Free Republic

Former Iranian armed forces chief Hassan Firouzabadi, who once accused Western nations of spying on the country using lizards, has died of coronavirus aged 70, local media reported on Friday. Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami praised Firouzabadi's "continuous efforts" to defend "the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran", in a statement published on the Guards' Sepahnews website. A trained doctor, Firouzabadi joined the Basij Islamic volunteer militia during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88. Serving in administrative roles, he swiftly rose up its ranks before being named head of the armed forces in September 1989 by Iran's supreme leader...

Iranian officials, in a first, have admitted to facilitating the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. by secretly aiding the free travel of al Qaeda operatives who eventually went on to fly commercial airliners into the Twin Towers in New York City, according to new remarks from a senior Iranian official. Mohammad-Javad Larijani, an international affairs assistant in the Iran's judiciary, disclosed in Farsi-language remarks broadcast on Iran's state-controlled television that Iranian intelligence officials secretly helped provide the al Qaeda attackers with passage and gave them refuge in the Islamic Republic, according to an English translation published by Al Arabiya.

Vali Reza Nasr, a senior Obama administration advisor on Iran, has come to Iran. Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani and former parliament speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel may be behind the visit. "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was informed well after Nasr entered the country," Tabnak reported on Wednesday. Nasr was appointed senior advisor to Richard Holbrooke -- the special US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tabnak and Fararu claim the unannounced trip by the US official to be linked to the recent release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi.

Iran's parliament speaker is warning that too much pressure from the West during nuclear talks could force Iranian lawmakers to call for stepping up atomic work.

forum.internet-haganah.com/showthread.php?272 "Sign that the goods are meant for the IRGC?" (October 27, 2011) SNIPPET: "The modules in question are radio transmitters used in IED's that killed and wounded American service members in Iraq. They were purchased from a US firm through intermediaries in Singapore. Final destination? Tehran." SNIPPET: "Mahan Air is no ordinary airline. Rather it appears to be the official air transport arm of the IRGC's Qods Force."

Such a warning has never come from the regime before.Last Thursday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani — while at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Indonesia — stated that Iran will use its missiles to defend other Muslim nations if threatened.This is the first time that a high-ranking Iranian official has issued such a warning. In effect, Iran is expanding its defense strategy from protecting their own sovereignty to a “defensive umbrella” over other Islamic nations.Larijani based his argument on what he called “the school of the late Ayatollah Khomeini,” the founder of the Islamic Republic: Muslims should possess...

It is time for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to step up to the plate and investigate Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, who is currently touring the Middle East at the expense of American Taxpayers as an envoy of her Department of State. Claudia Rossett, one of America's premier journalists, today reveals several disturbing facts that more than warrant an official investigation: ...what's going on with the web site of his Cordoba Initiative? Last week, after someone in his Malaysia office referred all questions back to his office in New York, the phone number and address of his office in Malaysia...

The Ground Zero mosque website just removed a photo of Mohammad Javad Larijani: secretary-general of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, brother of Ali Larijani, top negotiator for Iran's nuke program. A Cordoba-Iranian connection? What exactly is “Islamicity”? More questions have arisen about the attempt to build a mosque adjacent to Ground Zero, as part of the so-called Cordoba Initiative. In particular, why has the Cordoba website just removed a photograph of Iranian Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of the High Council for Human Rights in Iran? Is the move an attempted cover-up of their Iranian connections? Larijani was the Iranian...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader appointed Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani as the new head of the country's judiciary on Saturday, state television reported. Some reformist websites had recently reported that Larijani was hesitant to accept the position because of the mass arrests of moderate detainees over unrest that erupted after the country's disputed June 12 presidential election. He will face controversy straight away -- the semi-official ISNA news agency said a new trial would start on Sunday of 25 opposition supporters detained after the election. Larijani, a brother of parliament speaker Ali Larijani and a member of Iran's hardline constitutional...

TEHERAN - IRAN'S powerful conservative camp rejected on Wednesday claims that election protesters were raped in custody and issued a stern warning to opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi for raising the allegations. As the political turmoil raged on, lawmakers urged Iran to review ties with Western nations they accuse of 'meddling' in its affairs, saying the United States, Britain and France was backing opposition groups. 'The issue of detainees being sexually abused is a lie,' parliament speaker Ali Larijani told the assembly, the official IRNA news agency reported. 'Following an investigation of detainees in Kahrizak and Evin prisons, no cases of...

