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Iran: The Latest Podcast
Trump lifts Hormuz naval blockade & inside Iran’s ‘idiot’ proxy army

Trump lifts Hormuz naval blockade & inside Iran’s ‘idiot’ proxy army

Iran: The Latest vor 3 Monaten

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Podcast

Iran: The Latest

395 Episoden

The Telegraph’s defence, security and foreign affairs podcast covering the conflict in Iran

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Donald Trump says the US is lifting its blockade of Iranian ports
and boats in the Strait of Hormuz - does this mean a peace deal
is imminent?

Plus, Iran famously has two militaries: a regular army, and the
IRGC. But Tehran also has a third force: its network of foreign
militias in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. They played a key role in
the recent war - and no outsider knows them better than Elizabeth
Tsurkov. In 2023, while on a research trip to Iraq, the
Russian-Israeli PhD student was kidnapped for nearly three years
by Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iran’s Iraqi proxy
militias.

Still recovering from the ordeal, she takes Sophia Yan and Roland
Oliphant inside the group - and why she was surprised to learn
that many of her kidnappers were “idiots”. Plus, she explains how
they sustain Iran’s shadow economy, dominate politics in their
host counties, and double up as fronts for massive embezzlement
schemes.

Highlights

Donald Trump lifts US naval blockade on Iran

Elizabeth Tsurkov on being kidnapped by “idiot” Iranian
militias in Iraq

CONTRIBUTORS:

Sophia Yan, senior foreign correspondent, @sophia_yan

Roland Oliphant, co-host and chief foreign affairs analyst
@RolandOliphant

Elizabeth Tsurkov, fellow at the New Lines Institute @LizHurra

CONTENT REFERENCED:

Elizabeth Tsurkov: I Was Kidnapped by Idiots

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/01/kidnapped-baghdad/685470/

Producer: Peter Shevlin

Executive Producers: Venetia Rainey & Louisa Wells

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