Iranian Alert -- January 15, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

Freedom ~ Bump!

"something officially prohibited shortly after then-President Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr in 1981 explained that women's hair emits rays that drive men insane. "

It would explain so much....

Their Last Chance?

January 15, 2004
The Economist
The Economist Print Edition

In the view of Mohsen Mirdamadi, one of Iran's most senior politicians, it smacked of a coup d'état. On January 11th the Council of Guardians, the iron fist of Iran's formidable clerical establishment, let it be known that it was barring some 4,000 candidates, including 82 serving deputies, from standing in parliamentary elections due on February 20th.

Officially, most of the disqualified candidates are being penalised for their supposed indifference to Islam and to the constitution, and for querying the virtually limitless powers enjoyed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. No one doubts that they have been chosen because they support the country's reform-minded president, Muhammad Khatami, and his dangerously democratic ideas.

The Council of Guardians may be hoping to dissuade Iranians from voting. Last year's council elections, when the reformists lost power in most big cities, showed that a low turnout favours the conservatives. They hope that their stable 15%-or-so of the vote will win them a disproportionate share of parliament's 290 seats.

Ever since their sweeping victory in the last parliamentary election, in 2000, reform-minded deputies have backed the president in his struggle against Iran's roundly disliked, but immensely powerful, conservative institutions. Denied much of their legislative clout, parliamentarians have been reduced to using the chamber to highlight—but not, alas, to curb—the conservatives' abuses of power.

The Council of Guardians duly avenged itself on the biggest party of whistle-blowers, the Participation Front; just two of its 67 serving deputies were cleared to stand. In Tehran 52% of all candidates were barred. In distant Kurdistan, where ethnic nationalism wears reformist colours, the figure was 59%.

Since rumours of mass disqualifications had circulated long before they were made public, the barred parliamentarians had prepared their response. On January 11th about 80 deputies began a sit-in in the parliament building, to go on “as long as necessary”. If the council refuses to back down, says Reza Khatami, one of parliament's two deputy speakers (and the president's younger brother), the agitation will grow and will “take new forms”.

To the regime's external enemies, these words are a portent—of political implosion, perhaps, foretelling the fatal weakening of the Islamic Republic. In Iran, a different view prevails. Rarely, since President Khatami's triumphant election in 1997, has the establishment seemed so powerful, or its eventual victory so assured.

The Guardians' grip

For the past four years, parliament has been undermined by hardliners. Kayhan, the conservatives' favourite newspaper, has taken pot shots at the “economic criminals”, “foreign lackeys” and “violators of public morals” who occupy it. Occasionally, conservative thugs have beaten up deputies. Most damaging of all, the Council of Guardians has sapped parliament's credibility as a chamber for making laws.

On the face of it, parliament's four-year report card is starred with enlightened legislation. Since 2000, deputies have, inter alia, liberalised a tough press law and made Iran subscribe to United Nations conventions outlawing torture and sex discrimination. They have legislated to expand trial by jury, devolve powers to local councils and ban the police from entering universities. But the Council of Guardians has spiked every one. Last October, when a reformist newspaper totted up parliament's record, it found that the council had vetoed 111 out of a total of 295 bills that parliament had ratified.

The shooting down of a particular set of bills, tabled by President Khatami, set the stage for the current confrontation. One had laid down strict criteria for the barring of candidates from running for public office; the other had enshrined the president's right to reverse the sort of flagrant violations of the constitution that conservative institutions have indulged in.

President Khatami and his supporters have not always reacted intelligently to these provocations. Reza Youssefian, one of the protesting deputies, acknowledges that the reformists have lost credibility by hinting repeatedly that they would withdraw from public life in protest at conservative obstructionism, and never doing so.

In 2001 the president threatened not to stand for re-election. He ended up standing, and won by a landslide. Later, through his aides, he let it be known that he would certainly resign if his two bills were shot down by the Council of Guardians. The bills were spiked, but the president did not budge. On January 13th, he threatened to resign again over the sit-in and take the protesting deputies with him: “We will all leave together,” he said. But he remains.