Blog Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Larijani In Yemen On Reassurance Visit The London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports that Iranian Majlis speaker Ali Larijani is visiting Yemen to reassure it regarding fears of Iranian involvement in rebel activity in southern Yemen, and regarding activity by the Houthis in the Sa'ada district in northern Yemen. Senior Yemeni officials have accused Iran of supporting the Houthis (see Yemeni Official: Iran Clearly Involved In Al-Houthi Rebellion). According to the report, Larijani told Yemen President Ali Abdallah Saleh that his country supported Yemen's stability and security. Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, May...

Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani said on Sunday world powers must accept the Islamic republic as a nuclear power as top officials vowed no let-up in Tehran's sensitive uranium enrichment drive. Larijani's comments came after the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany offered to hold direct talks with Iran over its nuclear programme.

A proposal by the United States to begin dialogue with Iran has been cautiously welcomed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former Iranian president. Iran is also prepared to help Washington in its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rafsanjani told Al Jazeera on Monday... Rafsanjani's comments came after Joe Biden, the US vice-president, said that Washington is open to negotiations with Tehran if it abandons its nuclear programme... The US and other Western powers say that Tehran's uranium enrichment programme is focused towards the manufacture of a nuclear weapon. Iran, for its part, says that it is not trying to...

President-Elect Barack Obama’s initial attempt to reason with the Iranian government on the issue of nuclear weaponry was disdained by Iran’s conservative parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani. “I find Mr. Obama’s emphasis on phallic implements offensive and inane,” Larijani said. “There is nothing he can offer. There is no threat he can utter that will deter us from our holy mission to wipe the Jews off the map.” Larijani scoffed at Obama’s so-called “nuclear umbrella” for Israel. “The Americans don’t have the stomach for death that we have in Iran,” Larijani boasted. “If they could prove that we are the ones...

Mash’al In Iran: ‘Our Battle Is Your Battle’; ‘Together We Will Liberate Jerusalem’; Iran Will Help Rebuild Gaza; French Leaders ‘Collaborators’ In Zionists’ Gaza Massacres In a speech at the Iranian Majlis, Hamas leader Khaled Mash’al said that Hamas will not stop smuggling weapons, because doing so would be against the armed struggle. He told Iranian MPs: “Our battle is your battle... Your support for the resistance in Palestine is support for yourselves. He called on Europe to adjust its policy vis-à-vis Hamas, and to influence the U.S. to do likewise. He said that Hamas aspires to liberate Jerusalem and...

Iranian students from major cities such as Tehran, Shiraz, and Hamedan protested against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This time they protested in great numbers about imprisonment and torture of students, expulsion of lecturers, poverty, abuse of human rights, dictatorship, and looting of their country’s wealth by foreign powers such as China and Russia. The demonstrations this year were bigger and more violent. The Iranian government was aware and worried. So much so that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei canceled an appearance with the students. Until recently, the government had used the anti-Western sentiments of the original demonstration in 1953 to serve...

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's parliament speaker has criticized U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for saying that Iran's development of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. Ali Larijani said Saturday that Obama should apply his campaign message of change to U.S. dealings with Iran. "Obama must know that the change that he talks about is not simply a superficial changing of colors or tactics," Larijani said in comments carried by the semi-official Mehr News Agency. "What is expected is a change in strategy, not the repetition of objections to Iran's nuclear program, which will be taking a step in the wrong direction."

What do Iran's ayatollahs, Hamas terrorists, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi have in common? They are all pulling for Barack Obama to win the US presidential election. When Israel's disparate foes manage to rally behind a single candidate, it should set off alarm bells for anyone who cares about the Jewish state. If you think this is just Republican scaremongering, consider the following. Last week, Ali Larijani, the hard-line speaker of the Iranian parliament, told a press conference in Bahrain that "we are leaning more in favor of Barack Obama because he is more flexible and...

<p>Iranian calls for the destruction of Israel are almost routine these days. But for a former official of the Islamic Republic to call for the destruction of the Jewish state in the city where the Holocaust was planned adds a repugnant twist – especially as the German government sponsored the event that gave the man from Tehran a Western stage.</p>

TEHRAN: The election of a rival to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as speaker of the Iranian Parliament is a strong signal of growing impatience with the president's economic policies and a possible sign of a political shift in the country. The new speaker, Ali Larijani, who resigned as the country's nuclear negotiator in October over differences with Ahmadinejad, is a conservative and an ardent advocate of the Iranian nuclear program but is seen as more pragmatic in his approach and perhaps willing to engage in diplomacy with the West. The post of speaker is normally a powerful one in Iranian politics,...