title: Für Elise

text: The pianist and musicologist argued in his thesis and his 2010 book "Beethoven al piano" (new Italian edition: "Beethoven al pianoforte", 2014) that Beethoven might not have been the person who gave the piece the form that we know today. Chiantore suggested that the original signed manuscript, upon which Ludwig Nohl claimed to base his transcription, may never have existed. On the other hand, Barry Cooper wrote, in a 1984 essay in "The Musical Times", that one of two surviving sketches closely resembles the published version.


title: Für Elise

text: It is not certain who "Elise" was, although a list of possible dedicatees have been suggested by various scholars over the years. Evidence suggests that "Elise" was a close friend of Beethoven and probably an important figure in his life.


title: Für Elise

text: Max Unger suggested that Ludwig Nohl may have transcribed the title incorrectly and the original work may have been named "Für Therese", a reference to Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza (1792–1851). She was a friend and student of Beethoven's to whom he supposedly proposed in 1810, though she turned him down to marry the Austrian nobleman and state official Wilhelm von Droßdik in 1816. Note that the piano sonata no. 24, dedicated to Countess Thérèse von Brunswick, is also referred to sometimes as "für Therese". The Austrian musicologist Michael Lorenz has shown that Rudolf Schachner, who in 1851 inherited Therese von Droßdik's musical scores, was the son of Babette Bredl, born out of wedlock. Babette in 1865 let Nohl copy the autograph in her possession. Dr. Robert Greenberg, who teaches much music through "The Great Courses", as well as the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and elsewhere, points out that Beethoven's notoriously sloppy handwriting might easily have lead to the title "Fur Therese" being misread as "Fur Elise".


title: Für Elise

text: According to a 2010 study by Klaus Martin Kopitz, there is evidence that the piece was written for the 17-year-old German soprano singer Elisabeth Röckel (1793–1883), the younger sister of Joseph August Röckel, who played Florestan in the 1806 revival of Beethoven's opera "Fidelio". "Elise", as she was called by a parish priest (later she called herself "Betty"), had been a friend of Beethoven's since 1808, who, according to Kopitz, perhaps wanted to marry her. But in April 1810 Elisabeth Röckel got an engagement at the theater in Bamberg where she made her stage debut as Donna Anna in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and became a friend of the writer E. T. A. Hoffmann. In 1811 Röckel came back to Vienna, in 1813 she married there Beethoven's friend Johann Nepomuk Hummel.


title: Für Elise

text: In 2015 Kopitz published further sources about Beethoven's relationship to Röckel and the famous piano piece. It shows that she was also a close friend of Anna Milder-Hauptmann and lived together with her and her brother Joseph August in the Theater an der Wien. In a letter to Röckel, which she wrote in 1830, she indeed called her "Elise".


title: Für Elise

text: In 2014, the Canadian musicologist Rita Steblin suggested that Elise Barensfeld might be the dedicatee. Born in Regensburg and treated for a while as a child prodigy, she first travelled on concert tours with Beethoven's friend Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, also from Regensburg, and then lived with him for some time in Vienna, where she received singing lessons from Antonio Salieri. Steblin argues that Beethoven dedicated this work to the 13-year-old Elise Barensfeld as a favour to Therese Malfatti who lived opposite Mälzel's and Barensfeld's residence and who might have given her piano lessons. Steblin admits that question marks remain for her hypothesis.


title: Für Elise

text: The piece can be heard as a five-part rondo, with the form A-B-A-C-A. It is in A minor and in time. It begins with the refrain A, a flowing melody in binary form marked "Poco moto" (literally "a little motion," a tempo indication that does not appear elsewhere in Beethoven's works), with an arpeggiated left hand accompaniment. The unaccompanied oscillation between the dominant E and its chromatic lower neighbor D-sharp that begins the melody has become one of the most recognizable openings in classical music, but it also serves as a main topic of musical discussion. The digression at measure 9 glances at the relative major before returning to the original theme and key, preceded by a prolongation of the dominant, E that extends the opening lower-neighbor oscillation. The pitch outline of these bars, E-F-E-D-C-B, i.e. an upper-neighbor ascent to F5 followed by a descending scale, also forms the basis of the two episodes B and C, thus unifying the piece. The B section that begins in bar 23 is in the submediant, F major. Its theme begins by tracing the outline mentioned above in somewhat elaborated fashion and modulates to the dominant, followed by 32nd-note runs repeating a cadential progression in C major in a codetta-like passage. (The chordal three-note upbeats in the left hand have been anticipated by the transition to this episode in bar 22, a clever unifying touch.) This suggests a rather expansive form, but Beethoven suddenly returns to the dominant of A minor in bar 34, once again lingering on the dominant E and its lower neighbor and leading to an exact repeat of the A section. Although another nominal episode follows (C) at bar 59, it does not leave the tonic and is rather coda-like in feel, unfolding over a dramatic, throbbing tonic pedal in the bass and emphatically cadencing in the home key. Once again, there are unifying relationships with previously heard material. The melody retraces the descending outline alluded to earlier, and the cadence in bars 66-67 is an augmented version of the theme's cadence in bars 7–8. After a glance at a Neapolitan harmony (B-flat major) and a cadence at bar 76 that brings the music to a complete halt for the first and only time, an ascending A minor arpeggio and a chromatic descent over two octaves follows, sort of a "cadenza in tempo", leading to a final repetition of the A section. The piece concludes without an added postlude.


title: Für Elise

text: Kopitz presents the finding by the German organ scholar that the letters that spell Elise can be decoded as the first three notes of the piece. Because an E is called an "Es" in German and is pronounced as "S", that makes E–(L)–(I)–S–E: E–(L)–(I)–E–E, which by enharmonic equivalents sounds the same as the written notes E–(L)–(I)–D–E.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Lindsay Vere Duncan (born 7 November 1950) is a Scottish actress. On stage, she has won two Olivier Awards (for "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and "Private Lives") and a Tony Award (for "Private Lives"). She has starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Her best-known television rules include Barbara Douglas in Alan Bleasdale's "G.B.H." (1991), Servilia of the Junii in the HBO/BBC/RAI series "Rome" (2005–2007), Adelaide Brooke in the "Doctor Who" special "The Waters of Mars" (2009), and Lady Smallwood in the BBC series "Sherlock". On film, she portrayed Anthea Lahr in "Prick Up Your Ears" (1987), voiced the android TC-14 in "" (1999) and Alice's mother in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" (2010), and played acerbic theatre critic Tabitha Dickinson in "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" (2014).


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan was born into a working-class family in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her father had served in the British army for 21 years before becoming a civil servant. Her parents moved to Leeds, then Birmingham, when she was still a child. She attended King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham through a scholarship. Despite her origins, she speaks with a received pronunciation accent. As of 2011, her only role with a Scottish accent is "AfterLife" (2003).


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan's father died in a car accident when she was 15. Her mother was affected by Alzheimer's disease and died in 1994; she inspired Sharman Macdonald to write the play "The Winter Guest" (1995), directed by Alan Rickman, which he later adapted as a film.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan's first contact with theatre was through school productions. She became friends with future playwright Kevin Elyot, who attended the neighbouring King Edward's School for boys, and followed him to Bristol, where he read Drama at university. She did a number of odd jobs while staging her own production of Joe Orton's "Funeral Games".


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan joined London's Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 21. After her training, she started out in summer weekly rep in Southwold to gain her Equity card. She appeared in two small roles in Molière's "Don Juan" at the Hampstead Theatre in 1976, and joined the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester when it opened. She performed in the first productions at the Royal Exchange and appeared in eight plays in Manchester in the next two years. In 1978 she returned to London in "Plenty" by David Hare at the National. She appeared on the television in small roles in a special episode of "Up Pompeii!", in "The New Avengers", and a commercial for Head & Shoulders shampoo.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: She made her breakthrough on "Top Girls" by Caryl Churchill, staged at the Royal Court in London and later transferred to the Public Theater in New York, Her performance as Lady Nijo, a 13th-century Japanese concubine, won her an Obie, her first award.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: The following year, she took her first major role on film in Richard Eyre's "Loose Connections" with Stephen Rea. At the same time her television work included a filmed version of Frederick Lonsdale's "On Approval" (1982), "Reilly, Ace of Spies" (1983) and "Dead Head" (1985).


