Posted on 10/04/2004 10:20:47 PM PDT by DoctorZIn
The US media still largely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” As a result, most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East. In fact they were one of the first countries to have spontaneous candlelight vigils after the 911 tragedy (see photo).
There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.
The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.
In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.
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This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.
I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.
If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.
If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.
DoctorZin
THE NECKTIE JOHN KERRY WEARS during the next two presidential debates might be a secret semaphore revealing where his loyalty lies. During much of the campaign Kerry has worn neckties whose pattern, suggests
“Why else would the richest man in the Senate – a man whose pricey wardrobe is laid out for him daily by his personal valet – wear only one necktie during almost all of his public appearances?” asked Swirsky in a September 20 column. “And that necktie – albeit not in a thin muslin or coarse cotton but probably woven from the finest silk – a replica in its pink and white pattern of the Arabs’ favorite headdress, the kefiyyah.”
An examination of campaign photographs shows Kerry wearing several neckties with pink or red patterns resembling the familiar kefiyah Arab male headdress. By itself, this could be dismissed as mere coincidence having no signal significance.
Perhaps Kerry merely likes pink, and in his family his powerful wife Teresa wears the male-color blues. And Kerry has always demonstrated an affinity for reds.
John Kerry’s campaign, however, has quietly built bridges to Muslim voters, Muslim money and a hidden connection with the Ayatollahs of Iran that should concern everyone who supports Israel and is uncertain what policies a President Kerry might adopt in the Middle East.
One key battleground state in this election is Michigan, which has the highest proportion of Muslim voters in the United States. Last October 17 Kerry traveled to Dearborn, Michigan to speak before the Arab American Institute National Leadership Conference. (The Arab American Institute is headed by James Zogby, brother of pollster John Zogby.)
“We do not need another barrier to peace,” Kerry told the Arab-American group in a speech criticizing Israel’s terrorism-thwarting, life-saving security fence. The Masschusetts Senator described the fence as “provocative and counterproductive,” adding that it would “increase hardships to the Palestinian people.”
(Five months later, in February 2004 the always-duplicitous John Kerry days after a Jerusalem suicide bombing told the Jerusalem Post that Israel’s security fence was a “legitimate act of self-defense.”)
Kerry operatives have worked hard behind the scenes to win Muslim voters, a bloc George W. Bush won in the 2000 election. Muslim-Americans are now more numerous than Jews in Michigan and a significant voting bloc in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. More than half a million Arab-Americans are expected to vote in these four battleground states.
Kerry’s Dearborn speech, widely reported in Arab-American community media, suggested that a President Kerry might not share President George W. Bush’s unwavering support for Israel.
Until recently, polling suggested that Kerry might win almost 80 percent of Muslim-American voters – roughly one percent of all American voters – but this number is now falling rapidly as these Americans, too, wake up and smell the Kerry.
(President Bush has many Arab-American supporters. The President liberated 50 million Muslims from tyrannical governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and named Republican Arab-American Spencer Abraham of Michigan to his cabinet as Secretary of Energy.)
One little-noticed reason why the Kerry campaign has used every dirty trick it could devise to keep Ralph Nader off state ballots is not only that he siphons away leftwing voters but also that this Lebanese-American siphons off Arab-American votes. Nader on the ballot likely would win between nine and 20 percent of the votes of his fellow ethnic Arab-Americans. But despite these anti-democratic Democrat dirty tricks, Nader is presently on the ballot in Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Money may explain some of Kerry’s support among Muslim-American activists. The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), for example, has pocketed grant money from the leftwing Tides Foundation. The Tides Foundation, wrote FrontPage Magazine’s Ben Johnson, has been generously supported with fungible money from the Heinz Endowments controlled by John Kerry’s wife Teresa.
But Kerry receives far more Muslim money than his wife’s foundations give. As this column documented last January, one of Kerry’s biggest money men, who bankrolled the Senator’s primary campaign with more than $180,000, is Hassan Nemazee. This Iranian-American investor raised a cool $250,000 for Al Gore in November 1995. Nemazee and his family slushed another $150,000 to Democrats during the mid-1990s. Six Nemazee family members and friends (including the caretaker of his 12-acre Katonah, N.Y., estate) donated a total of $60,000 – the maximum legally allowed -- to Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund.
