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January 11, 2007: A US led raid on a consular office in Irbil, Iraq leads to the capture of six Iranians including(link): Hassan Abbassi, a strategist “close to” President Ahmedinejad and the only individual with any diplomatic credentials.Mohammad Jaafari, an aid to National Security advisor Ali Larijani Jalal Sharifi, a professional intelligence officer. Brig. Gen. Mohammad Djafari Sahraroudi, a Kurdish affairs expert wanted by Interpol Mojhadi Safderi, two Revolutionary Guard officers (link).One of the six, (Hassan?) is released. The other five remain in custody.

Downing Street has backed American claims that Iran was involved in arming Iraqi insurgents with powerful roadside weaponry used against allied forces. Prime Minister Tony Blair had first warned in October 2005 of concerns over improvised explosive device technology and weaponry coming from Iran, said the premier's official spokesman. He added: "Those concerns have not gone away at all. "We certainly believe that if the Iranian government wanted to, it could address these concerns, but we don't see any sign that it is. "We continue to make our case and the Prime Minister has been at the cutting edge of...

Iran president attacks US claims Mr Ahmadinejad said foreign forces should leave Iraq Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says US accusations Tehran is fomenting violence in Iraq are an attempt to hide Washington's own failures.Mr Ahmadinejad made the comments in a rare US television interview on Monday. US officials in Iraq had said they had evidence that Iran was providing weapons to Shia militias who attacked the US military. Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran "shied away from all conflict" and that no peace would come with foreign troops in Iraq. 'Baseless propaganda' In the interview with ABC Television in Tehran, Mr...

Democrats wary over Iran claims US handouts showed weapons retrieved from attacks Senior Democrats in the United States have urged the Bush administration to be cautious about accusing Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq. They were speaking after US officials in Iraq said they had evidence that Iran was providing weapons to Shia militias who attacked the US military. US claims the bombs were smuggled from Iran cannot be independently verified. Democrat Senator Chris Dodd said the Bush administration had tried to falsify evidence before. "I'm looking at this report with a degree of scepticism," he said. "I don't...

US warns Iran on Iraq insurgents The US says Iran is providing more lethal bombs to insurgents The US has issued the latest in a series of warnings to Iran, telling Tehran to stop helping Iraqi militants make lethal bombs to attack US troops.Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said US forces had detained several Iranians suspected of providing weapons technology to Shia insurgents. He said Iranian help for insurgents had spread from Basra north to Baghdad, leading to higher UK and US casualties. Tehran has repeatedly denied that it is fuelling the violence in Iraq. Mr Burns told the...

Iran condemns US 'kidnap' in Iraq Hassan Kazimi Qomi said the men were "kidnapped" by the US Iran has accused the US of kidnapping five of its citizens who were arrested in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.The US has denied the men were diplomats - it says they were linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and were arming Shia fighters in Iraq. Iran's ambassador to Iraq called last week's arrests "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and an insult to the Iraqi people". He demanded the men's release. Hassan Kazimi Qomi denied Iran has been involved in the violence in...

Top Iraqi condemns US over Iran The outside of the Iranian liaison office raided by US forces One of Iraq's most powerful Shia politicians has condemned the arrest of Iranians by US forces in Iraq as an attack on the country's sovereignty.The comments by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, made in a BBC interview, are seen as the strongest expression yet of Iraq's concern about the US approach to Iran. They follow two recent US raids in which Iranians were arrested. The remarks are interesting as Mr Hakim is seen as close to President Bush, says the BBC's Andrew North in...

TEHERAN, Iran - Iran’s foreign ministry on Thursday summoned the Iraqi and Swiss envoys to Teheran over the detention of five Iranian staffers at a diplomatic mission in northern Iraq, state-run television reported. The broadcast said the ministry had summoned the ambassadors and “demanded an explanation” about the incident. Switzerland represents American interests in Iran, where there is no US embassy. The summons followed an early morning raid in Iraq, where multinational forces stormed the building of an Iranian consulate the Kurdish-controlled northern city of Irbil, 350 kilometers (220 miles) from Baghdad. The troops detained the five staffers and confiscated...

Tehran, 17 Jan. (AKI) - One of the five Iranians arrested last week by the US army in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil is wanted in Austria in connection with the assassination of Kurdish leader Andol Rahman Ghassemlu in 1989. Mahommad Jaafari Sharoudi was one of five Iranian officials detained last week in the Kurdish-controlled city on charges of being connected to a faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, that funds and arms insurgents in Iraq. Abdol Rahman Ghassemlu, the historic leader of Iranian Kurds, was killed in an apartment in the outskirts of the Austrian capital...

US warns Iran on Iraq 'meddling' Iran was "fishing in troubled waters", Mr Cheney told US TV US Vice-President Dick Cheney has warned Iran not to interfere in Iraq.The US government thought it was very important that the Iranians should "keep their folks at home", he said. His comments come after US forces detained several Iranians in northern Iraq on suspicion of aiding insurgents, accusations rejected by Tehran. Mr Cheney is the latest member of the Bush administration to warn that the US will take steps against those trying to destabilise the situation in Iraq. US officials say five...

<p>WASHINGTON - An order from President Bush authorized a series of U.S. raids against Iranians in Iraq as part of a broad military offensive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.</p> <p>Bush issued the order several months ago, Rice told The New York Times as she prepared to visit the Middle East. She said the president acted "after a period of time in which we saw increasing activity" among Iranians in Iraq "and increasing lethality in what they were producing."</p>

President George W Bush has ordered US forces to launch a military offensive against Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guards officers behind a support and funding network for anti-American fighters in Iraq. US troops have been authorised to use force to tackle Teheran's agents, who are believed to support both Shia and Sunni fighters Mr Bush signed the clandestine directive after he was given new intelligence on the scale of Iranian operations to foment violence in Iraq. US troops were operating under the new instructions when they raided an Iranian "liaison office" in northern Iraq last week, detaining five men, in...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The United States said on Friday that the five Iranians who were detained by U.S.-led forces in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, had no official diplomatic status.     The "individuals, who were detained were not carrying diplomatic passports, had regular passports. And this was not a consulate. This was not an officially accredited diplomatic facility," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.     The building where the five Iranians were arrested was a "building that the Iranians were using, occupying, that was Iraqi territory," McCormack said.     Failing to provide any more details, the spokesman insisted that the building "was not...

"Six Iranians held in a US military raid in northern Iraq were working there with the approval of the authorities, Iraq's foreign minister has said. They were part of an Iranian liaison office which had been operating for many years, Hoshyar Zebari said. He said the office in Irbil did not yet have full consular diplomatic status but that this was under consideration," the BBC reports.

Top News Story Ahmadinejad's strategic guru captured in Iraq? Reuters reported that U.S. forces stormed an Iranian government representative's office in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil early on Thursday and arrested five people, including diplomats and staff.Iran Press News reported that based on unconfirmed received reports from reliable sources in Iraq, Hassan Abbasi was among those who was arrested in the Thursday, January 11th early-morning raid in the Iraqi town of Arbil.DoctorZin, Regime Change Iran - If confirmed, Hassan Abbasi's capture would be a major blow to the Iranian effort to support the insurgency in Iraq. He is...

A senior ally of radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr warned on Friday that thousands of the planned 21,500 extra US troops en route for the war-torn nation would “go home in coffins”. Launching a new strategy to rescue Iraq from civil war, Washington told the government of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki, who owes his job to Sadr, it was on “borrowed time” and declared new “no holds barred” military operations. A cornerstone of the new approach is increased pressure on Iraq’s neighbours Iran and Syria -- which are accused by Washington of fomenting unrest -- and tougher action...

Friday, January 12, 2007 BREAKING NEWS - !!! Reports from Tehran state that Iran's top IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) strategist, Hassan Abbasi, was captured in the recent raid on the Islamic Iran's office in Erbil, Iraq. Referred to inside Islamic Iran as the Regime's version of Kissinger, Abbasi works directly as special advisor for the dead or dying Supreme Ruler in Iran - Ali Khamenei. His attitude to the main competitor for the Supreme Leadership position, Hashemi Rafsanjani, as the telephone report elaborated, is "like a knife and cheese", meaning he hates Rafsanjani. Abbasi has in the past indicated...

The Federal Opposition says excessive action by the US to stem Iranian and Syrian involvement in Iraq could escalate the conflict in the region. US President George W Bush has accused the two countries of providing support for insurgents in Iraq, saying the United States would destroy networks supplying weapons and training to coalition enemies. Labor leader Kevin Rudd says it is a complex dilemma for the US and Australia. "The Shia in the southern parts of the country are backed in part by various elements within Iran and that is a huge problem, something the Opposition's been pointing...

<p>U.S. troops launched two raids on Iranian targets in Iraq Thursday, following through on President Bush's vow to confront and break up Tehran's networks inside Iraq. Six Iranians were detained, and vast amounts of documents and computer data were confiscated, according to U.S., Iraqi and Iranian officials.</p>

For months, rumors of war between the United States and Iran have been building. Many fear that President Bush is spoiling for a fight, and they've begun to interpret various developments in the region as the run-up to an attack on Tehran. A report in the British press about a possible Israeli raid on Iran's nuclear facilities quickly became linked with predictions about coordinated action with the United States. Observers on all sides, left, right and other, convinced themselves that the appointment of Adm. William Fallon to oversee military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan meant there would soon be Tomahawk...