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: In 1985, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the production of "Troilus and Cressida", in which she played Helen of Troy. In September she created the role of the Marquise de Merteuil in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", the play by Christopher Hampton after the French novel by Choderlos de Laclos, which opened at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon. On 8 January 1986, the production transferred to the 200-seat theatre The Pit in London's Barbican Centre, with its original cast. In October of that year, the production moved to the Ambassadors in the West End. In April 1987, the cast, including Duncan, took the play to Broadway. For her performance, she was nominated for a Tony and won the Olivier Award for Best Actress and a Theatre World Award. She was replaced by Glenn Close for "Dangerous Liaisons" — Stephen Frears's film of the play; similarly John Malkovich was selected for the role of Valmont instead of Duncan's co-star Alan Rickman.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: In 1988, Duncan won an Evening Standard Award for her role of Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams. At the same time, she became a regular in the plays of Harold Pinter and the television work of Alan Bleasdale and Stephen Poliakoff. In 1994–95, she performed for a second season with the RSC in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", in the double role of Hippolyta and Titania, replacing Stella Gonet from the original production cast. She went on tour in the United States with the rest of the cast, but back and neck pains forced her to be replaced by Emily Button from January to March 1997. Impressed by her performance in David Mamet's "The Cryptogram" (1994), Al Pacino asked Duncan to play the role of his wife in "City Hall" (1996) by Harold Becker.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: To please her young son, a "Star Wars" fan, Duncan applied for the role of Anakin Skywalker's mother in "" (1999) but was not cast; she finally accepted to voice an android TC-14. She reunited with Alan Rickman in a revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives" (2001–02) and won a Tony Award for Best Actress and a second Olivier Award for her performance as Amanda Prynne; she was also nominated that year for her role in "Mouth To Mouth" by Kevin Elyot.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan played Servilia Caepionis in the 2005 HBO-BBC series "Rome," and starred as Rose Harbinson in "Starter for 10". Aged by make-up, she played Lord Longford's wife, Elizabeth, in the TV film "Longford". In February 2009, she played British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "Margaret". In November 2009, she played Adelaide Brooke, companion to the Doctor, in the second of the 2009 "Doctor Who" specials. She played Alice's mother in Tim Burton's 2010 film "Alice in Wonderland", alongside Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. She also starred in the original London run of Polly Stenham's play "That Face" at the Royal Court co-starring Matt Smith and directed by Jeremy Herrin. She narrated the Matt Lucas and David Walliams 2010/2011 fly-on-the-wall mockumentary series "Come Fly with Me" on the BBC. In October–November 2010, she starred in a new version by Frank McGuinness of Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman" at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside her "Liaisons dangereuses" co-stars Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw. The production transferred in January–February 2011 to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Alan Bleasdale asked Duncan to appear in his first work for television after ten years of absence, "The Sinking of the Laconia", aired in January 2011. She played an upper-class passenger in the two-part drama based on a true story of World War II. She also played the mother of Matt Smith in the telefilm "Christopher and His Kind" written by Kevin Elyot after Christopher Isherwood's autobiography of the same title. In October–November 2011, Duncan read extracts of the King James Bible at the National Theatre, London as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of the translation. She played Queen Annis, ruler of Caerleon and antagonist of Merlin, in the 5th episode of the fourth series of BBC1's "Merlin". She also appeared as Home Secretary Alex Cairns to Rory Kinnear's Prime Minister in "The National Anthem", the first episode of Charlie Brooker's anthology series "Black Mirror".


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan started 2012 as a guest in the New Year special of "Absolutely Fabulous", playing Saffy's favourite film actress, Jeanne Durand. In February, she returned to the West End in Noël Coward's "Hay Fever" with Kevin McNally, Jeremy Northam and Olivia Colman, once again under the direction of Howard Davies. Later in 2012, she was featured in BBC2's productions of Shakespeare's history plays. She played the Duchess of York in the first film, "Richard II", with David Suchet as the Duke of York and Patrick Stewart as John of Gaunt.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: In October 2014, Duncan appeared as Claire in the revival of Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance" on Broadway. That year, she also appeared in the film "Birdman, or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)", which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan is married to fellow Scottish actor Hilton McRae, whom she met in 1985 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. They live in North London. They have one son, Cal McRae, born September 1991.


title: Lindsay Duncan

text: Duncan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours, for her services to drama.


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: Aishwarya Rajinikanth (born 1 January 1982) is an Indian film director and playback singer who works in Tamil cinema. She is the elder daughter of actor Rajinikanth and wife of actor Dhanush. She made her feature film directorial debut with "3" (2012) starring Dhanush and Shruti Haasan in the lead.


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: Aishwarya was born to actor Rajinikanth and Latha Rangachari. She has a younger sister, Soundarya, who works in the Kollywood film industry as well.


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: Aishwarya began her career in the Tamil film industry as a playback singer in the unreleased film "Ramanaa", directed by Parthy Bhaskar. The song was composed by Deva in November 2000. Her first song to be released was "Natpe Natpe" from D. Imman's soundtrack for "Whistle" (2003), which she sung alongside the composer and actor Silambarasan.


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: In August 2011, she announced that she would direct her then-husband, Dhanush, and Shruti Haasan in her first feature film titled "3". Dhanush later clarified that this would be his only film under his wife's direction. The film was highly anticipated prior to its release, after the song "Why This Kolaveri Di" from its soundtrack went viral and became an internet phenomenon. The song was composed by her cousin Anirudh Ravichander. She appeared alongside the lead cast and composer in the making of the video. In July 2015, Aishwarya announced she will soon launch a YouTube channel under the banner of "Ten Entertainment" to exclusively promote original content and short films by aspiring filmmakers.


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: She was a judge on STAR Vijay's dance competition "Jodi Number One" in its third season alongside actors Sangeetha and Jeeva. She became a playback singer with the film "Whistle" alongside Silambarasan, which was then followed by the song "Un Mela Aasadhan" in the film "Aayirathil Oruvan", for which she also worked as an assistant director.


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: She performed Bharatanatyam at the UN headquarters on International Women's Day. However, her performance was criticised on social media by professional Bharatanatyam dancers. Popular Indian dancer Anita Ratnam wrote on Aishwarya's Facebook, "This is what bharatanatyam becomes... A caricature and a farce!".


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: Aishwarya was married to actor Dhanush with whom she has two sons, Yatra (born 2006) and Linga (born 2010). The couple announced their separation through their respective social media handles on 17 January 2022.


title: Aishwarya Rajinikanth

text: In December 2016, Aishwarya Rajinikanth released her own memoir "Standing on An Apple Box: The Story of A Girl Among the Stars." With this book, she has revealed her own story of being a celebrity kid, making her career choices, her marriage and her life as Rajinikanth’s daughter.


title: Hashima Island

text: , commonly called , is a tiny abandoned island off Nagasaki, lying about from the centre of the city. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands in Nagasaki Prefecture. The island's most notable features are its abandoned concrete buildings, undisturbed except by nature, and the surrounding seawall. While the island is a symbol of the rapid industrialization of Japan, it is also a reminder of Japanese war crimes as a site of forced labour prior to and during World War II.


title: Hashima Island

text: The island was known for its undersea coal mines, established in 1887, which operated during the industrialisation of Japan. The island reached a peak population of 5,259 in 1959. In 1974, with the coal reserves nearing depletion, the mine was closed and all of the residents departed soon after, leaving the island effectively abandoned for the following three decades.


title: Hashima Island

text: Interest in the island re-emerged in the 2000s on account of its undisturbed historic ruins, and it gradually became a tourist attraction. Certain collapsed exterior walls have since been restored, and travel to Hashima was reopened to tourists on April 22, 2009. Increasing interest in the island resulted in an initiative for its protection as a site of industrial heritage. The island appeared in a CNN article entitled "10 of the freakiest places around the world".


title: Hashima Island

text: The coal mine of the island was formally approved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2015, as part of Japan's .


title: Hashima Island

text: "Battleship Island" is an English translation of the Japanese nickname for Hashima Island, "Gunkanjima" ("gunkan" meaning "warship", "Jima" being the rendaku form of "Shima", meaning "island"). The island's nickname came from its resemblance from a distance to the Japanese battleship "Tosa".


title: Hashima Island

text: Coal was first discovered on the island around 1810, and the island was continuously inhabited from 1887 to 1974 as a seabed coal mining facility. Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha bought the island in 1890 and began extracting coal from undersea mines, while seawalls and land reclamation (which tripled the size of the island) were constructed. Four main mine-shafts (reaching up to a kilometre deep) were built, with one actually connecting it to a neighbouring island. Between 1891 and 1974, around 15.7 million tons of coal were excavated in mines with temperatures of 30 °C and 95% humidity.


title: Hashima Island

text: In 1916, the company built Japan's first large reinforced concrete building (a 7-floor miner's apartment block), to accommodate their burgeoning ranks of workers. Concrete was specifically used to protect against typhoon destruction. Over the next 55 years, more buildings were constructed, including apartment blocks, a school, kindergarten, hospital, town hall, and a community centre. For entertainment, a clubhouse, cinema, communal bath, swimming pool, rooftop gardens, shops, and a pachinko parlour were built for the miners and their families.


title: Hashima Island

text: Beginning in 1930s and until the end of World War II, conscripted Korean civilians and Chinese prisoners of war were forced to work under very harsh conditions and brutal treatment at the Mitsubishi facility as forced labourers under Japanese wartime mobilisation policies. During this period, many of those conscripted labourers died on the island due to various dangers, including underground accidents, exhaustion, and malnutrition; 137 died by one estimate; about 1300 by another.


title: Hashima Island

text: In 1959, the island's population reached its peak of 5,259, with a population density of 835 people per hectare (83,500 people/km, 216,264 people per square mile) for the whole island, or 1,391 per hectare (139,100


title: Hashima Island

text: As petroleum replaced coal in Japan in the 1960s, coal mines began shutting down across the country, and Hashima's mines were no exception. Mitsubishi officially closed the mine in January 1974, and the island was cleared of inhabitants on 20 April.


title: Hashima Island

text: Today, its most notable features are the abandoned and still mostly-intact concrete apartment buildings, the surrounding seawall, and its distinctive profile shape. The island has been administered as part of Nagasaki city since the merger with the former town of Takashima in 2005. Travel to Hashima was re-opened on 22 April 2009, after 35 years of closure.


title: Hashima Island

text: The island was owned by Mitsubishi until 2002, when it was voluntarily transferred to Takashima Town. Currently, Nagasaki City, which absorbed Takashima Town in 2005, exercises jurisdiction over the island. On 23 August 2005, landing was permitted by the city hall to journalists only. At the time, Nagasaki City planned the restoration of a pier for tourist landings in April 2008. In addition a visitor walkway 220 meters (722 feet) in length was planned, and entry to unsafe building areas was to be prohibited. Due to the delay in development construction, however, at the end of 2007, the city announced that public access was delayed until spring 2009. Additionally the city encountered safety concerns, arising from the risk of collapse of the buildings on the island due to significant ageing.