In the closing days of 1998 Clinton named Nemazee his Ambassador-designate to Argentina. Hillary Clinton embraced the Muslim moneyman at a January 1999 White House celebration of the Islamic holiday Eid. The Senate, however, refused to confirm the controversial nominee after a Forbes Magazine investigation exposed Nemazee’s questionable business dealings. “He was,” said a bitter former business partner, “the Iranian equivalent of J.R. Ewing.”
The Forbes magazine investigation also documented how, in order to get his hands on public-employee pension fund monies allocated for minority managers, the U.S.-born Nemazee had falsely claimed to be a Hispanic of Venezuelan background and, on another occasion, an Asian-Indian.
But Nemazee’s cynical lust for money can be frightening as well as laughable. He is a founding board member of the Iranian American Political Action Committee [IAPAC], which seeks to create friendly and lucrative business relationships with the medieval theocratic dictatorship now ruling Iran. Iran is, of course, an “Axis of Evil” nation that seeks to acquire nuclear weapons and is on our State Department’s official list of nations that support terrorism. Nemazee seeks to enrich himself by further enriching the power-mad Mullahs ruling Iran.
“The founding member of this group is Mr. Hassan Nemazee, an American of Iranian origin and one discredited, and well-known agent of the Islamic Republic, within the Iranian community in the United States,” wrote opponent of the Iran regime Aryo B. Pirouznia of the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran. “Their [IAPAC’s] agenda in their own words is: ‘…how relations between the Islamic Republic and the United States can be restored in support of the Islamic Republic and the revolution.’”
Pirouznia wrote this in an open letter to Senator Edward Kennedy urging the Massachusetts Democrat to dissociate himself from Nemazee. The more-leftward senator from the Bay State, John Kerry, continues to embrace Nemazee and the suitcases full of money that he donates.
Following this column’s lead, investigative reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman last March tracked the Kerry-Nemazee link to expose two other Kerry “Iranian Sugar Daddies” with links to the Shiite Ayatollahs’ theocratic dictatorship in Teheran.
In an October 2004 American Spectator investigation titled “Dirty Moolah,” Timmerman looked into Nemazee friends Faraj Aalaei and his wife Susan Akbarpour. This couple also has close ties to Iran, is working to get U.S. sanctions against its regime lifted, and may have funneled up to $200,000 to the Kerry campaign.
Has this flow of Iranian money into his campaign coffers prompted John Kerry to make his positions more Ayatollah-friendly? Last December 3 Kerry told the Council on Foreign Relations that as President he “will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran.”
Senator Kerry has proposed not only to open a “dialogue” with the Islamist dictators of Iran if he is elected President, but also to help the Iran theocracy become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
“It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States to restore our country’s credibility in the eyes of the world,” wrote Kerry in an email his campaign sent to the Mullahs in Iran. “America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others.”
On April 7, 2004 in an interview with leftwing National Public Radio, John Kerry described the fanatical Shiite imam Muqtada al-Sadr (who has murdered American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, and has armed his militia with weapons almost certainly supplied by neighboring Shiite Iran) as a “legitimate voice” in Iraq.
Several pro-Kerry leftwing propaganda operatives have claimed that President Bush is not a “legitimate” President. But Kerry described terrorist Muqtada al-Sadr as apparently more “legitimate” in Iraq than the U.S. troops sent there by President Bush, who liberated the country from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Kerry’s statement gave propaganda support and encouragement to this power-mad killer cleric and his murderous militia.
Senator Kerry has said: “A nuclear armed Iran is an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and our allies in the region.” But his vacillating flip-flops concerning Iraq, Israel and the rest of the Middle East – and his cozy relationship with big money contributors with close ties to the Iranian Ayatollahs – raise serious doubts about Mr. Kerry’s willingness to act decisively to pull the radioactive fangs of this monster.
“With respect to Iran,” Kerry said during the September 30th first presidential debate, “I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes.”
