The Associated Press
By NASSER KARIMI
An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked.

Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for Esteshadion, or Martyrdom Seekers, boasted of having hundreds of potential bombers in his talk at a seminar on suicide-bombings tactics at Tehran's Khajeh Nasir University.

"With more than 1,000 trained martyrdom-seekers, we are ready to attack the American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities," Samadi said.

"If they strike, we have a lot of volunteers. Their (U.S. and British) sensitive places are quiet close to Iranian borders," Samadi said.

Samadi reviewed the history of suicide bombing as a weapon, praising it as the most effective Palestinian tactic in their confrontation with Israel.

The organizers showed video clips of suicide attacks against Israelis, including one in the Morag settlement near Rafah in Gaza strip in February 2005. One settler, three Israeli soldiers and the two attackers were killed in the attack.

Hasan Abbasi, a university instructor and former member of the elite Revolutionary Guards, told the audience of about 200 that Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons as claimed by the United States and some of its allies.

"Our martyrdom-seekers are our nuclear weapons," said Abbasi, the event's main speaker.

After his speech, about 50 students filled out membership applications.
"This is a unique opportunity for me to die for God, next to my brothers in Palestine. That was why I signed up," said Reza Haghshenas, a 22-year-old electrical engineering student.

A 23-year-old woman student, Maryam Amereh, said: "We are trying to defend Islam. It's a way to draw the attention of others to our activities."

But Rahim Hasanlu, a 22-year-old industrial management student, declared himself not interested in joining.

"I just attended to learn what they're saying, thats all."

Esteshadion was formed in late 2004, calling for members on a sporadic basis at Friday prayer ceremonies, state-sponsored rallies and at the group's occasional meetings.

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 19 – Iran criticised its principal opposition movement on Saturday for charging that it was behind the recent violence over cartoons depicting negatively the Islamic prophet Muhammad published in European dailies.

A coalition of Iranian dissidents, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), had accused Tehran of dispatching several clerics to European and Muslim countries as part of an effort to create an international uproar over the publication of the cartoons. The council, whose members include the People’s Mojahedin (or Mojahedin-e Khalq), said attacks on European embassies in Tehran were part of a deliberate effort by Iran’s ruling Shiite clerics to garner Muslim support in their face-off with the West over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

Government-run Persian-language websites and news agencies lashed out at the People’s Mojahedin, accusing it of ignoring protests by Muslims around the world.

The semi-official Mehr news agency reported, “This claim comes at a time that even before the reaction of the Iranian people vis-à-vis these insults, dozens of Islamic countries of the world and Muslims from many European countries have reacted to the Western papers’ derogatory actions and insults to Islamic sanctities”.

The embassies of Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway in Tehran have all come under attack by Islamists affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards.

The Sunday Telegraph
By Colin Freeman and Philip Sherwell in Washington

Iran's hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies.

In yet another sign of Teheran's stiffening resolve on the nuclear issue, influential Muslim clerics have for the first time questioned the theocracy's traditional stance that Sharia law forbade the use of nuclear weapons.

One senior mullah has now said it is "only natural" to have nuclear bombs as a "countermeasure" against other nuclear powers, thought to be a reference to America and Israel.

The pronouncement is particularly worrying because it has come from Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of the ultra-conservative Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, who is widely regarded as the cleric closest to Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Nicknamed "Professor Crocodile" because of his harsh conservatism, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi's group opposes virtually any kind of rapprochement with the West and is believed to have influenced President Ahmadinejad's refusal to negotiate over Iran's nuclear programme.

The comments, which are the first public statement by the Yazdi clerical cabal on the nuclear issue, will be seen as an attempt by the country's religious hardliners to begin preparing a theological justification for the ownership - and if necessary the use - of atomic bombs.

They appeared on Rooz, an internet newspaper run by members of Iran's fractured reformist movement, which picked them up from remarks by Mohsen Gharavian reported on the media agency IraNews.

Rooz reported that Mohsen Gharavian, a lecturer based in a religious school in the holy city of Qom, had declared "for the first time that the use of nuclear weapons may not constitute a problem, according to Sharia."

He also said: "When the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to use these weapons as a counter-measure. According to Sharia too, only the goal is important."

Mohsen Gharavian did not specify what kinds of "goals" would justify a nuclear strike, but it is thought that any military intervention by the United States would be considered sufficient grounds. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has previously justified use of suicide bombers against "enemies of Islam" and believes that America is bent on destroying the Islamic republic and its values. The latest insight into the theocracy's thinking comes as the US signals a change in strategy on Iran, after the decision earlier this month to report it to the United Nations Security Council for its resumption of banned nuclear research.

While Washington has made it clear that military strikes on Iran's nuclear sites would be a "last resort", White House officials are also targeting change from within by funding Iranian opposition groups.

The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said the Bush administration would seek an extra $75 million (£43 million) from Congress to help to support Iran's fractured pro-democracy movement and fund Farsi-language satellite broadcasts.