title: Hashima Island

text: It was estimated that landing of tourists would only be feasible for fewer than 160 days per year because of the area's harsh weather. For reasons of cost-effectiveness, the city considered cancelling plans to extend the visitor walkway further—for an approximate 300 metres (984 feet) toward the eastern part of the island and approximately 190 metres (623 feet) toward the western part of the island—after 2009. A small portion of the island was finally reopened for tourism in 2009, but more than 95% of the island is strictly delineated as off-limits during tours. A full reopening of the island would require substantial investment in safety, and detract from the historical state of the aged buildings on the property.


title: Hashima Island

text: The island is increasingly gaining international attention not only generally for its modern regional heritage, but also for the undisturbed housing complex remnants representative of the period from the Taishō period to the Shōwa period. It has become a frequent subject of discussion among enthusiasts for ruins. Since the abandoned island has not been maintained, several buildings have collapsed, mainly due to typhoon damage, and other buildings are in danger of collapse. However, some of the collapsed exterior walls have been restored with concrete.


title: Hashima Island

text: Japan's 2009 request to include Hashima Island, along with 22 other industrial sites, in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list was initially opposed by South Korean authorities on the grounds that Korean and Chinese forced labourers were used on the island prior to and during World War II. North Korea also criticised the World Heritage bid because of this issue.


title: Hashima Island

text: Although the period at which forced labour took place does not coincide with the period of the Meiji industrial revolution, the criticism arose based on the view that the Meiji industrial revolution was 'inseparable from 20th-century empire-building, which led inexorably to Japanese colonialism and the Asia–Pacific War'. South Korea claimed that the official recognition of those sites would "violate the dignity of the survivors of forced labor as well as the spirit and principles of the UNESCO Convention", and "World Heritage sites should be of outstanding universal value and be acceptable by all peoples across the globe." China also released a similar statement that "World Heritage application should live up to the principle and spirit of promoting peace as upheld by UNESCO."


title: Hashima Island

text: A week before the beginning of the 39th UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) meeting in Bonn, Germany, South Korea and Japan agreed on a compromise: that Japan would include the use of forced labour in the explanation of facilities in relevant sites and both nations would cooperate towards the approval of each other's World Heritage Site candidates.


title: Hashima Island

text: In July 2015, during the WHC meeting, South Korea withdrew its opposition after Japan's acknowledgement of this issue as part of the history of the island, specifically noting that "there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites [including Hashima island]" and that Japan was "prepared to incorporate appropriate measures into the interpretive strategy to remember the victims such as the establishment of information centre". The site was subsequently approved for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 5 July as part of the item .


title: Hashima Island

text: On the same day immediately after the UNESCO WHC meeting, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida publicly explained that "the remarks [forced to work under harsh conditions] by the Japanese government representative did not mean 'forced labor and that "they were requisitioned under the National Requisition Ordinance which was applied to the Korean Peninsula at the time and that, given the nature of the policy of requisition, there were also cases in which they were requisitioned against their will". Responding to this controversy, a South Korean government official said, "If you look at the larger context, it says that they were taken away against their will and 'forced to work' under harsh conditions. No matter how you look at it, the only interpretation is that this was forced labor."


title: Hashima Island

text: A monitoring mechanism for the implementation of 'the measures to remember the victims' was set up by the World Heritage Committee and it was assessed during the WHC Session in June 2018. In this meeting, the UNESCO committee concluded that Japan's effort and progress to implement appropriate measures to commemorate the victims and acknowledge the full history of the island were unsatisfactory and requested Japan to keep their promises.


title: Hashima Island

text: When people resided on the island, the Nomo Shosen line served the island from Nagasaki Port via Iōjima Island and Takashima Island. Twelve round-trip services were available per day in 1970. It took 50 minutes to travel from the island to Nagasaki. After all residents left the island, this direct route was discontinued.


title: Hashima Island

text: Since April 2009, the island has been open for public visits, although there are restrictions by Nagasaki city's ordinance.


title: Hashima Island

text: Sightseeing boat trips around or to the island are currently provided by five operators; Gunkanjima Concierge, Gunkanjima Cruise Co., Ltd., Yamasa-Kaiun, and Takashima Kaijou from Nagasaki Port, and a private service from the Nomozaki Peninsula.


title: Hashima Island

text: In 2002, Swedish filmmaker Thomas Nordanstad visited the island with Dotokou, a Japanese man who grew up on Hashima. Nordanstad documented the trip in a film called "Hashima, Japan, 2002".


title: Hashima Island

text: During the 2009 Mexican photography festival FotoSeptiembre, Mexican photographers Guillaume Corpart Muller and Jan Smith, along with Venezuelan photographer Ragnar Chacin, showcased images from the island in the exhibition "Pop. Density 5,000/km". The exhibition traced urban density and the rise and fall of cities around the world.


title: Hashima Island

text: In 2009, the island was featured in History Channel's "Life After People", first-season episode "The Bodies Left Behind" as an example of the decay of concrete buildings after only 35 years of abandonment.


title: Hashima Island

text: The island was again featured in 2011 in episode six of a 3D production for 3net, "Forgotten Planet", discussing the island's current state, history and unauthorised photo shoots by urban explorers. The Japanese Cultural Institute in Mexico used the images of Corpart Muller and Smith in the photography exhibition "Fantasmas de Gunkanjima", organized by Daniela Rubio, as part of the celebrations surrounding 200 years of diplomacy between Mexico and Japan.


title: Hashima Island

text: The island has appeared in a number of feature films. External shots of the island were used in the 2012 James Bond film "Skyfall". The 2015 live-action Japanese films based on the manga "Attack on Titan" used the island for filming multiple scenes, and 2013 Thai horror film "Hashima Project" was filmed there.


title: Hashima Island

text: The island is depicted in the comic Atomic Robo, where it features prominently as a central location in the storylines of Volume 6: The Ghost of Station X, Volume 10: The Ring of Fire, and Volume 12: The Spectre of Tomorrow.