Kerry’s proposal, which he first mentioned in a June speech, was cheered by unnamed senior German and Dutch spokesmen in the European Union (EU), according to London’s Financial Times.
But on Sunday Iran officially rebuffed Kerry’s idea. Its foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi declared that it would be “irrational” for Iran, reported Reuters, “to put its nuclear program in jeopardy by relying on supplies from abroad.” But in Teheran they must have been pleased by Kerry’s eagerness to avoid conflict, serve the interests of his Iranian paymasters and appease the Ayatollahs.
Kerry supported a similar Clinton Administration program to provide reactors and fissionable materials to Communist North Korea. Former President Jimmy Carter brokered this plan to give these things to Kim Jung Il in exchange for a signed scrap of paper on which North Korea promised not to use them to make nuclear weapons.
North Korea lied, of course, and used the time this Democrat agreement gave them to produce up to seven nuclear weapons. Kerry now proposes making the same arrangement with the Islamist dictatorship in Iran that President Carter’s moronic foreign policy brought to power.
North Korea, an energy-poor country, at least had a plausible reason to seek nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Iran, by contrast, is one of the world’s largest oil producers and exporters. Iran flares enough natural gas off its oil wells as a waste by-product to generate all the electricity it will need for the next several centuries.
Senator Kerry’s proposed costly gift of reactor fuel to Iran to “test” whether their aim is peaceful is as unnecessary and unwise as it is absurd. With easy access to all the nearly-free oil and natural gas they could ever use, Iran’s rulers obviously want nuclear reactors not for energy but for political power.
“We must have two [atomic] bombs ready to go in January or you are not Muslims,” Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently told a group of Iran’s senior government and military leaders, according to an unnamed U.S. official quoted by the news service Geostrategy-Direct.
Iran’s nuclear reactor program, moreover, is controlled and administered not by the nation’s energy bureaucracy but by its military. So when Senator Kerry speaks of giving nuclear materials to Iran, these materials would be put directly into the hands of Iran’s military.
The Ayatollahs of Iran, with their long track record of arming and funding Hizbollah (“the Party of God”) and aiding other international terrorists, want nuclear weapons so that they can threaten Israel as well as other nations of the Middle East and Europe. Iran’s theocratic rulers may already have developed a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as Europe. Iran might have had North Korean help in testing its missiles. Iran today has several hundred nuclear-capable HY-2 Chinese Silkworm missiles and other missiles aimed at U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf and may soon acquire its more advanced offspring the Raad missile.
Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear superpower, as anyone can see from the June 2004 testimony of Undersecretary of State for Arms Control & International Security John Bolton, is self-evident.
The Ayatollahs came to power in Iran because of Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s steps to undermine America’s ally the Shah of Iran. The Communist madman who today rules North Korea acquired nuclear weapons with the help of Democratic President Bill Clinton and his left-loving emissary Jimmy Carter. And the nightmare of the Vietnam War was precipitated by the Democratic President John F. Kerry likes to call the “first JFK,” John F. Kennedy, who sent the first 17,000 armed U.S. troops into Vietnam. Those who know this might think
Knowledgeable people might wonder why John Kerry has raised these issues that ought to remind the world how dangerous it is to elect a Democrat as President.
But John Kerry has the advantage of an electorate “educated” mostly in socialist government schools by union members of the National Education Association. And Kerry’s ignorant voters generally exhibit the blend of low I.Q. and high ideology that define today’s leftward-trending Democratic Party.
President Bill Clinton gave many important speeches while wearing the necktie given to him by his mistress Monica Lewinsky. It was, he told her, a signal that he was thinking about their secret relationship.
If John Kerry wears one of his kefiyah-patterned red or pink neckties during either of the two remaining presidential debates, it might be a friendly wink, a signal to the Muslim world confirming his secret relationships with its interests. To paraphrase CBS’s Dan Rather, even if the meaning of Kerry’s necktie choice is misinterpreted, the facts behind it are true.
