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Join FDI in Los Angeles on Monday, May 15, 2006 , 7:30 PM at Sinai Temple in Westwood to learn more about the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons programs.
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Twenty-three
persons were beaten to death last week in a security crackdown
last week in the south Tehran neighborh The crackdown, ostensibly aimed at
homosexuals, prostitutes, drug addicts, In one of the photographs, shown below, a suspect has been collared with a red aftabeh, a clear sign of public humiliation. (The aftabeh is a device normally used in Iran to wash the anus after defecation.) News organizations interested in reporting on this massacre are invited to contact FDI for additional information and graphic photographs. “This crackdown on so-called “alvats” [perverts] is a massive
violation of commonly accepted standards of human rights,” said FDI
chairman, Nader Afshar. “When coupled with the recent arrest of Haleh
Esfandiari, who has long been an advocate of rapprochement between the
United States and the Tehran regime, it shows that hard-liners are not
only clearly in charge, but they are warning their opponents that no
deviation from their policies will be tolerated,” Afshar said. May 12, 2007: Voice of America's Persian TV service hosted a debate on Iran sanctions
and the Divest Terror campaign between pro-regime activist, Rostam
Pourzal, and Roozbeh Farahanipour, a leader of the July 1999 Tehran
uprising and secretary general of Iranians for a Secular Republic. Pourzal's Campaign against Sanctions and against Military
Intervention in Iran refers to President Bush's January 2002 State of
the Union speech as the "infamous Axis of Evil speech,"
calls the invasion of Iraq "illegal," and chides the United States for
"war crimes" in Abu Ghraib, Falluja, and elsewhere. Farahanipour, by
contrast, has been testifying in public
on behalf of California State legislator Joel Anderson's Divest Terror
legislation (see entry for April 24, below), and has called sanctions
and divestment a middle ground between appeasement and war, both of
which he opposes. At the end of the hour-long debate, VOA host Bijan Farhoodi
pointed out that for the past 27 years, the Voice of America had tried
without success to invite a representative of the Islamic Republic to
express their point of view. In Rostam Pourzal, he added, they finally
had one. May 4, 2007: In an unbelievable ad carried by the International Herald Tribune (April 25), the Economist (p111 of last week's edition), Iran Daily, and other newspapers, Iran's Atomic Energy Organization called for international bids to construct "two large-scale nuclear power plants"in Busheir. It requires bidders to make a non-refundable deposit along with their bid to an account with Austria Bank-Creditanstalt in Vienna, and to post a performance bond of twenty million euros "delivered to AEOI's representative office in Vienna" by Aug. 2, 2007. The United Nations Security Council has banned all nuclear trade with Iran. In an almost equally-unbelievable response to questions from journalists, the International Herald Tribune defended its acceptance of the advertisement, despite the fact that it cleared flouted international law. As Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies noted in an oped today,
at first glance the ad appeared to be a joke. "It smacked of Iranian
nose-thumbing so extreme one had to wonder if it was a spoof. It's no
joke."
The banner reads: "We don't want nuclear energy, we don't want your minimum wages. We work to live but we don't want to live to work!" (Hat-tip to Winston) Meanwhile, crunch time for Iran's economy will hit on May 21, when gas rationing goes into effect.
