Days after President Joe Biden bypassed the congress to approve a $6-billion ransom payment to Iran, the Mullah regime has taken another Western national hostage as part of its ongoing ‘hostage diplomacy,’ media reports say.
On Saturday, Iran’s Islamic Guard (IRGC) disclosed that it has taken yet another Westerner in its custody, less than a week after Biden White House agreed to pay $6 billion for the release of 5 U.S. hostages. The media reports did not specify if the captive is a U.S. or a European national.
“The Biden administration has cleared the way for the release of five American citizens detained in Iran by issuing a blanket waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
The Times of Israel reported the latest IRGC arrest:
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said Saturday they arrested a man with dual citizenship on allegations of “attempted rioting and to cause disruptions” in the city of Karaj, west of the capital Tehran.The suspect was found to be in possession of “several smartphones and dollars of significant value,” the IRGC said, according to a report by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.It was unclear which nationality aside from Iranian the suspect held. Several capitals have accused Iran of practicing “hostage diplomacy” — arresting Western nationals to obtain concessions such as the release of detained Iranians abroad.Iran has upped security and conducted a wave of arrests in the country’s Kurdish region on suspicion of “planning to create chaos” and producing content to serve “hostile media” on the anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini.
Reports on social media suggest that the Mullah regime may have taken additional U.S. and European hostages as dissidents across the country mark the first death anniversary of Mahsa Amini, a 21–year-old Iranian women who died in custody of the Morality Police for violating the hijab law:
The Biden White House choose the 9/11 anniversary to announced the release of ransom to the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism and jihad. “On September 11, 2023, the 22nd anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history, the Biden administration approved a $6-billion ransom payment to the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism,” Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) noted in a op-ed published in the Fox News on Thursday.
“Biden agreed to transfer five prisoners and $6 billion to Iran in exchange for the ayatollahs releasing five American hostages — in effect, placing a $1.2-billion bounty on the head of every American hostage. This is a nearly 200% increase per hostage from the $1.7 billion Barrack Obama paid for four hostages in 2015,” Sen. Cotton added.
Outraged at the multi-billion ransom deal, former President Donald Trump asked if President Biden was personally benefiting from it. “So, let’s get this straight! We did a hostage TRADE with Iran. We gave them 5 very tough, smart people that they desperately wanted. We likewise got back 5 people BUT, we also gave them 6 BILLION DOLLARS!” Trump said on his social media platform Truth.
“How much of a kickback does Crooked Joe Biden get?” the former president inquired.
While the Biden administration assured that the billions being handed out to the terror-sponsoring regime will only be used for ‘humanitarian purposes,’ Tehran denied having made any such commitment. “The money can only be used for humanitarian purposes, and we will remain vigilant in watching the spending of those funds and have the ability to freeze them again if we need to,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters this week.
“Humanitarian means whatever the Iranian people needs, so this money will be budgeted for those needs, and the needs of the Iranian people will be decided and determined by the Iranian government,” Raisi declared.
Given Iran’s role as the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism, much of that money is expected to finance and arm Islamic terrorist groups across the Middle East. “Iran funds no less than 19 terror organizations on Israel’s borders and has invested heavily in encircling the Jewish state,” the Washington Examiner noted Sunday. “A former Israeli national security official estimates that Iran spends over a billion dollars a year funding the three most active terror groups whose raison d’etre is to destroy Israel: Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.”
Taking non-believers f0r ransom as part of jihad is sanctioned under the Sharia Law, a practice dating back to the times of Islam’s founder Prophet Mohammad. Since grabbing power nearly 45 years ago, the regime has repeatedly held U.S. and Western nationals to ransom, including the hostage-taking of the 52 U.S. diplomats for 444 days after the seizing of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979.
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