Free Republic

The latest statistics on the marriage of Iranian children shows that under-aged girls are married more than under-aged boys. Freedom Messenger ) - [According to statistics] 24,506 married girls under the age of 14 and 5,519 boys married between the ages of 10 to 14, shows that more girls marry older men. There are 848,000 married children between the ages of 10 to 18 in Iran... The number of child mothers which is 6.5 percent more than child fathers shows that 85 percent of married girls between 10 to 18 years of age have become the wives of men over...

The mullahs are playing with fire in Strait of HormuzThe leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran continue to rattle their scimitars, threatening a crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. Bring it on. Iran is under increasing pressure to abandon its nuclear program. The United States is about to ban commerce with Iran's central bank. The European Union is considering a new round of economic sanctions and joining the U.S. oil embargo against Iran. Saudi Arabia has decided to increase production to fill the gap should Europeans stop buying Iranian oil. In response, Tehran is threatening to stop all Persian...

North Korea threatens 'sea of fire' (UKPA) – 17 minutes ago North Korea is threatening to turn South Korea's presidential Blue House into a "sea of fire". North Korea's military made the threat one day after South Korean troops conducted military drills near the island where North Korean staged a deadly artillery attack a year ago.

Iran will shift its production of higher grade uranium to an underground bunker and triple its production capacity, it said on Wednesday in a defiant response to accusations it is trying to produce atomic bombs. "This year, under the supervision of the (International Atomic Energy) Agency, we will transfer 20 percent enrichment from the Natanz site to the Fordow site and we will increase the production capacity by three times," the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, told reporters after a cabinet meeting, the state broadcaster IRIB reported. Iran only disclosed the existence of the Fordow site, in...

And we thought these guys couldn’t get any crazier? While we’re all too familiar with the loony antics of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the zealotry of the ayatollahs, things have taken an extra screwy turn for the nut jobs in Iran. I know, you didn’t think these clowns could get any crazier. Me neither. All is not well between President Mahmoud and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. As is the case with political power struggles in general, accusations and charges of undue influence abound. However, this battle has “crazy Iranians” written all over it: The supreme leader has accused our pal...

'I am with you," President Obama said Sunday in his now-annual address for Nowruz, the Persian New Year. This time, however, he sidestepped the ruling ayatollahs he once tried to lure into "engagement" and instead urged "the young people of Iran" to imitate others in the region and rise up against their oppressors. Better late than never? Obama must realize that he's now in the regime-change business. Yes, that same enterprise he has dismissed so cavalierly since becoming a US senator. Deferring to the United Nations as he launched a Libya airstrike over the weekend only obscured his flip. Yes,...

This one just kind of fell in place. Instead of "memoria," we have "that's Sharia." Hope you enoy the YouTube. THAT'S SHARIA (Come As You Are)

Bourguiba Square in Tunis, Tahrir Square in Cairo, Azadi Square in Tehran -- and now Pearl Square in Manama, capital of Bahrain. For the last four days, thousands of protesters, encouraged by other popular uprisings in the Middle East, have been demonstrating against what they call "the despotic rule of minority over majority." On Monday, police killed two protesters and injured 11 others. At least 50 were arrested. The sudden explosion has surprised many observers. Bahrain, the smallest of the 21 Arab states, is often deemed a success story -- the only Persian Gulf Arab state to have made its...

The following are examples of the clearly 'Holy War' jihad in WW2:Whether by Islamic leaders, Mullahs and "activists" or even by the general public in the Muslim world who Islamicized Hitler in its glorification. ISLAMICIZING HITLER"The closed circle: an interpretation of the Arabs," David Pryce-Jones, Ivan R. Dee: 2002 (ISBN 1566634407, 9781566634403), p. 201Preposterously, Hitler himself was Islamicized on the radio and by word of mouth as "Abu Ali," and in Egypt at least was referred to as "Muhammad Haidar." As such, he was prayed for in every village, ...http://books.google.com/books?&id=VCQXAQAAIAAJ&dq=muhammad+haidar"The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini," Chuck...

Conference of Presidents head Malcolm Hoenlein says many now waking up to Iran’s drive for regional power; tells ‘Post’ fundamental US Mideast policy won’t change following November’s elections. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon last week was a “watershed” that rammed home for many in the Arab world the realization that the Iranian leader does indeed have hegemonic designs in the region, Malcolm Hoenlein told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, said at a briefing with the Post’s editorial staff that Ahmadinejad’s Lebanon visit was a...

TEHRAN, Iran – The American woman released by Iran on Tuesday after more than a year in prison said she was humbled and grateful to Iran's president for her freedom shortly before she boarded a flight to the nearby Gulf sultanate of Oman where her mother was awaiting her. Iran freed Sarah Shourd, 32, after a $500,000 bail was paid to win her freedom.

TEHRAN, Iran -- An Iranian official says cigarettes smuggled into Iran have been tainted with pig blood and nuclear material as part of a Western conspiracy. The semiofficial Mehr news agency quotes Mohammad Reza Madani from the Society for Fighting Smoking as saying contraband Marlboros have been contaminated with pig hemoglobin and unspecified nuclear material.

No one seriously believes the new round of sanctions against Iran, which the UN Security Council im posed Wednesday, will halt the mullahs' mad quest for nukes. A more pressing question: How much harm will they do to US interests? The sanctions are aimed at "heavy" weapons and financial transactions, particularly those linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which oversees Iran's nuke program. President Obama called them "the toughest sanctions ever faced by the Iranian government." Yet even the prez -- after wasting a year and a half on futile talks with Iran -- concedes the sanctions' limited value....

A few months ago. for their own safety, a slew of middle level clerics/mullahs, aghast at the Green Iranian demonstrations against the regime "emigrated" out of the holy Iranian city of Qom and fled to the holy city of Najaf in Iraq, home to the most senior Shia Moslem in the world, Grand Ayatollah Sistani.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been increasingly defying its clergy sponsors, according to a new report. The American Enterprise Institute asserted that IRGC was ignoring the directives and policies of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In a report by analyst Ali Alfoneh, AEI said IRGC has become a force in Iranian politics as well as a state within a state. "Despite ideological congruity between Khamenei and the IRGC leadership, this could prove dangerous for Khamenei, who may find it difficult to subject the guards to his will while the IRGC develops into a state within the state and Khamenei...

To all intents and purposes Britain is already at war with the Iranian dictatorship, and has been for several years. This weekend’s disturbing report in The Sunday Times merely confirms what we have known for some time – that Iran is actively training the Taliban in Afghanistan, and is directly involved in the killing of British, American and Allied forces. (See also Con Coughlin’s excellent analysis here.) Tehran’s direct intervention in Afghanistan follows in the wake of the Iranian-backed insurgency in southern Iraq, which led to the deaths of more than a hundred British troops. Just last week, General David...

-excerpt- The rift between the clerical establishment and the regime has significantly widened during the past six months. Slowly but surely, even some of the most conservative ayatollahs began to distance themselves from both. Last month, grand ayatollah Javadi Amoli, who performs Friday prayers in Qom, announced his resignation. In his departure statement, he expressed his frustration with the lack of listening on the part of the Supreme Leader: "When the Friday imam articulates the problems that people face and those problems are resolved, it is evidence that he has expressed them well. But if the problems are not resolved,...

A brief report on Bank accounts of the heads of the Islamic republic of Iran in foreign countries: (With special thanks to one of the Green supporters who is working in on of Malaysia's Banks) 1- Gholam Hossein Elham: 25 M USD at Dubai, 13 M USD at Turkey, 17 M USD at Swiss, 0.7 M USD at Beirut 2- S.H. Panahian: 11 M USD at Islamic Bank of Sharjeh, 4 M EU at Malaysia, 3- Masoud Kazemi: 45 M EU Germany, 4.2 M USD at Dubai 4- Ali Hashemi Bahramani: 5.2 M USD at Kuwait, 11 M EU at...

Despite the lingering demonstrations and disorder in Tehran, Iran’s ruling mullahs are confident anew in their country’s ability to surge to a hegemonic position in the Middle East without a major war. The main reason for the mullahs’ confidence is their interpretation of the appeasement policies of the US Barack Obama Administration. Most significant is the undeclared – yet widely projected – profound change in US policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran and all other regional governments are convinced that the US now strives to “contain” a nuclear Iran rather than continue the declared objective to prevent the nuclearization of...

It's showtime, folks! Today's the deadline President Obama imposed on Iran's leaders to give up their nuclear ambitions and be nice. Not sure if the deadline expires at midnight in Tehran or on Washington time, but the mullahs and President Mahmoud "Mighty Mouse" Ahmadinejad aren't scrambling to give Obama a New Year's Eve smooch. Rather than cave in to our president's mighty rhetoric, the Tehran tyrants took a break from killing protesters in the streets to attempt to import more than 1,300 tons of make-a-nuke uranium ore from Kazakhstan.

After protest after protest by the opposition, the Mullah supporters have taken it to the streets of Iran in a counter protest. I don’t believe that this regime is as weak as many people make them out to be, and it will take a civil war to remove them. Iranian regime followers stage show of strength By Laurent Maillard TEHRAN — Hundreds of thousands of government supporters took to Iran’s streets on Wednesday in a show of force against the opposition, with a senior cleric telling their leaders to repent or be declared enemies of God and face death.

Six months after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hotly disputed election victory, the Green protest movement led by Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated candidate for the presidency, shows no sign of abating. As a result, the Iranian regime finds itself once more resorting to the tactics of repression it has relied on for more than 30 years. Eight people were killed in nationwide protests on Sunday, including Seyed Ali Mousavi, the nephew of Mr. Mousavi. Yet rather than being quelled by the regime's brutal response—as happened during the antigovernment protests of 1999 and 2003—the protestors' resolve has been strengthened. In the past...

When the mullahs are not only seizing protesters, but their bodies too, it’s probably not a sign of strength.

ran’s nuclear chief said Friday the country has started making more efficient models of centrifuges for nuclear program by early 2011. The official, Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iranian scientists are still testing the more advanced models before they will be put to use at Iran’s enrichment facilities. The statement underscores Iran’s defiance to U.N. demands to have Tehran halt its controversial enrichment program — a defiance that has not wavered amid recent signals of possible new sanctions over the issue. Tehran has been saying since April that it is building more advanced centrifuges capable of enriching uranium with...

"President Obama promised last week that America will speak out on behalf of those who live under the “dark cloud of tyranny.” Okay. That’s nice. So, thousands of those people living under the dark Iranian cloud of tyranny are protesting in Iran today. What exactly will Obama do to speak out on their behalf?... OBAMA AT WEST POINT: "” And we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights, and tend to the light of freedom,...

It was late February 2003, a few weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and President George W. Bush's administration still lacked a real strategy for the would-be regional hegemon next door. As the Iran desk officer in the office of the secretary of defense, I felt desperate. We were about to invade Iraq without a definitive policy toward its most bitter foe. I feared a repeat of Vietnam and saw in Iran a new Ho Chi Minh Trail -- the enemy lifeline that snaked through Laos and Cambodia and helped dash U.S. hopes for Southeast Asia. I knew that...

No, this is not satire from The Onion. If only it were, we could laugh instead of cry. Laura Rozen reports in Politico: The U.S. has condemned a suicide attack that killed five Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members today. Five commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were killed in suicide attacks in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province bordering Pakistan, according to reports. The Baluch group Jundullah claimed responsibility for the attack, that killed some 30 people. Iranian authorities have accused the group of receiving funding from foreign countries including the United States. The US has denied supporting Jundullah. "We condemn this act...

When a tyrannical regime dies, you can see the symptoms in the little things. Late Friday afternoon, after millions (yes, millions–this according to Le Monde, France 2, and L’Express, with the BBC saying that the demonstrations were bigger than those at the time of the Revolution) of Greens mobbed the streets and squares of more than thirty towns and cities to call for the end of the regime, there was a soccer game in Azadi Stadium in Tehran. It holds about a hundred thousand fans, and it was full of men wearing green and carrying green balloons. When state-run tv...

Sources close to Iraqi Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim say the cleric has died. Hakim was being treated for lung cancer at a hospital in Iran, and those close to the man said his health was deteriorating. A family member and an aide to Hakim, speaking on the condition of anonymity, separately told reporters Wednesday that he had suffered a setback. Hakim was known for his close links with Iran, and he led the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, one of Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite groups. In June, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani visited Hakim in Tehran, where the ailing cleric was...

While the Western & Official Islamic Iranian Media ignores the story, a Turkish lawyer has claimed that his Iranian client, Esmail Safarian-Nasab, has transferred an $18.5-billion treasure from Iran to Turkey through "courier services" - reportedly two truckloads as opposed to the original story of just one. The TWO container-TRUCK loads of "courier services" of US dollars and gold bullion was delivered to Ankara Customs last month. (Watch video below for visuals only unless you speak Turkish) but efforts have been made by Turkey (even denying any money arrived) and some Mullah friendly Press, to confuse/misdirect it with a smallish,...

TEHRAN/BAGHDAD - On Tuesday, Iraqi soldiers and riot police stormed Camp Ashraf, where Mojahedin Khalq Organization members had been based, triggering violent clashes that left at least 260 people injured. Iraqi officials say clashes broke out as they were trying to establish a police post in the camp. “After the failure of negotiations with the Mojahedin (Khalq) to enter peacefully, the Iraqi army entered Camp Ashraf with force and it now controls the interior and all entrances to the camp,” an Iraqi military source said. An Iraqi army spokesman in Diyala said two battalions of 400 soldiers each plus 200...

AN Iranian student arrested in protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election has died in jail, a newspaper said today, the second such death reported in recent days. Amir Javadifar, "a student of industrial management in Qazvin (city) died in prison", the reformist Etemad newspaper said, adding that his family has been asked to come for the body this morning. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians poured into Tehran streets after the disputed June 12 re-election of Ahmadinejad to protest their "stolen votes" before a crackdown by security forces. Iranian official reports say at least 20 people died and more than 1000...

With some fatwas (religious decrees) from the most senior ayatollahs declaring the Ahmadi-Nejad election AND government as illegitimate and an increasing rift among the Mullahs, the latest gambit of the Supreme Leader's Ali Khamenei clan is to scapegoat Ahmadi-Nejad as behind all the troubles of the country and have him killed/murdered or killed/executed for the deaths of the demonstrators. It's all his fault. In addition while Mullah Khamenei Sr. has the top boss TITLE, he has NO respect among the other clerics who consider him an usurper, who took away Ayatollah Montazeri's job by stealth and deceit, by issuing a...

Another eyewitness account, emailed to us from a very close friend. Made my way down the west side of Laleh Park, large crowd was gathered around a radio listening to Rafi give the sermons, moved down to Keshavarz Blvd, where people had already started to taunt the bassijis who look like teenagers with Darth Vader helmets that was one size too big for them. The main slogans were “Baradar’e basiji chera Baradr Koshi” (”Brother basiji, why do you kill your brother?”, the speaker after Rafi was urging people to shout “death to America” and “death to Israel” people responded in...

Iranians prepared for another violent day of confrontations between demonstrators and security forces on Friday, after riot police used tear-gas against hundreds of demonstrators who defied government warnings and swarmed the streets to commemorate the anniversary of a student massacre in 1999.

The young Islamic revolutionaries of the late 1970s are now middle aged, and do not wish to slaughter their neighbors. That is why the mullahs have imported killers from abroad: the five thousand or so Hezbollahis who, according to Der Spiegel, have been brought in from Lebanon and Syria. Dissidents on Twitter report clashes with security forces who do not speak Farsi, and there are even some rumors suggesting that Chavez has sent some of his toughs from Venezuela. Who knows?

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The United States may have been behind the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian woman whose fatal videotaped shooting Saturday made her a symbol of opposition to the June 12 presidential election results, the country's ambassador to Mexico said Thursday. "This death of Neda is very suspicious," Ambassador Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri said. "My question is, how is it that this Miss Neda is shot from behind, got shot in front of several cameras, and is shot in an area where no significant demonstration was behind held?" He suggested that the CIA or another intelligence...

As we watch the horrors in Iran, it makes us wonder if anything like that could happen in America. In Iran, the mullahs control everything and feel justified in any injustice they commit because of a belief in the rightness of their own actions. Is there anyone like that here? In an answer to that question, Frank Schaeffer wrote a column for the Huffington Post entitled “The Real Lesson of Iran — Beware America’s Republican Mullahs.” Reading it and the comments to it, I came to a realization: people who think the religious right are just like Iranian mullahs are...

As we watch the horrors in Iran, it makes us wonder if anything like that could happen in America. In Iran, the mullahs control everything and feel justified in any injustice they commit because of a belief in the rightness of their own actions. Is there anyone like that here? In an answer to that question, Frank Schaeffer wrote a column for the Huffington Post entitled “The Real Lesson of Iran — Beware America’s Republican Mullahs.” Reading it and the comments to it, I came to a realization: people who think the religious right are just like Iranian mullahs are...

We are told that President Barack Obama has said relatively little over the past 10 days because he does not want to feed perceptions that America is "meddling." Fine. He's being overly cautious, in my view. But let's assume his expressed concerns are genuine. Why does he seem to believe that he has only two choices: American meddling or virtual silence? Obama ran for president promising to end the unilateralism of the Bush administration. He ran as a liberal internationalist, a multilateralist of the first order--reaching out to everyone, at all times and with no preconditions. What about a global...

