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Speaking to staffers of Iranian radio and television at Tehran's Belal mosque on July 30, Khamene'i said the United States will increasingly become a target of terrorists, because it has received terrorists as guests and given them its protection. [He appears to be referring to the Mujahidin].
"We have said that he who holds up a sword of revolt will be killed by that sword himself," the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic said. "We have said that the fire will spread to you, too. They did not believe us. Today it has happened."
"All those countries which supported terrorism, especially the United States which has supported and is still supporting the terrorist regime of the usurper Zionists of Palestine, will be hurt by terrorism," he said. "This seed, planted by the United States, is beginning to grow on its sown soil - and it's only just beginning." [Tehran Radio 7/30]
Senator Al D'Amato's Iran sanctions bill finally cleared both Houses of Congress on July 23, and was signed into law by President Clinton on Monday, Aug. 5.
Under the bill, which also applies the Iran sanctions to Libya, the President must select two sanctions from a menu of six possible measures on companies that make substantial new investments in Iran's oil and gas industry, or that continue to trade with Libya.
The President must also report regularly to Congress on negotiations with U.S. foreign trade partners over the measures, and publish a list of projects covered by the sanctions and a list of companies which have been sanctioned in the Federal Register.
The reaction from Europe has been fast and furious, since most European countries prefer to trade with the Islamic Republic than sanction it for supporting terrorism. [Iran Brief 8/5]
Iranian troops remained inside northern Iraq over the weekend, Kurdish sources said, while Iranian officials warned Iraqi Kurds they would launch a new assault if the military activities of the rebel Iranian Kurdish group, the KDPI, were not curbed.
Leaders of the KDPI and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of Jalal Talabani have been meeting in Iraqi Kurdistan to resolve the situation, following the initial Iranian attack against KDPI bases and refugee camps on July 27-28. Under heavy pressure from Tehran, the PUK escorted a Rev. Guards mechanized battalion comprised of an estimated 2,000 troops and heavy artillery 150 kilometers through territory under their control to the Khoy-sandjak area where the KDPI headquarters is located. By the time they arrived, most of the Kurdish refugees who lived in the area had evacuated to Irbil, in the UN-protected zone of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iranian forces shelled refugee camps and the main KDPI base, destroying some 400 homes, killing one person.
Iran said it had withdrawn its troops beyond the border on July 31, but Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish sources say this is not true. "The Iranians are still there in four separate locations in the Sulaymaniah area," a spokesman for the Iraqi KDP said.
In Tehran, the opposition Iran Nation's Party issued a statement condemning the Rev. Guards attack on the KDPI. "The Pasdaran had been seeking to crush the resistance of the KDPI," the party's weekly bulletin said, "and then realized that they could not." [INP statement, 8/3]
Iranian Kurdish sources say the Iranians have threatened to permanently station troops inside Iraqi Kurdistan to maintain pressure on the KDPI, and warned that the lack of vigorous protest over the Iranian incursion by the U.S. has emboldened Tehran. "The situation is deteriorating," despite the end of the Iranian attack, a KDPI spokesman said.
The PUK has acknowledged that it has been under "intense pressure" from Tehran to restrain the activities of the KDPI in the areas under its control. A PUK spokesman in Washington issued a statement on Aug. 2 claiming that KDPI had agreed "to end [their] military activities against Iran and desist from using Iraqi Kurdistan as a base to launch military campaigns against Iranian territory." The KDPI denied having made such a commitment, or that it was using Iraq as a base for attacks against Iran. The PUK subsequently pledged to protect the Iranian Kurdish refugees living in areas under its control, and guaranteed that the KDPI would be allowed to continue its political activities, as long as it conducts no cross-border raids.
Over the past two months, the KDPI has sharply increased attacks against military targets inside Iran, but KDPI sources insist that the attacks have been launched from guerrilla camps inside Iran.
On July 30, KDPI peshmergas attacked Rev. guards positions in the Urmieh region, wounding 30 soldiers and downing an attack helicopter. Iran cited this attack to justify its attack on the KDPI refugee camps and headquarters in Iraq, even though its attack was conducted three days earlier. [Iranfax 8/5]
Fifty people were exposed to severe radiation in an accident at a gas-fired power station just outside of Rasht, the capital of Iran's northern Gilan province, Hamshahri daily reported [7/31].
The newspaper said those injured included seven engineers employed by the German firm Siemens AG. In Germany, a Siemens spokesman quoted by the Associated Press confirmed that an accident had occurred on July 29, at a Siemens-built 1200 MW power plant.
The spokesman, Wolfgang Breier, said none of the Germans was hurt, but that an Iranian worker who picked up a radioactive part and carried it to a construction site was exposed and hospitalized.
Hamshahri reported that 21 people were transferred to a Tehran hospital after the accident. The accident was confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
Neither Siemens, the IAEA, or the Iranian government offered any explanation as to how a nuclear accident could occur at a gas-fired power plant not engaged in nuclear research.
Iran has dismissed U.S. allegations that Tehran may have been behind the Dhahran bombing as "irresponsible."
In a statement replying to Secretary of Defense William Perry, who called Iran the "leading candidate for international terrorism directed against the United States," IRNA called Perry's remarks "prejudicial," "irresponsible," and "defamatory."
"Iran's strength lies not in training any terrorist in Iran or supporting international terrorism, but in its unwavering commitment to the principle of rejecting both hegemony and hegemonization -- a principle enshrined in the egalitarian tenets of Islam,'' the statement said.[IRNA 8/3]
In a speech in Tehran on Saturday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i accused the U.S. of trying to drive a wedge between Tehran and its European high-tech suppliers. "America and the arrogant world powers, unable to uproot the Islamic Republic, have embarked on a calculated policy to separate governments and nations from the Islamic Republic. In doing so, unfortunately some governments have fallen into this trap and are hostile towards the Islamic Republic instead of attacking America and Israel they attack a sect of Islam," Khamene'i said. [Tehran Radio 8/3]
Earlier, the Islamic Republic ambassador to Bonn, Hossein Mousavian, called on the German government to help Iran combat terrorism, saying that together the two countries could "take effective steps to help establish peace in the world."
While Mousavian did not elaborate, it appeared he meant that Germany could help out by expelling Iranian dissidents who had been granted political asylum in Germany.
To sweeten the deal, Mousavian dropped in passing that Iran's second five year economic plan "contains many possibilities for German participation." [Kayhan International, 7/21]
Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i took solace in the Olympic success of Iranian wrestler Rasull Khadem Azghadi, who won a gold medal on Friday in the light-heavyweight class.
"The flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran was raised in the house of Satan through the resolve of a pious youth, Rasull Khadem, despite all the mischief by the Americans to prevent this historic event in Atlanta,'' Rafsanjani said in a speech broadcast by Iranian radio.
He called the wrestler's victory "a message from God to the world's despots."
"I congratulate your excellence and our nation for rubbing the nose of America in the dirt and for beating the nine-medalled Russian champion."
It was, the Supreme Leader said, the Islamic Republic's version of a two-fer: "Victory against two superpowers in a single exhibition,'' Khamene'i said. [Reuters 8/3]
Anyone who opposes the Islamic Republic's guiding principle of the Velayat-e faghih, said Majlis deputy Mohammad Shahi Arablou recently, has "signed his own death warrant."
The deputy from Hastroud was commenting on attempts by philosophers such as Abdolkarim Soroush to separate Islam from politics. "As a humble soldier of the Islamic revolution," he said, "I strongly warn anyone, whether inside the country or outside, on whatever pretext, to talk of separating religion from the state. He who does so has signed his own death warrant, and will be faced with the wrath of Hezbollah," Arablou said.
