Free Republic

Iran is closely watching the unfolding crisis between Israel and the United States over Israeli settlements – and Jerusalem clashes with Palestinians that injured more than 100 today – for ways to rejuvenate its diminished influence in the Middle East. Iran has seen its reputation tarnished across much of the Middle East by weeks of violent street clashes after the June 2009 presidential election, which many Iranians believe was rigged. “The Iranians are going to see an opportunity to improve their position in the region, to capitalize on Israel’s reduced standing vis-à-vis the US, to reduce the chances of an...

The thing that caught our eye in the plot to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport and its oil lines concerns a detail in respect of the arrest of one of the key Guyanese suspects. It was the fact that the former member of the Guyanese legislature who was fingered in the plot, Abdul Kadir, was arrested in Trinidad on his way to Caracas, Venezuela. According to Mr. Kadir's wife, who was quoted in the Guyanese press, he was there to pick up an Iranian visa that would enable him to attend an Islamic conference in Tehran. No doubt...

Iran's first nuclear power plant will be operating by mid-2011, Iranian and Russian officials say. The Bushehr plant was begun in 1974 and abandoned five years later. Russia took over building work in the 1990s, but it has been beset with delays. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted the head of Iran's atomic agency as saying that the plant had passed most tests successfully.

A remote-controlled bomb killed a Tehran University nuclear scientist today, state media reported, in an attack which Iran blamed on US and Israeli agents. The blast which killed professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi occurred at a time of heightened tension in the Islamic Republic, seven months after a disputed presidential election plunged the major oil producer into turmoil.

The US administration is heading towards placing "paralyzing" sanctions on Iran, Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren said Tuesday. Speaking to Army Radio, Oren added that although it was "too early," the US had also not yet abandoned the military option. "The Americans attribute the highest importance to the Iranian issue," he said during the interview. "The US, along with other countries, is preparing to impose paralyzing sanctions on [Iran], and preparations are happening even now." Oren went on to reject claims that US President Barack Obama was trying to downgrade relations between Washington and Jerusalem, saying, "The man is...

Here is truly amazing (and graphic) video of a crowd in Sirjan, Iran storming police to prevent the public execution of two people. The video shows the crowd storming the gallows and cutting down the bodies of two men in the process of being hanged. It shows the protesters being shot at by Iranian forces as they tried to get away with the men. The condition of the men cut down from the gallows is not clear. Reports indicate several protesters were killed in the shooting. Gateway Pundit has much more on the dramatic incident. . . .

They came wanting to say their Islamic prayers, and ended up praying to Jesus for salvation!

Iran 'sentences three to death' President Ahmadinejad's re-election in June triggered mass protests Three people detained after June's disputed presidential election have been sentenced to death, Iran's Isna news agency reports. The judgements are preliminary and must be confirmed by a higher court, Isna says. Full names have not been given. So far the only named opposition activist reported as having been sentenced to death over post-election protests is Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani. The unrest was triggered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election. On Saturday Isna quoted Zahed Bashiri Rad, a justice ministry official, as saying: "Three people who were accused...

The latest reports of senior nuclear scientists defecting from Iran to the West have caused considerable embarrassment and concern to the regime in Tehran. The reports first broke in Londown-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, and were followed up in the Iranian media. The reports suggest that at least one scientist, Shahram Amiri, who worked on nuclear research and development, defected several months ago to the west during the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. One more person, whose identity and specialization remains unclear - he may have been a scientist or held another key position in Iran's nuclear program - may have...

The revelation of a second uranium enrichment facility in Iran proves that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was quoted as saying Saturday. Lieberman urged immediate action, saying, "Without wasting time, we must work towards the overthrow of the mad regime of Teheran." Lieberman's comments came a day after evidence of a second clandestine uranium enrichment facility was presented Friday by US President Barack Obama and the leaders of Britain and France at the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh. At a news conference in New York, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had...

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- New York businessman and prominent Democratic fund- raiser Hassan Nemazee was indicted Monday for allegedly defrauding three banks out of $292 million in loans. Nemazee, 59 years old, was charged with aggravated identity theft and three counts of bank fraud in the indictment. Each bank fraud count carries a term of up to 30 years in prison. A lawyer for Nemazee didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Nemazee, who was involved in various presidential campaigns and once served as finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was initially charged criminally in August related...

