IMMINENT RISK OF EXECUTION IN IRAN PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY

Document - Iran: Imminent risk of execution in Iran

UA: 102/10 Index: MDE 13/047/2010 Iran Date: 30 April 2010

URGENT ACTION

IMMINENT RISK OF EXECUTION IN IRAN

An Iranian man, Ja’far Kazemi, is at imminent risk of execution for his alleged participation in anti-government demonstrations and for his alleged contact with banned opposition group the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). He could be executed at any time.

Ja’far Kazemi,aged 47,was arrested on 18 or 19 September 2009, after mass anti-government protests which took place on 18 September, and was taken to Evin prison in Tehran. He was accused of participating in the protests, which were attended by hundreds of thousands of people, but was not accused of committing any violent acts. He was sentenced to death for "enmity against God", and is also believed to have been convicted of “propaganda against the system”. He was tried with at least one other man, Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei, who is believed to have faced similar charges, but Amnesty International has no information about whether he has been sentenced to death. Ja’far Kazemi is reported to have been interrogated by security forces for months, and was pressured to make a televised “confession”, which he refused to do. On 26 April 2010, he learned that his death sentence had been confirmed by an appeal court. His lawyer, who has had limited access to her client, has requested that the Head of the Judiciary’s office conducts an extraordinary review. The execution can still go ahead at any time unless this request is accepted.

Ja’far Kazemi was previously imprisoned for membership of the PMOI in the 1980s or 1990s. One of his sons is a PMOI member and lives in Camp Ashraf, which houses PMOI members in Iraq. Others under sentence of death in connection with the post-election protests are Amir Reza Arefi, Mohammad Amin Valian, Motahareh (Simin) Bahrami, her husband Mohsen Daneshpour Moghaddam, their son Ahmad Daneshpour and two friends Hadi Gha’emi and Rayhaneh Haj Ebrahim, a woman, and Abdolreza Ghanbari.

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in Persian, Arabic, English, French or your own language (Please refer to Ja’far Kazemi as "Ja’far Kazemi, son of Bahman" in your appeals, as this will help the authorities to identify him):

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      Urging the Iranian authorities not to executeJa’far Kazemi and asking for clarification of Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei’s legal status and whether he is at risk of execution;

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      Urging the authorities to commute all death sentences in Iran, including any imposed in connection with the post-election protests;

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      Reminding the Iranian authorities that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party, states that the death penalty can only be carried out for “the most serious crimes”, which the Human Rights Committee has clarified must be “intentional crimes with lethal or other extremely grave consequences."


PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 11 JUNE 2010 TO:

Head of the Judiciary

Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani

Office of the Head of the Judiciary

Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhouri, Tehran, 1316814737

Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: Via website: http://www.dadiran.ir/tabid/75/Default.aspx

First starred box: your given name; second starred box: your family name; third: your email address

Salutation: Your Excellency


Leader of the Islamic Republic

Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei

The Office of the Supreme Leader

Islamic Republic Street – End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: info_leader@leader.ir

via website: http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php?p=letter (English)

Salutation: Your Excellency

And copies to:

Secretary General, High Council for Human Rights

Mohammad Javad Larijani

Howzeh Riassat-e Ghoveh Ghazaiyeh

Pasteur St, Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhuri

Tehran 1316814737

Islamic Republic of Iran

Fax: +98 21 3390 4986

Email: bia.judi@yahoo.com (In subject line: FAO Mohammad Javad Larijani

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives of Iran accredited to your country. Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.

Source:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/047/2010/en/9b80b1d5-0a06-4eaf-b980-d219adf26db4/mde130472010en.html

Report Details Torture at Secret Baghdad Prison

By SAM DAGHER

BAGHDAD — The torture of Iraqi detainees at a secret prison in Baghdad was far more systematic and brutal than initially reported, Human Rights Watch reported on Tuesday.

The existence of the prison, which housed mostly Sunni Arab prisoners, has created a political furor in Iraq, prompted government denials and fanned sectarian tensions.

“Abu Ghraib was a picnic” compared with the secret prison, said Sheik Abdullah Humedi Ajeel al-Yawar, one of the most influential Sunni Arab tribal leaders in the northern province of Nineveh, where the detainees were rounded up by Iraqi soldiers based on suspicions that they had links to the insurgency and brought to Baghdad with little due process. Abu Ghraib is the prison at which American guards tortured Iraqi prisoners, severely damaging Iraqis’ trust in the United States.

Human Rights Watch gained access on Monday to about 300 male detainees transferred from the once secret prison at the Old Muthanna military airfield to the Rusafa prison in Baghdad and documented its findings, which it described as “credible and consistent,” in a draft report provided to The New York Times on Tuesday by the rights group.

The group said it had interviewed 42 detainees who displayed fresh scars and wounds. Many said they were raped, sodomized with broomsticks and pistol barrels, or forced to engage in sexual acts with one another and their jailers.

All said they were tortured by being hung upside down and then whipped and kicked before being suffocated with a plastic bag. Those who passed out were revived, they said, with electric shocks to their genitals and other parts of their bodies.

“The horror we found suggests torture was the norm in Muthanna,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East program at Human Rights Watch. Mr. Stork called on the Iraqi government to conduct a thorough investigation and prosecute all officials “responsible for this systematic brutality.”

The prison’s discovery comes at a delicate time for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who is vigorously working to keep power after his coalition narrowly lost the March 7 national elections.

The revelations could further polarize Iraqis, still coming to grips with the scars of the sectarian conflict between 2005 and 2007. All those held at the secret prison before it was shut down were brought to Baghdad from Sunni Arab areas in Nineveh where Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, is largely perceived as a sectarian leader with a personal vendetta against anyone associated with the former Sunni-led government of Saddam Hussein.

Sheik Abdullah Humedi, the tribal leader from Nineveh, warned that the torture revelations had once more inflamed sectarian passions and could plunge the country into a fresh cycle of violence.

“This breeds extremism,” he said. “In our country a man who is raped will commit suicide, and how do you think he will do it?”

At least 505 cases of torture were documented in Iraqi prisons in 2009, according to a report released by the State Department in March.

In an interview broadcast on Monday night on the government-controlled Iraqiya television station, Mr. Maliki by turns denied, played down and distanced himself from the latest torture allegations. He described them as “lies” and “a smear campaign” hatched by foreign embassies and the media and then perpetuated by his political rivals.

“There are no secret prisons in Iraq at all,” he said.

Mr. Maliki described the prison at Muthanna as a transit site under the control of the Ministry of Defense, which used it for a “specific period.” He said that seven judges operated at the prison and that most of the approximately 430 detainees held there were transferred to the Rusafa prison. The rest were freed before the existence of the site was first reported last week.

Mr. Maliki maintained that a group of lawmakers from rival political factions visited the prison this year and instructed the prisoners to make false charges and to give themselves scars by “rubbing matches on some of their body parts.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Maliki said that he ordered an investigation and that several officers at the prison were being interrogated.

“America is the symbol of democracy, but then you have the abuses at Abu Ghraib,” Mr. Maliki said. “The American government took tough measures, and we are doing the same, so where is the problem and why this raucousness?”

Mr. Maliki’s comments appeared to contradict information provided by a minister in his own government, officials at the United States Embassy in Baghdad and the latest Human Rights Watch findings.

Wijdan Salim, minister of human rights, said in an interview last week that she insisted on visiting the secret prison after learning of its existence and that she found evidence of abuses that were “against human rights and the law.” Furthermore, the prison was under the control of the Baghdad Operations Command, a security task force answering directly to Mr. Maliki.

While investigative judges were stationed at the secret prison, they appeared to be complicit in the torture, according to Human Rights Watch.

