Iranian Alert - October 23, 2005 - More and more classified intelligence has slipped out of Iran

Ahmadinejad's own site: “More and more classified intelligence escapes the country”

Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi

According to Ahmadinejad's own site, FARDA (named as such in order to confuse people with Radio Farda which is the Persian Broadcast of Radio Free Europe) the ever increasing amount of classified intelligence and information escaping Iran has become a major source for worry and anxiety for the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) of the regime. It is rumored that during the recent months, more than ever, the regime's intelligence service has lost the equivelant of approximately 10 years worth of the most classified information.

Based on unconfirmed reports, it has come to the regime’s attention that a significant amount of said information and intelligence was removed by a high-ranking official of the regime itself, who was taking a trip abroad in order to report to foreign intelligence officers.

A political analyst claimed: "one of the ways to obtain intelligence and information about the goings on inside Iran, for foreign intelligence organizations or opposition groups is contact between directors, experts and officials inside Iran. Unfortunately several of the middle-management types of the regime do not heed the warnings and due to inexperience and guilelessness, they make the mistake of thinking that everyone in the world is as kind, innocent and well meaning as the authorities of our regime (!). They are then tricked by deceitful foreigners into parting with the classified intelligence and high-level security information.”

A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on Iran:

Iran Press News reported that Seyed Ahmad Seyed Seraajee imprisoned blogger who is currently being detained at the Tabriz prison, will receive 30 lashes.

Iran Press News reported that orderlies from medical centers and hospitals around the township of Baabol (Mazandaraan/Capsian Province) gathered to protest 6 months non-receipt of their wages and their benefits.

Iran Press News reported that out of fear of being arrested many Iranians have begun to remove their own satellite dishes.

Iran Press News reported that 53,000 Iranian students have no school buildings to attend school in; but are forced into tents and shipping containers as makeshift classroom space.

Iran Press News reported that the Workers of Kurdistan have reported on the 3 week long strike by the Kurdish Textile workers and that the workers show up to work but they simply refuse to work.

Iran Press News reported that according to the Deputy of the Food and Drug Ministry of the regime: Most of the food and drug products imported to Iran are counterfeit.

Iran Press News reported that several campaign supporters of Rafsanjani's presidential campaign, whose campaign financed loans for advertisement, etc. have not been reimbursed, are claiming bankruptcy.

Iran Press News reported that Ahmadinejad said: Political pressure on us might increase but ultimately Westerners are forced to accept our stance ... Westerners do not have the heart to take us on ... Putting the centrifuges to work will change all the equations and it will allow us to take over the world and will give us supremacy.

Iran Press News reported on a clandestine strike and work stoppage under way in the Ministry of Oil.

Iran Press News published a collection of clippings and new items from the regime's own media.

Iranian.ws provided a detailed explanation for Iran's internet surfers on how to find their way to restricted or censored Iranian sites.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers reported that Omid Sheikhan has been sentenced by the Iranian court to one year in prison and 124 lashes.

The Telegraph UK discussed bringing democracy to Syria and Iran.

Iran Daily reported that the governor of the Central Bank of Iran said he is hopeful that the stock market situation will return to normal and that contrary to earlier reports that the country has not severed trade ties with Britain and South Korea.

The Washington Post reported that a report by the United Nations that compellingly links the Syrian government to the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri provides the Security Council has a rare opportunity to enforce consequences for a state-sponsored act of political murder.

The Associated Press, China Daily reported that a senior U.S official said Iran has been "fairly isolated" and must return to negotiations with European countries.

Amir Taheri, Arab News examined the challenges facing Musharraf.

And finally, New York Review of Books provided excerpts of the Soldiers of the Hidden Imam, by Timothy Garton Ash. A Must Read.

From Laura Mansfield:

Iran bringing “many divers, sophisticated technology” to Gulf of Mexico

by Laura Mansfield

Earlier this year, a top Iranian General made the following boast: “Iran is the biggest military power in the region (with) 10 million volunteers for martyrdom operations ... to turn Iran into a terrible nightmare for the United States,” General Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, deputy commander of Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guards, told the Kayhan newspaper.

This summer, the BBC reported an ad in an Iranian publication has calling for volunteers for "martyrdom operations" against the enemies of Islam. The ad was published by an institute managed by one of Iran's most conservative and radical clerics, Ayatollah Masbah Yazdi, who has declared his support for Iran's new President, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. It recruits men and women to enlist with the "Martyrdom Lovers' Headquarters".

So I find it more than a little ironic that the same country that is actively recruiting volunteers to conduct suicide missions against United States and US interests, and is opening bragging about it, has now been granted a base of operations in the Gulf of Mexico, within easy striking distance of America’s Gulf Coast.

The Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company is expected to begin shortly a major $90 million dollar project laying pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico. The company says it will be laying 36-inch pipes 60-70 meters under water.

The company expects to be handing the rest of the $400 million dollar project as well.

According to a press release on IRNA, “The Gulf of Mexico project will help the Iranian company gain valuable experiences given the large presence of European and American companies in the area.”

The press release also states that the “project will need many divers and sophisticated technology.”

Is anyone in our government paying attention here?

A country which has made one threat after another against the US for over two and a half decades, is now being provided in essence a base of operations in the Gulf of Mexico, within striking distance of much of the US oil supply.

