Iran Revolutionary Guard Official Urges ‘Non-War’ Methods to Pressure Israel

An Iranian cleric uses a mobile phone while standing beside missiles on display in Tehran on Monday. (AP)
An Iranian cleric uses a mobile phone while standing beside missiles on display in Tehran on Monday. (AP)
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Iran Revolutionary Guard Official Urges ‘Non-War’ Methods to Pressure Israel

An Iranian cleric uses a mobile phone while standing beside missiles on display in Tehran on Monday. (AP)
An Iranian cleric uses a mobile phone while standing beside missiles on display in Tehran on Monday. (AP)

Coordinating Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi stated that his forces “eagerly await” orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to join the fight in Gaza.

However, Naqdi called for the pursuit of “non-military” methods to exert pressure on Israel, reported Iranian government media.

Meanwhile, a deputy in the Iranian parliament suggested that the “Axis of Resistance” may target maritime passages, Israeli ships, and its allies if the war expands.

Naqdi, speaking at a conference organized by the IRGC on Gaza, emphasized that “despite not deploying forces to Palestine, it does not imply sitting idly at home.”

“Even before receiving orders to go to Gaza, we will assist the fighters in other ways,” he asserted.

Naqdi advised parties engaged in the war with Israel to execute “fully complementary operations,” remarking that the “Zionists are receiving painful blows from the resistance and digging their own graves in every meter of Gaza’s soil.”

“Palestinian resistance has prepared itself for a long-term war, expecting ground warfare, and it still maintains its readiness,” added Naqdi.

He called for activating legal, judicial, medical, humanitarian, and diplomatic mechanisms to support Gazans.

He revealed that the IRGC had asked Türkiye and some regional countries to close American and Israeli military and intelligence bases.

Moreover, Naqdi praised the role of diplomacy during the Gaza war.

“Our diplomatic measures should continue until Israel is expelled from the Security Council,” he said.

The Iranian judiciary, meanwhile, called for stricter punishment against Israeli and US spies captured in Iran.



Assange Heads to Australia after US Guilty Plea

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)
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Assange Heads to Australia after US Guilty Plea

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the US Federal Courthouse in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free on Wednesday from a court on the US Pacific island territory of Saipan after pleading guilty to violating US espionage law in a deal that allowed him to head straight home to Australia.
His release ends a 14-year legal saga in which Assange spent more than five years in a British high-security jail and seven years in asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London battling extradition to the US, where he faced 18 criminal charges, Reuters reported.
During the three-hour hearing, Assange pleaded guilty to one criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified national defense documents but said he had believed the US Constitution's First Amendment, which protects free speech, shielded his activities.
"Working as a journalist I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information," he told the court.
"I believed the First Amendment protected that activity but I accept that it was ... a violation of the espionage statute."
Chief US District Judge Ramona V. Manglona accepted his guilty plea and released him due to time already served in a British jail.
"We firmly believe that Mr. Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act and engaged in (an) exercise that journalists engage in every day," his US lawyer, Barry Pollack, told reporters outside the court.
WikiLeaks' work would continue, he said.
His UK and Australian lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, thanked the Australian government for its years of diplomacy in securing Assange's release.
"It is a huge relief to Julian Assange, to his family, to his friends, to his supporters and to us and to everyone who believes in free speech around the world that he can now return home to Australia and be reunited with his family," she said.
Assange, 52, left the court through a throng of TV cameras and photographers without answering questions, then waved as he got into a white SUV.
He left Saipan on a private jet to the Australian capital Canberra.

Assange had agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

The US territory in the western Pacific was chosen due to his opposition to travelling to the mainland US and for its proximity to Australia, prosecutors said.