US denies drone strike killed two Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iraq

 Pentagon has denied on Monday a claim by the Iranian state media saying that two Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen were killed by a US drone in the Iraqi city of Tikrit.

The official IRNA news agency has claimed that the two had been posted to Iraq as advisers in in Iraq before they were killed due to a drone strike in Tikrit.
Pictures of the two men, named as Ali Yazdani and Hadi Jafari, were posted on Iranian news websites after their funerals on home soil.
The Fars news agency called Jafari, 29, from the northern Iranian city of Amol. Yazdani was buried in Tehran, it reported.
However, the US Department of Defense said in a statement that it had not conducted air strikes in the Tikrit area on the date the men were said to have been killed.
'Coalition forces initiated air strikes near Tikrit on March 25, two days after the alleged incident occurred and no air strikes were conducted in or near Tikrit on March 23,' said Major Omar Villarreal, a spokesman for US Central Command.
'We have no information to corroborate claims that coalition air strikes killed two IRGC members,' he added, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iranian-backed Shiite militia groups have for weeks been heavily involved in fighting in Tikrit, seeking to reclaim the city from IS.
Iranian media have reported the deaths of military personnel, including several generals, killed in Iraq and Syria after Tehran sent them in support of Baghdad’s government and of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Other Iranians have joined Shiite militia groups as volunteers.
Major General Qassem Suleimani, who leads the Quds Force, the Guard’s foreign wing, has been pictured on social media near the frontline in Tikrit and other battlegrounds, where he is said to be coordinating Shiite militia groups.
Other Revolutionary Guard deaths have included General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, killed along with six fighters of Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah in an air strike in Syria on January 18.
Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi, also a member of the Guard, was killed in the Iraq in December.
Suleimani was pictured at a funeral ceremony for Taghavi.

One Dead in Shootout Outside U.S. National Security Agency

WASHINGTON – At least one person died and two others were injured in a shootout at one of the entrances to the U.S. Army base in Maryland that houses the National Security Agency.

The dead man is one of the two attackers who early Monday morning, for reasons that are not yet clear, tried to get through one of the NSA entrances in an SUV.

Although the investigation into the incident is continuing and the secrecy that shrouds the NSA makes getting details about it difficult, terrorism has been ruled out as a motive.

According to a spokesman at Fort Meade, where 11,000 soldiers and 29,000 civilians live and/or work, police guarding the entrances to the NSA facilities opened fire on the vehicle that was trying to get past the control posts.

One of the people in the vehicle was killed on the spot while another was taken to a hospital in Baltimore. In addition, a police officer suffered an injury to an arm, possibly in a collision with the attackers’ vehicle.

According to NBC 4 television, the attackers were dressed as women and inside the vehicle were found a firearm and cocaine.

Images taken by TV helicopters flying over the area showed two vehicles that has collided, one of them clearly a police unit, as well as a body covered with a sheet lying on the asphalt a few yards from the gate to the NSA installation, which sits alongside the busy Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

The incident began when the two people in the vehicle refused to follow the directions of the guards at the Fort Meade gate to leave the high-security zone, where at that hour many workers with entry passes were being admitted.

The guards immediately responded to the situation by setting up barricades, but the driver of the vehicle did not stop until it had crashed into one of the police vehicles blocking access to the facility.

Police opened fire on the vehicle, killing one of the occupants.

The FBI said that there are no indications of any terrorist intent, but the investigation is continuing to determine, among other things, why the attackers were dressed as women.

Federal Police Rescues 18 Women Being Sexually Exploited in Central Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Federal Police officers rescued 18 women who were being sexually exploited in Ecatepec, a city in Mexico State, and arrested two suspects, the National Security Commission said.

Federal law enforcement agents following up on an anonymous tip confirmed that illegal activities were taking place at the Flamingo taco shop in the Ejidos de San Cristobal district of the city, the commission said in a statement.

Customers were invited into an area in the rear of the shop that had been outfitted as a bar and “where acts of sexual exploitation were presumably carried out,” the commission said.

A special Federal Police unit raided the store, where they found 18 women who appeared to have been victimized, the commission said.

Alberto Silva Vazquez, suspected of running the establishment, was arrested on people trafficking and sexual exploitation charges, the commission said.

Officers also arrested Erick Sebastian Vazquez Nuñez, who was in possession of a 9-mm pistol, ammunition and cash.

The suspects and the property seized were turned over to prosecutors in Mexico State, which surrounds the Federal District and forms part of the Mexico City metropolitan area. 

Iran news in brief, 29 March 2015

HUGE MILITARY EXERCISE IN FORT LAUDERDALE FLORIDA Pre JADE HELM (video)

U.S. Congress to impose sanction ‘very’ quickly on Iranian regime if no agreement reached

The Iranian regime has “no intention” of keeping its word on an agreement being negotiated in Switzerland over its nuclear programme, U.s House speaker John Boehner said on Sunday.

Speaking on CNN, Boehner said: “We’ve got a regime that’s never quite kept their word about anything”.

“I just don’t understand why we would sign an agreement with a group of people who have no intention of keeping their word.”

The Ohio Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he’s skeptical the Obama administration will reach a deal with Iran to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

“Frankly, we should have kept the sanctions in place so that we could have gotten to a real agreement,” he said.

The tense international negotiations aimed at preventing the Iranian regime from developing nuclear weapons are headed down to the wire with prospects darkening after Tehran rejected what Western negotiators consider a critical part of any deal.

For months, the Iranian regime tentatively agreed that it would send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia, where it would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program. But on Sunday deputy foreign minister of the clerical regime made a surprise comment to Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a stockpile that has cost the country billions of dollars to amass.

Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Sunday the U.S. Congress must review any agreement the U.S. and other world powers may reach with the Iranian regime on curbing its nuclear program.

Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey said he has “real concerns” over the talks and that he wouldn’t support any deal that leaves Iran a “threshold nuclear” state, according to Bloomberg.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker has said the panel will consider legislation on April 14 that he is co-sponsoring with Menendez, which would allow Congress to review and approve a final agreement.

“This bill is a good bill and I’d hoped the administration would have supported it,” Menendez said Sunday at a synagogue in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. “We are going to have to see what the agreement is and what are the mechanisms for verification. There needs to be a very robust inspection.”

City Councilman Gunned Down in Western Mexico

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – A councilman in Tlaquepaque, a city in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, was gunned down this weekend, a police spokesman told Efe.

Feliciano Garcia Fierros was killed as he left a meeting with bus operators around noon Saturday in the San Martin de las Flores district of Tlaquepaque.

The 49-year-old politician was attacked by three heavily armed men and investigators do not yet have any suspects in the case.

The councilman was shot in the left side of the head and died instantly, police said.

Garcia Fierros’s 25-year-old son, Alejandro Garcia, was wounded and is listed in serious condition at a hospital.

Investigators found shell casings from automatic rifles at the crime scene.

There are no indications that the councilman received death threats or had any problems with people that could have led to his murder, Tlaquepaque Mayor Ernesto Meza Tejeda told Efe.

Garcia Fierros belonged to the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and chaired the municipal regulations commission in Tlaquepaque, which is in the Guadalajara metropolitan area.

The city government is awaiting the results of the investigation being conducted by the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office before deciding whether to increase security for top municipal officials, Meza Tejeda said.