National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refused on Tuesday to commit to freezing the $6 billion of Iranian funds that the United States unfroze before Hamas attacked Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou just laid out all the ways that Iran is complicit and facilitated it \u2026 is that reason enough to re-freeze the $6 billion that the U.S. helped unlock for them?\u201d a reporter asked Sullivan during a press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have not yet had a dollar of that $6 billion spent, and I will leave it at that,\u201d he replied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iranian security officials reportedly played a key role in planning Hamas\u2019s surprise strike over the weekend. Iran helped plan<\/a> the attack and \u201cgave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday,\u201d senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah told the Wall Street Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Washington Post<\/em> confirmed the Journal\u2019s<\/em> report. Hamas planned<\/a> the attack \u201cwith key support from Iranian allies who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons,\u201d current and former Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials told the Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It remains unclear what precise role Iran played in terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Joe Biden\u2019s Tuesday speech about the attack notably ended without mentioning Iran. He did mention that Hamas took American hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe now know that American citizens are among those being held by Hamas,\u201d the president said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve directed my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts,\u201d he added. \u201cBecause as president, I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Biden administration\u2019s mild handing of Iran comes as Senate Republicans demanded the Biden administration freeze the funds after Hamas attacked Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe write today to affirm our unwavering support for Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East, and call on the U.S. Department of State to freeze the accounts in Qatar containing $6 billion in Iranian funds that were released from South Korean accounts in September,\u201d 18 Senate Republicans wrote<\/a> President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe must stand with Israel and restrict access to these Iranian funds,\u201d they wrote. \u201cIran should be placed under the most stringent sanctions admissible. Anything short of this is unacceptable and only aids in the ability of Iran and Hamas to fund these heinous acts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan refused on Tuesday to commit to freezing the $6 billion of Iranian funds that the United States unfroze before Hamas attacked Israel. \u201cYou just laid out all the ways that Iran is complicit and facilitated it \u2026 is that reason enough to re-freeze the $6 billion that the U.S. helped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":754,"featured_media":33739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cww7news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/biden.png?fit=700%2C396&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/754"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38777,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38776\/revisions\/38777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}