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Iran Celebrates Islamic Revolution with Video of US Sailor Crying

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- Iran is celebrating the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution Thursday by releasing new images of a captured American sailor crying – a move one analyst said was intended to shame the United States.

In January, the Iranian navy captured 10 American sailors, claiming their ships had entered Iranian territorial waters. They were released one day later.

Previous footage showed the sailors on their knees with hands behind their heads. In another scene, one sailor apologized and thanked the Iranians for the good treatment they received.

But the new footage shows one sailor crying and wiping his eyes.

Iranian expert, Ayelet Savyon from The Middle East Media Research Institute , told CBN News it was all intended to humiliate America.

"This is what Khameni, supreme leader said: it came from god [Allah] that we managed to capture U.S. sailors and it was [with the] purpose of humiliating the United States," Savyon said.

It was intended to show that even though the Iranians negotiated with the West and signed the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action–The P5 + 1 nuclear agreement with Iran), Iran is "still stronger, [more] powerful than the United States."

"So they brag[ged] that no country dared ever to arrest or to stop [the] U.S. military, U.S. soldiers. Only Iran managed to do that -- has the power to do that," she said, noting that leads the Iranians to believe it was all Allah's doing.

Iran believes the 37-year-old "revolution" is the source of its power. Millions of Iranians took to the streets countrywide on Thursday to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution.

In Tehran, they marked the day with a re-enactment of the humiliation of the American sailors.

According to reports, Iranian media outlets emphasized the shouts of "death to America" and "death to Israel." And this year, with trouble brewing between Tehran and Riyadh, there was an increase in anti-Saudi sentiments, too.

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About The Author

Julie Stahl
Julie
Stahl

Julie Stahl is a correspondent for CBN News in the Middle East. A Hebrew speaker, she has been covering news in Israel full-time for more than 20 years. Julie’s life as a journalist has been intertwined with CBN – first as a graduate student in Journalism, then as a journalist with Middle East Television (METV) when it was owned by CBN from 1989-91, and now with the Middle East Bureau of CBN News in Jerusalem since 2009. As a correspondent for CBN News, Julie has covered Israel’s wars with Gaza, rocket attacks on Israeli communities, stories on the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and the