Iranian Alert -- August 15, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

I guess the same goes for Iran:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistan/12-8-04-arabs-encounter-prejuduice-in-kurdistan.htm

KurdistanObserver.com

Arabs Encounter Prejudice in Kurdistan

Visitors from the south of the country increasingly viewed with suspicion.

By Sarhang Hama Salih in Sulaimaniyah

Iraqi Press Monitor

Aug 10, 2004

The sight of Iraqi Arabs in their traditional dishdash and cars with license plates from central and southern governorates like Baghdad, Dyala and Anbar has become commonplace on the streets of Sulaimaniyah since the war.

Some Arabs visit Kurdistan as tourists; some come seeking jobs; others just want respite from the often dangerous conditions in the rest of the country.

Three Kurdish governorates have been semi-independent since 1992 when central government withdrew from the area and left the Kurds to govern themselves under the protection of US and UK warplanes.

But Iraqi Arabs who visit Iraqi Kurdistan increasingly claim they experience hostility and unfair treatment at the hands of their Kurdish hosts.

After the war, they were initially welcomed by hotel and restaurant managers who saw them as tourists with money to spend, but now Arabs are increasingly viewed with suspicion, especially by Kurdish security forces.

Those security forces are intent on keeping suicide bombers off their streets and they view Arab citizens as possible enemies.

"This my first visit in Kurdistan," said Tariq Ismail, 52, from Baquba. "But I regret coming here. The Kurds think every Arab is a Saddam Hussein."

Arab visitors increasingly find they are singled out as potential security risks.

Arabs who register at hotels must first get permission from local security, while Kurds and foreigners in Kurdistan do not have to obtain such a permit.

In other parts of Iraq, no one is even asked for security clearance.

Ismail said that when he and his wife and children tried to park their car in a garage, they were told they could not because as Arabs their car was suspect.

Another 25-year-old Baghdadi Arab, who shared a hotel in Sulaimaniyah with Ismail, said his experience with the Kurds was worse than under the Baath regime.

When he stopped at a security checkpoint, Sulaimaniyah officials thought his name was on a list of suspects. They took him into custody for several hours where he says he was treated "badly".

When he asked to use the toilet, he was told to urinate in his trousers. "Human beings should not be treated that way," he said.

Some Arab visitors submit to the additional scrutiny as an understandable, and even welcomed, precaution.

"Only Arabs are inspected at the checkpoints," said Ahmed Rasheed, 31, a Baghdadi, explaining that "the Kurds want to protect their security".

He surmises that the long-time Arab persecution has left the Kurds hostile. "Judging by their Baathist experience, the Kurds think all Arabs are occupiers," he said.

Not all Arab visitors feel hostility from Kurdish hosts.

"There is no discrimination," said Salah Kaduri, 35, from Baghdad, who often travels to Sulaimaniyah with his wife.

Kaduri says that Kurdish checkpoint officials are courteous, and he appreciates the safety and security in the Kurdish streets.

Some Arabs who have made Kurdistan their home think there are Kurds who harbour a deep-rooted animosity towards Arabs, and that it is increasingly articulated.

Jamal Abdul Kareem, 42, has lived in Kurdistan for 18 years and speaks Kurdish fluently.

He points to a complex of factors that leave the Kurds with a distrust of their Arab compatriots, including "the effect of Baath, cultural differences, and the Kurdish fear of the future".

He speculates that the Kurdish claim for concern for their security is "only a cover for the old grudge they bear".

Ala Najmadeen, 37, a dentist, recently left Baghdad because of the "bad security situation" and moved to Kurdistan to set up a practice.

He tried to rent a house for his family but found that Arabs must pay an additional security deposit on top of already high rental rates.

Frustrated, he returned to Baghdad after one month.

Najmadeen is one of scores of professionals who have moved to Kurdistan seeking a safer environment.

More than 250 university professors have been killed since the fall of the regime, and another 1,000 have fled the country. Many other professionals, doctors in particular, have also been targeted.

The problems encountered by Iraqi Arabs in Kurdistan are in many ways typical of newcomers anywhere. And many Kurds welcome Arab visitors.

"I believe in living together and accepting each other," said Abdullah Ahmed, 26, a Sulaimaniyah Kurd who works for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

But it's not hard to find Kurdish voices who admit to a strong sense of animosity towards their compatriots.