Iranian drivers will be limited to three litres per day at the
subsidized cost of 40 cents per gallon. They will be permitted to
purchase more than the three litres, but anything beyond the limit will
be at market prices, according to Resource Investor. April 25, 2007:FDI Executive Director Kenneth Timmerman testified today in Columbus, Ohio in support of HB 151,
an Ohio state bill to divest the state pension funds from companies
doing business in Iran. For more on Timmerman's testimony, provided in
his own name, see the April 27, 2007 edition of Frontpage magazine. The Ohio bill was crafted by Republicans Josh Mandel, a 29-year old Iraq war Marine Corps veteran, and Shannon
Speaking in favor of the bill was Roozbeh Farahanipour, chairman of Iranians for a Secular Republic, who described how he was tortured after the July 1999 student uprising using a technique called "chicken kabob.". Assemblyman Anderson called his testimony "gripping," and included excerpts in a press release on the bill. April 23, 2007: FDI Executive Director Timmerman comments in Human Events on the growing unrest among Iran's oppressed minorities, but warns against encouraging ethnic conflict. "[I]t
would a tragic error for this or any U.S. administration to encourage
ethnic revolt [in Iran] because we would then alienate 95% of the
pro-democracy forces in Iran." Instead, "what we need to be doing is
finding a way to get all of these groups to work together rather than
supporting separate wars. What’s needed is a coordinated
nationwide movement. A violent revolution will only open a Pandora’s
box for a future dictator.” March 27, 2007: Pro-democracy activists will testify in
favor of California bill 221 to disinvest state pension plans from
companies doing business in Iran. Reza Pahlavi also has sent a letter
to the speaker of the California State assembly, Fabio Nunez, in
support of the disinvest campaign. "This act will hearten Iranians by
demonstrating Californian's solidarity with their plight and national
struggle against tyranny, injustice and suppression," he wrote. March 26, 2007: The California Assembly will hear legislation on Wednesday, March 28, at 9 AM, that would require the
State pension funds to disinvest from companies doing business in Iran.
The pro-Tehran group NIAC has come out against the bill. Why? Because
it just might convince major multinational companies to rethink their
business in Tehran. Four trade unions have already come out in favor of
the bill. Last week, legislators in Maryland introduced similar legislation. Here's a round-up of the current Disinvest Terror campaign, March 7, 2007: On-line petition calling for international action in
support of freedom in Iran. FDI applauds the efforts of Amil Imani and
other activists in drafting a comprehensive list of steps freedom-loving nations can take to support the pro-democracy movement inside Iran.
As we have been saying for many years, the United States does not need
to send the 82nd Airborne or B-2 bombers to take out Iran's nuclear
sites. A better course is to increase pressure from the outside through
a package of sanctions and other measures described in the petition,
and from inside Iran by support for the pro-democracy movement.
Also today in Washington: Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns described the administration's efforts to ratchet up international sanctions on the Tehran regime, all the while opening a dialogue with Iran and Syria on Iraq. Burns told House Foreign Affairs committee Tom Lantos (D, Ca) that the U.S. opposed new legislation proposed today that would make mandatory U.S. sanctions on foreign companies that invested in Iranian oil and gas projects. After describing efforts to get Europe, Japan, Russia and China on board in stiffening UN sanctions, he said, "If the focus of our policy is to sanction our friends and not Iran... it might undercut that coalition." The Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 (H.R. 1400), introduced
jointly by Lantos and ranking Minority commitee member Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, also rescinds the Clinton exception to imports into the
U.S. of Iranian dates and carpets (used some believe to finance Iranian
intelligence operations in the U.S.), and places the IRGC on the
terrorism list. March 2, 2007: Know your friends - and your enemies. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R, NE) will address two events sponsored by the American Iranian Council today. The AIC is a lobbying group with 501(c)3 status that consistently takes positions in sync with the Tehran regime, which has been seeking to get the US to lift sanctions on Iran for years. Sen. Hagel has been a strong AIC supporter, as today's events show. In New York, Sen. Hagel is the featured guest at "an exclusive" closed-door AIC fund-raising luncheon. At 3:30 PM, he will address a public event, hosted by AIC at Rutgers university. AIC specializes in upbeat economic bulletins on the Islamic Republic of Iran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an apparent effort to attract international investment to Iran. Feb. 23, 2007: FLASH NEWS: Reports from FDI sources in Tehran say that Wednesday's demonstration (2/21) by Iranian teachers in front of the Majles buildings continues to worry government officials, who fear that the teacher's could make good on their threat of a general strike starting on March 6. Demonstrating teachers called for improved salary and benefits, and lew legislation governing teaching standards. Regime media outlets reported that "hundreds" of teachers took part in the demonstrations, but strike organizers said more than three thousand teachers took part in the march, under the watchful eyes and batons of national police. MOIS agents filmed the demonstrators, FDI sources said. At the end of event, demonstrators stated that if the government did not accept their requestss, they would launch a general strike on Tuesday March 6. In public statements yesterday, regime officials said they wanted to avoid an escalation of tensions that could induce other government employees to join striking teachers. - -
Feb. 16, 2007: In a briefing in Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military presented new evidence of IRGC Qods Force involvement in Iraq. The evidence included Iranian-made weapons used by insurgents, Iranian-made IEDs, and IRGC identity cards captured from senior al Qods officers. You can download the PDF file (700 kb) of the 16-page briefing here.