The announcement is the clearest public indication that Washington has adopted a two-track approach to Iran, combining the diplomatic search for a united international condemnation of its illicit nuclear programme with efforts to undermine the regime's status.

The new tactic amounts to the pursuit of regime change by peaceful means, although that phrase is still not stated as official US policy. Washington hopes that a dedicated satellite channel beamed into Iran will encourage domestic dissent, such as the current strike by bus drivers - the most significant display of organised opposition since the 1999 and 2003 student protests.

Ms Rice unveiled the change of tactics a week after a visit to Washington by a senior British delegation that pressed for a co-ordinated Western policy on using satellite television and the internet to bolster internal opposition. The State Department had previously been wary of the two-track strategy.

As the Sunday Telegraph reported last week, Pentagon strategists have been updating plans for a another policy of "last resort" - blitzing Iranian nuclear sites in an effort to stop the regime gaining the atomic bomb.

The bus strike, which has led to the jailing of more than 1,000 drivers, was originally sparked by an industrial dispute over unpaid wages benefits. But the robustness of the state response has indicated the nervousness of the Ahmadinejad regime over any internal dissent.

Reports from Iran say that Massoud Osanlou, the leader of the bus drivers' union, was arrested at his home by members of the Basij, the pro-regime militia, and had part of his tongue cut out as a warning to be quiet.

But the dispute already risks disillusioning Mr Ahmadinejad's core of working class support - among them municipal workers - who voted him into power on his promises to improve the lot of Iran's poor.

pdki.org
Orumiyeh – Kurdistan (Iran) At least eight people were killed, 25 injured and 400 arrested in the course of clashes between Kurdish demonstrators and government forces in Iran’s Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan provinces according to news received to Kurdistanmedia.org.
Iranian Kurds staged several rallies in various towns and cities in the north-western regions of Iran on Thursday and Friday, the report said.
There were street clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces in the towns of Maku, Bazargan, and Sardasht, the report added. Since the beginning of Ahmedijenad’s government the security forces in Kurdistan have used harware against Kurdish peaceful demonstrations.

Iran Focus A judge at Tehran’s Appellate Court announced on Saturday that the Islamic Republic would continue to issue death verdicts for juvenile delinquents “without considering other available options”.

“Execution sentences will be issued to minors without considering other options”, Ahmad Mozaffari told the state-run news agency ILNA.

Mozaffari made the comments after Iranian courts issued execution sentences to a 15 year old and 16 year old, the report said.

The judge said one minor was sentenced to execution recently, despite the fact that examination by a government-appointed physician had shown that he was suffering from a psychiatric disorder.

State-run press have identified the 15-year-old on death row only by his first name Mohammad.

Iran Focus– At least five people were killed and dozens injured or arrested in the course of clashes between Kurdish demonstrators and government forces in Iran’s Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan provinces, according to a statement emailed to Iran Focus by Kurdish activists.

Iranian Kurds staged several rallies in various towns and cities in the north-western regions of Iran on Thursday and Friday, the report said.

There were street clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces in the towns of Maku, Bazargan, and Sardasht, the report added.

iranpressnews-Advaar News, the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat) reported that a professor of Communications Sciences of Tehran's Allaameh Tabatabaie University is the first to be terminated in the new nationwide plan to purge all professors and academics, specifically teaching Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in universities across Iran. It is also rumored that several other of the professors in other fields of study such as Political Science and Law, will also be terminated soon. It is important to mention that a while ago Dr. Mohammad Gorgani who was a faculty member of the School of Law at this very university was sentenced to 10 months in prison and before serving his prison term was flogged.

Iranian regime intensifies wave of executions following Security Council referral of Tehran's nuclear dossier

The Iranian state-controlled media reported that at least 13 persons had been hanged or sentenced to death in the past five days.

Two prisoners, Ayat Kh. and Mehdi A., were sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court in the southern Iranian Province of Fars on February 15.

On February 12, the state-run daily Qods reported the execution of three prisoners in the northeastern city of Sabzevar.

The mullahs’ regime also hanged two other prisoners on February 15 in the southwestern town of Dezful.

Tehran’s criminal court chief confirmed Wednesday the death sentences for two 18 year olds, and Fars Province's Justice Department chief said the Supreme Court had upheld death sentences for two other prisoners.

Branch 71 of Tehran's criminal court sentenced a man, named Mohammad, to death. Tehran Province's criminal court sentenced a boy, only 15, to death on February 15.

The Iranian Resistance again calls on the international community to condemn Tehran’s barbaric executions and to take practical steps, including the referral to the United Nations Security Council of the Iranian regime's human rights file, in order to halt the continuation and escalation of these atrocities. Silence and inaction vis-à-vis the mullahs' inhuman crimes have emboldened them in the suppression, massacre and torture of the Iranian people.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran