Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has replaced the head of the influential Revolutionary Guards Corps, state TV reported on Sunday, days after the United States designated the elite group a foreign terrorist organization.
On April 13, Salami was quoted by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying that he and the IRGC were proud of being designated a terrorist group by Washington.
Comprising an estimated 125,000-strong military with army, navy and air units, the Guards also command the Basij, a religious volunteer paramilitary force, and control Iran’s missile programs. The Guards’ overseas Quds forces have fought Iran’s proxy wars in the region.
The chief public prosecutor’s office in Turkish capital Ankara issued arrest warrants for 14 admirals deemed to be behind the preparation and propagation of the declaration of admirals that stirred up discussions of military coups in the country since Saturday night.
Following up on the warrants issued on Sunday night, Turkish police has detained 10 admirals and ordered four others to turn themselves in within three days due to their advanced ages
Saturday’s declaration signed by 103 admirals condemned discussions of Turkey possibly withdrawing from the Montreux Convention, which regulates passage from the Bosporus and Dardenelles straits connecting the Black Sea to the Aegean and Mediterranean, while also criticising the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government for steering the armed forces and the country away from secularism, over an active-service rear admiral’s visit to the leader of an extreme religious sect.
Lebanon’s dire financial crisis over the past two years has slipped over three-quarters of the population into poverty. Many Lebanese are struggling to cope with skyrocketing inflation, crippling power cuts, medicine shortages, and an absence of viable social services.
Many Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian families have resorted to selling everything they own, and trying to migrate by sea to Europe to find job opportunities.