The ACLJ says he was sent back to the prison with only some medication to help him with pain.
The ACLJ has noted the questionable timing of Abedini’s hospital transfer and return to prison. The pastor was taken to the hospital when the High Representative of the European Union arrived in Iran. The EU has been much more active in raising the issue about Pastor Abedini than the American government. The moment that Representative Catherine Ashton departed the country, Abedini was seized and returned to the prison.
“This disturbing turn of events reiterates the need to keep pressure on Iran,” the ACLJ said in a statement.
Malaysian military says that a Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared on Saturday night could have been miles off course over the Strait of Malacca rather than over the open ocean.
The military also says that it appears the two men who boarded the flight using stolen passports were not terrorists but men fleeing Iran to ask for asylum in Europe. Officials would not say if terrorism was still a focus of the investigation.
The last day has proven to cause more questions than answers as searchers discovered the oil slicks found in the ocean were not connected to the flight. They also discovered that some of the debris that was thought to be parts of the aircraft is nothing more than flotsam that had gathered together.
The U.S. Navy has sent ships and at least three search and rescue helicopters into the area to try and find debris or survivors.
The airline has reportedly offered $3,000 to the family members of everyone on the flight while saying they were not going to stop rescue efforts.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to receive a less than friendly welcome at the White House tomorrow for a meeting with President Obama.
The President will tell Netanyahu that if he refuses to endorse Obama’s framework for peace with the Palestinians, Israel will face a bleak future and that time is running out for the country as a Jewish-majority democracy.
The President is also expected to tell Netanyahu he alone is the only Israeli that could lead his people away from the edge of oblivion.
The President said during a Thursday interview if Netanyahu rejects the Obama plan, he has to present an alternative approach. President Obama said that it would very hard for Netanyahu to provide a plausible plan.
The President also said in the interview that he believes Middle Eastern leaders in Iran and Syria know that he is serious about using force if they try to avoid agreements made with the international community.
Iranian state television called it a documentary.
World leaders are calling it an Islamic extremist fantasy involving Iran attacking and destroying Israel.
A video played computerized simulations of drones and missiles attacking Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Ben Gurion Airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor. The video claims that the attacks would only happen if Iran were to be attacked by Israel or the United States.
Israel wasn’t the only target of the faux documentary. The video showed a simulated attack on the USS Abraham Lincoln, shooting down American aircraft and then attacking American bases throughout the Middle East.
The video is entitled “The Nightmare of Vultures” and features Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stating that “anybody who thinks of attacks the Islamic Republic of Iran should be prepared to receive strong slaps and iron fists from the Armed Forces.”
One of the top commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says they have already made plans to attack America from the inside.
Brigadier General Hossein Salami said in a televised interview that the “power of the Islamic Republic” will surprise the world.
“We have recognized America’s military strategy,” Salami said, “And have arranged our abilities, and have identified centers in America that will create a shock. We will conduct a blow in which they will be destroyed from within.”
This is the second threat against America in the last two weeks from an Iranian official. The Guard’s chief commander told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week that a direct conflict with America is the “strongest dream of the faithful and revolutionary men around the world.”
Reports say that Hezbollah terrorists sympathetic to Iran are already within the United States and likely have selected targets.
A major intelligence leader has told Congress that Iran has all the items it needs to build a nuclear weapon.
James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, sent a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee that states Iran has made enough significant advances in its nuclear program that if they chose to turn their back on world agreements and produce a nuclear weapon they could obtain it.
However, Clapper says that it would be very unlikely they would able to finish production of the weapon without other world powers discovering their work.
“We assess that Iran would not be able to divert safeguarded material and produce enough WGU (short for Weapons Grade Uranium) for a weapon before such activity would be discovered,” Clapper wrote. “The…central issue is its political will to do so.”
Clapper noted that Iran already has the largest stockpile of ballistic missiles in the Middle East and they are “inherently capable of delivering WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction).”
In the first official confirmation of what’s always been assumed, an Iranian official has admitted his country was attempting to get their hands on nuclear weapons.
General Mohsen Rafiqdoost, a founder of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, told an Iranian news outlet on Saturday that they had pursued ways to gain nuclear arms. He said that when he approached Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini about the project, he said the Imam told him “do not pursue atoms” and he stopped the plan.
However, a letter that was shown from the 1980s showed that Khomeini had later approved of seeking the weapons.
Gen. Rafiqdoost was the first minister of the Revolutionary Guard and was tasked with obtaining weapons for the country on the black market.
Iran is refusing to dismantle centrifuges that could produce material for nuclear weapons claiming it is not part of the recently implemented temporary deal with western world powers.
Pastor Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran for his faith in Christ, received a small bit of good news when he was transferred from the murderer’s ward of Rajai Shahr Prison to the ward where they hold political prisoners.
However, his attorneys say the move is only a slight step toward justice for Abedini.
The American Center for Law and Justice said in a statement that Pastor Saeed is still in the deadliest prison in Iran and facing a serious medical issue. Members of Abedini’s Iranian family was able to see him for the first time in six weeks and said that he is still throwing up and has extreme pain in his abdomen.
A prison doctor actually recommended surgery and told prison officials that it was medically necessary for Abedini’s internal injuries. He gave Abedini medication to try and ease the pain. Iranian officials have not responded to the doctor’s request for surgery.
“There is a glimmer of comfort to know that my husband has been transferred out of the murderers’ ward, but my heart aches to know the pain he continually suffers and that his injuries necessitate surgery,” Saeed’s wife Naghmeh Abedini said in a statement. “As a family, it is difficult to be so far away and unable to comfort him in his pain.”
Iranian officials continue to speak out against the impressions given to media and the public by American officials regarding the recently implemented nuclear deal.
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that their country has not dismantled a single piece of nuclear equipment. He admitted that they have stopped enriching uranium beyond 5% but said that they could increase that percentage at any time.
“The White House tries to portray it as basically a dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. That is the word they use time and again,” Zarif told CNN. “If you find a single, a single word, that even closely resembles dismantling or could be defined as dismantling in the entire text, then I would take back my comment.”
International observers have stated that if Iran chose to cancel the deal and return to enrichment, they have enough centrifuges to create weapons grade nuclear material for a nuclear bomb within weeks.
A former deputy director for the International Atomic Energy Agency said that despite the deal Iran has made with the west, they will remain just weeks away from a viable nuclear weapon.
Olli Heinonen said that if Iran decided to end the agreement and turn up their centrifuges, they could enrich enough uranium in a matter of weeks to create one nuclear bomb.
“If this all happens in the next, let’s say, weeks, this is really true. They can start to produce 20-percent enriched uranium,” Heinonen said on WABC. “Now, in order to go fast for Iran, it actually needs to make several such tandem cascades. They have to put perhaps some 6,000 centrifuges to work in this kind of a mode. If they do that, which they can technically do, it will take certainly a little bit more than one night to do. But then once they have sorted it out, it would take about two, three weeks to have enough uranium hexafluoride high-enriched for one single weapon.”
Heinonen said if Iran follows through on their agreement to reduce their stockpiles of 20% enriched uranium to 5%, it would take longer for the country to produce a nuclear weapon.