Perhaps partly because of this, only the government, the foreign media and the slender reformist press have paid the sit-in much attention. Millions of Iranians are still unaware of it. For the majority who do not read newspapers, the sole source of news is the hardline state broadcasting monopoly, Sound and Vision, which has so far refused to mention it. Even those Iranians who read reformist newspapers, or listen to the BBC, seem unmoved. In 1999 students at Tehran University responded to the banning of a reformist newspaper by mounting a spectacular protest that lasted several days. The class of 2004, by contrast, seems keener on swotting for exams. A proposed student sit-in was squashed by the university authorities.

Nor, concedes one of three barred female deputies, have Iranian women taken much note of events. Why should they, when the reformists have done so little for them? Over the past four years, most of parliament's limited attempts to redress gaping legal imbalances between men and women have been stymied by the Council of Guardians. Besides, President Khatami has appointed no women as ministers.

The president has responded to the current crisis with a mixture of coyness and caution. He condemned the disqualifications but asked the deputies to suspend their sit-in while secret talks continue. For some, it is hard to reconcile today's Mr Khatami, the backroom dealmaker, with yesterday's inspirational statesman who promised to institute openness and the rule of law. The deputies' defiance cannot disguise the fact that the president's reform movement has run out of steam.

This does not mean that the movement was worthless, or has achieved nothing. No one who remembers Iran before Mr Khatami was elected would dispute that it has changed. Since 1997, Tehran has become a more humane, even permissive, place. Seven years ago, anyone taking a drive with a member of the opposite sex, or wearing make-up, was punished by jail or a lashing. These activities are still crimes, but the authorities now turn a blind eye.

On Mr Khatami's watch, Iran's human-rights record has become a bit less appalling. He himself is tolerant of criticism. Despite the banning of dozens of reformist publications, some good newspapers cling on. And dissidents are no longer summarily killed by hit squads; they are tried, albeit with scant regard for justice, and then locked up.

Iran is more open to foreigners than it was before Mr Khatami came to power. The government's swift acceptance of foreign aid after last month's earthquake in Bam stood in contrast to the rejection of similar offers that followed Iran's last big quake, in 1990. The Council of Guardians has even been persuaded to ratify legislation designed to attract foreign investment.

Despite the shadow cast by the tensions between Iran and America, foreign relations have proved President Khatami's greatest success. Besides making friends with countries, like Saudi Arabia, that sided with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, he charmed the European Union into starting talks on a trade pact and oversaw improved ties with countries, like Turkey, which Iran used to vilify for dealing with Israel.

An impossible contradiction

Yet Mr Khatami was elected only on a promise to reform his country as much as its theocratic structure would allow. And at the heart of Iran's strange semi-democracy lies an impossible contradiction. Although Iranian leaders like to claim that the Islamic Republic's legitimacy derives from its famously lively elections, everyone knows that the real influence lies in the hands of men, mostly clerics, who never have to face the voters.

Many Iranians had hoped that Mr Khatami could persuade the most senior of these, the supreme leader, to relinquish some of the powers that he enjoys under Iran's oddly incoherent constitution. That has not happened. Mr Khamenei is not impressed by the two massive endorsements that the president has received from the electorate. He senses a threat from uppity reformist deputies who, only last summer, elliptically called on him to step aside. He remains defiantly answerable to God and an assembly of clerics whose members he has a strong hand in selecting.

Mr Khamenei has likened himself to a referee at a keenly contested football match. On January 14th, cajoled by Mr Khatemi, he ordered the Council of Guardians to confirm the eligibility of all the sitting-in deputies who had not committed crimes. But he was presumably aware of the council's plans, since every member is either his appointee or the appointee of his appointee. According to Mohsen Kadivar, a reformist, the supreme leader shows his red cards only to one team.

The scope of the recent disqualifications is a sign of reviving self-confidence among the conservatives. For the past two years, their authoritarian instincts have been checked by the immense international pressure and scrutiny to which Iran has been subjected. That pressure started at the beginning of 2002, when George Bush included Iran in an “axis of evil”. The United States had already invaded one of Iran's neighbours, Afghanistan, and was turning its attention to another, Iraq. Many Iranians were convinced they were next.