The parliamentarian argued that "the plot" to separate Islam from the state began soon after the death of the Prophet Mohammad and has been successful for 1400 years, until the Islamic Revolution in Iran brought the two back together again. [Ettelaat, 7/22]
The official media in Tehran loves Richard Murphy, formerly the State Department's top Middle East hand. Murphy recently published an op-ed piece in the Christian Science Monitor calling for the U.S. to engage the Islamic Republic in a dialogue, rather than impose sanctions.
Murphy's article was paraphrased in full and was prominently featured along with a photo of the former Assistant Secretary of State in Jomhouri-Eslami, the conservative daily which belongs to Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i. [7/22]
The IRI has not always felt so squishy toward Murphy, however. While Murphy was at State in the mid-1980s, he was a strong supporter of the "tilt" toward Iraq, on the grounds that U.S. interests required a balance of power between Baghdad and Tehran. In fact, Murphy's argument is that U.S. strategic interests are not being met by the sanctions, and that Iran is too important a country for the U.S. to neglect.
A man identified as Behzad Baba-Arab was condemned to death by a revolutionary court and hanged in Shiraz on July 21s. According to Resalat, Baba-Arab was a "thug" who was condemned for "sedition on earth." Among the charges against him were disturbing the peace, making trouble, generating fear, cooperation with other thugs, membership in a network aimed at deceiving women and children, having illegitimate sexual relationships, participating in street fights, threatening people with weapons (including a knife), and drug smuggling.
No date for the trial was given or details of the judicial procedures. However, the lengthy list of accusations makes it unlikely Baba-Arab was granted legal defense. [Resalat 7/23]
Intelligence minister Ali Fallahian has called unemployment "a serious security threat" to the Islamic Republic, and called on the government to consider job creation and economic development as part of a program aimed at "consolidating the country's security."
In making his jobs pitch, however, Fallahian couldn't resist getting in a few digs at the Great Satan. Because of the "reappearance of Islamic culture and civilization in Iran," he claimed, "World Arrogance [the U.S.] has declared war on the Islamic Republic." This is because the Americans have concluded that Iran's Islamic culture "will gradually penetrate and spread to the rest of the world," and must therefore be stopped. [Kayhan 7/22]
Elementary, dear Ali.
Hezbollah has now joined Iran's parliament as an officially-recognized faction, Kayhan reported [7/23]
A group of parliamentarians calling themselves the "Hezbollah group" have registered as a political faction and held their first meeting in Parliament on July 23. While the paper did not print the names of the new faction's members, it described the inaugural gathering. Members "will discuss domestic political issues and listen to a talk by Dr. Hassan Rouhani on current domestic affairs."
Rouhani, a Majlis deputy from Tehran, is also deputy Speaker of Parliament and spokesman for the Supreme Council for National Security.
An official government report put out by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education has concluded that Iranian women "are suffering from severe malnutrition, which is the cause of many deaths among them."
Other major health problems among women stemmed from "poverty, sexual problems, and unfulfillment of their biological needs," the report stated.
The report presented the findings of a "special committee for women's health problems," which concluded that women were particularly deficient in protein, iron, and iodine. Between 30 to 50% of children and women in the provinces developed blood problems due to malnutrition, the report said.
The report also concluded that 79% of Iranian women get married while in their teens and get pregnant before the age of 19. Repeated pregnancies among young Iranian mothers cause health problems for both mothers and children, the report said.
Finally, the report revealed that 25% of the 500,000 [yes, five hundred-thousand!] women who die each year from problems relating to childbirth and pregnancy are between the ages of 13 and 19, with malnutrition being the main contributing cause of death. [Hamshahri, 7/24]
The Foundation for Democracy in Iran is a private, non-profit corporation registered in the State of Maryland. Contact: Kenneth R. Timmerman, Executive Director (exec@iran.org). FDI materials, including this Newswire, are available free-of-charge via the Internet at http://www.iran.org/.