Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Feb. 20 – Iran said on Monday that Britain was behind a blast that had gone off in the south-western city of Ahwaz on Sunday night which was similar to several recent explosions in the volatile city.

State-run news agencies reported that there were no casualties when the sound bomb went off in Kian Pars district of Ahwaz.

Seyyed Nezzam Mollahoveizeh, the Majlis deputy for Dasht-Abad, told the news agency Fars that the Intelligence Ministry had been able to arrest a number of individuals behind Sunday’s bombing and accused them of having ties to London.

“The mother of all corruption Britain has become an opponent of Iran. Our opponents are supported and empowered in London”, he said.

He called on the Foreign Ministry to expel the British ambassador to Iran.

Mohsen Farrokh-Nejjad, head of politico-security in the province, announced that the explosives used in Sunday’s blast were similar to those used in a spate of bombings in the city earlier this year and in 2005.

Farrokh-Nejjad said that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had cancelled his trip for next week to Khuzestan Province, the third time he had done so since his ascendance to the Presidency. Ahwaz, the capital of the Arab-dominated province of Khuzestan, has been the scene of unremitting anti-government protests since the start of 2005. Iran has pointed the finger at Britain as the primary instigator of anti-government violence in Khuzestan.

Separately, the Interior Ministry’s number-two Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr announced that the identities of those responsible for the recent blasts in Ahwaz would be released in the coming days.

In January, Iran accused British troops in Iraq of being behind a twin bombing in Ahwaz which left at least nine people dead and dozens injured.

A string of top Iranian officials including hard-line President Ahmadinejad have accused Britain of being behind the bombings.

London has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

The World Today
Eleanor Hall

There are signs that the move by Israel and the United States to put pressure on the Hamas-led Palestinian Government may be backfiring, with the new Palestinian leaders now turning to Iran for financial assistance.

Israel confirmed overnight that it would halt its tax payments to the Palestinian Authority, which are worth around $70 million a month. And the United States has demanded that a similar amount of US aid be returned.

In response, Hamas has begun moves to get essential finances from Arabic and Muslim regimes, including Iran, which is, of course, embroiled in a tense stand-off with the West over its nuclear program.

Barney Porter looks at the latest developments in the ongoing impasse created by Hamas' surprise win in the recent Palestinian elections.

BARNEY PORTER: Israel's Cabinet decided to halt the monthly tax revenues permanently, after the weekend swearing-in of the new Palestinian Parliament led by Hamas.

The funds make up roughly one-third of the Palestinian budget, and without them, more than 100,000 government workers won't be paid.

Israel's biggest ally, the United States, has also asked the Palestinian Authority to return around $70 million of aid it's provided, to ensure the money doesn't reach Hamas, which is sworn to the Jewish state's destruction.

However, the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, says the moves will only cause further economic hardship for the Palestinian people.

MAHMOUD ABBAS (translated): Unfortunately, the pressures have begun and the support and the aid started to decrease since one month. Therefore, we are currently in a real financial crisis, but we hope to get out of this crisis gradually, and then we will see what will follow.

BARNEY PORTER: Soon after taking control of the Palestinian Parliament, Hamas said it would try to make up any shortfall of funds by seeking money from the Arabic and Muslim world.

And in a significant development overnight, senior Hamas leaders, led by the exiled Khaled Mashaal, arrived in the Iranian capital Tehran, beginning a three-day visit to try to drum up money for the cash-starved Palestinian Authority.

Mr Mashaal says it will be the first of several visits to foreign powers.

KHALED MASHAAL (translated): We are seeking support of Arab and Islamic states, as well as other countries, for our movement, by making such trips.

BARNEY PORTER: Washington and the European Union have said they don't want to push the Palestinian Authority to collapse, or to seek funds from nations such as Iran.

But David Manning, the British Ambassador to the US, says the West maintains Hamas must recognise the right of Israel to exist, renounce violence, and accept the already-struck agreements with Israel, including the Oslo Accords.

And he says his colleagues from the EU are also aware of the wider ramifications of cutting off funds.