Based on internal IRGC analysis, "the security and intelligence strike against U.S. forces in Karbala prompted the Americans to act against elements they believed responsible," Rahimi wrote. Among those Iranian "elements" arrested by the Americans in retaliation for the Kerbala attack was "the second secretary of the Iranian embassy in Baghdad," Rahimi added. (The original can be found at http://sobhesadegh.ir)
Jan. 8, 2007: Rafsanjani says road to be named after the "Martyr" Ahmadinejad. With Tehran swirling with rumors regarding the pending demise from cancer of Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i, the ultimate power jockey, Hojjat-ol eslam Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, hinted recently that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be forcibly removed from power if he doesn't resign voluntarily. Following December's widely-boycotted elections, Rafsanjani has now taken over as head of the Assembly of Experts, the body that under the Islamic Republic constitution will name the Supreme Leader when Khamenei dies. In an otherwise fawning paeon to Khamenei ("whose death will have a shattering effect on the Iranian public, who idolize their leader and would largely view his loss as a catastrophe" [sic]), Stratfor notes that "[i]t might be no coincidence Rafsanjani, in a recent talk with journalists, described a new highway currently under construction in Tehran, as the "highway of Shahid (martyr) Ahmadinejad." Hat tip to Gary Metz for pointing out the Stratfor piece.
Dec. 29, 2006: The San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, in conjunction with MEHR Iran, have sponsored a lawsuit by Iranian-American torture victim Gholam Nikbin, 59, that will come before Federal District Court in Washington, DC on Jan. 9, 2007. The lawsuit alleges that IRI officials, at the direction of then president Rafsanjani and then MOIS minister Ali Fallahian, tortured Nikbin for converting to Mormonism and for permitting dancing and music at his wedding in Iran. For background information, see Mehr's call to victims of torture to sue the IRI, and the original 2003 press release on the Nikbin case
Dec. 11, 2006: Students burned
pictures of Ahmadinejad and set off firecrackers during
a speech by the Iranian president today at Amir Kabir
university. The disturbances were reported by Iran's semi-official FARS news agency, close to the IRGC, and by a student Web site. CNN reported that students interrupted Ahmadinejad's speech by booing and chanting "Death to the dictator." In the official version, ahmadinejad approved their chant, which was edited by IRNA to become "down with dictators." Students supporting Ahmadinejad reportedly clashed with pro-freedom demonstrators. CNN called it a "rare demonstration." In fact, it was not at all. Just last Wedneday, Dec. 6, some 2,000
students at Tehran university took to the streets, also
protesting the regime and the lack of freedom. Here, they
exhibited photos of Ahmadinejad in derision, upside down,
While the BBC refused to cover the demonstration,
FoxNews
published photographs taken by an Iranian student news
service and posted on an
Iranian weblog.
Nov. 22, 2006: Following the recent arrest of dozens of Baha'is in Iran, the Interior Ministry in Tehran has tasked all provincial governments to collect detailed information on the Baha'i community. In a measure reminiscent of Nazi data collection on German (and later, European) Jewish communities, an interior Ministry circular dated Aug. 19, 2006, obtained by the secular opposition group Marzeporgohar, tasks local officials to gather up-to-date statistics on the income, occupation, social activities, addresses, foreign travels and contacts of all Bahai's in their juristiction, and to return completed data sheets to Seyyed Mohammad-Reza Mavali-Zadeh, Director General of the Political Bureau, Ministry of Interior, by September 6, 2006. Nov. 16, 2006: Iran prepares to hang 11 Ahwazi Arabi activists, by hanging from cranes in public squares.