A judge “heard cases in a room down the hall from one of the torture chambers,” the prisoners told Human Rights Watch.

One of the detainees, a former Iraqi Army general who uses a wheelchair and who holds British citizenship, said he was tortured by 10 people: 6 soldiers and 4 members of the investigative team.

“They applied electricity to my penis and sodomized me with a stick,” he told Human Rights Watch. “I was forced to sign a confession that they would not let me read.”

Another detainee, a 21-year-old who was arrested at his home in Mosul in December, said that during one torture session he was blindfolded, handcuffed, stripped naked and then raped by another prisoner as the wardens laughed at his screams of pain.

A third detainee, who was also arrested in December, said that he had been strung upside down and severely beaten to the point where some of his ribs were broken and that he had suffered concussions. The beatings caused him to “urinate blood for days,” he said. The same man said two wardens threatened him with rape unless he had sex with another prisoner.

“Security officials whipped detainees with heavy cables, pulled out finger and toenails, burned them with acid and cigarettes, and smashed their teeth,” Human Rights Watch said.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/world/middleeast/28baghdad.html

Secret prison revealed in Baghdad

Forces under the office of Prime Minister Maliki held hundreds of Sunni men at the facility. The U.S. fears that the news will stoke instability.

By Ned Parker

Los Angeles Times - Reporting from Baghdad - Hundreds of Sunni men disappeared for months into a secret Baghdad prison under the jurisdiction of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's military office, where many were routinely tortured until the country's Human Rights Ministry gained access to the facility, Iraqi officials say.

The men were detained by the Iraqi army in October in sweeps targeting Sunni groups in Nineveh province, a stronghold of the group Al Qaeda in Iraq and other militants in the north. The provincial governor alleged at the time that ordinary citizens had been detained as well, often without a warrant.

Worried that courts would order the detainees' release, security forces obtained a court order and transferred them to Baghdad, where they were held in isolation. Human rights officials learned of the facility in March from family members searching for missing relatives.

Revelation of the secret prison could worsen tensions at a highly sensitive moment in Iraq. As U.S. troops are withdrawing, Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, and other political officials are negotiating the formation of a new government. Including minority Sunni Arabs is considered by many to be key to preventing a return of widespread sectarian violence. Already there has been an increase in attacks by Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni extremist group.

The alleged brutal treatment of prisoners at the facility raised concerns that the country could drift back to its authoritarian past.

Commanders initially resisted efforts to inspect the prison but relented and allowed visits by two teams of inspectors, including Human Rights Minister Wijdan Salim. Inspectors said they found that the 431 prisoners had been subjected to appalling conditions and quoted prisoners as saying that one of them, a former colonel in President Saddam Hussein's army, had died in January as a result of torture.

"More than 100 were tortured. There were a lot of marks on their bodies," said an Iraqi official familiar with the inspections. "They beat people, they used electricity. They suffocated them with plastic bags, and different methods."

An internal U.S. Embassy report quotes Salim as saying that prisoners had told her they were handcuffed for three to four hours at a time in stress positions or sodomized.

"One prisoner told her that he had been raped on a daily basis, another showed her his undergarments, which were entirely bloodstained," the memo reads.

Some described guards extorting as much as $1,000 from prisoners who wanted to phone their families, the memo said.

Maliki vowed to shut down the prison and ordered the arrest of the officers working there after Salim presented him with a report this month. Since then, 75 detainees have been freed and an additional 275 transferred to regular jails, Iraqi officials said. Maliki said in an interview that he had been unaware of the abuses. He said the prisoners had been sent to Baghdad because of concerns about corruption in Mosul.

"The prime minister cannot be responsible for all the behavior of his soldiers and staff," said Salim, praising Maliki's willingness to root out abuses. Salim, a Chaldean Christian, ran for parliament in last month's elections on Maliki's Shiite-dominated list.

Maliki defended his use of special prisons and an elite military force that answers only to him; his supporters say he has had no choice because of Iraq's precarious security situation. Maliki told The Times that he was committed to stamping out torture -- which he blamed on his enemies.

"Our reforms continue, and we have the Human Rights Ministry to monitor this," he said. "We will hold accountable anybody who was proven involved in such acts."

But Maliki's critics say the network of special military units with their own investigative judges and interrogators are a threat to Iraq's fragile democracy. They question how Maliki could not have known what was going on at the facility, and say that regardless, he is responsible for what happened there.

"The prison is Maliki's becauseit's not under the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice or Ministry of Interior officially," said one Iraqi security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

The revelations echoed those at the beginning of Iraq's sectarian war. In late 2005, the U.S. military found a secret prison in an Interior Ministry bunker where Sunnis rounded up in police sweeps were held.

The latest episode, the U.S. Embassy report warns, could exacerbate tensions between Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunnis even with the facility closed.

U.S. troops already have pulled out of Iraq's cities, and Iraqi officials say U.S. influence is diminishing as the Americans focus on ending their military presence. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq is scheduled to drop by about half, to 50,000, by the end of August.

The embassy report cautions that "disclosure of a secret prison in which Sunni Arabs were systematically tortured would not only become an international embarrassment, but would also likely compromise the prime minister's ability to put together a viable government coalition with him at the helm."

Maliki's main political rival, Iyad Allawi, narrowly defeated him in parliamentary elections last month. Allawi, a secular Shiite, drew on dissatisfaction in Sunni regions around central Iraq. In the interview, Maliki invited Allawi to join him in forming a new government. But news of a secret prison that falls under the jurisdiction of the prime minister's military office could make it difficult for him to gain any Sunni partners.

The controversy over the secret prison, located at the Old Muthanna airport in west Baghdad, has also pushed Maliki to begin relinquishing control of two other detention facilities at Camp Honor, a base in Baghdad's Green Zone. The base belongs to the Baghdad Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Force, elite units that report to the prime minister and are responsible for holding high-level suspects.

Families and lawyers say they find it nearly impossible to visit the Camp Honor facilities. The Justice Ministry is now assuming supervision of the Green Zone jails, although Maliki's offices will continue to command directly the military units.

The 431 detainees brought down from Nineveh were initially held at Camp Honor. Interrogations began after they were transferred to the prison at the Old Muthanna airport.

According to the U.S. Embassy report and interviews with Iraqi officials, two separate investigative committees questioned the detainees and abused them. During the day, there were interrogators from the Iraqi judiciary. In the late afternoon they came from the Baghdad Brigade.

The embassy report says that at least four of the investigators from the Baghdad Brigade are believed to have been indicted for torture in 2006. The charges against them at the time included selling Sunni Arab detainees held at a national police facility to Shiite militias to be killed.

In December, the Human Rights Ministry asked the judiciary to investigate Baghdad Brigade interrogators over allegations of torture at Camp Honor, but hasn't received an answer, Iraqi officials said.

With the secret facility at the old airport being shut down, and both Maliki and Salim, the human rights minister, hailing what they regard as progress, some Iraqis with knowledge of the security apparatus say they are worried that nothing will really change.

One former lawmaker with great knowledge of the prime minister's security offices called for radical change in the next government. "This is the beginning. We have to hold people accountable," the former lawmaker said. "It's a coverup of torture."

Source:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-prison19-2010apr19,0,7841354.story

Confused on Iran

The Washington Post - DEFENSE SECRETARY Robert M. Gates was the focus of one of those curious Washington kerfuffles over the weekend in which a senior official makes headlines by saying what everyone knows to be true. According to the New York Times, Mr. Gates dispatched a secret memo to the White House in January pointing out that the Obama administration does not have a well-prepared strategy in place for the likely eventuality that Iran will continue to pursue a nuclear weapon and will not be diverted by negotiations or sanctions. Mr. Gates quickly denied that his memo was intended as a "wake-up call," as one unnamed official quoted by the Times called it. And that's probably true: It is evident to any observer that the administration lacks a clear backup plan.

