Former Iranian president Hashim Rafsanjani plans to lead a demonstration in Tehran on Friday, after giving a sermon during prayers at the capital's main mosque. Rafsanjani will also lead a protest that will also include two defeated presidential candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karoubi, Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat quoted an Iranian source as saying.
"In this way Rafsanjani wants to send a clear message to say that the things that have happened in Iran recently should not happen again and that what happened in recent weeks in Tehran must be investigated," the source said.
The source, who is close to the former president, said that before the elections, Rafsanjani was positioning himself in the centre between the reformists and the conservatives.
"After the elections however, he moved much closer to the reformists and is with the moderates who want change in a peaceful and legal way," the source said.
Earlier this week, Iranian opposition leaders criticised what they called the "security state" imposed in the country after the controversial June elections.
They also called for the release of people detained during mass street protests that were marred by violence after the vote.
More than 1,000 opposition supporters and political reformists were reportedly arrested in the aftermath of the election, and a month later, noone is certain how many are still being detained.
Runner-up Mir Hossein Mousavi's website said the call was backed by fellow defeated candidate Mehdi Karoubi and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
There is expected to be a great deal of interest in his sermon, which will mark the first time he has broken his silence in a month.
Since the presidential election in which president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected on 12 June, Rafsanjani has stopped leading the Friday prayers in Tehran.
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#3
This is from Adnkronos, so salt to taste. Most of the speculation I'm seeing expects him to announce a sell out compromise.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/16/2009 15:08 Comments ||
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#4
There are a lot of regular folks and big shots putting their asses on the line over there in Iran. God bless em and I sure am glad the USA is in total support of their efforts.
Tel Aviv takes a step closer to war with Tehran as two Israeli warships sail through the Suez Canal within cruise-missile range of Iran.
Earlier this week, two Israel Navy gunboats, the Hanit and the Eliat, passed through the Suez Canal and across the Red Sea.
In a Thursday interview with the Times, a senior Israeli defense official said the move should be seen as serious preparations for a long-expected attack on Iranian nuclear sites. "This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran," said the Israeli defense official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity.
"These maneuvers are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats," he added.
The move comes ten days after a submarine -- believed to be nuclear-armed -- made a similar crossing and headed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The move, apparently coordinated with Egypt, is seen as a warning message to Iran that the Netanyahu government is not having second thoughts about its military plans against Iran.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit confirmed the crossings, but refused to comment on whether the deployment should be seen as a warning to Iran.
I don't think two gunboats are going to start shelling Iran.
However, two gunboats could put a serious hole in the Iranian Navy's current "anti-piracy" effort, supposedly off the coast of Somalia, but conveniently canoodling in Asmara, Eritrea. The Eritreans and the Iranians have become fast friends, and Iran may be using their links to Asmara to further their terrorist ends in the Red Sea. So a couple of Israeli gunboats transit Suez. They likely don't have the range to sail to the Persian Gulf and don't have the punch to do much against Iranian targets there, but they sure could take on the two or three Iranian frigates in the Red Sea.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon said Wednesday ammunition which had exploded in a southern village was a serious violation of the UN-brokered ceasefire that ended a month-long war between Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces three years ago.
Lebanese security officials said a series of explosions Tuesday in an abandoned building near Lebanon's tense border with Israel was caused by a fire in a Hezbollah weapons depot. Hezbollah has not commented. Facilities similar to this were used by Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the army said.
The blasts in southern Lebanon Tuesday caused no casualties but highlighted the long-held suspicion that the Shiite militant group has maintained a military presence in the region near Israel's border despite the deployment of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers there under a resolution that bans such unauthorized guerrilla activity.
A statement by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon said Wednesday that the force commander had updated Lebanese officials on the discovery of the ammunition after the explosions.
Based on the information currently available, UNIFIL considers the incident a serious violation of the UN resolution that ended the conflict, which specifies that there should be no presence of unauthorized assets or weapons in the area of operations.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
07/16/2009 00:00 ||
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A Lebanese military prosecutor on Wednesday formally charged and demanded life in prison for a car dealer who allegedly passed information about Hezbollah to Israel.