For more, see Frontpage magazine today. Meanwhile, the IAEA in Vienna has caught Iran cheating again. Samples taken from the Karaj nuclear waste site turned up the presence of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium, useful for making nuclear weapons (but not for making nuclear reactor fuel, as Iran claims it is doing). The IAEA notes that "Iran has not provided the Agency full access to operating records" of its centrifuge enrichment cascades, so it has no way of measuring how much fuel Iran has actually enriched or to what extent. Additionally, the report notes that: - "Iran continues to decline to discuss" IAEA demands to establish a monitoring mechanism at its fuel fabrication plant; - "Iran has not made available" new information as requested on its centrifuge production programs. - "Iran has still not provided a copy" of a key 15-page document that describes the process for manufacturing HEU "hemispheres" (nuclear weapons cores) - "Iran has not yet responded" to Agency requests for clarification on a bunch of issues, including the so-called Green Salt Project for high-explosives testing and the design of a nuclear-capable missile re-entry vehicle. It's just four pages, but this report packs in lots of information. Download a PDF file of the entire report here. Sept 21: Frontpage magazine column opposing the CFR "Grand Bargain for Iran," by Kenneth Timmerman. Sept. 19, 2006: American and Iranian Jewish groups call for mass demonstration against Ahmadinejad at the United Nations for Wednesday, Sept 20, 2006, starting at noon. The demonstrations were timed for Wednesday to avoid confusion with an MEK rally today. PLACE: 2nd Avenue and 47th Street, NY, NY. TIME: 12:00PM, Sept 20.. Sept 18, 2006: The Council on Foreign Relations has invited Ahmadinejad to address the Council in New York this week, drawing a blistering response from Sen. Rick Santorum. "President Ahmadinejad does not afford his own people the freedom of speech," Santorum wrote. "By allowing him the opportunity to address a public forum in the United States, you would be sending the wrong message to the people of Iran." The CFR has consistently promoted a "grand bargain" with the regime in Tehran, a policy it laid out in detail in a 2004 white paper written by Ray Takeyh and his wife, Suzanne Maloney, on behalf of Brzezinski and Scowcroft. As a State Department official, Suzanne Maloney has been instrumental in blocking U.S. government funding to pro-democracy groups in Iran. Sept 15, 2006: Senator Rick Santorum (R, Pa) called on the U.S. to end "phony negotiations" with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, in an apperance yesterday on Capitol Hill with Reza Pahlavi and Sen. Mel Martinez (R, Fla). In his presentation, Reza Pahlavi repeated his call, which he issued last week in a separate meeting with Sen. Sam Brownback (see below), for the U.S. to confront and pressure the Iranian regime, while supporting the Iranian people.
Several hundred Iranian-Americans gathered outside the National Cathedral in Washington, DC last night to protest the visit of mullah Mohammad Khatami. Anglican canon Keith Roderick noted that "the Anglican Church in Iran was decimated during [Khatami's] presidency," and criticized Bishop John Chane and other church leaders for inviting Khatami to the National Cathedral. Sept. 7, 2006: Iran torture victims today accused Khatami at the National Press club, appearing with Senator Sam Brownback (R, Ks), and Rep. Brad Sherman (D, Ca). The two-hour press conference turned into a workshop on democracy, as Reza Pahlavi answered supporters who called on him to assume political leadership of the opposition movement, "I don't think this is the moment to give somebody a title." Pahlavi called for Iranians to create a massive nonviolent protest movement inside Iran that would bring about a change of regime. Asked about the future form of government Iran should have, he specifically refused to favor a monarchy or a republic. "All I care about is that it is secular and democratic in nature," Pahlavi said. See NITV covereage of the press conference here, and an interview with FDI Exec. Director Kenneth Timmerman here. Sept. 5, 2006: FDI will be working with Iranian-American organizations and others to coordinate activities on Thursday, Sept 7, 2006, when former Islamic Republic president KHATAMI comes to Washington, DC. A major protest will be held outside the National Cathedral, which is hosting Khatami, at 6 PM. Many Iranian-American groups have written to the Right. Rev. John Bryson Chane, episcopal bishop of Washington, DC (who runs the Cathedral). Senators Brownback, Allen and Santorum and others have protested Khatami's diplomatic visa to the State Department. FDI Exec Director Timmerman explains why the Bush Administraiton should Just Say No to Khatami. May 30, 2006: New photographs available from recent protests by Christian Iranians in the Northwest city of Ourimieh, in West Azerjaijan province; and from student protests in Tehran. Worried at the dramatic growth of Christianity in recent years, Ahmadinejad pledged in November to drive Christians from Iran. "I will stop Christianity in this country," Ahmadinejad reportedly said. (See the Dec. 19 posting below) In Gorgan, in the northern province of Golestan, an Iranian Christian who converted from Islam 33 years ago has been held incommunicado by the secret police for the past three weeks, the Christian news service Compass Direct reports. Ali Kaboli, 51, was taken into custody on May 2 from his workshop in Gorgan. No charges have been filed against Kaboli, who has been threatened in the past with legal prosecution for holding "illegal" religious meetings in his home, says Compass Direct. May 25, 2006: Just posted: the FrontPage magazine symposium, "Iran: To Strike or Not to Strike," with Jim Woolsey, Tom McInerney, and Ken Timmerman
May 22, 2006: Iranian lawmakers and regime officials sought to allay suspicions concerning a proposed new dress code law, dismissing a report that the bill sought special outfits for religious minorities, Reuters reported on Sunday. The Reuters account does not say the earlier reports were false, as some have claimed; it says that the bill sought to legislate "Islamic" dress. Clearly, the firestorm over the proposed bill, initially debated two years ago but revived recently, is not over. Read more. May 19, 2006:The Islamic Republic Majles, or Consultative Counsel, on Tuesday debated a law that would require Christians and Jews to wear a special badge, reminiscent of the yellow star Nazi Germany and Vichy France imposed on Jews during the 1930s and 1940s. "This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. Hier predicted that the law, which must move out of committee to the whole Majles, then be approved by the Supreme Leader and the Council of Guardians, "will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry." Read More...
The Paris meeting will take place on Monday, May 22, from 5-8 PM, at the Salons Hoche, 9 avenue Hoche, 75008 (near l'Etoile). No prior reservations are necessary. An announcement from the group says it is being organized by the London-based "Gulf Intelligence Monitor," a subscription-based website. Several of the U.S. participants told FDI they were going to Paris to "attend a conference with the leaders of the National Council of Resistance of Iran," the main MEK front organization. The five American participants - Ray Tanter, Maj. Gen (ret.) Paul Vallely, Lt. Gen (ret.) Thomas McInerney, Navy Capt. (ret) Chuck Nash, and LtCol.(ret). Bill Cowen - are all members of the Iran Policy committee, an organization set up by Tanter and by former CIA officer Clare Lopez in early 2005. The group has published a number of "white papers" -- all of which have one thing in common: they urge the Bush administration to take the MEK and its various front organizations off the State Department list of international terrorist organizations. The group regularly has hired rooms at the National Press Club to hold press conferences.While it lists "members" on its website, it provides no information on a board of directors, and is not registered in the corporations data bases of Washington, DC, Maryland, or Virginia. The NCRI website links to the latest IPC White paper, calling IPC "an independent U.S. policy group." No sponsor is listed for the May 25, 2006 Washington, DC conference, but the logo accompanying the on-line registration form is identical to the "lion and the sun" logo the MEK adopted from the Iranian flag of the shah's period. So where is the MEK getting the money to finance these elaborate public relations activities? And why is the FBI allowing a group that is on the State Department's list of international terrorist organizations to operate openly in the United States? May 8, 2006: Even the talk of sanctions are affecting the IRI. Today's Roozonline reports that the price of steel beams used in home construction increased by 50% in one week. This followed an upsurge in the price of gold coins, as people have converted bank deposits into cash. At the same time, neither the Euro or the dollar have increased significantly, which the Persian-language website said showed this was not regular inflation but a sign that the population lacked confidence in the future of the regime. Also today, Newsmax.com reported that the regime is sending money, weapons, and targeting information to eight different terrorist groups as part of a "Judgment Day" plan to attack the United States, Britain, and their allies in the Middle East, in the event of allied strikes on Iranian nuclear, missile, and leadership targets.