President Obama's official position is that "all options are on the table," including the use of force. But senior officials regularly talk down the military option in public -- thereby undermining its utility even as an instrument of intimidation. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered more reassurance to Iran on Sunday, saying in a forum at Columbia University that "I worry . . . about striking Iran. I've been very public about that because of the unintended consequences."

Adm. Mullen appeared to equate those consequences with those of Iran obtaining a weapon. "I think Iran having a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. I think attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome," he was quoted as saying. Yet Israel and other countries in the region would hardly regard those "outcomes" as similar.

We are not advocating strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. But the public signs of the administration's squishiness about military options are worrisome because of the lack of progress on its two-track strategy of offering negotiations and threatening sanctions. A year-long attempt at engagement failed; now the push for sanctions is proceeding at a snail's pace. Though administration officials say they have made progress in overcoming resistance from Russia and China, it appears a new U.N. sanctions resolution might require months more of dickering. Even then it might only be a shell intended to pave the way for ad hoc actions by the United States and European Union, which would require further diplomacy.

And what would sanctions accomplish? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Financial Times last week that "maybe . . . that would lead to the kind of good-faith negotiations that President Obama called for 15 months ago." Yet the notion that the hard-line Iranian clique now in power would ever negotiate in good faith is far-fetched. More likely -- and desirable -- would be a victory by the opposition Green movement in Iran's ongoing domestic power struggle. But the administration has so far shrunk from supporting sanctions, such as a gasoline embargo. that might heighten popular anger against the regime.

All this probably explains why Mr. Gates, in his own words, "presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process."
"There should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries," he added, "that the United States is . . . prepared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests." If allies and adversaries are presently confused, that would be understandable.

Analysis: Allawi win could curb Iran's influence

By HAMZA HENDAWI (Associate Press)

AP - CAIRO — The surprisingly strong election showing by a secular, nationalist coalition in Iraq has provided a sudden opening for the mostly Sunni Arab world to curtail Iranian influence in Iraq, something that has been a source of serious alarm for the United States and its Arab allies since 2003.

The banner headline in Asharq al-Awsat, an influential newspaper in Saudi Arabia, said it all — "The Awakening of Moderation in Iraq" — offering an immediate endorsement of Iraq's top vote-getter by the regional Sunni Arab powerhouse.

The Iraqiya coalition led by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who has campaigned for better ties with the Arab world and keeping neighboring Iran at a distance, won 91 of the new legislature's 325 seats, edging Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's mainly Shiite bloc by only two seats. Allawi was prime minister in 2004-05.

The narrow win foreshadowed possibly months of hard-nosed negotiations over the formation of a new government. But Allawi's numerical victory was triumph enough for the mostly Sunni Arab regimes that have been wary of Shiite-dominated Iraqi governments since the 2003 U.S. invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Sunni Arab governments have long kept their distance from Iraq's postwar governments. They have declined to send full ambassadors — first because of the U.S. occupation, then because of the precarious security and more recently because of their anger over perceived Iranian influence. But they have begun warming toward Iraq, and Allawi's ascension would likely tip the balance.

The United States has long maintained that Iran was fomenting violence in Iraq. Washington charges that Tehran provides Shiite militiamen with money, weapons and training and blames the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq on a particularly effective brand of roadside bomb it says is supplied by Iran.

U.S. officials also claimed the banning by a Shiite-led vetting body of hundreds of candidates from running in the March 7 election for their alleged ties to the Saddam regime was inspired by Tehran. Many of those blacklisted were Sunni Arabs. Iran denies the allegations.

Significantly deepening the concern has been Iran's disputed nuclear program and its alleged support for militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.

Iran has not officially commented on the election results, which were reported by the state-run news agency without comment. However, a senior lawmaker charged Saturday that Washington and Saudi Arabia had exerted their influence to get their favorite candidates elected.

"That's why the Iraqi elections have definitely been rigged," hard-line lawmaker Esmaeil Kowsari said.

Iran's main challenge to the region — building a sphere of influence extending from Iraq all the way to Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip — makes any Iraqi leader with an anti-Iranian policy a favorite for Arab governments.

Although a Shiite, Allawi is no exception and has enjoyed friendly relations with Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates for years.

"Allawi will be able to strengthen Iraq's relations with the Arab world and will also be able to initiate contacts and improve relations with countries in the region," said Hani Horani, director of the New Jordan Research Center in Amman, Jordan. "He's capable of establishing balanced relations with all Arab countries and reversing Iraq's tendency to lean toward Iran."

The Asharq al-Awsat newspaper headline, which reflected relief as much as joy, mirrors the thinking in Saudi Arabia on Allawi's victory and al-Maliki's potential departure. The daily is owned by powerful members of the Saudi royal family and religiously toes the oil-rich kingdom's foreign policy line.

It is not certain at this point that Allawi will succeed al-Maliki as prime minister, but he stands a good chance if his bloc is able to join forces with enough other political groupings to gain an influential majority.

Even so, there are doubts over Allawi's ability to end or greatly reduce the influence of Iran's hard-line clerical regime, but sentiment against Tehran has been growing among ordinary Iraqis as well.

"Allawi is the hope of all Iraqis," said Fakhry Zaboun, a taxi driver from eastern Baghdad. "He will face up to the Iranians who want to occupy Iraq when the Americans leave."

The subsequent extent of Allawi's success in reducing Iran's influence in Iraq would depend to a large extent on who would be his partners in the next government.

His most likely options are the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a large Shiite party established with Iranian backing in Tehran in the early 1980s; and supporters of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, also believed to be linked to the Iranians.

It is doubtful that these two groups would be willing to entirely relinquish their ties with Iran anytime soon, but they could be persuaded to reduce or tone down the more conspicuous manifestations of their ties with Tehran if Allawi demands it as a condition for their participation in his government.

Iran and Iraq both have majority Shiite populations, and are bound by strong religious ties. Iraq also is home to some of the Islamic sect's holiest shrines, which are visited by millions of Iranians every year. Many in Iraq's Shiite political elite lived in exile in Iran for years during Saddam's rule.

Allawi, in contrast, spent most of his years in exile in Britain.

However, the two nations fought a ruinous, eight-year war in the 1980s in which a million people were killed or wounded. Memories of that conflict continue to feed mutual suspicion between Iraqis and Iranians.

Bonds of such complexity and strength are virtually impossible to eradicate, but there is much more leeway when it comes to Iran's political meddling in its neighbor. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to expect any Iraqi government to be outright hostile toward the country's powerful neighbor.

Amr Hamzawy, director of Middle East research at Carnegie — a Washington-based think tank — sees a gradual rather than instant effort by Allawi to reduce Iranian influence.

"There will certainly be a change of rhetoric, but nothing will change fast on the ground," he said.

Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ilEpV7_D2_Xx7h5M9wRyW4LwLCPgD9EN5NAG0

Taliban fighters being taught at secret camps in Iran

The Sunday Times

Miles Amoore in Kabul

THE Taliban fighters scurried up the craggy mountainside. As they neared the top, their 30-strong platoon split into three sections and they launched a ferocious assault on an enemy fort, opening fire from numerous positions.

The bullets they sprayed at the fort’s mud-coloured walls were blank, however. They merely pretended to fire their rocket-propelled grenades. When they reached the desert at the foot of the mountain, they did not race away on motorbikes, but filed into sand-coloured tents to refresh themselves with tea and naan.

