Nir Boms and Shayan Arya                                                                        

Following a week of riots across England, the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a warning to its citizens not to visit the UK. The Foreign Ministry advised Iranians to avoid troubled areas and Sardar Naghdi, the head of Basij units, even offered to send Basiji Brigades to England to help restore order. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who initiated a number of media interviews on the subject, demanded UN intervention.

It is interesting to note that a similar travel warning was not issued for Syria, where over 3000 protesters were killed in recent weeks by Syrian security forces. Perhaps the fact that Iranian weapons were used to “maintain order” in Syria is a good enough reason not to raise the issue. Just last week, Turkey informed a UN Security Council panel that it seized a second cache of weapons that Iran was attempting to deliver to Syria, in breach of the UN arms embargo. Continue reading →