DAVID MANNING: We are very conscious of the humanitarian issue here. So there is a real humanitarian issue, and I noticed that the Israeli Cabinet have picked up on that over the weekend. But the position is clear - if we don't… if the new government doesn't meet these criteria, we will be reviewing our support.

BARNEY PORTER: Earlier, Israel's acting Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, told his Cabinet Israel had no intention of harming the humanitarian interests of the Palestinian population.

However, he again made it clear how he felt about any Hamas-led government.

EHUD OLMERT (translated): It's clear that with Hamas in charge the Palestinian Authority is effectively becoming a terrorist authority.

BARNEY PORTER: The Palestinian legislator, Hanan Ashrawi, says the Israeli and US moves are already being digested by the Palestinian people as a slap in the face.

HANAN ASHRAWI: This is seen clearly by the Palestinians as collective punishment. This is seen as punishing the Palestinians for exercising their democratic option and voting for Hamas.

BARNEY PORTER: Meanwhile, in fresh violence, Israeli forces have shot dead two Palestinians in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank during a stone-throwing confrontation; an air strike in Gaza has killed two Palestinian militants who the army said had been planting a bomb, and the head of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank region of Nablus has just reportedly been killed by the Israeli army.

ELEANOR HALL: Barney Porter with that report.

Eleanor Hall hosts The World Today's lunch hour of current affairs, with background and debate from Australia and the world. Monday to Friday, 12:10pm, ABC Local Radio and Radio National.

www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1573892.htm

Agence France-Presse
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaves Monday on a Middle East tour to push efforts to spread democracy and counter what the United States sees as aggressive Iranian policy. Rice first heads to Cairo where on Tuesday she will meet with Egyptian leaders as well as political opponents of President Hosni Mubarak.

The US administration has made Egypt one of its test cases for the promotion of democracy in the Middle East.

Rice said earlier this week that she was "disappointed" that Mubarak has postponed municipal elections, scheduled to be held in April, for two years.

"The message that I will take to Egypt is that Egypt needs to stay on the democratic course," she told Arab journalists in an interview. "It needs to keep pushing ahead on the democratic course."

The time is "not right" for a free trade accord between the United States and Egypt, she warned.

But Egypt remains one of Washington's key Middle East allies, and the secretary of state also needs Egyptian help to put pressure on the new Hamas government expected to be formed in the Palestinian territories.

As Egypt is one of the rare Arab countries to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, Rice will seek Cairo's commitment to not finance the Palestinian Authority as long as Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

"The secretary will have the same conversation with the states in the region as she has had with numerous other countries around the world," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

She will be putting across the message of the diplomatic Quartet for the Middle East -- the United States, Russia, European Union and the United Nations, added McCormack.

"It calls upon Hamas to make certain choices: recognize Israel's right to exist, turning away from terror, and also abiding by previous commitments of the Palestinian Authority -- most notably to the road map and a commitment to a two-state solution arrived at via the negotiating table."

From Egypt, Rice will go to another ally seen as problematic by US policymakers, Saudi Arabia. The secretary of state will then travel to Abu Dhabi for talks with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Along the way, Rice will again make appeals against giving money to Hamas, and also for regional leaders to be tougher with Iran.

This week she called Iran "a strategic challenge to the United States, to the world, and a destabilizing influence in the Middle East." Rice said all worried states must "challenge Iran's aggressive policies".

Rice will tell the Arab Gulf states "they have an interest in speaking out and confronting Iranian behavior -- because they do have a stake in how Iran is behaving in the region," McCormack said.

Tensions over Iran's nuclear programme -- which the United States and some of its allies fear is hiding a drive to acquire weapons -- is now a major concern for the GCC states -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The Bushehr nuclear power station that Russia is building in Iran is close to Iran's border with the Gulf states. There is also worry about Shiite Muslim Iran's influence in Iraq and Lebanon.

Rice expressed concern this week about a network formed by Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah group in Lebanon. She called Iran the "central banker for terrorism".

Without openly calling for regime change in Iran or Syria, Rice has asked for 75 million dollars to bolster efforts to beam pro-democracy broadcasts into Iran and five million dollars to help "reformists" in Syria.

By Colin Freeman and Philip Sherwell in Washington

The Sunday Telegraph - 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 IranNews.

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.