May 4, 2006: Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, believes the United States should hold "direct talks" with the Tehran regime. But "Direct talks" with the Tehran regime "are not just a bad idea. They are a monumentally bad idea, whose wrong-headedness has been proven time and again over the past 26 years," FDI Executive Director Kenneth Timmerman argues in his weekly column at FrontPage magazine.
For more information on the Referendum movement, read their first on-line newsletter, released in March. Ironically, some of the initial signatories of the Referendum petition inside Iran have refused to join the Referendum movement, instead urging the U.S. Department of State to support the long-dead reform movement inside Iran (see April 20 - below) Also today, Reza Pahlavi told the editors of the conservative weekly Human Events that he hoped to finalize within the next two to three months the organization of a movement aimed at overthrowing the Islamic regime in Tehran and replacing it with a democratic government. Read the complete interview. April 28, 2006: Ahmadinejad tells the United Nations they can do nothing. "The Iranian nation won't give a damn about such useless resolutions," he told an audience in northwestern Iran today, Newsmax reports. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton today reassured the Iranian people that eventual UN sanctions were not aimed at them, but at the regime, and that developing nuclear weapons was not in Iran's interest. Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy delivered its report today to the UN Security council in New York. that Iran had failed to comply with the UNSC demand that it halt all uranium enrichment activities. US officials said this "opened the way" for Chapter 7 sanctions under the UN charter, Newsmax reported. Click here to read today's complete IAEA report (pdf file).
Security forces closed all accesses to the Governor's Office and opened fire on the crowd. Several demonstrators were injured and one has been reported in critical condition Additional troops were sent from the neighboring cities in order to control the situation which remains tense. The residents are requesting the public trial of agents involved in the murder and the shooting. March 10, 2006: No Opposition in Iran? This is the mantra we hear almost daily from career State Department bureaucrats and from the CIA. They should look at these digital video clips, taken at Wednesday's demonstration in downtown Tehran by several thousand women on International Women's Day. This is precisely the type of operation the State Department should be funding with the $75 million Condoleeza Rice has asked Congress to authorize. We need to help Iranians to document the rampant and savage human rights violations of the regime. This first clip shows women gathering to sing freedom songs in Laleh Park. The second clip shows the initial attempts by security forces to disperse the thousnads and thousands of demonstrators.The third clip shows the orders given by a regime official, in civilian clothes, to a uniformed militiaman, who launches a violent onslaught on the demonstrators. This final clip shows the crowd fleeing after some 60 women have been arrested and hundreds have been brutally beaten. Anyone need any more proof that support for this regime is only skin-deep? March 2, 2006: The State Department has created a special office to phttp://www.zshare.net/video/3-wmv-wwe.htmlromote democracy-promotion in Iran, unnamed State Department officials said today. the New Office of Iran Affairs will have staff in NESA and in the Bureau of Democracy, Human rights and Labor (DRL). In addition, Sec Rice has announced she will set up an new regional office Dubai to deal with Iran and Iranians, and will assign officers to handle Iranian affairs in Azerbaijan, Germany, and Britain. Democrats in the Center for American Progress were quick to criticize the new move as counter-productive, noting that current conditions in Iran make "it likely that the administration's new strategy will backfire and only strengthen Tehran's hard-liners." Feb. 23, 2006. Repression of Iranian Sufis continues. Following the violent raid and destruction of the Sufi hosseiniyeh in Qom on February 13, and the arrest of an estimated 1,000 followers, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and former Majles speaker Mehdi Karrubi condemned the regime on Monday for the attack and called for an apology and compensation to the Sufi community. The regime has acknowledged the arrests, and said that 200 people had been injured. Opposition sources tell FDI that 3 women were killed when they tried to flee Revolutionary Guards troops and their car overturned, while a man was shot dead, apparently by Pasdaran troops. 150 people remain in custody. Feb. 22, 2006: A women's
coalition in Tehran has anjounced
it will hold a commemoration of International Women's Day on
March 8 inTehran's Laleh Park. According to preliminary
information FDI has received, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Shirin Ebadi is expected to speak, among others.
Developing... Feb. 16, 2006: Condoleeza Rice has asked for $75 million to enhance U.S. broadcasting in Persian and to help pro-democracy groups in Iran. But does anyone at the State Department have a clue what to do? Read about it in today's FrontPage magazine. Jan 24, 2006: IRI president Ahmadinejad escaped an assassination attempt in December, and key supporters were killed in a Falconjet crash last week. Clearly, the zealot-president has enemies inside Iran. But are they powerful enough to get rid of him? And would his disappearance significantly change the threat posed by the Islamic Republic? Read the news from Newsmax.
• On the 25th anniversary of the liberation of the U.S. hostages in Tehran, supporters of an Iranian terrorist organization are demonstrating in front of the White House, with no response from the FBI. Read why it is essential to have a clear and open debate on the Mujahedin-e Khalq now, before it is too late. Other news today: • French president Chirac announced a dramatic shift in French nuclear strategy today in a speech at a nuclear submarine base in Brest, Reuters reported. State leaders "who resort to terrorist attacks against us, just as those who use weapons of mass destruction in any manner, must understand that they expose themselves to a firm and appropropriate response from us." The French response could be conventional or "of another nature," Chirac said, emphasizing that faced with a regional power, France would no longer choose between "inaction and obliteration." "The flexibility and the rapid reaction time of our strategic forces allows us to target our reponse directly on the centers of power, on [an enemy's] capacity to act. All our nuclear forces have been configured with this in mind," Chirac said.
Jan. 11, 2006: All five permanent members of the UN Security Council now have sent diplomatic "demarches" to Tehran in recent days, urging Iran to back of uranium enrichment or face an imminent referral to the UNSC for possible sanctions. "When cautious and circumspect European diplomats use words like "serious," "grave," "disastrous," "red line for international community," "urge Iran to immediately and unconditionally reverse its decision," the rest of us should take these phrases as unambiguous evidence that an international crisis of the first water is fast building," writes editorialist Tony Blankley in today's Washington Times. Also read "Iran's Nuclear Zealot," a profile of Islamic Republic president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his obsession with the 12th Imam, by FDI Executive Director Kenneth Timmerman. Jan. 10, 2006: The nuclear crisis begins. Iran broke IAEA seals at several nuclear sites today, after IAEA inspectors in Tehran refused to remove them at Iran's request. Among the sites where Iran plans to resume nuclear research and production work are the Natanz enrichment plant, Faraymand Technique and Pars Trash, where Iran had been assembling enrichment centrifuges. IAEA Director General Mohammad el Baradei expressed "anger" at Iran's moves, and delivered an urgent report to members of the Board of Governors detailing the Iranian moves. In that report, which remains "confidential," the IAEA said that Iran was feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into enrichment centrifuges, FDI has learned. This directly contradicted assertions in Tehran today by Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, who told reporters that production of nuclear fuel "remains suspended." Saeedi was recalled to Tehran from Vienna last Thursday without explanation as the crisis began to escalate. The removed IAEA seals "covered P-1 centrifuge components, maraging steel, high strength aluminium and centrifuge quality control and manufacturing equipment, as well as two cylinders containing UF6 located at Natanz," according to a press release from the Agency. "The seals also covered some process equipment at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz." Iran claimed it was installing a small-scale enrichment cascade at Natanz and was feeding UF6 gas into centrifuges for limited "research and development" only. British foreign minister Jack Straw expressed European exasperation with Iran. "There was no good reason why Iran should have taken this step if its intentions are truly peaceful and it wanted to resolve longstanding international concerns," Straw said. French foreign minister Philippe Doust-Blazy, added, "We call on Iran to go back on its decision without delay and without conditions." U.S. officials told FDI that while Iran was seeking to downplay its actions, resuming work at Natanz elsewhere essentially gave the Islamic Republic "nuclear weapons break-out capabilities. That is why this is significant."