Whatever colors he puts on for those two nights, chameleon Kerry grew up in Europe speaking and thinking in French and has a European French view of Jews and Muslims, of Israel and the Arab world. France, which took the side of Saddam Hussein against the U.S. in Iraq, shipped 75,000 French Jews in railroad cattle cars off to Nazi death camps.
France is the culture Kerry deems so superior to ours that he once said, in effect, that he would give France a veto in the United Nations Security Council over America’s ability to use force in our, or Israel’s, defense. We have just passed the anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War in which France refused permission to fly over its territory to American aircraft sent to help save Israel. And influenced by its fast-growing Muslim population, France (and Europe in general) again is exhibiting open anti-Semitism.
The survival or death of Israel if Kerry becomes President could be decided by the highest bidder.
Iran says can launch missile with range of 2,000km |
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TEHRAN - Iran is able to launch a missile with a range of 2,000 km, the official IRNA news agency Tuesday quoted influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as saying. The missile could reach Israel and parts of southeastern Europe. |
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"Experts know that a country that possesses this can obtain all subsequent stages" in missile production, Rafsanjani told staff at the Aerospace Research Institute in Tehran. |
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Thousands of Iranian teachers organized a symbolic strike, yesterday, at the occasion of the "Teachers Int'l Day" in order to protest against their conditions and asking the release of their imprisoned colleagues.
Many were asking the public trial of the militiamen involved in the murders of two of their colleagues assassinated in January 2001 during Kofi Annan's visit of Iran.
The yesterday's action closed down most schools in the country despite all injunctions and threats made by the usually feared members of the "Herrasat" (Intelligence). Hundreds of teachers gathered even in front of the local offices of the Ministry of Education.
Cities, such as, Shiraz, Esfahan, Mashad, Gorgan, Hamadan, Jiroft, Rasht, Kermanshah, Ahwaz, Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) and several districts of the Capital were affected by these strikes and thousands of students were sent to their homes or to the streets.
The teachers have warned about a wide scale strike if their conditions and the regime's repeated empty promises are not fulfilled. A continuous strike will make the Islamic republic regime to face a deep chaos as millions of Iranian students will be in the streets everyday.
The yesterday actions showed as well the massive rejection of the regime's so-called "teachers day" organized in remembrance of Ba-Honar. The latter was a teacher-cleric who became Prime Minister. He was killed along with Rejai, the regime's second President, in an explosion in the early 80s.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States sees no reason to offer Iran incentives to ensure its nuclear program remains peaceful, a U.S. government official said on Tuesday.
European states want the United States to make such proposals to Tehran after the Nov. 2 U.S. presidential election to add weight to efforts by Britain, France and Germany to reach an accord with Iran and avoid a U.N. Security Council showdown.
"At this point a grand bargain is not where we are heading," said the official, who requested unanimity.
He was referring to suggestions that Washington offer Iran economic and political inducements to halt activities which Washington suspects are aimed at making the atom bomb.
"We haven't seen any Iranian recognition that (a bargain) is in their interest," the official, in Brussels for talks with EU and Canadian officials on managing the challenge of Iran, told reporters.
But he said the United States would closely follow at any future signs that Tehran could respond positively to an offer.
"That would be a new factor we would look at very seriously. We don't have that now," he said.
Hardliners in the Bush administration have made it clear they would oppose offering any incentives to Tehran.
Iran has rebuffed a proposal by U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry to supply the Islamic state with nuclear fuel for power reactors if it gives up its own fuel-making capability.
Iran could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions if its cooperation is seen as insufficient at a Nov. 25 board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.
The talks launched by Britain, France and Germany have yielded disappointing results. There has been alarm at Iran's announcement last month that it had begun processing raw uranium for enrichment, a possible route to the bomb.
The U.S. official said there was a need to define a common approach to Iran between the United States and Europe but said it was not clear how that could be achieved at the moment.
"How do you ... elicit from Iran a readiness to engage? I don't know the answer and I don't think the Europeans do either," he said.
