{"id":5885,"date":"2024-04-01T14:46:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T19:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/?p=5885"},"modified":"2024-04-02T05:33:02","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T10:33:02","slug":"5885","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/2024\/04\/01\/5885\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is no April Fool\u2019s Day joke.\u00a0 \u201cMohammad Reza Zahedi commanded the IRGC\u2019s Quds Force in Lebanon and was sanctioned by the United States and Britain. The US Treasury sanctions designation says he acted as a \u201cliaison\u201d to Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence services and was reportedly charged with guaranteeing weapons shipments to Hezbollah. Israel has stepped up a campaign against Iranian proxies in Syria and Lebanon in recent weeks in response to near daily Hezbollah rocket attacks over its northern border.\u201d\u00a0 This explains the following story, from which the quote is taken.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/senior-irgc-commander-killed-suspected-182905165.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall\">\u201cSenior IRGC commander killed in suspected Israeli strike in Damascus,\u201d<\/a> Telegraph, 4-1-24.<\/p>\n<p>Israel is winning the war in the North against Iran.\u00a0 It pin-pointed the IRGC leader in Damascus.\u00a0 But Iran continues holding \u201chostage\u201d (away from their homes) those Israelis who live in northern Israel.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/middle-east\/israel-says-flying-object-east-hits-eilat-no-casualties-2024-04-01\/\">\u201cIsrael reports aerial attack on Eilat; Iraqi militia claims launch,\u201d<\/a> Reuters, 4-1-24.<\/p>\n<p>Fascinating.\u00a0 The U.S. warned Iran about the upcoming ISIS attack, Iran ignored the U.S., Iran interrogated ISIS arrestees, Iran warned Russia, Russia even ignored Iran (as well as the U.S.).\u00a0 &#8220;Days before the attack in Russia, Tehran shared information with Moscow about a possible big terrorist attack inside Russia that was acquired during interrogations of those arrested in connection with deadly bombings in Iran,&#8221; one of the sources told Reuters.\u00a0 Iran arrested 35 people in January, including a commander of Islamic State&#8217;s Afghanistan-based branch ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), who it said were linked to twin bombings on Jan. 3 in the city of Kerman that killed nearly 100 people.\u201d\u00a0 See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/iran-alerted-russia-security-threat-before-moscow-attack-sources-say-2024-04-01\/\">\u201cExclusive: Iran alerted Russia to security threat before Moscow attack,\u201d<\/a> Reuters, 4-1-24.<\/p>\n<p>The strike killed three Quds Force generals.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2024\/04\/01\/world\/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news\">\u201cAirstrike in Damascus Kills Several Top Iranian Commanders, Iran Says,\u201d<\/a> NYT, 4-1-24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is no April Fool\u2019s Day joke.\u00a0 \u201cMohammad Reza Zahedi commanded the IRGC\u2019s Quds Force in Lebanon and was sanctioned by the United States and Britain. The US Treasury sanctions designation says he acted as a \u201cliaison\u201d to Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence services and was reportedly charged with guaranteeing weapons shipments to Hezbollah. Israel has &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/2024\/04\/01\/5885\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2819,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2532],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-update"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2819"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5885"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5893,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5885\/revisions\/5893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}