Hello there. For every post, I need an insperation. This time, it was a song. I usually wait for the right mood, that itching that makes you start tapping away at your keyboard like hell was loose on earth and only your words could save the world from going up in flames. I’m not going to argue that hell exists or not, I –as an atheist– have done quite a lot of that already on the net; of course I’d be dead in a blink if I revealed that in real life. What I mean is that you have to...

The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has accepted an offer by Iran to provide it with weapons produced by the Iranian defense industries, a newspaper in Lebanon reported on Wednesday. According to Al-Akhbar, the proposal was sent from the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. In their response, LAF officers said the army was in need of anti-aircraft weaponry. Israeli officials have expressed concern that the existence of such weapons in Lebanon, whether in the hands of Hizbullah or the army, would constitute a change in the strategic balance between Israel and Lebanon.

A young Iranian soldier, arrested late last week for allegedly stealing weapons for opposition groups, was killed in custody and his body returned to his family on Saturday, sources in Teheran said. The sources said the bodies of several dissidents, arrested in the course of anti-regime protests in Iran in recent weeks and evidently killed in detention, had also been returned to their families in the past few days. Several of the bodies bore signs of beatings, the sources said.

Cross Posted from www.niacouncil.org Washington DC – Last night, the Senate voted unanimously to adopt legislation that aims to aid the ability of the Iranian people to access news and information by overcoming the electronic censorship and monitoring efforts of the Iranian government. The Victims of Iranian Censorship (VOICE) Act was introduced by Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), Ted Kaufman (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Robert Casey (D-PA) as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. “The world has been astonished and inspired by the courage of millions of Iranians pressing their regime for nothing more than...

tt { font-family: courier; } td { font-family: helvetica, sans-serif; } caption { font-family: helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: left; } Arrested 24 Iranian army officers detained Rank Name Surname Division Serving at Residence 1 Captain Mehdi Moqaddam Civil & Fortifications Fat’h Garrison Lavisan Army Residential Compound 2 2nd. Lt. Sohrab Lavassani Armoured Parandak Parandak Army Residential Compound 3 Major Seyed Morteza Amiri Telecommunications Fajr Logistics Base Lavisan 4 1st Sergeant Haadi Shafahi Civil & Fortifications Parandak Parandak Army Residential Compound 5 Captain Mohsen Eta’ati Siah-Kuh Health Ground Forces Staff Kuy Zaynabieh Army Residential Compound 6 2nd Warrant Officer Ali...

July 3, 2009 European leaders warn Iran regime over British arrests European leaders finally began to throw their weight behind Britain today after Iran announced that British embassy staff would be forced to stand trial in Tehran. In a co-ordinated diplomatic move, EU nations responded by simultaneously summoning Iranian ambassadors across Europe. They will be asked to explain the arrest of British diplomats for allegedly inciting the violence and demonstrations that greeted the re-election of President Ahmadinejad.

A top Iranian cleric says some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is close to Iran’s supreme leader, has made the announcement in a Friday prayer sermon. He says the detained staffers “made confessions.” Jannati does not say how many staffers will be tried or on what charges. Earlier Iranian officials said all but one of the eight embassy personnel arrested on June 27 had been released, but European Union officials said they believed more than one was still being held. Jannati is the head of...

Iranian police clash with up to 3,000 protesters AP – In this photo taken on Monday, June 15, 2009, a woman passes Iranian police officers, as they stand guard … By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer Witnesses in Iran say police have clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near a mosque in north Tehran. They say security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, and some demonstrators fought back, chanting: "Where is my vote?" Witnesses at the scene tell The Associated Press that some protesters claimed they suffered broken arms or legs in Sunday's clashes around the Ghoba...

A hardline Iranian cleric called on Friday for the execution of leading rioters to teach a lesson to the thousands who have protested against the June 12 presidential election result. I want the judiciary to ... punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson, Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Tehran University. Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said the judiciary should charge the leading rioters as being mohareb or one who wages war against God. They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely, he said. Under Iran's Islamic law, punishment for people convicted...

