Free Republic

Tehran, Aug. 13: One of Osama bin Laden’s sons, Saad, together with a number of top Al Qaeda commanders, including Seif al Adel, are hiding in Iran and are not in Syria as reported by several Western papers this week, a well informed source said. The source, a top Iranian intelligence official until a few months ago, said Al Qaeda and members of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, the Pasdaran, are negotiating coordinated actions against the United States and Israel. The Al Qaeda members had been living for the past four years in a neighbourhood in northern Tehran under the surveillance...

The grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the inspiration of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, has broken a three-year silence to back the United States military to overthrow the country's clerical regime. Hossein Khomeini's call is all the more startling as he made it from Qom, the spiritual home of Iran's Shia strand of Islam, during an interview to mark the 17th anniversary of the ayatollah's death. "My grandfather's revolution has devoured its children and has strayed from its course," he told Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language television station. "I lived through the revolution and it called for freedom and democracy - but it has...

1,000 arrested after police and Sufis clash in Iran 15 Feb 2006 Source: Reuters TEHRAN, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Iranian police have arrested around 1,000 people in the central seminary city of Qom after violent clashes over the closure of a house of worship used by mystical Sufi Muslims, city officials said on Wednesday. Officials and a Qom resident said the police had fired teargas to disperse a crowd of dervishes, or mystics, and those who had gathered to support them. They said the dervishes were armed with knives and stones. Around 200 people were hurt in the clash, one...

Sufis, Iranian police clash in holy city: report Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - IranMania.com LONDON, February 14 (IranMania) - Clashes broke out Monday between members of the Sufi sect and Iranian police in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, the semi-official Fars news agency and websites reported. Fars said some 50 Sufis demonstrated against the closure of their place of worship in Qom. "There was some violence," it said, without elaborating. The website Baztab, which is close to the conservative camp in Iran, said the security forces used tear gas to break up the protest after local authorities decided...

We had arrived at Jamkaran, a holy shrine outside the Iranian city of Qom and site of a water well where the 12th and last imam of Shia Islam, the Mahdi, is said to have disappeared a little over a thousand years ago. Many Iranians believe that the so-called hidden imam, or "imam zaman" (lord of all the ages), will at any moment choose this place to make his return to solve the world's problems. In recent years, the millenarian cult of the well of Jamkaran has become so popular that a hotel has been built nearby and the old...

One of my favorite reporters called late last week, saying he had learned that Coalition forces in Iraq had captured an Iranian vehicle entering Iraq with large quantities of shaped explosives, obviously headed for the terrorists. "So what?" was my reply. It happens most every day. But he was baffled. Why would the Iranians be supporting terrorist actions against Shiites? After all, didn't they want the Shiites to prevail in Iraq, so that there could be an Islamic republic there? His question — and he's a good reporter — shows once again how totally false stereotypes distort our ability to...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 2/22/04 - Mashhad, Qom, Tehran, Archangelsk, Meridiani Planum, Plesetsk cosmodrome, Fallujah BREAKING: Mashhad, Iran - deserted polling for the fixed election BREAKING: Tehran, Iran - A visit to terrorists BREAKING: 'Archangelsk' - Putin at the failed demonstration BREAKING: Meridiani Planum, Mars - US technology rocks QFN ==== QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU MAY NEVER SEE IN THE GENERAL MEDIA ========= Mashhad ========= BREAKING: FIXED ELECTIONS In Mashhad, Iran, a deserted public polling station in a boycott after the conservative [Iranian Conservative = American leftist] Islamic theocracy banned ~2,400 candidates.Only the...

The recent reports that Ayatollah Ali Sistani was playing a central role in defining how a future Iraqi government and constitution would be chosen highlighted once again the profound importance, and paradoxes, of the Shiite clergy in Iraq and Iran. Although Shiites are a minority in the Muslim world and are scattered all over the Middle East and Indian subcontinent, they are a majority in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. Shiite seminaries and religious sites are mostly located in Iraq and Iran, and two religious strongholds ­ Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran ­ provide an insight into the dynamics...

Sidelined Ayatollah Preaches Moderation Washington Post - By Karl Vick Nov 18, 2003 Iranian Censors Limit Cleric's Reach QOM, Iran -- Ayatollah Ali Meshkini stood erect in the pulpit of this holy city's central mosque, delivering the political portion of his Friday sermon by engaging the 3,000 worshippers in a familiar volley of call and response. "The first issue and only issue is Palestine," said Meshkini, a lean figure who wore a white turban. "The Great Satan is supporting Israel unconditionally. That's why they are repressing the Palestinians." "Down with the U.S.A.," chanted the faithful. A few blocks down Riverbank...

ISLAMISM DISINTEGRATING and New Fatwa Killings August 25, 2003 Iranscope Sam Ghandchi The news from inside Iraq is that Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim uncle of SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, whose group is represented on the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council, and who has been working hand in hand with the IRI terrorist Ayatollahs all these years, has been the subject of a terrorist attack, although he has survived three of his aids have died. SCIRI leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim is the same person who basically condoned the murder of Ayatollah Khoi a few months ago. The first time...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 — A religious edict issued in Iran and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq calls on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities." The edict, or fatwa, issued on April 8 by Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, an Iraqi-born cleric based in the Iranian holy city of Qum, suggests that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran as they try to assert the power of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority. It is not yet clear how much popular support Mr. Haeri and other clerics emerging...

<p>Will France try to hide its connections arming Iraq?</p>