The IDF struck and killed Jamshid Eshaqim, the commander of the Iranian Armed Forces’ Oil Headquarters, the military said on Thursday evening. “The Oil Headquarters forms an integral part of the regime’s armed forces, enabling the continuation of their activities and military buildup through profits from oil sales,” the IDF stated. The strike that killed Eshaqi took place earlier in the week, the military said, adding that it was conducted following intelligence from the IDF Intelligence Directorate. “Eshaqi led the financial arm of the regime’s forces as well as the military industries responsible for the production of ballistic missiles and the regime’s mechanisms of repression,” the IDF stated. “In addition, Eshaqi worked to allocate funds for financing Iran’s terror proxies across the Middle East, most notably the Hezbollah terror organization and the Houthis.” It went on to say that, for years, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other military forces have been funded by large revenues from oil sales that bypass international sanctions, and that to manage this income, Iran set up dedicated headquarters, making oil revenue a key source for building up the Islamic Republic’s forces and funding terrorist activity worldwide. IDF strikes critical IRGC financial HQ in Tehran Separately, Israeli jets struck the IRGC's financial headquarters in Tehran on Wednesday, the IDF said. With the funds routed through the headquarters, Tehran “operated to produce thousands of ballistic missiles and weapons” and build up the regime’s armed forces, the military added. Among the forces that recieved finding through the headquarters were the Internal Security Forces and the Basij, which the IDF noted “murdered thousands” of civilians during the protests that broke out in late December. The headquarters also worked in the Iranian apparatus that, over the years, transferred “dozens of billions of dollars” to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, the military added. The three groups are among the Islamic regime’s network of regional proxies. Earlier, the IDF said that during its Wednesday strikes on Iran, it had destroyed an IRGC Ground Forces base and a mobile command post. The military also said it had struck a ballistic missile storage site in the Tabriz area. On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike targeted a major highway bridge connecting Tehran to the nearby city of Karaj, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.
The IDF struck and killed Jamshid Eshaqim, the commander of the Iranian Armed Forces’ Oil Headquarters, the military said on Thursday evening. “The Oil Headquarters forms an integral part of the regime’s armed forces, enabling the continuation of their activities and military bui…
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The Houthis in Yemen have announced a blockade of Saudi Arabian shipping through Red Sea ports, including at the Bab el-Mandeb strait. The group, described as Iran-backed, stated the measure would target the top oil exporter following recent exchanges of fire.
Reports indicate this could add to existing maritime disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz linked to US-Iran confrontations.
A Reuters poll of economists conducted July 7-16 shows that most Gulf Cooperation Council economies are now projected to contract more sharply in the current year than estimated three months earlier, with median forecasts indicating declines of 8.1% for Kuwait and Qatar, 5.
1% for Bahrain, and 0.5% for the UAE. Saudi Arabia and Oman remain the only GCC economies expected to expand. The poll links the revisions to reduced export volumes through the Strait of Hormuz, higher freight costs, and weaker investor sentiment, even as oil prices have risen.
Initial reports indicate that a limited number of vessels transited the waterway during the first full day after the United States implemented a naval blockade of Iran. These observations have not been independently verified.
The head of the UN’s nuclear agency yesterday signaled that Iranian nuclear enrichment sites would be visited by his inspectors, a key component in the interim deal between the US and Iran to reach an end to their war. The comment by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi was the firmest yet from the agency, which is viewed as key in determining the status of Iran’s nuclear stockpile.
Since Israel launched a 12-day war on Iran last year, the IAEA has been blocked by Tehran from visiting enrichment sites where the Islamic republic is believed to store enough highly enriched uranium to potentially build as many as 10 nuclear weapons.
Photo: AP Iran has said that its program is peaceful, although it would be the only country in the world to have uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity without a weapons program. The US and Iran offered contradictory remarks on Tuesday about whether those sites would be inspected.
“I can understand political statements, they are part of the reality, but the fundamental thing I would like to remind you and draw your attention to is that there has been a memorandum of understanding, signed by both presidents,” Grossi told journalists at a news conference at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
The accord “explicitly states that the nuclear activities that are going to be carried out with the regards of the nuclear material facilities will be supervised by the IAEA — in all letters,” he said. “Obviously, to do that, we have to inspect,” Grossi added.
BOOST: By operating the same advanced systems as the US military, Taiwan would be better positioned to share and integrate intelligence with partners, an expert said The first batch of MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones has arrived in Taiwan, and is being assembled and tested by drone manufacturer General Atomics and the military ahead of flight trials as part of the air force’s acquisition to bolster its aerial surveillance capabilities, a source said yesterday.
The air force allocated a budget of NT$21.7 billion (US$687 million) from 2022 to 2029 to procure four MQ-9B uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) manufactured by General Atomics along with associated equipment such as ground control stations. The US has agreed to deliver the four MQ-9Bs to Taiwan in two batches this year and next ‘BRAZEN’: The holiday did not stop China from activities that infringe on Taiwan’s maritime jurisdiction, but the CGA is ready to defend the nation, Kuan Bi-ling said Beijing is intensifying maritime pressure on Taiwan, but the nation will never yield, Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Sung Chen-en (宋承恩) said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has adopted a “shadowing and monitoring” approach to avoid falling into a Chinese trap to escalate tensions and deepen the conflict, Sung said in an interview published yesterday in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
China Coast Guard formations patrolling waters east of Taiwan, as well as official Chinese vessels entering areas around Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) and Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) show Beijing’s attempts to significantly step up Taiwanese firms’ China investments have dwindled to less than 1 percent of their total foreign investments, putting China-based investments on track for a record low this year, Ministry of Economic Affairs data showed.
Taiwan’s investments abroad in the first five months of this year reached US$35.92 billion, Department of Investment Review data showed. Investments outside China totaled US$35.61 billion, up 133.94 percent year-on-year, while investments in China totaled US$310.
3 million, down 32.3 percent and about 0.86 percent of the total, data showed. Major overseas projects included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$30 billion capital injection into an overseas subsidiary, VARYING OPINIONS: People with different political affiliations have different views on how bilateral ties with the US, Japan and China would affect Taiwan’s security Two-thirds of Taiwanese view closer US and Japan ties as beneficial to security, a survey by Taiwan’s top military think tank showed.
To gauge the Taiwanese public’s perceptions of how different external relationships affect security, the Institute for National Defense and Security Research commissioned a survey by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center asking respondents whether closer relations with the US, Japan and China would strengthen or weaken Taiwan’s national security.