Lebanese authorities have made dozens of arrests in recent months and filed preliminary charges but this has been the first formal indictment since a crackdown began earlier this year against those accused of collaborating with Israel. This case is also one of the most significant cases of alleged espionage uncovered and it constituted a serious breach of the militants' much vaunted security.
The suspect, a car dealer from the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, was accused of providing information about Hezbollah and Lebanese army positions, as well as entering Israel and meeting with intelligence officials, said Prosecutor Rashid Mizher.
Israel has declined to comment on the case.
The case became public in the spring when media reported the suspect was involved in an operation to fit cars he later sold to Hezbollah members with sophisticated electronic devices that provided the Israelis with information about militants' whereabouts and movements. Lebanese security officials confirmed he was picked up by Hezbollah in January and handed over to Lebanese authorities in February.
Mizher said he initially recommended the death penalty for the suspect but reduced it to life in prison because he was not involved in attacks against any Lebanese. Mizher's formal indictment is the last legal step before the case goes to court. No date for the trial has been set.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
07/16/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
As the mechanic, wiping his hands on a rag, walks away, whistling tunelessly...
[Al Arabiya Latest] An Iranian airliner en route to Armenia caught fire mid-air and plunged flaming into farmland Wednesday, killing all 168 people on board in the worst air disaster in Iran in years.
Witnesses and state media said the Russian-made Caspian Airlines plane was ablaze before smashing into the ground and exploding near a village northeast of Tehran shortly after taking off from the capital's international airport.
Television images showed a vast crater at the disaster site littered with debris of plane parts, shoes and clothes in Iran's worst plane crash in six years.
The aircraft, travelling to Armenia's capital Yerevan from Tehran, crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin shortly before noon (0730 GMT) after about 16 minutes in the air.
"The Tupolev plane has been totally destroyed and the corpses, unfortunately, have been totally burnt and destroyed," Qazvin police commander Massoud Jafarinasab told the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Iranian television showed footage of debris and body parts and a smoking trench with mangled pieces of metal scattered around. Smoke rose from the site as police and bystanders gathered around.
Senior Iranian provincial official, Sirous Saberi, said the aircraft had had technical problems and tried to make an emergency landing. "Unfortunately the plane caught fire in the air and it crashed," he told Fars.
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/16/2009 00:00 ||
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Armenia has been buddying up to Iran and I doubt the 20 million Azeris in Iran aren't too thrilled about that.
BTW, Iran portrays the Azeris as being like the Scots are to the English. Happy partners in nation building for 100s of years. I suspect they are more like the Irish.
I was thinking more along the lines of someone working in Iran's newly sprouted nuclear. A little vacation for the team, maybe? Or perhaps a power play between competing mullahs.
Of course, as Pappy points out, there are some 'usual suspects' for a cause rather than mischief. Horses rather than zebras, right? Still we love our conspiracy theories. And you *know* how sneaky the Juice are!
On Friday July 19, a large group of mourners gathered at the Ghoba mosque in Tehran to await a speech about the martyrs of the post-election protests by presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. According to one Iranian blog, 28-year-old Taraneh Mousavi was one of a group of people that was arrested by plainclothesed security forces for attending the gathering.
Taraneh, whose first name is Persian for "song", disappeared into arrest.
Weeks later, according to the blog, her mother received an anonymous call from a government agent saying that her daughter has been hospitalized in Imam Khomeini Hospital in the city of Karaj, just north of Tehran -- hospitalized for "rupturing of her womb and anus in... an unfortunate accident".
Somebody decided not to put an eye out with that thing. The poor woman.
When Taraneh's family went to the hospital to find her, they were told she was not there.
According to another Iranian blog which claims to have original information about Taraneh from her family, Iranian security forces contacted Taraneh's family after the hospital visit warning them not to publicize Taraneh's story and not to associate her disappearance with arrests made at post-election protests.
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Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/16/2009 00:00 ||
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Not sure quite what to say...as the father of woman not much younger than Taraneh.
The Lions of islamTM. Should make a demon like allan proud.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Al Arabiya Latest] An Iranian airliner en route to Armenia caught fire mid-air and plunged flaming into farmland Wednesday, killing all 168 people on board in the worst air disaster in Iran in years.