That impression grew last year, as Iran squirmed in the spotlight shone by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Evidence presented by the agency suggested that Iran had broken its treaty obligations and was alarmingly close to acquiring the technology needed to build a nuclear bomb. Last autumn the IAEA's board of governors demanded that Iran put its programme in cold storage.

Conservative sermonisers duly fulminated against the IAEA and America; hardline military commanders refused to allow agency inspectors into their bases. This, in effect, sabotaged the reformists' efforts to accommodate the agency's demands. Then, on October 21st, came a surprising U-turn. Iran undertook to reveal the sources of its nuclear technology, suspend its uranium-enrichment efforts and open suspected nuclear sites to spot inspections.

The Rohani effect

One immediate result of this capitulation was to lighten the international pressure on Iran. It may also turn out to have determined the domestic balance of power. The decision to agree to the agency's demands was taken by Mr Khamenei, but the supreme leader did not depute the president to negotiate the details. Instead, he chose Hassan Rohani.

Mr Rohani holds no elected office. He is the supreme leader's representative on a bipartisan body called the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). During his talks with the Europeans he made it clear that he carried Mr Khamenei's full authority, an impression the president could never have conveyed. The foreign ministers, tired of empty reformist promises, were seduced.

Iran seems to be abiding by its nuclear promises. The message is clear; the conservatives can be trusted. Mr Rohani's elevation suggests, too, that the conservatives are gathering the reins of foreign policy. Next year, when Mr Khatami steps down, the conservatives anticipate that one of their own will replace him. Not unreasonably: the Council of Guardians is expected to prevent all reformists from standing.

Mr Rohani now looks like a foreign minister in waiting. Since last October's deal, he has been respectfully received in Brussels and Moscow. His globetrotting at Mr Khamenei's behest has the effect of making the government look irrelevant.

A conservative imprimatur is being more clearly felt on other Iranian policies. The most important of these is Iraq. The United States no longer suggests that Iran is out to destabilise its western neighbour. Iran is a good friend to four influential members of the American-appointed Governing Council. It sends petrol, officially and unofficially, across the border. The Revolutionary Guard gets on with coalition forces that control the areas contiguous to Iran. Iran's softer Iraq policy may stem from fear of American intentions; it certainly depends on conservative will.

So, too, do tiny hints of change in Iran's attitude to Israel. State radio may still devote hours to the murderous misdeeds of the “Zionist entity”, but conservatives no longer have their old appetite for confrontation. Mr Khamenei is unlikely to concede, publicly, Israel's right to exist, or to give up his paternal interest in Hizbullah, the Lebanese militia which Iran started in the 1980s. But the proposed restoration of full relations with Egypt, the first Arab state to make formal peace with Israel, is a telling instance of Iran's new pragmatism.

From their lair in the parliament building, the reformists view all this with wry amusement. The reform movement, they remind visitors, has sincerely sought to reconcile Iran with the world, only to be thwarted by conservatives. It was the conservatives, they recall, who stymied Mr Khatami's overtures to Bill Clinton. Now the same conservatives are interested in striking a deal with the Americans.

The aid that the United States sent to the victims of last month's earthquake in Bam may have been, as the administration said, humanitarian in purpose. The offer to dispatch a high-level mission to the afflicted region was more overtly political. Many Iranians rather like the Americans; but because the regime officially does not, the offer was deferred. But there may be other chances to repair the relations that were severed with the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. The Americans are less worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions than they were, and would like to encourage more Iranian co-operation in Iraq.

One hardline voice?

Iran's western interlocutors, whether American or European, will face the same dilemma. The slow rise of conservatives in the supposedly democratic parts of government means that, increasingly, foreign governments must work with the least enlightened parts of the Iranian system.

As Iran's nuclear capitulation showed, there are advantages for the West in this. Powerful conservatives, like Mr Rohani, can deliver more than well-intentioned but ineffective reformists. Yet Mr Rohani may prove an awkward friend. Europeans and Americans insist that Iran become more responsive to its people, and the conservatives are reluctant democrats.

