{"id":6455,"date":"2024-09-15T05:53:30","date_gmt":"2024-09-15T10:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/?p=6455"},"modified":"2024-09-20T05:54:23","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T10:54:23","slug":"6455","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/2024\/09\/15\/6455\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/09\/15\/houthis-israel-missile-strike\">\u201cHouthis launch long-range missile attack against Israel,\u201d<\/a> Axios, 9-15-24.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/irans-president-expected-at-brics-summit-in-russia\/\">\u201cIran\u2019s president to attend BRICS summit in Russia,\u201d<\/a> Politico, 9-15-24.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/other\/ar-AA1qroLZ\">\u201cIran turns to Hells Angels and other criminal gangs to target critics,\u201d<\/a> WPost, 9-15-24.\u00a0\u00a0This is the type of story that everyone should read and understand the depths and bizarre schemes that the Quds Force and the IRGC use.\u00a0 \u201cIran\u2019s alleged reliance on criminals rather than covert operatives underscored an alarming evolution in tactics by a nation that U.S. and Western security officials consider one of the world\u2019s most determined and dangerous practitioners of \u201ctransnational repression,\u201d a term for governments\u2019 use of violence and intimidation in others\u2019 sovereign territory to silence dissidents, journalists and others deemed disloyal. Senior security officials said that the use of criminal proxies by governments has compounded the difficulty of protecting those who have sought refuge in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Security services formerly focused on tracking operatives from Russia\u2019s GRU spy agency or Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) now confront plots handed off \u2014 often through encrypted channels \u2014 to criminal networks deeply embedded in Western society. In recent years, Iran has outsourced lethal operations and abductions to Hells Angels biker gangs, a notorious Russian mob network known as \u201cThieves in Law,\u201d a heroin distribution syndicate led by an Iranian narco-trafficker and violent criminal groups from Scandinavia to South America.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cHouthis launch long-range missile attack against Israel,\u201d Axios, 9-15-24. \u201cIran\u2019s president to attend BRICS summit in Russia,\u201d Politico, 9-15-24. \u201cIran turns to Hells Angels and other criminal gangs to target critics,\u201d WPost, 9-15-24.\u00a0\u00a0This is the type of story that everyone should read and understand the depths and bizarre schemes that the Quds Force and the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/2024\/09\/15\/6455\/\" 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-6455","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\/6455","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=6455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6456,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6455\/revisions\/6456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/coatesn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}