Influential Iranian cleric Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani has called for an epic turn-out on al-Quds day to foil world power's plot to sow discord among Muslims.
"World powers are ready to add to their crimes by taking advantage of weak alliances among Muslims, their ignorance, and especially the disputes between Palestinian fighters themselves," Rafsanjani said in a statement.
The recognized cleric pointed out that the al-Quds day rallies throughout the world would be a "never-ending warning call to those who have gone astray."
"God forbid that al-Quds day, which the [1979] Islamic Revolution's wise old leader called the day of Islam's awakening, be forgotten because of these disputes," added the cleric addressing Iranians and Muslims worldwide.
"God forbid that that the rifts (among Muslims) provide an opportunity for the enemy to make a gain- an enemy which has waited years in the hope of erasing the true Islamic identity of al-Quds," he said.
Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani issued the statement on Monday night, four days before the last Friday of Ramadan.
The last Friday of Ramadan is the day that Muslim's hold al-Quds Day rallies each year, heeding a call by the late leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for demonstrations in support of Palestine.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran on Monday resumed the mass trial of those arrested during the post election demonstrations amid protests by prominent reformist clerics who opposed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi and Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- once tipped to succeed Islamic republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- both spoke out as six protesters went on trial.
The official IRNA news agency said those in the dock included student leader Abdollah Momeni, but later reported that the judge ordered media not to name the defendants.
Fars news agency then reported remarks made by an accused it referred to only as A.M., a former student activist.
"I consider myself to be involved in the events that followed the election," Fars said A.M. told the court.
"Prior to the election, we were talking about issues like fraud and were also advocating massively against the officials of the regime. We also staged a rebellion against the regime... the election was just a pretext to hit at the symbol of the regime, the (supreme) leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Fars also said A.M. had apologized and asked to be pardoned.
Around 140 protesters have already been put on trial for opposing Ahmadinejad's re-election in the June 12 poll, which the opposition alleges was massively rigged.
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Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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A group linked to Al-Qaeda has claimed last week's rocket salvo from Lebanon into Israel, a US-based group that monitors jihadist websites said on Monday.
The attack from south Lebanon into northern Israel was claimed by the Brigades of Abdullah Azzam, Battalions of Ziad Jarrah, in a statement Sunday by the al-Fajr Media Centre on jihadist forums, SITE Intelligence Group said.
The rocket fire came in response to "flagrant hostility" displayed by Israel towards Palestinians and Muslims, SITE quoted the statement as saying.
At least two rockets fired from the village of Al-Qlaileh in southern Lebanon slammed into Israel on Friday, triggering retaliatory artillery fire. No casualties were reported on either side in the attack, the third this year.
A UN official in Lebanon said at the weekend that extremists tied to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon may have been behind the attack. "My understanding is that they (the investigations) are focusing on the extremist groups that might be linked to the refugee camps," Milos Strugar, political advisor for the UN force stationed in Lebanon (UNIFIL), told AFP.
Israel has lodged a complaint with the United Nations over the attack and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel held the Lebanese government responsible for rocket fire from its territory.
Abdullah Azzam was Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden's mentor. He was killed in a 1989 bomb blast. Curiously, the Azzam kaboom was engineered by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Maker of Islamic Saints.
Lebanese Ziad Jarrah was one of the plotters of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and killed nearly 3,000 people. Jarrah is believed to have been one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into Pennsylvania, killing all aboard.
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Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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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.