"When I see an Arab walking in Sulaimaniyah, I cannot help hating him," said Rebaz Hama Salih, 24. He admits this feeling is not rational but said he cannot control his emotions.

All he can think about, he says, is the extensive suffering of the Kurds at the hands of Arab-majority Iraqi regimes.

But others say their antagonism is also directed towards the Arabs as a nationality.

"When Kurds were persecuted, it was the fault of the Arab nation not only the Iraqi government," said Wrya Sofi, 20, a Kurd from Kalar.

For Sofi, the recent expulsion of Kurds from several majority Arab cities in central Iraq is another reason for the Kurdish hatred towards the Arabs.

Thousands of Kurds have been forced out of cities like Fallujah and Samara simply because they are Kurds.

"When I see displaced Kurds who did not leave from fear of the Baath but rather from fear of the people of area," Sofi said, "I realise I hate Arabs, not the Baath."

Sarhang Hama Salih is editor-in-chief of Liberal Education, a youth-oriented newspaper in Sulaimaniyah.

The Stealth Nuclear Threat [Excerpt]

August 15, 2004
Newsweek
Fareed Zakaria

Terror is understandably on everyone's mind, but there is yet another growing danger over the horizon: an Iran ambitious for nukes.

Who could have imagined that alliance management would be a hot election issue in America? But it is. John Kerry's repeated pledge to restore relations with America's allies has struck a chord. The trouble is, if he is elected president, Kerry is going to find that promise hard to keep—at least with America's allies in Europe. Most of them would be delighted to see Kerry win, but that doesn't mean they will be more cooperative on policy issues. Terror is understandably on everyone's mind, but there is yet another growing danger over the horizon. Early into a Kerry administration, we could see a familiar sight—a transatlantic crisis—except this time it wouldn't be over Iraq but Iran.

The threat to America from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, if they ever existed, is in the past. Iran, on the other hand, is the problem of the future. Over the last two years, thanks to tips from Iranian opposition groups and investigations by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has become clear that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. In the words of the agency, Iran has "a practically complete front end of a nuclear fuel cycle," which leads most experts to believe it is two to three years away from having a nuclear bomb.

European countries were as worried by this development as Washington and, since the United States has no relations with Iran, Europe stepped in last fall and negotiated a deal with Iran. It was an excellent agreement in which Iran pledged to stop developing fissile material (the core ingredient of a nuclear bomb) and to keep its nuclear program transparent. The only problem is, Iran has recently announced that it isn't going to abide by the deal. As the IAEA's investigation got more serious, Tehran got more secretive. One month ago the agency condemned Iran for its failure to cooperate. Tehran responded by announcing that it would resume work in prohibited areas.

That's where things stand now, with the clock ticking fast. If Iran were to go nuclear, it would have dramatic effects. It would place nuclear materials in the hands of a radical regime that has ties to unsavory groups. It would signal to other countries that it's possible to break the nuclear taboo. And it would revolutionize the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Egypt would feel threatened by Iran's bomb and would start their own search for nuclear technology. (Saudi Arabia probably could not make a bomb but it could certainly buy necessary technology from a country like Pakistan. In fact, we don't really know all of the buyers who patronized Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's nuclear supermarket. It's quite possible Saudi Arabia already has a few elements of such a program.) And then there is Israel, which has long seen Iran as its greatest threat. It is unlikely to sit passively while Iran develops a nuclear bomb. The powerful Iranian politician Ali Rafsanjani has publicly speculated about a nuclear exchange with Israel. If Iran's program went forward, at some point Israel would almost certainly try to destroy it using airstrikes, as it did Iraq's reactor in Osirik. Such an action would, of course, create a massive political crisis in the region.

In the face of these stark dangers, Europe seems remarkably passive. Having burst into action last fall, it does not seem to know what to do now that Iran has rebuffed its efforts. It is urging negotiations again, which is fine. But what will it tell Iran in these negotiations? What is the threat that it is willing to wield?

Last month the Brookings Institution conducted a scenario with mostly former American and European officials. In it, Iran actually acquires fissile material. Even facing the imminent production of a nuclear bomb, Europeans were unwilling to take any robust measures like the use of force or tough sanctions. James Steinberg, a senior Clinton official who organized this workshop, said that he was "deeply frustrated by European attitudes." Madeleine Albright, who regularly convenes a discussion group of former foreign ministers, said that on this topic, "Europeans say they understand the threat but then act as if the real problem is not Iran but the United States."

