Iran, Middle East | featured news

Iran on Saturday welcomed the rescue of 13 Iranian sailors by a U.S. Navy ship, calling it a "humanitarian act." The sailors were on a fishing boat that had been hijacked by pirates in the Arabian Sea, near the Strait of Hormuz. According to the Navy, a helicopter from the destroyer USS Kidd spotted a suspect pirate boat alongside the Iranian vessel on Thursday. The destroyer is part of the USS John Stennis Strike Group, which moved into the Arabian Sea from the Persian Gulf last week.

European governments have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian oil, EU diplomats said on Wednesday, dealing a blow to Tehran that crowns new Western sanctions months before an Iranian election.

Iran warned the United States Tuesday not to return a U.S. aircraft carrier "to the Persian Gulf region." U.S. officials rejected the "warning" and another recent threat from Tehran that it could close the Strait of Hormuz. The White House and U.S. State Department called the latest threats signs that sanctions against Iran, the result of a standoff over its nuclear activities, are working.

A U.S. official confirms that the aircraft is an RQ-170 drone, which Iran says it brought down. Iran protests what it says was a violation of its airspace. Iranian television aired video Thursday of what it said is an American surveillance drone that the country's armed forces claimed to have brought down during the weekend.

The Obama administration has opened a virtual embassy for Iran to encourage dialogue with the Iranian people.

Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency says the country's armed forces have shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along its eastern border.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran on Sunday not to view the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq as an opportunity to try to build its influence in the country.

When a computer attack hobbled Iran's unfinished nuclear power plant last year, it was assumed to be a military-grade strike, the handiwork of elite hacking professionals with nation-state backing.

Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday denounced allegations by the United States of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, suggesting they were a pretext for further building an international consensus against Iran, state media reported.

A top official in Iran's space program admitted that the country's attempt to launch a monkey into outer space ended in failure, according to reports.