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Watching ABC, CBS, or NBC news, you would never know that Iranian civilians are now being killed while protesting against their country’s Islamist dictators. You probably wouldn’t know that Iran is considered to be the “world's ‘most active state sponsor of terrorism.’” You most surely haven’t heard that between 10,000 and 15,000 Iranians risk life and liberty to run web logs (“blogs”) opposing their government. Maybe you’ve heard that Iran’s rulers are secretly building nuclear weapons, but did you know that Britain, France, Germany, and Russia have sold nuclear technologies to Iran? Have you heard that Iran now has ballistic missiles with a range of 1,250 miles? You’ve been shielded from knowing that a government-commissioned poll of Iranians showed that:
On the other hand, you might have been conned into believing that Iran’s Islamist dictators, including President Mohammad Khatami, are “encouraging democratic reforms.” Far be it from the truth. Things have gotten much worse for the Iranian people since the “reform” process started: “elections” have been rigged, newspapers shut down, dissidents arrested, and human rights abuses are at the worst level since 1997. Europe is squandering a great opportunity in Iran. Because of its fear, the continent is convinced that Islamist terrorists can be contained and/or placated – the euphemism here is “engagement.” And why stand up to Iran’s terror-masters when there is money to be made? Forget the fact the most Iranians hold dear values like freedom and democracy. Don’t look to Europe for much helping in toppling Iran’s mullahs, look to the U.S. President Bush has and will implement the best policies in dealing with Iran’s mullahs. The invasion of Iraq will have long-term positive effects on the Middle East, as long as the U.S. and its allies are steadfast in supporting Iraq’s nascent democracy. Most of the criticism of the Iraq war was bad hype (see also here). I will concede we need more troops in Iraq. But Saddam Hussein’s tyranny was the Middle East’s soft underbelly – a perfect weak spot to exploit in a long-term plan to change the region’s dynamics. Iran is now sandwiched between two budding democracies, Afghanistan and Iraq. How could anyone miss this simple geopolitical equation? What more could scare the hell out of Iran’s mullahs? During last week’s presidential debates, Bush was correct in stating, A free Iraq will enforce the hopes and aspirations of the reformers in places like Iran. Senator John Kerry would not be a force for bringing democracy to Iran. He has says he would seek to “thaw” relations with Iran’s terror-masters – that “engagement” word again. One of Mr. Kerry’s supporters is trying to silence the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI), a group who is ardently trying to support democracy in Iran. Whose side are Kerry et. al. on? Don’t you think they have a modicum of desire for self-preservation? Iran’s government is building nuclear weapons, harboring al-Qaeda operatives, and funding Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. This is the same government that executes 16-year-old girls, closes down newspapers, rigs elections, and tries to ban Internet access from its own people. Kerry wants to “thaw” relations with terror-masters? The Bush Administration, along with Israel, is seeking to refer the issue Iranian nuclear weapons development to the U.N. Security Council, while Europe and John Kerry are seeking more “engagement.” To these appeasers, the Iranian democracy revolution is indeed invisible and unimportant; they would placate evil to allay their own fears and support their capricious political aspirations. |
ping.
IRANIAN VICE PRESIDENT SUBMITS RESIGNATION.
Vice President for Legaland Parliamentary Affairs Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Abtahi has submitted his resignation, international news agencies reported on 4
October. "Because my political opinion is different from the majority of the Majlis [parliament] deputies...I have come to conclude that I can no longer fulfill my responsibilities," Abtahi explained, according to ISNA. According to Fars News Agency, Abtahi submitted his resignation to President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami prior to his trip to Algeria, Sudan, and Oman. Khatami rejected Abtahi's previous resignation, which he submitted after the seventh parliamentary elections in February. In the most recent letter of resignation, Abtahi underlined his inability to create a harmonious relationship between the executive and legislative branches.
Anonymous "sources close to the government" said that former Tehran legislative representative Hojatoleslam Majid Ansari, a member of the pro-reform Militant Clerics Association (Majma-yi Ruhaniyun-i Mubarez), could succeed Abtahi. President Khatami has not accepted Abtahi's resignation yet, government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh said on 4 October, IRNA reported. BS
source: RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 189, Part III, 5 October 2004
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He is writing a blog http://www.webnevesht.com/en/weblog/
The meter's running...
