At least 14 people died when a fuel tanker slammed into a bus on a highway stretch in south-eastern Iran, state media reported on Saturday.

Both vehicles were set on fire in the collision which occurred late Friday in Sistan-va-Baluchistan Province, the state-run news agency ISNA said.

The report added that 15 people were injured in the crash.

Iran's highways are considered to be among the most dangerous in the world, with some 100,000 road-accident deaths occurring in the last five years, the equivalent of three deaths an hour.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Tehran (dpa) - An local cleric was the target of a failed assassination attempt in the south-western Iranian city of Ahvaz, the ISNA news agency reported Sunday.

Samir Dorkavandi, a prayer leader, was on his way to mosque Saturday evening when he was shot and wounded by an unidentified man on a motorbike.

The cleric was immediately taken to a nearby hospital in Ahvaz where he unwent surgery, ISNA said.

Ahvaz, centre of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan bordering Iraq, has in the last two years been scene of violent unrest and fatal bombings by Iranian-Arab separatists.

Tehran has accused the United States and British agents of links to the unrest, which both Washington and London deny.

Three men were hanged earlier this month in Ahvaz for involvement in bombings, and according to local judiciary officials, other men linked to the incident are awaiting execution.

The As
Edith M. Ledere

UNITED NATIONS -- Iraq's foreign minister says Iran is punishing the Kurdish region for something the Kurdish authorities were not responsible for — the arrest of an Iranian official by the U.S. military on Sept. 20.

Hoshyar Zebari said late Saturday that he raised the issue of Iran's closure of five border crossing points into the northern Kurdish region with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's ministerial meeting.

Zebari said he told Mottaki "this is not a wise move, this can only undermine the atmosphere of confidence, and you're punishing the whole region for an act that they were not responsible for."

The U.S. military said the Iranian, Mahmudi Farhadi, was a member of the Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards alleged to smuggle weapons to Shiite extremists.

The arrest has raised friction between U.S. and Iraqi authorities at a time when tempers were already running high over the killing Sept. 16 of 11 Iraqi civilians allegedly by security guards from Blackwater USA, which protects American diplomats in Iraq.

Blackwater insists its guards acted legally and were returning fire from armed insurgents.

Zebari said the Iraqi government has asked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for all the facts, and reiterated Iraqi calls for the U.S. to release the Iranian official. But Zebari said the Iranian remains in U.S. custody, and the border remains shut.

"I think that was a direct response to the detention of an Iranian official by the U.S. military in Sulaimaniyah, and this was a collective punishment for the region, for something that the Kurdish regional authorities were not responsible," Zebari said.

"And I personally feel it's unfair and unjust, and it has affected the economic life of the region. Prices have gone up," he said. "The region is dependent in some way on fuel supplies from Iran, but the Iranians want to make a point here."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied in an Associated Press interview on Monday that Iran closed its border with Iraq over the arrest of the Iranian.

"On an annual basis, millions of Iranians visit Iraq and Iraq's holy sites for pilgrimage purposes," he said.

"Recently, as a result of some clashes and the explosion of some bombs, a number of Iranian civilian casualties arose. So the government has asked Iranian citizens to avoid traveling for pilgrimage purposes until security is restored. The commercial goods and freight transactions continue, and the travel across the border for those purposes continue," Ahmadinejad said.

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
AP

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's parliament voted Saturday to designate the CIA and the U.S. Army as "terrorist organizations," a largely symbolic response to a U.S. Senate resolution seeking a similar designation for Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

The parliament said the Army and the CIA were terrorists because of the atomic bombing of Japan; the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; support of the killings of Palestinians by Israel; the bombing and killing Iraqi civilians and the torture of imprisoned terror suspects.

"The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror," said a statement by the 215 lawmakers who signed the resolution at an open session of the 290-member Iranian parliament. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio.

The resolution, which urges Ahmadinejad's government to treat the two as terrorist organizations, would become law if ratified by the country's hardline constitutional watchdog but probably would have little effect as the two nations have no diplomatic relations.

Ahmadinejad's government was expected to wait for U.S. reaction before making its decision. The White House declined to comment Saturday.

The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday in favor of a resolution urging the State Department to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. Charged with defending the system put in place after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Guards answer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and are revered by many for their defense of the country during the 1980s war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The terrorist designation, the first such move against a foreign government entity, would cut the Revolutionary Guards off from the U.S. financial system and freeze the assets of its members or subsidiaries have in U.S. jurisdictions. It would also allow the Treasury to move against firms subject to U.S. law that do business with the Guards, which have vast business interests at home and abroad.

