Iranian Alert -- November 23, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD

The US media almost entirely 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.” But 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.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

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.

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.

PS I have a daily ping list and a breaking news ping list. If you would like to receive alerts to these stories please let me know which list you would like to join.

THE BUSH HATERS

by Amir Taheri
TOWNHALL
November 23, 2003

It may be too early to know how George W Bush's state visit to London, the first ever by a US President, will playback in Peoria. But it seems that part of the America media, focusing on sporadic anti-American demonstrations in London, has decided to present it as a symbol of "global anger against the United States."

What has happened in London in the past few days, however, is more complex.

To be sure, London has witnessed a series of demonstrations in the past week or so. None, however, attracted more than a few hundred people, although the "final bouquet", fired at Trafalgar Square yesterday, brought together some 100,000 people according to the organisers.

Nevertheless, these demonstrations have been used as the basis for a variety of strange claims and arguments.

One claim is that the United States is now "extremely unpopular" even in Britain, its oldest and most steadfast ally.

That, however, is not what the latest polls show. One poll, conducted for the liberal-left daily The Guardian on the eve of Bush's visit, reveals a different picture. It shows that 62 per cent of the Brits regard the US as "generally speaking a force for good, not evil, in the world." Only 15 per cent agree with the suggestion that the US is an "evil empire".

The same poll shows that opposition to the war against terrorism has fallen by12 per cent since September. Today a majority of British voters, 51 per cent, believe that the war is justified.

Even the claim that Bush is "hated by a majority of the Brits" is proved false. The American leader is welcomed by 43 per cent of those polled as opposed to 36 per cent who say they would rather he had stayed home.

The polls results are backed by direct observation and anecdotal evidence. Anyone who toured the streets of London around Buckingham Palace, where the Bush couple were staying, could easily see that the anti-Americans were not the only ones in evidence.

As for the British media, the Bush visit reflected the traditional left-right divides.

The centrist and right-leaning papers welcomed Bush and ran editorials and columns endorsing the aims of the war on terrorism.

The left-leaning papers used the visit as a fresh occasion to denounce intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. But even then the left-leaning segments of the British media manifested some unease.

There are two reasons fort this.

The first is that the anti-American demonstrations of recent days in London represent a bizarre alliance between the remnants of Marxist-Leninist left and militant Islamist groups. Many soft-left Brits are still uncomfortable with the idea of an alliance with reactionary Islamists who oppress women, massacre religious and other minorities, and bring God into the people's bedrooms.

The second reason for unease on the part of the soft-left is that it is hard to build a case for the return of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein to power. The playwright Harold Pinter, still bitter about the demise of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, has described Bush and Blair as " two war criminals" who "drink blood" at their tea-party. But how many are likely to take him seriously?

The placards claiming that Bush and Blair are "burning babies in Baghdad" are unlikely to do any better.

The anti-US demonstrations of the past few days in London are unlikely to have a lasting impact on Anglo-American relations.

Once the dust has settled Bush's visit may well be remembered for two things only.

The first is the speech Bush made at Whitehall in which he repeated his earlier linkage between US national security and the spread of democracy in the Middle East with greater clarity. It is interesting that much of the British media decided to treat it as nothing more than a clever speech to impress an audience of foreign policy buffs.

And yet the idea that the democratic nations cannot be safe for as long as there are tyrannies that sponsor and shelter terrorism is beginning to attract the attention of the average British voter. The slogan "war against terrorism" told only half the story. Bush's idea of putting the spread of democracy top of the agenda, tells the other half. Now the average British voter knows that he is not asked to fight only "against" something but also " for " something. This is a position that the traditional anti-American forces of the totalitarian left, and their new Islamist allies, would find increasingly hard to challenge.

The second thing that the Bush visit is likely to be remembered for is that it helped draw a clear distinction between two visions of the world.

One vision belongs to those who blame the Western democracies for all the ills of mankind and hate the United States for a variety of reasons. These are people who never protested when Saddam Hussein was filling all those mass graves in Iraq or when the Taliban were massacring the Hazara in Bamiyan. You will never see them demanding the release of political prisoners in Cuba itself but find them crying their hearts out for the Al Qaeda operatives held in Guntanamo Bay.

Another vision is defended by those who believe that fighting against tyranny ad terror is the fundamental political duty of all human beings, and that the most noble principles are ultimately meaningless unless defended by force if and when necessary.

The Marxist-Islamist alliance may well have done all of us a service this week in London. It has put the fight between open societies and their enemies into focus.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian author of 10 books on the Middle East and Islam. He's reachable through www.benadorassociates.com.