If they don't start this "popular revolt" tommorrow, they're going to be dodging incoming real soon.
This summary might be useful:
IRAQI RELIGIOUS LEADERS
SHI'A LEADERS
Ali al-Sistani -- Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah. The leading religious authority among the Shi'a community in Iraq. Born in Mashhad, Iran, he moved to Iraq at the age of 21 to pursue his religious studies, and has remained there since. The septuagenarian al-Sistani Heads the Imam Ali foundation.
Muhammad Ishaq al-Fayyad -- Afghani-born grand ayatollah. Reportedly more moderate than al-Sistani, al-Fayyad advocates a separation of state and religion, and does not support the idea of the vilayat al-faqih, or rule of the jurisprudent, as found in Iran.
Bashir al-Najafi -- Pakistani-born senior Shi'ite grand ayatollah based in Al-Najaf. Remained in Iraq during Saddam Hussein rule. Al-Najafi's home has been attacked by militants at least four times this year.
Muhammad Sa'id al-Hakim -- Iraqi grand ayatollah based in Al-Najaf. Uncle of Shi'ite ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, who was assassinated in a car-bomb explosion in Al-Najaf in August 2003.
Sadiq Husayni Shirazi -- Iraqi grand ayatollah. Born in Al-Najaf, studied there and in Qom, Iran, where he is based. Sadiq Husayni is the younger brother of Ayatollah Muhammad Shirazi.
Kazim al-Husayni al-Ha'iri -- controversial Iraqi Shi'ite ayatollah based in Qom, Iran. The cleric returned briefly to Iraq after the fall of the Hussein regime. Muqtada al-Sadr asked al-Ha'iri to serve as his adviser and to head the Al-Najaf Hawzah (seminary) in April 2003. On 24 April, "Al-Mustaqbal" reported that al-Ha'iri represents "the point of convergence" between the al-Sadr current, the Al-Da'wah, and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). He reportedly also has strong relations with the religious authorities in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon.
Al-Ha'iri is staunchly anti-American and issued a fatwa in May 2003 saying it was lawful for Muslims to kill senior Ba'ath party officials. Appointed Muqtada al-Sadr as his representative in Iraq. Many Shi'a in Al-Najaf don't recognize his authority over Iraqis.
Muhammad Taqi al-Mudarrisi -- Born in 1945 in Karbala. Nephew of Ayatollah Hasan Shirazi; Head of the Islamic Action Organization and a SCIRI central committee member. His father was Muhammad Baqir al-Mudarrisi. His mother is from the al-Shirazi family (her father is Sayyid Mahdi al-Shirazi).
Sheikh Jawad al-Khalisi -- Shi'ite cleric and former member of SCIRI (1982). Wants to form a United Islamic Front of Sunnis and Shi'a committed to establishing an Islamic state. He is secretary-general of the Iraqi Constituent Conference. Al-Khalisi has strong relations with the Muslim Scholars Association, a Sunni group. He has been extremely critical of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
Muqtada al-Sadr -- Controversial 31-year-old cleric of little theological training. Al-Sadr is the son of assassinated Shi'ite cleric Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. Said to be responsible for killing of Washington-supported cleric Abd al-Majid al-Khoi in Al-Najaf on 10 April 2003. Al-Sadr was appointed "deputy and representative in all fatwa affairs" by Qom-based Iraqi cleric Kazim al-Ha'iri in late April 2003. His followers are known as the Sadriyun. Al-Sadr has emerged as one of the most popular Shi'ite leaders in Iraq in recent months, and appeals to the poor and disenfranchised, who are drawn to the cleric's charisma and anti-U.S. stance.
SUNNI LEADERS
Harith al-Dari -- An influential member of the Muslim Scholars Association who acts as the head of media affairs for the Sunni group. Led a delegation of Arabs to the Arab League in July 2003 asking it to not recognize the Governing Council. According to "Al-Quds al-Arabi," al-Dari is the grandson of Sheikh Dari, a national Iraqi hero who killed colonial British officer Colonel Gerard Leachman during the 1920 revolution in Iraq. Sheikh Harith was born in 1941 and graduated from Al-Azhar University in 1967. He holds a doctorate in hadith (prophetic tradition) and interpretation. He taught Islamic law at the Iraqi, Jordanian, and UAE universities. He returned to Iraq after occupation and joined the national ranks that are calling for liberation from occupation.