title: Hashima Island

text: The 2017 South Korean World War II film "The Battleship Island (Korean: 군함도; Hanja: 軍艦島; RR: Gunhamdo)," depicts a fictitious attempt by Korean forced labourers to escape the labour camp on the island.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: The Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF); , ) is the aviation branch of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. The present air force came into being when the Imperial Iranian Air Force was renamed in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution. The IRIAF was heavily involved in the Iran–Iraq War, carrying out major operations like Operation Kaman 99, Operation Sultan 10, the H-3 airstrike, and the first attack on a nuclear reactor in history, Operation Scorch Sword. As a result of eight years of aerial combat in that conflict, the IRIAF has the second highest claimed number of fighter aces in the region, exceeded only by the Israeli Air Force; as many as seven IRIAF pilots claimed more than six kills, mostly achieved in the F-14 Tomcat. Veterans of the Iran–Iraq War would go on to form the core of the IRIAF command.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: The IRIAF came into being when the former Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) was renamed following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, in February 1979. The British publishing company Orbis' "Warplane" partwork magazine seems to indicate the renaming did not actually take place until after the Iran–Iraq War had broken out.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: This "new" Iranian air force largely inherited the equipment and structure of the former IIAF, even losing most of its leading officers in the course of post-revolutionary chaos, as well as due to the prosecution of those considered as loyal to the Shah, pro-U.S. or elsewhere by the new government in Tehran.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Due to strained relations with the west, Iran had to procure new equipment from Brazil, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. Since the Revolution, the exact composition of the IRIAF has been hard to determine, but estimates do exist. Many aircraft belonging to the Iraqi Air Force took refuge in Iran during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and many were put into service with the IRIAF or taken apart for spare parts.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Due to the continuous spare parts shortages faced by the air force, a decision was made in the late 1980s to develop a local aerospace industry to support the air force.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: In 2002, Iran, with the co-operation of Ukraine, successfully started the manufacture of the Iran-140, a licence-built version of the Antonov An-140 transport aircraft. Simultaneously, Iran began construction of two domestically produced fighters, upgraded using technology from the F-14 Tomcat and the F-5 Tiger II. The fighters have been named the Azarakhsh and the Shafaq.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Since then the country has also become self-sufficient in the manufacture of helicopters. The country claims that it is capable of producing the U.S. AH-1 Cobra gunship. Additionally, Iran also produces Bell Helicopter Bell 212 and Bell 206 helicopters in serial production. These are known respectively as the Shabaviz 2-75 and the Shabaviz 206.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: A series of purges and forced retirements resulted in the manpower of the service being halved between February 1979 and July 1980, leaving the IRIAF ill-prepared for the Iran–Iraq War (also called the "1st Persian Gulf War"). The sudden Iraqi air strikes against eight major Iranian airbases and four other military installations, launched on the afternoon of 22 September 1980, came as a complete surprise and caused a shock in the IRIAF.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: On 23 September 1980, Iran launched Operation Kaman 99 as 40 F-4 Phantoms, armed with Mark 82, Mark 83 and Mark 84 bombs and AGM-65 Maverick missiles, took off from Hamadan. After refueling in mid-air the Phantoms reached the Iraqi capital Baghdad, where they attacked: al-Rashid, al-Habbaniyah and al-Kut airbases.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Meanwhile, eight More F-4s took off from Tehran and launched a second attack on the al-Rashid airbase.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Iran proceeded to launch 58 F-5E Tiger IIs from Tabriz, which were sent to attack Mosul Airbase. After the attack on Mosul Airbase, another 50 F-5Es were dispatched to strike Nasiriyah Airbase, which was heavily damaged.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: As all 148 Iranian F-4s and F-5s had been sent for a bombing raid on Iraq, 60 F-14 Tomcats were scrambled to defend Iranian airspace against a possible Iraqi retaliation. Iranian F-14s managed to down 2 Iraqi MiG-21s (1 MiG-21RF and 1 MiG-21MF) and 3 Iraqi MiG-23s (MiG-23MS), an Iranian F-5E also shot down an Iraqi Su-20 during the operation. Iraqi MiG-23s managed to down 2 F-5Es, while Iraqi MiG-21s also downed 2 F-5Es. Iraqis also shot down one of their own Il-76MD strategic airlifters with a SA-3 SAM.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: The Iraqis however were well prepared for the attack and had flown over most of their air force to other Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, this made sure that most of the Iraqi Air Force survived the operation.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi military were dealt a heavy blow when Iranian Air Force vulnerabilities failed to materialize. All Iraqi air bases' near Iran were out of order for weeks and, according to Iran, Iraq's aerial efficiency was reduced by 55%. This allowed Iranians to regroup and prepare for the upcoming Iraqi invasion.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Although the readiness rates of the IRIAF significantly increased in the following months, its overall role and influence declined, as the clerical government prioritized resources for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) militias and simultaneously attempted to develop a separate air arm for this service.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Despite limitations and sanctions, the IRIAF achieved a successful kill rate in air-to-air combat against Iraqi jets, to the point that in air-to-air engagements, Iran's kill ratio was roughly 5:1, which is only surpassed by the Israelis against Syria in 1982 and the US in the Gulf war in 1991. It got to the point where Iraq ordered its pilots to avoid air-to-air engagements (especially with the F-14). After the successful liberation of most Iranian areas captured by the Iraqis in the first half of 1982, the situation of the IRIAF changed completely. From an air arm that was offensive by nature, it was largely relegated to air defense and relatively infrequent bombing attacks against targets of industrial and military significance inside Iraq. Simultaneously, the IRIAF had to learn how to maintain and keep operational its large fleet of U.S.-built aircraft and helicopters without outside help, due to American sanctions. Relying primarily on antiquated equipment purchased from the US in the 1970s, the Iranians began establishing their own aerospace industry.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Starting from 1984 and 1985, the IRIAF found itself confronted by an ever-better organized and equipped opponent, as the Iraqi Air force—reinforced by deliveries of advanced fighter-bombers from France and the Soviet Union—launched numerous offensives against Iranian air bases, military bases, industrial infrastructures, power plants, oil-export hubs, and population centers. These became better known as "The Tanker War" and "The War of the Cities". To defend against an increasing number of Iraqi air strikes, the IRIAF leaned heavily on its large fleet of Grumman F-14 Tomcat interceptor fighters. Tomcats were mainly deployed in defense of the strategically important Khark Island (main hub for Iranian oil exports), and Tehran. Over 300 air-to-air engagements against IQAF fighters, fighter-bombers, and bombers, were fought in these areas alone between 1980 and 1988.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Confronted with the fact that it could not obtain replacements for equipment lost in what became a war of attrition against Iraq, the IRIAF remained defense-orientated for the rest of the conflict, conserving its surviving assets as a "force in being". From mid 1987, the IRIAF found itself confronted also with U.S. Navy fighters over the Persian Gulf. A number of confrontations that occurred between July 1987 and August 1988 stretched available IRIAF assets to the limit, exhausting its capability to defend Iranian air space against Iraqi air strikes.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: With this brutal air fight during 8 consecutive years, many Iranian fighter pilots, claimed world records during the war, such as General Yadollah Khalili, who holds the worldwide record of the longest straight flight in a fighter plane, having flown an F-14 non-stop for 11 hours, thus having had to do aerial refuelling 8 times during the process, or like Fereydoun Ali Mazandarani, who holds the record for being the first pilot to do aerial refuelling in an F-14 in a night environment. As a result of this war, the IRIAF developed proven tactics and skillful battle tested pilots, thus becoming one of the most experienced air arms in the region.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: The most notable Iranian fighter pilots were Fereydoun Ali Mazandarani, Fazlollah Javidnia, Jalil Zandi and Shahram Rostami. Other notable pilots include, Hossein Khalatbari, Abbas Doran, Hassan Harandi, Abolfazl Mehreganfar, Ghafour Jeddi, Abbas Babaei and Ali Eghbali Dogahe among many others.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Immediately after the end of the Iran–Iraq War, the IRIAF was partially rebuilt through limited purchases of MiG-29 fighters and Su-24 bombers from the Soviet Union, as well as F-7M and FT-7 fighters from China. While providing needed reinforcement to the Iranian Air Force, these types never replaced the older, U.S.-built F-4 Phantoms, F-14s (the IRIAF is now the only air arm in the world using the fighter), or F-5s. Instead, the IRIAF continued its efforts to keep these types in service, and began a number of projects to refurbish and upgrade them.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, numerous Iraqi pilots flew Iraqi Air Force aircraft to Iran to avoid destruction by coalition forces. The Iranians impounded these aircraft and never returned them, putting them in service in the IRIAF and claiming them as reparations for the Iran–Iraq War. The aircraft included several Mirage F1s, MiG-23s, MiG-29s, Su-20s, Su-22Ms, Su-24s, Su-25s and a number of Il-76s, including the secret, one-off AEW-AWACS Il-76 "ADNAN 1" prototype.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Even after the cease-fire with Iraq, the IRIAF carried out several air raids against Kurdish bases in northern Iraq. The first of such raids was conducted using eight F-4s armed with rockets and cluster bombs on 6 April 1992 against People's Mujahedin of Iran's Camp Ashraf. During this event one F-4 was shot down by either insurgent or Iraqi military AAA and both pilots (Lt. Col Amini and Cpt. Sharifi) were captured and not freed until 1998. Despite threats of response, Iraq was not able to retaliate due to its own fight against Kurdish separatist guerrillas and the Western-imposed no-fly zones that crippled and limited its air force's operations.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: In 2007, Iraq asked Iran to return some of the scores of Iraqi fighter plans that flew there ahead of the Gulf War in 1991. And as of 2014, Iran was receptive to the demands and was working on refurbishing an unspecified number of jets. In late 2014, Iran returned 130 military aircraft to Iraq.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: In 2006, after Iranian media published a series of reports suggesting that Venezuela was interested in selling its 21 F-16 Fighting Falcons to Iran, a Hugo Chavez adviser confirmed to the Associated Press that "Venezuela's military is considering selling its fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to another country, possibly Iran, in response to a U.S. ban on arms sales to President Hugo Chávez's government". In response, Sean McCormack, a U.S. State Department spokesperson, warned Venezuela that "without the written consent of the United States, Venezuela can't transfer these defense articles, and in this case F-16s, to a third country".


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: According to Moscow Defense Brief, Russia delivered 6 Su-25UBK ground attack fighter-trainers, 12 Mi-171Sh military transport helicopters, 21 Mi-171 transport helicopters, and 3 Mi-17B-5 medical helicopters to Iran between 2000 and 2006. A $700 million repair and modernization program of the IRIAF MiG-29 and Su-24 fighters was also completed.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: On 22 September 2009, an IRIAF Il-76 collided with an F-5E shortly after an annual parade in Tehran and crashed near Varamin, killing all seven people on board.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: At the end of 2014, there was evidence that the IRIAF was involved in the 2014 military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. A video released by Aljazeera seemed to show an Iranian F-4 Phantom II bombing some ISIS buildings in Diyala Governorate.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: The IRIAF air fleet is aging, some aircraft are more than 40 years old, and this has led to several crashes. On May 24, 2022 two Chinese-built Chengdu J-7 crashed east of Isfahan killing the pilots. A F-5F crashed into a school in Tabriz on February 21, 2022, killing both crew and a person on the ground. On June 1, 2021, another F-5F crashed near Dezful, killing both crew. Additionally, on 25 December 2019, an MiG-29 crashed in the Sabalan mountains, and on Aug. 26, 2018, an F-5F crash-landed near Dezful, killing the pilot and injuring the co-pilot.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Note: former outdated Jane's Sentinel estimate of units 1993 data (Source: Jane's Sentinel, Islamic Republic of Iran, 1993, – not complete) has now been replaced by newer 2019 data