They will have carte blanche to bring in divers, submersibles, and highly sophisticated technical equipment. Since they will be in essence subcontractors for the Mexican oil industry, they will most likely be able to circumvent export controls for many types of hardware and software that would not normally be eligible for export to Iran.

Hello? Is anyone listening?

For more translations and news on terrorism, visit http://www.lauramansfield.com

AL-ZARQAWI'S GROUP CLAIMS BEHEADING OF BADR CORPS MEMBER.

Al-Qaeda-affiliated Tanzim Qa'idat Al-Jihad fi Bilad Al-Rafidayn, led by fugitive Jordanian terrorist Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, claimed in a video posted on the Internet (http://alfirdaws.org) on 22 October that it beheaded a member of the Badr Organization, a Shi'ite group connected to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The victim, who identified himself as Abbas Dahir Majid, "confessed" in the video to being a member of the Badr Organization, which he described as funded by Iran and the United States. He said the organization's agenda is to drive Sunni Arabs from southern Iraq and establish a Shi'a state there. He also told his captors that Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has permitted through fatwas the rape of Sunni women and the stealing of Sunni property. Majid also said that his captors did not force him into making false statements in the video. Majid is then beheaded on camera. KR

Source: RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 9, No. 201, Part III, 25 October 2005

Bahraini Journalist: Not Since the Nazi Era Has There Been Anything Like Al-Qaeda's Declaration of War on the Shi'ites in Iraq

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD101005

In an article on the liberal website www.elaph.com, 'Omran Salman, a Bahraini journalist living in the U.S., criticizes the Sunni silence over the extermination of the Shi'ites in Iraq.

The following are excerpts:(1)

"Aren't the Arabs Ashamed When Some of Them Massacre Iraqi Citizens?"

"When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke, there was not a single Arab who did not express the opinion that it was a despicable, mean [act] contrary to humanist values. They are right about this. But these people swiftly forgot their humanism and sealed their lips when the Jordanian terrorist Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi declared war against the Shi'ites in Iraq, and began to dispatch his booby-trapped soldiers to blow themselves up among children, women, and the elderly. None of those [who denounced the Abu Ghraib scandal] uttered a word and none shed a tear for the hundreds and thousands of Iraqis being murdered and whose bodies are being mutilated.

"The first to denounce [the Abu Ghraib scandal] were the Americans themselves, who thought that the acts of some of their soldiers distorted the image of the U.S. and served as a mark of shame...

"But don't the Arabs feel an even greater sense of shame when some of them kill and massacre Iraqi citizens? Don't the rest [of the people] feel pangs of conscience when they try to come up with excuses and justifications for the murderers and criminals whom they call the 'resistance?' How can someone outraged at the torture of or disrespect for another person be silent and ignore [Al-Zarqawi's] declaration of the [program of] extermination of millions of people because of their sectarian affiliation?

"How is one to [describe] the Arab silence [in general] and the Sunni [silence] in particular in light of the murder of Shi'ite Iraqis and their intimidation in the most despicable and base of ways?... After all, the murderers declare their positions publicly, brag about them, and consider them Jihad for the sake of Allah. [Even] if what has happened does not stir up the regular Arab citizen - who has been brainwashed, and whose will has been totally eroded - how is one to explain [this same position when it is adopted by] politicians and members of the media?"

Al-Qaeda is Waging a War of Collective Extermination Against the Shi'ites in Iraq

"What can we say in light of the attitude of the Arab media [in general] and the Arab satellite channels in particular, which report the killings, the slaughters, and the suicide bombings among Iraqi citizens coolly, treating them as routine events [and] as part of what has been termed 'the series of [acts of] violence in Iraq?'

"The war being waged by the Al-Qaeda organization and the terrorists against the Shi'ites in Iraq is among the acts of collective extermination, which is rare in modern history. There has been no case in the past in which somebody has declared a similar war against a race or a group as a whole, except [for the case of] Nazi Germany against the Jews...

"The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq and similar [bodies] in Arab countries have issued dozens of fatwas about current political issues, but have not issued even a single fatwa declaring bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, or Al-Zarqawi to be infidels because of their killing of the Shi'ites.

"The entire world is witness to [the fact] that the Arabs and the Sunnis are [remaining] silent and standing idly by - and some are even welcoming - the cold-blooded murder of the Shi'ites in Iraq. They will bear this mark of shame for all eternity..."

"The Sunnis Have Persecuted the Shi'ites [And] Declared Them Infidels, and Treat Them as Second-Class Citizens"

"America, at least, has always had the courage to acknowledge its mistakes. It admitted (its) crime of slavery against the blacks, and it took action, and continues to take action, to make amends for that historical crime. But the Sunnis have persecuted the Shi'ites, declared them infidels, and continue to treat them in their countries as second-class citizens. It seems that they are not making do with that, and have returned today to complete what they started in previous centuries.

"In the past they did not acknowledge their persecution of the Shi'ites - and here they are, in the 21st century, continuing their massacres and crimes against them, in full view of the world. Do these people not feel the shame and disgrace that shroud them?"

Endnote:
(1) www.elaph.com, October 15, 2005.

Comment: Iran has a common interest with us, but they can not admit it.

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Ahmadinejad's own site: “More and more classified intelligence escapes the country”

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