The attack was a training exercise overseen by Iranian security officials in plain clothes. The Taliban do not know whether they were police officers, soldiers or secret service agents. What they can say is that in camps along the border between Afghanistan and Iran, Taliban recruits are being taught how to ambush British, American and other Nato troops using guns and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

They are learning to attack checkpoints as well as mountain bases. Iranian instructors are also giving them target practice on desert ranges with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

In the past, Shi’ite Iran has opposed the Sunni Taliban. But western officials say Iran now wants to expand its influence within the Taliban movement.

A Taliban commander who has been trained in Iran said last week: “Our religions and our histories are different, but our target is the same — we both want to kill Americans.”

In recent months, senior American officials have accused Iran of playing “a double game” by training and arming the Taliban while supporting the Afghan government.

Taliban leaders interviewed by The Sunday Times last week provided the first direct evidence of how Iran is training insurgents on its own soil.

According to one Taliban source, emissaries travelled to Iran early last year to discuss a training programme with Iranian officials. The training began during the winter.

Working through local mediators, this newspaper persuaded two Taliban commanders who had attended the programme in Iran to travel to Kabul, the Afghan capital, to tell their stories. The men, interviewed separately in a partially constructed concrete building on the edge of the city, were both extremely nervous. “How do I know you are not spies and that you will not follow me when I leave?” said one before the interview began.

At times, their voices dropped to whispers as they spoke about their role in the insurgency and drank cups of tea on dirty cushions.

One of the commanders, from the central province of Wardak, described how he travelled to Iran with 20 of his men.

His journey took him south into Pakistan, then west to the border with Iran and on to Zahedan, a city of 600,000 people in southeast Iran.

The second Taliban commander, from Ghazni province in southern Afghanistan, took a group of his men on a five-day drive to Nimroz, in the southwest. From there, he crossed into Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, a hotbed of drug smuggling and tribal rivalry.

The militants paid a $500 fee to Afghan people-smugglers using routes usually taken by refugees looking for work in Iran. They crossed the border at night in cars with the help of Baluch traffickers who guided the groups along dirt tracks to avoid checkpoints. After stopping to rest in the mountains, they headed out again at first light.

Finally, they were met by their Iranian instructors in white Toyota pick-up trucks and were taken to a village on the outskirts of Zahedan, an hour’s drive from the training camps.

There they were placed in basic compounds, each housing up to 30 Taliban fighters, mostly from the south and southeast of Afghanistan where the insurgency against British and American forces is fiercest.

Battered buses and pick-up trucks ferried the militants back and forth between the village and the camps every morning and night.

“Iran paid for the whole trip. We paid the travel fees to begin with and once we got to Iran they refunded us. They paid for our food, our mobile phone cards, any expenses,” said the Ghazni commander.

At one camp, a cluster of low tents erected in the shadow of a mountain, the Taliban fighters conducted live firing exercises, physical training and mountain assaults under the watchful eye of the plain-clothes Iranians, the commander said.

During a course lasting three months, the Iranian instructors worked in groups of two to five men. Their programme was split into three parts, each taking a month to complete.

For the first month, the recruits were taught how to launch complex ambushes on moving convoys. They learnt where to set up firing positions, when to trigger the ambush and how to escape before the enemy had time to respond.

“They were strong on the planning side. We would sit in the tents and they would take us through things like where the best escape routes were, making sure we had good cover and where to place our lookouts,” the commander said.

The second month was spent learning how to plant the roadside bombs that are responsible for most of the deaths of British soldiers in Helmand province. The insurgents were taught to use carefully positioned secondary and tertiary devices to kill or wound rescuers organising medical evacuations.

During the third month, the instructors taught the Taliban how to storm fixed enemy positions, climbing mountains in formation to launch attacks on checkpoints and bases.

“We were told ambushing was a very useful tool compared with a straightforward attack. They taught us how to select a good hiding position and how to limit the enemy’s response to our attacks by laying well- positioned mines,” said the commander. “We can kill a lot of our enemies this way.”

Both commanders said Iran also supplied them with weapons, often paying nomads to smuggle ammunition, mines and guns across the desert and mountain passes between Iran and Afghanistan’s western provinces. The nomads used donkeys, camels and horses to carry the military supplies into provinces such as Ghazni and Wardak, the commanders said.

Although the commanders believed that, after years on the battlefields of Afghanistan, they already possessed some of the skills that were taught in Iran’s camps, they agreed the training had improved their ability to launch more sophisticated attacks.

“I found some elements of the training in Iran very useful, especially the escape and evasion techniques I was taught,” said the commander from Wardak as he showed me video footage of his men patrolling on motorbikes with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers slung over their shoulders.

The commanders gave no indication of precisely who was behind the training. Late last year General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, accused Iran’s al-Quds force — an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard — of undermining the efforts of the Afghan government and Nato forces.

“The problem with dealing with the Iranian regime is knowing to what extent these initiatives are conducted by local commanders and to what extent they are backed by the government,” said a western defence source. He added that, although he had seen no direct evidence, the accounts of Taliban training camps in Iran were “credible”.

American officials believe Iran’s support for the Taliban has reached “troubling” proportions, although it is not on the same scale as its backing for Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq. The commanders’ accounts suggest the number of Taliban fighters trained in Iran may already have reached the hundreds.

Taliban militants still receive much of their training in neighbouring Pakistan. Elements of the ISI, Pakistan’s secret service, are known to train, equip and fund the Taliban. But a recent crackdown on Taliban safe havens in Pakistan has forced many insurgents to look to Iran for support.

“The military is pressuring the Taliban in Pakistan. It is certainly harder to reach places that were once easy to get into. I think more of my fighters will travel to Iran for training this year,” said the Ghazni commander.

Two weeks ago Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said of the Iranians: “They want to maintain a good relationship with the Afghan government. They also want to do everything they possibly can to hurt us, or for us not to be successful.”

Days later, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran insisted he wanted to rebuild Afghanistan and criticised the presence of foreign troops.

The Taliban commander from Ghazni province said he had no doubt Iranian police and intelligence services knew about the training camps, however. “The government is not sleeping,” he said. “You just have to wiggle your ears in Iran and they will know about it.”

Source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7069817.ece

Iran's Uprising Prospects After February 11: Escalation or Decline?

The Hoffington Post - March 15- On the eve of Chaharchanbeh Souri (Festival of Fire), on the last Tuesday of the Iranian year, which is another occasion for the Iranian people to vent their anger at the regime and express the yearning for change, a review of what happened on the anniversary of the anti-Monarchic revolution on February 11 might offer some insights as to what to expect next as far as the post-June uprisings in Iran is concerned.

This is important because in the aftermath of February 11, a day widely expected to witness the continuation of massive opposition protests in Iran, some in the U.S. media lamented "the relative silence of the opposition"[1] and its "... fail[ure] to mount a presence."[2] At times, this typical perplexity, which gripped the minds of many Iran observers and reporters, even came to the conclusion that, "activists in Iran's political opposition have been left demoralized."[3]

But, such a focus on the perceived "Day of final action" and short-term material gains or losses for the opposition emanates from a lack of understanding of the considerable struggle and sacrifices required to bring another revolution in Iran. It also runs the risk of glossing over the important, perhaps vital, lessons that should be learned from the February 11 experience.

The most significant protest before February 11 erupted nearly a month and a half prior on December 27 (the religious day of Ashura), which rattled the regime's foundations. That is why the regime pushed full-throttle to curb further protests, with various officials joining a chorus of intimidating threats and "ultimatums" against protesters. Consider a small sample of publicly broadcast statements:

Commander of the State Security Forces (SSF), Ismaeel Ahmadi Moghaddam: "There will be absolutely no tolerance ... This time around the police action and the judicial response will be more severe."[4]

Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, Interior Minister: "[Protestors] are moharebs [enemies of God]. And the fate of a mohareb today is absolutely clear [death sentence]. We are issuing this ultimatum."[5]

State-run TV: "Two of the culprits of recent riots were hanged today on charges of moharebeh."[6]

Abol-Ghassem Salavati, judge of Tehran's 15th Branch of the Revolutionary Court, speaking to defendants: "You are charged with moharebeh through conscious, deliberate, and effective support, contact, and cooperation with the terrorist grouplet MEK [The Mujahedin-e Khalq]."[7]

Ministry of Intelligence: "More than 10 people, known members of the anti-revolutionary camp, have been arrested."[8]

These threats complemented the widespread arrests of activists and key protest organizers[9] in order to shut off the engine of the uprising.

In his message to the people of Iran following the February 11 anniversary, Massoud Rajavi, the leader of the exiled Iranian Resistance*[10], elaborated on the regime's suppressive campaign, which culminated in an unprecedentedly dense militarism.[11]

More than 70,000 armed forces, under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the mullahs' loyal protectors, transformed Tehran into a war zone. Specifically, these included six combat brigades and several back-up battalions (numbering 15,000 in total), 200 paramilitary Bassij battalions (40,000 strong), four SSF brigades from special anti-riot units (totaling 6,000 forces), 5,000 forces from 92 police and SSF bases, and 4,000 armed intelligence agents.

Several layers of forces, backed by the Bassij, prevented protesters from reaching Azadi (Freedom) Square. According to TIME magazine, "On Revolution Street, which stretches from Azadi Square eastward, tens of thousands of police forces as well as paramilitary Bassij were standing guard."[12]

Despite these measures, however, thousands took to the streets. Once again, pictures of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his predecessor, Khomeini, were taken down and burnt, while the chants of freedom and "death to dictator" rang louder. In Tehran's northwestern district of Sadeqiya, angry protesters were in virtual control, forcing the police and the Bassij to flee the area and setting government buses on fire.

As if that headache was not enough, the regime encountered another disgraceful defeat. Despite thousands of buses brought to Tehran,[13] the number of people taking part in the government-organized rally was far fewer than in previous years. And, contrary to every other year, there were no marches on Azadi Street. Empty parts of Azadi Square were clearly noticeable by pictures even published by state-run news agencies like Mehr.[14]

The Essential Question of Leadership
There is no question that the February 11 uprising could have reached a higher apex. The most obvious and basic constraining factor in this regard was the dense militarism led by the IRGC. Although the most essential motivating ideological force for the IRGC is the export of Islamic fundamentalism through the use of terrorism, starting two-and-a-half years ago, as crises piled up, the IRGC started to play a more predominant role in domestic crackdown. In September 2007, Mohammad Ali Jafari, then-new commander of the IRGC, declared "confronting domestic threats" to be the IRGC's new strategy "enabling it to act appropriately in the face of the enemy's political, social and security threats."[15]

Some pundits argued that in the face of the IRGC's growing role in domestic crackdown, the uprising was in decline after the protests on February 11 did not meet expectations. This conclusion ignores two important realities on the ground.

First, aside from the fact that it would be impossible to sustain such a show of force for a prolonged period of time, the indisputable fact is that the perceived aura and real hegemony of the regime's cornerstone (supreme leader) has been shattered irrevocably in the course of the post-June 2009 protests.

Second, contrary to what some Iran analysts have suggested, the forces calling for overthrow of the regime have not become aloof, pessimistic and demoralized. They seek more not less; they demonstrated this by rising up once again on February 11 while exhibiting as much courage as they possibly could under the circumstances.

Despite defying the regime's unprecedented show of force, however, demonstrators are looking for genuine leadership and organization.[16] Indeed, in a situation where society has reached an explosive state and the regime is on the brink, the primary issue revolves around what the alternative force and who the leadership are. These determine the strategic path the uprising will ultimately take. In the present circumstances, on the whole, there are only two general paths available. One is to preserve and reform the current regime from within; the other is to overthrow the regime in its totality in favor of democratic change.

If history is any guide, the Tehran regime has proven itself to be incapable of reform. Indeed, four years ago, Khamenei explicitly warned, "Any retreat ... would generate an endless chain of pressures and further retreats."[17] So, central to the debate is who can walk the path of democratic change most proficiently?

Obviously, Mir Hossein Mousavi and other leaders of the defeated faction did not rise to the occasion. As the uprising escalated, prompting greater trepidation within the ruling faction, Mousavi quickly distanced himself from the millions in the streets, saying in a statement, "With regards to the Ashura ceremonies, despite countless requests, neither Mehdi Karroubi, nor Mohammad Khatami nor I or my friends issued a statement."[18]

Moreover, Mousavi kowtowed to Khamenei's main demand by lashing out against the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK),[19] and once again affirming loyalty to the regime's constitution. "I deem it necessary to affirm the identity of ourselves and the Green Movement as Islamic, nationalistic, opposed to foreign domination and loyal to the constitution,"[20] he emphasized. He even withdrew his earlier challenge to the illegitimacy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency. Instead, he demanded "direct declaration of accountability by the [current] government before the people, the Majlis and the Judiciary."[21]

On February 9, a set of 23 guidelines about the February 11 rally was published by the "collective wisdom of the Green Movement."[22] The authors pleaded against chanting "uncharacteristic" slogans such as "death to dictator," recommending instead "dignified and respectful slogans."

Such a retreat did not impress Khamenei, who was obviously not content with anything less than complete surrender. One of his allies, the Qom Friday prayer leader, said, "Some people who were deceived during these incidents stubbornly struck the same tune as the US. In addition to expressing remorse and asking for forgiveness, these people must prepare themselves for divine punishment."[23]

Mousavi's de facto capitulation raised questions as to whether he truly posses the capability to be the leader who can change and overthrow the regime or at least reform it. If he and likeminded politicians could exhibit that capacity or willpower, which is contingent upon rejecting the velayat-e faqih [absolute clerical rule], then, as Mr. Rajavi emphasized, other political forces, including the MEK, should accept their hegemony while maintaining their own independent viewpoints. However, sadly, the events of the past months, especially after Ashura, have proven the exact opposite.

In the face of Mousavi's repeated retreats, the regime has placed growing attention on the MEK as its main target and chief existential threat in the midst of popular protests. A forum affiliated with Khamenei wrote, "Today, Mr. Mousavi is facing a terrible dilemma ... Only a few rioters remain who do not even take orders from him, but rather comply with the commands sent from London, Washington, Haifa, and Camp Ashraf."[24]

Home to more than 3,400 MEK members, who are considered protected persons under the Geneva Conventions, Camp Ashraf (Iraq) acts as an inspiration to protesters in Iran, especially women and young people, who seek democratic change. For this reason, it is a major thorn in the regime's eye.

Two days after the Ashura uprising, in a government-staged rally in Tehran, Ahmad Alam-ol-hoda, Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, acknowledged, "The Monafeqin [Mujahedin] commanded the actions carried out on Ashura. The rioters chanted the same slogans that had been published on [MEK's] website since December 7 [Student Day]. So, the unrest on Ashura was directed by the [MEK]."[25] On February 2, the ruling faction even attributed the slogans chanted by Mousavi's supporters to the MEK, warning, "The placards, chants and shouts are written with the MEK's green pen."[26]

Khamenei's goal is clear: Force Mousavi into retreat in Tehran and suppress the MEK in Camp Ashraf. For the regime, the MEK poses the most serious threat capable of leading the popular protests towards democratic change, because of its presence in Ashraf along the Iranian border and vast organizational capabilities inside Iran.[27]

Following the 2003 Iraq War, the regime's allies in Baghdad exerted enormous pressure on MEK members in Ashraf at the behest of the regime. But, since the start of the uprisings, those measures have been immeasurably intensified after repeated requests by the regime and its Supreme Leader.[28]

Conclusion
So, in addition to the dense militarism and the role of the IRGC acting as the "basis," it is evident that the leadership factor was the defining "condition" which could have completely changed the outcome of the February 11 uprising.