American policy toward Iran is hardly blameless. Washington refuses even to consider the possibility of direct talks with Iran, let alone actual relations. Europeans could present Washington with a plan. They would go along with a bigger stick if Washington would throw in a bigger carrot: direct engagement with Tehran. This is something Tehran has long sought, and it could be offered in return for renouncing its nuclear ambitions. ...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5635447/site/newsweek/

Mullah-nnihilation?

August 09, 2004
FrontPageMagazine.com
Reza Bayegan

The Associated Press reported on July 27 that in defiance of any international monitoring of its program, Iran had broken seals put on its equipment by the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency. On the same day in London, The Times warned that Iran was only “months away” from having the capability to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. With the American officials disclosing that last February IAEA inspectors found P-2 centrifuge parts, which are more suited to making weapons than the P-1 parts that Iran has confirmed it possesses,[1] there can be little doubt about the mullah's intentions.

Obviously, a nuclear-armed Tehran would be cataclysmic for the democratic world (particularly the state of Israel). What is less apparent are the devastating effects of such an eventuality on Iran's own culture and civilization. The Islamic bomb would give a great boost to Arab and religious extremism, while at the same time dealing a severe blow to the hopes of salvaging a Persian Iran whose cultural references sharply differ from its Arab neighbors.

Granted basic human freedoms and relieved from the frenzy fomented by the Ayatollahs, there can be no question that the allegiance of the majority of Iranian citizens is to values and sentiments represented by cities like Shiraz and Isphahan, rather than Mecca and Jerusalem.

Getting their hands on the nuclear bomb would help the clerical rulers plunge Iran yet deeper into regional conflicts where, by nature, it does not really belong. As Reuel Marc Gerecht has argued, obtaining nuclear weapons fits in well with the “grand objective of the Iranian mullahs to use them as leverage to enhance their security and sphere of influence throughout the Middle East.”

Reaching nuclear capability will give a freer hand to the fanatical regime to further undermine the country's national identity. It will strengthen those repressive forces that have been assaulting the human rights and cultural independence of Iranian citizens since the inception of the revolution. In other words, what is a dream for the ruling clergy, can only translate into a hideous nightmare for the Iranian nation.

At the heart of the nuclear issue lies the dual purpose of sworn animosity of the Islamic Republic against the state of Israel on the one hand, and the mullahs wish to perpetuate their illegitimate rule on the other. The vast resources of Iranian natural wealth, instead being directed to alleviate poverty within the country and invested in badly needed development projects, are poured into the coffers of Lebanese and Palestinian militia groups and used for arming and financing terrorist operations around the globe.

The anti-Jewish campaign of the Islamic Republic is utterly repugnant to the attitude Iranians have adopted towards the nation of Israel throughout their long history. It was deeply ironic last month when UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) listed the tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae as a world heritage site. At a time when Iran is known as a member of the Axis of Evil, and the most active sponsor of international terrorism, the image of Iranian heritage that the world honors and commemorates is of a country whose founding monarch put together the first human rights declaration, the articles of which guaranteed the right of religious practice in general, and the freedom of Jewish people in particular.

The ill-will towards the Jews therefore goes hand in hand with the hatred today’s clerical regime displays against the continuity of Iranian national values and traditions. Let us not forget that scores of Iranians are arrested every year for observing festivals that date back to the pre-Islamic period. The hostility of the mullahs towards Israel, as Roger Howard has stated, is “directed not only towards Israeli policies but, in many cases, towards the rights of the Jewish state to exist at all.”[2]

Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, has time and again asserted that the only way to solve the Middle East crisis “is to destroy the Zionist regime.” The most effective way to accomplish such a result is by a nuclear bomb. Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani the powerful ex-President does not make any bones about such deadly projects. Reassuring his audience about the dangers of nuclear confrontation with the Jewish state, he tells them that comparing with the “devastation” of Israel by a nuclear bomb, a retaliation (that is if they are still there to retaliate) will only cause a scattered “damage” to the far greater population of the Islamic world.[3]