While the proposal attracted overwhelming bipartisan support, a small group of Democrats said they feared that labeling the state-sponsored organization a terrorist group could be interpreted as a congressional authorization of military action in Iran.

Back home after a tour of the U.S. and Latin America, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the hostile reception he received at Columbia University failed to damage Iran's image and instead hurt America's prestige abroad.

University President Lee Bollinger said before an Ahmadinejad speech at his university that the hard-line leader exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator" who was "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated" for his denials of the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad, who appeared shaken and irate but did not reciprocate the insult, said that the world had witnessed "the greatness of the Iranian nation" in the face of "insults" by its American host.

"With the grace of God, the Columbia University issue revealed their aggressive and mean-spirited image. ... It backfired. What happened was exactly opposite of what their shallow minds had presumed," Ahmadinejad said late Friday in comments broadcast Saturday on state television. "I believe they made a big mistake. ... They sacrificed the prestige of their whole system."

The harsh reception boosted Ahmadinejad's image at home during a time of high tensions with Washington over U.S. allegations that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and supplying Iraq's Shiite militias with deadly weapons that have killed U.S. troops. Iran denies both claims.

After Ahmadinejad told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that his country would defy attempts to impose new sanctions by "arrogant powers" seeking to curb its nuclear program, accusing them of lying and imposing illegal penalties on his country.

Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic ties since Iranian students took American diplomats hostage in Tehran following the 1979 overthrow of U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Iranians have a long list of grievances against the United States, including a CIA-backed coup in 1953 that overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and put Pahlavi back on the throne.

More recently, there are fears in Iran that either the U.S. or Israel will carry out a military strike against it — something Iranian officials have said would provoke retaliation against Israeli or U.S. bases in the region.

Washington has said it is addressing the situation through diplomacy but refuses to rule out the use of military action.

By C. ONUR ANT
Associated Press Writer

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Kurdish rebels ambushed a minibus carrying pro-government village guards and civilians in southeastern Turkey and killed 12 people on Saturday, a local official said.

The rebels armed with machine guns attacked the minibus in Sirnak province near the border with Iraq, killing seven village guards and five civilians, governor Selahattin Apari said. Two civilians were injured and were rushed to nearby hospitals in military helicopters, Apari's office said in a statement.

It said troops were combing the rugged area in search of the rebels.

Turkish troops killed 20 rebels in operations over the past 15 days in Sirnak province, authorities said Friday. No soldiers were killed, they said.

The ambush came a day after Turkey and Iraq signed an agreement to cooperate in cracking down on separatist Kurdish rebels who have been attacking Turkey from bases in Iraq.

Despite Ankara's insistence, Iraq refused to allow Turkey to send its troops across the border to chase the Kurdish rebels.

Turkey has pondered a cross-border military operation to root out the members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, holed up in the mountainous areas of northern Iraq. However, the United States _a close ally of Ankara_ objected to such a move, fearing it could destabilize the relatively calm part of Iraq.

Kurdish lawmakers in Iraq also oppose any military move by Turkey across the border.

The PKK is labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union. The group has been fighting for autonomy since 1984 and tens of thousands have been killed in the conflict.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AFP) - Iran's closure of its frontier with Iraq is costing the autonomous Kurdish region one million dollars a day, a government minister said on Wednesday, as trucks remained stuck at the border.

"There are goods costing millions waiting across the border," Kurdistan trade minister Mohammed Raouf told AFP, referring to the Haj Umran frontier post near the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Arbil.

Efforts were now under way to redirect the trucks, many carrying frozen goods such as chicken, meat and eggs, through neighbouring Turkey into Iraq, he said.

"The Kurdistan region is losing one million dollars per day because of the closure."

Iran said on Monday it was closing its frontier with Iraq in protest at the detention last week of Iranian national Mahmudi Farhadi by US troops.

The US military charges that Farhadi is an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, accused by American commanders of helping Shiite militias involved in Iraq's bloody sectarian conflict.

Iran has made clear that it regards Iraqi sovereignty as at stake in Farhadi's continued custody, after both the regional and national authorities of Iraq said he had been visiting with their consent.