That being said, the nine-month long uprising has ascended and, regardless of crackdown, it will not decline. Rather, it will escalate further and guide future developments along the lines of toppling the clerical regime and establishing democracy in Iran. The most essential factor in this equation is leadership and organization, which can lead to an enduring alternative for democratic change after unseating the ruling theocracy.

Endnotes:
[1] "Iran's Anniversary: Where Was the Opposition?" TIME, February 11, 2010
[2] Ibid.
[3] "Iranian opposition demoralized after failed protests at revolution's anniversary," by Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, February 20, 2010

[4] Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, IRIB, December 30, 2009.
[5] Ibid, January 3, 2010.
[6] Ibid, December 29, 2009.
[7] Ibid, January 18, 2010.
[8] Ibid, December 29, 2009.
[9] For example, the names and particulars of more than 5,000 active opponents from various parts of Tehran were entered by the regime's agents into electronic databases.
*[10] Iranian Resistance generally refers to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a 530-member Parliament-in-exile, which also includes five different Iranian opposition organizations. It was formed in 1981 and seeks the establishment of a pluralist, secular republic. The Mujahedin-e Khalq is the largest member organization in the NCRI.
[11] Massoud Rajavi, "Lessons from February 11th," broadcast on Simay-e Azadi, Iran National Television, February12, 2010. http://mojahedin.com/pages/detailsNews.aspx?newsid=53750.
[12] "Iran's Anniversary: Where Was the Opposition?" TIME, February 11, 2010
[13] "From early morning [the regime] bussed in tens of thousands of supporters to fill Azadi Square for the official celebrations. Opposition websites said that they were lured by free food and drinks. Other sources said that government employees were compelled to attend." See "Iranian regime ships in support for anniversary celebrations," The Times, February 12, 2010.
[14] http://www.mehrnews.com/mehr_media/image/2010/02/514341_orig.jpg
[15] BBC, September 29, 2007.
[16] One routinely comes across statements like these: "We have lost our fear but we need to know where to go with our new-found courage" (See "Iranian regime ships in support for anniversary celebrations," The Times, February 12, 2010 ). Or: "Our movement needs new tactics, but I have no idea what we should do," Thomas Erdbrink, "Iranian opposition demoralized after failed protests at revolution's anniversary," Washington Post, February 20, 2010 ).
[17] Khamenei's speech, State radio, March 14, 2006.
[18] Kalame website, January 1, 2010: http://www.kaleme.org/1388/10/11/klm-7047.
[19] "As a loyalist, I say that the MEK have died in virtue of their own treachery and crimes. You should not resurrect them for the sake of scoring factional points or taking revenge."
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Irani Sezavar-e Irani ("An Iran deserving of Iranians") website, February 9, 2010, http://greenmovement.blogsky.com/1388/11/20/post-52/
[23] Talay-e Daaran (Vanguards) website, February 19, 2010, http://talaieh-daran.blogspot.com/
[24] Tribun-e Azad (Free Podium), February 9, 2010. http://www.tanews.ir/details.php?cat=latestnews&id=1547
[25] IRIB, op. cit.
[26] Raja News, February 2, 2010.
[27] "Five Iranians Facing Trial Belong To Exile Group," Reuters News Agency, January 8, 2010, IRNAhttp://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE6071LE
[28] Document - Iraq: Human rights briefing, Amnesty International, March 1, 2010. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE14/004/2010/en/20f0c384-7dc6-409d-a0fb-767c349ef41c/mde140042010en.html

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-safavi/irans-uprising-prospects_b_498789.html

Euro MEP accuses Iran of rigging Iraqi vote

BRUSSELS, March 11, 2010 (AFP) - The point-man for European Parliament relations with Iraq accused on Thursday top Iraqi electoral commission figures of rigging the election at Iran's behest.

"I understand that very high officials from the Iraqi Electoral Commission have been caught cheating by entering false data on the election computer," said British conservative MEP Struan Stevenson in a statement.

He said they had been "caught red-handed attempting to manipulate the election results in favour of the incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki," in "blatant attempts" to "defraud the Iraqi people".
President of the EU parliament's delegation for relations with Iraq, Stevenson claimed the actions he was referring to were "clearly indicative" of an election campaign that "has included murder, intimidation, blackmail and fraud."

That campaign bore "all the hallmarks of being inspired, financed and managed by Tehran," he underlined, referring to neighbouring Iran.

Stevenson added that he had contacted the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq in Baghdad, warning that "every hour that passes simply provides more opportunities for fraud."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was in a tight contest to keep his job as he vied with ex-premier Iyad Allawi, initial election results from four of the country's 18 provinces showed Thursday.

The preliminary figures, which were announced once 30 percent of votes had been counted in the southern provinces of Najaf and Babil, put Maliki's State of Law Alliance first and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a coalition led by Shiite religious groups, in second place.

The INA said in a statement that it was concerned over "signs of intentions to change the election results."

Stevenson's statement was issued to AFP by his personal representatives and not by his political grouping at the parliament, but he added that his claims had "caused great consternation in Strasbourg," France, where the parliament is in session.

Complete results are expected to be announced on March 18 and the final ones -- after any appeals are dealt with -- will come at the end of the month.
rt/rl

© 1994-2010 Agence France-Presse

The Iranian regime threatens to suppress people during Fire Festival (Chaharshanbeh Souri, March 16)

The Mullahs regime fearing another mass anti-regime uprising during the annual Fire Festival celebration (Chaharshanbeh Souri, March 16), has given special guidelines to its repressive forces to stop students’ participation in the festivity.

Some of their actions reported:

- Summoning parents of students to schools to put pressure on them to prevent their children from going out on the day of festivity.  Regime's authorities are warning them that if their children were to be arrested, they will not be released until the last day of Iranian New Year holidays in April.

- Members of Bassij force in schools have been told to write essays about the dangers associated with Fire Festival.  Prizes will be given to 150 Bassij members for writing such essays.

- The state-run radio and TV station have been ordered to broadcast series of programs with the theme of “enlightening and warning” families and the young general in the run-up to Fire Festival. To this end a 90-minute program has been recorded that shows the dangers of fire crackers and Fire Festival ceremonies in addition to another 30-minute program that introduces the Fire Festival in a way approved by the regime. These two pieces are going to be shown widely by various TV channels, which are all run by the regime.

Common theme in messages and contacts received from people in Iran is very obvious people are not going to be intimidated and lured by such ploys and are going to continue with their uprising by chanting “Down with Khamenei” and “death to the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute rule of clergy).”

Source:
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran- NCRI

What's monitored online in Iran? How traceable are communications?

Iran has vowed to step up its efforts in digital censorship, claiming that the era of "mercy" is over.

Based on an article by AUSTIN HEAP in San Francisco

In a statement released by the Iranian Labour News Agency, national police Chief Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam stated, "These people should know where they are sending the SMS and email as these systems are under control. They should not think using proxies will prevent their identification." He added that those who have used the Internet for organising the opposition had "committed a worse crime than those who come to the streets."

They are trying to scare people off to stay away from cyber communications. Let's break down these claims. Here are a few tips and facts.

Proxies can be tracked and are easy to detect.
A proxy server is something that can help one evade the Internet censorship in Iran. It acts as a go-between for a user in Iran trying to connect to the Internet. For example, instead of connecting directly to Facebook (which is blocked) the user's computer first connects to the proxy, which then connects to Facebook on the user's behalf. BUT -- just because this can help get around the filtering does not mean your request is not being monitored/altered: If one is not using an encrypted proxy, the contents can be read and even altered.

Text messages (SMSs) can be tracked and read.
This, unfortunately, is also true. Iran uses the monitoring technology sold by Nokia Siemens. What they call "lawful intercept" technology can track and read text messages sent from cell phones. Whenever possible, people should use prepaid cell phones and calling cards to disassociate their locations and identities. It is very important to understand that by carrying a cell phone, one is essentially carrying a tracking beacon that broadcasts your location.

Email can also be tracked and read.

This is certainly true for clear-text email. When you send an email from -- let's say Hotmail to Gmail - it is routed between Hotmail's servers and Gmail's servers in plain text for the whole world to see. Good news though: it's easy to protect your e-mail. People should be accessing their email using an encrypted connection (POP + SSL or IMAPS). For extra security, they should use PGP/GPG encryption for email. Great tutorials are available for Mac and Windows.

Bottom line: If you control the network, you can control and inspect the contents. Think of sending an email like sending a FedEx package. What FedEx is to your package, the government is to your emails in Iran. But what if FedEx decided to open every box, poke around inside, and change or remove anything it didn't like? That's how it is with communications in Iran.

In a recent interview with PRI's The World, I discussed how the Iranian government will ramp up censorship on certain days considered crucial in suppressing the opposition. This demonstrates further that they are shifting tactics, grasping for an effective policy of strategic covert oppression over manic street violence.

First, it shows the regime knows the power of the Internet. They realize arresting, beating, and killing thousands of protesters inspires more and more Iranians to oppose the regime. Now, they will try to focus on silencing the organizers by controlling digital communications. Ultimately, this strategy will fail because the strength of the opposition has been its diffuseness: the organizers and protesters are one in the same.

Moreover, this new strategy demonstrates the continuing and pressing need to disseminate information and technology in Iran to allow people free communications, without fear of retribution. With the passage of time, will the government give up on the public violence against the protesters? Or are they trying to murder the vox populi before it can assume a degree of control? Either way, we have to be creative in finding ways of getting the news, info and message across the barrier. If you know techniques and know how please share it.

Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design – secret report

Guardian Exclusive: Watchdog fears Tehran has key component to put bombs in missiles

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The sophisticated technology, once mastered, allows for the production of smaller and simpler warheads than older models. It reduces the diameter of a warhead and makes it easier to put a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Documentation referring to experiments testing a two-point detonation design are part of the evidence of nuclear weaponisation gathered by the IAEA and presented to Iran for its response.

The dossier, titled "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program", is drawn in part from reports submitted to it by western intelligence agencies.

The agency has in the past treated such reports with scepticism, particularly after the Iraq war. But its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said the evidence of Iranian weaponisation "appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different periods of time, appears to be generally consistent, and is sufficiently comprehensive and detailed that it needs to be addressed by Iran".

Extracts from the dossier have been published previously, but it was not previously known that it included documentation on such an advanced warhead. "It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material," said a European government adviser on nuclear issues.

James Acton, a British nuclear weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "It's remarkable that, before perfecting step one, they are going straight to step four or five ... To start with more sophisticated designs speaks of level of technical ambition that is surprising."

Another western specialist with extensive knowledge of the Iranian programme said: "It raises the question of who supplied this to them. Did AQ Khan [a Pakistani scientist who confessed in 2004 to running a nuclear smuggling ring] have access to this, or is it another player?"

The revelation of the documents comes at a time of growing tension. Tehran has so far rejected a deal that would remove most of its enriched uranium stockpile for a year and replace it with nuclear fuel rods which would be much harder to turn into weapons. The Iranian government has also balked at negotiations, which were due to begin last week, over its continued enrichment of uranium, in defiance of UN security council resolutions.

There are fears in Washington and London that if no deal is reached to at least temporarily defuse tensions by the end of December, Israel could set in motion plans to take military action aimed at setting back the Iranian programme by force, with incalculable consequences for the Middle East.

Iran has rejected most of the IAEA material on weaponisation as forgeries, but has admitted carrying out tests on multiple high-explosive detonations synchronised to within a microsecond. Tehran has told the agency that there is a civilian application for such tests, but has so far not provided any evidence for them.

Western weapons experts say there are no such civilian applications, but the use of co-ordinated detonations in nuclear warheads is well known. They compress the fissile core, or pit, of the warhead until it reaches critical mass.

A US national intelligence estimate two years ago said that Iran had explored nuclear warhead design for several years but had probably stopped in 2003. British, French and German officials have said they believe weaponisation continued after that date and may still be continuing.

In September, a German court found a German-Iranian businessman, Mohsen Vanaki, guilty of brokering the sale of dual-use equipment with possible applications in developing nuclear weapons. The equipment included specialised high-speed cameras, of the sort used to develop implosion devices, as well as radiation detectors. According to a report by the Institute for Science and International Security, the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, testified at the trial that there was evidence that Iran's weapons development was continuing.

The IAEA is seeking to find out what the scientists and the institutions involved in the experiments are doing now, but has so far not been given a response. The agency's repeated requests to interview Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, whose name features heavily in the IAEA's documentation and who is widely seen as the father of the Iranian nuclear programme, have been turned down.

The agency has also asked Iran to explain evidence that a Russian weapons expert helped Iranian technicians to master synchronised high-explosive detonations.

The first implosion devices, like the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, used 32 high-explosive hexagons and pentagons arrayed around a plutonium core like the panels of a football. The IAEA has a five-page document describing experimentation on such a hemispherical array of explosives.

According to a diplomat familiar with the IAEA documentation, the evidence also points to experiments with a two-point detonation system that represents "a more elegant solution" to the challenges of making a nuclear warhead, but it is much harder to achieve. It is used in conjunction with a non-spherical pit, in the shape of a rugby ball, or explosives in that shape wrapped around a spherical pit, and it works by compressing the pit from both ends.The IAEA has expressed "serious concern" about Iran's failure to give an account of the research its scientists have carried out.

Descriptions of "two-point implosion" warheads designs have occasionally appeared in the public domain (there are extensive descriptions on Wikipedia) and they were first developed by US scientists in the 1950s, but it remains an offence for American officials or even non-governmental nuclear experts with security clearance to discuss them.

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/05/iran-tested-nuclear-warhead-design/print

REPORT AND LEGAL OPINION - IRAQI ASSAULT ON CAMP ASHRAF 28-30 July 2009

Finers Stephens Innocent LLP

REPORT AND LEGAL OPINION

IRAQI ASSAULT ON CAMP ASHRAF 28-30 July 2009

Executive Summary

The PMOI in Ashraf, Iraq

The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MeK), hereby referred to as the PMOI), were founded in 1965 with the aim of overthrowing the dictatorial regime of the Shah. The organization played a major role in the nationwide protests that led to the overthrow of the Shah and emerged after the revolution as a major political party. Due to its opposition to Islamic fundamentalism, the PMOI soon found itself in a confrontation with the radical forces of Ayatollah Khomeini. This led to a campaign of violence by the Revolutionary Guards and Bassij militia against the PMOI and its sympathizers. The Iranian regime engaged in mass arbitrary arrest of hundreds of thousands of PMOI sympathizers. Between 1981 and 1988 it is estimated that tens of thousands of PMOI members were executed in Iranian prisons or forcibly disappeared.

At that time, the PMOI went into exile, mainly in France. In 1986, the French government concluded a deal with the Iranian regime, which led to the PMOI being pressured to leave France. The PMOI settled in Iraq and since then it has operated independently of the Iraqi government. In 1987, the National Liberation Army of Iran (“NLA”) was formed in Iraq with the stated goal of overthrowing the Iranian regime. Between 1986 and 1988, the NLA was involved in many military confrontations with the Revolutionary Guards and armed forces of the Iranian regime. The PMOI ended its military activities in the summer of 2001.

Before the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003 the PMOI declared that they would remain neutral and would stay in their camps. During and after the conduct of the hostilities between the members of the Coalition and the Iraqi army, the United States reassembled the PMOI in Camp Ashraf in Iraq and they were decommissioned. The people of Ashraf were then recognized as “protected persons” under the Fourth Geneva Convention and provided protection by the US led Coalition. Following the negotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement in 2008, the Iraqi government made assurances to the US that the people of Ashraf would continue to be protected, in accordance with the international obligations of the US and Iraq following the transfer of security to Iraq on 1 January 2009.

Attack on Ashraf

Despite these assurances and in breach of its obligations under international humanitarian law, Iraqi forces attacked Ashraf on 28-29 July 2009. During the assault, Iraqi forces killed 11 residents and wounded a further 450, 43 of them seriously. Of the 43 seriously wounded, 14 residents suffered gunshot wounds, 13 had been run over by military vehicles and a further 16 had suffered other injuries, including serious head injuries. Following the attacks, 36 Ashraf residents were forcibly removed from Ashraf and were detained in Iraqi prisons. The Iraqi government is threatening to return the people of Ashraf, political dissidents against the Iranian regime, back to Iran where they face certain persecution, torture and even execution.

Legal Opinion

The purpose of this legal opinion is to provide analysis of the violations of international law committed during the Iraqi assault on Ashraf and subsequent events in August. It draws upon the earlier opinions of eminent jurists such as The Rt. Hon. Lord Slynn of Hadley GBE QC, as well as Professors M Cherif Bassouni, Guy Goodwin-Gill, Eric David, Marco Sassoli, William Schabas, Jean-Yves de Cara and Vera Gowlland-Debbas regarding the status of the residents of Ashraf under international law.

Consideration is given to Iraq’s obligations to the people of Ashraf under international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as the obligations of the international community.

The factual portion of the report relies largely upon information provided by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The facts relied upon have been taken, wherever possible, from international reports by media agencies and international organisations, such as Amnesty International. Reports have also been received directly from the detainees in Khalis police station.

Conclusions

The opinion concludes that the Iraqi government has breached its obligations to the people of Ashraf under international human rights law and international humanitarian law. In particular, the Iraqi government and its armed forces have breached international human rights law and committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions by violating the right to life, freedom from torture and inhuman treatment, unlawful confinement and the failure to grant a fair trial. There is a serious risk that the people of Ashraf will be forcibly displaced in Iraq or removed to Iran, where they face certain persecution, torture and even execution. Should the Iraqi government implement its stated policy and agreement with Iran and return the people of Ashraf to Iran, Iraq will commit a grave breach of international humanitarian law, and arguably, a crime against humanity.

This opinion reminds the Government of Iraq and its officers of their international obligations and the potential consequences of further violations in terms of both state and individual responsibility.

Recommendations

The Government of Iraq must guarantee the rights of the people of Ashraf and abide by its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. The new Government of Iraq must respect these international obligations and the obligations it assumed to the United Nations pursuant to Security Council resolutions to ensure the protection of human rights in Iraq. The Government of Iraq has the opportunity to demonstrate to the world that it is a functioning democracy that protects human rights and, in particular, the rights of minorities and political dissidents. The suppression of political dissent within Iran in the past 6 months has been the subject of international outrage. The repression of the people of Ashraf, Iranian political dissidents living in exile outside of Iran, in Iraq, cannot be considered outside of this context. The international community must be cognisant of these connections and the implications of the violations identified in this report.

The US must make a request to Iraq to ensure the safety of the people of Ashraf in accordance with its obligations under international humanitarian law (Article 45, Fourth Geneva Convention). The US must, as the transferring power, ensure the safety of the people of Ashraf. The US should take temporary control of the safety and security of Ashraf until such time as a permanent UN presence is established in Ashraf. Given the special role of the US in MNF-I, the US must exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in Ashraf.

In highlighting the risk of future violations, this legal opinion calls upon the United Nations, under the auspices of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), together with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), to create a permanent presence in Ashraf in order to ensure the protection of the people of Ashraf in accordance with its mandate set down in UN Security Council Resolution 1830 (2008): to “promote the protection of humanrights...in Iraq”.

The international community of states must exert their individual influence, to the degree possible, to stop violations of international humanitarian law occurring in Ashraf, in accordance with international humanitarian law and the responsibility to protect. Given the risk of the commission of a crime against humanity and other grave breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law, the international community has an obligation pursuant to the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect to intervene to provide protection to the residents of Ashraf against imminent violations.

Finers Stephens Innocent LLP
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Camp Ashraf crisis - Iran / Iraq border

On July 28-30, Iraqi armed forces attacked Camp Ashraf which houses 3,500 Iranian refugees.

They used live ammunition, truncheons, axes, sickles, tear gas, hot water cannons, and bulldozers to attack the defenceless residents of Ashraf as US forces stood back and filmed the carnage.

Eleven residents were killed, 500 were wounded, and 36 were arrested and tortured. Amnesty International says it has seen footage of residents being deliberately run over by military ‘Humvees’ driven by Iraqi forces.

The attack was ordered by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at the behest of the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Link to video clips of the attack:
Ashraf Raid by Iraqi Forces - Part 1 - 10 Minutes

Ashraf Raid by Iraqi Forces - Part 2 - 5 Minutes


Iran’s Foreign Minister on 17 August demanded Iraq extradites Ashraf residents to Iran.

The Iraqi ambassador to Iran on 19 August said Iraq is ready to receive Iran's complaints to be used to "prosecute" Ashraf residents who have been detained.

The court in al-Khalis on 24 August ordered the release of the 36 residents in detention. However Iraq’s Prime Minister issued a directive preventing the release.

The Iraqis are taking up positions for a new attack on Ashraf, leading to a far greater massacre.

Iraqi forces are preventing the camp residents’ relatives, lawyers, doctors and journalists from entering. They have also prevented fuel trucks from delivering their load to the camp.

All camp residents were recognised in 2004 as "protected persons" under the 4th Geneva Convention by the US-led force, and this status was confirmed in writing 3 times in later years by the top Coalition commanders. This status would cease to apply one year after the end of the war which officially ended on 31 December 2008.

The US disarmed Ashraf residents and signed an agreement with each of them to guarantee their protection. It handed over protection of Ashraf to the Iraqi government at the start of 2009.

Article 45 of the 4th Geneva Convention says, “if a government fails to carry out the provisions of the Convention in any important respect, the government by which the protected persons were transferred (in this case the US) shall, upon being so notified by the protecting government, take effective measures to correct the situation or shall request the return of the protected persons. Such request must be complied with.” After the massacre in Ashraf, the US has a duty to request that Iraq hand back protection of the camp.

UN Security Council resolution 1883, adopted in August 2009, gives the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) a mandate and responsibility for the case of Ashraf.

A large number of Ashraf residents have been on hunger strike for the past 47 days. Hundreds of Iranians on both sides of the Atlantic are also on the 7th week of a hunger strike.

They demand:

1.    Iraqi police withdraw from Ashraf and release the 36 people taken hostage.

2.    US forces temporarily assume protection of Ashraf under Article 45 of the 4th GC until an international force can take over.

3.    UNAMI and OHCHR immediately station an international monitoring team inside the camp to prevent further attacks until a UN force takes over protection of Ashraf.

4.    UN bodies reiterate clearly that the “principle of non-refoulement” forbids forced displacement of Ashraf residents within Iraq.