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/717

Terrorists Who Struck Turkey Linked to Iran

November 22, 2003
New York Sun
Eli Lake

WASHINGTON -- The organization that claimed credit for yesterday’s bombing of the British Consulate and HSBC bank in Istanbul has close links to the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to analysts in Washington who closely monitor terrorism in Turkey.

The double blast delivered by two pickup trucks yesterday was the worst terror attack in the history of modern Turkey.The explosions, set off minutes apart, killed 27 people, including the British consul general in Istanbul, Roger Short.

But if the link to Iran is substantiated, the bombing’s effects on policy could be even more far-reaching. The news could prompt a new effort in London and Washington to crack down on Iran, which has so far escaped the fate of its “axis of evil” partner, Iraq.

Only hours after the blast in Turkey’s old capital, the Islamic Great Eastern Raiders’ Front, also known as the IBDA-C, called the Anatolia News Service to claim joint responsibility for the attack with Al Qaeda.

“This is a group that has been presumed to have received funding and training from Iran. This is the assessment of Turkish intelligence,” the director of international security and energy programs at the Nixon Center, Zeyno Baran, told The New York Sun yesterday. Iran has also been fingered in the Turkish press in last weekend’s car bombing of the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues in Turkey.

“At least we know the guys who were the suicide bombers in the synagogue bombing had spent a year in Iran,” the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs’ Turkey program, Soner Cagaptay, told the Sun yesterday. “They also went to Pakistan and Afghanistan. They came to Turkey through northern Iraq.”Those two men were identified this week from DNA samples left at the scene of the explosions as Mesut Cabuk, 29, and Gokhan Elaltuntas, 22.

The consensus in Ankara, London and Washington is that yesterday’s double blast resembled the handiwork of Al Qaeda. Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday, “They appear to be in the method of operation, or in the operational style, of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda operatives or affiliates.”

But the involvement of Al Qaeda does not exclude either the work of local terrorists or the involvement of Iran.American,Israeli,and Saudi counterterrorism officials believe at least several dozen Al Qaeda operatives are in Iran. Indeed, American diplomats met this spring with Iranian officials in Geneva to discuss the possible handover of Al Qaeda operatives who fled Iraq during Operation Iraqi freedom.

A Turkish official reached for this story said that there was some evidence that pointed to connections to the attack from a Middle Eastern country, but he would not specify which one.

Iran has a history of giving support to local Islamist organizations, even those that do not practice Iran’s Shia brand of Islam. For example, the Al Qaeda offshoot, Ansar al-Islam, is believed by American intelligence to have trained in Afghanistan but to have traveled through Iran to arrive in northern Iraq to establish the base of operations that has since been destroyed. Some of its leaders fled to Iran during the war in March.

In particular, Iran has a history of aiding Turkish Islamic terrorist organizations such as the Turkish Hezbollah, a Sunni organization.

“While it is true that Iran has provided funding for the Turkish Hezbollah in the past, there is no conclusive evidence that Iran is the sponsor of these acts at this point,” a fellow at the Western Policy Center and an expert Islamic movements in Turkey, Asla Aydintasbas, told the Sun. “It may well be that this time Iran was only the transit point for these guys on their way to training camps in Afghanistan.”

To be sure, the Islamic Great Eastern Raiders’ Front has in the past claimed credit for incidents they were not involved with. The group is organized nonhierarchically in small cells, often no larger than four or five people, according to Forsnet, a Turkish Web site with information about terrorist groups. In the past the organization has attacked churches, banks, and statues of Kemal Attaturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Attaturk ended the Ottoman caliphate, the last Islamic empire, while Osama bin Laden and his followers seek to restore the caliphate.

“They are good at taking responsibility. This is one of the reasons why the Turkish government has not been coming forward about naming the group specifically and they have said it is Al Qaeda or linked to Al Qaeda,” Ms. Baran said. But she also said that yesterday’s bombing fits the front’s profile of attacking “Muslims who are not quite as Muslim as they are.”

Most experts said that on its own, the front lacked the capabilities to pull off an operation as sophisticated as yesterday’s. “It is certainly true that another extremist group may have been involved,” one American intelligence official told the Sun. “But it is doubtful that they could have launched such an attack without the support of Al Qaeda.”

Turkey’s deputy chief of its mission in Washington, Naci Saribas, said yesterday that he did not know who was responsible for the bombing. “The investigation is still going on.There are some resemblances about what had happened to today and what happened last weekend,” he said.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=11&d=23&a=16

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