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: The IRIAF's composition has changed very little since 1979. There have been limited relocations and unit disbandments in the late 1980s (F-4D/E and F-14 fleet at Shiraz and Mehrabad). Deployments during the war with Iraq were mainly of temporary character. A major reorganization of existing air-defense SAM and AAA units took place in 1985. There have not been any major reorganizations in the 1990s.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Equipment, capabilities, and performance also strongly influenced the development of the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) in the 1980s, but also that of the United Arab Emirates Air Force, in the 1990s and the most recent times.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: As of 2013 the Iranian authorities also changed the command structure (tactical air bases, military installations, civil airports) and this former status is not in effect any longer. Almost all airfields indicated of being of some strategic importance for contingency scenarios have now been made suitable for combined military and civilian usage. This is also in accordance with the fact that IRIAF only is operating small composite (easy to relocate at very short notice) units spread out all over the country instead of the former large fix-based units. Therefore, all combined airfields are accommodated with basic cross-service capabilities to handle all IRIAF aircraft. The main facilities for logistics and technical overhaul however remain concentrated at some larger airfields.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Iran has been under sanctions since 1979 and thus the country has become capable of servicing and overhauling its own military and civilian aircraft. However, less tension in the current (2015) international situation led to a decrease of the sanctions, and the Iranian government is now capable again in ordering a new fleet of civilian aircraft replacing the aged types.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Jane's Sentinel in 1993 (p. 27) listed TAB 1 at Mehrabad with six squadrons (F-5Es, F-7Ms, F-14/MiG-29, C-130H/Ilyushin Il-76, Boeing 707/747, and Fokker F-27 Friendship/Dassault Falcon); TAB 2 at Tabriz with three squadrons (F-4D/E "Phantom II"; F-5E, Chengdu F-7M) and a flight of C-130; TAB 3 at Hamadan with a squadron each of Chinese-built Shenyang F-6 and F-7M; TAB 4 at Dezful with a squadron each of F-4D/E and F-5E; TAB 5 was not identified; TAB 6 at Bushehr with a squadron of F-4D/E, and two flights, one of F-7M and one of C-130H; TAB 7 at Shiraz with three squadrons (of F-4D/E; F-14/MiG-29, and C-130H/Il-76) and a flight of F 27; TAB 8 at Isfahan with three squadrons (of F-5E; F-6; and F-7M) and a flight of F 27; TAB 9 at Bandar Abbas with two squadrons (of F-4D/E and F-7M) and a F-14A detachment, plus a flight of Lockheed P-3F Orion; TAB 10 at Chah Bahar with a squadron of F-6 and a flight of C-130H/Il-76; and TAB 11 listed at Ghale Morghi (Beech F33) and Mushshak (PC-7, Tucano), the Flying Training School, plus detachments at Aghajari.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: In 2007, Iraq asked Iran to return some of the scores of Iraqi fighter planes that flew there ahead of the Gulf War in 1991. As of 2014, Iran was receptive to the demands and was working on refurbishing an unspecified number of jets. In late 2014, Iran returned 130 military aircraft to Iraq.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: A 13-year long UN arms embargo imposed on Iran was lifted on 18 October 2020. Although there was speculation that when the arms embargo ended the Iranian Air Force would undertake an expansion and modernization program, it is not likely.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: One of the most crucial aspects of this program, along with the personnel training and facilities construction, will be the purchase of the most advanced Russian and Chinese jets in considerable quantities. There have been rumors that the IRIAF would be interested in the following aircraft for its modernization program:


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Reportedly, Iranian interest also goes for other no less important air elements, such as tanker and support aircraft. The pursued aircraft in this regard are:


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: In the last several years several new airfields have been constructed in central- and eastern Iran. Some of these facilities have since seen full-scale deployments of IRIAF units, and it now appears that at least two became permanent "Tactical Fighter Bases" (TFBs). These are the first such bases established since 1979. Except new airfields, with Chinese support, the IRIAF constructed also a number of new early warning radar sites around the country. Its ability to control the national airspace, however, remains limited—mainly due to the rugged terrain and lack of airborne early warning assets.


title: Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force

text: Aside from maintaining 17 TFBs, the IRIAF operates numerous temporary detachments on several minor airfields around the country. Ex-Iraqi Mirage F.1EQs, usually based at TFB.14, near Mashhad, were frequently seen over the Persian Gulf in 2005 and 2006.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict, sometimes also referred to as the Middle Eastern Cold War, is the ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other Muslim regions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. It also extends to disputes or broader competition in other regions such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of North and East Africa, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In what has been described as a cold war, the conflict is waged on multiple levels over geopolitical, economic, and sectarian influence in pursuit of regional hegemony. American support for Saudi Arabia and its allies as well as Russian and Chinese support for Iran and its allies have drawn comparisons to the dynamics of the Cold War era, and the proxy conflict has been characterised as a front in what former Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has referred to as the "New Cold War".


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: , the rivalry is primarily a political and economic struggle exacerbated by religious differences, and sectarianism in the region is exploited by both countries for geopolitical purposes as part of a larger conflict. Iran is largely Shia Muslim, while Saudi Arabia sees itself as the leading Sunni Muslim power.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The Arab–Iranian conflict or Arab-Persian conflict is a term which is used in reference to the modern conflict between Arab League countries and Iran. In a broader sense, the term is also used in reference to the historical ethnic tensions which have existed for centuries between Arabs and Persians as well as the historical religious sectarian conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims, due to Saudi Arabia and post-revolutionary Iran seeing themselves as the champion leading states for Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims, respectively.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: A noteworthy point in this conflict is that Iran has very positive relations with numerous Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria and Tunisia. Qatar also has established close working relations with Tehran, despite their differences of opinion over the Syrian civil war, with Iran and Turkey two of the non-Arab countries to support Qatar against Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the Qatar diplomatic crisis which lasted for over two years. In this regard, the rivalry and tension is often seen as being between Iran and Gulf Arab monarchies (all of which identify more with theocratic governance), such as the GCC states and their allies: namely Egypt, Sudan, Jordan and Morocco. The biggest rivalry in the Arab–Iranian conflict is between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who have been waging a heavy proxy war against each other since the late 1970s.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The proxy conflict can be traced back to the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when the US-backed monarchic Imperial State of Iran became an Islamic republic. The revolutionaries called for the overthrow of monarchies and secular governments to be replaced with Islamic republics, much to the alarm of the region's Sunni-run Arab monarchies Saudi Arabia, Ba'athist Iraq, Kuwait, and the other Persian Gulf states, most of whom were monarchies and all of whom had sizeable Shia populations. Islamist insurgents rose in Saudi Arabia in 1979, Egypt and Bahrain in 1981, Syria in 1982, and Lebanon in 1983.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Prior to the Iranian Revolution, the two countries constituted the Nixon Doctrine's "twin pillar" policy in the Middle East. The monarchies, particularly Iran since the US-led coup in 1953, were allied with the US to ensure stability in the Gulf region and act as a bulwark against Soviet influence during the Arab Cold War between Saudi Arabia and Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser. The alliance acted as a moderating influence on Saudi-Iranian relations.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: During this period Saudi Arabia styled itself as the leader of the Muslim world, basing its legitimacy in part on its control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. In 1962, it sponsored the inaugural General Islamic Conference in Mecca, at which a resolution was passed to create the Muslim World League. The organization is dedicated to spreading Islam and fostering Islamic solidarity under the Saudi purview, and has been successful in promoting Islam, particularly the conservative Wahhabi doctrine advocated by the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia also spearheaded the creation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in 1969.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Saudi Arabia's image as the leader of the Muslim world was undermined in 1979 with the rise of Iran's new theocratic government under Ayatollah Khomeini, who challenged the legitimacy of the Al Saud dynasty and its authority as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. King Khalid initially congratulated Iran and stated that "Islamic solidarity" could be the basis of closer relations between the two countries, but relations worsened substantially over the next decade.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The direct trigger of the Qatif uprising following the 1979 Iranian Revolution was a mourning procession marking the Shia religious holiday of Ashura, which was prohibited to be celebrated publicly in Saudi Arabia. The ensuing marches and protests led to escalating tensions resulting in bloody clashes between demonstrators and the Saudi security forces over the next few days as the latter opened fire on the former. A sequence of protests followed in the next months, sometimes involving mass arrests and violence, but these mainly reflected local and community concerns like discrimination, exploitation, the absence of basic freedoms, and disappointment regarding failed promises of modernisation and development. The uprising was not a direct response to Ayatollah Khomeini's call for revolution, but was inspired by the Iranian Revolution. The Organization of the Islamic Revolution in the Arabic Peninsula (OIR or OIRAP), a regional activist organisation who had connections with Iran was involved in the events of the uprising. The organisation run a radio station from Iran and had an office in Tehran. It encouraged Shia resistance and demands for the addressing of social and political concerns.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Throughout the 1980s, relations between the Shia and the state remained tense with hundreds of activists in exile as the Shia opposition relocated to Iran after 1979 in light of the then relevant conditions. The OIRAP focused on publishing, fundraising, and building a social movement in Saudi Arabia from Iran, with a non-violent but radical rhetoric, criticising and deeming the Saudi government illegitimate. Between 1982 and mid-1984, hundreds of OIRAP sympathisers were arrested mainly for the distribution of movement literature, the writing of graffiti, fundraising and attempts at large-scale mobilisation, until 1985 when a mass arrest dismantled its internal organisation in Saudi Arabia. The "hajj incident" of 1987 led to the exacerbation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran and the OIRAP decided to shift its operations out of Iran to avoid getting caught up in the animosity. OIRAP refused to create a military wing and carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia against the state when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps urged it to do so.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: A new organisation emerged in the wake of the "hajj incident", the Hizbullah al-Hijaz which was willing to ally with Iran and retaliate militarily. Its long-term political goal was the establishment of an Islamic republic in the Arabian Peninsula and advocated the overthrow of the Saudi government through violence, involving implicitly the separation of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The Hizbullah al-Hijaz was the military wing of the Khat al-Imam movement which referred to the followers of Imam Khomeini's line. The movement was initially religious, social and cultural in nature, but then became politicised. The relations between the two remain unclear. Hizbullah al-Hijaz took over OIRAP's role on the radical end of the spectrum of the Shia opposition in Saudi Arabia and its role in the Iranian propaganda effort against Saudi Arabia. The two distanced themselves from each other leading to the fragmentation of the Saudi Shia Islamist opposition. Hizubllah al-Hijaz perpetrated bombings in Saudi Arabia in response of the "hajj incident", which contributed to Saudi Arabia severing diplomatic relations with Iran on 26 April 1988. However, after 1989 the networks of Hizbullah al-Hijaz and Khat al-Imam inside Saudi Arabia were severely weakened through the arrests of many of its leaders.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Meanwhile, during the Gulf War OIRAP changed its name to Shia Reform Movement (RMS) and its strategy with it, shifting away from the Islamic and Shia discourse and moving towards pro-democracy and pro-human rights activism with government opposition concentrated in Qatif and the Eastern Province. Saudi Shia played an important role in the opposition but during the Gulf War the OIRAP remained loyal to Saudi Arabia. Rapprochement between the opposition and the government became possible after the death of Imam Khomeini and the end of the Gulf War, with diplomatic ties being restored between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the 26th of March in 1991. Hizbullah al-Hijaz opposed the 1993 agreement between the mainly Shia opposition and the government, even when the government released Shia political prisoners and granted amnesty to those in exile, arguing that it would only support it if real gains for the Shia were achieveable.The Khat al-Imam movement gained prominence briefly before the 1996 Khoban Towers bombings when some Shia became disillusioned with the agreement. After the attack on the Khoban Towers in 1996 a widespread mass arrest campaign was carried out imprisoning many of its members and individuals associated with it and members of the Hizbullah al-Hijaz, even when the organisation denied its involvement. However, it vowed to continue its struggle against the government and denounced the 1993 deal, even if most of its members were arrested.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Iran maintained its influence over Hizbullah al-Hijaz, but the mainstream of Saudi Shia distanced themselves from it once the Saudi government accepted the RMS as their representative. However, the political reforms and full recognition of Saudi Shia as Saudi citizens and their integration into the state did not get realised. Tensions in the Eastern Province had been building up for years and erupted during the 2011 Arab Spring, but remained confined to Qatif and the Eastern Province within Saudi Arabia. Shia representatives, leaders and notables, among them Khat al-Imam sided with the government and asked the population to stop the protests to preserve sectarian peace, which eventually happened. The protests were accompanied by arrests, violence and demanded democracy, Islam unity and the release of political prisoners. Loyalty of the Shia was questioned and the Saudi state blamed Iran.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Amid the Iranian Revolution and the ensuing political crisis, Khuzestani separatists in the city of Ahvaz saw a chance to achieve their goals but the new regime crushed this attempt. Initially the protests demanded the cessation of discrimination against Iranian Arabs and involved other long-standing grievances, but tensions escalated and one hundred Arabs died in the resulting riot. In April 2005 rioting and clashes between protesters and security forces erupted in Ahvaz once again. The reason for the uproar was the government's alleged intention to change Khuzestan's ethnic composition. The ASMLA (Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz) in Khuzestan is a Sunni Muslim separatist, ethno-nationalist terrorist organisation seeking to establish an Arab state within Iran, encouraging and engaging in armed struggle against the Iranian state with other similar organisations in the region. It was established covertly in 1999, and its existence was plublicly announced in 2005. Its armed wing, the Mohiuddin Nasser Brigades carried out a series of attacks as a continuation of the 2005 protests in Ahvaz beginning on the 12th of June in 2005 when they attacked public institutions and climaxing on the 24th of January in 2006 when they carried out an attack on a bank in Ahvaz. ASMLA enjoys the financial support of, among other states, Saudi Arabia and positions itself specifically within the context of the Saudi-Iranian proxy conflict by emphasising its sectarian nature to gain sponsors from the Arab World. Saudi Arabia's involvement in its sponsoration is confirmed by the Danish authorities. Its leaders left Iran in 2006, reorganised in the European Union and continued carrying out terrorist attacks against the Iranian state, with attacks on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran's oil infrastructure. They allegedly perpetrated a bombing in 2013 in Ahvaz, and their latest operation was attacking a military parade in 2018.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The Iran–Iraq War began on 22 September 1980, when Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, and it ended on 20 August 1988, when Iran accepted the UN-brokered ceasefire. Iraq wanted to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state, and was worried the 1979 Iranian Revolution would lead Iraq's Shi'ite majority to rebel against the Ba'athist government. The war also followed a long history of border disputes, and Iraq planned to annex the oil-rich Khuzestan Province and the east bank of the Arvand Rud (Shatt al-Arab).


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Hussein attempted to take advantage of revolutionary unrest in Iran and quell the revolution in its infancy. Fearing a possible revolutionary wave that could threaten Iraq's stability and embolden its Shia population, Iraq triggered the Iran–Iraq War which lasted for eight years and killed hundreds of thousands. Saddam had reportedly secured Saudi support for Iraq's war effort during an August 1980 visit he made to Saudi Arabia. This was in addition to financial and military support Iraq received from neighboring leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, in part to hedge Iranian power and prevent the spread of its revolution.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of Iran's post-revolutionary chaos, it made limited progress and was quickly repelled; Iran regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. For the next six years, Iran was on the offensive until near the end of the war. There were a number of proxy forces—most notably the People's Mujahedin of Iran siding with Iraq and the Iraqi Kurdish militias of the KDP and PUK siding with Iran. The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, France, and most Arab countries provided political and logistic support for Iraq, while Iran was largely isolated.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: American support for Iraq during the war had profound effects on Iran. The United States' defense of Saddam and its role in blocking investigations into Iraq's use of chemical weapons on Iranian soldiers and civilians convinced Iran to further pursue its own unconventional weapons program. The government has also used American hostility to justify foreign and domestic policies, including its nuclear program and crackdowns on internal dissent.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Apart from the Iran–Iraq War, Iran and Saudi Arabia engaged in tense competition elsewhere, supporting opposing armed groups in the Lebanese Civil War, the Soviet–Afghan War, and other conflicts. After the Cold War, Iran and Saudi Arabia continued to support different groups and organizations along sectarian lines such as in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Iraq.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: After eight years, war-weariness, economic problems, decreased morale, repeated Iranian military failures, recent Iraqi successes, Iraqi use of weapons of mass destruction, lack of international sympathy, and increased U.S.–Iran military tension all led to a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The conflict has been compared to World War I in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across fortified defensive lines, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, Iranian human wave attacks, extensive use of chemical weapons by Iraq, and, later, deliberate attacks on civilian targets. A special feature of the war can be seen in the Iranian cult of the martyr which had been developed in the years before the revolution. The discourses on martyrdom formulated in the Iranian Shiite context led to the tactics of "human wave attacks" and thus had a lasting impact on the dynamics of the war.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In response to the 1987 Makkah incident in which Shia pilgrims clashed with Saudi security forces during the Hajj, Khomeini stated: "These vile and ungodly Wahhabis, are like daggers which have always pierced the heart of the Muslims from the back...Mecca is in the hands of a band of heretics." Iran also called for the ouster of the Saudi government.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The current phase of the conflict began in 2011 when the Arab Spring (Islamic Awakening) sparked a revolutionary wave across the Middle East and North Africa, leading to revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, and the outbreak of civil war in Libya and Syria. The Arab Spring in 2011 destabilized three major regional actors, Iraq, Syria and Egypt, creating a power void.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: These uprisings across the Arab world caused political instability throughout the region. In response, Saudi Arabia called for the formation of a Gulf Union to deepen ties among the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a political and economic bloc founded in 1981. The proposal reflected the Saudi government's preoccupation with preventing potential uprisings by disenfranchised minorities in the Gulf monarchies as well as its regional rivalry with Iran.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The union would have centralized Saudi influence in the region by giving it greater control over military, economic, and political matters affecting member states. With the exception of Bahrain, members rejected the proposed federation, as Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates were wary that it would lead to Saudi dominance.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Saudi Arabia has become increasingly concerned about the United States' commitment as an ally and security guarantor. The American foreign policy pivot to Asia, its lessening reliance on Saudi oil, and the potential of rapprochement with Iran have all contributed to a more assertive Saudi foreign policy. In 2015 Saudi Arabia formed the intergovernmental Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism (IMAFT) in December 2015 with the stated goal of combating terrorism. The coalition currently comprises 41 member states, all of which are led by Sunni-dominated governments. Shia-led Iran, Iraq, and Syria are notably excluded, something which has drawn concerns that the initiative is part of the Saudi effort to isolate Iran. Due to the decreasing importance of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as a wedge issue and mutual tensions with Iran, GCC states have sought strengthened economic and security cooperation with Israel, which is involved in its own proxy conflict with Iran.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The onset of the Arab Winter exacerbated Saudi concerns about Iran as well as its own internal stability. This prompted Riyadh to take greater action to maintain the status quo, particularly within Bahrain and other bordering states, with a new foreign policy described as a "21st century version of the Brezhnev Doctrine". Iran took the opposite approach in the hope of taking advantage of regional instability by expanding its presence in the Shia crescent and creating a land corridor of influence stretching from Iraq to Lebanon, done in part by supporting Shia militias in the war against ISIL.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: While they all share concern over Iran, the Sunni Arab governments both within and outside of the GCC have long disagreed on political Islam. Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi religious establishment and its top-down bureaucracy differ from some of its allies such as Qatar, which promotes populist Sunni Islamist platforms similar to that of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey. Qatar has also drawn criticism from neighboring Sunni countries for its support of controversial transnational organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, which as of 2015 is considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The United Arab Emirates, on the other hand, supports anti-Islamist forces in Libya, Egypt, Yemen and other countries, and is focused more on domestic issues, similar to Egypt under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. These differences make it unlikely that the Sunni world could unite against both Iran and terrorism, despite shared opposition. Since King Salman came to power in 2015, Saudi Arabia has increasingly moved from its traditional Wahhabist ideological approach to a nationalist one, and has adopted a more aggressive foreign policy.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The complex nature of economic and security concerns, ideological division, and intertwined alliances has also drawn comparisons to pre-World War I Europe. The conflict also shares similarities with the Arab Cold War between Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the 1950s and 1960s. Influence was judged by each state's ability to affect the affairs of neighboring countries, non-state actors played significant roles, and disunity in both camps led to tactical alliances between states on opposing sides.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The 2015 Mina stampede in Mecca during the annual Hajj pilgrimage further inflamed tensions. Tehran blamed the Saudi government for the tragedy and accused them of incompetence, which Riyadh rejected. In May 2016 Iran suspended participation in the upcoming Hajj. In September, Saudi Arabia launched a 24-hour Persian language satellite channel to broadcast the Hajj proceedings from 10 to 15 September. Ayatollah Khamenei accused Riyadh of politicizing the Hajj tragedy and argued that Saudi Arabia should not be running the pilgrimage.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: On 2 January 2016, 47 people were put to death in several Saudi cities, including prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Protesters of the executions responded by demonstrating in Iran's capital, Tehran. That same day a few protesters would eventually ransack the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and later set it ablaze. Police donned riot gear and arrested 40 people during the incident. In response, Saudi Arabia, along with its allies, Bahrain, Sudan, Djibouti, Somalia, and the Comoros cut diplomatic ties with Iran. Iran's foreign ministry responded by saying the Saudis were using the incident as a pretext for fueling tensions.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Upon taking the throne in 2015, King Salman made significant changes in domestic policy in an effort to address growing unemployment and economic uncertainty. Such economic pressures further affected the regional dynamic in 2016. Russia, which had long maintained ties with Iran, also sought closer ties to Saudi Arabia. In September 2016, the two nations conducted informal talks about cooperating on oil production. Both had been heavily affected by the collapse of oil prices and considered the possibility of an OPEC freeze on oil output. As part of the talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin recommended an exemption for Iran, whose oil output had steadily increased following the lifting of international sanctions in January 2016. He stated that Iran deserved the opportunity to reach its pre-sanction levels of output. In what was seen as a significant compromise, Saudi Arabia offered to reduce its oil production if Iran capped its own output by the end of 2016.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Extremist movements throughout the Middle East have also become a major division between Iran and Saudi Arabia. During the Cold War, Saudi Arabia funded extremist militants in part to bolster resistance to the Soviet Union at the behest of the United States, and later to combat Shia movements supported by Iran. The support had the unintended effect of metastasizing extremism throughout the region. The Saudi government now considers extremist groups like ISIL and the Al-Nusra Front to be one of the two major threats to the kingdom and its monarchy, the other being Iran.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In a "New York Times" op-ed, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif agreed that terrorism was an international threat and called on the United Nations to block funding of extremist ideologies using Iran's WAVE initiative as a framework. However, he placed the blame on Saudi Arabia and its sponsorship of Wahhabism for instability in the Middle East. He argued that Wahhabism was the fundamental ideology shared among terrorist groups in the Middle East, and that it has been "devastating in its impact". He went so far as to proclaim "Let us rid the world of Wahhabism" and asserted that, despite arguments otherwise, Wahhabism was the true cause of the Iran–Saudi Arabia rivalry.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The election of Donald Trump in the United States in 2016 prompted uncertainty from both countries about future US policy in the Middle East, as both were targets of criticism during his campaign. The Saudi government anticipated that the Trump administration would adopt a more hawkish stance than the Obama administration on Iran, which would potentially benefit Riyadh. Iran feared the return of economic isolation, and President Hassan Rouhani made efforts to establish further international economic participation for the country by signing oil deals with Western companies before Trump took office.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In May 2017, Trump declared a shift in US foreign policy toward favoring Saudi Arabia at Iran's expense, marking a departure from President Obama's more reconciliatory approach. This move came days after the re-election of Rouhani in Iran, who defeated conservative candidate Ebrahim Raisi. Rouhani's victory was seen as a popular mandate for liberal reforms in the country.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Several incidents in mid-2017 further heightened tensions. In May 2017, Saudi forces laid siege on Al-Awamiyah, the home of Nimr al-Nimr, in a clash with Shia militants. Dozens of Shia civilians were reportedly killed. Residents are not allowed to enter or leave, and military indiscriminately shells the neighborhoods with artillery fire and snipers are reportedly shooting residents.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In June, the Iranian state-owned news agency Press TV reported that the president of a Quran council and two cousins of executed Nimr al-Nimr were killed by Saudi security forces in Qatif. During the subsequent crackdown the Saudi government demolished several historical sites and many other buildings and houses in Qatif. On 17 June, Iran announced that the Saudi coast guard had killed an Iranian fisherman. Soon after, Saudi authorities captured three Iranian citizens who they claimed were IRGC members plotting a terrorist attack on an offshore Saudi oilfield. Iran denied the claim, saying that those captured are regular fishermen and demanding their immediate release.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In the wake of the June 2017 Tehran attacks committed by ISIL militants, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement blaming Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said there was no evidence that Saudis were involved. Later Iranian official Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stated that Saudi Arabia is the prime suspect behind the Tehran attacks. The commander of IRGC, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, claimed that Iran has intelligence proving Saudi Arabia's, Israel's, and the United States' involvement in the Tehran attack. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei later accused the United States of creating ISIL and of joining Saudi Arabia in funding and directing ISIL in addition to other terrorist organizations.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In October 2017, the government of Switzerland announced an agreement in which it would represent Saudi interests in Iran and Iranian interests in Saudi Arabia. The two countries had severed relations in January 2016.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Several major developments occurring in November 2017 drew concerns that that proxy conflict might escalate into a direct military confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. On 4 November the Royal Saudi Air Defense intercepted a ballistic missile over Riyadh International Airport. Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir asserted that the missile was supplied by Iran and launched by Hezbollah militants from territory held by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman called it "direct military aggression by the Iranian regime" and said that it "may be considered an act of war against the kingdom". Also on 4 November, the Prime Minister of Lebanon resigned, sparking a political crisis seen as part of a Saudi effort to counteract Iran's influence in the country. Bahrain also blamed a 10 November explosion on its main oil pipeline on Iran.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: On 24 November 2017, Dubai's security chief Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan blamed the 2017 Sinai attack on Al-Jazeera and called for bombing of the network by a Saudi-led coalition. In late November 2017, IRGC commander Jafari said revolutionary Islamic paramilitary forces had formed across the Middle East and surrounding regions to counter the influence of ultraconservative militant jihadi groups and Western powers.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In 2017 Saudi Arabia funded the creation of the Persian language satellite TV station Iran International, operated from London.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Saudi Arabia under King Salman has adopted a more assertive foreign policy, particularly reflected in the country's intervention in Yemen in 2015 and its involvement in Lebanon in 2017. This has continued with the June 2017 appointment of Mohammad bin Salman as Crown Prince, who has been considered the power behind the throne for years. The Crown Prince has referred to Iran, Turkey, and Islamic extremist groups as a "triangle of evil," and compared Supreme Leader Khamenei to Adolf Hitler. The populist, anti-Iranian rhetoric comes at a time of uncertainty over potential fallout from Mohammad bin Salman's consolidation of power, and he has used the rivalry as a means to strengthen Saudi nationalism despite the country's domestic challenges.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: As part of the Saudi Vision 2030 plan, Mohammad bin Salman is pursuing American investment to aid efforts to diversify Saudi Arabia's economy away from oil. The reforms also include moving the country away from the Sahwa movement, which the Crown Prince discussed in 2017: "What happened in the last 30 years is not Saudi Arabia. What happened in the region in the last 30 years is not the Middle East. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, people wanted to copy this model in different countries, one of them is Saudi Arabia. We didn't know how to deal with it. And the problem spread all over the world. Now is the time to get rid of it."


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Both Israel and Saudi Arabia supported the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. In anticipation of the withdrawal, Iran indicated it would continue to pursue closer ties to Russia and China, with Ayatollah Khamenei stating in February 2018: "In foreign policy, the top priorities for us today include preferring East to West." The unilateral decision by the United States drew concerns of increased tensions with Russia and China, both of which are parties to the nuclear agreement. It also heightened tensions in the Middle East, raising the risk of a larger military conflict breaking out involving Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The United States reinstated sanctions against Iran in August 2018 despite opposition from European allies. The Trump administration also pushed for a military alliance with Sunni Arab states to act as a bulwark against Iran. The plan in consideration would establish a "Middle East Strategic Alliance" with six GCC states in addition to Jordan and Egypt.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi prompted international backlash against Saudi Arabia and Mohammad bin Salman. The Trump administration issued a statement reiterating its support for Saudi Arabia and blaming Iran for the war in Yemen. The United States Senate responded to the president by passing bipartisan resolutions condemning the assassination and voting to end United States aid to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, though the measures were considered largely symbolic.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Military tensions between Iran and the United States escalated in 2019 amid a series of confrontations involving the US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman took place in May and June. In the wake of growing tensions, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated that Iran sought good relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and their allies, and called on them to end their dispute with Qatar.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In September 2019 a drone attack was launched on the Saudi Aramco oil processing facility in Abqaiq and Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The attack knocked out half of the country's oil supply. Although the Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Iran was behind the attack, a charge which Iran denied. Saudi Arabia and the US were reportedly investigating whether the attacks involved cruise missiles launched from Iran or Iraq. US officials had previously concluded that the attack on the East-West pipeline was launched by Iranian-backed militias in southern Iraq, despite Houthi rebels also claiming responsibility.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: On 16 September, the US told Saudi Arabia that it had concluded that Iran was a staging ground for the September attack. The US raised the prospect of a joint retaliatory strike on Iran, an action which would potentially broaden into a regional conflict. Saudi Arabia said its investigation was ongoing, but officials alleged that Iranian weapons were used in the strikes and that the attacks were not launched from Yemen. The claims were made without supporting evidence. Iran's Hassan Rouhani, after the attack on Aramco, claimed that Saudi Arabia should take it as a warning to stop its intervention in Yemen. The Saudi-led intervention has led to the deaths of more than thousands to date.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: On 3 January 2020, the US launched an airstrike on a convoy near Baghdad International Airport that killed multiple passengers, including Iranian Major general and IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The military action came shortly after pro-Iran protesters and Iraqi militiamen attacked the US embassy in Baghdad on 31 December 2019 in response to US airstrikes targeting Iran-backed militia. The airstrike was seen as a major escalation of tensions, and the government of Iran vowed revenge in response. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the attack "an extremely dangerous and foolish escalation" and released a statement saying that "the brutality and stupidity of American terrorist forces in assassinating Commander Soleimani... will undoubtedly make the tree of resistance in the region and the world more prosperous."