That much was underscored by the mass disqualifications. In the conservative view, barring reformists is part of an effort to unite the two branches of Iranian decision-making, elected and unelected. By next summer, when Mr Khatami is replaced, they want Iran to speak with one voice. At present, they are being thwarted by 80 truculent parliamentarians.

Whatever the outcome, Mr Khatami and parliament, supported by a few newspapers, are all that prevent conservative institutions from taking an even stronger grip on the country. This is why the sit-in in Tehran, viewed with indifference by most Iranians, is so important.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2350093

Their Last Chance?

January 15, 2004
The Economist
The Economist Print Edition

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1058311/posts?page=24#24

Hizbullah, Iran Funded Nablus Terror Cells

January 15, 2004
The Jerusalem Post
Margot Dudkevitch

Three recently arrested brothers from Nablus, all members of the Fatah, are suspected of being involved in the transfer of hundreds of thousands of shekels from Hizbullah and elements in Iran to fund terrorism.

In an attempt to hide the real purpose of the funds, Fadi, Hamdi, and Shadi Abdu transferred money claiming it was designated for cultural and social activities. Officials estimate they brothers transferred more than NIS 1 million to Fatah cells in Nablus.

Details of their activities were released by security officials on Thursday.

The closure imposed on the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, will remain in effect until Saturday night, when security officials will meet to decide whether to lift it. Officials said Israel will continue to target those considered to be "ticking bombs," adding that Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin gave his personal approval to Erez terminal suicide bomber Reem Salah al-Rayashi.

A security official said the closure was not in response to Wednesday's bombing but to concrete warnings of plans by terrorists to perpetrate another attack at the Erez crossing.

On Thursday the security establishment registered 52 terrorist warnings, approximately half stemming from Samaria and the rest from Gaza.

"The threats relate to every kind of attack conceivable, suicide bombings, shooting attacks, and abduction," an official said.

At present trucks containing goods are permitted to enter and leave the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians who have received authorization from the district coordinating office can enter Israel in cases of humanitarian assistance.

Early Thursday morning, security forces demolished two homes in the Tulkarm refugee camp. One belonged to Hitam Lawisi, a Tanzim member arrested by security forces earlier in the week. According to officials, he manufactured explosives, had shot at soldiers, and was planning a rocket attack inside Israel. He also dispatched two suicide bombers to Netanya in June, but they threw away their explosives and returned to Tulkarm.

The second house belonged to Tarek Abu Raba of Hamas, who recruited and dispatched suicide bombers. He was shot and killed by soldiers last year.

Security forces also arrested 12 fugitives in various locations in the West Bank. Palestinians shot at soldiers attempting to arrest fugitives in Jenin and Tulkarm.

Shots were fired at a patrol near Kadim and at a bus near Silwad, north of Ramallah.

In the Gaza Strip, shots were fired at IDF positions near Rafah and at the Erez crossing and at a vehicle and an IDF post near Gadid. Residents in Kfar Darom were ordered to remain in their homes after a grenade was thrown at an IDF position near its hothouses.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1074140313356&p=1008596981749

TEHRAN POWER GRAB

By AMIR TAHERI
NYPost.com
January 15, 2004

TOGETHER they form the largest bloc in the parliament, where, with their allies, they command a two-thirds majority. So why are 80 members of the 290-member Islamic Consultative Assembly, the Iranian parliament, behaving like an opposition and holding a sit-in amid threats of mass resignation?

The reason is that the next general election, to be held on Feb. 20, could end the parliamentary career of many of them, not because of rejection by voters, but because they won't even be allowed to stand for election.

A couple of months ago Richard Armitage, No. 2 at the State Department, described the Islamic Republic of Iran as "a sort of democracy." Well, he was sort of right, if by democracy he meant the holding of regular elections without bothering about their quality and purpose.

In a normal democracy, anyone who does not have a criminal record and meets basic qualifications such as citizenship is allowed to stand for office. But this is not the "sort of democracy" that Iran has had since 1979.

In Iran, all candidates must be pre-approved by the Council of the Guardians of the Constitution - a 12-man, mullah-dominated organ appointed by the "Supreme Guide" and answerable to him. These "guardian angels," as they are known not without irony, can decide who is a good Muslim and who is not. Good Muslims are allowed to stand for elections, and bad Muslims are pushed aside.