Angry Kurdish merchants in Arbil said they were being forced to search for other sources of foodstuffs and electronic goods, the main items imported from Iran, possibly in Turkey or Syria.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, on Tuesday declared the arrest of the Iranian "illegal" and again demanded his release.

"We have asked the US authorities to release the arrested man," Talabani told reporters in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah.

"Arresting a person in Kurdistan is illegal because his security file was under the jurisdiction of the provincial government," said Talabani.

AP

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey and Iraq have agreed to sign a counterterrorism deal cracking down on separatist Kurdish rebels holed up in bases in northern Iraq, officials said Wednesday.

The agreement would require Turkish forces to seek Iraqi authorization to cross into Iraq for small-scale operations to chase separatist Kurdish rebels, private NTV television reported, citing unnamed Iraqi and Turkish sources.

The agreement was reached during a visit by Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani, who arrived in Ankara on Tuesday for talks on Turkish concerns over rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, launching attacks against targets in Turkey from bases in northern Iraq.

Turkey has long been pressing Iraq for a counterterrorism pact to crack down on the PKK and has threatened to stage a military incursion into northern Iraq to eradicate rebel bases there if U.S. or Iraqi forces failed to take action against the group.

The guerrillas have been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.

Iraqi Interior Ministry Undersecretary Aidn Khald said the sides had reached an agreement on Wednesday and a deal would be signed Thursday. Officials would work on Turkish, Arabic and English versions of the text, he said.

NTV television, citing Iraqi sources, said that under the agreement, Turkey would seek Iraqi authorization for future "hot pursuit" operations — cross border military offensives aimed at tracking down and eliminating rebel armed groups that are limited in time, scale and in scope.

But Khald would not confirm that the agreement would allow Turkish troops to engage in hot pursuits. "Everything will become clear tomorrow," he said.

During a visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to Ankara in August, Turkey and Iraq agreed to try to root out the rebels. But al-Maliki said the Iraqi parliament would have the final say on efforts to halt the guerrillas' cross-border attacks into Turkey.

On Tuesday, a soldier was killed and four others were wounded when suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a bomb that was placed inside a van at the entrance of a Turkish military outpost in the southeastern province of Tunceli, the private Dogan news agency reported.

A soldier and four Kurdish rebels also were killed in two days of fighting in the province of Sirnak, near the border with Iraq, according to the agency and the military.

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Legislation mandating sanctions on foreign energy companies doing business with Iran was passed on Tuesday by the U.S. House of Representatives, which approved removing the U.S. president's power to waive the penalties as previous administrations have done.

Bush administration officials and some business groups have expressed unease over the bill, which could hit European energy groups. It passed by 397-16, easily enough to overcome any presidential veto. However, its future is murky in the Senate, where similar legislation has 69 co-sponsors but has yet to have a hearing.

Speaking to the House on the same day Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the legislation's author, Rep. Tom Lantos, said U.S. law had to be strengthened to put a stop to Iran's "headlong pursuit" of nuclear weapons. Critics argue Iran's nuclear program is funded by oil and gas revenue.

Iran's economy relies on oil to bring in 80 to 90 percent of the country's export earnings, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Iran holds 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and it has the second-largest natural gas reserves.

Although current law imposes sanctions in the U.S. market on any foreign company that invests $20 million or more in the Iranian energy sector, the law lets the executive branch waive those sanctions, and presidential administrations of both parties have done so for years, Lantos said.

"Since 1999, giant companies such as Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research), France's Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile , Research), Italy's ENI (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile , Research) and Inpex (1605.T: Quote, NEWS , Research) of Japan have invested over $100 billion -- over $100 billion in the Iranian energy industry, and the United States has done nothing to stop them," Lantos, a California Democrat, said.

"If we wish to impose serious and biting sanctions on Iran -- effective measures that will change the behavior of the regime in Tehran -- it is clear what we must do," he said. "We must take away the power from the administration to waive the sanctions we pass."

A presidential executive order already prohibits U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries from conducting business with Iran, banning any "contract for the financing of the development of petroleum resources located in Iran."

The legislation also would impose a total ban on Iranian imports. It would eliminate some tax breaks for companies investing in Iran, decrease U.S. contributions to the World Bank if the bank invests in Iran, and bar a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia if Moscow continues to assist Tehran's nuclear program.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the West suspects the Islamic Republic of enriching uranium to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons could destabilize the world and lead to war, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the United Nations on Tuesday. In his maiden speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Sarkozy said: "There will be no peace in the world if the international community falters in the face of nuclear arms proliferation."

Iran was entitled to nuclear power for civilian purposes, he said, "but if we allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, we would incur an unacceptable risk to stability in the region and in the world".

In a broader warning against the dangers of appeasement, the new French leader said: "Weakness and renunciation do not lead to peace. They lead to war."

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the West suspects the Islamic Republic of enriching uranium to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Underlining French support for tougher sanctions against Tehran, sought by the United States but opposed by Russia and China, Sarkozy said: "We can only resolve this crisis by combining firmness with dialogue."

In an interview with the New York Times published on Monday, Sarkozy said that if the U.N. Security Council was unable to agree on further financial sanctions, the European Union should take its own measures to raise pressure on Iran.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner caused an outcry last week by saying if diplomacy failed to stop Iran's nuclear program, the world should prepare for the worst -- war.

But Sarkozy appeared to deliver the same message in a coded form, without mentioning the possibility of military action to prevent Iran achieving a nuclear capability.

Reuters

By: Reza Shafa
Quds Force Commander of Zafar Base, located in the Western city of Karmanshah, Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Farhadi was arrested by the U.S. forces in the Palace Hotel in Soleimanieh, Iraq on September 20.

Those familiar with the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war would remember Farhadi as one of the commanders of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Ramadan Base.

Ramadan is the main headquarters of the IRGC-Quds Force base with four tactical bases, the largest one Zafar in Karmanshah, Naser in the northwestern city of Naqadeh, Raad in the northwestern city of Marivan, and Fajr in the southwestern city of Ahwaz, along the 1,200 kilometers boarder with Iraq. Farhadi in his capacity as a commander of Quds Force, after the war, has been involved in some of more than 150 terrorist operations against the opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in Iraq; many of which claimed heavy civilian causalities among the local residents. The commanders of Ramadan Base have also been responsible for assassination of many Iranian Kurdish leaders in exile on the other side of the boarder in Iraq's Kurdistan.

Presently, Zafar Base under Farhadi is operating from northern Iraqi Kurdistan down to Diyala Province which extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian border.

In 1995, Farhadi received a raise and a new assignment as intelligence officer in Zafar Base of the Quds Force in Karmanshah. Farhadi's ruthlessness in dealing with the opponents of the regime, Ten years later, gained him a new position as the commander of the base.

When the war broke out in March 2003, Farhadi with Bader Brigades under his command rolled down from Khosravi border crossing and went all the way to Baghdad.

Following the early days of the war, with the new changes in Iraqi cities, Zafar Base was quick to move the base to the boarder city of Qasr-e-Shirin. Brig. Gen. Ahmad Mesgari was the new commander. To closely follow the events, Farhadi moved to Kalar in Iraq’s Kurdistan, supervising the Quds Force's operations in Diyala.

His mission in Kalar was to organize the Bader Brigades which nowadays has changed its name to Bader Organization. These paramilitary units were deigned form the beginning by the Quds Force to collect information on and carryout terrorist attacks both against the PMOI and the coalition forces in Iraq.

In 2003, the U.S. forces in hot pursuit of the bombers and terrorists coming from Iran attacked the Zafar headquarters in Kalar.
Farahdi and his deputy Mohsen Zanganeh with the help from their local operatives and another group called the Socialist Party of Kurdistan close to the regime were able to survive the raid. They ended up in Karmanshah some days later.

To put his expertise into use, Farhadi was then assigned to intelligence and security unit of the Quds Force in northern Iraq. He was working in the so-called Iranian Public Relations Office in the Kurdish city of Darbandikhan some 45 kilometers south of Soleimanieh.

Subsequently, he returned to Karmanshah with the task of organzing terrorist networks in Diyala, Baghdad, and Soleimanieh provinces in Iraq.

For his excellent services in Iraq, he once again replaced his superior Mesgari as the commander of the Zafar Base of the Quds Force.

At the same time, Farhadi runs the terrorist network headed by Qeas Nasef Jasam al-Azawi (a.k.a Abu nidal al-Baghdadi) in Diyala. The network has instigating in brutal sectarian violence and is well connected to Abu Mostafa Shaybani network in Karmanshah. On August 30, 2007, Shaybani was arrested by the coalition forces in a border village.

He has a long record of terrorist activities in Iraq some of which are listed below:
• Sending road side bombs and Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFP) as well as anti aircraft missiles to Iraq via of Diyala Province;
• Dispatching new recruits from Iraq for training in the camps near Tehran and the holy city Qom;
• Supervising the tactical bases of the Quds Force in the Kurdish cities of Khanaqin, Soleimanieh, Baladroze on the Iraqi side of the border and cites of Qasr-e-Shirin, Nosod, and Somar in Iranian Kurdistan.

Reza Shafa is an expert on the Iranian regime’s intelligence networks, both in Iran and abroad. He has done extensive research on VAVAK (MOIS), IRGC’s Intelligence Office, and Quds Force among others. Currently he is a contributor to NCRI website.

NCRI

Iran Focus

London, Sep. 24 – Coalition forces conducted an operation to arrest a kidnapper and detained four other “criminals” supported by Iran in East Baghdad early Monday, the U.S. military announced.

“These criminals were part of a Special Groups cell supported by Iran. They were involved in kidnapping operations and other crimes against the Iraqi people and security forces”, the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) said in a statement.

During the operation, Coalition forces were engaged with small arms fire and improvised explosive devices including at least one explosively formed penetrator, it said, adding that one individual was killed in the skirmish.

“Precise fires from air support had to be used to engage individuals emplacing IEDs. These individuals were placing the explosives along the road to attack coalition forces departing the objective”, the statement added.

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 24 – Iranian authorities have closed down the offices of a Persian-language news website, state media reported on Sunday.

Seals were placed on Wednesday on the entrance to the offices of Baztab, which was founded by the former Commandant of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Mohsen Rezai, according to the news agency Mehr.

Mehr said that the decision to ban Baztab came after complaints against the website by the Office of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The website’s former director, Fouad Sadeghi, was previously an official of Iran’s secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

Associated Press

By KATARINA KRATOVAC

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iran closed major border crossings with northern Iraq on Monday to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian official the military accused of weapons smuggling, a Kurdish official said.

At least four border gates had been closed, with just one remaining open in a move that will severely curtail trade between the two countries, the governor of the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, Dana Ahmed Majeed, told The Associated Press.

The move came four days after U.S. troops arrested an Iranian official during a raid on a hotel in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.

U.S. officials said he was a member of the elite Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that smuggles weapons into Iraq. But Iraqi and Iranian leaders said he was in the country on official business and with the full knowledge of the government.

Failed asylum seeker Yaghob Largani, 27, from Bristol, last night dramatically halted an attempt to deport him - by slitting his throat with a razor blade.Mr Largani's partner, Kate Pickett, of Filton, said the suicide attempt took place at Heathrow Airport as the activist awaited a flight to Iran, where he was certain he would be immediately executed.

Miss Pickett said: "He phoned me at 2am today to say he wanted to die here in Britain so that our baby son would have a grave to visit,"

She was shocked that he had been left alone even for a moment at the airport and that he had been allowed to have a razor blade.

Early yesterday evening immigration officials took Mr Largani from Campsfield House detention centre, near Oxford, to Heathrow to be put on the 9.35pm British Airways flight to Tehran.

He called Miss Pickett from the van he was travelling in, urging her to look after the couple's year-old son, Benyamin. He said he expected to be tortured, then executed by the Iranian authorities as soon as he landed at Tehran airport.

The Evening Post has seen a copy of what his family say is an Iranian court's sentence of death imposed on Mr Largani in his absence.

Miss Pickett, 34, said last night: "The Home Office gave us no review. They have shown no humanity. They are sending a man to his death.

"Yaghob phone me from the van taking him to the airport. He was absolutely hysterical. He kept saying, 'They are going to kill me'."

Miss Pickett said last-minute attempts to convince the Home Office of Mr Largani's plight had failed. Officials told her they did not believe the evidence she presented, including a letter from the opposition National Front of Iran which Miss Pickett said had stated: "He was an active member and his life was in danger."

The death sentence - "the penalty of cropped on earth" is how the translation is worded - was imposed by the revolutionary court of the Mozandaran province, according to Miss Pickett.

Today she said Mr Largani had been taken to hospital near Heathrow last night and from there to a nearby detention centre. He remained convinced the Home Office still planned to deport him.