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn in for a second term sometime between July 26 and August 19, state-run media reported Tuesday. Many Iranians who have disputed the official outcome of the June 12 vote have taken to the streets to protest the results. The Guardian Council -- Iran's election authority -- declared Ahmadinejad the winner with 62.63 percent of the vote. His closest rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, received 33.75 percent, according to official results that surprised experts who expected him to win. The Iranian parliament's board of directors announced Tuesday that Ahmadinejad will be...

The widespread protests in Iran, even in the improbable event they deliver presidential challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi to power, are unlikely to dramatically change the country's nuclear ambitions or the strategic complications the West faces in countering Tehran's political gambits across the Middle East. Iran's nuclear program, which Washington alleges is intended to produce atomic weapons, is ingrained in the national psyche. It was begun decades ago and is embraced across the Iranian political spectrum. Its future rests more on the wishes of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the ruling clerics than it does with hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or...

A backstage struggle among Iran's ruling clerics burst into the open Sunday when the government said it had arrested the daughter and other relatives of an ayatollah who is one of the country's most powerful men. Tehran's streets fell mostly quiet for the first time since a bitterly disputed June 12 presidential election, but cries of "God is great!" echoed again from rooftops after dark, a sign of seething anger at a government crackdown that peaked with at least 10 protesters' deaths Saturday. he killings drove the official death toll to at least 17 after a week of massive street...

(IsraelNN.com) Extremist Moslems have not dropped their allegations that Pepsi Cola is essentially the code name for a Zionist plot. MEMRI has released an English transcript of an address given by a Muslim religious leader in Egypt this past February, in which he explains that PEPSI is actually an acronym for "Pay Every Penny to Save Israel."

12.02 pm. Mousavi tells he's bathed [ritually] for martyrdom

Iranian riot police beat protesters and fired tear gas as violence erupted in Tehran today when thousands of members of the opposition movement took to the streets in open defiance of the country's supreme leader.... The crackdown on supporters of the reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi confirmed fears that authorities would carry out their threat to suppress protests in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election... Eyewitnesses in Revolution Square reported around 20,000 riot police, made up of Basiji militiamen and soldiers, and armed with rifles, tear gas and water cannons, far outnumbering the hardcore of around 3,000 opposition...

There is nothing the MSM loves more, than describing hardline Islamic fundamentalists as "conservatives". Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahamadinejad are often referred to as "conservatives" or "ultra-conservatives". Clay Waters shows the bias in the New York Times in this regard: http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2009/20090615153200.aspx Simply because the Mullahs are religious, oppose gay rights, and believe in spending more on defence (nukes), does not make them "conservative" in the Western sense. The Iranian regime is a religious socialist regime, that believes in a big government theocratic system. It has no regard for individual rights and free speech, major pillars of Western-style conservatism.

The Iranian government has suffered a serious blow to its legitimacy, but that blow is not fatal. Barring dramatic and unlikely changes in the ensuing weeks, the regime will remain intact, by force if necessary. As much as we might like it to be otherwise, that is the reality Washington faces. Critics, including many advocates of engagement with Iran, who argue that Obama's policy of negotiating with Iran has to be delayed or scrapped entirely misread the situation-as do those calling for rhetorical grand gestures from the White House. Lost in the clamor is sober reflection on how best to...

From Worst President to Worst Ex-President MEET THE TRUE FATHER OF THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION:JIMMY CARTERbyPaul L. Williams, Ph.D.thelastcrusade.org A man can have sex with animals such as sheep, cows, camels, and so on. However, he should kill the animal after orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in the village; however, the selling of meat to people in a neighboring village is permissible. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Jimmy Carter has devolved from being America’s worst president to being America’s worst ex-president. Earlier this week, Carter met with the Hamas government that gained control of Gaza two years ago,...

A Truth and Reconciliation Commission could smooth the transition. Thirty years ago, millions of Iranians took to the streets to demonstrate for their fundamental rights. They demanded the basic freedoms of Azadi-e Baian, Azadi-e Qalam, Azadi-e Andish-e: freedom of speech, freedom to write, and freedom of thought. They called for independence. And they demanded the end of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic republic. But the revolution of 1979, which began with the hope of freedom, has ended in the rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr. Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust and boasts that he would wipe Israel, a...