• Commander of IRGC Rassoulollah 27th Army Division, Gen. Saeed Mohtadi, • Deputy Commander of Ground Forces for Operation Affairs, Gen. Saeed Soleymani. • IRGC Ground Forces Intellligence chief, Gen. Shahramoradi Hanif Montazer-Qaem • Artillery unit Commander, Gholam-Reza Yazdani; • Two members of the Ground Forces' Command Office, Hamid Azinpour and Mohsen Asadi; • Deputy Commander of Ground Forces, Gen Safdar Reshadi, • IRGC Air Force General Abbas Karvandi, the plane's pilot, whom FDI sources identified as commander of the Qadr air base, which is responsible for defending the air space over Tehran; • IRGC General Ahmad Elhaminejad, identified by FDI sources as head of the IRGC air force college, who was the plane's co-pilot, • IRGC Colonel Morteza Basiri. FDI sources in Tehran said the IRGC leadership was "shocked" by the crash, which apparently resulted from a failure of both engines of the French-made executive jet. On Monday evening, the National Security committee of the Iranian Majles went into an emergency meeting to hear classified information on the crash and to explore evidence of potential sabotage, our sources reported. Unidentified gunmen attempted to assasinate president Ahmadinejad in eastern Iran on December 12, and sources in Tehran say the new president is facing fierce opposition for rival clerics who feel he has gone too far in openly defying the United States and Israel. Jan. 6, 2006: The slowly-building nuclear crisis we have long been writing about has now erupted into the open. Yesterday, the Islamic Republic called back its top nuclear negotiator from Vienna without warning, walking out on long-planned negotiations with the European Union over its nuclear program. On January 4, the Rev. Guards began a series of exercises near the missile proving grounds in Semnan in central Iran, to test its abilities to wage Nuclear-Chemical-Biological warfare and NBC defenses. In Tehran, Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, the not-so-secret power behind Ahmadinejad's throne, is making noise that he wants to replace Ayatollah Khamenei as Supreme Leader. FDI Executive Director Kenneth Timmerman examines the implications of these recent moves by Islamic Republic leaders in light of the political uncertainty in Israel following the massive stroke that cut down Prime Minister Ariel Sharon two days ago.
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ood Sarsabel, FDI has learned
from sources inside Iran. 
Until now, no international news agencies have reported on these
murders, although reports have appeared on the baztab.com website and
with the Pars News Agency in Farsi. 
March 6, 2007: State Department releases Human Rights report. New
to this year's compendium of horror under the Islamic Republic are
accounts of "white torture" of political prisoners, as recounted by
Amir Abbas Fakhravar; reports of a prisoner sentenced to have his eyes
"surgically removed," a chronology of repression against ethnic Arabs,
details of the persecution of Christians, and more. The State
Department report noted the irony of the Tehran regime sending Interior
Minister Mostafa Purmohammadi as its representative to a meeting
of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva in October 2006.
"Purmohammadi has a history of human rights abuses, including
participation in the 1988 mass execution of several thousand political
prisoners at Evin Prison and the 1998 murders of writers and dissidents
throughout the country," 
May
18, 2006: The MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq) is
organizing major conferences in Paris and in Washington, DC
in the coming week, in an effort to shore up support for the
group among European and American law-makers. In recent
years, the MEK has shifted its rhetoric, abandoning earlier
statements, contained in Maryam Rajavi's "16 Points" that it
planned to ban all opposition once it seized power through a
violent uprising. Now the MEK claims to be a non-violent,
pro-democracy group. 