Iranian national Mr Largani had lived in Bristol for three years. His application to remain was turned down and subsequent appeals were also rejected, which led to him being arrested and taken to Southmead police station last week.

Miss Pickett, who met Mr Largani after he arrived in the UK, said she given immigration officials documents which prove he will be killed on his arrival in Tehran.

Paulette North, of the Defend the Asylum Seekers Campaign, in Bristol, said: "He is certain to face a death at the other end. This is yet another example of how the immigration system is failing genuine asylum seekers."

A Border and Immigration Agency spokeswoman refused to comment on Mr Largani's case last night, but said: "We only return those who the asylum decision-making and independent appeals processes have found do not need international protection and who can, therefore, return safely."

No one was available for comment at the Home Office this morning.

Source:www.thisisbristol.co.uk

Reason Magazine
Michael J. Totten

In a green valley nestled between snow-capped peaks in the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq is an armed camp of revolutionaries preparing to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran. Men with automatic weapons stand watch on the roofs of the houses. Party flags snap in the wind. Radio and satellite TV stations beam illegal news, commentary, and music into homes and government offices across the border.

Komala vs. Komala
Don’t confuse the Komala Party with the Komala Party. Iraqi Kurdistan hosts two exiled leftist parties from Iranian Kurdistan, both with the same name, the same (red) flag, and the same founder. Both parties have armed camps and military wings. Both built their compounds on the same road outside the city of Suleimaniya. They’re right next to each other, in fact. Stand in the right place, and you can see one from the other. The difference is that one is liberal and the other is communist.

Read more on:  original article

ANKARA - Nine Kurdish rebels have been killed in two separate clashes with the army in Turkey’s restive southeast, the military said Saturday.

One of the clashes, in which four militants of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed, occurred overnight in a mountainous area in the province of Hakkari, which borders Iraq and Iran, a statement on the army’s website said.

Five others were killed in fighting in the neighbouring province of Sirnak on Friday, it said.

The security forces also seized weapons and explosives in the clashes.

The PKK, which has bases in neighbouring northern Iraq, has stepped up its military activity this year.

The group, considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the United States and the European Union, has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish east and southeast since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

Source:AFP

The Associated Press
Ali Akbar Dareini

TEHRAN, Iran -- Threats and economic sanctions will not stop Iran's technological progress, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Saturday at a large parade of missiles and other weapons aimed at showing off the country's military might.

The parade outside the capital Tehran marked the 27th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion of Iran that sparked the bloody 1980-88 war. It also came as the U.S. and its European allies continue discussing a third round of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

"Those (countries) who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran's fast drive toward progress are mistaken," said Ahmadinejad, who is due to visit New York next week for the U.N. General Assembly.

Iran launched an arms development program during its war with Iraq to compensate for a U.S. weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own jet fighters, torpedoes, radar-avoiding missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers. Many such weapons were on display at the parade.

Some of the trucks carrying Iranian missiles were painted at the back with popular slogans such as "Down with the U.S." and "Down with Israel." The parade also featured flights by two of Iran's new domestically manufactured fighter jets, known as the Saegheh, which means lightning in Farsi.

Iran says it has managed to weather a broader U.S. embargo for 28 years, and while many Iranians acknowledge some hardships, they credit the embargo with making them more self-reliant.

"Those who prevented Iran, at the height of the (Iran-Iraq) war from getting even barbed wire must see now that all the equipment on display today has been built by the mighty hands and brains of experts at Iran's armed forces," Ahmadinejad said.

"Learn lessons from your past mistakes. Don't repeat your mistakes," he said in a warning to the U.S. over its push to impose more sanctions against Tehran.

The U.S. is calling for more economic sanctions against Iran after two sets were imposed by the U.N. Security Council for Iran's decision not to stop uranium enrichment.

Washington accuses Tehran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charges, saying its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, including generating electricity.

The Washington Post
John Ward Anderson

A top NATO commander said Thursday that a shipment of weapons intercepted by international forces in western Afghanistan this month clearly came from Iran and almost certainly was sent here with the knowledge of "at least the Iranian military." U.S. Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, NATO's senior commander in Afghanistan, said a convoy of weapons captured Sept. 6 in the far western province of Farah, which shares a long border with Iran, was transporting "upscale" roadside bombs that had the hallmarks of those made in Iran and used with lethal regularity against U.S. forces in Iraq.

"Field analysis of those devices