A man regarded as a good Muslim and allowed to be a candidate may be reclassified suddenly as a bad Muslim after the election. In that case "the guardian angels" have the power to cancel the election, kick the now bad Muslim out of the parliament and even send him to jail.

Even a parliament composed entirely of good Muslims cannot legislate as it deems fit. The "guardian angels" have the power to annul any piece of legislation they do not like.

The current crisis started when the Guardian Council rejected the applications of 2,004 men and women, among them scores of incumbents, who wished to stand in next month's general election. By doing so, the "guardian angels" have already determined the shape of the next parliament, making sure that it would be dominated by a new majority. And that has outraged the present majority.

But what are the key points of difference between the two sides? The short answer is: not much.

For purposes of simplification, the Western media refer to the two sides in Iran as "reformists," supposedly led by President Muhammad Khatami, and "conservatives," whose leader is identified as another mullah, Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's "Supreme Guide."

The terms "reformist" and "conservative," however, mean little, if anything, in the current context of Iranian politics.

The supposedly "reformist" bloc has controlled the presidency for the past six years and the parliament for the past four years. And, yet, it has implemented absolutely no reforms of any significance. Nor has it even proposed such reform.

The "conservative" faction bases its ideology not on the need to conserve, but on the necessity of exporting the Khomeinist revolution, first to other Muslim countries and then to the entire world.

The so-called "conservatives" have a coherent discourse that one may like or dislike: Islam is the only true faith, all other religions have either been abrogated by God or were man-made concoctions from the start. Today, the only country in the world that has a truly Islamic system is Iran. It is, therefore, Iran's duty to help replace all other regimes in the Muslim world with truly Islamic ones.

Once that has happened, a powerful Islamic bloc should be formed, led by the Iranian "Supreme Guide," to convert the whole of mankind to the Khomeinist version of Islam, if necessary, by war.

In the meantime, no deviation from the established rules should be tolerated inside Iran. Women should cover their heads, and men should grow beards. The "polluting" culture of the West should be kept out. Such ideas as pluralism, democracy and human rights, all inventions of the Jews and the Crusaders, must be kept out of the Dar al-Islam (The House of Islam). Elections should still be held, but only as a periodical reconfirmation of the people's devotion to the system.

The discourse of the so-called "reformists" lacks similar clarity. Khatami, for example, has become a master in the art of ambiguity and double-talk. When addressing the Europeans, he talks of reason and science and cites Aristotle and Hegel. But when talking in Iran he claims that women should cover their head because their hair emanates a dangerous ray that drives men wild.

As far as foreign policy is concerned, the "conservative" faction is not suicidal. It knows that it cannot take on the "Zionist-Crusader" bloc, led by the United States. It admits that it can never develop friendly ties with that bloc, and is prepared to accept a period of peaceful coexistence in the name of détente.

The so-called "reformist" faction, however, is bedeviled by its contradictions. It knows that women's hair does not emanate deadly rays. But, at the same time, it opposes the repeal of the law imposing the hated headgear.

What is happening in Iran today is a power struggle between two factions within the same Khomeinist establishment. The so-called "reformist" faction is not objecting to the principle of vetoing candidacies by the "guardian angels." It is objecting to the fact that its own members are vetoed.

The "reformist" faction is not calling for a constitutional amendment either to abolish the Council of Guardians or to lift its veto over candidacies. What it really wants is to gain control of the council for itself and use it as a means of preventing its rivals from standing for election.

What is astonishing is that many in the democratic world still fail to understand the reality of the Iranian situation.

The European Union, for example, has just appealed to the "guardian angels" not to veto so many candidacies. The EU is only asking for a reduction in the dose of the poison, and not and end to the poisoning of a nation's political life.

Even if the Council of Guardians allow all the so-called "reformists" to stand as candidates, the forthcoming election would still be far from democratic. The reason is that no one who is not a Khomeinist of one sort or another is allowed to stand for election to anything.

E-mail: Amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/15745.htm

TEHRAN POWER GRAB

By AMIR TAHERI
NYPost.com
January 15, 2004

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1058311/posts?page=27#27

LOL

Chirac has lost Saddam and is lonely.

"The new leniency also extends to romance. With morals police no longer on the streets, young couples hold hands in public even while passing Friday prayers in downtown Tehran."

Wasn't there a picture the other day here, that showed foreign "moral police"?

"It's a struggle to gain a bigger stake for themselves,
it's not for the people."

They're onto us, y'know what I'm sayin' here, bruthuh.

LOL......good one

"The Expediency Council advises the supreme seader and is the final arbiter in legislative disputes between the parliament and the Guardians Council. The Supreme Leader appoints this council's members, who are prominent religious, social and political figures."

Anyone heard from Rafsanjani lately?

The actions of the Council of Guardians are identical to those of Beijing in Hong Kong.

The promise of reform is the opiate to thwart revolution.

There are not conservatives and reformists; there are Islamists in the raw and Islamists in drag.

The most enlightened reformist is of a piece with Reverend Jim Jones and Unabomber Ted Koczynski.

But when talking in Iran he claims that women should cover their head because their hair emanates a dangerous ray that drives men wild.

Cover your hair! You're driving me wild!

LOL!!!!!

Bump!

Shah's son wants role in Iran future

Thursday 15 January 2004 8:25 PM GMT

Twenty five years after the fall of the Shah of Iran, his exiled son says he still wants to be a catalyst for change in the country.

Claiming the government is incapable of reforming itself, Reza Pahlavi told journalists on Thursday the new crisis caused by blacklisting reformist candidates for the Iran's 20 February national elections highlighted the country's problems.

"It is not a crisis between so-called liberal and radical factions, but between the whole regime and the people. This regime is not reformable. There must be a fundamental change," said Pahlavi.

The only way for the Iranian people to make their voice heard, he added would be "to boycott" the election as no elected body had been able to stand up to the conservative clerics led by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Scores of Iranian reformist MPs have vowed to maintain a sit-in in the Iranian parliament, despite the intervention of the supreme leader to order the Guardians Council, a 12 member religious body, to lift its disqualification of the reformist candidates for the election.

US-backed hopeful?

A former pilot and father of two who now lives in the Washington area, Pahlavi was training on a US air base in Texas when his father, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, was forced to leave Iran on 16 January 1979.

He said it was a difficult period for him and his family.

But by refusing to join any political party, Pahlavi says he wants to act as a "catalyst" for change by campaigning for a national referendum for democratic and secular change.

On top of his book on the topic, Winds of Change, Pahlavi appears regularly on radio and television programmes broadcast into Iran from abroad. Internet has also aided his efforts to reach Iranians.

He says he has also had discrete contacts with some members of the Shia Muslim clergy in Iran who favour a separation of religious and state powers.

Constitutional monarchy

Acknowledging that there were also problems with his father's authoritarian government, Pahlavi is careful not to raise the possibility of a return to the monarchy.

He said the Iranian people must choose between a republic or a constitutional monarchy.

Despite its record, the monarchy was at least more modern and progressive, he added.

Modernity

"Today we are in a situation where instead of being 50 years ahead we are one or two centuries behind."

The fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq has encouraged Pahlavi that he can play a role in a new Iran.

"This regime has so far succeeded in hiding between the Taliban in Kabul and Saddam's regime in Baghdad. Today it is a regime that is withdrawing and can feel that it is weakening," said the shah's son.

Iran is a country "with 70% of the population aged under 30" that wants to be free and modern, according to Pahlavi. Change, he added, "is a question of time."

Reuters

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4FE7DDFA-0132-4555-919D-A3461EA99CA6.htm

Terror expert Mansoor Ijaz says chemical weapons came in from Iran

January 14, 2004

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

This is a partial transcript of Special Report with Brit Hume, Jan. 13, that has been edited for clarity.

BRIT HUME, HOST: The administration is not saying anything about this, and it is not even clear officials know anything about it. But some sources in Iraq are talking about a development that could prove an important turn in the search for weapons of mass destruction. For more on this we turn to the man who so often seems to know things before everybody else.

Fox News foreign affairs analyst Mansoor Ijaz, who joins us now from Berlin.