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: On 7 January, Iran attacked Al Asad Airbase and Erbil International Airport in Iraq as an act of revenge. The attack left 110 injured.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Hours after the missile attacks, during a state of high alert, IRGC forces mistakenly shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, killing all 176 people on board.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: On 12 January, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah called for Iran's allies in the Axis of Resistance—including Iran, the Syrian Arab Republic, Hezbollah, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Houthi movement in Yemen—to intensify its military campaigns against the U.S. to expel U.S. forces from the Middle East. During a state visit by Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar to Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei called for regional cooperation against the U.S. However, following discussions between Sheikh Tamim and President Rouhani, Tamim concluded that de-escalation and dialogue were the only means to resolve the regional crises. In response to the increased tensions, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and many U.S. states released advisories warning of Iranian cyberattacks, while the Texas Department of Information Resources said Iranian cyberattacks had reached a rate of 10,000 per minute.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The 2019 Warsaw Conference would later lead to the Abraham Accords, with Saudi allies UAE and Bahrain normalizing relations with Israel. This was followed by Morocco and Sudan. This would later lead to the Arab–Israeli alliance, and the Negev Summit. The U.S. , along with Israel allegedly announced the formation of the "Middle East Air Defense Alliance" (MEAD) in June 2022 with the purpose of countering Iran. Israel stated delegations from the U.A.E, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. participated in broker talks.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Iran has accused Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and Israel of meddling within their internal affairs due to the Mahsa Amini protests.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: In late October 2022, Saudi intelligence was shared to the U.S., warning of an imminent attacks by Iran, which placed the GCC, Iraq, and Israel on high alert. The intelligence showed that Iran was allegedly planning to strike Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf. Iran denied these accusations and intel as baseless.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Syria under Bashar al-Assad has been a strategic ally to both Iranian and Russian interests. Since 2011, the year the civil war broke out, Iran and its allies have actively involved themselves in the Syrian civil war, with many proxies.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Following the civil unrest triggered against the Assad regime with the Arab uprisings, the main reasons for conflict in Syria were competition for regional power and sectarian divisions. The movement received support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the US and Turkey with the aim of overthrowing the Assad reime. These uprisings also facilitated the influence of right-wing religious groups and parties over the movement, eventually bringing about ISIS.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: At the same time, Syria remained the "primary hub in Iran's power projection in the Levant" and has coordinated, and played a facilitator role over, Iran's links with Hezbollah. Syria, together with Iran and Hezbollah, have been considered and defined as the "Axis of Resistance" against Israel and similar competing regional states located in the Levant. In fact, with the intent of preserving the Assad regime, Iran sent General Qassem Suleimani, among other military commanders, providing training and assistance. The Iranian branch of the armed forces in charge of its foreign operations, i.e. the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or Quds Force (IRGC-QF), intervened in the Syrian crisis by sending thousands of Iranians and by recruiting and training Shi'ites from other states. These, included Liwa Zaynabiyoun recruiting Pakistani Shias, and Liwa Fatimiyoun comprising Afghan Shi'ites. Iranian assistance also came under the shape of communication and intelligence monitoring technologies of the most recent type.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Conversely, the majority of the funding and equipment for the rebels by the Saudi state was transported through Jordan, together with the provision of ideological support. The rebellion was thus legitimised with the issuing by Saudi and other Muftis of "fatwas" in favour of "jihad" against the regime in Syria.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The long-term strategic interest of Iran in Syria was secured as the presumed victory of Bashar-al-Assad and his allies against Daesh and rebel forces was declared.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The organisation has received arms from Iran via Sudan that acted as "transshipment point" for their circulation, and Eritrea that allowed Iranian navy use of its ports.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Despite the 2005 cease fire agreement that officially ended the Second Intifada, friction arose as Israel attempted to gain access to the Gaza Strip. Hamas initiated a program of tunnel building to overcome the physical isolation. The history of these tunnels goes back as far as prior to the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. They were used for a range of different functions: from supporting economic activity through smuggling goods, but also weapons, to infiltration into Israeli territory, abductions and attacks on Israeli soldiers.The maze of tunnels provided access to homes, mosques, schools and public buildings, according to expert in underground warfare Eado Hecht.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Hamas received strong rhetorical support from regime leaders Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Majlis speaker Ali Larijani. In July 2008, was deemed to be part of Iran's line of defense against an Israeli attack together with Hezbollah, by IRGC chief Ali Jafari. Late May 2008 reports demonstrated Iran's increase in support to Hamas up to $150 million per year.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Hezbollah is one of the main groups in the Middle East to be described as an 'Iranian proxy'. Hezbollah fights alongside Iranian troops in Syria and supports the Houthis.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Iran aims to use Hezbollah as proxy model to establish throughout Africa. Hezbollah already possesses support in West Africa, given the large presence of Lebanese diaspora. Moreover, the group was also used by Iran in the arming and training of insurgents in Nigeria, and has been engaged in Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, and Senegal.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Hezbollah is often involved in the Illegal drug trade, terrorist activities, proxy warfare, and Sectarian violence. Hezbollah is funded by Iran, Syria, Qatar, and Iraq, and was formerly supported by Sudan. Hezbollah is also considered as a terrorist organization by the Arab League and GCC, as it often criticizes states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Morocco has also alleged of Hezbollah funding the Polisario Front via Algeria.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Hezbollah has also maintained relations with other Islamic and anti-West movements, including the Popular Mobilization Forces, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Ashtar Brigades, Hezbollah Al-Hejaz, Liwa Fatemiyoun, Husayniyun, the Houthis, and the Baqir Brigade. These movements, among the Iranian, Syrian, and Iraqi governments, form the Axis of Resistance against the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: The Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shiite religious and political organisation founded and headed by Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaki, constitutes another proxy in the conflict. It constitutes another asset that could enable Iran in disrupting Sunni States in West Africa. Thus, Saudi Arabia by supporting the Nigerian government in its suppressing efforts, and by providing support to rival Sunni groups such as Izala and not seriously condemning Boko Haram's actions, aims to limit its influence and growth in the region.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Iran and its allies North Korea, Syria, Iraq, Qatar, Hezbollah, and Venezuela are known to have provided political, economical, diplomatic, and military support to the Houthis


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Houthis overthrew the government in Yemen in the September 21 Revolution or 2014–15 coup d'état, supported by Iran while Saudi Arabia was attempting to restore the central government through a military campaign. Since the uprising, they have evolved into a well-organised and equipped militia in Yemen.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Houthis can be considered to be similar in their response to Hamas, rather than Hezbollah, given the varying degrees of resources and support without actually responding to or informing Iran. In fact, Houthis took control of Sanaa in September 2014, despite Iran's advising restraint. Saudi officials believe Houthis will become the "next Hezbollah" that operates close to Saudi territory. Moreover, Houthis have been supported in their fight against the Yemeni government through a gateway for arms and supplies smuggling from Iran through Somalia since 2015. Access to Somalia, as well as to Eritrea, together with control of Yemen's Red Sea coast through the Houthis, provided Iran's with an enhanced ability to threaten international shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb. An instances of this capacity was constituted by the several attacks on U.S. and coalition vessels that were set in motion from the Yemeni side of the Bab al-Mandeb in 2016.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: A military campaign against Houthis was started by a Saudi-led coalition on the request of ousted President Mansur, dividing the state between pro-Houthi forces supported by Iran and pro-Mansur forces supported by Saudi Arabia. The competition between the two countries has exacerbated the suffering of the Yemeni population, the half of which is deemed to be facing a "pre-famine condition", as reported by the UN in 2018.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: Various Iraqi groups, many of them as part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, have been described as Iranian proxies.


title: Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict

text: During the Iraqi insurgency, Iran aided Shi'ite groups such as the Mahdi army while private Saudi citizens and the Saudi government aided anti-Iran and Sunni militias. Saudi Arabia supported the 2012–2013 Iraqi protests, and the 2019–2021 Iraqi protests, in which protesters protested against Shi'ite prime ministers Nouri al-Maliki and Adil Abdul-Mahdi, respectively.