On the face of such open threats to its security, Israel has every right to a preemptive strike. Prime Minister Sharon has declared that it will constitute a state of war for any country hostile to Israel to acquire a nuclear bomb. As a matter of fact, the state of war between the Islamic Republic and the state of Israel has existed for a long time, albeit unilaterally. The mullahs pay $50,000 to the family of every suicide bomber attacking Israeli targets. This figure is twice the amount offered by Saddam Hussein for such terrorist attacks. A considerable chunk of the budget of the country is allocated for killing Jews inside Israel – and throughout the world. The bombing of the Jewish Center in the capital of Argentina in July 1994, which resulted in the death of 85 people and the injury of more than 200, is only one instance of this ongoing war. The high officials of the clerical regime who masterminded this carnage spent $10 million only to bribe the Argentinian officials to keep quiet about the Iranian role in this attack.[4]

The efforts of the Islamic Republic against Israeli interests are only matched by the government's relentless persecution of the Iranian people. The Islamic Republic remains at the top of the list of violators of Amnesty International and other international human rights agencies. The mullahs’ obsession with the Arab-Israeli issue has been exploited to justify internal repression. Portraying the Islamic faith as in danger of annihilation by American “imperialism” and Israeli Zionism, the mullahs trample on the rights of individual Iranians in the name of saving Islam and securing the freedom of the Palestinian people.

Like other empty rhetoric of the regime, the support for the “Palestinian struggle” however has been regarded by the Iranian population as political cant devoid of any reality. Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979 creation of a “Ghods Day,” rallying in support of the Palestinian cause to “liberate Jerusalem,” was odd and alien to Iranian sensibility. Roger Howard, attending rallies held on the Ghods Day, managed to talk to students on university campuses, who tell him in private that Arab-Israeli dispute is “nothing to do with us.” He writes:

In mid-June 2003, students held a series of large rallies at Tehran University that called not only for more democracy in Iran but also for the government to “forget about Palestine and think of us.”

The “liberation of Jerusalem” and the extermination of Israeli Jews has been an aspiration for Iran's revolutionary fascists and the Islamic-Marxists urban guerrillas who were shut off from the reality of Iranian worldview in training camps sponsored by Yasser Arafat and Muammar al-Qaddafi. Their mission was to fight the Shah and impose a mindset on Iranians that was totally incongruous with their country’s tolerant culture and long established humanitarian tradition.

The failure of their relentless propaganda is evident in the way Iranians turn to Israeli radio for reliable news and trustworthy information. Traveling in Iran in 1999, I was amazed that a local official in Hamadan, who was frequently mouthing the government's line about the Zionist enemy, took me to his orchard and proudly showed off his walnut tree. “It is the very best,” he said. “It has been brought in from Israel you know.” The very best of Israel has also been imported from Iran: Israeli President Moshe Katsav and the Defense Minister Lt. General Shaul Mofaz were both born in Iran.

This strong affinity with between the two nations has enabled the Israelis to look beyond the crimes of the present regime and exercise great military restraint towards Iran. This restraint should continue until all other peaceful options are probed and exhausted. An Israeli attack on Iranian soil, albeit on selected military and nuclear targets, would be used by the mullahs as welcomed propaganda to rally the national sentiments at a time when Iranians are most united in their hatred of the Islamic regime. It should be kept in mind that the destruction of the regime’s nuclear facilities will only serve as a temporary patch on a dangerous infection. What Iran desperately needs is an opportunity to emerge from the long nightmare of the clerical tyranny.

This can happen with the mobilization of international efforts to isolate the mullahs and strengthen internal forces truly representative of Iran’s cultural heritage and national identity. To search for those forces we need to go no further than the most popular Iranian national figure today: Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran, who leads a political campaign from his exile in the United States to hold a free and fair national referendum on the political future of his country. He represents the modern voice of a cultural tradition that is distinctly Iranian in its broadmindedness and humanity. His campaign which embraces all political groups and unites Iranians under one democratic agenda is not only the best means of stopping the terrorist regime in Tehran to threaten the world with nuclear weapons, but its success will be the most effective preemptive strike at the heart of the forces of violence and instability in the region of Middle East.

ENDNOTES:

“Iran denies uranium centrifuge is part of plan to build a nuclear bomb,” Paul Harris, The Observer. August 1, 2004.

Iran in crisis? Nuclear Ambitions and American Response. Roger Howard. (Zed Books, 2004).

Ibid.

Ibid.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14558

Najaf Update: Alert!

http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/
August 15, 2004

The attack against Sadr thugs in Najaf just started! The US/Iraqi forces moves toward the centre of the city where Sadr groups hide from two direction without resistance yet!

Iran; (Kadhem Al Haairi the God father for Sadr groups) issued Fatwa for the involvement of the Iraqi police and other forces not to attack Sadr groups.

More latter!

Iran deeply involved!

At least 30 Iranian fighters captured near the border in Kut in their way to go with sadr militia. Also two trucks full with arms have been captured near Kut from Iran towards Sadr fighters.

Mortar attack hit Imam Ali shrine outside wall!

No one know from where this attack came but it can be from any one including Sadr fighters who may do this intentionally to attract more support for them.
Sadr and his thugs ever polluted Imam Ali shrine by converting it into a military camp and a hiding place for his timid personality.

Sadr and Iran responsible for all what is going to happen. He now should not be given and chance to play his game of the mouse and the cat again with thousands of innocent lives exposed to danger.

The UN and international community should do their duty to stop and punish Iran for its interference and causing death of many innocent Iraqis. Iran and Sadr are responsible of profaning the Shrine of Imam Ali.

Cautious Silence!

Things get quite and the Iraqi National assembly will send delegates for talks to stop fighting in return for dissolution of the Militia.

The Najaf governor asked the journalists to leave the city as their life is in danger.

There is news from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior that there is about 20 foreign fighters (may be Iranian) heavily armed inside the Shrine of Imam Ali who threatened to blow the Shrine if the US/Iraqi forces commenced its advance towards the shrine.
Maqty still hiding their!

The next few hours seems to be decisive especially with the journalists ordered out of the Najaf!

In a different subject there is nearly certain information about the presence of Azit Al-Dori in the Syrian capital Damascus since last April. He is not in good health accompanied by a woman who may have been married her after the failure of the regime when he was in hiding.

Allawi Stand Eases Iran-Iraq Standoff

August 15, 2004
AFP
The Peninsula

TEHRAN -- Iran’s official media yesterday hailed what it described as conciliatory remarks from Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi following a spate of angry accusations from other members of his US-backed government.

In an interview with the state IRNA news agency in Iraq’s Shiite holy city of Najaf, Allawi welcomed an invitation to visit Iran and said he looked forward to constructive relations between the former foes.

“We want establishment of good relations with neighbouring countries, especially Iran, and believe that our bilateral ties are based on common interests,” IRNA quoted him as saying.

Allawi distanced himself from US-led accusations, voiced by some in his administration, of Iranian interference in the new Iraq, notably by abetting infiltration of militants across the border.

“If there are any complaints, they are pointing to unofficial figures. We do not accuse the Iranian government of interference in Iraq’s domestic affairs,” the premier said.

“Some individuals penetrate Iraqi territory through neighbouring states, and that is true for Iran too.”

Relations between Tehran and Baghdad were severely strained earlier this month when Defence Minister Hazem Al Shaalan accused the Iranian authorities of trying to “kill democracy” in his country by fomenting unrest.

Shaalan also charged that Tehran had abandoned its longstanding favouring of the mainstream Shiite religious parties in Iraq and was arming the rebel militiamen of radical leader Muqtada Sadr in their deadly clashes with US-led troops.

IRNA also reported reassuring comments from Iraq’s charge d’affaires in Tehran, Khalil Salman Al Sabihi, about three of the news agency’s journalists detained in Iraq.

The Iraq embassy is “following the affair closely,” IRNA quoted the envoy as saying.

“We have asked the Iraqi foreign ministry for information about the circumstances of, and reasons for, the arrests, as well as the latest news” of the three detainees.

IRNA’s Baghdad bureau chief Mostafa Darban and journalists Mohammed Khafaji and Mohsen Madani were detained by Iraqi police on Monday night.

The news agency’s foreign editor Hassan Lavasani said yesterday that he still had no idea why his staff had been detained. The Iranian journalists’ association demanded an explanation from the interim Iraqi government on why the three were detained, in a statement carried by IRNA, whose journalists also signed a petition seeking their release.

There has been no word either on the fate of an Iranian diplomat who went missing on the road from Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Karbala on August 4 and whose kidnapping was later claimed by a Sunni militant group.

Relations between Tehran and Baghdad have also been inflamed over the past week by a US-backed offensive on militia strongholds in Najaf, which is revered by the Shiite majority in Iran as well as Iraq.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=August2004&file=World_News2004081574735.xml

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