(IsraelNN.com) Iranian anti-regime activists are hoping for an Israeli technological hand to help them fight the Islamic Republic. As of now, hundreds of protesters have been killed by the regime, which is evidently using Arabic-speaking armed thugs from Hizbullah to help perpetrate the violence. "Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters," writes Iranian dissident Arash Irandoost, "Iran needs your help more than ever now. And we will be eternally grateful

The son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was Monday carrying in his breastpocket a photograph of the slain protester known as Neda said to have been killed in the Tehran protests. "I have added her (Neda) to the list of my daughters. She is now forever in my pocket," Pahlavi told AFP fighting back tears, after calling at a press conference for Western media and governments to stand strongly alongside the protest movement in Iran. The former crown prince of Iran took from his left breastpocket photographs of his wife, Yasmine, and three daughters, Noor, Iman and...

The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of a student shot dead in Tehran to take down mourning posters as they struggle to stop her becoming the rallying point for protests against the presidential election. Neda Salehi Agha Soltan, 26, was killed as she watched a pro-democracy protest, and mobile phone footage of her last moments have become a worldwide symbol of Iran's turmoil. The authorities had already banned a public funeral or wake and have prevented gatherings in her name while the state-controlled media has not mentioned Miss Soltan's death. Today it was reported that they had also told...

The last eight years well intentioned people of different political beliefs, different religious faiths, and different cultural perspectives have been quietly asking themselves some vital questions. Is Islam a religion of peace? Is the goal of Islam violent global conquest or rather the persuasion of non-Moslems that Islam is the true religion? There are many good Moslems in our world, but is that because of Islam or in spite of Islam? These questions will be answered in Iran. There is no question (or there should not be) that the Iranian people -- actually, the different peoples of the nation of...

"RIP NEDA, The World cries seeing your last breath, you didn't die in vain. We remember you." That post on Twitter came from a man who identified himself as an American guitarist in Nashville, Tennessee. Amid the hundreds of images and videos of Saturday's brutal crackdown on protesters in Iran that flooded the Internet, it was the graphic video showing the death of a young woman that touched a nerve among those following the events in Tehran for more than a week.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his demands through the electoral system and called for Iranians to unite behind their Islamic government, an extraordinary appeal in response to tensions over the presidential vote. But Mousavi appears unwilling to back down, issuing on his Web site a call for a mass demonstration Thursday. "We want a peaceful rally to protest the unhealthy trend of the election and realize our goal of annulling the results," Mousavi said. He called for his followers to wear or carry black in mourning for the alleged election fraud and the deaths of...

Twitter says it has rescheduled its planned downtime for tonight because the service is used by Iranians to communicate during the crisis.

IRAN'S capital was convulsed with election mania for a second night yesterday as an eruption of pent-up rage against the repressive government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad built into a rebellion of a sort seldom seen in the 30 years of the Islamic Republic. "Death to the government," chanted the several thousand Iranians packed into a football stadium in Tehran. "Death to dictators," roared the young men and women, draped in green shirts, ribbons, bandannas and headscarves to signal their support for presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. "Bye-bye, Ahmadi," they sang as they waved a sea of banners for the man who...

Many Americans seem to entertain the illusion that Iranians are Arabs. This may be due to the fact that many people in both communities practise Islam, which I'll mention below. Another coincidence that may have contributed to this confusion is the apparent similarity of the names Iran and Iraq. It is true that the Persian language and the Arabic share the same alphabet, namely the Arabic alphabet, which was imposed upon the Iranians centuries ago. But originally Persian had its own alphabet. Anyway, in Arabic script the names of the countries are entirely different, 'Iraq' beginning with the letter 'ain'...

An Iranian vessel en route to Sudan in order to deliver weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip was attacked by an Israeli or American ship and destroyed, according to a report Sunday in the Egyptian weekly Al-Usbua.

ISFAHAN, Iran – Iranian scientists have cloned a goat and plan future experiments they hope will lead to a treatment for stroke patients, the leader of the research said Wednesday. The female goat, named Hana, was born early Wednesday in the city of Isfahan in central Iran, said Dr. Mohammed Hossein Nasr e Isfahani, head of the Royan Research Institute. "With the birth of Hana, Iran is among five countries in the world cloning a baby goat," said Isfahani, an embryologist. In 2006 Iran became the first country in the Middle East to announce it had cloned a sheep. Two...

April 6, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/April/09-nsd-314.html Munitions Dealer Arrested and Charged in Conspiracy to Export Military Aircraft Parts to Iran Ten Other Defendants Indicted in the Illegal Export Conspiracy WASHINGTON – An Iranian national has been arrested and charged, along with ten other defendants, with participating in a conspiracy to export U.S.-made military aircraft parts to Iran, the Justice Department announced today. The arrest and indictment were announced by R. Alexander Acosta, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Michael Johnson, Special Agent in Charge, U.S....

[video] This is a tragic story. But let it serve as a chilling warning that the internet must remain free. Let’s just let the people who broke the story explain it in their own words: Omid Reza Mir Sayafi, a 29-year old Iranian blogger and journalist died in Evin Prison in Tehran on March 18. In December, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mir Sayafi was still awaiting an additional trial for insulting Islam. According to the Human Rights activists in...

(IsraelNN.com) Iranians have turned a huge excavation site in the city of Shush, site of "Susa," the ancient city of Shushan -- center of the events in the Purim story -- into a garbage dump. Culture heritage backers put a stop to construction of a hotel on the site, according to the Tehran News, which added that residents of the Shush municipality are now filling the huge, gaping 300-foot by 300-foot hole with rubbish.

The United States’ best ally in the war against radical Islam is the one that the State Department either refuses to see or chooses to ignore: the people of Iran. Anti-mullah sentiment is widespread in the country, particularly among the women and the youth, who courageously stand up to the regime that can beat, jail, and torture them without fear of reprisal or punishment from the international community. Yet, even when facing the personification of evil, the Iranian people stand strong and are in search of allies in the West to broadcast their message. The recent events at Amir Kabir...

Gainesville, Florida - A nuclear space power institute at the University of Florida has been raided by the FBI. Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Rhew in Tallahassee says search warrants were served at the university's Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute. University of Florida spokesman Steve Orlando says the FBI was in the office of professor Samim Anghaie, the Iranian-born director of the institute. Rhew would not comment on the investigation but did say no arrest warrants have been issued. Orlando says the university is cooperating with the investigation and Anghaie's employment status is being reviewed.

“You have a deep love of books, perhaps so deep that it goes to excess.” With these words, British judge Peter Ader passed sentence last month on Farhad Hakimzadeh, 60, a Harvard- and MIT-educated American citizen of Iranian descent. The London resident admitted to the mutilation and theft of rare books at the British Library and Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Hakimzadeh, the former head of the Iranian Heritage Foundation, is a multi-millionaire businessman and published author, whose most recent work, co-written with Willem Floor, is The Hispano-Portuguese Empire and its Contacts with Safavid Persia, the Kingdom of Hormuz and Yarubid Oman...

KNIGHTSVILLE, Ind. (WTHI) - Months ago, Rachel Jones was shocked to discover her 4-year-old's baby doll seemed to have a hidden message: Islam is the light. Imagine her surprise when a game for her 8-year-old daughter's Nintendo DS had the same message. Rachel said she bought the Nintendo game, Baby Pals, as a gift for her 8-year-old daughter after a good report card. She had no idea the game also contained the hidden message "Islam is the light."

U.S. defense officials say a Navy vessel that is part of the new piracy task force intercepted and searched an Iranian-owned ship that officials feared was carrying arms to Hamas. It's unclear whether those suspicions were founded. Two defense officials say the Cypriot-flagged commercial vessel was tracked by a U.S. Navy ship in the Red Sea over the weekend. One official says it was boarded with the consent of the vessel's crew on Monday and Tuesday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. The search turned up ammunition that included artillery...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 2008 – Coalition and Iraqi forces have captured 13 people in three days of operations targeting terrorist networks in Iraq, military officials reported. Al-Qaida in Iraq leadership cells in Baghdad were the target of two operations today. The first operation, in the city’s Rashid neighborhood, netted a wanted man believed to be associated with regional terrorist leaders. Later today, in the Mansour neighborhood, troops captured another suspected terrorist and an additional suspect. The targeted man is believed to be a terrorist leader in the city. Reports suggest he is responsible for multiple grenade attacks in Baghdad. In...

Gunmen have kidnapped a diplomat from Iran and killed his guard in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, police say. The Iranian diplomat was said to be the commercial attache of the consulate.

The Netherlands will ban Iranian students from studying nuclear technology, a source of tension between Iran and world powers, at its universities, the government said Friday. "It is forbidden... to grant Iranian nationals access to special training or teaching that could contribute to nuclear proliferation activities in Iran and the development of systems for transmitting nuclear arms," the foreign ministry said in a statement. Some powers including the United States suspect Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at producing energy to serve a growing population. Friday's measure adds to a Dutch...

(IsraelNN.com) According to the Times of London, Israeli defense sources revealed that three Iranian Shihab-3 type missiles were placed on their launch pads following a recent Israel Air Force aerial exercise in the Mediterrenean. The missiles were allegedly readied for a counterstrike should Israel attack Iran. General Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (which operates the missiles) threatened over the weekend that:”Iran has many different ways to strike worldwide...and the important part of this is based on our missiles.” Iran has from 25-100 Shihab-3 missiles which have a range of 2100 km capable of striking most countries...

Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday. A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report...

(IsraelNN.com) Iranian Jewish leader Siamal Morsadegh, slated to become a member of the Iranian parliament, said he is calling on the Jewish community not to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary as a modern state because of the killing of "innocent" Arabs. The approximately 25,000 Jews in Iran largely enjoy religious freedom and economic prosperity and often distance themselves from pro-Israel stands. "We are in complete disagreement with the behavior of Israel," Morsadegh told Reuters News Agency. "We are Iranians. We have no relations with Israel."

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The federal government is investigating whether the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety violated the civil rights of Iranian immigrants by refusing to provide them with driver's license tests in their native Farsi language. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched the investigation in March after a complaint filed on behalf of two Iranian nationals living in Bartlesville accused the state agency of unlawful discrimination based on their national origin, according to a letter from the NHTSA to Public Safety Commissioner Kevin Ward. Public safety officials said Tuesday that offering state driver's license tests in Farsi could force...

JERUSALEM - A rocket fired at Israel by Palestinians earlier this month was made in Iran, an Israeli lawmaker and security officials said Tuesday. The origins of the rocket, which hit the Israeli town of Ashkelon on Jan. 3, offered a further indication of ties between Gaza's militants and Iran's hard-line Islamic regime. The military would not comment on the rocket's provenance at the time, but on Tuesday, Isaac Ben-Israel, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's ruling Kadima party, said the projectile was manufactured by Iran, Israel's most bitter enemy. Speaking at a press briefing, Ben-Israel, a retired Israeli...

The incident, which President Bush denounced Tuesday as a "provocative act," was videotaped by a crew member on the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, one of the three ships that faced down five Iranian boats in a flare-up early Sunday, the AP reports. Video = http://www.breitbart.tv/html/26424.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2008 – The commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet in the Middle East today called the behavior of Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats that buzzed three U.S. Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday “unduly provocative.”  Navy Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, who also commands U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, briefed Pentagon reporters via video teleconference from his headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. He said the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper, USS Ingraham were inbound to the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz yesterday morning. The ships were in the midst of a routine transit in...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2008 – Violence has dropped in southern Iraq, but Iranian-influenced ”special groups” remain a concern, the commander of the U.S. brigade that provides theater security said today. Army Col. Charles Flynn spoke to Pentagon reporters via teleconference from his headquarters at Coalition Operating Base Adder at Talil Air Base near Nasiriyah, Iraq. The 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division has had the mission since July. The brigade ensures that the ground lines of communication and supply lines to multinational forces remain open. “We're not landowners per se, but our area of operations spans...