Iran Bolsters Border Security to Prevent ‘Infiltration’

Iran has sent additional units of special forces to fortify its northern border with Iraq. (AFP file photo)
Iran has sent additional units of special forces to fortify its northern border with Iraq. (AFP file photo)
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Iran Bolsters Border Security to Prevent ‘Infiltration’

Iran has sent additional units of special forces to fortify its northern border with Iraq. (AFP file photo)
Iran has sent additional units of special forces to fortify its northern border with Iraq. (AFP file photo)

Iran has sent additional units of special forces to fortify its northern border with Iraq and clamp down on what it says is infiltration by Kurdish opposition groups, Iranian state media reported on Friday.

Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, chief of ground forces of the paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard, said “armored and special forces” units had been deployed to west and north-west provinces to bolster existing border security, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The deployment aims to prevent infiltration and the smuggling of weapons in the north by Kurdish opposition groups exiled in Iraq that Tehran claims is orchestrating country-wide anti-government protests. It is a claim the Kurdish groups deny and to date Iran has not provided any evidence to support it.

Iran has several military bases near the Iraqi border and forces have been present there on a rotating basis for decades.

The troop movement also comes after Iraq issued directives for boosting security along its side of the border to prevent further bombardment by Iran, according to a statement issued by Iraq's military spokesman Maj. Gen. Yahya Rasool. Kurdish opposition groups have bases in Iraq's Kurdish-run northern region.

Earlier this week, Iranian officials were quoted in state-run media as saying they did not have plans to conduct a ground military operation to root out opposition groups from the bases.

Country-wide protests engulfed Iran in September following the death of a young woman in police custody for violating the republic's strict dress code for women. The protests have become one the greatest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the chaotic years after its 1979 revolution.

Mahsa Amini, 22, died Sept. 16, three days after her arrest by Iran’s morality police. Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained.



Panama Leaders Past and Present Reject Trump’s Threat of Canal Takeover

The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)
The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)
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Panama Leaders Past and Present Reject Trump’s Threat of Canal Takeover

The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)
The Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal is pictured in Panama City on December 23, 2024. (AFP)

The status of the Panama Canal is non-negotiable, President Jose Raul Mulino said in a statement Monday signed alongside former leaders of the country, after Donald Trump's recent threats to reclaim the man-made waterway.

The US president-elect on Saturday had slammed what he called unfair fees for US ships passing through the Panama Canal and threatened to demand control of the waterway be returned to Washington.

Mulino dismissed Trump's comments Sunday, saying "every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama".

He reiterated Monday in a statement -- also signed by former presidents Ernesto Perez Balladares, Martin Torrijos and Mireya Moscoso -- that "the sovereignty of our country and our canal are not negotiable."

The canal "is part of our history of struggle and an irreversible conquest," read the statement, which the four politicians had signed after a meeting at the seat of the Panamanian government.

"Panamanians may think differently in many aspects, but when it comes to our canal and our sovereignty, we all unite under the same flag."

Former leader Laurentino Cortizo, who did not attend the meeting, also showed support for the statement on social media, as did ex-president Ricardo Martinelli.

The 80-kilometer (50-mile) Panama Canal carries five percent of the world's maritime trade. Its main users are the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Chile.

It was completed by the United States in 1914, and then returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.

Panama took full control in 1999.