Ahmad al-Kubaysi -- Sunni sheikh who is said to be linked to Muslim Brotherhood. Returned to Iraq after fall of Saddam Hussein. Critical of U.S. administration in Iraq. Publishes the newspaper "Al-Sa'ah." Al-Kubaysi is known for his popular talk shows and lectures on several pan-Arab television stations. He resided in the United Arab Emirates for five years prior to the Hussein regime's demise. Pledged in August 2003 to work with the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) but did not, and remained critical of the occupation and IGC. Heads the political party Unified National Movement. The interim Iraqi government banned al-Kubaysi in September 2004 from returning to Iraq reportedly because of his ties to Sunni militants. Was reported to have given $50 million to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to fund the latter's militant activities in 2003, a charge al-Kubaysi denies.
Abd al-Sattar Abd al-Jabbar -- A controversial cleric opposed to U.S.-led occupation and member of the Muslim Scholars Association. Abd al-Jabbar condoned the killing of 12 Nepalese hostages in Iraq by saying that anyone who works with the occupation should be considered part of the occupation. Abd al-Jabbar was asked by Al-Jazeera in August to comment on the standoff between multinational forces and militants loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He responded by saying that U.S. troops and the Iraqi government did not want a solution, but wanted "to destroy Iraq."
CHRISTIAN LEADERS
Emmanuel Deli -- Patriarch of the Chaldean Church, elected in Baghdad in 2003.
Louis Sako -- Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk; Served as a parish priest in Mosul until appointed archbishop of Kirkuk in late 2003. He is the only religious figure elected to serve on the Mosul provincial council in 2003. Sako supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Born in 1948 in Zahko, the archbishop reportedly speaks eight languages.
Shlemon Warduni -- Chaldean Auxillary Bishop of Baghdad. Born in 1943, he became a priest in 1968. In 2001, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Babylonia for the Chaldean Church, and titular bishop of Anbar dei Caldei.
Rabban Al-Qas -- Chaldean bishop in Amadiyah. Born in 1949, he has served as a priest in Amadiyah since 1973. Reportedly of Kurdish heritage. He was ordained Bishop of Amadiyah in 2002. Al-Qas has been called the "Bishop of Kurdistan" by Sunni Kurds living there, who respect his leadership.
Archbishop Gewargis Sliwa -- An Assyrian who heads the Church of the East in Iraq in Baghdad. Sliwa was born in Habbaniyah and graduated from Baghdad Universtiy in 1964. He was ordained as a priest in Chicago in 1977, and in 1981 was ordained as archbishop of the Assyrian Church of the East in Iraq.
YEZIDI LEADERS
Mir Tahsin Sa'id Beg -- the secular and spiritual head of the Yezidis. Born in 1933, the fifth child of Sa'id Beg and Meyan Khatun, Tahsin was appointed head of the Yezidis in 1944 following his father's death. In an interview published on yezidi.org website, he said that his mother Meyan Khatun, along with the Yezidi religious council and tribal leaders, chose him as his father's successor. His mother ruled the Yezidis as his representative until he was 18 years old. He fled Iraq in the 1970s after he was falsely implicated in a failed coup attempt against the Hussein regime, first living in Iran, then London. After 1981, he returned to Iraq, but it appears that he has divided his time between Iraq and Germany, where a large Yezidi community exists.
Baba Sheikh -- Khatto Hajji was elected baba sheikh (senior father) of the Yezidis in 1995. He is a known oppositionist to the Hussein regime, which reportedly tried to reverse his election. Khatto Hajji's family is linked to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
source: RFE/RL IRAQ REPORT Vol. 7, No. 36, 1 October 2004
Thanks!
I have a very good idea why don't we get every country to boycott Iran by not visitng that country?
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