Mansoor, what's up?

MANSOOR IJAZ, FOX NEWS FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Well, Brit, what I have learned in the last 24 hours is that about three days ago in the northern part of Iraq, a convoy of trucks and jeeps and cars was brought across from Iran where some of the Kurdish Peshmergah -- these are these Kurdish rebels that are sort of like Mujahideen, if I may put it that way, from the old Afghan War.

They intercepted one of those trucks that were carrying a large warhead that had extremely sophisticated plastic -- C- 4 plastic explosives in it. And when the driver of that truck was put under interrogation, he then admitted that as many -- there were a total of 30 warheads that apparently were scheduled to come across.

One of them got caught, and 29 made it across somehow or the other. Of those 29, we are told now that somewhere between six and 12 of them may have, in fact, been laden with chemical explosives that would be then attached to a rocket of some sort inside Iraq that's already there in a separate convoy. And that those warheads would then be exploded over, for example, an encampment near the Coalition Provisional Authority (search) or something like that.

Now, what alarmed me about this and the reason that I felt it was necessary to get this out as soon as possible, is because I have now heard three times in the last week, from separate sources that I have been talking to that something big is being planned for Baghdad. In which the idea that is being put forward is to kill as many as 3,000 to 5,000 people at one shot; something that would be similar to a World Trade Center (search) type of attack. In that part of the world, the only way you could get that done is if you launched a massive chemical or biological attack.

HUME: Now, talk to me a little bit about the Kurdish forces who were involved in this event. Are these -- are they friendly to the United States and the coalition? Are they not? And what -- you know, and how credible are they?

IJAZ: Yes. It's a good question. The strange thing here is that what I have been told is that the sources that got this information out, what they saw on the ground physically going on is that the Kurdish leaders that had -- the Kurdish rebels that had caught this guy had taken the warhead and were actually trying to sell it back to the Iranians along with their silence. Because there's something else going on here that's of a larger political nature.

We now know that during the past week, the reformists in Iran have been pummeled and stopped from allowing their candidates to be fielded for the upcoming elections. We also know that there is, as we have said here before about a month and a half, two months ago, that there is a wintertime offensive being prepared with the help of the Iranian and Revolutionary Guard in Afghanistan, maybe with the help of Al Qaeda, maybe even bin Laden, al Zawahiri, and people like that who, as we've said here before, are in Iran right now.

And at the same time, they're trying to launch something in Iraq. The idea of which would be the wag the dog scenario, where if your domestic politics, you can't fix it, and it's getting too much pressure under honor the mullahs in Iran right now. Better to start the fire and ratchet it up a notch on both sides outside, both in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time.

HUME: Now, how great a likelihood do you believe that you are finding this out or others finding this out, and it getting out, will have on it actually happening?

IJAZ: Well, I think the first thing we've got to do is go and talk to those Kurdish rebels and find out where the heck those other convoy trucks went. The second thing that we need to do, and I talked with General McInerney earlier this evening to determine what the range is, what type of warheads would be used and how these things could be put together. He made a very strong recommendation, and I agree with that, that we need to get Global Hawk One back in theater. Because if these things...

HUME: That thing out of there now?

IJAZ: ... these chemical warheads were attached -- they are out of there right now, and they're not in theater. And the trouble is that they're in desolate areas in which these rockets could be launched from.

And remember, a chemical weapon, to have massive -- the most massive impact that it can have to have a midair burst. Which means that it needs to be launched from, let's say, 100 kilometers away or 50 kilometers away or 200 kilometers away.

These are areas that our people are just not, you know, focused on right now because we've got so much work to do in and around the urban areas in Iraq. So I think we need to get down to finding out where that convoy of 29 warheads are and do that immediately. And get our Kurdish friends to help us rather than trying to sell them back to the Iranians. That doesn't make any sense.

HUME: Oh, we've got just a few seconds left. The credible of your sources, your assessment?

IJAZ: They're unimpeachable. Again, I think they've been right all along. We'll find out in the coming days in a print report about the bin Laden story in great detail. Everything has been verified. We will see that.

HUME: Thank you Mansoor.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,108371,00.html